Part-Time Thoughts

• Having So Many Contingent Faculty Diminishes the Overall Quality of Teaching and Learning

  3 Comments
  26 Dec 2009 /  AAUP, AFT, FACE, NEA, academic associations, part-time faculty, politics, research
  Before you huff and puff at me, I want to say that it the title of this piece comes from the Executive Director of the Modern Language Association, Rosemary Feal, and not me. She said it to a reporter from the New York Times who wrote a piece on December 18th about the outlook for graduates in the humanities. To paraphrase the article, perhaps those with graduate degrees in foreign languages, literatures, humanities and English would have a better chance of supporting themselves by turning to lives of crime rather than expecting to find a tenure-line job in higher education. Just please remember the old addage: “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.” That being said, identity theft, pick pocketing and taking candy from babies which can later be sold for a profit on eBay should be fields that could interest future Master’s and Ph.D. holders.

  This is from the New York Times piece:

  To make matters worse, the share of tenure-track jobs available has been shrinking. Tenure-track positions for assistant professors made up 53 percent of the English jobs advertised and 48.5 percent of those in foreign languages. From 1997 until recently, the group said, 55 percent to 65 percent of the advertised positions were tenure-track jobs. And since part-time adjunct positions are less likely than those for tenure-track jobs to be listed with the language association, the overall share of faculty members being hired for tenure-track jobs is probably smaller than the survey indicates.

  Ms. Feal said the trend toward hiring adjunct faculty members rather than permanent tenure-track professors had been going for about three decades, but was more pronounced than ever, as a growing number of struggling colleges and universities hired by the course or by the semester — usually paying little, and providing no benefits.

  “Having so many contingent faculty diminishes the overall quality of teaching and learning,” she said. “The individual course might be great, but you can’t expect temporary hires to do the kind of curricular planning it takes to maintain a successful department.” 

  I have just one word for Ms. Rosemary Feal: bollocks. Of course you can expect temporary hires to do curricular planning. Why? Because first of all temporary hires already do course planning. If, in fact, departments don’t require temporary hires to do curricular planning, it’s the administrators in the department, and not the temps in the department who are then responsible for any and all issues with respect to the quality of teaching and learning in said departments. 

  However, here’s the real issue. No study to date has linked the “quality” of teaching and learning to the extensive use of adjunct faculty. Hell, no one can really agree completely on what “quality” teaching is for the heaven’s sake. The AFT started the propaganda campaign when their leaders had to think of something to say to various state legislators to pry loose the millions and millions of dollars the AFT wants to fund its boondoogle FACE. So, starting with Dr. William Scheuerman when he was still the UUP union leader, he went before the New York State legislature and started the rumor that J. Edgar Hoover was a cross-dresser, and part-time faculty were lovely people whose existence within higher education was systematically destroying undergraduate education. 

  If the New Faculty Majority group does not work to dispel this bold-faced lie, it will be a miscarriage of justice of epic proportions. However, as more and more union members move into “advisory” and leadership positions within the New Faculty Majority, such unsubstantiated and damning statements will, most likely, be printed over and over again in newspapers across the United States. The New Faculty Majority will not answer the lies, alas, with the truth about who non-tenured faculty really are.

  The good news is that, really, no one cares that contingent faculty “diminish” the overall quality of teaching and learning, because of the financial benefits associated with the exploitation of temporary faculty. There are just as many administrators quoted in just as many newspapers touting the competency of their respective colleges’ contingent faculty. The AFT, NEA, AAUP and Rosemary Feal can all shout from the highest mountain top, but colleges and universities all over this country will continue to employ large numbers of temporary faculty.

  The job market for graduates in the humanities is in the crapper. Shouldn’t Rosemary Feal be pushing for reductions in the  number of graduate students accepted into Ph.D. programs? Shouldn’t she be pushing for mandatory retirement for tenure-line faculty at age 65? There are so many reasons that the humanities job market is a disaster. For Feal to zero in on the high number of non-tenured faculty as one of the main reasons shows her biases and that the MLA’s leadership has bought into the flawed notion that overall student retention and graduation rates have fallen because of the increased reliance on non-tenured faculty. Student retention is impacted by student preparation more than anything else. 

  Rosemary Feal has had a big glass of the Kool-aid mixed up by AFT leaders to differentiate between tenured and non-tenured faculty. (Tenured faculty are good for student retention and success. Non-tenured faculty are bad for student retention and success.) It’s the plot of a cheap dime store novel. It’s not a plot I would expect the Executive Director of the Modern Language Association to play a part in, much less quote as literary brilliance.

  Tags: AAUP, AFT, Dr. William Scheuerman, FACE, Modern Language Association, NEA, New York Times, Rosemary Feal, UUP

• I Can Help With That. Maybe.

  4 Comments
  17 Nov 2009 /  AFT, NEA, SEIU, organizing, part-time faculty, unions
  I participate in a city-wide politics email listserv in the town where I live. Recently, a woman posted a detailed message about what the group should do to reach a larger audience so as to stop preaching to the choir, as it were. The last three words of her email were classic: 

  “I’m not volunteering.”

  To me, her lack of leadership ability stood out for all to see.  

  At our house, when we want to tease each other about not taking responsibility for a task, we say with a chipper smile, “I can help with that.” Translation: “I ain’t gonna bust my chops by taking charge, but if you’ll take charge, then I can help with that. Maybe.” The “I can help with that,” syndrome is all too common. No one wants to lead anything, but if a leader—strong, true and charismatic—steps forward to lead the troops, well, there are lots of people who can “help with that.” Maybe.

  Does this hew and cry sound familiar? “Adjuncts need to have a nation-wide strike!!!” 

  How about this one?  “Adjuncts need a national union!!!” (Exclamation points are always included in these battle cries of the Adjunct Republic.)

  Both of these statements are true. What I can’t fathom, though, is from which corner of the world the Mahatma will arise to lead our nation’s 700,000 non-tenured faculty to independence and self-determination. AAUP’s Marc Bousquet, a full-time faculty member, frequently urges adjuncts in his blog to lead their own movement. Oddly, when the AAUP President appointed co-chairs of the union’s Committee on Part-time Faculty, he appointed Bousquet, who accepted the position. So not only must the Mahatma arise spontaneously, the Mahatma can’t even catch a break and get appointed a co-chair.

  Do you realize what it would take to launch a national union for adjunct faculty? Four IRS forms and a set of bylaws. The IRS has a web site, and you can get EIN (http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98350,00.html) and TIN (http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=96696,00.html) numbers by phone. Forming and launching a national union wouldn’t be difficult. However, at the moment, there are several hundred thousand temporary faculty moaning, wringing their hands, and muttering “I can help with that.”  When one remembers that among these part-time faculty there are hundreds if not thousands with graduate degrees in labor relations, and who teach other people about advocacy and organizing, the situation begins to resemble opera buffa. I can imagine Carlo Goldoni penning the music to the comedic opera “Adjuncts Need a National Union!!!”

  Make no mistake: the Mahatma who steps up will find himself in a cat fight with the AFT, NEA and perhaps the AAUP, but when the dust settles, the adjunct union will grow, and eventually rake in the same hundreds of millions in union dues from affiliates that the NEA, SEIU and AFT bring in each year. Such a national adjunct union will change the face of higher education, as the union’s affiliates play tug o’ war with tenure-line and tenured faculty union affiliates for more equitable division of teaching duties, money, benefits and professional development funds.

  Today’s national higher education union leaders could help adjuncts within their unions break away and form a national union. Good idea, huh? It’s not mine. In Ontario, Canada, OPSEU’s President Smokey Thomas did just that for 10,500 part-timers. He and his OPSEU members formed and financed OPSEUCAT, currently led by part-timer Roger Courvette. Union leaders at NEA, AFT and even the AAUP could easily help a group of part-timers form a national union. AFT, NEA and AAUP could even allow part-time affiliates that wished to do so to migrate to the new union.  

  I had hoped the recent formation of the New Faculty Majority was the first step toward a national union for adjuncts, and then I read that the founders did not intend the group to replace existing unions, or engage in collective bargaining. The group’s initial launch, without a name, formalized agenda or clear focus, signals a long and arduous road to be traversed before any advocacy—adjunct or otherwise—may be expected.  

  Will the Mahatma arise? Yes, but I believe the person will come from outside of higher education. The Mahatma will not be any of the usual suspects, whose published essays and blog postings we read with relish and which cause us to post comments sprinkled liberally with exclamation points. When the Mahatma comes, will the hundreds of thousands of faculty who are currently under-employed in non-tenured positions “help with that?”

  Maybe.

  Tags: AAUP, AFT, Marc Bousquet, NEA, New Faculty Majority, OPSEU, Roger Courvette, SEIU, Smokey Thomas

• PT Faculty & The Employee Free Choice Act

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  20 May 2009 /  AAUP, AFT, NEA, organizing, part-time faculty, politics, unions
  In 1975, there were about 275,000 part-time faculty employed in the United States. Over the past 30 years, the number of faculty off the tenure-track has mushroomed to over 800,000 individuals, or about 70 percent of the total college faculty employed in the United States. Recent studies suggest that these faculty teach, on average, half of the courses offered at colleges and universities. It is a common misconception that the number of faculty on the tenure-track has stagnated. Quite the opposite is true. Over the past decade, the number of tenure-faculty has increased by over 50,000 individuals nationwide. Of course the number of faculty off the tenure-track has increased more quickly. 

  As the number of faculty off the tenure-track grew, leaders of the the three major education labor unions did little more than fiddle while Rome burned. If it weren’t so tragic, the systemic ineptitude would be comical. In 1992, the AFT represented some 45,000 part-time faculty, most of whom were in the union’s New York, California, Oregon and Washington affiliates. Today, some 17 years later, the AFT represents around 60,000 part-time faculty, most of whom teach in New York, California, Oregon, Washington and Michigan. In 17 years, while higher education saw the number of part-time faculty climb to over 500,000 individuals, the AFT organized 1,100 part-timers per year. AAUP has actually lost part-time faculty members. Today, the group reports some 3,500 part-time faculty members. A decade ago, AAUP represented almost 6,000 part-timers. AAUP recently formed a strategic alliance with AFT in order to jointly organize faculty groups on campuses. 

  On the surface, the Employee Free Choice Act could work to make campus organizing much easier. If a majority of employees signed union cards, the NLRB would be required to certify the union. There would be no need for employees to vote in a secret ballot. With respect to part-time college faculty, in states were the unionization of part-time employees was legal, such a change could lead to sweeping changes in the numbers of part-time faculty represented by collective bargaining units. To me, this is a double-edged sword simply due to the abysmal track records of the current education unions in their efforts to secure equitable pay and working conditions for part-time faculty union members over the course of the past 35 years.

  As a faculty member organized under the auspices of the Employee Free Choice Act, I could find myself represented by a national union whose leaders are hell bent for leather to reduce the numbers of part-time nation-wide. Eradication of exploited workers doesn’t count, in my book, as bettering their working conditions. Worse still, I could find myself in an agency shop. I actually taught at a school whose faculty union had negotiated agency shop dues payments. It was a waste of my money; the union leaders negotiated absolutely nothing for the part-time faculty during the years I taught at the school. Part-time faculty in unified locals all over the country routinely see their union leaders negotiate contracts that, for instance, include “equal percentage raises.” Contracts like this put the locals’ part-time faculty squarely into the category of second-class citizens. The Employee Free Choice Act could help unscrupulous union leaders simply accrete part-time faculty into existing locals, where the part-timers would pay dues for sub-standard or non-existent representation.

  As a part of my January 2009 prognostications, I wrote that “Obama will not be able to get the Employee Free Choice Act passed.” Now that several influential senators have come out against the latest incarnation of the legislation proposed in March 2009, it looks as though part-time faculty may dodge the bullet that is the application of the Employee Free Choice Act within higher education.

  Tags: AAUP, AFT, Employee Free Choice Act, NLRB, part-time faculty

• The Pope and America’s Adjunct Faculty

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  11 May 2009 /  AFT, Canadian part-timers, FACE, part-time faculty, pay & benefits, politics, tenure
  Let’s be honest; Pope Benedict XVI has little charisma. Whereas John Paul II was the Frank Sinatra of the Vatican, Pope Benedict is more the Joey Bishop of the Papal Ratpack. Be that as it may, the faculty and leaders of America’s 200 Catholic universities answer directly to Rome and His Holiness. Ironically, the 1991 document (For those who’d like to read it in Latin, click here to visit the original document on the Vatican web site.) that required Catholic universities in the U.S. to answer to Rome was written by John Paul II. The Ex Corde Ecclesiae (from the Heart of the Church) required American Catholic universities to seek affirmation from the Holy See. As a result of the Ex Corde Ecclesiae, 13 American Catholic colleges and universities ended their affiliation with the Church, or were declared “no longer Catholic.”  

  So, where am I going with all this? Straight over to Jamaica, New York, to a Catholic college called St. John’s University. Then, it’s due west to Marquette University, a Jesuit institution, in Wisconsin. Over the course of the past month, both institutions have made remarkable strides toward part-time faculty equity. At Marquette University, the institution’s faculty senate will, today, discuss a report from the school’s faculty council. That report urges university administrators to give the school’s adjuncts contracts, salary increases or benefits. According to a piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “The report asserts that Marquette has a moral obligation as a Jesuit institution to fairly compensate part-time instructors.”

  A moral obligation! Finally. Of course Catholic colleges, heck, every religious institution in our country have a moral obligation to treat all workers fairly and equally. This is how the Marquette report puts it, “We believe that every group of individuals who is part of the larger community that comprises ‘Marquette’ should be treated equally and should have access to the same benefits as any other member.”

  The effort to have the Marquette community take up this discussion was spearheaded by a tenured professor in the theology department, Dr. Daniel Maguire. Faculty in Maguire’s department, last year, passed a resolution urging university officials to look into the way Marquette University treats it adjunct faculty—who teach 41 percent of the courses offered at the institution.

  Meanwhile, in its May 15th issue The Chronicle of Higher Education includes a piece about St. John’s University. St. John’s recently converted 20 non-tenured positions in their writing program into tenure-track slots. The huge news is that university administrators hired the 20 non-tenured faculty teaching in those slots onto the tenure-track.

  Poof…you’re now a tenure-line faculty member. Dorothy clicked her heels together and made it from Oz to Kansas.

  St. John’s administrators not only made a huge commitment to the university’s writing program, administrator’s there showed immense courage and moral leadership in hiring the non-tenured faculty already teaching in those slots. All of the 20 writing instructors had been hired in over a period of two years as full-time temporary faculty on one-year contracts, and most hold terminal degrees. 

  When AFT FACE was on the verge of getting millions for 2,000 new tenure-line faculty slots for SUNY/CUNY, full-time faculty objected to hiring already-employed non-tenured faculty for the newly created slots. According to a piece in the New York Sun, “Many full-time faculty at City University of New York and State University of New York schools said giving preference to the adjunct faculty in their departments would restrict who they could hire and would not necessarily strengthen their departments.” A University of Albany department chair was ever more haughty on the subject of hiring non-tenured faculty into newly created tenure-line slots: ”That’s not the normal way we do it,” the chairman of the physics department at the University at Albany, John Kimball, said. “It’s a nationally advertised search for any new faculty members. Adjuncts are welcome to apply, but they’re not given special preference over anyone else.”

  AFT union officials went right along with this ridiculous slap in the face. I wrote about it here. There are 20,000 non-tenured faculty represented by the AFT at SUNY/CUNY and not a single one of those faculty has a snowball’s chance in hell of line conversion through their union contract. Why? Because the union contracts negotiated year-after-year never include line conversions. At York University, in Toronto, Canada, faculty recently went on strike for several weeks to protect line conversions included in their union contract.

  At Marquette University, faculty there believe the debate over the equitable treatment of adjunct faculty, and the hoped for improvements in pay, benefits and job security, will spur similar movements at the nation’s 27 other Jesuit colleges. One imagines if a movement for the ethical treatment of adjuncts were to take root and flourish, it would, perhaps, find no better place to sprout than within the nation’s 200 Catholic universities. After all, Ex Corde Ecclesiae was based on canon law, and so is Dr. Daniel Maguire’s argument. Within the Catholic Church, canon law is the linguafranca of the land.

  Tags: adjunct faculty, Catholic universities, Chronicle of Higher Education, CUNY, Daniel Maguire, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Jesuit colleges, John Kimball, line conversion, Marquette University, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, New York Sun, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II, St. John's University, SUNY, York University

• Screwing the New Faculty Majority in the Same Old Ways

  1 Comment
  04 May 2009 /  AFT, contracts, part-time faculty, unions
  Did you participate in the New Faculty Majority Day? Did you read about it? The idea for a day when faculty off the tenure-track across the United States come out of the professorial closet, so to speak, originated in California at the University of California AFT. Not so surprisingly, a lecturer at UC-Irvine published an op-ed about the use of lecturers in the UC system. Why not publish an op-ed about UC lecturers? It’s great to let people know who’s teaching UC students. However, somewhere in the middle of the piece, the author headed right off a cliff into a pool of deceit, pandering and obfuscation about 20 feet deep.

  The author, Andrew Tonkovich, president of University Council – American Federation of Teachers Local 2226 writes, “We’re concerned that many higher education administrators will use the economic downturn to justify letting go of many non-tenured faculty….Sure, some cost cutting has to be implemented, but we wonder why the loss of funds will be taken out on the most vulnerable faculty members….?”

  We’re concerned? We wonder? Is that so?  

  I’m concerned, but I’m not at all confused. I’ve read the UC-AFT contract Article 17 titled “Layoff.” In the UC-AFT local, the union contract gives administrators permission to give UC lecturers the bum’s rush before everyone else. The administrators don’t need to justify dumping part-time faculty; they’re merely adhering to the union contract negotiated on behalf of the lecturers by their California Federation of Teachers union representatives. 

  One imagines Andy T., president of Local 2226, knows very well what that contract requires UC administrators to do when there are layoffs. Tonkovich then suggests that administrators should lay themselves off and  freeze their own salaries rather than poke UC lecturers in the eye with the sharp stick that is their own union contract. Does it come as a great shock that the UC administrators won’t lay themselves off or freeze their own salaries? Greedy SOBs? Of course. Stupid? Nope. 

  UC lecturers allowed their union leaders to negotiate a labor deal that puts their necks on the chopping block first when there are layoffs. Of course, the AFT President, Randi Weingarten, recently suggested a strategy of which old Ebenezer Scrooge would be proud. Weingarten suggested that we need to deplete the surplus population of faculty off the tenure-track in order to regain the lost faculty “balance” in higher education.

  Bah! Humbug! Are there no workhouses? Are there no debtor’s prisons? Perhaps sometime soon the Spirit of Unions Future will visit old Ebenezer Weingarten.

  The president of UC Local 2226 may be scratching his head about why UC administrators are laying off lecturers. So far as I can determine, though, it’s because AFT’s leaders in Washington and California have charted a course that, ideally, results in the layoff of part-time faculty. 

  While the AFT’s right hand celebrates the “new faculty majority,” the AFT’s left hand works to slit the throats of the new faculty majority by negotiating contracts that call for the dismissal of the most vulnerable non-tenured faculty first. 

  It’s diabolically duplicitous.

  Tags: AFT Local 2226, Andrew Tonkovich, California Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, UC-Irvine

• AFT Prez Randi Weingarten Solves Exploitation of, Well, Everyone

  4 Comments
  21 Apr 2009 /  AFT, organizing, part-time faculty, unions
  Which of these sentences was spoken by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten at the recent annual conference of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining? See if you can guess.

  1.  ”Hiring WOMEN isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by FEMALE workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.”

  2.  Hiring BLACKS isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by BLACK workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.”

  3.  Hiring ASIANS isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by ASIAN workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.”

  4.  Hiring MEN isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by MALE workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.” (Oops, sorry. This is actually a reality so far as tenured faculty positions and college presidencies are concerned.)  

  5.  Hiring GAYS isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by GAY workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.”

  6.  Hiring ADJUNCTS isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by CONTINGENT workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.” 

  If you guessed 1, you’re absolutely correct. Randi Weingarten thinks there are too many women in higher education. Wait. Or was it number 2? She probably wouldn’t have a problem with people thinking she’d said there are too many blacks in higher education, right? Randi Weingarten would have no problem announcing to the press that the best way to improve pay and working conditions for blacks and women in higher education is to get rid of the blacks and women.

  Oh, alright. I’ll tell you what she really said. You know already. It’s number 6. The AFT President’s solution to the “adjunct problem,” her strategy to resolve long-standing industry-wide pay inequities and abysmal working conditions is to, yes, get rid of the adjuncts. 

  AFT has 250 locals at colleges and universities in the U.S. and represents approximately 50,000 part-time faculty. According to Larry Gold, director of the AFT’s higher education division, 140 of those locals are unified and serve both full-time and part-time faculty. In response to suggestions that there are “problems” with these unified locals representing the interests of their part-time members Gold said, “He was not surprised by problems that crop up….” He went on to conclude that, “There are a whole lot of things that need to be worked out.”

  Evidently, some of the issues that need to be “worked out” are at AFT headquarters in Washington, D.C.

  Tags: American Federation of Teachers, higher education, Larry Gold, National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining, Randi Weingarten

• Am I Dreaming?

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  27 Mar 2009 /  AFT, NEA, part-time faculty, pay & benefits, unions
  First, President Obama announces to the world that he’s in favor of merit pay for teachers. If you listened hard enough, you could almost hear the audible gasps from Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, and Dennis van Roekel, President of the National Education Association. To be fair, Ms. Weingarten has been quoted as saying she supports the idea of merit pay. She just can’t for the life of her figure out how teachers can be fairly evaluated so as to make any merit pay system work. Call me a troublemaker, but you’d think all those highly paid brainiacs at AFT and NEA who have about 1,000,000 years of collective higher education among them could figure a way to make a merit pay system work. As Weingarten was quoted as saying, “the devil is in the details.” Isn’t is always?

  So first we have the President touting merit pay. My other personal cause célèbre has been “equal percentage” pay increases for full-time and part-time faculty represented in unified locals. Obviously, unless one is incapable of doing basic math, one realizes that a 6 percent raise for a full-time faculty member who earns $80K per year with benefits is just an ever so slightly, wafer-thin, larger raise than 6 percent paid to a part-time faculty member who earns $2,000 per course without benefits. Unified local union leaders who negotiate such “equal percentage” raises for their members are robbing the part-timers to pay the full-timers.

  This morning, I read about Lewis Long, faculty association president-elect at Irvine Valley College, a unified local in Mission Viejo/Irvine, California. Long’s union just negotiated a contract for its 1,500 members. Hold on to your briefcases: the contract gives the part-time faculty larger raises, as well as larger cost of living adjustments. Read about the new contract here, in the SOCCD student newspaper, the Lariat.

  So what’s next? A part-time faculty member being appointed to Chair the AFT’s national Committee on Higher Education? A national push by the education unions for pro-rata pay and benefits for faculty off the tenure-track?

  Stay tuned.  In the meantime, three cheers for Lewis Long. Long may he reign. Well, at least long enough to close the immense pay gap between the full-time and part-time members represented by his union.

  Tags: AFT, Dennis van Roekel, equal percentage raise, Lewis Long, merit pay, NEA, Randi Weingarten

• President Obama and Me

  1 Comment
  11 Mar 2009 /  AFT, NEA, pay & benefits, politics, unions
  I am floating on a cloud today. Why? Well, for about as long as I can remember, I’ve thought unions that negotiate contracts that call for pay to be based on seniority as opposed to merit are single-handedly dragging down the quality of education in our country. Whether we’re talking about the local elementary school, community college or four-year public university, where there are unions the contracts read the same: pay is calculated on the basis of seniority, and merit increases are given out equally to all. Almost equally, more often than not the full-time faculty get the merit pay, and the part-time faculty get the short end of the stick with a nice red bow wrapped around it. 

  Today, President Obama is being quoted in more news outlets than I can possible keep up with saying that he wants to see merit pay used to (hold on to your bunions) compensate teaching excellence, and to see systems put in place to get rid of poor teachers more quickly. Can you imagine? Make no mistake, the NEA and AFT will fight hard against any move away from seniority toward merit-based pay. If President Obama can actually pull this one off, however, the change will have a profound impact on k-12 education and, I would imagine, eventually work its way up into higher education, as well.

  Tags: AFT, merit pay, NEA, Obama, seniority

• Hotlips Houlihan and Adjuncting

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  23 Feb 2009 /  AAUP, AFT, NEA, part-time faculty, teaching
  Ian Houlihan, we’ll call him “Hotlips,” just for fun, is a tenured faculty member at a Catholic University in the Northeast. In the February 23rd edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education, he writes about his “foray into adjunct life.” Where to begin?

  How about we start with the fact that he uses a pseudonym instead of his real name. I would have done so, as well, but perhaps for a different reason. Here’s what Hotlips writes about preparing for the course he is going to teach as an adjunct:

   

  “I had just received tenure at a private university, so the chance of doing something new — even if it was basically the same thing I was already doing, but in a different place — was intriguing. What’s more, teaching American government during the election sounded pretty easy. As an introductory course, it would not require much prep. ‘I’ll just go in once a week and talk about the election,’ I told a friend.”

  No wonder the AAUP is having such a tough time defending tenure outside of the Academy. Hotlips confirms every suspicion lurking in the minds of those who oppose tenure. Perhaps you’ve heard some of the same comments I’ve heard on the subject?

  Tenure encourages professors to be lazy.

  What in the Wide World of Sports do professors do all day, anyway?

  Course prep.? What’s that?

  Sure as shootin’ course prep. is not what Hotlips describes in his essay. Can you imagine the nuclear fall-out if an adjunct had written that he was just going to accept a course because he could just prance into class every week and talk about the election? Say that at your interview, and see if you get hired. Had an adjunct written that in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the comment would be taken and used as confirmation of the alleged destruction of undergraduate education by part-time faculty nation-wide. 

  I can just hear self-proclaimed contingent-faculty- spokesman-on-the-tenure-track Marc Bousquet: ”Good Gravy! Adjuncts don’t prepare adequately for their courses! I support them in not preparing for their courses, but more adjuncts need to take the lead and speak out about this.” 

  AAUP would form Committee P to study to preparedness of Part-time Professors (Bousquet would Chair Committee P after posting to InsideHigherEd that more adjuncts need to Chair such committees.). Cary Nelson would write in his next column in Academe: “AAUP supports adjuncts, but we need fewer of us. Well, them. No, us. You know who I mean! Only fast-food faculty think they…I mean us….I mean…..forget it….can waltz into a classroom and just chat about the election all semester. It’s just this kind of thing that is destroying the tenure I enjoyed for 35 years, and dragging down continuity in academic programs across the nation.”

  “We need to get back to days when three out of four faculty actually prepared for their classes,” AFT’s William Scheuerman would announce at his press conferences. “We need more full-time faculty who actually have the time to prepare for classes, meet with their students and mentor them. We’ve never conducted a study to answer the question of whether adjuncts have the time to prepare for classes, meet students and mentor them, but I’ll just throw it out there anyway.” 

  Sandra Schroeder, President of AFT-Washington, would send along a snappy email to the union’s sate-wide listserv in support of Scheuerman’s proclamation in which she blames, “Keith Hoeller’s anti-union rhetoric for all Washington state adjunct faculty who don’t prepare for their courses.” She would also blame Hoeller and other adjunct rabble rousers for, well, “everything.” Then, she’d hire Dr. Dan Jacoby to do a study.

  “We’re not demeaning the efforts of adjunct faculty,” researcher Dan Jacoby might proffer,”but not preparing adequately for one’s courses leads to a significant 1 or 2 percent drop in student retention.”

  Researcher Andrea Jaeger, after examining 30,000 sets of student transcripts would announce: “My guess is that adjuncts not preparing for courses leads to first-year student retention problems.”

  As for Hotlips, he goes on to do a credible impersonation of George Bush the First. Remember the time Bush went into a supermarket and went on and on about the scanners? He’d never seen one. Like Bush, for whom life had seldom interfered in his fantasy attic, Hotlips meets students who are “diverse,” and “not affluent.” Students who can’t afford books. He hides his “moonlighting” from everyone on his “home” campus. The process of getting hired he describes as “disordered” and “odd.” (He ended up being hired via email.) Then, from the man who tells us teaching a course on American government is as easy as 1-2-talk about the election for an entire semester, we hear the following:

  “Needless to say, the experience gave me greater respect for the adjuncts I work with at my home campus….As the percentage of courses around the country taught by adjuncts continues to rise, it would seem the processes by which they are supported, evaluated, and compensated are going to have to be revisited. If not, we are going to see a considerable shift in the nature and quality of higher education.”

  So, we should all fret about a considerable shift in the nature and quality of higher education because Hotlips was a lazy sod of an adjunct and adjuncts teach half the courses in the country? I think not. Once again, we have sweeping conclusions drawn about the impact adjuncts may have on higher education based on reasoning that can only be described as having the consistency of dryer fluff. Does anyone remember the Bowen Report? That was the report that concluded scads of tenure-line faculty would retire, and there would be oodles of new tenure-line jobs for Ph.D.s lingering sadly as burger-flippers at their local McDonalds. The Bowen Report was lauded, promulgated, commented upon, written up, and embraced by those within higher education well after it was proven to contain nothing more than, well, bad math and grossly inaccurate conclusions.

  Hotlips Houlihan’s essay is a chip off the old Bowen Report. Unfortunately, there are a lot of chips making the rounds in higher education these days.

  Tags: AAUP, adjuncts, AFT, AFT-Washington, Andrea Jaeger, Cary Nelson, Dan Jacoby, Keith Hoeller, Marc Bousquet, Sandra Schroeder, William Scheuereman

• Throwing Money Here, There & Everywhere (Just Not At PTers)

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  12 Feb 2009 /  AFT, FACE, NEA, SEIU, Uncategorized, politics, unions
  I am thinking about sending a letter to President Obama. In it, I will apply to run any bank of his choosing for $400,000 per year. Since adjuncts are used to having more than one job, I thought I might even apply to head two—maybe even three— banks. If I worked at three banks, that would mean a salary of $1.2 million per year. I’ll tell Mr. Obama to skip the driver and car for me, and that I can fly steerage class to just about anywhere on earth. As I see it, taxpayers will save hundreds of thousands of dollars every year by having me run a few banks. After all, it’s all about getting the right people into the right offices, right? 

  On February 6th, American Federation of Teachers FACE Man Craig Smith wrote in his FACE Talk blog that, “AFT Oregon has worked with legislators in the Oregon House to file a wide-ranging piece of legislation pursuing the goals set forth in our FACE Campaign. House Bill 2557 directs institutions to establish plans for improving their ratios of full-time to part-time faculty at the institutional level ….” Smith goes on to mention that, “Leading the charge is former AFT member, Representative Michael Dembrow, who is now Vice Chair of the Oregon House Education Committee.” Dembrow is able to lead the charge, because last year, he ran for an open seat on the Oregon State Legislature. Before that, he was the president of the Portland Community College faculty union.

  Was Michael Dembrow a friend to Oregon’s part-timers, I wondered? A quick trip over to the Portland Community College faculty union web site and contract answered my questions. After almost four decades of representation (the past 16 of them under Dembrow’s leadership), in 2008, the Portland Community College union negotiated health insurance coverage for the 1,200 part-time faculty (there are 600 full-timers). Well, for those part-timers who average a half-time load over three years. There’s a part-time salary “scale,” as well; ascending the scale resembles a game of Donkey Kong (for those who remember this diabolically difficult video game). To get from level 1 to level 7 entails working 2,000 contact hours (500 classes, or 125 years, at 4 courses per year), and earns that faculty member an eventual raise of about $170 per credit hour taught.

  To move up a step on the full-time faculty schedule, a member must work three years. The full-timer who tops out on the salary schedule can expect to earn an additional $30,000 per year. Is there job security for part-timers, maybe, after three decades of representation? Dream on, Teen Queen. From PCC’s contract: “A temporary appointment may be terminated at the discretion of Management without review under the terms of this Agreement.” There’s not even equality in death: full-time faculty get five days of bereavement leave and part-timers get three days.

  The PCC contract is Michael Dembrow’s legacy and it’s a legacy that oozes inequitable representation. Michael Dembrow, in short, did nothing extraordinary for the 1,200 part-time faculty whom he served all those years. I wish I could tell you how much he paid himself as President of the PCC local, but he never saw to it that his union filed the requisite financial disclosure forms with the U.S. Department of Labor.

  Prior to running for office, in March 2007, Michael Dembrow testified in front of the Oregon Legislature in support of FACE and told the legislators this:

  “Part-timers are generally not paid to be on campus other than to teach their courses, and in many cases they are off running to another job at another college or university (their combined annual teaching load often exceeds those of full-timers)….This practice has consequences. There is a growing body of literature that points to the harmful effects of over-using part-timers in your FACE packet you can find an annotated bibliography of some of them.”

  Then we have the money trail. Michael Dembrow raised $167,748 to run for the open seat he was elected to. The average open seat candidate in Oregon raises $61,876 for a candidacy. So was Michael Dembrow, first-time political candidate, a fundraising savant? Not really. About 75 percent of Dembrow’s money came from just three donors: 

  In 2008, Oregon Federation of Teachers donated $77,941 total to political candiates. ($38,441 to Dembrow, was the single largest contribution the union group made in 2008.) They contributed 22.92 percent of his money.

  In 2008, the Oregon Education Association donated $227,605 total to political candiates. The Oregon Education Associaiton was the 3rd largest overall political contributor in the state. ($27,707 to Dembrow was the third largest contribution the union group made in 2008.) They contributed 16.22 percent of his money.

  In 2008, SEIU Employees Local 503 donated $493,228  total to political candiates, making the organization the single largest political contributor in the entire state of Oregon. (SEIU donated $15,902 to Dembrow. It was the fourth largest contribution the union group made in 2008.)

  Dembrow even scored a donation from his own union. In 2008, Portland Community College Faculty Federation gave $11,000 to political candidates. (The $10,000 to Dembrow was the single largest contribution union group made in 2008). They contributed 5.96 percent of his money.

  It’s no small wonder Michael Dembrow decided to “lead the charge” for FACE in Oregon. The Oregon House Education Committee which Dembrow co-chairs, and which sponsored the current FACE legislation, is populated by six members of the House who received over $151,000 in campaign donations from faculty union groups in Oregon during 2008. 

  Call me crazy, but wouldn’t it be a more effective use of $1,000,000 to just, well, spend it on professional development for part-time faculty in Oregon? Then again, once you get used to throwing around large sums of money here, there and everywhere, it’s probably pretty tough to stop.

  Tags: AFT Oregon, Craig Smith, FACE, Michael Dembrow, NEA Oregon, political donations, Portland Community College, SEIU

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