Michigan Educators Ask State to Study Part-Time Issues
by TAA Staff
A MICHIGAN TASK force has asked the state legislature to
look into the growing reliance of community colleges on part-time
teachers. The task force, composed of representatives from
fifteen state universities and community colleges, has asked
the legislature to study both the number and the working conditions
of part-time faculty employed in Michigan.
“These teachers are expected to do the same job as if they
were employed full-time, but their conditions of employment
make that impossible,” argues John Van Dyken, the higher education
consultant at the Michigan Education Association.
“These are teachers that aren’t paid for classroom preparatory
work; they’re going without offices; they don’t have access
to computers; and they’re not included in departmental meetings
or curricula planning session.”
Van Dyken hopes that a legislative study can shed some light
on a question that no one seems able to answer: just how many
adjuncts and part-timers are teaching in Michigan’s community
college system?
“According to the community college presidents,” says Van
Dyken, “the number is about 50 percent. But our sources indicate
that as many as 65, even 70 percent of community college teachers
are now part-time.”
Getting the legislature to act won’t be easy, says Van Dyken,
noting that language calling for the part-time study has already
been stricken from the Senate version of the community college
appropriations bill.
“It’s the responsibility of the legislature in Michigan to
fund the community colleges,” Van Dyken explains. “But as
a result of chronic underfunding, we end up with a situation
where full-time faculty members at these schools are being
replaced by part-timers. It’s an equality issue.”
What’s behind the explosion of part-time labor at Michigan’s
community colleges? Tom Dietz, president of the faculty association
at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, agrees with John Van
Dyken that shrinking budgets are partly to blame. But there’s
another problem too, says Dietz, who teaches American history
at Kalamazoo in addition to working as a curator at the college.
“Traditionally, community colleges were seen as two-year
schools where you did remedial work. They played a preparatory
role. But now these schools are responsible for vocational
programs and economic development. They’re even supposed to
recruit new industry to our towns. As their responsibilities
have changed, the workforce has changed too.”
The replacement of full-time faculty by part-timers, argues
Dietz, is especially evident in traditional academic departments–English
and history as opposed to electrical wiring or dental hygiene.
“There are seven or eight community colleges in this area.
You can easily end up with someone teaching a different English
class in every county. You have to be very dedicated to work
that kind of a schedule.”
The situation at Michigan community colleges is not that
unusual, says Rachel Hendrickson, higher education coordinator
for the National Education Association.
“Our data shows that there are community colleges with 80
percent of classes being taught by part-time faculty. It’s
a much more of a problem than at the four-year schools. The
reality is that hiring part-timers is a short-term solution
for community college presidents. It’s the easy way out.”
Still, both the NEA and its Michigan affiliate hope that
by calling attention to the issue, parents, students, and
the public at large will see the issue of part-time working
conditions as one that affects all of them.
“The legislature and the public both need to know about this,”
says Van Dyken. “And I think they’re starting to understand
what we’re saying.”
