S.P.Q.R.

by P.D. Lesko WHEN VISITING ROME, Italy, one notices the letters S.P.Q.R. on most every modern drain cover. The correct Latin translation is, of course, "Senatus Populus Que Romanus," or "The Senate and People of Rome." I once asked a group of Italian friends whether the "and" in that phrase implies a united group, or rather that the Senators put their interests first, and dragged along the People for the bumpy ride. The debate lasted well into the night and through several bottles of wine. In this issue's "News" section, you will read (if you haven't already) about the result of a recent faculty senate vote at Elgin Community College, in Elgin, Illinois. There is no debate over the meaning of "Senate and People" in this story. The full-time faculty in the Senate voted to ratify a new contract that strips the college's 542 adjuncts of the opportunity to self-insure under the auspices of the school's health insurance plan. Fewer than 120 senators accepted a contract, which may result in incalculable harm, to the part-time faculty currently covered under the college's health insurance policy. What happened at Elgin Community College, however, is not an isolated incident. Faculty senates around the country routinely vote on contracts that negatively impact the pay and working conditions of adjunct and part-time faculty. The time has come for colleges and universities to stop excluding part-time faculty from departmental and university-wide representative bodies. The argument that adjunct faculty have no long-term interest in their institutions is simply a farce. According to a study done by the National Education Association, the majority of part-time faculty typically teach at a college seven years. The average tenure-line faculty member stays at her/his institution five years. Adjuncts have more institutional longevity than do most tenure-line faculty members who are granted membership in faculty senates. In a representational senate, the adjunct faculty at Elgin Community College could have easily outvoted the full-time faculty and forced the renegotiation of the contract. Rather than a representative model, however, I would suggest that representation be directly proportional to the total percentage of courses taught by full-time and temporary faculty. So at Elgin Community College, where temporary faculty teach over 80 percent of the courses offered each semester, they would hold 80 percent of the seats in the Faculty Senate. The thought of 542 part-time faculty having the ability to control the destiny of 120 full-timers must certainly be a horrifying prospect to many. However, it is just this principle which led to the formation of government in the United States of America. In 1776, the American colonists wrote this to their King:

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our...settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations.... They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.

I believe that full-time faculty have been deaf to the pleas of their part-time brethren, and continue to ignore appeals to their native justice and magnanimity. Tenure-line and tenured faculty benefit enormously from the over-dependence on temporary faculty. I am frequently asked the following question: "What is the solution to the 'Adjunct Problem?'" Part of the solution: adjunct faculty must claim their rightful places in faculty senates across the United States. They must participate fully in the representation of faculty interests on campuses nationwide, and demand fair representation. The power of a united faculty will certainly result in more bargaining might. What could the Faculty Senate at Elgin Community College have negotiated if all of the faculty had walked off the job? Much more, I suspect, than what they ended up with in their current two-year agreement.