Is Harper College a Great Place to Work? Don’t Ask the Adjuncts

PART-TIME FACULTY MEMBERS at Harper College who have been negotiating with administrators to get a union contract are upset because they weren’t included in a recent survey of job satisfaction.

The survey was circulated in April, said Arlene Bublick, President of the Harper College Adjunct Faculty Association. The Association has been in negotiations with the administration for almost a year for the first contract for part-timers.

Bublick said she was told that part-time faculty need not respond to the survey.

The Palatine, Illinois college has about 600 adjunct faculty members, 300 of whom are unionized. There are 214 full-time faculty members.

The college plans to survey the part-timers as well, administrators said. Adjunct faculty members have always been taken for granted, part-time teacher Paul Casbarian told college trustees at their meeting in May.
“In my 10 years, no invitation has ever come from Harper to attend, much less participate in, any graduation ceremony at which hundreds of my students have been recognized,” said Casbarian, who runs a law firm.

Part-time faculty members formed a union in the spring of 2004 to gain job security and higher pay, and to establish a system for seniority.

“It’s [the college’s part-time faculty] a needed workforce that they treat like migrant workers,” said Jack Janezic, a union organizer with the Illinois Education Association. “[Part-timers] have been negotiating a contract for nearly a year and have yet to discuss salary, seniority, benefits and access to insurance—the issues with substance.”

The full-timers are being surveyed first to establish a baseline, said Cheryl Kinsunzu, Assistant Vice President for Diversity and Organizational Development at Harper College.

No date has been set to survey part-timers.
Results of the survey will be studied by the Chicago-based Higher Learning Commission, which is a preliminary step in Harper’s re-accreditation process.