P-Fac Passes Contract With Wide Approval

The union, which represents 74 percent of Columbia’s teaching faculty, approved the new contract after a vote on Jan. 11th.

From the 600 ballots mailed out in December, 186 came back. Of those who voted, 180 were in favor of the new contract.
Although the number of part-time faculty who voted made up only a fraction of the 1,018 part-time faculty members at Columbia, contract negotiators on both sides didn’t see that as a problem.

“I think we have very good participation when we consider people’s lives,” said Pete Insley, a part-time instructor in the Science and Math Department and the membership chairman during negotiations.

Steven Kapelke, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs, agreed that the participation rate was high since a majority of part-time faculty members may hold full-time jobs outside of the school. Insley said other part-time members teach at various schools, which leaves a small percentage that may have time to take an interest in P-Fac.

Columbia president Warrick L. Carter called the contract signing a “momentous occasion.”
Regarding the number of passing votes, Carter said that it was “clearly an indication of an agreement to the quality of the work that the two teams have done.”

Those who were on the negotiating board were not surprised about the percentage of passing votes either.
“Everybody understood that we did our best on it,” Insley said.
Despite haggling over the past few years, both sides are content with the contract.

“We feel collectively that it is a very good contract between the college and the part time faculty,” Carter said.

Margaret Sullivan, chair of marketing communications and the chair representative during the negotiations said that the college took P-Fac’s concerns seriously.

“Anything that was important to the part-time faculty was important to the administration,” Sullivan said.

As usual, raises also came with the new contract, but this year they were distributed differently.

“The salary increases were modest anyway, but the bulk of them went to the new teachers,” Insley said.
According to Insley, a majority of the raises went to newer instructors to encourage them to continue teaching at Columbia.
While several aspects of the contract have changed, benefits, including health, have remained too expensive to be offered to part-time faculty.

Although they still do not receive benefits, part-time faculty can now access developmental funds. The funds, which come from a budget line in the provost’s office, allow instructors to attend conferences and support their research, among other uses.

Both of the negotiating sides appreciated this change, including Insley, who said it was a “nice gesture.”

In addition, part-time faculty can now reconfigure the number of classes they teach each year. Previously, they were restricted to nine credits per semester. However, now they are allowed to alter the number they teach each semester, so long as the classes stay within the 18 credits-per-year restriction.
This is coming on the heels of the full-time faculty readjusting their teaching load, causing the part-time faculty to teach a larger percentage of classes.

Kapelke said the school is hiring both full- and part-time faculty to meet the demand of Columbia’s growing student body.

According to Kapelke, this benefits the departments, instructors and students.

“It’s better for the students because if we can have an excellent teacher, this way he or she can teach an additional class,” Kapelke said.