6
■
PERSPECTIVE
May 2007
LEGISLATION
Working the Floor Judith Michaels, CFT Legislative Director
FACE campaign moves forward FRED GLASS PHOTO
alifornia needs the Faculty and College Excellence Act (AB 1343, Mendoza) to improve student learning and address the academic staffing crisis in higher education. FACE is a nationwide effort by state and local affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers focused on achieving two goals: ensuring that all faculty members will receive the financial and professional support they need to do their best work, and establishing a better balance between the numbers of full-time tenured faculty and part- and fulltime non-tenure-track faculty. nia Community Colleges. Our The Faculty and College effort is a serious one, aimed not Excellence campaign, a multionly at codifying clear policy, faceted effort involving legislabut also at securing the funds, in tive initiatives, collective both the state budget and at bargaining efforts and organizlocal bargaining tables, to make ing, aims at building the power FACE a reality. of all faculty. Bills introduced To succeed on the transfer or into state legislatures under the technical path, students need the auspices of this campaign range expertise and time of faculty to from the purely ideological to help them progress. But partthe pragmatic, fueled by the time and non-tenured contincommitment of organizations gent faculty teach an increasing and activists willing to continue percentage of courses offered in this effort over time in as many California's colleges and universtates as possible. In addition to our effort, AFT affiliates in four- sities. Colleges hire faculty to work part-time because tempoteen other states—joined in rary part-time employees can be some cases by other faculty economically exploited. organizations—have committed Adjunct faculty do not have to join the FACE campaign. In California, we've partnered contracts or tenure. Even faculty who have worked in districts for with the California Faculty years are considered “tempoAssociation, the California rary” employees, with no guarTeachers Association, and the antee of continued employment. Faculty Association for Califor-
C
Why FACE is necessary:
The Palomar example One of the standing arguments against overuse of part-time instructors is that an administrator can use an instructor’s lack of job security to smother academic freedom. This is the flip side of the argument for tenure: that professors need it to protect their ability to speak out honestly and to do what they feel is right, whether it be in the classroom, off campus or assigning grades to their students. This brings us to Palomar College, where last summer a new instructor filed her grades and went on with her life. Until the fall, when she found out that an administrator had unilaterally, without informing her, changed the grades of several students who had attended her class and decided they deserved higher grades. The instructor protested. As if by magic, her class offerings disappeared at Palomar and another college nearby. According to Julie Ivey, co-president of the Palomar Faculty Federation, AFT Local 6161, at the time of this writing the district Academic Senate is wrapping up an informal investigation and is expected to move to a formal one. Meanwhile, the union has filed a grievance, and the District administration has “clarified” that only the instructor of record can sign grade change forms. Ivey notes that while this instructor’s response was “gutsy,” given her contingent employment status,“Involuntary grade changes involving part-time college faculty are, sadly, not uncommon,” and that “Society pays when grades change from an honest measure of achievement into a customer service.” ccc
Assemblyman Tony Mendoza explains (second from right) why AB 1343, the Faculty and College Excellence Act, is necessary at an April 17 press conference. Also speaking were, from left, Dennis Smith, (in his role as FACCC President), Ron Reel, Treasurer, Community College Association/CTA, Marty Hittelman, CFT President, and Susan Meisenhelder, Political Action Chair and former President, California Faculty Association.
Our effort is a serious one, aimed not only at codifying clear policy, but also at securing the funds, in both the state budget and at local bargaining tables, to make FACE a reality. This precarious status is bad for students and bad for community colleges, since it limits teacher
time with students, impacts an adjunct's academic freedom, and makes many teachers fear objecting to unfair conditions. Although community colleges have experienced budget increases during the past few years, many colleges have not added full-time faculty slots, and only a few have made real progress toward pay equity.The Academic Senate for the California Community Colleges finds in its recent report, "Part-time Faculty,A Principled Perspective" that "Maintaining a corps of full-time, tenured faculty is central to academic excellence, academic integrity, and academic freedom; it is key to serving our students well." National research
validates the importance of a sufficient complement of full-time faculty—especially for the population served by the California community colleges. California's legislature leads the nation in addressing the overuse of part-time faculty, most notably AB 1725 (Vasconcellos), which in 1988, required community college districts below a 75/25 standard to use a portion of their program improvement money to hire more full-time faculty. Efforts during the next decade created matching funds in the state budget as incentives for districts to fund office hours and health benefits for part-time faculty. In 1999, AB 420 (Wildman) addressed office hours and health benefits again, and created a third fund, targeted at pay equity. Some districts achieved great progress, but others were recalcitrant, sometimes refusing to even talk about disparities. So CFT sponsored and succeeded in passing two other bills to bring districts to the table: AB 1245 (Alquist) 2001, required the issue of earning and retaining annual reappointment rights by any person employed as temporary or parttime faculty to be a mandatory subject of bargaining in any contract between community college districts and temporary or part-time faculty; and AB 654 (Goldberg) 2003, expressed the intent of the Legislature concerning basic rights and privileges that part-time faculty should have. The CFT Community College Council began California's effort on FACE last December. We met with other organizations to gain support, talked to members of the Senate and the Assembly, and Face campaign moves forward continued on page 7