New admin in the college workplace: just not getting it

SOMETIMES I THINK NOBODY GETS IT

At my community college we have a relatively new upper administration. The President is just finishing her 2nd year and the Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA) just finished her first year here. Neither one has strong academic background and the VPAA has not yet learned the 'culture' of the College. For example in the Spring semester, she cancelled classes with 9 and 10 students in them (some were required for the students to graduate) and then complained that enrollment was down! 

Teach-in & Workshop, Green River CC, WA

Tomorrow, April 20. It's not national and on too short notice for outside the area. That's not the point. Instead of yearning for major conferences we cannot afford to attend, information silos for preaching to the choir and any silverbacks there by accident, why not begin at home? Hold more local workshops and teach-ins to educate the public and build contingent faculty networks. Share workshop ideas, fliers, plans, materials. Here's one tomorrow that you probably can't make but can take ideas from. Planning your own? Send us the information to post and share.

WHAT: Teach-in and Workshops – Adjunct Faculty In a System of Apartheid. 

WHY:  More than 75 percent of all college faculty members are adjunct/ temporary/at-will. Students and parents are unaware of the sweatshop conditions of their professors.

WHEN: April 20, 2012 – 1-2 p.m. & 2:30-3:30

Where are All the Faculty? Ask Somebody: Including USED

If you are just tuning in, look at some previous posts on the matter of misreporting, here, and here. 

Ok, we’ve done Peterson’s and Collegeview, now let’s look at some Federal numbers. Again, this is just for one of the places where I work—Westchester Community College—but you should ask questions about your institution(s) as well. Maybe everybody but WCC is reporting more thoroughly?

Maybe. 

Remember from previous posts that I think there are more than 1000 faculty at WCC, and that 85% or more are adjuncts-or “Part-time” in the reporting. So, look at WCC:

Part B - Employees by Assigned Position - Part-time staff

Number of part-time staff by faculty status and primary function/occupational activity

That’s from the National Center for Education Statistics, US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences.

Therein, for 2009, we find that part-time faculty are listed at 311.  Full-timers are said to be 167. That’s 478, no? Check my math. Now off you go to the WCC Facts and Figures-Faculty for 2009? 170. All full-time. No part-timers at all. Where are the missing faculty?

Shouldn’t they all come out, like ghosts, for Campus Equity Week?

Really, How Many Adjuncts Teach Where you Are?

Full text of email I just sent to Peterson's. Check out your place. Now, where do they get this sort of misleading info?

Hi there Peterson's-I don't really know who to contact here but wanted to tell somebody at Petersons that some of your information on Westchester Community College is very much outdated. To wit:

www.petersons.com/college-search/westchester-community-college-faculty-000_10004477_10007.aspx
Westchester Community College - Faculty
Total: 524
Full-time: 32% full-time
Student/faculty ratio: 18:1

That # and that percentage may have been true 20 or so years ago but no longer. FT faculty now comprise less than 15% of total faculty.

You should check with the WCC office of institutional research about this. I will be happy to talk to you more about this if you wish.

Dr. Alan Trevithick
Board Member, New Faculty Majority
and Adjunct
Westchester Community College
Fordham University
Laguardia Community College

Campus Equity Week at Union County College, #CEW2011

The Union County College Chapter of United Adjunct Faculty of New Jersey is planning a day of action during Campus Equity Week, on October 26. We have approval for some tables in the main hallway which our Chapter Board will man wearing Scarlet Letter Polos- a Red A for Adjunct. We have some posters being made up to demonstrate our exploitation and will have a big change jar with a sign something like –“we need change for adjuncts’…

We will also have petitions to be signed and AFT giveaways along with some free goodies (candy and cookies) and possibly some basic food items for ‘starving’ adjuncts. We also plan to have a section of a table with an ‘ASK AN ADJUNCT’ sign for students to ask us about our working conditions.

We are still working on other things to do.

Bill Lipkin
Co-President UCC CHapter UAFNJ
Secretary/Treasurer- United Adjunct Faculty of New Jersey
Treasurer- NFM and NFM Foundation

Longest serving community college president in the nation!

Well, I was going to go down to Occupy Wall Street, to hand around with the young people and brush up on my drumming and chanting skills—seriously, I approve of drumming and chanting, and I am looking forward to that and will make my way down there Friday—but remembered that today is the day that we will hear, at Westchester Community College, from Dr. Joseph Hankin, our president, who has been on the job since 1971.

Hankin is currently the longest serving community college president in the nation.