UUP Chapter at SUNY New Paltz marks Campus Equity Week

Campus Equity Week (CEW) is a bi-annual, national week of action to call attention to the working conditions of part-time, adjunct, and other contingent academic and professional faculty in higher education. The local chapter of United University Professions (UUP) on the SUNY New Paltz campus has actively participated in CEW for many years. This year, CEW is being held across the country from October 26 to 30.

New Paltz UUP Chapter President Richard Kelder states that 

“we have been trying for years to improve pay and working conditions for our part-timers and adjuncts and our union has had some success. Through the efforts of UUP the salary of adjuncts has increased in the past 10 years and we have been able to secure health insurance and other benefits. However, their compensation still lags far behind full-time faculty on campus. The major problems are the continued under funding of SUNY by NY State and a lack of political will on the part of our legislators to fund and support public higher education. UUP will continue to take a public stand to ensure that our citizens are able to receive a quality postsecondary education and that all faculty and staff are compensated fairly for their knowledge, talents, and teaching ability. For campus equity week, UUP will be speaking to faculty, staff, legislators, students and their parents to inform them of the situation that many SUNY instructors and others face every day. Many of our adjunct faculty have served the college with distinction and dedication for many years and are entitled to job security and better compensation.” 

Currently, part-time or adjunct faculty comprise slightly less than half of the teachers at SUNY New Paltz. They teach about a third of all the courses at SUNY New Paltz. 

VIEWPOINT: State system exploits part-time professors | Other voices - The News Tribune | Seattle-Tacoma News, Weather, Sports, Jobs, Homes and Car

Remember that misbegotten Money magazine article? Keith Hoeller's article in the Tacoma News Tribune, VIEWPOINT: State system exploits part-time professors, opens:

"In its November issue, Money magazine asks: “Do college professors have great jobs, or what?” It answered with a resounding “Yes!”

The magazine ranks college teaching as the third best job in America in its November issue. It also ranks college teaching as the third least stressful job in America, with nearly 60 percent of professors surveyed saying their job is low stress.

When I shared this story during lunch with several professors at my community college, there was howling laughter all around. No one recognized themselves in this story, which highlighted a median salary of $70,400, flexible scheduling, intellectual freedom, long holidays and summer vacations.

How could Money have gotten it so wrong?"

College trend: Cut-rate faculty

Yet another non-academic reaction to CHE survey. This one supports better pay for adjuncts, albeit with understandable pro-science implications. Note closing paragraph:


"Still, a Ph.D-toting chemistry prof shouldn't have to earn less than a newly minted master's recipient picked up by the local middle school. How do we recruit and keep good faculty in research-intensive fields if the pay is equivalent to what day-care workers and shopping-mall cashiers earn? If we value a college education, then let's figure out a way to pay these educators what their investment in at least six to 10 years of university training should be worth."

College trend: Cut-rate *faculty* Science News on 10/23/09

Adjunct faculty face precarious financial security despite their playing an increasingly pivotal role in many schools ...

But is she qualified for a full-time position?

It's no longitudinal study about adjuncts' effects on retention or transfer rates, but in this article the country's Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, a long-time adjunct, provides some compelling testimony and at least one illustrious example of such unquantifiable "quality of education" factors as dedication, concern, and all-around excellence.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/10/21/ryan

How Administrators Took Over the University of California

Another excellent piece by Bob Samuels. If you want to understand higher budget mischief in general and, more specifically, what went awry with the UC system, you can't do better than by following Bob's blog, Changing Universities.

How Administrators Took Over the University of California via Changing Universities by Bob Samuels on 10/19/09

In the UC system, we have a saying, "When two administrators walk into a room, three always walk out." The question then is how do administrators reproduce and what effect does their reproduction have on the University of California. While I will not describe the mating habits of administrators, I will show how the growing rise of the administrative class means less money for everyone else, higher student fees, and a loss of shared governance.

According to a 2008 UCLA Faculty Association report, "Over the past decade, the numbers of Administrators in the UC almost doubled, while the number of faculty increased by 25%. The sharpest growth took place among Executives and Senior Managers: 114%. Because Administrators command high salaries and benefits, any increase in their number higher than the expected growth rate for the University results in high costs: rough estimates of the costs of carrying extra administrators at UC range around $800 million."

 The first thing to stress here is that during the last decade, as the number of students increased in the UC system, there were fewer faculty to teach them, but many more administrators to run the show. In this structure, power shifts to the administrative class, while the faculty are pushed out of shared governance. Moreover, due to their high compensation packages, administrators suck up the funds that could be spent on faculty salaries and wages for the lowest paid workers.

As I pointed out in a previous post, "In 2008, there were 397 administrators in the over 200k club making a total of $109 million, and in 2006, the same group had 214 members for a collective gross pay of $58.8 million. This group and its collective salaries, then, almost doubled in just two years." Not only has the administrative class grown in numbers and the percentage of the budget they consume through their salaries, but during the current period of "fiscal emergency," we have seen several million dollars spent on increased compensation for administrators.

UPTE has documented that during the same regents meeting where a fiscal emergency was declared and the furlough system was approved, hundreds of administrators got compensation increases,