Teach-in on #Adjunct Faculty, 4/20/2012 @GreenRiverCC

…moderated by #KeithHoeller and Kathryn Re…featuring Frank Cosco and Jack Longmate.

The teach-in addresses multiple inequities built into the two faculty system and possible solutions. 

Colorado HB14-1124: #EqualPay4EqualWork

…Today TuesJan 21, Don Eron wrote #adjuncts on the adj-l list. Links, docs, etc referenced below will also be aggregated on a separate page along with other items relevant to this important campaign. 

Dear Colleagues,

For those of you who are interested in following the progress of the "Community College Pay and Benefits Equity Act of 2014," the Colorado House hearing will be on February 3 at 1:30 pm.

Documents will be posted on BOTH the "Equal Pay Bill 2014" page of, the Front Range Community College's AAUP web site, and on the  Colorado Conference of the AAUP web page.  [Ed note: the plucky Colorado Adjuncts are also on Facebook if you'd like to leave them a congrats message]

Clarice Lawless, Front Range CC, at the mic

The press release about our press conference on the steps of the State Capitol last Friday on the Front Range page includes a video of the press conference, embedded player and link. There were nine speakers -- five adjuncts, the house sponsor, the senate sponsor, an AAUP speaker (me), and an AFT speaker.

Legislative Triumph in Colorado!

A giant step forward for #ContingentFaculty everywhere, HB 1144 passed the Senate, now awaits expected signing. The good news story we've been following has the ending we hoped for. In my opinion, it also speaks to future possibilities for Program for Change, authored by Jack Longmate and Frank Fosco. "Colorado Adjunct Project" team member and long time contingent faculty activist, Don Eron of the Colorado AAUP writes [emphasis and links added], 

Dear Colleagues,

You will be interested to learn that on Tuesday Colorado House Bill 1144, the so-called "Contingent Faculty Bill," was passed by the Democratic-controlled State Senate, 22-12. This followed on the heels of a dramatic, and surprising, 36-29 victory last month in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. House Bill 1144 is now on the desk of the Democratic governor, who is expected to sign it.

The law will give state universities and colleges the option of engaging in binding employment contracts with NTTF for up to three years. Previously, all faculty not on a tenure track had been declared by Colorado law to be at-will employees.

@DeanDad: Where is He?

I am very tired, in a good way, after our wonderful NFM-AAUC conference in DC. Read more about it here and here. Then I stumbled across a recent reference to our noble organization on Friday Follow-ups, to which I take exception. Following are my remarks, to Dean Dad ~ some of you may know him, even his name. Anyway, this is just for the elite, the cognoscento, as it were. Gosh, I really am tired. Anyway, I chunked this in here because I can't seem to get it out on the great webish highway any other way:

Dear Dean Dad, 

Your comments, as always, are most provocative. You must be enjoying yourself. As a board member of New Faculty Majority though, I have to take exception to your comment about New Faculty Majority’s advocacy of the “Vancouver model” for paying adjuncts making you worry about your hair because you “pull out what little” you have left whenever you read NFM on such subjects. Please. Whatever your notions about Canada being where it is, and not being in the United States, the published NFM position is that we advocate equity in compensation, job security, academic freedom, faculty governance, professional advancement, benefits, and access to unemployment insurance. 

This came in today's rss feeds: Evolution or Revolution, from Ray Watkins' Writing in the Wild. 


Wow! Is this how it feels to be "historical"? Beats being lambasted by a cranky dean. Now head on over to Program for Change and join the conversation with those who have already posted comments. You don't have to agree with us either. If you don't, we want to hear about it. You are welcome to post comments under pseudonym if necessary or preferred. Come be historical with us. We're putting the ball in play but can't carry it alone.

In 25 or 50 years, when someone or other, most likely a graduate student, writes a history of U.S. Higher Education in our time, the New Faculty Majority “Program for Change: 2010-2030” will have to play a key role. I don’t think it matters if the particulars of the program are achieved or not; its historical importance is its attempt to imagine a new employment system in U.S. higher education using a model developed largely in California and Canada. I think that it’s broad enough to be useful to almost anyone interested in reforming higher education. It’s our, “What is to be Done.”

OK, maybe it’s only our “Port Huron Statement.” Hopefully, in articulating this vision, the NFM has signaled the nadir of the current system. I think the proposed system makes a lot of sense; it touches on all of the key problems. 

Then head over to Writing in the Wild and tell Ray "thank you" from us (again). Please note changes here too. Just to remind you, I've added a screenshot thumbnail + link to the sidebar, top right. Other changes: a page with Maria's letter about the Program; news feed on the top of the page; improved blogroll. 


Yes, it's been slow here, and, no, the dog didn't eat my keyboard. I've been busy herding poets, but that's over for the season. I'll be blogging here more diligently. 

Program for Change

OK everybody... this is important. WE NEED FEEDBACK. Get a move on and haul it on over to the Program for Change site. Read the letter about the plan, read plan or as much of it as you can manage at one sitting ~ then post comments to let us know what you think of the plan. Tell us what you'd like to see added, taken off, changed, clarified, made more or less tougher, and so on.

"Program for Change: 2010-2030" | A Discussion Covened by NFM

PS I mean NOW, not next week or after you finish grading your first set of fall semester papers

COCAL & Program

So far e-published COCAL updates include a brief report (in French) from a French Canadian news outlet and Jennifer Epstein's IHE article, "Visions of Adjunct Tenure," which has already garnered a number of comments with no doubt more comments, blog posts and articles to come.

Puma Freytag, Marie Blais, Mary Ellen Goddwin, Maria Treresa Lechuga. 

© Agence QMI

Jack Longmate reports on the our Program for Change session... 

The Saturday NFM session at COCAL IX went well and was well attended -- estimating around 30 people, a significant number considering that the was competing with 5 other concurrent workshop sessions. Peter Brown and Ross Borden were in the audience, with Peter taking pictures at a few points. NFM advisory board members present included Joe Berry and Rich Moser. Others attending included David Rives, president of AFT Oregon; Mary Ellen Goodwin, one of the leading COCAL organizers over the last decade; Jonathan Karpf; Holly Clarke and Shirley Rausher from the CUNY system (who volunteered input and comments); Don Eron from Colorado; Betsy Smith of Cape Cod CC; and others. 

Input on the Program for Change was positive and in one case, inspired the sale of 5 NFM bumper stickers. Frank Cosco's presentation was especially clear, as were his responses to points brought up during the discussion. Ross made an especially eloquent statement of support. 

The UI session went well also.  Helena Wortham asked if my slides could be posted somewhere, and Joe Berry suggested on the NFM website.

---

Related Links (chosen by humans, no bots involved)

• CHE previews COCAL, spills Program4Change beans but misses the boat
• COCAL "programme"
• Our own pre-COCAL piece briefly introducing Program for Change but without giving the farm away or encroaching on Frank's and Jack's limelight in any way. 
• About Program for Change ~ Letter to NFM Members
• The thing itself ~ Program for Change
• Aforementioned IHE piece, Visions of Adjunct Tenure
• U Colorado Boulder Faculty Assembly approves Instructor Tenure
• Dean Dad puts in his entirely predictable 2¢, A Response to the New Faculty Majority 
• Blogger Missoula Redhead responds at Pop Culture Academic (a find for the adjunct blog list: to be added toot sweet)