Common Ground: Fighting Together for Public Higher Education
Conference to focus on contingent faculty

Event

In an event which channels the spirit of Campus Equity Week, faculty union leaders have organized a free conference on the future of higher education at Berkeley City College on October 25.  

Common Ground: Fighting Together for Public Higher Education is a four-session conference focused on both the plight and challenges facing higher education in California, with a significant focus on part-time, or contingent, faculty.

The use of the term “common ground” is not incidental. The conference will bring together contingent faculty from all three of California’s public systems of higher education — the California Community Colleges, California State University, and the University of California. 

Contingent or part-time faculty in California are often marginalized not just by their local work environments, but by the fact that they work in very three different systems. At a local or even regional level, the teachers’ unions in these three systems only periodically interact with each other, despite the fact that there are contingent or part-time faculty that will teach in two, or even all three systems. Still, these contingent faculty face similar challenges in each of the systems, from a lack of job security, to inequitable pay, a lack of benefits, to even threats on academic freedom.

The CFT has endorsed the conference, along with several AFT local unions, including:

  • Peralta Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1603
  • San Francisco Community College District Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2121
  • State Center Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1533
  • UC-AFT Berkeley, AFT Local 1474

Other unions have also endorsed the event, including the California Faculty Association, San Francisco State University Chapter. 

Part-time faculty in California are often marginalized not just by their local work environments, but by the fact that they work in very three different systems. At a local or even regional level, the teachers’ unions in these three systems only periodically interact with each other, despite the fact that there are part-time faculty that will teach in two, or even all three systems. Still, these faculty face similar challenges in each of the systems, from a lack of job security, to inequitable pay, a lack of benefits, to even threats on academic freedom.

The hope is that conferences like this will start “the formation or rhetoric which creates a bigger picture and action planning” similar to the K-12 coalitions that have formed around educational funding.