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.

• Register your attendance on Facebook. 

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.