Part-Timer
Part-Timer
Part-Timer promotes the interests of part-time faculty working in the California community colleges. It contains news about the movement to establish better conditions of employment for adjunct faculty, both in California and North America. Browse stories by date here or by index here.
Part-Timer is published twice during the academic year, in the fall and in the spring. The newsletter is emailed to part-time faculty. We welcome unsolicited articles, letters, and story ideas. Please send letters, submissions, or other inquiries to Jane Hundertmark, CFT Publications Director.
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Legislative high and low for part-time faculty
Healthcare funding increased in state budget, but higher workload cap vetoed
California community college adjuncts saw the single greatest gain for part-time faculty ever—$200 million in ongoing annual funding for part-time faculty healthcare—but felt bitter disappointment when CFT’s sponsored bill to lift the teaching cap to 85% of a full-time load died for a second time on Governor Newsom’s desk.
Part-timers and allies lobby legislators for healthcare, pay parity
PHOTO GALLERY
Students and full-time faculty join forces with part-time faculty
From the Bay Area to San Diego, and from the Central Valley to the Mojave Desert, part-time community college faculty, along with full-time faculty and student allies, gathered at Sacramento’s famed Sutter Club on Monday morning, May 1, to go forth and make California legislators aware of the critical need for part-time faculty healthcare and pay parity.
Part-Time Faculty Conference empowers through learning
PHOTO GALLERY
Workshops focus on bargaining, lobbying, organizing, diversity, communications
When it comes to union work, power and knowledge work hand in hand. Union is not simply about expressing demands, speaking truth to power, and being resolute in the face of adversity. It’s about making connections, sharing truths, building solidarity, empowering, and speaking to be heard.
Developing the knowledge to do these things and putting the power of that knowledge to use was core to the workshops at the CFT Part-Time Faculty Conference held May 1-2 in Sacramento.
Part-time faculty power up for change
PHOTO GALLERY
Conference spotlights CFT equity campaign for contingent faculty
A crowd of more than 100 members strong — some seasoned part-timers with decades of experience, others new adjuncts for which this was their first union event — were engaged as the CFT Part-Time Faculty Conference opened to roars and cheers with its theme of “Equity for Contingent Faculty.” The feeling one had as a part-timer was best summed up by Lin Chan, co-chair of the CFT Part-Time Faculty Committee, “You’re not one person…you’re one of thousands.”
Groundbreaking CFT survey calls out healthcare crisis among part-time faculty
Critical insights into part-time faculty in community colleges statewide
The results of CFT’s groundbreaking statewide survey of part-time faculty offer critical insights into the daily, personal, and structural challenges that part-time and contingent faculty experience when it comes to healthcare.
What does losing healthcare look like for part-time faculty in our community colleges? Part 2
Pandemic, declining enrollment has led to loss of health benefits
Samira Rostami has taught Communication Studies at Grossmont College since 2014, as well as at four other San Diego area higher ed institutions including the University of San Diego. Her health took a dramatic turn for the worse shortly after area campuses closed in late March 2020 due to the COVID pandemic.
A “red letter year” for CFT legislation in support of contingent faculty
Healthcare insurance, teaching load, rehire rights, and parity
COVID and the subsequent student enrollment drop during the last two semesters have placed great burdens on contingent faculty, from scrambling to teach remotely to negotiating personal and family challenges to facing reduced assignments and a loss of healthcare benefits.
Continued enrollment woes create challenges for part-time faculty
Local unions finding solutions in pandemic-driven tough times
While California is showing strong signs of emerging from an economy ravaged by the pandemic, the community colleges are still reeling from the impact, most strongly demonstrated in the sharp decline in student enrollment. This has led to tough situations for many adjuncts, and for the local unions representing them.
HELU Winter Summit unites efforts across unions
Promotes socio-economic and racial justice in higher education
HELU, or Higher Education Labor United, a cross-union and cross-sector coalition, held its Winter Summit virtually on February 23-27, pushing forward with the larger goals of reclaiming the promise of higher education, and promoting socio-economic and racial justice embodied by the New Deal for Higher Education campaign and Scholars for a New Deal in Higher Education.
Part-time faculty face loss of work, health benefits in COVID times
Locals negotiate vaccine stipends, reduced class minimums, retention of health benefits
As the COVID pandemic stretches into the fall, community college adjuncts have been hit especially hard by the decline in student enrollment, limited support services, and inadequate or even non-existent access to healthcare. The loss of work, loss of insurance benefits, and even the breakdown of personally financed yet essential teaching equipment have been the tragic results.
CFT launches campaign to secure healthcare for part-time faculty
“Adjuncts deserve, at the very least, the basic right of healthcare”
The pandemic has pushed many harsh realities in higher education to the forefront, none more so than the inadequacy of healthcare for part-time faculty. With the cost of an average COVID hospitalization, according to a number of sources, running in excess of $20,000, the financial effects alone on an uninsured part-timer contracting COVID can be devastating. Add a possible uninsured family member or members to the mix, and the reality becomes even more frightening.
“Power Despite Precarity” — how contingent faculty can build greater solidarity and success
BOOK REVIEW
Power Despite Precarity: Strategies for the Contingent
Faculty Movement in Higher Education
By Joe Berry and Helena Worthen
Pluto Press, 2021
Reviewed by Geoff Johnson
If there were two words which often define what may best be termed the “contingent condition,” they would be alienation and powerlessness.
Governor’s veto of AB 375 disappointing setback in push for increased workload cap
Legislative update for part-time faculty
“Bittersweet” might be the best word to describe CFT’s legislative efforts on behalf of part-time faculty this year, with gains in categorical funding, but a last-minute veto of the union-sponsored bill to raise the teaching cap in a single community college district from 67% to 85% — AB 375.
New coalition groups take bold steps for higher ed justice
Higher Education Labor United expands labor outreach
Several months ago, when Congress began the budget reconciliation process, there were significant aspirations that the final bill would result in a significant uptick for higher education, including funding for free community college.
Make your passion happen — Mark James Miller pens second novel
Steadfast dedication to teaching, the union and writing
Mark James Miller’s second novel, The White Cockade, was published on September 30 to numerous advance accolades including from the Kirkus Review.
In Memoriam: Paul Baltimore and Ken Taira
Unions lose faculty dedicated to part-timer activism
It is vital in what has been the long struggle for part-time equity and social justice that we fully acknowledge those activists who up until their passing, gave their all and inspired many. Two such figures are Paul Baltimore and Ken Taira. Both members were recognized at CFT State Council on September 25.
How Peralta won the first pay parity in CA community colleges
San Mateo Federation campaign makes big strides toward parity
Equal pay for equal work. It’s a simple idea, but one that has remained all but elusive for part-time faculty, so much so that some have decried the quest for it as a Sisyphean effort. However, the recent gains made by the Peralta Federation of Teachers shows that parity is possible.
Now, Peralta pays its adjuncts at the same hourly rate for teaching and office hours as its full-time faculty — a first in the California Community College system.
Adjuncts and their unions fight on in the face of COVID
Enrollment decline, lost classes, adjunct relief fund
While the number of COVID cases are shrinking, and the vaccination rate increasing, the effects of the pandemic continue, with adjuncts having been hit particularly hard, as despite the heroic efforts of faculty to provide remote and online instruction, California community college enrollment has dropped systemwide by 11 to 12% since last fall, according to Edsource.
CFT seeks 85% adjunct teaching load, statewide path to pay parity
Union-sponsored legislation tackles long-standing adjunct issues
After last year’s heavily pandemic-impacted legislative session reduced the number of bills signed to its lowest number since 1967, the CFT is again taking up the adjunct cause on bills directed towards raising the part-time percentage cap on teaching in a single district, and in developing a path towards part-time/full-time pay parity.
Healthcare, transferable training top adjunct priorities at CFT Convention
Delegates resolve to address timely adjunct issues
At this year’s virtual CFT Convention held March 26-27, the Part-Time Faculty Committee sponsored two resolutions reflective of both the longstanding and new problems beginning to emerge in the wake of the pandemic which has impacted adjunct health and training.