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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Do you know what to do during a campus emergency?
Part-time faculty identify needs for further training and information
How much do you know about maintaining a safe and secure environmentwhere you teach? If you don’t know your campus’ safety and security protocols and expectations of faculty in emergencies, do you know where to find them?
Soon after an isolated incident at Sacramento City College in September that left one person dead and another hospitalized, part-time Sociology instructor Angelo Williams began thinking about campus safety, what he needed to know, and how to support students in the wake of the event.
Freeway Flyers: Local action & quick news
Santa Maria part-timers negotiate numerous improvements
Part-time instructors at Allan Hancock College negotiated an 8 percent pay increase over the next two years starting this spring when all part-time academic employees received a 4 percent salary increase. They will get a 2 percent raise this fall and another in fall 2016. In a tremendous boost, service faculty (counselors, librarians, and nurses) received an additional 20 percent pay increase.
New CFT bills create minimum job security standards, strengthen the 75:25 regulation
Job security and due
process for part-time faculty
AB 1010 (Medina, D-Riverside)
This bill calls for the establishment of minimum standards for part-time faculty job security. If enacted, it would require all California community colleges without a collectively bargained contract that provides equivalent or stronger job security and due process rights to establish a seniority list for part-time faculty rehire.
Loan forgiveness program may bring relief
Last year, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) made headlines with his “Adjunct Faculty Loan Fairness Act,” a bill that would have made it much easier for part-time faculty to benefit from the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, designed to encourage graduates to pursue a career in public service by offering loan forgiveness for those working full-time in government or the non-profit sector.
Paying for time but not for space: The need for a “room of one’s own” on campus
FIRST PERSON | Linda Sneed
We all know that our work takes place not just during scheduled class meetings, in classrooms on college campuses. We work in many times and places: early in the morning, through mealtimes, and late at night; in our cars, on public transportation, on our phones and personal computers, at home, in coffee shops, in public libraries.
Lessons learned: Wronged Peralta part-time instructors rehired
Sociology instructor Cynthia Mahabir is back in the classroom. What did it take to get her there, after her district mysteriously refused to honor its contract with faculty and rehire her after 17 years of teaching at Laney College?
Freeway Flyers: Local action & quick news
ACCJC has taken part-time jobs from San Francisco
With City College of San Francisco still in limbo status due to unfair sanctions from the Accrediting Commission for Junior and Community Colleges, nearly 150 part-time faculty have lost their jobs in the past couple of years and few, if any, part-time counselors have been rehired.
AFT Convention forms Part-Time Caucus
Part-time and contingent faculty throughout the United States now have a stronger voice in our national union with the formation of a Part-Time Caucus at the AFT Convention in July.
Several California part-timers are helping shape this tool to influence AFT priorities and connect part-timers nationwide.
Two new laws will benefit part-time faculty in California
Improved transfer of unused sick leave
Assembly Bill 2295 (Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles) makes it easier for part-timers to transfer unused sick leave from a previous community college employer to a new one by extending the transfer period from a mere one year to three academic years.
CalSTRS offers more assistance with service credit reporting
By Sharon Hendricks
To help part-time faculty understand how districts report service credit and to ensure they receive all service credit they have earned throughout their teaching careers when they retire, CalSTRS has opened new centers in Irvine, Glendale, and Santa Clara, staffed by benefits counselors trained to navigate part-time-faculty issues.
Join CFT campaign for office hours pay, full-time positions
How can we get more state funding for office hours, equal pay for equal work, and new full-time positions that that will benefit existing part-time faculty? CFT is calling on part-timers and their allies to urge the governor to include line items in the state budget dedicated to these essential improvements.
Advocate for our interests in providing equal education opportunities for students by writing directly to Gov. Brown and others who influence the state budget. Ask the governor and the Department of Finance for these new resources:
Rehire rights: Long-time instructor describes pain of losing assignment
Outpouring of faculty and student support
What happens when your employer disregards your contractually negotiated rehire rights? Part-time instructors at Oakland’s Laney College recently found out. One of them is Cynthia Mahabir, a sociology instructor and Part-Time Representative on the executive board of the Peralta Federation of Teachers.
Freeway Flyers: Local action & quick news
- AFT Guild successfully negotiated for continuing education part-time faculty in the San Diego community colleges to be on the same salary schedule as credit-course instructors, and in the Grossmont-Cuyamaca district for part-timers teaching 50 percent of a full load to be eligible for fully district-paid healthcare coverage starting January 2015.
Part-time-friendly resolutions passed at CFT Convention
At the CFT Convention in March, the full body of delegates passed three important resolutions that affect part-time faculty.
More part-timers choose AFT/CFT as their union
Faculty teaching non-credit courses at both Citrus College and the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Colleges have chosen AFT as their union. Non-credit hourly part-time faculty at Citrus and continuing education part-time faculty at Grossmont-Cuyamaca had been paid significantly less than their colleagues teaching for-credit courses.
Now the faculty have union representation, are on salary schedules with opportunities for schedule advancement, and can accrue sick leave.
What does the Affordable Care Act really mean for part-time faculty?
The Affordable Care Act has made it possible for some previously uninsured part-time faculty to get healthcare coverage. For others, coverage has become more affordable. Available subsidies, along with customizable combinations of premiums and deductibles, may make going on the exchange worthwhile.
When do you qualify for unemployment benefits?
If you are teaching summer school, you may qualify for unemployment benefits in the periods before or after summer session. If you do not have a summer or fall teaching assignment, or another job, you may be entitled to unemployment benefits.
This results from a 1989 legal challenge brought by the CFT in the landmark case Cervisi v. California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.
Ancillary pay programs: New strategies for part-timer inclusion on campus
Parity pay — compensation for part-time faculty commensurate with that of our full-time colleagues for comparable work — is one of the defining goals of the movement for part-timer equity. Progress continues to be made, but in lean budgetary times salary schedule advancements may be more difficult to negotiate.
How does your pay rate compare to others?
CFT releases comprehensive salary survey of part-time faculty
Have you ever wondered how your pay rate compares to that of other part-time faculty throughout the state? Who gets paid for office hours and how much? Will you earn more if you have a doctorate? What percentage are you earning of what full-timers make at your college for their teaching duties?
Mark James Miller: Meet one of the hardest working organizers of part-timers
English instructor and president of the Part-Time Faculty Association of Allan Hancock College Mark James Miller says that one of the accomplishments of which he is most proud is “getting administrators to recognize how important part-time faculty are. Part-time faculty used to be invisible to them, or seen as just interchangeable parts. That’s not the case anymore.”