Campus Parity Week 2023
Ideas and tools for campus education and activism
Campus Parity Week is a time of education and activism that draws attention to the working conditions of faculty working on temporary, low-paid contracts, who now constitute the majority of college instructors.
Officially, the date for Campus Parity Week is October 23-27, but what’s more important is that campus communities (faculty, students, staff, and administrators) get the word out this fall about the need to secure healthcare for part-time faculty. In general, the time to plan actions is during the last two weeks of October.
This toolkit is compiled by the CFT Part-Time Faculty Committee and contains materials to plan activities in your local union. Make it happen at your campus this year.
MATERIALS
CFT CAMPAIGN
Part-Time Faculty Campaign
Everything you need to know about our campaign! During Phase 1, member action secured $200 million in ongoing state funds to finance healthcare for part-time faculty, and CFT conducted a comprehensive survey of part-time faculty in California.
Groundbreaking Survey Results Call Out Healthcare Crisis
Our survey findings shine a light on the daily struggles that part-time faculty experience when it comes to healthcare. More than 2,500 part-time faculty responded between February and April, 2022. The majority of respondents were community college faculty, representing 58 of the state’s 72 districts.
• Toplines Summary
• Full Report
Local Contract Campaigns
Now in Phase 2, through “coordinated collective bargaining,” we are working to:
• Negotiate healthcare for part-time faculty into local contracts
• Build Contract Action Teams (CATs)
• Organize member actions to support negotiations
WHERE WE STAND
KEY CFT RESOLUTIONS
Find resolutions passed by delegates to CFT governance bodies, along with our stories about the policy changes and how they affect contingent faculty.
KEY AFT RESOLUTIONS
Find resolutions passed by AFT below.
AFT REPORTS
AFT Report: A State Legislative Agenda for Higher Ed Contingent Staff
Change is happening across the country! Find examples of state legislative victories throughout the nation in this June 2022 summary from AFT. California plays large!
An Army of Temps 2022: AFT Adjunct Faculty Quality of Work/Life Report
In 2020, during the pandemic, AFT followed up its initial 2019 report with a 61-question survey completed between May 21 and August 18, 2020. The updated “Army of Temps: AFT Adjunct Faculty Quality of Work/Life Report” detailed feedback from 1,883 respondents at two-year and four-year institutions — both public and private.
An Army of Temps 2020: AFT Adjunct Faculty Quality of Work/Life Report
In 2019, AFT conducted a nationwide survey of contingent faculty. The AFT’s 52-question survey was completed by 3,076 contingent faculty—part-time faculty, full-time non-tenure track faculty, and graduate employees. AFT was able to draw some robust conclusions about the conditions faced by this new majority of college faculty in the United States.
FLYER SERIES
Based on the 2019 survey results, AFT provided resources for use during campus actions including these five issue-based flyers.
Healthcare
Basic Needs and Food Security
Low Pay and Public Assistance
Lack of Job Security
Retirement
SIGNS
Four AFT message signs and one blank sign are available for campus actions. The message signs (17 in x 11 in) have a blank back for additional local messaging.
Campus Equity Now!
Fair Pay and a Union!
Free College for All!
Student Debt Cancellation Now!
Blank
NEWSROOM
CFT NEWSROOM
Some of our recent key stories are linked below. We have published dozens more articles under these tags:
- part-time faculty (community colleges)
- lecturers (University of California)
- PT Campaign (Part-Time Faculty Campaign)
- Local bargaining for part-time faculty healthcare ramps up
Phase 2 of Part-Time Faculty Campaign kicks off with regional meetings, negotiations training, Campus Equity Week
- Part-time faculty power up for change
Conference spotlights CFT equity campaign for contingent faculty
- What does losing healthcare look like for part-time faculty in our community colleges?
Pandemic, declining enrollment has led to loss of health benefits
Part 1 | Part 2
- Member action leads governor to pledge $200 million toward part-time faculty healthcare
CFT campaign brings early success in state budget
- UC lecturers’ victory inspires broad movement for equity across higher education
CFT wages a campaign for part-time faculty in the community colleges
- UC lecturers greet new contract as “a game changer” and “only the beginning”
UC-AFT negotiates groundbreaking agreement
GENERAL MEDIA
The general media has also taken deep dives into the two-tier system in higher ed.
- This proposal could solve health insurance problem for part-time community college faculty
CalMatters | May 2, 2022
An analysis of CFT survey data calling out dire healthcare circumstances among part-time faculty in the community colleges
- Adjuncts often find ladder leads to nowhere in California community colleges
EdSource | Feb 17, 2022
As many adjuncts have bitterly learned over the years, few bootstrapping dreams come true.
- Health care benefits key battleground for California’s adjunct community college faculty
EdSource | Feb 14, 2022
Adjuncts at 39 districts get some health benefits while 33 districts provide none
- The gig workers of California community colleges face worsening condition
EdSource | Feb 10, 2022
Is this the year for changes for adjunct faculty? Many CFT members participated in the EdSource survey.
- UC workforce churn: Why a quarter of lecturers don’t return each year
CalMatters | October 5, 2021
About a quarter of the more than 6,000 lecturers at the University of California don’t return annually.
- The Pernicious Silencing of the Adjunct Faculty
The Chronicle of Higher Education | October 30, 2017
How the current state of adjunctification is a threat to academic freedom.
- Life in academic poverty as an underpaid university teacher: They just don’t want to pay
Salon | Sept 24, 2016
Experience “heartbreaking stories from the academic underclass,” including some of our own CFT members who teach at community colleges and universities.
- Fighting Labor Contingency: Getting Teacher Unions to Work with the Larger Labor Community
The Adjunct Crisis | June 29, 2016
Teachers’ unions and traditional labor unions need to get on the same page in addressing the issue, and adjuncts are the true link between the two.
MORE REPORTS
Other organizations have published reports about the over-reliance on contingent faculty.
- The Shifting Academic Workforce: Where Are the Contingent Faculty?
The American Institutes of Research | November 2016
Comprehensive report profiles the contingent workforce. - Just-In-Time Professor
U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce | January 2014
National study of adjunct/contingent working conditions led by the U.S. House of Representatives.