The Adjunct Advocate

ARCHIVE: April 2008

April 30th 2008

A COCAL Make-over: The Beehive Hair-do Is Out and Free Technology Is In!

If you've never heard of COCAL, check out this piece in Adjunct Advocate, and this site, as well. In August of this year, COCAL is holding its eighth conference. I stopped by the group's web site to have a look, and I heard the calendar of events was up. Evidently, there is no information architecture adjunct involved. It took several clicks to find the information. People hate to click around sites, my friend who is an information architect for a major university web site tells me. It's the instant gratification of the Web that triggers the irritation. We expect information online to just pop up. At the COCAL VIII web site, you'll get to the conference goodies, but not as directly as my friend (who knows about such things) would recommend.

The date of the conference is August 8-10, 2008. At the moment, unfortunately, it's not possible to register online with a credit card. One wonders how part-timers, many of whom live off of their credit cards, and the ensuing float, will come up with the fee in cash. The conference fee is steep: $140 for the event and meals. Well, steep is a relative term, right? However, add transportation and housing, and a trip to COCAL will top $300-$400, easy.

Though there was not a widely-circulated call for proposals, unfortunately, there are "how-to" workshops: "Successful Organizing Campaigns," and "Strategies for achieving job security, and "Contract Negotiations," to name a few. There are also two plenary sessions. One is titled "State of the Profession," and the other is titled, "Globalization & Incorporation of Higher Education." Ok. Could be fantastic; could be a bust. There are no names on the agenda. Not only would potential attendees appreciate names, bios of the speakers would be nice so that participants could prepare by reading up on the them. Synopses of workshops and concurrent sessions would be useful, as well, so that potential participants could get a sense of what, exactly, they might expect before paying and making selections.

These are all omissions of inexperience and myopia more than anything else. Organizing events, such as the COCAL conference, is a huge undertaking and since COCAL has no centralized leadership, every time a different COCAL affiliate takes on the organization of the conference, those involved reinvent enough wheels to outfit a semi-truck, I imagine.

It's time for COCAL to get one those television make-overs. How about establishing a standing conference committee with members from each COCAL affiliate? There are just too many free communication resources for people to be isolated anymore. Committee meetings could be by free Yahoo IM conferencing, free Yahoo video conferencing, or dirt-cheap Skype conference calling (1 cent per minute). This would go a long way toward easing (what I imagine is) a huge burden from those at individual COCALs who undertake the conference and get absolutely overwhelmed as time goes by. COCAL could rotate locations, as do most disciplinary conferences: North (including Canada), South (including Mexico), East, West, Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, Southwest, and then once more from the top!

Money is a concern for both organizers and attendees. I have heard rumors that some national labor unions are paying to send full-time staff to attend COCAL, but not providing funding for part-time members to go. There is a special place in hell for the leader of any education union that won't pay for 2-3 part-time faculty members of the union, local, affiliate, clan, pride, gang, flock, herd, aerie, whatever to attend COCAL. Be that as it may, it is ultimately the responsibility of the conference organizers to tend to their own finances. Relying on the kindness of strangers got Blanche Dubois in a boatload of trouble. Relying on the kindness and largesse of education unions is sheer folly. What the union Prez giveth, the union Prez can taketh away. Then there is always the possibility that there will arise a union Prez who knew not COCAL. I think you get my drift.

COCAL affiliates should form a standing finance committee (again, with representatives from each affiliate) that would set a budget for each conference, raise money for scholarships, create opportunities for reduced fees, etc...Let us never forget that it's maybe better for the part-timer who teaches English to write the call for proposals, and the part-timer who teaches marketing and finance to publicize the event, count the cash and come up with the budget. It's time for COCAL to aggressively recruit people with specific skills from not only within their own affiliates but from other affiliates, as well. This means recruiting people with experience and specific skills to do specific jobs. Smart organizers will find a job for everyone who wants to help!

Finally, it's time for COCAL to regularize and restructure COCAL conference fees. It doesn't cost $50 in conference fees one year to go to the MLA and $150 in conference fees the next. Similarly, full-time and part-time faculty don't pay the same fees to attend MLA, either. Thus, the AAUP staff member with the full ride from her/his employer to attend COCAL, could be charged a lot more than a part-timer from SoCal.

Have any ideas of your own? Email COCAL VIII organizers here. Post your comments at the end of my blog, and if the fates allow, think about attending COCAL VIII this year.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 1:24 PM

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April 20th 2008

Some Adjunct Top Guns

As the academic year draws to a close, colleges and universities around the U.S. are giving out teaching awards. Awards given to adjunct and part-time faculty strike a particularly poignant note at schools where part-timers hold work-for-hire appointments. One year, a part-timer can be Teacher of the Year, and the next she can be sacked. Setting that reality aside for a moment, I thought a sampling of the adjunct faculty who have won teaching awards this year would be of interest to all who take pride in their work in the classroom, but who teach at schools which don't recognize part-time faculty with any kind of teaching award.

Mike Looper, University of Arkansas at Fort Smith

from the UA-Fort Smith News:

Dr. Looper, a research scientist with the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, has been teaching anatomy and physiology courses as a member of the adjunct faculty at UA Fort Smith since 2004. He also serves as an adjunct professor and is on the graduate faculty of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

Dr. Looper has authored or coauthored more than 150 scientific publications on various topics ranging from animal physiology to food safety, including “E. coli O157:H7.” He reviews scientific manuscripts for several peer-reviewed research journals and serves as associate editor of the “Journal of Animal Science.”

Dr. Looper has been invited to serve as a panel reviewer for the 1890 Institution Teaching and Research Capacity Building Grants Program in Washington, D.C., for the past four years.

He earned a master’s degree in animal science at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and a Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from Oklahoma State University. Prior to being employed with the USDA, Dr. Looper was on the faculty at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

The Krehbiel Award recognizes contributions of UA Fort Smith’s part-time faculty. The award is named for Luella M. Krehbiel, who taught English and literature at the university from 1929 through 1958. The recipient receives a cash award of $1,000.

Sandy Jackson, Colorado Mountain College

from the Colorado Post Independent.

Had chemical biology captured Sandy Jackson’s interest a bit more, her life would have turned out a little differently than it has.

Instead of recently being selected as Colorado Mountain College’s adjunct faculty of the year, for both the Roaring Fork Campus and the entire CMC system, Jackson might have been living elsewhere making a living as a physical therapist, if she could have just made it though one semester.

“It only took one semester of biology to know that it was not for me,” Jackson said.

Her time at Boston’s Simmons College was short-lived before returning to more familiar ground at Fort Lewis College in Durango. At Fort Lewis she turned her attention to one thing that held her interest well: playing in the dirt....

To read more about Sandy Jackson, follow the link above to the article.

Tom Deitz, Gainsville State College

from the Access North Georgia web site.

....Additionally, the GSC students voted and chose the full-time and adjunct Ann Matthews Purdy Outstanding Faculty Members of the Year.

Tom Deitz was named as the Ann Matthews Purdy Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Member of the Year. Deitz grew up in Young Harris and earned both his Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Georgia. Students describe him as, brilliant, amusing, and extremely likable. His talents abound outside the classroom as well; he recently received the prestigious Phoenix Award, which is given to a professional who has greatly influenced Southern Fandom. He is the published author of 19 books, and was named Georgia Author of the Year for Young Adult Fantasy and Young Adult Literature.

Joel Weiss, Penn State at Altoona

from the Penn State Altoona Now web site:

The Altoona College Outstanding Lecturer Award was created to recognize excellence in teaching by members of Penn State Altoona's part-time faculty. The award is based on evidence of superior teaching effectiveness, including student ratings and letters of support from students and colleagues. The 2008 recipient is Joel Weiss (part-time lecturer in communication arts and science).

Edith Carron, College of Southern Maryland

from the Southern Maryland Online web site:

Edith Carron doesn’t see the world like most people do. The recent winner of the College of Southern Maryland’s first Part-time Faculty Excellence Award, Carron teaches her students to appreciate the complexity of the truly small things in the world like microbes, bacteria, protists and parasites.

Carron, who has been on the faculty at CSM’s Leonardtown Campus since 2003, teaches microbiology and zoology, but her discussions regarding microbiology are the ones that really engage her students. Carron holds a master of science in microbiology and a doctorate in molecular biology, all from the University of Latvia....

To read more about Edith Carron, please follow the link above.

Janis Lorman, University of Akron

from the Stow Sentry:

The University of Akron honored six outstanding faculty and students April 7 during its seventh annual Celebration of Excellence in Learning and Teaching.

Janis Lorman of Stow, a speech pathologist with more than 35 years of experience, received the Outstanding Part-Time Faculty Award. Lorman received bachelor's and master's degrees in speech pathology and a master's degree with emphasis in audiology from Kent State University. She has received the Elwood Chaney Outstanding Clinician Award from the Ohio Speech and Hearing Association and the Distinguished Service Award from the Akron Regional Speech and Hearing Association. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Audiology.

Dr. Mona M. Choucair, Baylor University

from the Baylor University web site:

Dr. Mona M. Choucair, a lecturer in English at Baylor University, has been selected by this year's senior class as the 2008 Collins Outstanding Professor, an annual award provided by the Carr P. Collins Foundation that recognizes and honors extraordinary teachers at Baylor.

"I am both humbled and honored by this recognition from the senior class," Choucair said. "I have loved working with so many of these young people both in the classroom and through extracurricular events. I love what I do here at Baylor, and I pray daily that it shows through my words and my actions. Thank you to the Collins family for their generosity and support."

The Collins Professor receives a cash award of $10,000, recognition in university publications, citation on a plaque and recognition at spring commencement. As the 2008 Collins Outstanding Professor, Choucair will give deliver a special lecture later this semester on a subject of her choice. The lecture will be published and made available to the university community. Choucair's lecture and topic will be announced at a later date....

To read more about Dr. Choucair, please follow the link above.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:57 AM

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April 13th 2008

Those Part-Time, Pigs at Pace University

I just read a piece titled: "Adjunct union negotiations continue with tension." If only the negotiations, which have dragged on four years, could be more fun. In the article, Pace's interim VP of Human Resources, Dr. William J. McGrath, is quoted as saying, that the university offered to pay $750 per credit hour ($2250 per course, up from $2000 per course) and a 2 percent raise. McGrath is also quoted as saying, "The Union proposed minimum credit-hour rates retroactive to 2004 which for some adjuncts would result in increases of up to 100 percent. The Union also proposed a salary adjustment of 20 percent retroactive to 2006-2007, an academic year in which all other University employees received a 2.5 percent increase."

So, obviously the reason negotiations have dragged on for four years is that the part-timers are being total pigs. Being so close to Wall Street, interim HR Boyo Billy McGrath knows the old saying that a financial market can bear bears and bulls, but not pigs.

According to this audited 2007 budget from the Pace University Department of Finance, the school took in $262 million dollars in 2007, and spent $115 million on instruction, $2 million dollars less than officials spent on instruction in 2006.

As always, for those of you not teaching fractions and percents in Developmental Math this term, to increase the pay of the Pace university's 1000 part-timers 100 percent would cost around $11 million dollars, or 4.25 percent of the school's total 2007 budget. To give the greedy, part-time, S.O.B.s the 100 percent raise plus the 20 percent retroactive raise would cost Pace $11.1 million dollars. Jaysus H., as me old Mam used to say when confronted by soup that was no longer $.5 a can! What's the world coming to?

Dr. William McGrath suggests by his response to the union's request that jacking up the costs of student instruction by 10 bloody, sodding, effing percent, Pace University's whole $267 million dollar budget will implode (or do bloated budgets just ooze, somewhat disgustingly?). And for good measure he wants everyone to know that in 2006 a 2.5 percent raise was good enough for him, by Goddess. Well, our resident part-time faculty math whizzes will tell us that 2.5 percent of the $150K McGrath earns is $3,750 dollars, and 2.5 percent of the $2,000 per course part-timers currently earn is $50 a year. Call me a greedy pig, but I'd want more than $50 bucks, too.

To increase part-time pay by 100 percent Pace officials will have to either reallocate 4.5 percent of the institution's total revenue, take money from its cash on hand, tap its endowment, or raise revenue by increasing tuition. In 2007, the university spent $17 million more than it earned, and it will be easy for officials to claim poverty in the face of union demands for more money. However, the bulk of the overrun was a result of an increase not in the cost of instruction, academic support or student services, but rather in institutional support.

You're furrowing your brows, yes? You wonder what, in the name of Tina Turner, institutional support is exactly? Check out this definition from the Finance Department at the University of Wisconsin. It will give you an idea of what Pace officials over-spent on.

There are no part-time faculty pigs at Pace, contrary to what William McGrath would like people to believe. There's no pot o' gold, either. Finding the money in that budget to raise pay 100 percent for part-timers ain't gonna be easy for Pace University part-time faculty union president John Pawlowski, and chances are the union may have to settle for less than 100 percent pay raise the first time around. However, if university officials can blow the budget to the tune of $9 million dollars in overhead overruns, officials can work together with union leaders and can sharpen their pencils in 2009 to find a larger increase than $250 per course, plus $40 per adjunct.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:00 AM

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April 10th 2008

"Anti-Union" (Translation: "Bitch")

In a piece recently written for Inside Higher Ed, the writer calls Washington State part-timer and long-time national adjunct activist Keith Hoeller's writing "anti-union." I read and read and re-read the IHE posting. The writer calls Hoeller's writing "anti-union rhetoric"again in the comment section. Something bugged me about the comment. Then it hit me. The guy was calling Keith Holler a bitch for daring to ask the hard questions he did in the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Alright, before the language police come to my house and bitch-slap me, let me explain. Bitch is one of those words. You know, code words. Women I know feel perfectly comfortable referring to other women as bitches. That's not code; that's straight-talking. Women get to use the word bitch same as men get to call each other pricks. It's understood. It's when men call women bitches, and women call men pricks that the gloves come right off.

I know you are sitting there, shaking your head, and muttering: "Shut up!"

So, what does the "anti-union" swipe have to do with all of this? Let me explain: Keith Hoeller has been going toe-to-toe with WFT on behalf of Washington State's 10,000 part-timers since before the IHE writer was getting the business from his dissertation committee. Hoeller has been a pain in the AFT's collective butter dish for over a decade. He has stood up and howled about what he perceives as his state union's oversights in its representation of the part-timers, of the union's representation of, well, him. He has spoken at conferences, written editorials for mainstream newspapers and The Chronicle of Higher Education since 1997.

In 2002, Hoeller scored the AAUP's Georgina Smith Award, that "recognizes a person who has provided exceptional leadership in the past year in improving the status of academic women or in advancing academic collective bargaining and who, through that work, has improved the profession in general." Maybe the author of the IHE piece, who is running for re-election to the AAUP Membership committee, forgot to read AAUP's description of long-time member Keith Hoeller:
"He [Hoeller] has been a tireless advocate for part-time faculty in the Washington State legislature. Senators Jeanne Kohl-Welles, chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee; Ken Jacobsen, who was for many years the chair of the House Higher Education Committee; and Phyllis Kenney, current chair of the House Higher Education Committee have been important allies in the struggle to increase appropriations by more than $25 million in the past six years to increase part-time faculty salaries. The legislature also approved retirement benefits and sick leave for many part-time instructors."

In February 2008, Hoeller published an editorial in the Seattle Post Intelligencer that was a big old rap right across the knuckles of his own union, the Washington Federation of Teachers. He comes right out and writes that, "...[A]djuncts have been represented by the Washington Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers for decades. Although the unions have bargained strong contracts for their full-time members, they have failed to provide 'fair representation' to their part-time professors." A Prince of the AFT called Hoeller's assertions "untruths" in the union's FACE Talk Blog. Untruths. That's code for "Liar. Liar. Pants on fire."

The IHE author writes in his piece that Hoeller's Seattle Post Intelligencer editorial, "....veered into anti-union propaganda." To use a popular bit of IM shorthand, ?!? (If you are rusty with the Instant Messenging shorthand, check here for a translation.) Writing in a higher ed. pub. that Keith Hoeller is capable of anti-unionism is akin to writing in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, the Pope is anti-religion. It's heretical in some circles. In other circles, it's like calling someone, well, a bitch. Anti-union is code.

There are all kinds of code words for people who ask hard questions that make other people uncomfortable. We got the women: why should they settle for 70 cents for every dollar men earn? Why can't they run the company? Bitches. We got the Part-timers: why is there still a huge pay gap between faculty represented by the same union, who hold the same credentials, and teach the same courses? Anti-union propagandists.

Joseph Goebbels was a propagandist. Henry Ford was anti-union. Keith Hoeller is a guy who pays his union dues to belong to two unions, WFT and AAUP. He's a guy who's asking some really hard questions, and putting some of the Royalty of the Education Labor Movement on the spot on behalf of part-timers everywhere. Keith Hoeller is a royal pain in the ass, if you will, in the same way that Moses was a royal pain in the ass to Pharoah with the questions, demands and plagues.

In the comment section beneath his piece, the author of the IHE piece writes, "Keith, I still support you, your struggle, and your views....I support contingent faculty leadership, and respect yours. I wish you would be more temperate and reflective: I’m not your enemy in this piece, or elsewhere." I suggest this to our IHE author: Take 1000 shreds of paper to the top of your house on a really windy day. Throw the shreds up into the air. Don't write another word for publication until you have collected every single shred of paper. Impossible, you say? Well, it will be just as impossible for Keith Hoeller to escape your IHE-published and Google-indexed accusations of writing anti-union propaganda.

Those who seek to label our respected, devoted and successful adjunct activists anti-union propagandists when they question union leadership on our behalf, threaten all of us who seek answers to our questions, and to lead our own movement toward equality within the workplace. Such labeling has been used to denigrate, shame, chastise and silence those who question the status quo. Ask Galileo; his church labeled him a heretic for refusing to support geocentrism. Pope John Paul II reversed the sentence in 1997. Me? Label me whatever you like, but I am not waiting 500 years for my union leaders to realize the membership doesn't revolve around our union leaders' six figure salaries, excellent benefit and pension plans.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:00 AM

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April 7th 2008

The 64-14 Split at AAUP Means Part-Timers Should Look Elsewhere For Help

Both of the candidates running for President of the American Association of University Professors are self-identfied "contingents." I am not going to rehash that convo again. Since both of the candidates for president have said that the AAUP needs to increase revenue and then use that money to organize part-time faculty, I thought it would be interesting to look at the AAUP's balance sheet. To do that, I ventured over the the Department of Labor's website. Thanks to the current Labor Secretary, all unions have to fill out very detailed forms about how they get their money, and how they spend it. Evidently, when the Secretary implemented these policies, NEA challenged them in court. Thankfully, the union lost the case and now union members and anyone else curious about the finances of non-profit organizations with revenues over $250K per year, can have a look at exactly how an organization is spending its money.

As when I wrote about the AFT, whose officials tell anyone who'll listen that the union is committed to organizing part-timers, I was looking for the percentage of the AAUP's annual revenue spent on representational activities. Well, I have to say after looking over the AAUP's 2007 LM-2 document filed with the Department of Labor, I am left speechless. The organization spent just 1/7th of its revenue on representational activities in 2007. For those of you not teaching developmental math and fractions this semester, that's 14 percent of the total revenue. Total revenue in 2007 clocked in at $7.1 million dollars. The group spent just $1.01 million dollars on representational activities, including organizing. The staff spent a whopping $4.593 million on general overhead, union administration and benefits for themselves. This means that for every dollar AAUP takes in from dues, 64.6 cents are spent on simply paying staff to run the joint. Any restaurant that served 64.6 percent of its food and drink to the staff would quickly go under. Evidently, at AAUP, they're very good swimmers.

Contrary to what the two candidates for AAUP presidency claim, AAUP doesn't need more revenue in order to do more organizing. Spending 64.6 percent of revenue on running an organization, and just 14 percent on the mission of the organization is, well, downright disturbing. Volunteer officers of the organization, in total, were paid around $28,000 in compensation, a pittance, really. On the other hand, there are a handful of staff who earn six-figure salaries, all of them men, and a large number of support staff who earn salaries from the mid $20s to the mid $50s. If unions are about sharing the wealth, at AAUP no one has gotten the memo.

Looking closer at staffing, AAUP member dues supported 42 staff who were paid a total of $1.527 million dollars in salaries in 2007. However, of that total spent on staff salaries, the pay of just five men accounted for 38 percent of the total, or $586,077. No woman employed at AAUP is a member of the 100K boys' club. The similarities to the system of pay between full-time and part-time faculty are too obvious to pass up. And speaking of part-time faculty, the 45,841 member organization didn't have any part-time faculty listed on its membership status form.

Current President Cary Nelson signed the financial documents so must be aware of the issues surrounding operational versus representational breakdown. That his goal is to get more money for AAUP without coupling an increase in revenue with pushing for a complete analysis and reorganization of the operational system is sheer folly. It is no wonder AAUP membership is stagnating. Spending just 14 percent of revenue on organizing can lead to little else but stagnation. As reflected in the financial picture, AAUP gathers revenue to do little more than keep itself afloat.

At AAUP, it's time for the directors and elected leadership to focus less on policy statements, and more on income and expense statements. Until then, and even perhaps after, I think part-timers can count AAUP out of the larger battle to help organize temporary faculty. The organization has a bigger battle ahead of itself to right what has become a seriously listing ship.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:00 AM

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April 4th 2008

Unions and Money: Or Crying in my deeply discounted, on sale, discontinued brand beer

The average part-time faculty member earns $2,500 per course. Alright, before we all start crying into our beer, wine or other appropriate cocktail, let's make clear that 60 percent of part-time faculty want to work part-time, according to research by Dr. David Leslie of the University of Florida. So, those 40 percent who are trying desperately to put together a living from part-time teaching (we'll talk about the mental health risks involved in doing this another time), as well as those full-time temporary faculty hanging on in the hopes of landing a tenure-line spot, read on and, well, weep, laugh, or whatever reaction you have to numbers being crunched and conclusions being drawn. Hell, get a drink now and read slowly.

So, I am curious. I'll admit it. Shamelessly curious. I don't spy on my neighbors or anything; they're way too boring, anyway. I am the person who, when appointed to a Board of Directors, always volunteers to serve on the Finance Committee. I always want to know where the money goes. And where it comes from. I think people who can't read income and expense statements are missing one of life's greatest pleasures. A budget will tell you more about an organization than a 500 pound pile of press releases. Get three consecutive years of an organization's budgets and compare them and, my, my, my, you have the makings of a fun evening.

While researching how much state community college systems pay their full-time versus part-time faculty, I hit Florida. The Florida Department of Education has a wealth of information, including detailed income and expense reports. I looked at 2004-2007. In each of those years, the system spent $190 million plus on full-time faculty salaries and only about $10 million on part-time faculty salaries, for 17,000 part-timers. Well, it's the United Faculty of Florida that represents full-timers in FL, and Florida is one of the states where AFT persuaded legislators to introduce its FACE legislation. This led me to AFT. What would it look like to AFT's bottom line if there were 6000 more full-time faculty for the union to represent in Florida? The jump in dues revenue would be about $1 million dollars per year, I discovered.

This led me right to the AFT financial reports. I managed to get the complete reports for the last three years. Reading the financial documents made me understand what Edgar Allen Poe meant when he coined the term "Imp of the Perverse." According to the AFT's website "AFT is the leading organizer of part-time/adjunct faculty in the United States. AFT represents approximately 60,000 part-time/adjunct faculty, more than any other union." The union represents about 160,000 higher education faculty, or 12 percent of its 1.3 million members.

First question: If AFT is serious about organizing part-timers, how much money is the group spending on organizing them as a percentage of the group's total budget. Put another way, is AFT putting its money where its mouth is? To answer that question took a bit of research. According to this article on Inside Higher Ed., AFT officials have organized 22 part-time faculty affiliates in the last three years. So, how much does it cost to organize an affiliate? Jon Curtiss is an AFT organizer, and on a listserv for adjunct faculty, he suggested that $50K per organizer sent to a campus is a modest guess. Let's say $70K, including benefits.

Let's say it takes three years to get the job done. That would mean $210K spent on staff to help the part-timers organize their affiliates. Let's bump up the total cost to $300-$350K per affiliate, to take into account things like printing, postage, and consults by AFT's legal staff, etc... This means, over the past three years AFT has spent in the range of $6.6-$7 million dollars organizing part-time faculty on 22 campuses, or about $2.2-$2.3 million dollars per year on organizing part-time faculty (1.5 percent of the organization's total operating budget). Each of those part-timers sends $13.95 to the mother ship in the form of per capita taxes. Thus, the 60,000 part-time faculty represented by AFT generate $10.04 million dollars in gross per capita dues revenue each year.

AFT grossed about $150 million dollars in 2007 on revenue from dues, investments, loans and rents. AFT spent $2.82 million dollars to count and keep track of its money (I can hear all you part-timers who teach accounting out there: "Oh, Hells Bells! I'd do it for $1.82 million."). Among some of the other interesting line items from the 2007 budget:

Each of the 1.3 million members was assessed $13.95 per month for the union's per capita tax out of their dues to support AFT.

Each month, AFT sends chartered state affiliates a .$20 cent per member rebate of per capita taxes.

The group spent $8 million dollars to support the offices of the President, Vice President and Treasurer.

The Higher Education Department has $1.1 million dollar allotment, less than one percent of the total operating budget.

AFT national leaders spent $20 million on general, administrative and operating expenses in 2007 and $2.3 million on collective bargaining.

The group spent $9.8 million on political activities, up from $9.2 million last year. At the same time, AFT cut spending on organizing and member services.

What does all of this mean? For starters, within the next few years, unless members demand some changes, AFT leaders are going to spend almost 40 percent of all revenue on themselves, their salaries, offices, departments, travel, meetings, etc... Another huge line item is money for donations to politicians and to pay lobbyists. FACE is costing a bundle. In New York, for example, every Assemblyman who sponsored and/or co-sponsored the AFT's 2007 FACE bill received hefty campaign donations in 2006 from NYSUT. Meanwhile, NYSUT's 8000 part-time members, who send $1.3 million dollars each year to AFT through per capita taxes, will get nothing from the FACE bill introduced in New York. All of the language in support of part-time faculty was stripped out.

At one time, Czar Nicholas II owned ten percent of the earth, while millions of his people toiled in abject poverty with no hope of better lives. Revolution came along. Education union officials have been quoted widely as saying that their organizations are committed to revolution. They are committed to bettering the working conditions of part-time faculty through collective bargaining. Privately, though, officials and organizers grumble about the difficulties of organizing part-timers and the expense involved in doing so. If part-time faculty won't, as a rule, work for free (and why should we?), it's time for union leaders to stop blaming us for our lack of initiative, and start inspiring us. Perhaps, the time has come for them to pay us to organize our colleagues. Such a suggestion might seem heretical, but a modest stipend of $30K a year to organize one's colleagues would inspire many part-time faculty to give their time and skills willingly. For $3 million dollars a year (2 percent of its total budget) AFT could have organizing drives aimed at part-time faculty on 100 campuses.

In the meantime, there are still unionized part-time faculty earning $2,500 per course with no benefits. They're the ones who should be crying in their beer. If they could afford a beer, that is.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 3:46 PM

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April 2nd 2008

"Keep Adjuncts Away From Intro. Courses" Trumpets The National Enquirer (Chronicle) of Higher Education

In this week's Chronicle of Higher Education, there is an article written by David Glenn and headlined "Keep Adjuncts Away From Intro Courses, Report Says." The editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffrey Selingo, obviously saw nothing wrong with the offensive title. The piece is about research by a University of North Carolina faculty member and a UCLA graduate student. The researchers found: "....an unhappy pattern: If gatekeeper courses were taught by part-time adjuncts, lecturers, or postdoctoral fellows (which occurred from 8 percent to 22 percent of the time, depending on the institution), those students were significantly less likely to return for their sophomore years. That pattern was consistent across all four universities."

Later in the piece, David Glenn writes, "The two scholars both emphasized that they don't mean to criticize adjuncts. 'We're not blaming part-time faculty,' Ms. Jaeger said during the panel discussion. "We're actually putting the onus on institutions of higher education to support part-time faculty.'" So why isn't the headline of the piece "Poor Institutional Support of Part-time Faculty and Lecturers Adversely Impacts Student Retention?"

I suppose they did it for the same reason in the National Enquirer the headlines are often about whether ________________ (fill in the blank) is gay, two-headed babies, and aliens who spirit away men just as they are about the finally get the damn storm windows down. I am just sorry to see the National Enquirer (Chronicle) of Higher Education fall victim to sensationalist headline writing. One would think people who focus on higher education could tell the difference between the results of research and the cause of the problem. If any mainstream newspaper had printed the headline, I'd just assume ignorance of how higher education works. I can make no such assumption of the people who work at The Chronicle of Higher Education. This was a smear of part-time faculty and lecturers, as opposed to putting the spotlight where it belongs: directly on the administrators who provide little or no institutional support to the part-time faculty and lecturers who teach the freshmen at their institutions.

One upside to the article, it quotes the researchers as suggesting that adjuncts and lecturers should be employed to teach "smaller, advanced courses, rather than to large, introductory courses populated with first-year students who might be vulnerable to dropping out." Sooooooooo, I am looking forward to teaching the 12 student Shakespeare seminar next semester. Not to be too unkind, I am also looking forward to watching the tenured colleague, who resembles an aged John D. Rockefeller, and whose office is next to mine, drag his briefcase down the hallway. I am sure he will gladly grade the 100 essays written by the students in the Introduction to American Literature course I have taught over the past three years.

I can 't decide who's crazier, Lady MacBeth or the researchers who suggested adjuncts be assigned to teach seminar courses. Well, I'll let you know after I get the storm windows out.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:00 AM