Title: Part-Time Teachers, FULL-TIME PROBLEMS.

Subject(s): COMMUNITY college teachers -- Salaries, etc. -- United States; QUAN, Margaret; COMMUNITY colleges --

United States Source: Community College Week, 06/26/2000, Vol. 12 Issue 23, p10, 3p, 3c

Author(s): Burnett, Sara

Abstract: Deals with the issue on low pay and poor benefits that part-time community college instructors in the United States get. Information on the case of Margaret Quan, a faculty member in a community college in California; Findings from a study by the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics; Views on the compensation for part-time faculty. AN: 3289823

ISSN: 1041-5726

See Articles related to: COMMUNITY colleges -- United States

PART-TIME TEACHERS, FULL-TIME PROBLEMS

Overworked and underpaid adjunct faculty members are fighting for better pay, benefits and treatment; and higher education experts say they are making unprecedented strides in achieving some of those goals. PLEASANT HILL, Calif. --For 11 years, Dr. Margaret Quan's car has been her office. Like the nearly 30,000 other part-time faculty teaching in California's community college system, Quan cobbles together a schedule each semester that usually involves teaching at two or three different colleges, an arrangement that has earned part-timers the moniker of "freeway flyers." As they drive from campus to campus, files and course materials are stored in the trunks of their cars rather than in desks, and individual meetings with students often take place in parking lots rather than in faculty offices. All that, Quan says, for few to no benefits and an average salary of about $15,000 a year. But Quan's story is not unusual in California--or elsewhere across the nation for that matter. Figures from the U.S. Department of Education show that 65 percent of faculty at two-year colleges nationwide are part-timers. A recent study by the department's National Center for Education Statistics, Fall Staff in Postsecondary Institutions, reveals that of the 22,748 new faculty that colleges hired in 1997--the most recent year for which statistics are available--only 31 percent filled full-time posts. But at some community colleges, as many as 80 to 90 percent of the instructors are part-time, or adjunct faculty. And at one two-year institution, the Community College of Vermont, 100 percent of the faculty are adjuncts. There are more than 100 two-year colleges in California. Of the 45,000 faculty members employed, 30,000 of them are part-time, according to the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges. They earn, on average, 37 cents for every dollar earned by a full-time faculty member. With few exceptions, adjunct faculty members are paid only for the hours they spend teaching in the classroom, with no reimbursement for office hours, preparation time or hours spent grading papers and completing evaluations. Few part-timers receive benefits, and they have no rehire rights, meaning they must re-apply each semester to teach courses--and hope they are picked up again. A report released last year by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities titled Facing Change: Building the Faculty of the Future, took the nation's colleges and universities to task for not treating part-timers better. "Compensation for part-time faculty is generally substandard," according to the report, which resulted from a yearlong study of faculty in seven major higher education systems, including those in California, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. When the U.S. economy took a nosedive in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many part-timers viewed their situation as a necessary evil, a way for community colleges to survive on less income and an opportunity for instructors to gain some employment, even if it were less than ideal. But no longer. Adjunct faculty members on the West Coast are fighting for better pay, benefits and treatment; and higher education experts say they are making unprecedented strides in achieving some of those goals. Part-time faculty at Washington state's 32 community and technical colleges last year headed to the courts in their fight against the state's two-year college system over pay and benefits. They have filed three separate lawsuits. One alleges that the state owes more than $40 million to thousands of part-time faculty members because they were illegally denied state retirement benefits. That suit was consolidated into a class action with another that contends part-time faculty also should have received state health-benefits. The third lawsuit, filed by 15 part-time faculty, alleges the state owes them money for unpaid wages and for overtime spent doing such things as grading coursework, counseling students, preparing for courses, meeting with students and attending department functions. That case is scheduled to go to trial in November. In California, Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill last October that made thousands of part-time faculty members eligible for health benefits and could eventually mean they will be paid for extra work, such as holding office hours. The new law, which took effect in January, also requires the California Postsecondary Education Commission to conduct a study on the pay disparity between part-time and full-time faculty that could lead to improved pay. The California legislature has set aside $2.5 million a year for health benefits for part-time instructors. To be eligible, they must hold a 40 percent teaching load in at least one college district. Lawmakers set aside another $2.5 million for colleges to pay for part-timers to hold office hours. But those hard-won gains may be too little, too late. Saying that's, still not enough, Quan and others rallied on the steps of the state Capitol in Sacramento in May, calling for pro-rata pay and re-employment rights. Quan also has organized hundreds of part-time faculty members in a professional organization called the California Part-Time Faculty Association. With between 600 and 800 members, Quan says the group is "gaining steam" and that she hopes its members soon will number in the thousands. The group's first test will come later this month, when the association plans to meet in San Luis Obispo to discuss some form of "civil disobedience" that members hope will bring them the attention they feel they haven't been getting. The group has not ruled out the possibility of a strike. "We've played by the rules and it didn't work," Quan said. "We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore." How it got this way The popularity of using part-time faculty can be traced as far back as the 1970s, when the children of the baby boomers began flooding Classrooms and college enrollments began to grow. Suddenly, there was more demand for night and weekend courses--classes outside the normal schedule of full-time instructors. Part-time faculty gave colleges the flexibility to meet those new needs. But college administrators and state lawmakers realized there was another benefit as well: Employing part-timers was much cheaper than paying full-timers a salary plus benefits. As the cost of educating students rose--and the amount of state and federal funding shrank--hiring part-time faculty became a kind of requirement. "It's like if you found out your household income were going to decrease over the next five years as your day-to-day expenses were going to go up. What would you cut?" said Dr. John E. Roueche, the Sid Richardson Regents Chair at the University of Texas at Austin, director of the university's community college leadership program and co-author of Strangers in Their Own Land, a book about part-time faculty. "Would you cut your lawn service? Your maid service? You would have to cut somewhere." Others believe community college administrators have had more of a choice in the matter. "Over the years, the districts have gotten used to the fact that they can fill their classes with part-timers," said David Hawkins, government affairs director for the Sacramento-based Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, a statewide advocacy group for two-year faculty. "They were viewed as cheap labor." It has not helped matters, Quan contends, that California's community colleges' tuition rates are among the lowest in the country. Adding to the dilemma is a rising number of doctorates leaving private industry--many of them here in California because of cuts in national defense spending--and turning instead to teaching. Roueche estimates that about 1 million academics in the United States are unemployed or underemployed. That "huge oversupply" makes it easy for colleges to find qualified instructors willing to work part-time, most of them in the hopes of one day being hired for a full-time position. But the chances of that happening are slim. It is not unusual for a college to receive more than 200 applications when a few full-time position opens up, says Quan, who teaches at Diablo Valley Community College and also serves as part-time faculty representative on the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, or FACCC. More often than not, Quan says, those positions are filled by part-timers who work in other districts. Working for change In California, the community college system serves 1.5 million students--nearly three times the combined enrollment of students in the California State University and University of California systems. For FACCC, the part-time faculty issue is more than a question of what's fair for instructors. It's also a matter of providing those 1.5 million students with a quality education. To do that, the group argues, students need consistency in the classroom, the availability of their instructors outside of regular class hours, and a steady flow of qualified and talented faculty entering--and staying in--the teaching profession. "Not only do we think it's an issue of educational quality ... it's also an issue of fostering growth among faculty," Hawkins said. "If we're creating a climate that does not encourage people to enter the teaching profession, we won't be able to serve a growing population of students, and eventually those students will lose out." FACCC has lobbied the state government for reforms on behalf of part-time faculty, with mixed results. In 1988, the FACCC supported and the California legislature passed the Community College Reform bill, a piece of legislation that set a goal of having 75 percent of class hours taught by full-time faculty. But change has been slow. When the law was passed, 61 percent of class hours were taught by full-timers. Today, that number has risen by only 2 percent, leaving 63 percent of class hours in the hands of full-timers and 37 percent being taught by part-time faculty--those instructors who teach three or fewer courses in a district. Several years ago, the state agreed to match every dollar spent by community college districts to pay part-timers for office hours. But the legislation did not mandate districts to pay for office hours, and many, if not most colleges, have chosen not to do so, Hawkins and Quan say. Also, FACCC and faculty unions are co-sponsoring a bill that would create seniority rights for part-timers. The legislation would give part-time faculty first-hire rights if they teach a class, receive good evaluations and the course is re-offered. That bill passed the State Assembly and currently is before the State Senate. Another FACCC-backed proposal would include $80 million in funding for health-care benefits and improved salaries in the state budget. Of that money, 60 percent would go to part-timers and 40 percent to full-timers. According to Hawkins, the average salary for a full-time instructor in California currently ranges from $40,000 to $50,000 per year, plus benefits. Part-time teachers--who must have the same qualifications and who often piece together schedules that equate to more than a full-time course load--take home between $14,000 and $18,000 per year. If approved by the state, the $80 million for faculty salaries and benefits, Hawkins said, "would at least give a sense of hope" to part-timers. To hear Quan tell it, though, any hope that part-time faculty once had is quickly dissipating. The plight of the CPFA Because part-timers usually have no "home base" and little to no job security, it has been difficult over the years to organize them into any kind of significant political force that would carry weight with state lawmakers. All of that changed about two years ago, Quan says, when part-timers began using the Internet to communicate with one another. Today, frequent notices are posted on the California Part-Time .Faculty Association's Web site, conversations about equity and legislative issues take place in a part-timers' chat room and e-mail messages keep members informed of the organization's plight. The new technology has given the group a forum it did not have before to voice opinions. "We have become vocal," Quan said, "and we have become visible." The tone of much of the conversations among group members over the past two years has been one of frustration. Members share stories of testifying before legislators, only to be told they need to take up their issues with their local community college districts. Back home, the districts have a different message: Take it to your legislators. Quan says she and others have had enough of that "circular argument." "Where does the buck stop?" she asks. "Who is going to do the right thing?" With no one volunteering for the job, the CPFA has taken it upon itself, Quan said. When group members meet this month, they hope to draft an action plan aimed at educating students, legislators, administrators and other part-timers about the role that part-time faculty play in California's educational system. While some part-timers are still too afraid to protest or go on strike, Quan says both are options that will be discussed. She cites California graduate students and United Parcel Service employees--both groups that stopped work to get pay and benefits similar to full-timers--as role models. That news comes as no surprise to Hawkins, the government affairs director at the FACCC, who says when political avenues don't work, faculty "clearly are going to seek other avenues to address their concerns." Noting the attention that UPS workers received in the media and from politicians when they stopped work last year, Hawkins said that by comparison, UPS workers in many ways had better working conditions than part-time community college instructors. "And our faculty are not delivering packages," Hawkins said. "We're educating students." Standing in the way of any work stoppage, though, is the fact that different community college districts have different unions--a situation that makes it difficult for a group like the CPFA to influence working conditions at each of the 107 community colleges across the state. And then there's another, more significant problem. For every part-timer willing to strike, there are countless others ready to move into that classroom. The difference between faculty and UPS workers, Hawkins says, is "it's very easy for part-timers to be replaced." But whatever happens in California, one thing is certain: Other part-timers, college administrators and state legislators will be watching closely because California's community college system often serves as a bellwether for the nation. Quan's calendar reflects that. This month, she sat down with a team from the American Association of University Professors in Washington, D.C. to discuss policy statements for part-time and non-tenure track faculty. Later this summer, she will address a crowd at Kent State University in Ohio. And correspondence is piling up from places on the East Coast and as far away as Alaska, Canada and Australia. All of them, she said, are in the same boat. And all of them are looking for a solution. The future of part-timers So what, then, is the answer? According to Roueche, the answer is as complex as the problem. But the solution largely comes down to one thing--money. While legislators across the United States have said they want at least 70 percent of classroom hours taught by full-time faculty, the amount of money given to colleges and universities by the states has not allowed that to happen. And without cash, even the best intentions fall short. "Who could be opposed on humane grounds to a faculty member getting full benefits and compensation for the work they do?" Roueche asks. "Nobody's going to quarrel with that, but who's going to fund it? Nobody's funding it." In a study he co-authored two years ago for the American Association of Community Colleges, Roueche found there is no difference in the quality of education provided to students by part-time and full-time faculty. While some students said part-timers were not around as much as they should be, evaluations of the two groups were largely equal. The results of that study have led some legislators to question the value of spending taxpayer funds on hiring more full-time faculty. It's a good question, Roueche says, and one that ultimately needs to be answered by taxpayers. In his opinion, that does not bode well for the nation's part-timers. "I know we went to war with the British Empire for a 5-cent tea tax," Roueche said. "There's only so much money, and unless you can get taxpayers to agree to pay more, you'll have to sacrifice some, thing." And while he says he would like to be wrong, Roueche believes that sacrifice will continue to fall on the shoulders of part-time instructors. "I don't see how they can do it," Roueche said of the California part-timers' movement. That sentiment does not dissuade Quan or her legions of part-time activists. After years of piecing together a semblance of a full-time job, fighting traffic and organizing files by the dashboard light, California's "freeway flyers" are determined to do "whatever it takes." "We're not going to be down much longer," Quan said. "One of us out there hollering in the wilderness will not be paid attention to. Numbers will be heard."

PHOTO (COLOR): Dr. Margaret Quan, who recently attended a meeting of the American Association of University Professors, is one of thousands of part-time community college Instructors fed up with the low pay and poor benefits that accompany adjunct p PHOTO (COLOR): Hundreds of protesters, Including part-time and full-time faculty members at community colleges, rally May S on the steps of California's state Capitol in Sacramento, calling for better treatment of adjunct Instructors at Community colleges. PHOTO (COLOR): Dr. Robert Yoshioka created this "Freeway Flyer" costume to make the point that 30,000 part-time Instructors at California community colleges must commute from college to college and operate out of briefcases and car trunks in order to earn a living wage. ~~~~~~~~ By Sara Burnett Copyright of Community College Week is the property of Cox Matthews and Associates Inc and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. Source: Community College Week, 06/26/2000, Vol. 12 Issue 23, p10, 3p, 3c. Item Number: 3289823