Thursday, November 14, 2013

MLA's Open Access Online Journal Profession Addresses Campus Equity Week Themes!

Somehow I had missed the memo that the Modern Language Association's Profession has become an open-access online journal.  And that in October they published several essays that deal with the very issues of contingency and sustainability that we've been focusing on here at SUNY Fredonia.  I haven't yet had a chance to read what look like very interesting and important essays:
.  But at the pace I'm going with grading and consulting on student final projects this semester, I may be able to respond to them over Thanksgiving Break.  If not, winter break, so stay tuned!

Thursday, November 07, 2013

Campus Equity Week in the News, Western NY Edition

Check out Gib Snyder's story in the Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer on the Halloween rally at SUNY Fredonia for Campus Equity Week.  My open letter to Governor Cuomo got picked up by the SUNY Fredonia student newspaper, The Leader, as well.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

An Open Letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo

Note:  This is the fifth in a series of posts I'm doing here at Citizen of Somewhere Else for Campus Equity Week Previously I've written on Margaret Mary Vojtko, equity in compensation, equity in ranks/titles/contracts, and Campus Equity Week and The Scarlet Letter.  Today, I invite the Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, to live up to his own rhetoric, to follow through on his professed values, and to put the power of his office behind campus equity in the State University of New York.

Happy Halloween, Governor Cuomo!

Tomorrow, the Day of the Dead, is the two-month anniversary of the death of Margaret Mary Vojtko, a professor who taught French at Duquesne University for 25 years but died in abject poverty after being fired without any severance pay or retirement benefits.

How could this happen?  Margaret Mary was an adjunct, a part-timer, a contingent faculty member.  The names change, but the facts remain the same.  She was one of far too many across the country who make up what Gary Rhoades has called academia's working poor.  Just like she did, the overwhelming majority of them are working hard for their students' futures without job security, health benefits, a living wage, or union membership.

Here in western New York, just a few hours from Pittsburgh, we are gathering today to honor the memory of Margaret Mary, to celebrate her commitment and her sacrifice, and to reflect on the meaning of her life and death.  Here, today, we are asking you to recognize that her teaching conditions are her students' learning conditions, to accept that campus equity is more than a labor issue--that at its heart are academic quality and institutional integrity--and to act on those understandings.

We do this because it appears from your actions during the protracted and difficult negotiations between your representatives and the union that represents SUNY's faculty and professionals, United University Professions, that you believe your political future depends on casting yourself as the defender of New York's taxpayers against lazy, greedy state employees and their power-hungry unions.  Despite her cancer and her poverty, Margaret Mary never missed a day of class.  Despite her hard work and dedication, she never made more than $25,000 per year.  And she never lived to see Duquesne recognize the union she and other contingent academic workers voted for--and for which they're still waiting.

The circumstances of Margaret Mary's life and death demonstrate how much of a difference union protections can make.  Thanks to the hard work of faculty and professional activists since the founding of SUNY, along with the wisdom and good sense of your predecessors in the Governor's office, faculty members in contingent appointments on SUNY campuses can earn health and retirement benefits.  In SUNY, only about 45% of the faculty and professionals are working on contingent lines (compared to about 75% nation-wide), while only about one-third of professors are teaching part-time as adjuncts (compared to about half across the country).

But when UUP came to you in the latest round of contract negotiations and said, "it's not enough that we're not the worst in the country--we're New Yorkers, it's time we become the best," you ignored us.  When we proposed that a minimum wage for adjunct faculty of $3,000 per course would be reasonable, you refused to negotiate.  In fact, I've heard from several sources that near the end game of negotiations earlier this year, you threatened to take benefits off the table if UUP continued insisting on keeping a minimum wage for adjuncts on the table.

It's hard for me to square that action with your own words when you succeeded in pushing the New York State legislature to raise the state minimum wage:
A reasonable minimum wage increases the standard of living for workers, reduces poverty, incentivizes fair and more efficient business practices, and ensures that the most vulnerable members of the workforce can contribute to the economy.
Well, yes.  But apparently that doesn't hold true for this class of state employees--the only ones who are working without a floor under their wages.  Why don't adjunct faculty deserve the same deal as any other worker in New York state?  Why do you think it's ok for the most committed of them to their students' success to be vulnerable to being paid less than the state-wide minimum wage?

Given your intransigence on that first, minimal step toward campus equity, it probably should come as no surprise that you apparently believe it's ok for someone with the same qualifications, experience, and responsibilities as another person to be paid a fraction of their salary for arbritrary reasons (such as appointment type).  But wait.  In a June op-ed that you wrote in support of the Women's Equality Act, you rightly called pay inequity "inexcusable and absurd."  At Vassar a couple of days later you stated:
Today is about values, and principles, and stating the obvious, and having the courage to stand up and tell the truth about the obvious. That’s what today is about. It started in January when we did what’s called the State of the State address, and stood up and said to the people of the state of New York, ‘Here is the truth. The truth is we discriminate against women in society in this state and in this country, and it is pervasive, and we haven’t admitted it, and it goes on every day, and it’s a shame, and it’s wrong, and it’s immoral, and it’s unethical, and it has to stop, and it’s going to stop in the state of New York, and then it’s going to stop everywhere.’ That is the truth.
Is it really that difficult to understand that contingency and casualization are also women's issues and human rights issues?  Across the country, between 51% and 61% of contingent academic workers are women.  In some disciplines, female adjuncts outnumber male adjuncts by ratios of 2 or 3 or 4 to 1.  I know you care about your daughters just as much as I care about mine.  How can you turn right around and discriminate against other fathers' daughters who happen to be state employees on contingent appointments in SUNY?  I implore you, listen to your own words, Governor!

Think about it:  if anyone is best living out your own education agenda of putting students first, it's SUNY's contingent faculty.  But how can SUNY continue to attract the greatest teachers if we are relegating more and more of them to contingency and casualization?  Chancellor Zimpher is tirelessly telling and retelling the story of SUNY as the little (economic) engine that could to anyone and everyone who will listen.  But who is doing the real work of making that engine run?  Who is making sure students stay on task, push themselves, and discover what they are interested in and capable of?  Who's in the classroom every day, giving them a pat on the back or a kick in the butt (as needed)?  Contingent faculty are doing this work--the work of workforce development, of developing an educated citizenry--every bit as well as their tenure-stream colleagues. 

Let's turn to more recent initiatives in which you've chosen to invest your political capital.  Part of your support for resort-style casinos is that they'll provide jobs to New Yorkers, revitalize local economies across the state, and provide new revenue streams for education.  I just heard a story the other day on public radio about a stalled contract negotiation for casino workers in New York City that was settled by arbitration.  The terms of the agreement will see many workers' salaries triple from the start to the end of their contract.  Some will be making $60,000 per year in a few years.  It was described as providing entry into the middle class for thousands of workers.

Imagine if you were to do something like this for the 16,000 contingent employees working in the SUNY system today.  The American Association of University Professors has pointed toward successful examples across the country of converting contingent appointments to some form of tenure.  Just imagine the economic impact in towns and cities across the state if thousands of SUNY's hardworking contingent employees were offered less precarious appointments and more equitable rates of compensation.  But why just imagine it?  You could work with Chancellor Zimpher on a proposal to modify the Policies of the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York to make it possible to enact AAUP's recommendations.

I've heard you repeat the phrase, "self-policing doesn't work," when it comes to cleaning up Albany and making ethics matter in the capitol.  You didn't accept self-policing when you helped stop the legislature's slow strangling of SUNY by refusing to accept their decades-long practice of cutting back on state support of higher education whenever they authorized a tuition increase (and often when they didn't).  But when it comes to SUNY's treatment of its own contingent employees, apparently you think self-policing can work.  Well, we're trying to make it work here at SUNY Fredonia--and I include the Fredonia administration in that "we."  President Horvath, Provost Brown, Vice President Schillo and others are putting their careers on the line to set an example for the rest of SUNY and the rest of the country.  They are taking on the issues you didn't have the courage to deal with yourself.

Governor Cuomo, I'm sure you're like the rest of us who have pondered the circumstances of Margaret Mary's death and thought, "There but for the grace of God go I."  You may have even thanked God that Margaret Mary worked for a Catholic university in Pennsylvania rather than a public university in New York.  Well, God may work in mysterious ways, but it's up to us here to reflect on our own complicities and responsibilities and to do what we think is right.  You've shown over the course of your political career that you have it in you to be a courageous leader who takes on big issues and solves tough problems.  Your leadership in providing disaster relief in central New York, where I grew up and got my education, and in downstate New York, where my parents grew up, were educated, met, and fell in love, is yet another example of your promise.  Well, what contingent employees have been facing for decades in SUNY has been a slow-motion disaster.  What will you do to relieve their suffering?  What will you do to restore their dignity?

On November 1st, All Saints' Day, many faithful around the world believe that the spirits of the dead return to the living and that it's the responsibility of the living to greet them demonstrations of love and respect.  What kind of offering should we make to Margaret Mary's spirit?  That's for each of us to decide.  But what if you were to honor the work contingent faculty do to help provide paths to the middle class and ways to wealth for New York's SUNY students?
  • What if you were to pledge to compensate adjunct faculty for teaching on the two days they'd otherwise have to cancel classes under the terms of the Deficit Reduction Program you forced on them?
  • What if you were to urge SUNY to put more contingent faculty on longer-term contracts, so that they don't have to go off and on health insurance over the course of a year?
  • What if you were to find a way to ensure that all contingent employees in SUNY become eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, so that they can at least get out from the burden of debt for the advanced degrees they have earned--and which your own actions are devaluing?
  • What if you were to offer them the same tax relief as you do to employees hired under the terms of your own START-UP NY program?  What if you were to exempt them from local and state income taxes?
Do it for Margaret Mary, Governor.  Do it for SUNY's 16,000 undervalued contingent employees.  Other Governors have helped do the heavy lifting that makes it unlikely any long-time SUNY adjunct will suffer and die like Margaret Mary did.  What will be your contribution?  What will be your legacy?  What record will you be able to point to when you seek reelection...and beyond?

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Campus Equity Week and The Scarlet Letter

Just wanted to mark the confluence of Campus Equity Week and The Scarlet Letter on "wear red Wednesday."

The office of the scarlet letter on some campuses is to prevent contingent faculty from participating in shared governance, despite the recommendations of the AAUP to the precise contrary.  More generally, the organizers of Campus Equity Week want to turn the "scarlet A" from a mark of shame for adjunct faculty (abatement or even a badge of servitude?) to a badge of honor.

Let's hope the rest of us react better than Hawthorne's Puritans or even his narrator did to Hester!

[Update 1 (10/31/13, 4:03 pm):  Here's Joseph Fruscione in Inside Higher Ed.]

Campus Equity Week Issue #2: Towards Equity in Ranks, Titles, and Lengths of Contracts for Contingent Faculty

Establishing a university-wide floor for starting compensation for contingent faculty who are paid by the course or credit hour is a necessary first step toward achieving campus equity, but it is not sufficient in and of itself.  Recall the major extant definitions of equity:
  • NCTE: Compensation, per course, for part-time faculty should never be lower than the per-course compensation for tenure-line faculty with comparable experience, duties, and credentials.
  • AHA/OAH: Fair salaries, proportional to tenured and tenure-track faculty compensation for comparable teaching, advising and service work.
  • AAUP: Positions that require comparable work, responsibilities, and qualifications should be comparably compensated.
  • AFT: Part-time/adjunct faculty should be paid a salary proportionate to that paid full-time tenured faculty of the same qualifications for doing the same work.
Equity, in all these examples, requires those with similar credentials/qualifications, experience, and responsibilities/duties/work to be compensated similarly.  This is where the diversity among contingent faculty matters a great deal.  Some are newly-minted Ph.D.s, while others never intend to seek a terminal degree but have decades of experience in college and university classrooms.  Some are brought in temporarily to replace a faculty member on leave, some are brought in to teach specific courses for which they have specific expertise or experience, while others are essentially permanent hires regularly and repeatedly contributing to programs that (purportedly, at least) couldn't afford to stay afloat without them.  Some would love to compete for a tenure-track position were it to open up in their institution, while others wouldn't want to run the risk of losing the work they do have or add research and/or service obligations to their existing work load.  (See the recent reports by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce and the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education for more details and specifics.)

Given that diversity, a more substantive step forward than a university-wide floor would be to establish a system of ranks/titles for contingent faculty that allows for promotion/advancement, comes with compensation floors and/or bumps, and leads to lengthier contracts and/or adjustments of teaching load in light of changing professional obligations.  Such a system should allow contingent faculty sufficient choice to pursue the kind of rank/title that makes sense for them at each contract renewal, with criteria for the various ranks/titles clearly laid out and consistently and fairly applied.  While the Policies of the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York seem to preclude following through on AAUP's call for conversion to tenure without first modifying the Policies, there is room to develop a more rational, consistent, transparent, and equitable system of contingent (or "qualified," in SUNY-speak) ranks/titles on individual SUNY campuses.

That's exactly what the leaders of the Fredonia Chapter of United University Professions have called for at SUNY Fredonia.  Building on the successful negotiation of the Handbook on Appointment, Reappointment, and Promotion (HARP), which specifies that "This Handbook...shall remain in full force and effect unless modified by written, mutual agreement of UUP and SUNY Fredonia administration" (IB, p. 8), Provost Brown and Chapter President Arnavut have agreed to form a joint task force consisting of eight members, which will be charged with reviewing UUP’s proposals in light of best practices in the SUNY system (such as at Stony Brook, Cortland, and Farmingdale) and nation-wide, with the aim of proposing specific revisions to HARP IV (pp. 32-35) by a date (to be determined) in 2014. The Fredonia Chapter Executive Board envisions that the joint task force will be formed and charged by Provost Brown and Chapter President Arnavut when the schedule of HARP review, revision, and approval demands it or when negotiations on establishing a university-wide floor have ripened, whichever is sooner.

Stay tuned for updates on these matters!

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Campus Equity Week Issue #1: Towards Equity in Compensation for Contingent Faculty

Paying part-time contingent faculty substantially less than other faculty in other positions that require comparable work, responsibilities, and qualifications is arbitrary, unsustainable, and unfair.

Every group that has ever studied these issues has concluded that the end goal should be some form of equity.  For instance:
  • NCTE: Compensation, per course, for part-time faculty should never be lower than the per-course compensation for tenure-line faculty with comparable experience, duties, and credentials.
  • AHA/OAH: Fair salaries, proportional to tenured and tenure-track faculty compensation for comparable teaching, advising and service work.
  • AAUP: Positions that require comparable work, responsibilities, and qualifications should be comparably compensated.
  • AFT: Part-time/adjunct faculty should be paid a salary proportionate to that paid full-time tenured faculty of the same qualifications for doing the same work.
SUNY Fredonia is not alone among colleges and universities in being a long way from achieving this kind of campus equity.  The only real questions remaining are:  what form should that equity take? how close can we afford to get to it right now? what long-term plan can we develop for achieving it?

While different campuses might answer these questions in different ways, Fredonia should take its cue from the contract governing terms and conditions of employment for faculty and professionals in the SUNY system.  According to the 2007-2011 Agreement between the State of New York and United University Professions, the salary minima for every full-time rank are:
  • Instructor: $32,945
  • Lecturer/Assistant Professor: $37,706
  • Associate Professor: $44,608
  • Professor: $55,283
Supposing that a 4/4 (24-credit) teaching load is the normal full-time course load for faculty who do not have any service or research expectations (and hence that tenure-stream faculty with lower teaching loads than 4/4 are replacing the courses they otherwise would have been teaching with their service and research), then we arrive at the following minimum rates of compensation per credit hour for each full-time rank:
  • Instructor: $1373/credit hour
  • Lecturer/Assistant Professor: $1571/credit hour (+$198/CH or +14.4%)
  • Associate Professor: $1859/credit hour (+$288/CH or +18.3%)
  • Professor: $2303/credit hour (+$444/CH or +23.9%)
When the 2011-2016 Agreement is published, expect those minima to rise about 2%.  However, for the purposes of establishing a university-wide floor for starting part-time contingent faculty compensation, the Lecturer’s minimum is most relevant, as Lecturers are not required to do any service or research.  It is difficult to understand what would justify the difference in compensation between a full-time contingent faculty member with a Lecturer’s appointment and a part-time contingent faculty member with some other rank or title.  Supposing Lecturers receive higher compensation because of a real difference in their expertise and hence in the kinds of courses they are assigned to teach, how large should that premium be relative to a minimum for starting part-time contingent faculty members?

How have other SUNY schools answered that question?  For the 2011-2012 academic year, SUNY Cortland’s university-wide floor was $863/credit hour, according to the most recent version of their Handbook for Academic and Professional Part-Time Employees that we could find.  At Cortland, then, Lecturers received a premium of $708/credit hour, or about 82%!  In March 2013, SUNY Oswego’s Provost announced the following university-wide floor agreement:  $950/credit hour (retroactive to the start of Spring 2013), $984/credit hour (effective Fall 2013), $1018/credit hour (effective Fall 2014). Currently at Oswego, then, the premium is $587/credit hour, or nearly 60%!  (At Oswego, by the way, an adjunct hired in 1992 made $770/credit hour; in March 2012, the Oswego UUP Chapter pointed out that if that amount were adjusted only for the rate of inflation over the previous 20 years, an adjunct hired in 2012 would make $1249/credit hour.)

When you consider that the 2007-2011 Agreement posits a premium for full professors relative to starting assistant professors of $732/credit hour, or about 46.6%, then equity starts to cut both ways.  The lower you set the university-wide floor for starting part-time contingent faculty, the more unfair the Agreement seems to those in the tenure stream!

Nobody doubts SUNY salaries are low across the board.  After all, the Modern Language Association recommends a floor of $2363/credit hour for the 2013-2014 academic year, which is more than the current floor for full professors.  The Mayday $5K! Campaign proposes a floor of $1667/credit hour, which is more than the current floor for assistant professors.  Clearly SUNY, the Division of Budget, and the Governor would have to agree to raise compensation rates for all faculty if they were to accept floors this high for part-time contingent faculty members.  But there's nothing stopping individual SUNY campuses from deciding on their own, right now, to set their own university-wide floors at some fraction of the $1571/credit hour floor for full-time lecturers.

As campus leaders work together to determine what that fraction should be, they should keep in mind that the national average for part-time faculty compensation is about $996/credit hour, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Adjunct Project.  In 2010, the median for contingent faculty in the Mid East was $1000/credit hour, the median for contingent faculty represented by a union was $1033/credit hour, and the median for contingent faculty represented by a union and working at Master’s-level institutions was $1200/credit hour, according to the Coalition on the Academic Workforce’s June 2012 Portrait of Part-Time Faculty Workers (p. 11 and Tables 24 and 25).

Also worth considering is what percentage of the overall campus budget, of the budget for Academic Affairs, of the adjunct budget, and of the fixed adjunct budget it would cost the campus to move to different university-wide floors in a given year and/or over several years.  Every estimate the leaders of the Fredonia Chapter of United University Professions have run suggests that doing the right thing for the most vulnerable and underpaid members of the bargaining unit and university will have a miniscule impact on these budgets.

Further Resources

SUNY
  • SUNY Cortland, Handbook for Academic and Professional Part-Time Employees
  • SUNY Oswego Provost Memo, “Adjunct Base and Extra Service Funding” (8 March 2013)
  • SUNY Oswego UUP Chapter, “The Case for Increasing Adjunct Salaries” (26 March 2012)
Unions
Professional Associations
Other Organizations
Essays

Monday, October 28, 2013

Campus Equity Week 2013 @ SUNY Fredonia

Fredonia UUP Chapter Devotes Campus Equity Week to Honoring the Memory of Margaret Mary Vojtko

When Campus Equity Week is celebrated on college campuses across the country from October 28th through November 1st, SUNY Fredonia's United University Professions Chapter will be doing its part to advance the fight for quality and equality in higher education by holding a rally to honor the memory of Margaret Mary Vojtko on Thursday, October 31, from 12-1 pm, in the Amphitheatre (located between Maytum Hall and Reed Library).  Vojtko passed away on September 1st at the age of 83 after a 25-year career teaching French at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA.  But as Daniel Kovalik, perhaps the last person to talk to her, described the circumstances of her passing,
She begged me to call Adult Protective Services and tell them to leave her alone, that she could take care of herself and did not need their help. I agreed to. Sadly, a couple of hours later, she was found on her front lawn, unconscious from a heart attack. She never regained consciousness.

Meanwhile, I called Adult Protective Services right after talking to Margaret Mary, and I explained the situation. I said that she had just been let go from her job as a professor at Duquesne, that she was given no severance or retirement benefits, and that the reason she was having trouble taking care of herself was because she was living in extreme poverty. The caseworker paused and asked with incredulity, "She was a professor?" I said yes. The caseworker was shocked; this was not the usual type of person for whom she was called in to help.

Of course, what the caseworker didn't understand was that Margaret Mary was an adjunct professor, meaning that, unlike a well-paid tenured professor, Margaret Mary worked on a contract basis from semester to semester, with no job security, no benefits and with a salary of between $3,000 and just over $3,500 per three-credit course.

Too many professors are working under the same conditions as Margaret Mary across the country.  Campus Equity Week (CEW) was founded in California in 2000 and became a nation-wide event in 2001 in order to change those conditions and, in so doing, to restore institutional integrity and enhance educational quality.  By seeking public recognition that faculty employment conditions are student learning conditions and that equitable educational experiences for students require equitable institutional support of all faculty, CEW events have drawn new activists into the labor movement, helped provide training through information-sharing and community-building, increased press and public interest, and created strong incentives for local administrators and state and local politicians to become visibly involved with the issues--not to mention led to significant gains for contingent faculty, particularly those represented by unions.

In the State University of New York (SUNY), contingent faculty are represented by United University Professions (UUP), which has been able to secure health benefits, sick leave, and office space for most SUNY adjuncts.  However, the typical three-credit course salary for SUNY adjuncts is between $2,500 and $3,000 and Governor Cuomo and SUNY have refused to establish a state-wide minimum salary for SUNY adjuncts (unlike every other state employee).  Here at Fredonia, President Virginia Horvath, Provost Terry Brown, and Human Resources Director Michael Daley have been discussing a range of issues regarding contingency and sustainability with Chapter leaders, from compensation to length of contracts, from systematizing titles and ranks to compensating contingent employees for certain categories of professional service.  We are working together to ensure that what happened at Duquesne will never happen at SUNY Fredonia.  And we intend to succeed.

Please join us at the Amphitheatre at noon on Halloween to honor Margaret Mary!

Sincerely,

Fredonia Chapter Executive Board
Fredonia Chapter Contingent Employees Advisory Group

p.s.--For CEW stickers and buttons, please contact Fredonia Chapter President Ziya Arnavut or Officer for Contingents Bruce Simon!

For more on Campus Equity Week, see

For more on Margaret Mary Vojtko, see

For more on the conditions of contingent faculty, see
 [Update 1 (10/30/13, 5:05 pm):  For more #CEW2013 blogging here, check out:
 Next up is an open letter to Governor Cuomo that I'll be reading at the rally.]

[Update 2 (10/31/13, 4:01 pm):  Here's the open letter to Andrew Cuomo!]

[Update 3 (11/1/13, 1:25 pm):  Here's Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer's coverage of the rally.]

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Recommended Look-Sees: Nathaniel Hawthorne Society and UUP Campus Equity Week Websites

Really just a "get ready for more from me here" kind of post, but have you seen the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society's new website (http://www.tamiu.edu/hawthorne/) and UUP's Campus Equity Week page (http://uupinfo.org/communications/uupdate/1314/131022.php)?  Lots of interesting things to come here starting 10/28 with CEW's kickoff...plus, I'm trying to complete a pitch for a 2-volume study of race and Hawthorne over the winter break, by which time I should have found out if I made the American cut for another teaching Fulbright in Japan....  (Long-time readers will recall I started this little ol' thing during my 1st Fulbright over in Fukuoka!)

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Fredonia UUP Chapter Officer for Contingents May 2013 Newsletter: On Contingency and Sustainability

On Contingency and Sustainability
Bruce Simon, Officer for Contingents, Fredonia Chapter, UUP

Thanks for electing me to the first-ever Officer for Contingents position in the Fredonia UUP Chapter. I take my election as a mandate to continue working with other campus and chapter leaders to explore what could and should be done to improve terms and conditions of employment, university policies, campus climate, and departmental cultures for contingent academic and professional workers at Fredonia. It seems fitting for me to reflect on the significance of UUP’s move from chapter Part-Time Concerns Officers to Officers for Contingents across the SUNY system.

The UUP Constitution lays out how our union defines contingency in academic and professional appointments:

"Contingent Academic" members shall be those persons appointed to any academic position which does not prescribe eligibility for continuing appointment.... "Contingent Professional" members shall be those persons appointed to any professional position which does not prescribe eligibility for permanent appointment. (Article III, Section 2)

The Constitution also defines the membership and responsibilities of the Contingent Employment Committee (Article X, Section 1, Part i), a new statewide standing committee on which I serve, and requires that at least one Executive Board member be a contingent academic or professional (Article V, Section 1). These changes have been spurred on by UUP’s Task Force on Contingent Employment, by the statewide Executive Board, by our statewide officers, and by the delegates at our Delegate Assemblies. They are part of continuing efforts to bring our union into the 21st century when it comes to effectively organizing and representing all our members. They also bring us in line with best practices and recommendations from the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, the American Federation of Teachers, and the American Association of University Professors

I encourage everyone reading this to familiarize yourself with the above documents--along with more recent AAUP reports on stabilizing the faculty and strengthening governance and the SUNY New Paltz Chapter’s Mayday Manifesto--for nothing less is at stake in the matters they address than the sustainability of public higher education. COCAL, AAUP, and AFT have been national leaders in a global movement aimed at calling into question the sustainability of the generations-long shift toward majority contingency among university employees and particularly among the academic faculty. By creating the Officer for Contingents position at each chapter, UUP is better positioned to contribute to this movement and to represent and respond to the voices, needs, and interests of our colleagues in contingent appointments

Please rest assured that the Fredonia Chapter leadership is committed to precisely this project and has been taking concrete steps, with input from our Contingent Employment Advisory Group every step of the way, to put SUNY Fredonia on a sustainable path. (Indeed, the theme for this month’s Newsletter essay was suggested by Leonard Jacuzzo.) If you have suggestions for us, please don’t hesitate to contact me at brucesimon18@yahoo.com. I’ll be sure to bring them up for discussion and review by the Executive Board and the CEAG. Finally, there’s still time for academic faculty and professionals on contingent appointments to join the CEAG and play a role in shaping our strategies and tactics in the coming months. I look forward to being able to announce the results of our efforts and proposals in upcoming Newsletters.

Friday, May 03, 2013

Recommended Reading: On Open SUNY

Here's a recently-updated Phil Hill post at e-Literate on Open SUNY--it's a great intro to the recently-announced initiative by SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher.

I'm here at UUP's Academic Delegates meeting hearing from a panel on issues raised by Open SUNY, such as:

  • academic quality/academic integrity
  • pedagogy
  • intellectual property/work-for-hire agreements
  • extra service/workload/on-call-recall designations/compensatory time
  • outsourcing
  • who is involved in curriculum change, when, and under what conditions
  • pace of change
Of course, UUP must be involved in discussions of any changes to salary, benefits, or other terms and conditions of employment, which are mandatory subjects of bargaining.  These include:
  • change in length of workday
  • increases in duties
  • work-for-hire requests
  • on-call/recall issues
  • extra service issues
UUP is available to consult with members whenever there are changes in work life and is looking for ways to  collaborate with SUNY governance bodies, both state-wide and on different campuses.  Vice President for Academics Jamie Dangler recommends:
  • forming chapter committees
  • using chapter web sites and newsletters to engage members
  • working with campus governance bodies
  • developing positions on specific changes/issues
  • developing guidelines for UUP representation on campus and statewide groups
Other ideas that came out of our discussions include:
  • workshops/training
  • what are legitimate and inappropriate standards/procedures for evaluation of online teaching? (UUP's Technology Issues Committee has a report entitled Best Practices in Online Learning that addresses this [available here], but may not adequately deal with evaluation of contingent faculty.)
  • vulnerability of contingent faculty to be pressured into designing or teaching in Open SUNY
  • increased workload that comes with changes in online learning systems
  • UUP resolution/statement (Chief Academic Officers and Faculty Council of Community Colleges have made them)
  • who profits from Open SUNY? (often with MOOCs, it's private corporations)
  • conflicting definitions of "consultation" and management abuses of the concept (such as at CUNY)
  • what's going on in other systems, states, and nations so we can help, learn, gain allies
  • defining what's optimal, what's working, what ought to be happening
  • thinking about how to connect with student groups to push for broader/better support for quality public higher education

Monday, February 04, 2013

Officer for Contingents Candidate Statement

I have decided to run for the new Officer for Contingents position on the Fredonia UUP Chapter Executive Board for several reasons:

1) As a former chapter Vice President for Academics (2003-2006), Membership Development Officer (2001-2003), and Department Representative (1998-2000), long-time Academic Delegate to UUP's state-wide Delegate Assembly (1999-2006, 2009-present), and current chapter Part-Time Concerns Officer (since 2011), I can bring useful experience, knowledge, skills, and networks to the important job of representing all the contingent UUP employees on campus, whether full-time or part-time, academic or professional staff.

2) As I reported last newsletter, I have been working with other campus and chapter leaders to explore what could and should be done to improve terms and conditions of employment, university policies, campus climate, and departmental cultures for contingent academic and professional workers at Fredonia (see citizense.blogspot.com/2012/12/putting-part-time-concerns-front-and.html for a link to that report), and I am seeking a mandate from the membership to continue working on that project.

3) Building on my history of working productively, inclusively, and constructively with a wide range of people on this campus on a variety of projects, I am eager to use this new position to advance the work of collective and creative problem-solving at Fredonia.

4) As a full-time, tenured faculty member, I know I have the job security, the academic freedom, and the institutional capital to advance the interests of the large number of my colleagues on this campus with very little of them, if any, and I feel a sense of responsibility to turn my privileges into opportunities on their behalf.

If elected, I pledge to work with the Contingent Employment Advisory Group, which currently consists of six contingent faculty members, to make sure that I'm regularly hearing from as many contingent UUP employees as possible and keeping every channel of communication open to anyone who has a question, concern, or problem. I pledge to work with UUP chapter officers, department representatives, and members to make serious and concrete progress on the matters that matter to contingent faculty and professionals at SUNY Fredonia.

Please see citizense.blogspot.com for more or email me at brucesimon18@yahoo.com or simon@fredonia.edu!

Friday, January 25, 2013

“Ready...Set...Go!” Shared Governance at SUNY Fredonia in a Time of Transition

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope you’re enjoying our first real winter in years as much as I am...or even more. With Rob Deemer and Reneta Barneva ably representing us at the SUNY-wide University Faculty Senate plenary in balmy Oneonta, it’s my duty and pleasure to welcome you back on behalf of the Fredonia University Senate to the start of what’s shaping up to be a momentous spring semester.

When Rob asked me to say a few words about the work of the Senate this academic year, the phrase “Ready...Set...Go!” sprang to mind. The way I see it, we spent late spring and summer getting ready, the fall getting set, and now shared governance at Fredonia is rarin’ to go.

Ready...
 
Rob, Reneta, Andy Cullison, our Governance Officer, and Saundra Liggins, our Faculty Secretary, and I logged a lot of hours from May through August preparing for the transition from President Hefner’s administration to President Horvath’s. We worked closely with former Senate Chair Christopher Taverna to ensure a smooth transition in Senate leadership, recruited new chairs to Senate standing committees (thanks to Justin Conroy and Guangyu Tan for leading General Education and Jeanette McVicker for leading Graduate Council), planned a late August Senate mixer/orientation, began an informal Senate self-assessment, started thinking and talking about possible revisions to the bylaws and restructuring of Senate committees, and worked closely with President Horvath as we started to assemble several search committees and implementation teams.

Search Committees
  • Provost and VPAA
  • Dean, College of Visual and Performing Arts
  • Chief Diversity Officer
Implementation Teams
  • Strategic Plan (input to Cabinet)
  • Mission Statement Revision (joint)
  • Baccalaureate Goals (joint)
  • General Education Revision (Senate/Gen Ed)
  • Campus Initiatives Roundtable (to facilitate communication and enhance coordination)
Set...
 
During the fall, we continued to work closely with President Horvath and Interim Provost and VP for Academic Affairs Kevin Kearns as we finalized search committees and implementation teams and sought approval from the Cabinet and the Senate. The Mission Statement revision team was designed to be the fastest out of the gates and, thanks to the leadership of Mike Barone and their hard work, they completed their work early, after having presented multiple drafts to the campus and the Senate. The Senate has also been looking closely at Planning and Budget’s Program Elimination/Reduction Report, deliberating on and approving bylaws revisions on the roles, responsibilities, and duties of Senate officers and the Senate Executive Committee and the administrative review process, and discussing course evaluations. Other work has been less visible, but just as important, ranging from governance leaders meeting with each and every Vice Presidential candidate and giving valuable feedback to the search committees to planning, deliberation, and communication efforts of Senate standing committees and the Executive Committee with a variety of individuals and groups.

Go!
 
So as we start the new year, all the activities of the past 8 months have prepared us to take major actions on a variety of important initiatives.

We are ready for Senate votes next month on
  • Mission Statement Revision
  • PERP (PBAC)
  • Electronic Voting (bylaws)
We are almost ready for Senate votes next month on
  • Course Evaluations Joint Task Force (joint)
  • Shared Governance/Consultation Agreements and Processes (bylaws)
  • Senate Committee Structures (bylaws)
  • Academic Integrity Policy (Academic Affairs responding to task force lead by Kevin Kearns and David Herman)
  • Environmental Studies Minor (Academic Affairs)
  • Faculty Office Hours Policy (Academic Affairs)
And we can expect even more this spring!
  • General Education Program assessment (Gen Ed)
  • Contingent Faculty Subcommittee (FPAC)
  • University Handbook (FPAC)
  • Graduate mission, vision, goals (Grad Council)
  • Campus Initiatives Updates
  • Senate and Senate Committee Elections
So even as we keep our eyes on the state and SUNY budget, SUNY’s in-the-works resource allocation methodology, the Chancellor’s notions of systemness and the state of the state university, and new AAUP reports on financial exigency and the inclusion of contingent faculty in governance, we are confident that here at Fredonia, we will have finished fine-tuning our shared governance machine and will be ready to take it out on the road by the time the weather moderates.

I invite you to attend this spring’s Senate meetings in Williams Center 204 at 4 pm on February 4th, March 4th, April 8th, and May 6th. Have a great semester!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

How to Do Things with Fairy Tales--and Literary Theory

I've already posted about my American Identities students' web authoring projects from 2012 over at the AI blog.

Well, for the final project in my How to Do Things with Fairy Tales course, two students chose the web authoring option this semester.  Check 'em out!
Several students chose the web authoring option in my Critical Reading course, as well:
Enjoy!

Friday, December 07, 2012

Putting Part-Time Concerns Front and Center

Yeah, yeah, it's been about a year.  Lots going on, no time to share it--the usual deal that comes with being involved with governance and union matters at the same time.

Anyway, this just appeared in the Fredonia UUP Chapter newsletter.  Even though the Labor-Management Meeting I mention below had to be cancelled due to a family emergency, I remain optimistic about the progress we're making.



***

About 15 months ago, I ran for Part-Time Concerns Officer for our chapter because I wanted to find out if leaders from labor and management at SUNY Fredonia could work together to identity specific problems and opportunities facing Fredonia’s hard-working contingent faculty and professionals and formally address them through our normal processes of negotiation, consultation, planning, and administration.  Could we generate practical ideas and imaginative solutions that would work for our campus and our members?  As we approach the home stretch for the fall semester, I’m happy to report that we’re making significant progress.

First a note on process.  In the initial months after my election to PTCO, I sought the input of a diverse group of campus leaders--including Tara Singer-Blumberg, Chiara De Santi, Robert Deemer, Idalia Torres, Ziya Arnavut, Kathleen Gradel, Julia Wilson, Timothy Allan, and Mary Cobb--who helped me develop and revise a set of questions aimed at enabling local UUP and administrative leaders to explore what could and should be done to improve terms and conditions of employment, university policies, campus climate, and departmental cultures for contingent academic and professional workers at SUNY Fredonia.  Building on an initial Labor-Management Meeting with then-President Hefner and his cabinet in April, the chapter team has had productive and encouraging discussions in our September and November Labor-Management Meetings with President Horvath, Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Kevin Kearns, and Director of Human Resources Michael Daley.  I’ve been impressed with the energy and seriousness with which all involved have approached our common challenges.  And I’m looking forward to our next meeting in early December.

So where are we making the most progress?  I can report that we’re actively working on

  • developing a clear, consistent, and fair compensation scale for extra service by our contingent colleagues;
  • developing a clear, consistent, straightforward model for calculating FTE for part-time faculty and professionals that’s easy to understand and to use for everyone;
  • examining titles and criteria for qualified academic ranks available to contingent faculty and considering ways of regularizing them;
  • examining the efficacy of official lines of communication with our contingent colleagues and developing ways to enhance it;
  • exploring ways of better integrating and welcoming our contingent colleagues into departments and units.

Going forward, I’m working with UUP’s Vice President for Academics Jamie Dangler and members of UUP’s Contingent Employment Committee to collect local agreements from other SUNY campuses that might provide insights into best practices and possible models for us.  I’ve joined the Faculty and Professional Affairs Committee’s Adjunct and Contingent Faculty Subcommittee as an ex officio member to gain a better perspective on our own membership’s needs and interests.  And I’m working with our chapter’s Executive Board to form a Contingent Employment Advisory Group so that we may get specific input and feedback on our strategies and tactics in the months to come.  Thanks to everyone who’s already volunteered!  There’s still time to let me know if you’re interested in working with us.  Please feel free to contact me at brucesimon18@yahoo.com.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Kids These Days!

Check out what my students from my American Identities course have been working on this semester over at the American Identities blog when you get a chance.  The vast majority of the posts from this month are their Identification Projects, but I've also put up a list of the blogs some of them have created for their Final Projects.