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

• SEIU's Adjunct Action campaign (2013): http://adjunctaction.org/

Professional Associations

• MLA's resolution (2011): http://www.mla.org/pdf/clip_stmt_final_may11.pdf

Other Organizations

• AAUP’s overview (2013): http://www.aaup.org/issues/contingency
• AAUP's background facts (2013): http://www.aaup.org/issues/contingency/background-facts
• NYS AAUP's blueprint (2013): http://www.nysaaup.org/library/profile_21st_century_presidency.pdf
• CFHE’s principles (2011): http://futureofhighered.org/principles/
• CFHE’s report (2012): http://futureofhighered.org//wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ProfStaffFinal1.pdf
• New Faculty Majority's website (2013): http://www.newfacultymajority.info/equity/

Essays

• Michael Berube's address (2012): http://www.mla.org/blog?topic=146
• Gary Rhoades’s op-ed (2013): http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/24/opinion/rhoades-adjunct-faculty/?hpt=hp_bn7

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

• http://uupinfo.org/communications/uupdate/1314/131022.php
• http://www.aft.org/newspubs/news/2013/102513campusequity.cfm 
• http://www.campusequityweek.org/2013/ 
• follow New Faculty Majority on twitter @NewFacMajority (https://twitter.com/NewFacMajority
• for updates to our activities, see our announcement and come back to CitizenSE!

For more on Margaret Mary Vojtko, see

• Daniel Kovalik, "Death of An Adjunct," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (18 September 2013) http://www.post-gazette.com/Op-Ed/2013/09/18/Death-of-an-adjunct/stories/201309180224
• Gary Rhoades, "Adjunct Professors Are the New Working Poor," CNN (25 September 2013) http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/24/opinion/rhoades-adjunct-faculty/?hpt=hp_bn7

For more on the conditions of contingent faculty, see

• http://futureofhighered.org//wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ProfStaffFinal1.pdf
• http://www.academicworkforce.org/CAW_portrait_2012.pdf
• http://www.aaup.org/issues/contingency/background-facts

 [Update 1 (10/30/13, 5:05 pm):  For more #CEW2013 blogging here, check out:

• http://citizense.blogspot.com/2013/10/campus-equity-week-issue-1-towards.html 
• http://citizense.blogspot.com/2013/10/campus-equity-week-issue-2-towards.html

 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.]

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!)

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.

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

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!

“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!