Welcome to The CPFA Blog

We’ve collected a variety of original news stories and analyses for your perusing, which focus on education in California, part-time faculty and/or unions in academia that have broad national appeal. As might be expected, we take special interest in social justice issues that slip under the radar of the mainstream media.

Please see our Submit Content to the CPFA Blog to add your voice to the growing chorus calling for equity for part-time faculty in higher education.

Highlights from 2018 CPFA Conference

CPFA 2018 Annual Conference  San Diego City College, Saturday May 5, 2018​   Panelists discussed local achievements for PT faculty, goals for equity and office hours, moving the 67% PT load limit to 80% or 100%, the impact of the Janus decision on union relations with PT faculty. Will they ...

Building Job Security into Community College Faculty Work

Experiences in British Columbia by Frank Cosco, originally published on LABORonline's blog (LAWCHA) on November 6th Frank Cosco is currently First Vice-President of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of British Columbia. He’s been a faculty member at Vancouver Community College for a few decades and he’s taught English in Japan, Italy and Quebec ...

CPFA At 20

Part I of II (Read Part II) By Robert Yoshioka, Ph.D. Originally published in the CPFA Journal, Spring 2018 edition. 1998 will go down as a pivotal year in the history of part time faculty working in the California Community College System. It was that fall that a hearty band ...
/ CPFA Journal, e-Newsletter

Where Does the Money Go?: Transparent California Data Analysis

By David Milroy and members of the San Diego Adjunct Faculty Association (SDAFA) Originally published in the CPFA Journal, Spring 2018 edition. Read more>> As a part-time or adjunct instructor, have you ever wondered how the millions of dollars in your college’s budget are spent? Where does the money come ...

80% Workload for Part-Time Faculty: NEW CFT Resolution

Report (with some personal commentary) on The CFT 80% Resolution By John Govsky, Co-Chair CFT Part-Time Faculty Committee  The California Federation of Teachers (CFT), at its 2018 convention, passed a resolution stating that the CFT will work to change the California Ed. Code to raise the current cap on how ...

AGAINST TENURISM by Keith Hoeller

AGAINST TENURISM appeared as a feature article in the CPFA Journal, Fall 2017 edition. Access the full journal online here. In my book Equality for Contingent Faculty: Overcoming the Two-Tier System (Vanderbilt University Press, 2014) (Read more here), I contributed an article entitled “The Academic Labor System of Faculty Apartheid.”  While the ...

Income Disparity: Read the “Secret Lives of Bay Area Part-time Professors”

Secret lives of Bay Area part-time profs: Here's why they work at Safeway, live out of cars An Excerpt from the Article by Ted Andersen for the SFGATE Updated 5:18 pm, Monday, February 5, 2018   A vice chancellor and a part-time college professor walk into a bar. They have a drink ...

Support AB 310: Paid Office Hours for Part-time Faculty

January 16, 2018 Assembly Member Jose Medina Capitol Office, Room 2141 Sacramento, CA 94249-0061 (916) 319-2061      RE: SUPPORT AB 310 (Medina) Dear Assembly Member Medina: As the Chair and Legislative Analyst for the California Part-Time Faculty Association, (CPFA), an association representing nearly 40,000 part-time California Community College teachers, CPFA ...

Freeway Fliers, A Documentary Film

In December of 2014, we blogged about an upcoming documentary in the works: Freeway Fliers: A Documentary about Higher Education's Best Kept Secret Now you can watch the full documentary film The film, by Brad Rettele, Professor X and Professor Y (the latter two being anonymous adjuncts involved in the ...

Tenure for the Common Good

BY CAROLYN BETENSKY Guest Blogger / September 14, 2017 ACADEME BLOG, The blog of Academe magazine [Tenure for the Common Good has been re-posted with permission of the author] Those with the least job security in our institutions have shown the most bravery in facing a phenomenon that has ...

Why Overloads Are a Bad Deal for All Faculty

BY JEFF BAKER (Re-posted with permission of the author) Originally published July 27, 2016, ACADEME BLOG, The blog of Academe magazine The word overload can have more than one meaning to higher education faculty. It can mean increasing class size or adding additional course sections to the faculty ...

ACTION NEEDED: Due Process Bill in Jeopardy!

Colleagues! We need you to send emails to state Senators ASAP telling them to support CCCI's-sponsored bill AB 1651, authored by Assemblymember Eloise Gómez Reyes. The bill will be voted on by the full Senate in either late-August or early-September. The Community College League, representing boards of trustees and chief ...

The Academic Labor System of Faculty Apartheid

This excerpt has been posted on the CPFA website with the express permission of its author. CPFA's Must-Read Book Spotlight. Buy the book on Amazon. Equality for Contingent Faculty: Overcoming the Two-Tier System by Keith Hoeller (Editor, Author) Chapter 5 In 2009, Money Magazine published a survey titled “The 50 ...

May Day March for Freedom & Equality

  David Milroy and Carol Whaley: "Whose streets? OUR streets!" For part-time faculty across the state of California, Labor Day is much more than a day of commemoration. It is also a day to carry on the march for the universal right to live free, happy and productive lives ...