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.

Adjunct Faculty Must Lead

by Dennis Selder The New York Times recently ran a story that finds empirical evidence corroborating the economic struggle most working people experience:  "A Recovery, but Only for Those Who Need It Least."  The explanation the author gives for the virtually unnoticeable 1.1% increase in wages (2010-2013):  "Wages have been under pressure for the ...
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/ activism, Activism in Education, adjuncts, assessment, contingent faculty, corporatization of higher education, dispossession, evaluation, Leadership, teaching

Tarot Reading for Adjunct Faculty

...
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/ adjuncts, Commentary, Image

CCSF Critic’s Biased, Deeply Flawed Argument

by Richard B. Simon As a faculty member at City College of San Francisco -- and an expatriate New Yorker who holds the Times to be the epitome of journalism and integrity -- I was dismayed at Kevin Carey's July 14 "The Upshot" piece. Mr. Carey paints City College as ...
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/ ACCJC, accreditation, CCSF, City College of San Francisco, Commentary, corporatization of higher education, Neoliberalism & Higher Education, Think Tank Foundation Bias

How Privateers Undermine Our Education System Flow Chart

This chart shows the insidious web of assault on our public education system. While the chart reveals the system behind privatizing our primary and secondary schools, many of the same groups are actively involved in a similar assault on our higher education system. The goal in all this at every ...
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/ corporatization of higher education, educational deform, Educational Reform, Follow the Money, higher education, Neoliberal agenda, Neoliberal think tanks and foundations, Neoliberalism & Higher Education, Privatization

Why Can’t We All Work Together?

by William Lipkin | 5 July 2014 I became active in the labor movement over 25 years ago at a time when very few people even knew what the word ‘adjunct’ referred to. I immediately saw the inequities in every aspect of Higher Education and began to question and ...
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/ Academic Solidarity, adjuncts, Commentary, contingent faculty, infighting, internalized oppression, Oppression, part-time faculty, Solidarity

Salgamos de las tinieblas en Texas

Here, Ana M. Fores Tamayo provides a Spanish version of her article, "Out of the Shadows in Texas." 18 junio de 2014 Nota de los editores: Ana M. Fores Tamayo es una profesora ambulatoria en el área de Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas, un estado bastante más extenso que California y con ...
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/ adjuncts, DACA, discarded workers, DREAM Act, DREAMers, Follow the Money, Neoliberalism & Higher Education, neoliberalist argument, Oppression, workplace fairness

Adjunct, Be Not Loud

With special thanks to John Donne, [“Death Be Not Proud”] For the California Part-time Faculty Association. Adjunct, be not loud, though exploited be Willing and happy, for thou have no place; With those who make thee teach in largest space Filled not by timers full, for nearly free. No ...
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/ adjuncts, Commentary, contingent faculty, higher education, parody, part-time faculty, satire, Teachers' Rights

Out of the Shadows in Texas

2 June 2014 Editors Note: Ana M. Fores Tamayo teaches part time in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area of Texas, a state that dwarfs California in size and has quite different education codes. Given both states’ proximity to the border and demographic similarities, CPFA’s Director of Publications Pamela Hanford asked Ana ...
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/ Academia & Class, Academic Solidarity, Activism in Education, adjuncts, contingent faculty, DACA, deportation scandal, DREAMers, Oppression, part-time faculty, Teachers' Rights, undocumented students, workplace fairness

Higher Ed Oligarchy

When John Venn formalized the use of Euler diagrams "as a means of representing relations of inclusion and exclusion between classes, or sets," he may never have imagined the many uses to which it would be put, nor its multiple permutations. Here is a representation of the relationships between the ...
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/ Academia & Class, adjuncts, Class Wars, corporatization of higher education, hiring trends, income Inequality, institutional hiring practices, limiting hours of work, marginalizing workers, Neoliberalism & Higher Education, oligarchy, Venn diagram, workplace equity

Discipline and Punish Revisited: Teaching Evaluation

by Dennis Selder A wonderful example of Foucault's observations about how power and knowledge interact is   teaching evaluation.  Teaching evaluation is a special sort of knowledge that requires a difference in the power relationship among participants for it to even be produced. By its nature, the person being assessed is ...
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/ assessment, California Community Colleges, Community College Decision-Making, Educational Reform, evaluation, improvement, Improving the Learning Environment, Neoliberalism & Higher Education, teaching

Path to student loan debt relief for adjuncts just got a little easier–but still a long way to go

By Krista Eliot The U.S. Department of Education has made a very important change to the application form for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, that just made the path to relief from student loan debt a little easier for many public service employees, including many adjunct faculty. Before ...
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/ adjuncts, Federal Policy, student loan debt payment programs, student loan debt relief

Are College Administrators Encouraging Public Disinvestment in Education?

by Dennis Selder It seems paradoxical to suggest that administrators and college presidents may be partly responsible for public disinvestment in higher education when the principal justification for having them around is to secure funds for their respective institutions.  And yet, in examining the evidence, the conclusion is hard to ...
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/ Commentary, Community College Decision-Making, Public Disinvestment in Education

Maslow a la Adjunct

by Marnie Webster Twitter: @minimuswebster ...
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/ Academia & Class, adjuncts, contingent faculty treatment of, income Inequality, Maslow, neoliberalism, Oppression, Public Disinvestment in Education, workplace equity

Writing Our Own History

by Dennis Selder If you read the seamless articles geared for the select group of community college administrators who  portray themselves as "leaders" and "educational innovators" of the  community college system, you will find a history of ongoing concern for students--especially lower-income and economically disadvantaged students to the exclusion of ...
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/ activism, adjuncts, Commentary, contingent faculty, educational reform, healthcare, Improving the Learning Environment, reform

Contingent Faculty at Hogwarts

by Dennis Selder While it’s true that Hogwarts is a relatively privileged educational institution in relation to many schools and colleges, Hogwarts too finds it necessary to rely in part on contingent faculty to fill in the gaps in its expertise.   Having said this, it is worth pointing out that ...
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/ contingent faculty, educational reform, Improving the Learning Environment, Neoliberalism & Higher Education