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.
Challenges Contingent Faculty Face in Improving Their Teaching
by Dennis Selder As a newbie teaching nights at Southwestern College, I was lucky to run into a guy named Steve Kowit. We both had three-hour classes on the same nights of the week, and our breaks occasionally coincided, and we’d talk. If there is any group on this ...
Keith Hoeller has edited an important new book about contingency! Take Note!
Equality for Contingent Faculty: Overcoming the Two-Tier System has just been published. Alex Kudera says, in reviewing the book, "There's something weird and creepy about a democracy that insists upon universal 'access' to higher education and then denies a majority of its college instructors a professional wage, or even a living wage, ...
Betting on the CPFA
Betting on the CPFA: A Pragmatic Solution to the "Perilous World of the Adjunct Professor" By John Martin, Chair
California Part-time Faculty Association
Presented May 5, 2017
PAL Conference In a December 2013 edition of the Los Angeles Times, editorial contributor, Charlotte Allen, offers an impractical and altogether implausible ...
California Part-time Faculty Association
Presented May 5, 2017
PAL Conference In a December 2013 edition of the Los Angeles Times, editorial contributor, Charlotte Allen, offers an impractical and altogether implausible ...
Should Full-Time Faculty Be CPFA Members?
The fall of 2013 has delivered a rich assortment of mainstream news stories and academic articles dealing with the tenuous circumstances of part-time faculty in higher education. In San Diego, The Reader published last week, "We're Constantly in Fear: The Life of a Part-Time Professor." On MSNBC, Melissa Harris-Perry interviewed ...
What Happened to Inspiration from Government?
When I was a kid, I remember the rush I got reading Johnny Tremain. Sure, it’s a great story, but what really grabbed me at the time—made my head want to explode--were the ideas about what government could be: inspiring. Government in that peculiar moment and place in history shifted ...
A congressman from just north of the Bay area calls for contingent faculty to speak up
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, today announced an eForum to investigate how an increased reliance on contingent faculty by colleges and universities nationwide has impacted the lives of faculty as well as students’ higher education. After a hearing held in DC ...
Lessons from the Death of a Part-Time Faculty Member
After listening to educators' responses to the account of Margaret Mary Vojtko's life as a destitute contingent faculty member at Duquesne University, I find myself both saddened and angered. The anger comes from the reaction of my peers. Colleagues quickly concede that non-tenured faculty are exploited. But then, in an ...
Assembly Bill 950 Toxic to Higher Education
The recently deposed California State Assembly Bill 950—AB 950—points to the general unwillingness of educators and legislators to confront the basic inequity that is built into California community colleges. AB 950 exemplifies a power dynamic that routinely fails our youth and oppresses some of our best and hardest working teachers ...
LIVE-BLOG CCSF Forum – Nov 7, 2013
Rich Hansen (FHDA) , Ron Galatolo (SMCCD), Jackie Spears, Anna Eshoo, jim Beal (all legislators) , Rafael Mandelman (CCSF trustee from the dissolved board of trustees), Josh Pechtault (CFT), Ron Gerhard (CCSF admin), Assemblyman Tom Ammiato, Local 2121 President Alissa Messer, and others are gathered to discuss CCSF issues in ...
Finally Getting to See a Doctor?
Tuesday this upcoming week is a big day for my eyesight, my aching elbow, my colon—the colonoscopy may now be just around the corner, oh joy!—and maybe even my left front tooth, which could use a fix on the bad ceramic job performed fifteen years ago. The California Health Exchange ...
CPFA Announces New Blog
Sacramento, CA. The CPFA Executive Council announces the launch of a new blog, CPFA Forum Blog, which will attempt to keep up with the rapid cycling of Part-time faculty news and perspectives developing in the state. Links to relevant news, independent legislative analysis, national coverage of adjuncts, narratives and personal ...
Across-the-Board Raises
Sound great, right? What could be fairer, you say, than the “same” raise for everyone? When your union announces an across the board raise, even a substantial one, like 4 or 5%, hold on to your hats. This is not a cause for celebration! Across the board raises actually worsen ...
The Shootings at Santa Monica in June (2013)
The Shootings at Santa Monica (June 7, 2013) By Martin M. Goldstein It could have been worse – much, much worse. A man clearly out of his mind, who had already killed four people, entered our Library crowded with students studying for Final Exams, and was about to open fire ...
CPFA Watch Position Statement for AB 950
Assembly Member Ed Chau P.O. Box 942849, Room 6011
Sacramento, CA 94249-0049
(916) 319-2049 RE: CPFA “Watch” Position Statement for AB-950 Dear Assemblymember Chau, The CPFA Executive Committee has voted to take a “Watch” position on the CFT sponsored legislation AB-950 for the following reasons: Overloads, per se, are ...
Sacramento, CA 94249-0049
(916) 319-2049 RE: CPFA “Watch” Position Statement for AB-950 Dear Assemblymember Chau, The CPFA Executive Committee has voted to take a “Watch” position on the CFT sponsored legislation AB-950 for the following reasons: Overloads, per se, are ...
Letter to the Media RE: Student Success Task Force Report
Dear Members of the Media, As a provision of AB1143 (Liu), the Chancellor’s Office called on the California Community Colleges Board of Governors (BOG) to convene a Student Success Task Force charged with “developing a plan to bring about significant improvements in success rates of our students.” Enclosed please find ...
