Category: e-Newsletter

  • My Effort to Get My Union to Support a Demand in Negotiations for Equal Pay for Equal Work

    By Rick Baum Under the two-tier system in higher education (that has continued for more than 40 years), the pay packages per class taught of two equally qualified and experienced faculty remain extremely unequal. The […]

    Activism in Education, e-Newsletter

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  • ASCCC Passed Resolution for a United Faculty (One-tier Model)

    By Annette Owens, CPFA Greater L.A. Regional Representative This spring, the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) officially joined the alphabet soup of organizations who are on record supporting the United Faculty (aka: One Tier, […]

    e-Newsletter

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  • Recent Rulings in Two Lawsuits Regarding Part-time Pay

    Judges recently issued positive rulings in two class action lawsuits, one against Long Beach Community College District and the other against 20 Community College Districts and the California Community Colleges Board of Governors. The cases allege that part-time faculty are illegally required to do unpaid work outside the classroom such as grading, class preparation, and communicating with students.

    e-Newsletter, Newsworthy

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  • Notes on the Adjunct Life – Part 1

    The much-maligned plight of adjuncts is a story of lies and exploitation... and a story adjuncts insist they must believe. This first installment of my experience as an adjunct for almost 20 years introduces OUR problem - the adjuncts' problem. It may be 'their' fault, but the lie is one we want to be true.

    e-Newsletter

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  • Governor’s Veto of AB 2277: A Missed Opportunity Based on Speculative Costs

    In September 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 2277, which proposed increasing part-time faculty workloads in California Community Colleges from 67% to up to 85% of the full-time faculty load. Newsom’s veto was based on concerns about "potentially significant costs," which seem to be grounded in speculative rather than substantive analysis.

    e-Newsletter, Legislation

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  • The One-Tier Concept for Advancing Student Success and Achieving Faculty Equality

    By Cynthia Mahabir, Laney College | Originally published in FACCCTS, Fall 2024 The Problem There’s a fundamental weakness in our California Community College system that impairs student success. Fortunately, there’s also a prospective solution. At […]

    e-Newsletter, Improving the Learning Environment

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  • CFT Pushes Forward on a Vision of a One-Tier/Unified Faculty Model

    By Geoff Johnson, Originally published on July 30, 2024 at CFT.org CFT’s One-Tier Task force and CFT members, after over eight months of discussion, has created a definitive list of basic components deemed essential for […]

    e-Newsletter, Educational Reform

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  • A Unified Faculty Model

    The California Community Colleges (CCC) system plays a pivotal role as an engine for economic and social mobility in California and as a driver for the fifth largest economy in the world. In the past two decades, the CCC system has undergone significant “reform,” narrowing students’ educational opportunities and shrinking the student body by over one million students. During this period, the CCC system’s student outcomes have declined, stagnated, or only slightly improved despite decades of “reform” efforts. This paper illustrates that transitioning from a two-tiered to a nontiered—unified faculty—model will better serve students, colleges, and the state of California. The concept of a unified faculty emphasizes the elimination of the two employment tiers—part-and full-time faculty—to create a nontiered structure. This model is based on faculty and collegewide unity as opposed to the current structure that has produced a divided faculty, inequitable service to students, and stagnant or diminishing student outcomes. Presently, the K-12 system and Vancouver model are structured around a unified, nontiered faculty model. It is time for the California Community Colleges to address the hypocrisy at the heart of its institutions: decades of disinvestment from the faculty and thus, students. Investing in a nontiered, unified faculty model will remedy the CCC system that is currently struggling to bring back the millions of students who have been pushed out of their colleges. 

    e-Newsletter, Educational Reform, Publications

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  • CPFA Sponsors AB 2277: Raising the Part-Time Faculty Workload Cap

    AB 2277 will increase the maximum number of instructional hours that a part-time California Community College faculty member may teach at any one community college district and allow students to build stronger relationships with existing […]

    e-Newsletter, Educational Reform

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  • Let the “Tracks” Merge

    By Joseph G. Ramsey, PhDFaculty Staff Union (FSU/MTA/NEA)Senior Lecturer, UMass Bostonjgramsey@gmail.com  Is there any other profession besides professor @ academia where you can have the same degree, same (or more) teaching experience, same (or better) […]

    e-Newsletter

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  • CPFA Celebrates 25 Years: A Founder Reflects

    This year marks CPFA’s 25th anniversary. There are still a few of us who remember those early days, and who are hopeful that the next 25 years will bring even greater changes to the workscape for roughly 35,000+ highly qualified educators who toil daily to keep the community college system in California not only afloat, but also healthy.

    e-Newsletter

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  • Tenured Faculty: Friend or Foe?

    by Jack Longmate At the Higher Ed Labor United (HELU) conference of July 20, 2023, a number of the non-tenure-track (NTT) speakers underscored the importance of collaboration with tenure-track (TT) faculty.  Not as avidly expressed […]

    e-Newsletter, Publications

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  • Life as a Contingent Faculty Member

    By Carolyn Kuimelis and Mary Ellen Flannery Republished with permission of the National Education Association (NEA). Originally published 05/23/2023 at NEA Today. The higher education system depends on the labor of adjuncts, yet these faculty remain […]

    e-Newsletter

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  • How to negotiate with the State of California

    You are a part-timer.  As one of approximately forty-thousand teachers employed across California community colleges, your labor is being used to subsidize the salaries of not just full-time faculty but a hierarchy of administrators who use us as a cash cow.  If you’re okay with that—with the guy in the classroom right next to yours making double for teaching a different section of the same class—or if you find yourself relatively free of financial stress or job insecurity, then read no further.  If, on the other hand, you agree there is a problem, then read on!

    e-Newsletter

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  • Faculty Apartheid in Higher Education

    Nearly seventy years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that separate can never be equal and struck down racial segregation in our nation’s K-12 public schools (Brown v. Board of Education). Yet in the past fifty years, higher education has instituted a separate but unequal system of faculty employment based on tenure-status. . . .

    CPFA Journal, e-Newsletter, Publications

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