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CPFA RESOLUTION AGAINST FULL-TIME FACULTY TEACHING OVERLOADS IN THE CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM

Background: The California Part-time Faculty Association has long held that full-time faculty in the California Community College system should not be allowed to teach over a 100% teaching load except in emergency situations (see CPFA Journal article Why Overloads Are a Bad Deal for All Faculty and Inside Higher Ed article Ceiling or Incentive? Would legislating a limit on faculty overtime result in more professors reaching the limit — and reducing spots for adjuncts? ).  We believe that such overloads should only be assigned after part-time faculty with reemployment rights in the department/discipline have been assigned their load according to their Collective Bargaining Agreement.  We feel this is especially important during the trying economic times brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In this spirit, we offer the following Resolution: 

Whereas the COVID-19 crisis has created an uncertain and possibly dire situation regarding the state budget and higher education, which will likely cause many higher ed institutions to react with precautionary and preemptive cuts to class sections, resulting in fewer available classes across the board;

Whereas part-time faculty, who make up the majority of college educators, are already limited by CA Education Code to 67% of a full-time load in every district for which they teach and must have classes to teach in order to pay basic living expenses for themselves and their families

Whereas it is a normal practice for full-time tenured faculty to have the option to teach beyond their mandatory regular fall and spring session workloads (including teaching during winter and summer sessions) this is, however, a voluntary tradition that is most often used to load bank and/or earn extra income;

Whereas some districts have restricted or even eliminated overloads, many districts still do not have any limitations on the number of additional classes a full-time faculty member may choose to teach;

Whereas full-time faculty in the California State University and University of California systems are contractually limited to a 100% load except in very specific circumstances;

Whereas teaching overloads are harmful in that they stretch full-time faculty workloads and make full-time faculty less available to each student;

Whereas full-time faculty choosing to take overload assignments directly limits the number of classes available to part-time faculty and causes them severe financial hardship; 

Whereas full-time faculty are all too often allowed to take on overload assignments before any classes are assigned to part-time faculty who have seniority in their department/discipline with guaranteed reemployment rights resulting in the part-time faculty member’s load being reduced or completely eliminated; and

Whereas CPFA believes that full-time faculty teaching overloads creates unnecessary divisiveness and ill will between faculty within departments whose members are most often in the same bargaining unit; therefore, be it

Resolved that the California Part-time Faculty Association is strongly opposed to full-time faculty overload assignments and is in favor of a moratorium on all full-time tenured faculty overload (except in emergency situations) particularly in, but not limited to, times of economic hardship, low enrollment, and widespread reduction of class sections and

Resolved that the California Part-time Faculty Association believes that assignments should be offered to part-time faculty with reemployment rights according to their Collective Bargaining Agreement before any full-time faculty overload requests are granted.

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