The one-tier movement seeks to eliminate the legally mandated two-tier faculty system in California community colleges, which separates faculty into full-time (tenured) and part-time (contingent) classifications.
One-tier replaces classification with workload. Faculty are faculty—the only distinction is load, not status.
What would a one-tier system look like?
- Compensation: All faculty paid from a single salary schedule, proportional to workload
- Tenure: All faculty eligible for tenure under the same standards, with clear and reliable time-to-tenure protections
- Benefits: Full access to health, retirement, and institutional benefits for all faculty under the same standard— not a secondary or fractional system
- Workload: Assigned based on institutional need, with adjustments governed by transparent, seniority-based rules
- Assignments: Based on qualifications and seniority under transparent, collectively bargained rules
Why it matters
- For students: Stability, continuity, and faculty who are present and invested
- For districts: Stronger retention, reduced hiring churn, and simpler systems
- For faculty: Equity, security, dignity, and unity
- For the profession: Teaching becomes a sustainable career—not contingent labor
Challenges to address
- Protection: Transition must not displace current part-time faculty
- Cost: Achieving equal pay for equal work requires significant investment
- Structure: Education Code, Labor Code, Title 5, and CalSTRS are built around the two-tier system and must be revised
How to get there
- Legislative reform: Remove statutory barriers that enforce two-tier classification
- Collective bargaining: Advance one-tier provisions wherever possible at the district level
- Coalition building: Align unions, academic senates, students, and trustees
- Phased implementation:
- Equal pay for equal work
- Full benefits access
- Universal tenure eligibility
- Full one-tier system
Community colleges rely on faculty. That reliance must come with a system worthy of the profession it depends on.
For more information on the One-Tier Movement and the One-Tier Model, see the below articles and presentations CPFA has published on this topic:
Grid
A Unified Faculty Model
The California Community Colleges (CCC) system plays a pivotal role as an engine for economic and social mobility in California …
2024 Chair’s Report
Assembly Bill 2277 (Wallis), our bill to raise the part-time teaching cap from 67% to 85% of a full-time course …
2024 (Virtual) CPFA Conference
On Saturday, April 20th, 2024, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., the California Part-time Faculty Association (CPFA) will be hosting …
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 …
The Campaign for Faculty Equality
Key advocates who would soon become the board of the New Faculty Majority attending the 2010 COCAL Conference at Laval …
Building Our Future: The One-Tier Model is The Answer!
The Campaign for Faculty Equality (CFE) is a new statewide organization that aims to work in conjunction with existing advocacy …
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 …
“One Faculty”: A Shifting Conversation
By Jon Fox Reprinted from FA News, Foothill De-Anza Faculty Association One of my roles in FA is serving on …
Chair’s Report 2023
A new, two-year legislative cycle in Sacramento began this year, and with it, up to a quarter of California’s Senate …
Pursuing a One-Tier Faculty Workplace
The two-tier workplace, with an upper tier of tenured faculty and a lower tier of non-tenured faculty, has been the …
Should Contingents Support More Tenure-Track Jobs?
By Jack Longmate When hearing about proposals to fund new tenure-track jobs, adjuncts might think to themselves: “If I could …
Sue Broxholm Interview
AFT 1493 FACULTY FOCUS Sue Broxholm, Skyline Math Professor, advocates for the end of the “Two-Tier system” that divides full-time …
