Saturday, May 2, 2015
Adjunct Professors Deserve More Money and Job Security: Editorial by Dr. Keith Hoeller, Saturday, May 2, 2015
"In the Community Colleges of Spokane (CCS), the 500 adjunct professors average only $14,804 a year for teaching a half-time load. That’s less than half of an annual salary of $15 an hour ($31,200). And it’s only 27 percent of the average CCS full-timers salary of $54,678, with about 100 exceeding $80,000."
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/may/02/keith-hoeller-adjunct-professors-deserve-more-mone/
Washington State Legislators, Please Step Up to the Plate!
Correct this unjust and unproductive situation to help our community and our students.
Otherwise, students see their profs delivering their pizzas on Saturday night.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Adjuncts Walk Out Day, with news from Seattle University Feb. 25, 2015
Nontenured instructors stage walkout over demands at SU
By Katherine Long
Seattle Times higher education reporter
Waving signs and chanting “count the votes,” several hundred faculty members and students walked out of Seattle University on Wednesday as part of a national day of action to call attention to the working conditions of adjunct professors and instructors.
Originally published February 25, 2015 at 5:55 pm
Updated February 25, 2015 at 9:03 pm
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Washington State Senate Commerce and Labor Committee Pass SB 5231 Out of Committee. Wed. Feb. 19, 2015
Here's an update from Dr. Keith Hoeller of the Washington State Part Time Faculty Association:
"About 3 p.m. on Wed. Feb. 19, SB 5231 (Separate Unions for Adjunct Faculty) passed out of the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. You can see the vote take place on TVW.org at about 1 hour and thirty minutes into the hearing: http://tvw.org/index.php?
"About 3 p.m. on Wed. Feb. 19, SB 5231 (Separate Unions for Adjunct Faculty) passed out of the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. You can see the vote take place on TVW.org at about 1 hour and thirty minutes into the hearing: http://tvw.org/index.php?
While the vote has not yet been posted, it appeared that all of the Republicans voted for the bill, and all of the Democrats opposed it.
It is clear that your many letters, and the testimony of six adjuncts at last Friday's public hearing, made a big impact on the committee.
The bill now goes to Senate Ways and Means Committee and we hope to have a hearing.
If you have time, it would be great if you could drop the Chair (michael.baumgartner@leg.wa.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
National Adjunct Walkout Day Feb. 25, 2015 and Chronicle Article by Dr. Keith Hoeller Feb. 16, 2015
February 16, 2015
Unions Need to Step Up for Equality
Last fall an adjunct professor, who wishes to remain anonymous, created a Facebook page titled "National Adjunct Walkout Day" and posted the following: "On February 25, 2015, adjuncts across the country will come together to insist on fair wages and better working conditions."
http://chronicle.com/article/Unions-Need-to-Step-Up-for/190053/
Tuesday 17, February 2015
Guest Opinion: Part-time faculty at community colleges need rights
"...less well known are the impoverished wages paid to most community college part-time instructors, the result of discounted rate of pay and workload caps. The dismal compensation forces some part-time instructors to accept food stamps and social welfare programs in order to survive. Those who still have student loan debt from their undergraduate or graduate studies face dim prospects of ever being able to pay those debts off. "
by Jack Longmate and Keith Hoeller
http://crosscut.com/2015/02/guest-opinion-part-time-faculty-community-colleges-need-rights/
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Please sign petition for SB 5844 (Different Unions for Adjuncts and Tenured Faculty) to Washington State Governor December 18, 2014
From Washington State:
We now have a petition to Gov. Inslee in favor of WA Senate Bill 5844 (SB 5844) to give us separate unions for the full-timers and part-timers. We have 67 signatures now.Please sign and comment on this petition ASAP, and be sure to spread it around and ask others to sign it too.http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/governor-jay-insleesupport
Cordially,
Keith Hoeller
Washington Part-Time Faculty Association
Seattle, WA
P.S. We are gearing up for January's legislative session. Please send me names and email addresses of people you think might support our efforts to pass SB 5844!
Washington Part-Time Faculty Association
Seattle, WA
P.S. We are gearing up for January's legislative session. Please send me names and email addresses of people you think might support our efforts to pass SB 5844!
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Washington State Legislature Must Fund Early Learning and Higher Education Too via Seattle Times Editorial Dec. 3 to Dec. 4, 2014
Many Thanks to the Seattle Times, for calling attention to the underfunding of higher education, which is leaving the majority of college instructors in poverty, and students with hefty loans.
"Originally published December 3, 2014 at 4:03 PM | Page modified December 4, 2014 at 9:05 AM Editorial: Education funding needs to be for more than K-12
As state lawmakers address mandates to boost funding for kindergarten through 12th grade schools, they must also consider the needs of early learning and higher education students."
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Faculty Alert: Appeal to Help Homeless Adjunct Advocate June 2014
"Fellow Workers: We are in here for you,
you are out there for us"
IWW
Mary Faith has been out there on the streets of New York fighting for us. Can we be inside our homes and campuses fighting for her?...She has put a face to the plight of impoverished adjuncts throughout this country. Let's not treat Mary-Faith as though she were disposable."
Folks:
We now have two websites to collect funds for homeless adjunct Mary-Faith Cerasoli. Both contain background on Mary-Faith and how she became homeless.
"NCC Adjuncts United" has already had over 240 unique visitors: http://www.
"Mary-Faith is Fighting for Adjunct Rights" has a wealth of information and a donation link too: http://www.gofundme.com/
You can even download prints by donating a small amount.
The Precarious Faculty Blog site also contains information about the Nassau Community College Adjunct Faculty Association (AFA), which has had a $400,000 fine imposed on it for a strike last September. The leaders of this independent union are still facing the possibility of the loss of their jobs from a retaliatory President and Board of Trustees. See http://www.
At great risk to her teaching career, Mary-Faith went to Albany, the New York state capital, to protest the treatment of adjuncts. She demanded that the New York Secretary of Education meet with her. He refused.
At great risk to her health, she began the age old progressive tactic of a hunger strike to call attention to our plights. She demanded that the Governor or one of his aides meet with her. While one of his aides did call her, he refused to meet with her. Not wishing to endanger her health any further in a fruitless quest, she wisely called off her strike and saw a doctor to make sure she was well.
She wrote an op-ed for the Albany Times-Union daily newspaper, "All Faculty Deserve Fair Treatment" http://www.
She has been profiled in the Chronicle of Higher Education: https://
The New York Times also did a story on her: "Without Tenure or a Home" http://www.nytimes.com/
Under the current system, adjunct faculty are disposable people. When they don't get a class, when they have a class cancelled, when there are no more classes for them, no one worries about them, and no one takes responsibility. It's just the way it is for those off the tenure track.
If an adjunct should dare apply for unemployment, she will be hassled for sure, and most likely denied. If she speaks up against this unjust two-track system, she will surely be hassled and she may never teach again.
We know all of this in the abstract. Some of us know it from personal experience.
We now have two websites to collect funds for homeless adjunct Mary-Faith Cerasoli. Both contain background on Mary-Faith and how she became homeless.
"NCC Adjuncts United" has already had over 240 unique visitors: http://www.
"Mary-Faith is Fighting for Adjunct Rights" has a wealth of information and a donation link too: http://www.gofundme.com/
You can even download prints by donating a small amount.
The Precarious Faculty Blog site also contains information about the Nassau Community College Adjunct Faculty Association (AFA), which has had a $400,000 fine imposed on it for a strike last September. The leaders of this independent union are still facing the possibility of the loss of their jobs from a retaliatory President and Board of Trustees. See http://www.
At great risk to her teaching career, Mary-Faith went to Albany, the New York state capital, to protest the treatment of adjuncts. She demanded that the New York Secretary of Education meet with her. He refused.
At great risk to her health, she began the age old progressive tactic of a hunger strike to call attention to our plights. She demanded that the Governor or one of his aides meet with her. While one of his aides did call her, he refused to meet with her. Not wishing to endanger her health any further in a fruitless quest, she wisely called off her strike and saw a doctor to make sure she was well.
She wrote an op-ed for the Albany Times-Union daily newspaper, "All Faculty Deserve Fair Treatment" http://www.
She has been profiled in the Chronicle of Higher Education: https://
The New York Times also did a story on her: "Without Tenure or a Home" http://www.nytimes.com/
Under the current system, adjunct faculty are disposable people. When they don't get a class, when they have a class cancelled, when there are no more classes for them, no one worries about them, and no one takes responsibility. It's just the way it is for those off the tenure track.
If an adjunct should dare apply for unemployment, she will be hassled for sure, and most likely denied. If she speaks up against this unjust two-track system, she will surely be hassled and she may never teach again.
We know all of this in the abstract. Some of us know it from personal experience.
But thanks to Mary Faith's courageous acts, the public now knows it in the concrete. She has put a face to the plight of impoverished adjuncts throughout this country.
Let's not treat Mary-Faith as though she were disposable.
If 1,000 of us would contribute as little as $10, we could raise $10,000 to give her enough money for a stable living environment for a year. She could then turn to devoting full-time to finding employment.
One of the most iconic cartoons in the history of the labor movement comes from the progressive union The Industrial Workers of the World, nicknamed the Wobblies (see bottom of this letter). It has a picture of a man in jail behind bars, with the caption:
"Fellow Workers: We are in here for you, you are out there for us"
Mary Faith has been out there on the streets of New York fighting for us. Can we be inside our homes and campuses fighting for her?
I urge all of you to go to one of the two websites: http://www.
Please post this email appeal to lists, websites, groups, listservs, forums, personal web pages, blogs, and social media, including Facebook, Twitter and G+, unions or other organizations.
Cordially,
Keith Hoeller
Editor, Equality for Contingent Faculty: Overcoming the Two-Tier System
Co-founder, Washington Part-Time Faculty Association
Let's not treat Mary-Faith as though she were disposable.
If 1,000 of us would contribute as little as $10, we could raise $10,000 to give her enough money for a stable living environment for a year. She could then turn to devoting full-time to finding employment.
One of the most iconic cartoons in the history of the labor movement comes from the progressive union The Industrial Workers of the World, nicknamed the Wobblies (see bottom of this letter). It has a picture of a man in jail behind bars, with the caption:
"Fellow Workers: We are in here for you, you are out there for us"
Mary Faith has been out there on the streets of New York fighting for us. Can we be inside our homes and campuses fighting for her?
I urge all of you to go to one of the two websites: http://www.
Please post this email appeal to lists, websites, groups, listservs, forums, personal web pages, blogs, and social media, including Facebook, Twitter and G+, unions or other organizations.
Cordially,
Keith Hoeller
Editor, Equality for Contingent Faculty: Overcoming the Two-Tier System
Co-founder, Washington Part-Time Faculty Association
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