Colorado Community Colleges Rely on Poverty-Level Instructor Workforce By: Anna Boiko-Weyrauch | March 11, 2015

By: Anna Boiko-Weyrauch | March 11, 2015

Front Range Community College adjunct professor Caprice Lawless grades papers as she waits for her turn at the Sister Carmen Community Center food bank in Lafayette, Colo., on March 5, 2015. Lawless has two masters degrees and almost 16 years of community college teaching experience. She says has to choose between incurring debt or visiting a food bank each month to survive on her approximately $20,000 a year adjunct instructor salary.

Pears were all-you-can-take at the food bank, so Front Range Community College adjunct professor Caprice Lawless loaded up during a visit one Thursday.Lawless set the plastic bag in her cart, where it joined manila folders of student homework she still had to grade, some canned tuna and peanut butter.

She has two masters degrees and almost 16 years of community college teaching experience. Yet she said she has to choose between incurring debt or visiting a food bank each month to survive on her approximately $20,000 a year adjunct instructor salary.

“It’s a spiritual challenge,” Lawless said.

In the State of the Union address earlier this year, President Barack Obama identified two years of free community college education as a means to help the middle class. It’s not only the students who could use a leg up.

Adjunct professors scraping by on assistance from family, charities, and safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps continue to push for fair compensation and work conditions. Higher education institutions across Colorado employ part-time faculty, but adjuncts in community colleges say their situation is particularly dire.

Adjuncts currently represent 4,060 employees, or 78 percent of instructors at the 13 colleges in the Colorado Community College System, and are paid per class, largely without benefits, sick leave or job security.

Across the country, adjuncts staged a “National Adjunct Walkout Day” on February 25 to protest wages and working conditions. Organizers held events on Colorado campuses, too, including around 70 people who gathered in the middle of the Auraria campus in Denver.

“These are qualified teachers and I think we should be doing better by them,” said state Sen. John Kefalas, D-Fort Collins, who has championed legislation that would end the disparity between pay for adjuncts and their full-time faculty counterparts. “Ultimately that impacts the quality of the education.”

The community college system contends that its funding ranks below all other higher education institutions in the state and that it needs the workforce flexibility of employing part-time instructors. Creating more full-time positions would be cost-prohibitive for students and unresponsive to the state’s economic needs, said Colorado Community College System President Nancy McCallin.

“The two primary sources of funding – tuition as well as state funding – really restrict us from a financial standpoint from being able to operate in any other model,” McCallin said.

Adjuncts and full-time faculty are paid at significantly different rates. For “part-time” and “full-time” instructors teaching identical standard credit loads of 30 hours per week, the system estimated it would spend $20,828 on average this year in salaries for adjuncts and $53,693 on average for full-time instructors, who also receive benefits, according to budget documents.

Starting in July, adjuncts will be eligible for health insurance if they work 30 hours a week or more, according to the Community College System.

The community colleges assert only one-third of adjuncts want a full-time teaching job. At current staffing levels that would represent 1,270 employees. Adjuncts trying to piece together a career and their allies in the legislature say the result of this “two-tiered system” of payment pushes highly educated and accomplished education professionals to the edge of financial disaster.

Adjuncts Teeter on the Edge

Adjunct professor Nathanial Bork says he and his wife are “good at being poor.”

To save money, the couple has had to forgo a plumber for their broken kitchen sink, not to mention the expensive genetic testing to diagnose their daughter’s developmental disability.

“It’s frustrating; It’s humiliating,” Bork said. “You keep telling yourself, ‘If I get full-time, it’ll all work out.’”

Hand-written thank you letters are among the trophies Bork displays at home. They are from students who found direction, their voice and a compassionate ear in his class.

“He was the first professor who treated me as a person,” said Christina Mazingo, who flunked out of her first try at college. Mazingo now supports herself as a nanny as she works towards nursing school.

Gene Gonzalez is a former Marine who says he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury. “There are times I am so fatigued while I come to his class,” Gonzalez said. “But once his lecture starts, I feed on his motivation and energy.”

Bork has paid a personal cost to help them. Last year he made $25,292 working full-time hours at two part-time jobs at the Community College of Aurora and Arapahoe Community College, while serving as adjunct representative to the faculty senate and running special projects.

This semester Bork teaches four classes, a number which could increase, decrease, or altogether disappear without notice next semester. He is paid around $2,000 per class but each class requires 2 1/2 hours outside class to prep lessons, grade and respond to student questions. He estimates it levels out to about $13 an hour.

Without a work office, he grades from home.

Over 90 percent of adjuncts surveyed by the Colorado Community College System last year said pay was their No. 1 concern, but nearly 70 percent said they were satisfied with their jobs. Bork himself attests to the joy of teaching and improving students’ lives.

In different survey by the American Association of University Professors, 77 percent of Colorado adjuncts responded that pay and benefits were inadequate for their needs.

“There are definitely points when we were down to our last $100 and didn’t know where money would come from,” Bork said.

With no savings, Bork and his wife teeter one step away from “catastrophe,” he said. He is considering a career change.

The Debate Over Hiking Pay

“I’d love to pay our adjunct instructors more,” McCallin said. “Given where we have our funding at the state level, we are not funded in a manner that would allow that.”

The system has made a “concerted effort” and a “significant commitment” to increase adjunct pay, she said, including a increase in the pay rate per credit hour over the past five years.

In the past two years, two bills have failed in the state legislature that would have changed adjunct pay and working conditions. House Bill 14-1154 and Senate Bill 15-094 would have granted equal status to part-time instructors and full-time instructors, and was estimated to cost between $55.4 million and $97 million.

The community college system lobbied against the bills, because they would lead to the state’s “micromanagement” in community college business, McCallin said.

Senator Kefalas is not giving up. The community colleges could dedicate money currently in their reserve funds to begin to increase adjunct pay next year, he said.

“There should be a way for them to put some skin in the game to do this initial increase, and that would give us more ability to go to the Joint Budget Committee of the legislature and ask for money,” Kefalas said.

A task force convened by the Community College System devised a series of recommendations to improve adjuncts’ work conditions, including raising their pay 28 percent which was estimated to cost roughly $20 million.

In February, the State Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education, which oversees the system, agreed to implement almost every other recommendation, such as providing more opportunities for adjuncts to participate in college decision-making and compensating adjuncts 10 percent of their expected pay when a class is cancelled on short notice.

However, the board did not approve the recommendation of increasing adjunct pay, citing the difficult “current political environment.”

Right now the community college system is requesting $43 million from the legislature’s capital development committee to fund construction projects.

English adjunct Lawless is a leader in the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which pushes for recognition of adjuncts.

“Stop building all those buildings,” Lawless said, on her way home from the food bank. She wants to see greater investment in instruction. “Let’s put the foundations under the schools where the foundations belong, which is in the teaching.”

CSU professors rally for adjunct faculty

Katie de la Rosa, Coloradoan, Fort Collins, CO http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2015/02/25/csu-professors-rally-adjunct-faculty/24021323/

A dozen Colorado State University educators gathered Wednesday on the steps of the university’s administration building to support adjunct professors fighting for better pay and improved work conditions across the nation.

Instead of participating in the National Adjunct Walkout Day, in which non-tenured faculty across the country were asked to walk out of classes in protest, CSU encouraged staff for a more positive show of support. Ann Magennis, an associate professor of anthropology, said she and her fellow tenured professors stood in solidarity for their adjunct faculty co-workers “because they’re not getting the pay, recognition or job security they deserve.”

Nationwide, adjunct faculty — who work on a part-time or contractual basis — are paid an average of $2,700 per course, less than half than their full-time colleagues, according to a report by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce.

At CSU, 40 percent of the faculty is non-tenured, and teach roughly 44 percent of undergraduate students.

“It’s clear there’s a demand for adjunct faculty, so they should be provided with living wages and other similar benefits,” Magennis said.

University President Tony Frank was unable to attend the rally, but in an email sent Tuesday encouraged staff to “celebrate and honor” non-tenure-track faculty, on whom he said colleges and universities nationwide heavily depend but don’t commit “to make employees.”

In his email, Frank named a number of steps CSU has taken to address adjunct issues, including offering multi-year contacts and increased pay. But Magennis is concerned about a larger problem.

“There’s just not much funding,” she said. “Across the country states are diminishing the money they’re willing to provide for higher education, and the number of administrative positions has ballooned at the expense of faculty.

“I’m reluctant to encourage students to get Ph.Ds,” Magennis continued. “Why? Why bother if you can’t get a job?”

Aside from the lack of employment benefits, adjunct professors don’t often have a say in campus affairs, said Natalie Barnes, who has a senior teaching appointment and is the at-large representative for the Committee on Non-Tenure-Track Faculty. For instance, Barnes said non-tenured faculty didn’t get a vote in the university’s new parking plan.

“As far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t represent me,” Barnes said.

Her committee lobbies with other faculty councils, but Barnes said their concerns aren’t often the same. Because adjunct professors don’t have tenure, Barnes said one of their main worries deals with student evaluations, which can determine the fate of their employment.

But it’s not about just getting a consistent paycheck. Ross McConnell, an associate professor of computer science, said adjunct professors “have no protections to guarantee them academic freedom.”

The Colorado chapter of the American Association of University Professors is pushing its One Faculty Campaign, a new initiative urging institutions to treat their faculties as wholes and not in fragments, said Co-President Stephen Mumme. He said Colorado universities “need to get ahead of this issue” before professors here begin unionizing.

“The time has come to do a better job with personnel retention and planning,” Mumme said.

In his email, Frank said he’s proud of what CSU has accomplished for its adjunct faculty, but noted the university still has work to do and remains committed to the cause.

“I remain firmly committed to continuous, measurable improvement in the working environment that CSU provides,” Frank said.

Wednesday’s planned nationwide walkout hadn’t materialized by late afternoon. The Washington Post and other media outlets reported that displays of support such as that seen at CSU were more common than people actually refusing to teach.

 

Colorado State University President Tony Frank Supports NTTF…

The following email was sent to the CSU Community by President Tony Frank who is a long-time supporter of non-tenure track faculty. I am proud to be a CSU Ram and look forward to continuing to move the right direction here at Colorado State University.

GO RAMS!

Dear Colleagues,

In my Fall Address to the University two years ago, I noted that CSU is fortunate to have an exceptional cadre of adjunct faculty who bring skill, insight, and experience to our classrooms and allow us to provide the courses and curricula essential to meet student demand. The University relies on these non-tenure-track faculty members, who want the same things that all of us want when we work hard and perform well: some job security, decent pay and benefits, opportunities for advancement, and respect.

Colorado State’s Contingent Caucus this Wednesday, February 25, will be hosting a “walk-in day” to showcase and celebrate the professionalism, contributions, and commitment of CSU’s non-tenure- track (NTT) faculty. Information is available at https://contingentcaucus.wordpress.com/. My goal in writing today is to urge all members of our campus community to join, as I do, in honoring and celebrating our non-tenure-track faculty, both via this grassroots event and throughout the year.

Nationwide, the level of dependence that colleges and universities have on adjunct, non-tenure-track faculty has for too long greatly exceeded the commitment that institutions have been willing to make to them as employees, scholars, and educators. Across the country, almost two-thirds of faculty at accredited colleges and universities are non-tenured. At CSU, roughly 40 percent of our faculty members are non-tenured, and they teach about 44 percent of our undergraduate student credit hours. This is not news to Colorado State University nor to anyone who has been paying attention to this issue over the past 30 years. But even as reliance on NTT faculty has grown, we have historically seen adjunct faculty across the country treated as an unrepresented underclass of university employees – a paradox that ought to be repugnant to all of us in higher education.

Like other universities, CSU for too long failed to adequately rise to this challenge. But today I’m truly proud that we have begun to address the challenge in meaningful, fundamental ways. Over the last three years, thanks to the strong leadership and support of Faculty Council, Provost Miranda, and most notably our adjunct faculty themselves, we have made some long overdue and important changes.
Here is some of what has improved for our non-tenure-track colleagues as a result of this focus:

* Thanks to a change in state statute, which we strongly supported, we can now offer multi-year contracts to non-tenure-track faculty and establish senior teaching appointments.

* We’ve raised the salary floor for adjuncts and provided standardized, incremental raises.

* We’ve developed an outline of best practices for hiring and supporting NTT faculty to more clearly provide a career path that rewards and recognizes their contributions.

* NTT teaching appointments are no longer terminated at the end of spring semester, which caused adjuncts to lose library and parking access and amplified the sense of job insecurity.

* We have reiterated our expectation that NTT faculty have the same academic freedom as regular faculty – and we are committed to upholding that right as an institution of higher learning.

* The Office of the Provost and others have offered expanded mentoring and professional development opportunities for NTT faculty.

* Goals related to improvement of the working conditions of NTT faculty have been included in the University Strategic Plan.

* We have supported and promoted Campus Equity Week events to draw attention to the working conditions of NTT faculty.

* Adjuncts now have an official voice in CSU faculty governance through the Faculty Council Standing Committee on Non-Tenure Track Faculty.

As I said, I’m proud of what we’ve achieved so far. But it is not enough, and we remain committed to taking the steps needed to make CSU one of the finest work environments in the country for non-tenure- track faculty. There remain issues where our progress is not what we might hope and where we are continuing to focus, including the need
for:

* greater recognition — at all levels — of NTT faculty accomplishments and contributions.

* continued improvement in competitive compensation and benefits that better reflect the value we place on our NTT faculty.

* continued improvement in extension of multi-year contracts and special teaching appointments to greater numbers of NTT faculty.

* policy changes that support an improved work environment for NTT faculty.

* a voice – and a vote – in departmental and college business.

Unfortunately, I will be out of town on Wednesday and unable to participate in the events on campus. But I will be there in spirit to applaud the leadership and contributions of our non-tenure track faculty – and I remain firmly committed to continuous, measurable improvement in the working environment that CSU provides.

Thanks – and have a good week,

-tony
Dr. Tony Frank
President

Join Other Non-tenure Faculty at Colorado State University in Recognizing Our Contributions

Please find below some information on CSU’s February 25th celebration of non-tenure track faculty.

Some social media sites and publications have been discussing a National Adjunct Walkout Day planned for this February. While bringing attention to the situation of adjuncts is important, here at Colorado State University, we have the opportunity to engage in a positive celebration of the work non-tenure track faculty do.

CSU’s administration has been actively working with us to make substantial progress in the working conditions of non-tenure track faculty on campus. While there is still further progress to be made both at CSU and nationally, on February 25th we encourage you to

• take a picture of yourself at work and post it to social media using #NAWD and #CSUNAWD. If you teach, you might include your students.
• visit the steps of the Administration building to record yourself and/or your classes celebrating the work adjuncts do. A camera will be set up to record visitors throughout the day.
• join other NTTF for group photos at 7:30am, 12pm, and 4:15pm in front of the Administration building.

We have the opportunity on February 25th to be nationally recognized alongside other adjuncts working to improve the situation of NTTF in higher education. Rather than walking out, though, we can demonstrate our value by showing our numbers, our relationships to our students and other faculty, and our commitment to our jobs and the CSU community.

You can find some more information on this grassroots event in the following links:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/27/national-adjunct-walkout-day-approaches-attracting-both-enthusiasm-and-questions

https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Adjunct-Walkout-Day/340019999501000

http://www.naicu.edu/news_room/news_detail.asp?id=21553

Sincerely,
The Contingent Caucus
https://contingentcaucus.wordpress.com/

Visit the “National Adjunct Walkout Day” Facebook Page…

An idea to think about…how will you celebrate non-tenured faculty at your institution?

https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Adjunct-Walkout-Day/340019999501000

February 25th, National Adjunct Walkout Day (and February 23-27, National Adjunct Action week), is a day adjuncts all over the country will take advantage of to bring attention to the plight of adjuncts. There are shared goals and concerns to be certain, but exactly how adjuncts use the day or week is to be determined by each adjunct, group, or campus.

We encourage adjuncts to work together with other groups for maximum effect. But we are especially heartened by the “lone” adjuncts, or the isolated adjuncts who may be wondering how they can support ‪#‎NAWD‬.

To our minds, there is no group more equipped to self-organize than adjuncts. Adjuncts are educators who are forced to be innovative and creative with limited resources and no support on a daily basis. Self-organizing is the adjunct’s bread and butter. In order to assist adjuncts we will be posting links to resources that we think adjuncts may find helpful, as well as a Tumblr. These are for the lone adjuncts too in the hopes that adjuncts standing in solidarity on February 25 will help bring about positive change.

CSU Faculty & Staff Life debuts new non-tenure track column

The following was originally printed in the December 2014 CSU Faculty & Staff Life internal publication. It is the first in a regular series.

By Jennifer Aberle

The Committee on Non-Tenure-Track Faculty (CoNTTF), a Specialized Standing Committee of Faculty Council, would like to share some recent developments relevant to faculty working off the tenure track at Colorado State University.

If you are new to CSU or not yet aware of CoNTTF, the committee was established in 2009 and charged with advising Faculty Council on matters related to and concerning non-tenure-track faculty. Th­e committee includes one NTTF member from each college with an active college NTTF committee; one at-large NTTF member; and two tenure track faculty members. We meet biweekly during Fall and Spring semesters, and we always welcome hearing from our colleagues about any questions and concerns.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Non-tenure-track? Yes, it is an awkward moniker that sounds clunky and seems to define us by what we are not. Currently, we use the term because it is the most accurate and inclusive descriptor we could find, and one that appears easiest for a variety of audiences to understand. Although “adjunct” and “contingent” are widely used, both terms suggest temporary and/or nonessential employment. ­The facts at CSU, and indeed, around the nation, argue otherwise.

CoNTTF also recognizes the variety of official appointment types at CSU, which do not include “adjunct” or “contingent.” A NTTF faculty member at CSU may hold any of these appointment types: temporary, special, or senior teaching faculty. What we have in common is that we are all faculty and we all work outside the tenure system.

WORKING FOR IMPROVEMENTS

The areas we are continuing to work on include:

• Compensation for Senior Teaching, Special, and Temporary faculty
• Implementing multi-year contracts (please see the Academic Faculty and Administrative Professional Manual for this option; sections E.2.1.3 and E.2.1.4)
• Facilitating the process for Senior Teaching Appointments • Accessing and understanding benefits and human resources
• Enhancing and promoting professional development opportunities
• Increasing participation of NTTF in faculty governance at all levels
• Improving culture, climate, and working conditions

FACULTY GOVERNANCE

Currently, six colleges have active NTTF committees: Business, Engineering, Health and Human Sciences, Liberal Arts, Natural Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Science. The­e representatives are:

• College of Business: Jenny Morse, jenny. morse@colostate.edu
• College of Engineering: Steven Schaeffer, steven.schaeffer@colostate.edu
• College of Health & Human Sciences, Jennifer Aberle, jennifer.aberle@colostate.edu
• College of Liberal Arts, Laura Thomas, laura.thomas@colostate.edu
• College of Natural Sciences, Joseph DiVerdi, joseph.diverdi@colostate.edu
• College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Torsten Eckstein, torsten.eckstein@colostate.edu
• At-large representative Natalie Barnes, natalie.barnes@colostate.edu, represents the remaining colleges, which currently do not have active NTTF committees.

CoNTTF is eager to assist non-tenure-track faculty in the College of Agricultural Sciences, the Warner College of Natural Resources, and the University Libraries in forming college committees, so they might participate directly in CoNTTF as well as find representation in their colleges’ governance.

Please be in touch with your College representative or the at-large representative, if you have any questions or comments regarding non-tenure-track faculty at Colorado State University.

Pay raises for community college adjuncts moves ahead in Colorado Legislature

A bill calling for benefits and pay increases for part-time community college faculty passed the first legislative hurdle Monday.

House Bill 1154 won favor among legislators on the House Senate Veterans Affairs Committee who heard stories of adjuncts who teach with broken limbs because they don’t have health insurance, receive food stamps and work several jobs to make ends meet.

Sponsor and Fort Collins Democrat Rep. Randy Fischer said he was “shocked” to learn that adjuncts make roughly a third of what full-time faculty do. While it varies from college to college, he told committee members the average salary for a regular faculty member is $47,900 a year, while adjuncts make about $18,340 annually. Adjuncts pay into Colorado’s PERA but don’t receive additional benefits.

Colorado’s 2011 self-sufficiency standard for an individual is $20,808.

Testimony prompted discussion about why some have made what was once considered a part-time pursuit — for example, professionals who teach one or two evening courses — into a full-time job. One community college president said he wishes he could hire every instructor into full-time positions but that “dollars and cents are scarce.”

Some adjuncts said they continue with their work despite living in poverty because they love teaching. Others, including former Front Range Community College instructor Ann Mitchell, have left the field to follow more lucrative pursuits.

Those who voted against the bill sympathized but were concerned by associated costs, noting specifically they wouldn’t want to see students suffer at the hands of tuition increases.

Front Range Community College President Andy Dorsey told the Coloradoan previously he estimates the bill would cost FRCC at least $28 million per year, which is more than one-third of the entire operating budget and the $19.6 million the community college currently receives from the state. Dorsey believes passage of the bill “would force FRCC to scale back operations” and potentially cut classes.

Proponents said they don’t envision funding the bill on the backs of students. Wright State University economics professor Rudy Fichtenbaum, president of the American Association of University Professors, who said he analyzes college budgets for the AAUP, claimed the Colorado Community College System could reduce “administrative bloat” and grow reserves beyond current values to pay what he estimates to be an $86.4 million implementation price.

Fischer believes the bill would strengthen an already strong community college system — the umbrella over 14 Colorado community colleges — by improving working conditions and, by proxy, student success. He hopes the bill, if passed, could set a precedent for other states. Institutions nationwide are experiencing a similar phenomenon where more classes are being taught by adjunct, rather than full-time, faculty.

Legislators who voted Monday in favor of moving the bill forward said they’d like to see further discussion about how the bill could be funded and how it could impact Gov. John Hickenlooper’s proposal to spend an additional $100 million on higher education.

From the Fort Collins Coloradoan

House Bill 14-1154

• The bill calls for the Colorado Community College System to determine a faculty member’s salary based upon how much they work. If they worked 50 percent of a full-time workload, for example, they would earn 50 percent of a full-time salary and full-time benefits package.
• Supporters say the bill is “about fairness and ensuring the quality of education at our community colleges” by improving working conditions for adjunct, or part-time faculty. This would in turn improve quality of education for students.
• Opponents say they’d like to do more to improve adjuncts’ working conditions but say the cost to implement a new pay/benefits structure has many “unintended consequences” and that cost would be too high, especially in an environment where funding to higher education has waned in recent years.
• Following Monday’s 7-4 vote, the bill was passed from the House State Veterans and Military Affairs Committee to appropriations. There are many steps left in the process for the bill to become law (view the flow-chart at http://bit.ly/lawprogression.)
• Read the bill at http://bit.ly/hb14-1154.

Front Range Community College Celebrates Campus Equity Week

Campus Equity Week at Front Range Community College in Ft. Collins was a mighty success!

The Campus Instructor Coalition (CIC), Front Range Larimer’s group for adjuncts and by adjuncts, sponsored Campus Equity Week 2013, and all who participated had a blast! Who knew it could be so much fun educating students, instructors, and staff about the inequity between “part time” and “full time instructors”! At Colorado Community Colleges, adjuncts make an average of $15,000 a year, while full time faculty make an average of $40,000 to do virtually the same job.

The CIC had a table in the Student Center all week, we had a Music and Storytelling Night at Pappy’s Pub where we improvised “The Adjunct Blues,” and we also had a performance of the play “Contingency: A Crisis of Teaching and Learning.” At the play, we were graced with the presence of Rep. Randy Fischer, a legislative supporter of equal pay for equal work in Colorado’s community colleges and universities.

CSU President Speaks on public radio

Colorado State University President goes “on the record” about adjunct faculty issues in a recent Colorado Public Radio interview. Click here to listen to what he had to say: http://www.today.colostate.edu/story.aspx?id=9327

 

Students Chalk for Academic Freedom

In celebration of Campus Equity Week at Colorado State University, students from an Arts & Humanities class form a response to the question (of serious concern for adjunct faculty) of academic freedom and how it impacts their education. After brainstorming their thoughts inside…they take their words to a public forum by chalking the plaza.

Their brainstorming responses were later examined by upper division composition classes who responded to selected ideas.