Supporting California’s Community College Teaching Faculty

[Pages:20]Supporting California's Community College Teaching Faculty:

Improving Working Conditions, Compensation and the Quality of Undergraduate Education

Celeste Solis (Counseling) and Kelly Diaz (Psychology), associate faculty members at the College of the Sequoias.

Photo credits: above, Don Nikkel, College of the Sequoias; cover, Berkeley Federation of Teachers.

Supporting California's Community College Teaching Faculty:

Improving Working Conditions, Compensation, and the Quality of Undergraduate Education

Key Findings

? Associate faculty, make up the vast majority of faculty nationally and at California's community colleges. Associate faculty are non-tenure track, part-time positions, and are sometimes referred to as "adjuncts" or "contingent" faculty. Nationally, 75.5% of all faculty are non-tenure track. In California, 68.9% of faculty at community colleges are part-time/contingent faculty, while only 31.1% of faculty are full-time. This is the highest percentage of associate faculty working at California's community colleges in over three decades. As a result, the academic workforce has largely become casualized. In contrast to tenured and tenure-track faculty, such faculty have little job security and often do not know whether they will have classes to teach from term to term, making their lives economically precarious.

? Despite a 1988 system-wide goal that 75% of classes at the community college level be taught by full-time faculty, this goal remains unmet. In 2012, 56% of all classes were taught by full-time faculty, while 44% were taught by part-time faculty.

? Associate faculty at California community colleges earn on average half (55%) the salary (excluding benefits) of tenured and tenure-track community college faculty for the same work. Essentially, a system of unequal pay for equal work prevails with regard to faculty salaries in the community college system in California.

? Associate faculty at community colleges in California are generally very low-paid: on average they earn $66.58/hour of in-class teaching, or $3,595/course. A common teaching load is two or three classes taught per semester, or between four and six courses taught per academic year. Teaching six classes earns associate faculty only $21,570 per academic year, just above the federal poverty level for a family of three ($19,530/year).

? This low pay makes associate faculty teaching at community colleges the lowest paid faculty at California's institutions of public higher education.

? When health and retirement benefits are considered, associate faculty at California's community colleges clearly make much less than what their tenured and tenure-track faculty counterparts earn. One quarter of associate faculty have no health insurance. Approximately 17 percent of associate faculty report that their community college employer pays for their health insurance. The remaining associate faculty receive health insurance from their partner, spouse or a nonteaching employer. Most faculty do not receive retirement benefits through their academic employer, while those who do report that their retirement benefits will not be enough to live on upon retirement.

Nearly a third of associate faculty at California's community

colleges teach more than

three courses.

? Despite the existence of the 67% law restricting associate faculty to teaching no more than 67% of a full-time teaching load at any one community college per semester, a sizable minority of associate faculty piece together a living by commuting between community colleges to teach more than 67%. Nationally, a third of all associate faculty teach more than 67% (3-unit classes are the norm; three three-unit classes comprise 60% of a full-time load while two five-unit classes make up a 67% teaching load). Though more comprehensive data is needed, the available data suggests that nearly a third of associate faculty at community colleges in California also teach more than three courses.

? Despite the poor working conditions and low pay, associate faculty at community colleges in California highly value teaching. Some of associate faculty's working conditions, however, have the potential to harm the quality of education for community college students. The lack of office space and paid office hours, as well as teaching appointments made at the last minute, in particular, may harm the quality of education.

? If policy makers wish to improve the compensation and working conditions of associate faculty at community colleges, one clear option is for the state of California to mandate the funding and hiring of a greater percentage of tenure-track faculty, as well as the conversion of associate faculty to tenure-track faculty.

Introduction

It is an increasingly well-known fact that, nationally, higher education heavily relies on associate1 faculty to do much of the teaching at colleges and universities. Yet the specific working conditions and compensation of the associate faculty who do a large part of the teaching of undergraduate students remains obscure.

Over the past few years, university and college administrators have hired a vastly expanding number of associate faculty; doing so saves money and provides much more flexibility than hiring tenured and tenure-track faculty. In comparison to their similarly qualified associate faculty counterparts, tenured and tenure-track faculty at all levels of higher education receive much higher pay, better health and retirement benefits, better working conditions, and greater job security. Contingent faculty now make up 75.5% of college instructors nationally, with an average pay of between $20,000 and $25,000 annually.2

This increasing reliance on underpaid associate faculty, according to one author, has resulted in the "inexorable casualization of the teaching workforce,"3 and has profound implications for the future of higher education in the United States.

The poor working conditions and low compensation of associate faculty have recently received greater attention, especially due to a recent article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, "Death of an Adjunct" by Daniel Kovalik. The article discusses the life and death of Margaret Mary Vojtko, who taught French at Duquesne University as an "adjunct" faculty member for 25 years. Kovalik writes, "Even during the best of times, when she was teaching three classes a semester and two during the summer, she was not even clearing $25,000 a year, and she received absolutely no health care benefits." With no retirement benefits, at 83-years old Vojtko was still teaching. When her course load was reduced to just one class per semester, she made well below $10,000 annually. Diagnosed with cancer, she also had massive medical bills.

Community college faculty educate educate about 2.5 million students, more than any other system of public higher education

in California.

Kavolik proclaims that Vojtko was reduced to "abject penury." She took an evening job at an Eat n' Park restaurant. When Vojtko could not afford heating bills, she attempted to sleep in her office during the day--until the police ejected her. Mary Margeret Vojtko passed away on September 1, 2013 after suffering a massive heart attack while standing on her front lawn.4

Vojtko's story is tragic. But her economic situation is not unique. This report examines the working conditions, pay, and benefits of associate faculty at California's community colleges. There are 112 community colleges in 72 districts throughout California. The faculty at these community colleges educate approximately 2.5 million students, more than any other system of public higher education in California.5 Community colleges, moreover, serve a disproportionate number of poor and working-class students, as well as students of color.

This report, in part, compares associate faculty working conditions and compensation across California's systems of public higher education: the University of California, the California State University system, and the community colleges. It concludes that associate faculty at California's community colleges value teaching immensely, a profession for which they are poorly compensated. While associate faculty at all levels of public higher education in California have trouble making ends meet, the situation for associate faculty at community colleges across California is particularly dire, and thus deserves urgent attention by policy makers.

RESEARCH ON FACULTY CONDITIONS

This report is based on extensive secondary and primary research. A multiplicity of reports commissioned by various governmental bodies and faculty advocacy organizations were particularly useful. At the national level, the Department of Education provides some useful information through its Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS). Until its funding ceased in 2004, the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF) provided more elaborate data about faculty conditions. Clear that there was a lack of sufficient information about the conditions of contingent faculty, the Coalition on the Academic Workforce,6 a faculty advocacy group, circulated a survey in the fall of 2010 to contingent faculty nationally. This survey asked these faculty about their working conditions, salary, and benefits, marking "the first time any organization other than the United States Department of Education has attempted to gather these data on a national scale across all sectors of higher education." The coalition issued the results in a June, 2012 report.7

While the Coalition on the Academic Workforce and other national reports provide national data that serves as a point of comparison for a discussion of associate faculty conditions in California, this report relies heavily on data and reports specific to the conditions of California associate faculty. Salary data issued by the Chancellor's Office of California's community colleges is particularly useful. The California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) provides some historical data about the working conditions and compensation of associate faculty in California. However, the CPEC closed its doors on November 18, 2011 due to a budgetary line item veto by Governor Jerry Brown.8

While various faculty associations and unions in California have also collected information, it was necessary to draft and circulate a survey for this study.9 Nearly five hundred faculty from a cross-section of colleges responded to the survey, which asked questions about faculty working conditions, salary, and benefits. Of the nearly 500 respondents, over 400 respondents were nontenure-track/associate faculty at community colleges in California. While not a representative sample of associate faculty, the survey results nonetheless help to supplement the preexisting research by providing a helpful portrait of the working conditions and benefits of associate faculty at California's community colleges.

"It Could All Change Without Notice": The Lack of Job Security for Associate Faculty

4 "There is no job security. Each semester I hope for a schedule." 4 "After 23 years... I was one of the senior part-time faculty, but I still lost all of my classes." 4 "I have worked continuously at the same campus for 10-11 years now and really like what I

do, yet the paperwork I routinely receive and complete classifies me as `temporary.' I legally and contractually have no job security semester to semester."

4 "Now part-timers are guaranteed one course per semester. In the past, job security was

horrible! And the full-timers let you know they could take your class. This lack of job security negatively affects every aspect of one's life."10

The above quotes reflect what one author has called the "permanent lack of permanence" that many associate faculty experience working at colleges and universities across the U.S.11 Associate faculty generally have little to no employment security. According to a report issued by the Center for the Future of Higher Education, "contingent faculty can be hired at a moment's notice, with no review process, and their appointments can be `non-renewed' with little or no justification, regardless of their performance."12 In contrast, tenure, which is provided to faculty on the tenure track after a period of four to six years, while not a guarantee of future employment, prevents arbitrary dismissal. If department chairs or the college administration wish to fire tenured faculty, the tenured faculty member has due process; cause must be shown before dismissal.

Additionally, the case for academic tenure has historically been linked to the promotion of academic freedom.13 With the security of employment that comes with tenure, faculty are less likely to restrict what they say in the classroom out of fear of being fired. Rather, tenure fosters a diversity of opinions and less inhibited intellectual conversations in the classroom.

Nationally, the percentage of contingent faculty compared to tenured and tenure-track faculty has been gradually increasing over the last several decades (See Figure 1). The most recent figures indicate that 75.5% of instructors at colleges and universities were off the tenure track. This number includes part-time faculty, full-time non-tenure-track faculty, and graduate student teaching assistants. In other words, tenured and tenure-track faculty members comprise only 24.5% of the academic workforce (see Figure 2).14 Just a few years earlier, in 2003

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