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Massachusetts NEA Member Named Community College Prof of the Year
Carnegie Foundation Community College Professor of the Year
Ellen Olmstead came to Briston Community College because she wants to work with
a culturally diverse population and develop multicultural courses. Now students
pack her courses and praise her passion and the personal attention she gives
them.
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NEA Affiliates in Action
The Montana Council of Faculty Organizations has launched a campaign to gain public support for contract negotiations at institutions around the state. Montana faculty are concerned about chronic underfunding, the increasing use of part-time faculty, and faculty workloads far above the national average. "Once again, it is the quality of instruction that is hurt and the students who are harmed," notes Ed Metesh of the Butte College of Technology. Ballots will be mailed by the New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission on February 14 to more than 1,000 administrative/support staff at Rutgers University to determine if they will be represented in collective bargaining by the New Jersey Education Association.
Outstanding issues include pay--the colleges salaries have dropped in the state rankings--and workload improvements. The local NEA affiliate is also asking the college to institute paid office hours for part-timers, under the provisions of a new state law. An agreement between the Atlantic Cape (New Jersey) Community College Faculty Association and the college contains sidebar language providing for faculty ownership of their own intellectual property. The college has also agreed not to use distance learning to displace or reduce the number of faculty, make participation in distance learning voluntary, and provide additional compensation for Internet-based classes with more than 20 students.
Professor Olmstead, who teaches at Bristol Community College and is a member of NEA's Massachusetts Community College Council, is an enthusiastic proponent of the community college and the "non-traditional student." At the awards ceremony, Olmstead praised her college for making "community" not just part of the name, "but, more importantly, the guiding principle." Olmstead teaches interdisciplinary courses in multicultural literature and developmental writing and, when she isn't teaching, advocates for her students. Recently, Professor Olmstead went before the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education to argue for continued support for a dual enrollment program that allows high school students to take college credit courses at Bristol. Olmstead told the Board the program benefits first generation and racial and linguistic minority students. Solidarity between the Southeastern Community College Education Support Association and its sister organization, the SCC Higher Education Association, both NEA Iowa affiliates, has forced the college's Board of Trustees to cancel plans to outsource maintenance and housekeeping jobs at the college. The college has also rehired 16 support personnel it terminated during recent contract negotiations. Activists from the SCCEA enlisted the support of students (who staged a walk out in support of the college staff), the local labor council (which brought political pressure to bear on the college), and the community (which turned out in force to support the college staff). "This community-labor coalition turned around the college," says SCCEA president Tony Malone. Malone, the Associations chief negotiator, was one of the staff members terminated and then rehired by the college. |
