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Full- and Part-Timers Join Forces At Solano CC in
California.
Solano Community College faculty and
supporters from the California Community College Association demonstrate their
resolve to win a contract that's fair to full-and part-time faculty. As
contract negotiations enter their second year, the Association is committed to
"whatever it takes" to gain an equitable settlement..
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NEA Affiliates in Action
The Illinois State faculty would join full-time faculty at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and part-time faculty at Columbia College in Chicago as NEA’s most recent higher education affiliates in Illinois. A Michigan Education Association task force, appointed by the MEA president, has begun a study of issues facing part-time and contract faculty in the state. The 15-member committee comprises all of the Association’s constituency groups, including representation from two-year and four-year colleges as well as part-time faculty. The task force is charged with developing organizing and legal strategies and recommending an action plan to address contingent faculty issues in Michigan.
Agreement came when college and Association negotiators agreed on the criteria to be used for incentive pay. The plan includes faculty participation in decision making at all levels and a voluntary pay incentive program that improves salaries overall and can provide up to 45 percent of the faculty with incentive increases each year. Graduate Assistants United, an NEA affiliate representing research and teaching assistants at three Florida universities, has reached impasse in its negotiations with Florida A&M, the University of South Florida, and the University of Florida. The main issues: the universities’ refusal to discuss health benefits issues or proposals by the grad student instructors and researchers to create a more equitable salary schedule.
More than 100 faculty and staff from the state’s two- and four-year colleges analyzed a report from the Illinois Board of Higher education entitled A Citizen’s Agenda for Illinois Higher Education. Their conclusion: First, the future of higher education cannot be determined only by those with short-term political or corporate agendas. Next, the public needs to hear from the university community about the need to preserve the many crucial “other-than-corporate-agenda functions” of higher education that are now threatened with extinction by short-term thinking. The University of Hawaii Professional Assembly has been using television commercials to bring public attention to the plight of Hawaii’s university system. Financial support for the university system has been cut by over $40 million since 1994. The TV program features interviews with business leaders, professors, and lawmakers who support adequate education funding. UHPA is also preparing a series of 30-second commercials in support of adequate funding and has launched a Web site with information for supporters and links to E-mail addresses for all of Hawaii’s state legislatures. Visit the site at: http://uhfuture.com. A March 14 hearing at San Jose State University will launch the California Faculty Association's “Future of the CSU” project. The event will bring together faculty, students, and community and business leaders to discuss the crises confronting the California State University system. A second hearing will be held at Cal State, Los Angeles in May. Ultimately, CFA plans for all 22 CSU campus communities to join in developing a vision and working plan for preserving and improving the quality, accessibility, and affordability of the nation’s largest higher education system. |
