Actionline NEA
Contingent Academic Workforce

NEA and its California affiliates help sponsor a collaborative effort to promote grassroots labor reform on campus.

NEA has joined with more than 35 other higher education organizations as a sponsor of the National Conference on Contingent Academic Labor, hosted by the California Part-Time Faculty Association and the Coalition on Contingent Labor.

The grassroots effort, which took place January 12-14, 2001, aimed to expand awareness of the threat to higher education, as the nation's colleges and universities continue to increase their dependency on part-time faculty labor at an alarming rate.

Conference planners hope the conference will spark increased interest in campus organizing.

NEA higher education members are eligible for Innovation Grants from the NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education. These grants support two or more public school teachers, education support personnel, and/or faculty in public institutions of higher education who collaborate to develop and implement innovative ideas that result in high student achievement. For guidelines, visit the foundation Web page: www.nfie.org.

Robert Birnbaum, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland and former vice-chancellor of the City University of New York, will take a hard look at management fads in higher education as the keynote speaker at the 2001 NEA Higher Education Conference.

In his latest book, Management Fads in Higher Education, Birnbaum observes that pressures toward privatization and corporate-style management threaten to change higher education from a marketplace of ideas to a marketplace of commerce.

On Saturday, Jacqueline E. Woods, executive director of the American Association of University Women, will speak on community college policy issues. Woods has led efforts to create community college partnerships worldwide for countries exploring this uniquely American form of higher education. For more on the NEA Higher Ed Conference, visit www.nea.org/he or E-mail HigherEd@nea.org.

The 2001 NEA Higher Education Almanac is posted on the NEA Higher Education Web site by early March. Visit www.nea.org/he for more information.

Topics this year include unions and faculty governance, workload and tenure policies, and annual reports on salaries and benefits.

For a print copy of the NEA 2001 Higher Education Almanac, contact the NEA Higher Education Office: HigherEd@nea.org.