The following article was commissioned by the MPFA. The author, Al Krauss, was asked to research the on-line archives of the FACCC on the topic of the "New Unionism." (See page 4, "Web Sites of Interest")
Get ready for a new wave of energy called "The New Unionism" as its ideas begin to percolate through our own campus in the same way they are affecting campuses across the nation, K-12 through graduate school.
The term, coined by NEA president Robert Chase, brings with it an agenda of non-hierarchical co-management within schools, including peer review and a focus on professional standards in teaching/learning.
The weak legislation which established an ineffectively enforced "shared governance" has nonetheless set the framework which now dovetails with proposals for co-management in schools. Still, controversy is heated over the role of unions in any collaborative scenario.
There is even a counter term, "Old Unionism," which is used to characterize the position of those who see professional evaluation and other "administrative" tasks as adversarial functions on the "other side" of the negotiation wars.
Given this revitalizing dialogue and renewed interest in unions not as special interest groups but as community organizations with a broad accountability, it is well to ask about the relevance of "New Unionism" for part-timers.
To the extent that the often compromised part-time faculty member gains a more politically coherent support network, and thus is given a firmer base (more user friendly, compassionate) from which to negotiate employment terms, the new context brings with it hope for improvement.
And through facilitating a better definition of the unique role part-time status plays in education, and helping in the development of some sense of part-time group identity and cohesion, the initiatives of "The New Unionism" hold forth great promise.
But there are some troubling perceptual gaps as people attempt to grasp the implications of New Unionism's challenges. It will take continued vigilance and patient work to remedy that "wounding" of the part-time image which comes out of job descriptions and ranked categories of employment.
The problem often arises from an embedded ambivalence in attitude among many in higher education (and this cuts across all lines - administrative, upper echelon union officers, full-time faculty, and even among part-timers themselves). We find repeatedly a careless syntax which juxtaposes the terms "underpaid" and "under qualified" in referring to part-timers in general.
Even Bob Chase is not immune. In his address "The New Unionism In Higher Education" delivered to the National Center for Collective Bargaining in Higher Education at Baruch College in New York City, April 20, 1998, he states:
Most of the threats to the professional integrity of faculty members are also justified in the name of holding down costs. The tenured and tenure-track faculty at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale two years ago voted overwhelmingly to join NEA. Why? Because of the university's increased hiring of underpaid and underqualifiedpart-time teachers and the administration's growing habit of ignoring the faculty's voice on quality-of-work issues. (emphasis added)
This all too easy association between quality and salary level, or between quality and the qualification by credential, is not an accurate reflection of reality. It becomes critical to separate general discussions about quality in higher education from an undifferentiated contrasting of "tenure-track" with part time. It simply may be a matter of reinstituting that old process called "consciousness raising".
The academic requirements for teaching different categories of students may hold up different sets of evaluative parameters, to say nothing of the fact that many part-timers may well hold advanced degrees, or may lay claim to significant hands-on life experience in certain non-"academic" disciplines.
That the underlying situation is very complex, and so defies easy categorization, is exemplified by the following excerpt from a statement on part-time faculty employment prepared by the AFT Higher Education Program and Policy Council Task Force on part-time Faculty:
Part-time faculty work is attractive to some faculty. It allows for the time and energy to pursue other professional and personal interests while simultaneously providing some steady income. There is a need for a limited number of part-time positions especially in areas where a limited number of courses are offered or very narrow expertise is required.
While part-time employment could be beneficial to some, the actual situation reveals widespread exploitation of a large body of highly qualified academics who are trying to earn a living through faculty employment. The great majority of part-timers lack job security, receive disproportionately low salaries, are placed in a demeaning status, and are denied the normal benefits and perquisites of faculty employment. For many, the years of low status and shoddy treatment results in a devastating loss of professionalism and self-esteem.
Part-time faculty perceive that length of experience, superior qualifications and extra-classroom achievements are unlikely to improve their condition-indeed, part-time status may even be held against them. These are not the conditions conducive to good teaching or collegial relations with other faculty.
The context of the "New Unionism" does not address these issues per se; rather, having begun as an outgrowth of turbulence and change in the K-12 world, it now concerns itself with broad issues of governance and accountability which, in turn, could positively address some of the problems part-timers face.
In order to answer the question, "How is 'New Unionism' relevant to part-time faculty working conditions and/or organizational effort?," we must understand that the "New Unionism" is a dynamic concept, a response to an increasingly widespread public view over the years that teachers' unions have been the real obstacle to progress in public schools.
NEA's Chase has expanded the concept into a broad agenda for union activism across the entire spectrum of lifetime education. What follows is a potpourri of references which should give some perspective to the possible relevance of "New Unionism" for part-time faculty:
- Since taking the reins last fall, Chase has promoted the concept (New Unionism) as the rubric for a new kind of environment based on the idea that teachers should work as co-managers in their schools, with greater authority and a greater stake in their schools' success. [paraphrased from "A Different Kind of Union" -Jeff Archer, Spring Hill, Tenn., Education Week on the Web, October 29, 1997]
- Robert Chase, President, National Education Association, addresses the controversy stirred up within union ranks over the issue of "peer review": pioneering local affiliates of the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers already are providing extensive mentoring to new teachers. More boldly, they are taking the initiative in improving-and, if necessary, removing-veteran teachers who are failing in the classroom. These locals insist that the litmus test of a union's commitment to quality is its willingness to take a major share of responsibility for the professionalism and competence of its members. In short, if a teacher is struggling in the classroom, we must do something about it .... [from Teacher vs. Teacher? Nonsense By Bob Chase, Education Week on the Web, October 22, 1997.]
Are issues of teaching professionalism as vital to higher education venues as they are to the K-12 environment?
-Increasingly part-time faculty are teaching adult students. These part-time faculty usually have no formal training in college teaching, nor are they aware of the special characteristics and needs of an adult audience. The College for Lifelong Learning (CLL), founded in 1972 as a separate institution within the University System of New Hampshire, is a state-wide undergraduate college for adults which uses only part-time faculty. CLL proposes to use its expertise in adult learning and development gained over its twenty-five year history to create a systematic faculty development program for part-time faculty based on principles of adult learning and development and related good practice." [From a statement entitled "Systematic Training for Adjunct Faculty of the College of Lifelong Learning" in the "Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education Program Book - 1997," University of New Hampshire System]
- "Colleges and universities continue to devalue teaching at their own peril," NEA President Bob Chase told almost 500 higher education activists at the recent 1997 NEA higher education conference in San Diego. The conference focused on access, quality, and technology as the new issues unions need to address.--The NEA president also noted how the issue of professional integrity has galvanized the faculty at the University of Southern Illinois Carbondale as they combined the old unionism and the new to become NEA's newest higher education unit. Chase termed access to higher education for minorities and the poor as another New Unionism issue and stressed the importance of higher ed faculty stepping off the campus and wading into the storm-tossed waters of public K-12 education. [from the NEA HE (Higher Education) Advocate Quarterly]
For a contemporary discussion of the public school controversy, in which, on the one hand, the NEA president was accused of a "'collaborationist approach' that 'may bring him plaudits from right-wing, anti-labor groups, but ... will neither help members, nor improve education.'"-and on the other, won the support of the (NEA) Representative Assembly "... for the concept of establishing programs in which teachers assist and review their colleagues" and participate in the educational agenda, not as "labor" but as part of a cooperative team with management, see "The New Unionism and the Very Old", by Robert Lowe and Howard Fuller, Education Week on the Web, April 1, 1998.
In sharp contrast with what one finds on many campuses, some schools have an advanced tradition of respect for all teachers and have introduced policies which stand out as in the following example from Colgate University:
Colgate rightly prides itself on having a constructive part-time policy which aims to avoid the kinds of financial exploitation of part-time college teachers found elsewhere. Thus it adopted more than 35 years ago unique policies which allow for fully professional and fully empowered "Category I" part-time appointments to the faculty.
"Category I" faculty have rights and responsibilities which are comparable to permanent full-time appointments. They teach at least three-fifths of a full-time program; when contracted for four-fifths of a load, they count as full-time in measuring teacher-student ratio, etc. In addition, such faculty members sometimes have served the college in administrative positions, bringing their contracts to the full-time level.
"Category II" part-time faculty hold contracts only for specific instructional duties. Colgate uses both kinds of part-time appointments to enrich our programs (e.g., by offering languages which otherwise would not be taught) as well as to deal with fluctuating demands for certain courses. Such appointments often have been important to affirmative action: for example, the first appointments of women to the faculty were part-time. In addition, part-time appointments often have enabled spouses/life-partners of Colgate administrators and faculty to find meaningful employment in the village.
[Colgate University Annual Report, arehm@center.colgate.edu]
In the present environment of nationwide emphasis on systemic renewal for all educational milieus, with its sometimes conflicting goals of job training versus intrinsic cultural transmission, the single unifying theme coming from the New Unionism appears to be excellence in the professional activity of teaching.
That the pressure is on from all quarters is exemplified by the following UPI dispatch, headed "Kerry Urges Teacher Tenure End" :
BOSTON, June 16 (UPI) Sen. John Kerry, who is regarded as a possible presidential candidate in two years, is reportedly planning a major break with traditional Democratic Party policy by calling for an end to tenure for public school teachers.
The Boston Globe says the Massachusetts Democrat will also recommend changes in teacher certification and giving school principals and superintendents far greater authority to hire and fire teachers moves that are sure to anger the nation's teacher unions. In a draft of the speech, to be delivered today at Northeastern University in Boston, Kerry says the current system is failing "the vast majority of our children."
And he says, "Nobody can convince me that a country that puts a man on the moon and balances its budget ... cannot put a good teacher in every classroom."
And finally (not as last word, but as an upbeat and idealistic statement about the "collegial environment"), these words from James Wright, the outgoing dean of faculty and now incoming President at Dartmouth College, a school which has defined itself as being placed at the teaching college end of a spectrum of higher educational services whose farther end is the research university (his article attempts to demonstrate how Dartmouth tries to balance research with teaching):
Those places situated on the teaching college end of the continuum are characterized by certain qualities. These include:
- An emphasis on teaching as an activity
- A total commitment to undergraduate education
- A curriculum, at least among the liberal arts colleges, that is marked by breadth of coverage, based on the idea that the liberal arts have an obligation to introduce students to the range of human knowledge and activity
- A sense of faculty egalitarianism: all colleagues share in the same tasks and the same types of assignments; merit and accomplishment are recognized, but they tend not to be marked by differential treatment and status [from Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, May 1997: Dartmouth's Balance, by James Wright]
If ultimately "The New Unionism" leads us here, it may well be useful to us all, part-timers and full.
Copyright MPFA 1998
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited
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