"Infrequent Flyer"
December 7, 2001

Mendocino College Part-time Faculty Association

Dear Part-time Faculty Colleague,

Meet the Pres-MPFA Social-Friday, Dec. 15, 4-6 p.m.
@ El Sombrero Restaurant, Corner of Main & Mill, Ukiah.

New MC President Marilyn Brock will attend our social this Friday. She's been on the job for about six weeks, so this is a great opportunity to meet her at the beginning of her tenure. Appetizers will be provided, drinks are no-host (Uh, that means we each get to buy our own.) We hope you can make this one!

College Board of Trustees Election ­ Former MPFA president Janet Chaniot is the newest member of the MC Board of Trustees. She won election to the only seat contested in the November 6 election. Our congratulations to Janet, and to ourselves, for having a board member who is thoroughly familiar with faculty issues.

Negotiations ­ Neill Bell and Ron Tinkler are working with CCA representative Allan Frey to reach agreement with the college district for 2001-02. The good news is that the state DID fund a $57 million part-time faculty equity bill this year (at last!), which will be passed along to us in the form of increased pay this year. The bad news-you knew it was too good to be true?-the funding is currently limited to ONE YEAR ONLY. But there is hope that the funding will continue into future years, and the legislation mandates that districts must agree with part-time units (that's MPFA here) on definitions of how to define equity, or pro-rata pay. Thanks to Ken Hewitt, we also found out about AB 1245, which forces districts to negotiate Rights of Assignment for part-time instructional employees. This can be a significant step forward in future negotiations, giving us some leverage in making sure that we may continue teaching courses we have taught successfully.

Survey results being conducted via telephone by MPFA are not complete yet, but of the 45 conducted so far, we have already been able to identify areas that need improvement and those where people feel things are working well. Keep responding when you are contacted-we all need the feedback from you. And don't be afraid to volunteer for college or MPFA offices.

Our involvement makes the college work!

Copyright MPFA 2001
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited