About 200 non-tenure-track professors, adjunct activists, and union leaders will gather in Québec City this week to share their strategies for improving the workplace for the largest segment of faculty members today, those who are neither tenured nor on the road to that status.
The biennial conference of the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, commonly known as Cocal, expects to draw people from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The three-day gathering will feature workshops and panels (offered in English, Spanish, and French) on topics such as access to unemployment benefits when courses dry up, collective bargaining, and graduate students' rights.
The Cocal meeting also serves as a place where part-time faculty members feel a sense of community hard to find at other conferences.
"You don't have to keep explaining what being contingent means," says Jeanette Jeneault, a writing instructor at Syracuse University who is president of that institution's part-time-faculty union. "Everyone there is like you. It's very comforting."
Adjuncts preparing to attend the conference agree that a confluence of factors—chief among them a battered economy that has put their jobs more at risk than usual—has made pushing for equity more important than ever.
"One of the things we all hold in common is our vulnerability," says Maria Peluso, president of the Concordia University Part-Time Faculty Association, in Montreal. "I think that many of the people who are involved in the Cocal movement would like to see some social justice on behalf of the people who are contingent faculty."
Job security, higher pay, and health benefits, among other things, are still out of reach for many adjuncts. One key topic at the meeting will be the best way to attain them. Some members of the coalition, whose union ties are strongly reflected among the event's sponsors and speakers, hold up collective bargaining as the most effective way to bring about change. Other part-timers see legislative pressure as a better alternative.
New Faculty Majority, an adjunct advocacy group, will talk about its new 20-year plan to reverse the trend that has made professors working off the tenure track the largest swath of the professoriate. The plan, whose details have been tightly held, will be unveiled at the conference.
"People come to learn from others what they've done and what strategies are working," says Marie Blais, a lecturer in urban studies at University of Quebec at Montreal who is a key organizer of this year's conference. "We must expose the practices that are really good."
A Moving Meeting
The Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor began in 1996 as a gathering of part-timers and graduate students tacked onto the Modern Language Association's annual meeting. Since then, the loose network of individual activists, union members, and professional associations has met seven times, in locales that include New York, Boston, Vancouver, Montreal, and, most recently, in San Diego in 2008. Adjuncts have also formed statewide and regional chapters of the coalition, such as the ones in Chicago, Boston, and California.
"This movement has really come a long way," says Ms. Peluso, a political-science lecturer who has been to five coalition meetings. This year she will be a part of a panel where she'll detail the "travails of online education" for part-timers.
Some adjuncts, like Margaret Vaughan, are newer to the conference. The San Diego meeting was her first, and she said panelists there conveyed a "sense of urgency" about fixing the academic workplace. This time around, she is encouraged by how her union for part-timers at Madison Area Technical College has stood up to administrators during protracted negotiations.
"We've sailed through some impossible situations with success," says Ms. Vaughan, referring to the union's new contract, whose key feature is annual longevity raises for professors.
One continuing struggle for the conferences is that, no matter where they are, attending on adjunct pay can be very hard. Adjuncts have written to e-mail lists and commented on blogs that the Québec City conference's price tag—the registration fee is now $250, plus travel, food, and lodging—has shut out the very people who would benefit most from going to the meeting.
Organizers put the meeting in Québec City in keeping with attempts to rotate the event between the countries from which attendees come. Plans to hold the meeting in Mexico City this year didn't pan out.
Ms. Blais says attendees from Mexico and graduate students were among the few who received financial assistance. Organizers also point those looking for low-cost lodging to the residence halls at Laval University where the conference takes place. "In the end, no matter where Cocal is held, people must travel," says Ms. Blais, vice president of the National Federation of Teachers of Quebec.
Adjuncts who are union members look to their unions to pick up the tab—or at least part of it. "I don't think I would be able to go without some kind of support," says Ms. Jeneault, whose union is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers.
Ms. Jeneault plans to try to get conference attendees to submit articles for a book tentatively titled, "We're Taking It Back: Contingent Faculty Researching Contingent Faculty." The point, in part, is to put research by adjuncts in the spotlight. "I want people to see what real contingent faculty say about contingent faculty," Ms. Jeneault says.
Comments
1. english_ivy - August 09, 2010 at 11:20 am
First, wtf is up with the photo at the level of close-up in which NO ONE looks good unless they are airbrushed or you love them? Taken in context with the reality that most tenure track fac are not unattractive unless they are a diversity hire, this photo can be seen as an attempt to portray Ms Jeneault as somehow not quite tenure worthy. Look around you department. I bet you want find that many people who don't have some attractive features. If you're R1, there will probably be some "babes" in your department. Sure, this doesn't necessarily undercut anyone's intellectual capacities and legitimacy as a scholar. But this conspicuous attractiveness sure seems suspicious.
Like, even those of us following the "life of the mind" (see Barton Fink) still want scenery and the bubble gum poppers are great for the classrooms, but who are we going to look at in committee meetings but each other?
2. katisumas - August 09, 2010 at 11:25 am
Good luck to all Contingents! I hope you make the inroads you and your students deserve.
3. wilkenslibrary - August 09, 2010 at 11:50 am
"Some members of the coalition, whose union ties are strongly reflected among the event's sponsors and speakers, hold up collective bargaining as the most effective way to bring about change. Other part-timers see legislative pressure as a better alternative."
We don't need to choose between collective bargaining and legislative pressure as the way to achieve our goals. We need to use both paths, and others, such as educational outreach to our communities and Boards of Trustees. I'm looking forward to coming home from COCAL with new ideas for implementing positive change for contingent faculty.
4. kudera - August 09, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Yes, good luck to all contingent faculty and particularly those who lack health benefits and are not in a position to teach only for fun or out of love; I'm guessing this group will not be well represented, but I imagine their cause will be addressed.
(As the article states, "One continuing struggle for the conferences is that, no matter where they are, attending on adjunct pay can be very hard.")
Yours for all contigencies,
Alex Kudera
5. softshellcrab - August 09, 2010 at 02:21 pm
In my department we'd be dead without adjuncts, and really all of ours are excellent teachers and people. Our chair does many things to make it better for them and give them at least some small benefits and help. But I'm afraid they are "spitting into the wind" to ever get a lot of benefits, such as health insurance or other benefits. It 's just not in the cards. I always say the problem is that they "don't really work here". They are just hired for a class at a time and are automatically terminated at the end of each term, unless and until rehired to teach again. They don't have an office, or their own phone, or, really, anything. That just doesn't lend itself to getting any real benefits or protection. I am sorry for the situation, but I just don't see how it can change. And truthfully, in my department, they all either have other full time jobs, or are retired. We don't have any who rely on this even in part to make their living. I guess it is different in some other places.
6. vdolan - August 09, 2010 at 04:21 pm
I'd LOVE to be able to attend that conference given that I've been a fierce defender of adjuncts' rights in my academic surroundings for quite some time. But having said that, I don't think I could justify paying for ALL the expenses involved (I would contemplate paying part of it). Unfortunately, I don't see how the two institutions I teach for would sponsor me right now, for different reasons. Sigh...
Does anyone know if the meetings will be recorded so we can watch them online at some point?
7. drjackd - August 09, 2010 at 06:39 pm
This activity is great to see---and the CHRONICLE's coverage of it, which I hope will continue as the conference helps to define the issues. Let me describe what I see as the key problem for this generation of teachers who've been reduced to Profit Mules at schools that spend more on campus flowers than on the courses that make the school work. I have taught at an Ivy League university, a high-ranked private college and now a major business school. The fact is, organized adjuncts could bring ANY school to a grinding halt tomorrow and force them to the human table. Guess what---Besides the terror of being fired just for whispering "union," too many grad students, new Ph.D.'s and Adjuncts want to see themselves as now-and-future "professionals," not as WORKERS---and strikes are not (I can only guess) within the bounds of their dignity. So they will continue to be screwed into the ground, and the myriad deans and administrators will go on sucking up the money for new lounges and perks for themselves. It is just about that simple. My classes get bigger and bigger, and never am I consulted (you know, the one who handles the work and defends the school's quality of education like nobody else). Who is going to respect the value of your work if YOU don't have the courage to stand for it? Certainly not MLA!
8. eicherd - August 10, 2010 at 03:42 am
I dislike labeling our faculty as "adjunct." Sounds....unrepresentative of the value they provide, I think. I continue to press for 3 faculty tracks at our university (an uphill battle with the academic dinosaurs. One for faculty that "wants" a tenure track, one for faculty that does not "want" tenure track (non-tenure) with benefits, and the third track of faculty that wants part-time without benefits.
9. janyregina - August 10, 2010 at 09:19 am
Thanks eicherd! In the nineties, while a graduate student, I heard railery about adjuncts, but never thought I would be involved in it. I love teaching; I am good at it. If I could survive on $250. a week and stay healthy, I could be a happy adjunct. I started as an adjunct taking care of an elderly parent teaching five or six sections a year. My parent died and I seem to be labeled adjunct. It is a pejorative term. It is like I rent a room on campus. I am supplied students, never more than three classrooms; the law won't allow it. In the summers, I am broke and can't get unemployment. Getting a part time job doing anything with my school as my reference for the past five years doesn't work. There isn't anyone but me to take care of me.
10. tigerlilie - August 10, 2010 at 10:35 am
As a soon-to-be grad student, reading the Chronicle these last two months has been liking pulling my own teeth out. All of the articles about the mistreatment that contigent faculty suffer, the loss of tenure, the increase in class loads while department budgets dwindle, have forced me to seriously consider whether or not my passion for my academic field is sufficient for me to put up with negatives that seem to be part and parcel to a professorship. I am relieved to hear that there are some people who are not simply having inane conversations about how academia has fallen into decrepitude but rather are standing up and fighting for higher standards and recognition of the importance and quality of the academic workforce. Bravo Cocal! Whether I am contingent or not, fighting for a better academic workplace is the right thing to do. I think eicherd has it right.
11. hieronymous - August 10, 2010 at 11:37 am
I agree that too many institutions take advantage of the oversupply of available talent in many fields and treat their adjunct faculty shabbily. My only question for those wanting a better situation is, where will the schools get the money? I don't see the tenured faculty giving up their salaries and benefits in order to provide more funding for adjuncts.
Our current model of higher education is unsustainable, yet I see no clear remedies in sight. In this context I see little ability for institutions to make big changes in the way they treat adjuncts.
12. softshellcrab - August 10, 2010 at 06:04 pm
@ tigerlilie #10
Take heart, in business disciplines, at least, Ph.D. facutly are in short supply and getting well over $100,000 for 9 month contracts. It all depends on your discipline.
13. gplm2000 - August 12, 2010 at 03:06 pm
Today, this is what our society is all about: "I think that many of the people who are involved in the Cocal movement would like to see some social justice on behalf of the people who are contingent faculty." Aside from the fact-of-life that these are people who are hired at-will, just like at Walmart, there is no basis for their claims.
I am an adjunct and make no claims for anything else other than "pay me for the course" from the university. I do not want you to tell what, when, where, how that I can go to the bathroom. Just pay me for teaching your course to the standards that you want, period. No whining, just quid pro quo.