In a
candid moment at the COCAL XI debriefing, organizers admitted that the high
cost of travel to the New York City location limited conference access for many
adjuncts living on fixed incomes. I was
fortunate enough to hobble together enough support from my union local and
inlaws to subsidize my attendance at a conference. It took 10 emails requests before I
identified funding sources but I am reminded that as adjuncts we miss
opportunities when we don’t ask or get discouraged from the first 9
“no’s.”
In
exchange for a one thousand dollar sponsorship my union chapter requested a
written summary of the event. To
streamline my synopsis I tweeted throughout the event and my interactions with
fellow adjunct activists are ongoing. Some
contingent faculty that could not get to COCAL XI joined through social media
and that was great. Physically being in New
York facilitated meaningful face-to-face conversations with international colleagues
that were not limited by character entries.
I am an
adjunct professor in Communication Studies in California State University,
Bakersfield and I am also a Doctoral candidate in the Educational Leadership
program. At COCAL XI, I met a fellow
adjunct from Mexico who is also in the process of completing her dissertation
to earn her Doctorate in Education. I should make the distinction that we are
not graduate assistants but, instead, adjuncts who are also completing our
terminal degrees. Together we, two
adjuncts/doctoral students, made plans to collaborate in collecting future
data. This one interaction is
representative of the kind of exchanges that occurred throughout the 3-day
COCAL XI conference held at CUNY’s John Jay College on August 4-6th,
2014.
An
academic labor journal will soon chronicle the topics discussed at COCAL XI, but
this blog is meant as a humble prelude. It
is hard to fit three days of articulate discussion into one short write-up, but
here are a few ideas that made COCAL XI an event not to be missed.
The Democracy Index
What
matters in learning conditions varies between university management and university
faculty. A recent CHE survey ranked Cal State University San Marcos as one of
2014’s “great colleges to work for.” However, if you look closer at the survey results
you realize that the ranking was based on just one of 12 criteria: Facilities, Workspace,
and Security.
At COCAL
XI the faculty interest group “Building National Agendas” came up with the idea
to create what they called the Democracy Index. The Democracy Index would be a faculty
generated rating system that like US and
News World Report would rank colleges and universities as learning
institutions. However, instead of graduation rates and alumni success, it would
focus on other factors such as shared governance, teacher to student ratio, and
tuition. A new rating system could shift the conversation away from what the
public is told makes a good higher education institution to revealing
democratic colleges and universities.
The Wall Street Skim
I have
spent eight of my nine years as an educator in higher education fighting to remain
in the classroom. Since the economic crisis of 2008, funding for higher
education has been under constant attack. As the economy has improved the
plight of adjuncts has not.
The
national campaign for “Adjunct Action” has been working to expose the role of
big business in exploiting higher education. Adjunct news is not all bleak in
America where Senator Durbin has recently introduced a bill that would make
adjuncts eligible for a federal loan forgiveness program.
However,
disparity in pay still exists with adjuncts internationally. Some speakers
at COCAL XI shared that they have
terminal degrees and experience in the classroom but are not paid the living
wages given to their tenured peers. In Mexico an adjunct professor can make as
little as $200 a month, whereas some adjuncts in Quebec are making more than
7,000 per class. As Rosa Manoatl, a UNAM PhD student in pedagogy who has taught
in higher education in Mexico for more than 30 years, stated, “We need to dignify the job of the professor in my country.”
Adjuncts are the Pillars of the
University
The
heading of this section is not meant to indicate that without a cheap labor
force the university would collapse. Colleges can afford to pay their teachers
a living wage. Instead, it is important to recognize that adjuncts make up the NewFaculty Majority. Contingent faculty outnumber tenured faculty and teach the
majority of higher education courses. The adjunct ranks are growing not only
because they are generally cheap labor, but also because they are doing a good
job. Though most off the tenure-line are hired to teach and focus on pedagogy, many
voluntarily participate in research, publication, creative works, and service,
without financial or employer validation.
Discussions about
theory and activism were alive in every lecture hall at COCAL XI. One common
conversation in sessions was the theoretical implications of corporatizing
higher education. Similarly, there were stories of adjuncts empowered to unionize,
bargain for equity, and mobilize on adjunct issues. During one lunch
conversation a fellow adjunct memorably commented that, “I used to feel secure in my job
and work closely with management. When
they got rid of my appointment I became more involved with the union and was
able to weaponize my institutional knowledge.”
The implication that adjuncts who are reduced are no longer running
scared but using what they know to strategically demand our rightful place of
permanence in higher education.
I could not afford
to miss this conference. It gave me the
opportunity to tweet with other social media junkies, collaborate with
educators from thousands of miles away, and be inspired by the trailblazers
that founded the conference. Though
attending conferences stretches contingent faculty financially, it is important
to find a way to get there. Meeting with fellow adjuncts is an investment in
the future of the profession and of higher education.
*This post was published on the Academe blog but was re-posted today on my personal blog to be included in storify of COCALXI
@SydniDunn @AAUP here's that #COCALXI group photo pic.twitter.com/LK43EPM9KZ
— PSC_CUNY (@PSC_CUNY) August 6, 2014
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