- What is your school's policy on your work hours - the schedule that you must maintain on site, doing some kind of work, including what time you are expected to arrive, how late you are expected to stay, and how much flexibility you have in that schedule before being required to submit a leave request?
- What is your expected teaching load, in terms of contact hours per week?
Or to put it in terms that are more in line with my current attitude:
- Are you treated as a professional who is assumed to put in at least the required hours, and it's recognized that you most often put in even more, including in the evenings and on weekends when you'd really rather be doing other things, and in return your schedule is not micromanaged to the point that you're required to put in a leave request for coming in 15 minutes late the day after you stayed 2 hours late to meet with an evening student?
Or are you treated as a clock-punching grunt worker who is presumed to have no clue how to manage your own work and hours, and who would do nothing but dick around on Facebook all day and avoid work as much as possible if not kept on a very short leash and heavily micromanaged?
- Is your administration acting shocked that anyone might dare to protest that what has always been the maximum require contact hours per semester is now the minimum, and that faculty are now expected to add another class section if they have even one less hour than this minimum?
Over the summer some colleagues and I plan to do an actual controlled survey of community college policies on these and other issues, but we're doing some informal information gathering in the mean time, just to get some perspective (which is why I hope some people actually answer!). And while it's not the solution that most of us would prefer, we're also going to start talking to a union about possibly getting organized. If we're going to be treated as clock-punching micromanaged factory workers, being ordered to increase productivity despite the resulting lowered quality, we want to at least consider getting some appropriate representation!
Well, yeah, talk to a union. I don't know what state you're from but, for sure, both NEA and AFT have local affiliates wherever you are.
ReplyDeleteTHEY have the resources that will save you from do the research, a "controlled survey of community college policies" on this issue.
At my CA cc, we have a 5/5 load, which translates to 35 hours/week: 15 hours in class, 15 hours grading/preparation, 5 office hours, and we throw in a free hour every month for a department meeting. That is the sum total of our CONTRACTUAL obligation. Of course, almost everyone works longer and harder, but there's no obligation to do so--which means admin cannot discipline teachers for "violations."
At the negotiating table, "clockpunchers" is a term our union always brings up: "If you want to micromanage my work down to the minute, that's fine. But when the little hand on the clock is on the 5, and the big hand is on the 12, that's it. I'm leaving--no matter what else is going on. And you'll get 35 hours/week of work, and not a minute more. A big stack of papers to finish grading? Fine. I'll drop them off in your office. YOU can finish 'em because MY workweek is oh-fucking-VER.
While you're organizing your union, you might also consult Federal Minimum Labor Standards to find the difference between exempt and non-exempt employees.
Admin is treating you like hourly employees, and you're not. That's against the law.
If I had caught your comment, "[Organizing a union is] not the solution that most of us would prefer" the first time around, I would have asked "Why not?" So I'll ask now:
ReplyDeleteWhat's the matter with unions for college teachers?
Oh, I remember, we're professionals, not factory workers; labor unions are for proletarians, not the professoriate.
Jeeez, Granny Geek, I hope you've figured out the response to THAT one.
What a timely post. Large Urban Community College is undergoing similar issues. As we are in the South, "union" is a dirty word; indeed, it's stipulated that although we might have one, the system's representatives will not recognize it officially for any reason. The staff has one. It's a joke and has not done a thing for them.
ReplyDeleteOur work load is also 5/5, and yes, if you teach labs (which are loaded at lesser rates), you must pick up extra classes to make up the difference. Thus everyone who teaches in a discipline with labs must carry an overload to meet load unless they happen to also have some courses available that don't carry a lab requirement to even things out.
We are required to have 10 office hours a week, and it's then expected the remaining 15 are for grading, committee service, and any other miscellaneous duties associated with the discipline (such as research, artistic endeavors, or sponsoring student groups). We have two types of people: those who do all this and more, and those who don't even come close to the workload. More people fall into the former category than the latter. Unfortunately, the idiots in the latter have caused administration to start legislating specifically for them.
To date no one is micromanaging us to the extent of counting the minutes; however, we do now have a policy which requires daily campus presence M-F, and some other colleges within our system have gone even further and require that office hours be scheduled every weekday. Our official policy is that one's work week can take place at any time; however, it seems that working online, late nights, and weekends is valued less and less. This is sad as the community college population attracts and educates a large number of people who need our services in that way or at those times. Those of us who do it feel as if we're being asked to do extra work while the "In by 9:00, out by 2:00" crowd is rewarded for their face time during traditional hours.
Hi, Granny, I can't contribute any data (I'm at a state uni, and still have considerable flexibility as to when and where I complete my crushing load of prep and grading -- and, oh yes, teaching; that I'm mostly expected to do at particular times in a classroom, but I spend some time online, too), but I just wanted to say that your situation sucks.
ReplyDeleteAlso, from what I understand, the AAUP acts as an actual or quasi-union in many places. And they want new members (their historical focus on tenure has left them a bit out of the loop now that so many faculty aren't tenure-eligible).
I have my moments of union-skepticism, too. While I can understand the advantages of the agreement Philip describes above, it also strikes me as potential fuel for those who claim that a 1:1 prep/grading:in-class time ratio is realistic (while all of us, including Philip, realize it is not). And I can easily see somebody trying to squeeze out another class using the argument that they're "only" working 35 hours (which I assume includes one lunch hour per day? otherwise, why not 40?) But given the realities of your situation (which will also one day, I fear, be mine -- well, unless somebody actually looks at the parking consequences of expecting us all to be on campus 5 days a week, which would be dire), unionization, if available (I'm in a right-to-work state, so it's not a real possibility for us), may well be the lesser of the various available evils.
And if unions could find a way to write contracts that reflect the realities of professional work (focusing more on duties and output, for instance, rather than on hours on the job, and perhaps even taking into account the recommendations of professional organizations, none of which I've ever seen suggest that a 5/5 load or a 1:1 prep/credit hour ratio is pedagogically appropriate), then I'd be all for them.
Cassandra, nobody's going to do anything for us. We've got to do it for ourselves.
DeleteYou wrote that "if unions could find a way to write contracts that reflect the realities of professional work," then things might be better.
But faculty unions ARE faculty members. Don't expect a deus ex machina: There's no cigar-chomping Jimmy Hoffa union boss coming to save us by kicking admin ass and telling THEM what to do for US.
The union at my community college is faculty members sitting at the negotiating table and bargaining EXACTLY whatever what we think the contract should say. Sure, we get invaluable help and advice from our statewide association and union staffpeople, but our local is a strong one because WE do the heavy lifting.
The alternative is to be content to vent on CM.
Venting is fun, and it's good therapy. That's why I'm here. But organizing--and, yes, that means collective bargaining and labor unions and everything that Granny Geek would "prefer" not to do--is much more effective. And it's the only way that adjuncts are EVER going to dig themselves out of the hole they're in.
@ Philip: I understand that faculty would get to shape a union contract (along with administration, which, of course, is the rub). I'm still a bit resistant to the idea of quantifying professional work in the same way as one would quantify assembly-line labor; I actually *want* to be an "exempt" employee, expected to a do a particular job to a particular standard rather than put in a certain number of hours. The contract you describe sounds a bit too much like the sort of thing that legislatures and administrators and other bean-counters are increasingly trying to impose on us.
DeleteBut I realize that sometimes you have to deal with people using their own language. And if unionization were an option in my state, I'd certainly be exploring the possibility of organizing. Sadly, it isn't; we're a "right to work" state, and changing that in the current political situation (and perhaps ever) seems highly unlikely. And from everything I understand, trying to organize a union in a right-to-work state is a true waste of time and effort -- even more quixotic than publishing in the hope that it might lead to a better job. So what energy I have to spare goes into the latter.
My cc unionized a few years ago, and this was one of our major issues. We went NEA, had a great rep helping us, and a tough as nails, bad-ass negotiating team who pledged to come back with their shields or on them. We got great language regarding working hours, and have immediately filed grievances any time our working conditions are threatened (and have won all of them).
ReplyDeleteFull time is 43 - 45 ILCs, to help prevent overload for those with labs. Overload is optional on the part of the proffie. We're on a quarter system, and while the standard is 15 units per quarter (5/5/5 for lecture-only classes), there is some flexibility. We are expected to schedule one office hour per week, per course, and to be available for up to two committee appointments per year. It's expected that we will put in a minimum of 35 hours per week, but outside of our class time and office hours, no one cares where we do our work. We had to battle to keep admin from making a M - F rule. We got them to back down when we said fine, then none of us will work weekends or nights.
I highly recommend contacting the NEA (I'm down on the AFT). If anything, it can be a wakeup call to admin that they need to start playing nice.
This is more directed to the moderators of the page than the readers.
ReplyDeleteI like to come here and see the posts, but I really think you're doing a disservice to future readers by not being more clear that this appears to be primarily a community college and contingent labor page.
I've got 25 years in as a professor and don't know a single contingent professor or have I been on a community college campus. Those worlds are so distant from mine, that to hear nothing but their complaints makes the page less useful to me than it might be otherwise. (I'm in Archaeological Studies in a top 5 university in New England.)
I keep thinking that surely there are others like me out there, but the posts don't suggest I am right in that assumption.
Perhaps calling it Junior College and Contingent Faculty Misery would enable you to focus more on what your main writers are interested in.
I occasionally find items germane to my experience, but not often.
I support the page entirely, but some truth in advertising might help you nab a better and more focused audience.
Your limited experience and sheltered perspective don't mean you have nothing of value to add, F. Nought.
DeleteI'm off now to scratch and belch and watch me some reality tv. Oh, and admire my graduate degrees that I got free with three cereal box tops and a SASE. Damn, I wish I could work at one a them ivory tower thingies so I could be germane.
Wait a minute...StockStalker, is that you? What a kidder.
DeleteOr perhaps, individuals like yourself can step up to the plate and ask the mods for posting rights.
DeleteOr do you just like to complain by the sidelines?
I'm full-time at a 4-year institution, never worked at a community college, never had an adjunct position since graduate school.
DeleteBut we've got adjuncts all over the place - have at every place I've ever worked - and an administration which is teetering on the brink of Kmartization, students with both high self-esteem and low skills, and the usual distribution of academic personalities....
This page speaks to me quite well, thank you very much. Tells me a hell of a lot more about the state of academia than the Chronic.
Honestprof, welcome back!
DeleteOuch, F.Nought. I don't see how your comment isn't really directed at us, too.
DeleteMy SO is not contingent and in a tenure-track position, but enjoys and identifies with this page as much as I do.
Perhaps you're just too damned lucky to "get" this. As F&T points out below, it is YOU that is in the minority. If you have something useful to contribute, no one is holding you back.
"I've got 25 years in as a professor and don't know a single contingent professor or have I been on a community college campus." Subtract 10 years and that's me too -- though I do know a couple of contingent profs and all my grad students are contingent labor-- and guess what, I get a LOT from this page. First, after reading CM, I never fail to thank god that I have a liveable job thus far, though things in public R1s are changing rapidly too. Second, discussions of teaching techniques, mistakes, student behavior, faculty intrigue, and administrative corruption are germane no matter how privileged your job, unless you happen to teach over the rainbow.
ReplyDeleteAlso, F.Nought, guess what? The majority of faculty *are* contingent labor now. If you're in a top 5 university in New England, it's you who are out of touch, not the moderators or contributors.
Granny Geek, start a Faculty Association if everyone is so scared of unions. Let it figure out it needs to become a union. I'm not unionized either as tenure and faculty governance are supposed to obviate the need for that, but I'm watching our Faculty Association become ever more union-like and cheering inside.
What F&T said. I'll just add that there is value in meeting those in other parts of the academy. I don't think much will improve in academia if we all hunker into our own little cliques where everyone has the same experiences. Indeed, if things keep up, pretty soon there won't be others like you (tenured, research focused) out there.
ReplyDeleteAside: To dredge up a previous discussion, F.Nought is exhibit A of what we mean when we say 'silverback'.
DeleteI too would like to hear why Granny would prefer not to unionize.
ReplyDeleteI am in a weird position. I teach at a 2-year college in a very large, state university system. It's not a community college, nor a junior college. In the state, we're called "transfer institutions"--students can come to us for their gen-eds and get guaranteed transfer to one of the big four-year campuses, including the flagship.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your questions:
1. My schedule is not micro-managed, thank God, or this job would not be doable for the salary (which is in the 17th percentile of all 2-year college faculty according to the AAUP/Chronicle survey (and as a recently-tenured associate prof, I make $6,000 less than the *average* for my institution. Hooray). I hold 6 scheduled office hours per week, plus extra. I have service duties that include committees that meet bi-weekly (or weekly depending on the committee). Most of my out-of-class time is spent on grading, reading, and prep. Especially grading.
2. I teach a 4/4 load, half of it comp. This translates to about 45-48 hours a week, though I am officially paid (and sick leave is calculated) at 40.
Over half of the classes in my department (spread across 13 campuses plus online) are taught by adjuncts. On my campus, I am the only tenured faculty member, though I have a colleague who comes up next year. We have 5 adjuncts, who are paid at 80% of a full-time salary if they have a 4/4 load, and who qualify for full benefits at a 40% schedule (half-time) (which is one thing the state system got right--I started out as an adjunct, and to date is has been the ONLY teaching job I've had that came with a decent wage and benefits).
We are not unionized, though there was talk last spring when the governor went after collective bargaining rights.
We are having a hard time hiring tenure-track people (yes, even in this economy) due to the salary issue; failed searches are becoming the norm. And people are leaving. It started out as a trickle last year, and I have a feeling that it's going to turn into a flood. One of my favorite colleagues, whose presence on the campus is a balm to weary souls, is leaving for another country because the new university is paying triple the salary, plus plane tickets plus housing plus a car plus everything my colleague will need to do the job.
Anyway, I hope that helps, Granny.
I'd still like to hear exactly why Granny would prefer not to unionize, or why Contingent Cassandra thinks a union is "the lesser of two evils."
ReplyDeleteAnd Cassandra, there's no such thing as a "quasi-union." Out here in CA, faculty associations or administrator associations that are not recognized as exclusive bargaining agents are called "meet and confer" groups. So, sure, you can meet and confer as much as you want, but then admin can do as it pleases.
A real union negotiates a collective bargaining agreement with management. It's often called "the contract," because that's what it is: A binding agreement between both parties. If managment violates the terms of the contract (for example by unilaterally cutting salaries or disciplining a faculty member outside of the procedures that have been agreed to or by scheduling back-to-back-to-back classes) then the union files a grievance.
The grievance procedure usually involves a meeting and a written decision from first, the dean, then the next-higher level of management, and finally, the college president. If the grievance is still not resolved, then it goes to an outside, neutral arbitrator whose decision can be binding on both parties.
That's 'way different from "meet and confer," and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a built-in adversarial relationship between faculty and administration. At my cc campus, our union recognizes and respects the fact that management has interests, rights, and responsibilities. Administration recognizes that the same is true of faculty. Today, we get along better and run much more smoothly that we did before collective bargaining.
As Granny Geek says, it's all about respect. A level playing field requires respect--and rules, too.
I think "quasi-union" is a term I heard an AAUP official use to describe their role at some schools, where the AAUP does serve as a collective bargaining unit. I have to admit that I don't know as much as I might about the ins and outs of all this, precisely because, as the AAUP official (and every union organizer I've ever met) also pointed out, there's no point in trying to organize a union in a "right-to-work" state, which ours is.
DeleteI'm in CA too, but not unionized. A "meet and confer" group can meet, confer, and get going with a union. You have to start with something.
ReplyDeleteMy first post on CM
ReplyDeleteI teach "Mechanical Technologies" (read: trade school) so please work with me little.
1. Only class hours are fixed and office hours are scheduled at the instructor's discretion. We have 15 minute limit to how late that the class can be started before it is cancelled. All of the trade school instructors are getting paid less than the starting salaries of our graduating students . So every dean that has taken the office in their first week receives the book called "Blue Collar Intellectuals " and is strongly suggested to heed it well. We don't teach our student to "bang rocks together", and we don't teach for the pay. The day a Time Clock is installed in the faculty lounge is the day 20 resignations get handed in, we can easily make more money elsewhere.
2. Our expected teaching load for a full time employee 21 contact hours and 5 office hours. I just finished 83 contact hours over the last 2 semesters because my department of 4 became a department of 2 over the summer and we wanted to give the students in the pipeline a chance to graduate on time, while we search desperately for replacement instructors (again we don't teach for the pay). Our administration was shocked when we told them that our program would not be accepting new students for fall because HR has had over 13 months to find replacements and has yet to succeed (good luck with that, offering less pay than what our students make upon graduating, sure that should be easy).
My dean asked me to work another 40+ semester. I laughed, and told him if I did, it would be the last one I work at this school. I was amused, he was not.
I am not a supporter of unions but in this case, go for it.
One of my happiest days was when I no longer lived in fear of losing my job (From IT to HVAC).
Cheers
Just to add to your informal data collection:
ReplyDeleteMy hours are not at all managed. This semester I taught T/W/R only and half of my Monday's and Friday's I worked from home. Of course, I worked a 12 hour day on Wednesday, but that was my own scheduling choice. As long as I make required meetings, am in class, hold office hours, and generally don't disappear on students, I seem to be fine choosing my hours as I wish.
I am required to teach 18 contact hours per semester, I can overload up to 24. I'm at 21 right now, I will be at 24 in fall. I am physically in class 18 hours a week, and I work every other hour I am not sleeping. Okay, I exaggerate, but I'm new faculty so I've had a helluva semester learning all my courses. I expect next semester to even out to a more manageable 50 hours a week or so.
Thanks for all of the replies and perspectives!
ReplyDeleteSorry for the delay answering your questions about my comments on unions - this is my first chance for personal time in front of a real computer in a while, and for some reason my iPad just doesn't want to let me comment on this site.
As I read what everyone wrote and did some more research, it became clear that my feelings about unions were seriously skewed by some bad experiences of a couple of people in my past: One where seemingly arbitrary (or perhaps just outdated) union rules regularly trumped common sense, and another where the heads of the union just added another level of nightmare to the process.
I contacted the NEA and was contacted by the person we'd be able to work with there, and I'm planning to have lunch with a couple of colleagues to talk about what questions we might want to ask this guy, and whether we're truly up to taking this on.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGood for you, Granny!
ReplyDeleteIt's really heartening to come back to this post a week--which is geological time in the blogosphere--after the discussion began to read your response.
Good luck with your organizing efforts, and remember that building a union, negotiating a contract, and all the rest isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. Nothing's gonna happen overnight, and it'll feel like you're taking three steps forward and two back--but that IS progress.
I'm not an NEA organizer, but I am union veteran, so if you want any advice or just want to talk, you can contact me through the CM moderator.
ReplyDelete