|
By Martin Goldstein On Thursday, May 17, after the FA General Assembly meeting, Lantz Simpson, FA President, along with Becka Curtis, Part-time Committee Co-Chair, Ben Martin from speech, Michael Strathearn from chemistry, Launa Nelson, the other Part-time Co-Chair, and myself, met for lunch in the Bread Factory with Rob Rader, SMC Trustee since 2004. Rob's attention and concern was evident from the start, with the concerns of our group, representing the concerns of all part-timers here at SMC, being front and center. After a general discussion and individual introductions and work histories of those at the meeting, who averaged over ten years each of part-time work at SMC, we brought up the concerns culled from the part-time survey earlier this year. One was concern that all part-timers get office hours, not just those in certain English and Math courses. It's part of being a professional teacher, and getting them, and having them paid for, is a sign of professional respect. Some part-timers now have that; all should have it. Given that it costs something to do that, but not all that much, what else might be on our wish list? More money for all, some movement on the parity scale, where part-timers are between 65-70% of fulltimers, depending on office hours, and where no movement has been made since it was established contractually in 1993. Others schools such as San Francisco are up to 90%, and, not-coincidentally, have a much better ratio of fulltime to part-timers. The more you pay part-timers, Adam Smith would have said, the less economic incentive there is to hire them, vs. more expensive but higher contributing fulltimers. At San Francisco City College, for example, that's exactly what happened; they are just about at 75/25, and, in a further non-coincidence, the number of administrators is less than those schools (like ours) which rely heavily on part-timers (52% of WTH) -- “a disgraceful number,” Rob acknowledged. That number, and similar ones in the form of “benchmarks,” are going to be part of the negotiating environment this season – and far beyond that, we hope. Higher Education in general, and the community college system in particular have gotten into bad habits since the glory days of the State Master Plan, by not hiring fulltimers and over-hiring and over-using part-timers. But things are starting to change everywhere, and if we at Santa Monica College are as committed to excellence as we say we are, we must do better. Our students need a lot more help these days, and it's hard to help students while stuck in traffic on the 405. We can't give excellent service to our students when 52% (rather than 25%) of all FTES teaching hours are taught by part-timers – most of whom don't even have office hours. We closed the meeting with the thought that the additional sums expected to go the College if, as expected by all, the Community College Initiative passes in February of 2008, could be become a major factor in this equation. Statewide legislation dealing with part-time issue will continue next legislative session and it may be able to put some funding strings on that CCI money. And, regardless of state actions, which still have the governor to deal with, the Board of Trustees of Santa Monica College can decide what they want to do with that extra $44 million over five years. Let's hope they want to do the right thing with it and do right by us. We'll see.
|
