It’s Job Security, Stupid!

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About

Associate Faculty Status

By Martin M. Goldstein

     Just as the economy -- having a decent job -- was the main concern in the ‘92 election, so has job security for part-timers, along with wages and working conditions, been a major concern of the FA in the last round of negotiations. There’s no point in worrying about wages or working conditions, after all, if you don’t have a job in the first place.

    And what we got was something. Not everything, and not all that we wanted, but a significant improvement in job security for a significant number of our part-timers.  It came in the form of improvements in the conditions and benefits of Associate Faculty status, something all part-timers could conceivably achieve, and which many here already have.

    First, let’s put the issue in perspective, to see what we got, and what we didn’t.  Starting at the top, the most “job secure” category, system-wide is Tenured Faculty, which essentially is a job for life. In truth, it’s less a guaranteed job than a guaranteed major headache due process system that few administrators would be willing to go through to actually fire someone. But they can and they have.  Still, barring highly publicized impropriety (such as the recent plagiarism cases), you have a job for life.

    Before you can get that status, however, in the CC system you go through a Probationary period of four years. For the first two of those years, you receive only a one-year contract, at the end of either of which you can be terminated, i.e. not  rehired.  The  last two  are

 

 

 

 

 

given a two year contract, at which point you can also simply not be rehired.  But if you are, then you achieve Tenure status.

    So job security as a Probationary full-timer, really, you don’t have. But in fact at SMC and at most CC’s, it is usually a road to tenure. In four year schools, however, this is equivalent to Instructor or Assistant Professor status, where the “publish or perish” dictum, along with clogged upward career paths, make tenure much less of a probability than in the CC’s.

    In any event, the next stop down the job security ladder at SMC (and the most secure status a part-timer can achieve)  is Associate Faculty status, which has been around for over a decade, but in this last round of negotiations has been made available to more people sooner, and with improved benefits.

    When you qualify for AF status now, what you get is a one-year contract and a guaranteed yearly load -- the same total number of classes you taught over the prior Fall and Spring of the year that qualified you for AF status.  Now you can look ahead to the next academic year and know you’ve got a job and how much income it will bring in over the whole year. It’s not tenure, but it’s progress.  Further, to qualify now,  you need to have taught only  5 consecutive semesters (it used to be 8) with at least 5 credits in all semesters.

 

    There’s one last qualification for AF status: you must have had a positive evaluation within the last 4 qualifying semesters. If you have not had an evaluation in that period, and that’s what holding up your AF status, contact the FA office; we’re currently working to expedite things here, to make sure no one is held up from their benefits by something out of their control, such as their Department not having done or submitted an evaluation, or the Administration not having a record of it.

    No matter how you slice it, AF status is not tenure-like job security -- but it’s two big steps in the right direction.  It gives a one-year contract to more people now, and for the first time it guarantees a yearly load, so you can budget your life a bit more rationally.  In truth, it codifies what have already been some of the best past practices of Santa Monica College -- its very high retention rate of part-time faculty, currently around 85%. 

    Contractual agreement provides members with full arbitration rights should any of these obligations not be met.  It isn’t complete job security, since there is no guarantee you will be hired at all for that year. But if you’re hired for one class, you’re guaranteed your full AF load, or at least, salary.

    In sum, Associate Faculty status is a reward for continued good work as a faculty member.   It memorializes past practices which are a backbone of the educational excellence of SMC,  where 75% of the faculty are part-timers, teaching approximately 50% of the total courses given. PTers are rehired here with a regularity which benefits them, their students, and the institution as a whole.  Past practice here at SMC has helped to create educational excellence; future practices, such as further development of Associate Faculty status, will help to continue it.