Today the instructors and adjunct faculty at Western Michigan University overwhelmingly voted for the Professional Instructors Organization (PIO) to represent them.  The Michigan Employment Relations Commission counted the votes in Lansing this morning and announced that the final vote tally was 207 to 29. 

"We are delighted that our colleagues have strongly supported the PIO union, and we will work hard to improve wages and working conditions for all instructors at WMU," said Janet Heller, Instructor in the English Department and Gender & Women's Studies Program. 

"We are confident that our organizing will help university leaders to see that part-time faculty are an essential component (along with tenure-line faculty and graduate teaching assistants) in the educational enterprise at WMU," said Karl Schrock, who teaches in the School of Music. "We look forward to working with the administration to improve communication, faculty recognition, and long-term planning for the university's mission in ways that will benefit students and the university community as a whole." 

Those who voted were instructors at WMU who held appointments of at least 3 total credit hours during the spring 2009 semester although the PIO has been organizing for more than a year.  "I'm proud of our hard work over the last sixteen months to achieve this union," said Martha Faketty, instructor in the English department.

The PIO, which will represent a unit of 430 instructors and adjunct faculty members at WMU, will now begin discussions with the WMU administration about better recognition as members of the faculty and university community.  Many instructors at WMU have not received any salary increase for 12 years.  WMU instructors and adjuncts continue to be one of the lowest paid groups of state university faculty in Michigan.

The vote today follows several other votes in the Great Lakes State over the past two years.  During that time new unions representing contingent faculty and graduate employees have formed at Michigan State, Central Michigan University, Henry Ford Community College and Wayne State University all affiliated with AFT Michigan, the state affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO.

After 40 long years of advocacy and a roller coaster ride of hopes raised, then dashed, academic employees in the University of Wisconsin system finally have the right to decide whether they will be represented by a union. On June 29, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle signed the 2009-2011 biennial budget, which includes a provision extending collective bargaining rights to more than 20,000 UW faculty, academic staff and research assistants.

The new right extends to 6,600 full-time, tenured and tenure-track faculty and 13,100 academic staff-defined to include part-time and full-time lecturers, adjuncts, advisors, IT technicians, and others. Another provision gives 3,200 research assistants the right to determine whether they want bargaining representation through the state's first card check-off process. That option would allow research assistants at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee to be represented by the UW Teaching Assistants' Association (TAA) or the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants' Association (MGAA) when 50 percent plus one of the RAs in the unit have signed cards.

The UW academics are the only non-management class of public employees who have lacked bargaining rights in the state. It has been a very sore point on every campus, says Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine), who was co-sponsor of a motion that passed within the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee supporting collective bargaining rights for UW faculty and staff. "This is all about fairness," he says.

Late Saturday night, the Oregon Senate voted unanimously to put the principles of  the FACE campaign into Oregon Law.  The Senate's 30-0 vote follows last week's nearly unanimous 54 to 1 vote in the House on HB 2557, the Oregon Faculty and College Excellence (FACE) Act. The bill is now scheduled to be signed by Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski.  This will represent the first time that components of AFT's Faculty and College Excellence Act is officially included in state statute.

"This is a great step for contingent faculty and for Oregon's higher education system," said David Rives, AFT-Oregon President-elect and part-time community college instructor who has taught English as a Second Language for the past 15 years. "I'm thrilled that we're finally getting public awareness about the faculty staffing crisis."

The FACE campaign presses for more full-time faculty and pro-rata pay and benefits for contingent or adjunct faculty. Dozens of AFT-Oregon members have attended hearings and written their legislators in support of the bill.  While FACE legislation introduced around the country has drawn significant attention to the staffing crisis in higher education and resulted in progress toward solutions including increased pay equity money for part-time faculty and money to convert part-time positions into full-time positions, this is the first time that a bill with the FACE title and principles has passed a state legislature.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to attend the U.S. Department of Education's Forum on Fostering Persistence and Degree Attainment, which was held at the Community College of Philadelphia, where I teach as a part-time faculty member.   As Barbara reported, I wasn't able to be on the panel.  The panel was totally made up of college administrators, with the exception of Larry Gold, director of AFT higher education.  I was the lone faculty member in the back of the room, an interesting position in which to be.  The goal of my attendance at this meeting was to help promote the idea that academic staffing ought to be a consideration as the federal government considers how to distribute the money going to the College Access and Completion Fund for staffing.  The fund is a 5-year, mandatory $2.5 billion investment in improving degree attainment rates in higher education.

When given the opportunity, though persistent hand-raising, I spoke about how the best way to achieve student persistence was through engaging faculty, giving them positive reinforcement, perhaps even creating a pool of money for contingent faculty to engage students and contribute to college life (through office hours, advising, committee work).  If some contingent faculty are willing, they should be asked to and paid to participate.  This will engage more and more students.

What does it take to get more students--new and returning--through college?

The U.S. Department of Education wants to know and has been sponsoring forums this month to seek practical advice on what works. But is the department listening to those on the ground and in the trenches?  The faculty?

Upon taking office, Pres. Barack Obama stated that by 2020, the U.S. population must resume its place in the world as first in the percentage of adults with postsecondary degrees or credentials.

To that end--and as part of its implementation of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008-- the U.S. Department of Education embarked on a listening tour this month, sponsoring forums in Denver, Little Rock and Philadelphia,  to gather up examples of best practices that bring students to college and ensure that they persist through to a degree. The department is looking for ways to leverage federal postsecondary programs to produce a more educated and skilled adult population.

Education officials also want to know what obstacles institutions and students encounter on the path to degree completion. And, because the goal is to reach all adults, not just college-aged students, the department is interested in both traditional and nontraditional-aged college students. With a net cast this broadly, the administration has indicated community colleges will be significant players in achieving the goal.

That's a good start, but at the last forum, which took place June 23 at the Community College of Philadelphia, it was surprising to see a panel filled with administrators and nonteaching staff. Had not AFT Higher Education director Larry Gold signed up and CCP Faculty and Staff Federation Secretary Jennie Smith attended as a vocal observer, the three DoE officials might not have heard about how the trend of hiring fewer and fewer full-time faculty is affecting persistence and degree attainment.