A new law in California will take some of the freeway out of freeway flyers’ work detail. The law, which the governor signed on July 19, increases the annual credit hour threshold part-time/adjunct faculty are allowed to work within one community college district before being automatically put on the tenure track. For decades, that cap has been set at 60 percent of a full-time load. In January, it will go up to 67 percent of a full-time load.

Well, this treatment of an adjunct instructor in Indiana is just too precious. It demonstrates on so many levels what kind of problems are created by the current academic staffing model employed in higher education, ranging from the mistreatment of the faculty member to ultimately a bad decision for students. But hey, it is making its way so quickly around the Internets, I'm not sure I need to say more than point you to here, here, here and here for commentary on this silliness.

Perhaps it is the incessant heat here in the nation's capitol, but I seem to be in a bit of a contrarian mood today. Here are a few items that piqued my attitude today--see what you think.

• Dean Dad is pondering the issue of capping adjunct faculty loads. While he sees the logic behind the cap, he also recognizes that their arbitrary nature causes other problems and doesn't necessarily solve the problem of over-reliance on underpaid faculty. What are the options? Oh, the muddle for a college! For contingent faculty, perhaps the answer is a bit more clear? Organize and withhold services for insufficient payment? Just saying.
• The Chronicle's pseudonymous first-person series features a former full-time faculty member and administrator who discovers the challenges of being a contingent faculty member when she returns to teaching post-retirement. Curious that this surprises her after 23 years of working in higher education.
• New York Governor David Paterson has given the NY Commission on Higher Education report a bit of new life, although he appears mainly focused on student aid rather than the staffing issues addressed in this report.

Thoughts?

A new "visionary" book on academic staffing is out. Managing Adjunct Part Time Faculty for the New Millennium is intended to help administrators who "will experience increased challenges due to the continuing growth in numbers of adjunct and part-time faculty." Like so many business-oriented-higher-education-management-advice books, the problem is "complex," with many variables and considerations. Now, I don't mean to be overly quick to judge, but the introduction, "A Vision of the Future-From the CEO" by Roy A. Church (um, he is actually a college president), gave me a pretty good sense of the direction in which things are going here.

From where I sit, it is overcast outside today and the news from the Internets this Monday morning is not much different. Here is a sample.

• The University of South Carolina graduate employees are throwing down, well at least in that academic sort of a way. They put together a report showing how poorly they are paid and sent a letter to the administration and the trustees. USC has done the responsible thing:  they formed a committee for further investigation!
• Polk Community College, like other colleges and universities in Florida, is trying to weather the fiscal crisis in that state. As a result, they are watching enrollment closely before addressing personnel costs including raises for faculty to make them more competitive and addressing the increasing reliance on underpaid contingent faculty.
• And Marc has a not-so-happy 4^th of July post over at HTUW.

Somebody have some better news out there? Anybody?

A point made by letter-writer Walter Marquardt in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer is worthy of some thought. The Seattle paper had run an article on the economic impact of the increasing cost of gas on students' commutes. In response, Marquardt makes that point that the people who are going to get hit particularly hard are the contingent faculty freeway flyers in metropolitan areas.

Most of the teaching load in community colleges in Seattle is carried by faculty who are forced to teach part-time at multiple campuses, not because there is a staffing need for part-timers, but because employing lots of part-time faculty costs less than employing people fulltime (with fulltime benefits). This cost-saving technique for colleges puts an enormous financial and physical burden on the faculty member trying to somehow bunch together enough campuses to make 20 credits and, hopefully, a living. The practice also, of course, contributes to our environmental mess. Now the cost of that commute is going up and up. Marquardt predicts, "When the colleges can no longer find enough part-time instructors because commute costs make it impractical, they'll start looking at changing hiring practices." However, I bet a lot of campuses are going to suddenly wonder just where all the part-timers went when everyone starts figuring out they can no longer afford to teach.

UPDATE: The Chronicle has a piece today (subscription) on the tough choices being faced by adjunct faculty due to high gas prices.

Yesterday, The Arizona Republic ran a well-balanced, in-depth piece on the declining tenure rates in the Arizona University system and the potential impacts of this trend. In many ways, the academic staffing issues facing the Arizona university system is microcosm of the national picture and the discussion about the national trends. The online version of the article also has a series of questions that students and parents might ask related to academic staffing when considering a college. It would be great to see this kind of attention drawn to these trends in more regional papers, because clearly education is needed on these issues.

Now with that said, the article does take up a line-of-discussion that just about always drives me crazy: tenure-as-lifetime-employment. And, of course, it is this issue that the good readers of the Republic pick right up on. Over the jump for the debate.

Did you take note of yesterday? We all should have, since, as American Rights at Work notes, yesterday was the one-year anniversary of achieving a majority of U.S. Senators supporting the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) to go along with the majority in the House. ARW and many others, including AFT, are working to build that majority and to elect a President who will sign this legislation. You can help by being one of the million people who sign the petition in support of employee free choice.

If you are asking whether or not it matters, head over the jump with me.

A few items of interest out there that have been on hold while the contract settlements have been rolling in.

• The Chroni News Blog reports that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick's plans for higher education seems to at least acknowledge that the current model of academic staffing is a problem.
• Marc Bousquet has the most entertaining report on Nassau Community College Trustees/FBI/Adjunct Union dust-up (and an interesting suggestion . . . and a follow up to that suggestion).
• The Indiana Supreme Court handed down a ruling that appears to be a victory for (some) contingent faculty on the unemployment insurance front.
• Inside Higher Ed has a report from within the bowels of the Career College Association meeting about recruiting students that I don't even know where to begin discussing, but the whole premise of the discussion is worrisome to me. 
• And lastly, Artemis talks to/about herself and tries to work through some issues about academic labor and graduate school over at Word Presser.

What else?

To publish or not to publish? Or to put it more broadly, should an overworked off-the- tenure-track faculty member bother to do anything other than the basic teaching one is suppose to be paid for? After all, administration often makes the argument that contingent faculty are paid less because we are not required to do research or service. And going ahead and insisting on performing all aspects of our profession as a professional sort of undermines the rationale for why we are paid so much less. On one hand, basic union guidelines say don't do work you are not paid for since the school will happily take advantage of you and expect free labor. On the other hand, I've seen faculty dismissed after 35 years of teaching because a program wants to "upgrade" and increase publication records.