Yesterday, H1110, "An Act to Maintain Faculty and College Excellence in the Commonwealth" got some face-time before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Higher Education.  The bill, sponsored by Sen. Steven D'Amico (D-Seekonk), calls for 75 percent of undergraduate classes to be taught by full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty, for equal pay and access to benefits for part-time and nontenure-track faculty, and for a seniority system and preferential consideration for hiring qualified contingent faculty members.

According to the State House News Service (subscription required):

D'Amico said heavy reliance on adjunct professors with no employment benefits was undermining the system. "This is unfair not just to the people who are employees who are being treated as second-class employees but it's also unfair to our students," he said.

In a letter of support for the legislation, University of Massachusetts Faculty Federation President James Griffiths described the horrible working conditions contingent faculty face despite the valuable contribution they make to the state's colleges and universities.

These part-time faculty and graduate students bring skills and enthusiasm to the classroom and most have advanced degrees. Some have specialized knowledge in professional fields, and many become expert teachers in important introductory courses such as freshman composition, remedial math, and art foundation courses. But their pay is abysmal, less than $3,000 per course, and almost all work without benefits. In order to make a living, a part-time college instructor has to teach a total of seven to ten courses at different campuses, often with no office, phone or other tools for their job when they arrive.

Griffith goes on to note that this legislation is a long-term solution, but that "in the meantime" Massachusetts could, like so many other states, begin the data gathering and budget analysis process to begin the work on this systemic problem once we emerge from the current economic downturn.

As the saying goes, where there is a will there is a way-so let's start working on the will.