Is Spring Quarter ending already? They sure do go by quickly! It's been just over three months since our first issue, and there's been a lot going on since then: a party, a roadtrip, and tales of two Senate Subcommittees, for example. Here are some updates. There's more information at our webpage: http://csadjunct.com.

The Contract Faculty Association -- or is it the Contingent Faculty Association? -- is an organization so loose-knit as not even to be sure of its own name! The more-or-less standard term in the literature seems to be "adjunct" faculty; it's also common on some campuses to refer to "part-time" faculty . . . whatever we're called, we're doing most of the teaching in higher education.

Columbus State Community College has over 800 part-time teachers on its payroll and is looking to hire many more. Above all, the CFA seeks to create opportunities for this group to get to know each other and discuss issues of concern to us all.

A standing committee on adjunct faculty issues has been created by the Faculty Senate, with monthly meetings since March. The committee gives adjunct faculty a "voice" in the form of access to the written record: minutes are recorded in What's Happening.

For this committee to be effective, however, we will need much more participation by adjunct faculty members: ideally, a representative from every department on campus. Thus far, Social & Behavioral Science, Communications Skills, and Mathematics have been represented regularly. Here's a chance to meet and talk with some very interesting people while doing valuable service to the college and to the profession of teaching (unpaid, naturally). Please consider participating: meetings are open to everyone, and there's no further commitment beyond showing up. Our committee chair is Karen Muir; contact her at kmuir@cscc.edu to be put on the mailing list.

CSCC has been struggling for years to arrive at an appropriate system of governance. Our rapid growth since becoming a community college in 1987 has made this struggle a particularly difficult one. The North Central Association (the body that grants college accreditations) recommended in 1989 that faculty be given more voice in the college's governance structure; in their 1999 report, they noted that this issue had not been addressed. In fact, according to the summary of a meeting of the Governance Committee published in What's Happening This Week (#1075, May 7, 2001), North Central went so far as to say that we ``have not matured to become an institution of higher education''.

As part of this struggle, the Faculty In-Service Day this Spring (April 20, 2001) had the theme of ``Governance and Leadership''. A governance expert -- Dr. Patricia Donohue of Saint Louis Community College -- was brought in to address the faculty (and meet with the Governance Committee); this was followed by a number of "break-out" sessions with smaller groups of faculty participating in various activities.

Because we of the CFA believe that any realistic model of faculty governance at CSCC must involve the hundreds of adjuncts that make up the majority of the faculty, one such session was devoted to "Adjunct Faculty: Participation in Shared Governance". This session was attended by a goodly number of both full- and part- timers and the discussion was lively. The support we've received from regular (full-time, titled) faculty, here and elsewhere, has been very gratifying -- faculty at other colleges have sometimes been slower to recognize that "we're all in this together". The part-timers at this session also deserve special thanks since, unlike the full-timers, we weren't paid to attend the In-Service (of course this is part of a larger pattern---the very lack of recognition that made the meeting necessary in the first place). A brief set of notes can be found on our webpage.

There are no dues or fees for CFA membership; you're a member if you say you are. However, most of our members also belong to the campus chapter of AAUP -- the American Association of University Professors.

On February 16, Ohio AAUP sponsored a "legislative breakfast" -- one of a statewide series -- at the Ohio State U, with short talks by state senators Bruce Johnson and Priscilla Mead and state representative Larry Flowers, followed by an informal discussion. Major topics included state funding for higher education (which is being cut; Senator Johnson believes that lifting tuition caps is the appropriate remedy) and the "business" orientation of college leadership (which evidently isn't perceived as a problem by the legislators).

CSCC was well represented (as was OSU, of course); we were joined by colleagues from as far away as Cleveland.

On April 28, six of our members attended a meeting of Ohio AAUP at Wright State U in Dayton, along with our guest Richard Moser -- AAUP's national representative for part-time and contingent faculty. Most of the morning was devoted to discussion of issues pertinent to adjunct faculty: a meeting of "Committee P" and a panel discussion.

Of course the best thing about meetings like this is seldom on the official agenda: the chance to meet and interact with like-minded faculty from all over the state and to renew old acquantances. In particular, several members from the Sinclair CC and the U of Cincinatti were in attendance: these contacts have already proven themselves as valuable allies to the CFA.

Never let it be said that CFA membership is all work and no play. The get-together on February 16 was well-attended, and featured several conversations having nothing at all to do with our jobs, careers, or callings as teachers! (These subjects may also have come up.) Plans for a cookout this summer are allegedly underway.

Six adjunct faculty from Columbus State joined colleagues from Cincinatti and Sinclair, along with students from CSCC, OSU, and Ohio U, at the Statehouse on May 11 to testify before the Senate Finance Committee. The CFA joined the Board of Regents, several college presidents, and other concerned Ohio citizens in opposing House Bill 94, which cuts funding for higher education severely.

Vast amounts of information are available on this topic, of course -- but your editor would rather read the phone book than try to make sense of it all. A good place to start would be Gongwer: www.gongwer-oh.com.

It was sobering to learn that the chair of the committee, so far from being aware of the ongoing crisis in academic labor, did not know until well into our testimony what the phrase "adjunct faculty" even refers to. The dirty little secret of higher education is more secret than we had imagined.

Adjunct Advocate calls itself "The news magazine for adjunct college faculty". This is evidently their idea of advocacy: "forget your career . . . You are not after a better job. You have chosen the work you are doing." (Lee Shainen, May/June 2001). In "Learning to Love Life Outdside (sic.) Academe", Peter Temes tells how he quit teaching and became a foundation president (March/April); apparently we should all just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and leave the actual work to lesser beings. If that's not bad enough, he's interviewed in the next issue telling the same story. The review of Moving a Mountain (May/June) concludes, "In order to escape the gloom, sometimes a person must simply move on.". And so it goes.

With the bulk of their ads coming from textbook publishers, they're unlikely to be interested in anything that might disturb the status quo. There's even a "news" story on page 8 puffing "HigherEdJobs.com" in the same issue with an ad for same on page 42 (May/June). Save your money.