Finding a bus out of the abyss
By Caprice Lawless
Things are coming up roses for Colorado's community colleges, judging from recent announcements of the hiring of an architect, additional administrators,
on-site construction managers, etc., and we are thrilled to know of it. Revenues for 2012 topped $579 million. More than $378 million in revenue flowed back into the system through instruction.
Foundation support has quadrupled. As evidenced by the literal buzz of
construction projects, the community colleges are knee-deep in clover. We’re
hiring deans, directors, vice-presidents, coordinators and specialists faster
than they can be minted. We have to walk carefully to our classes, amid all the
construction trailers, saw horses, painting set-ups and dumpsters of debris.Last year, more than $55 million was spent on construction alone. We are puzzled, therefore, why only a tenth of
this multi-million dollar budget is earmarked for the adjuncts who teach 70-75% percent of the classes the colleges offer.
Will the faculty majority (adjuncts) benefit from this river of abundance
through a pay increase? Few realize, for example, that 4,012 of the 8,600
employees within the state’s community college system are adjunct faculty
earning below-poverty-level wages.
For the purpose of argument, let’s imagine there would be a 1.5%
increase for adjunct wages ($105 more for the typical, three-credit-hour
course). This half-a-snow-tire raise would
bring the current $2,060/per 3-credit-hour course to $2,165.
At that rate, even adjuncts who teach the maximum number of classes they
are allowed to teach (10 classes across 3 semesters), would still earn $6,275
below the minimum
to qualify as indigent under the Colorado Indigent Care Program. Notably,
even with a 1.5% increase, the average adjunct (currently earning $15,500/year)
would still earn
several thousand below the minimum living wage in any of the four counties (Adams, Boulder, Larimer
and Weld) where FRCC campuses are located. Indeed, so many adjuncts are looking
for help to pay for food, rent, health care and transportation that we’ve devoted
a new section on our site to connect them to those resources.
Surely a system flowing with millions from so many sources, and indeed,
a system proud to announce last year that it returns $1.70 for each dollar Colorado taxpayers invest in it, can do better for its majority faculty.
What would benefit our students, their parents and Colorado taxpayers
now would be a 25% pay hike; a $515/per-course raise, or $2,575. That figure
only seems large because community college adjunct wages have been so low for decades. To
keep the community colleges strong, we need to bring our adjunct wage closer to
the wages earned by adjuncts in other Colorado institutions of higher education.
For example, adjunct faculty at nearby Metropolitan State University of
Denver will receive this fall the across-the-board 2% pay hike, as they do
every fall. That will bring their wage for a 3-credit hour course up to $3,133.
FRCC adjunct wages are not just a little
lower; they are more
than a third lower.
A tangible pay raise is needed now, as it is clear the monies are
available. A recent e-mail from campus leadership mentioned there is $16 million remaining unspent from the current bonanza of funds. Let’s use a
portion of that windfall to fund a 25% pay increase for the faculty majority,
to ensure the delivery of the high-quality instruction for which our college system is
known.
Wage-and-benefit packages for exempt employees on our campuses are
codified formally through the Colorado State Department of Personnel & Administration. Wage-and-benefit
packages for the classified staff of specialists, custodians, groundskeepers, dining
service personnel, etc. are negotiated through the Colorado WINS collective
bargaining unit. Compensation terms for community college presidents are researched, studied and receive advocacy through the Washington D.C.-based American Association of Community Colleges.
No one negotiates or advocates for Colorado’s community college
adjuncts. State legislators tell us that community college leadership has stymied
measures in the past that might have improved the situation for adjuncts. Historically,
adjunct wages have been set arbitrarily, at the whim of leadership at the time,
and given only passing mention in massive CCCS salary surveys. Now is the time to change that pattern.
The Colorado constitution gives the state’s college presidents broad powers in this regard. This is why adjunct wages vary from college to college. Adjuncts
in the CCCS have been assigned abysmal wages, even those CCCS adjuncts who teach
guarantee-transfer courses that feed into the state’s four-year,
degree-granting colleges and universities. Our campus president has urged us,
repeatedly, to work with the state legislature, and so we have been doing so.
“You adjuncts need to understand that in the whole country, Colorado is
at the bottom in its support of higher education,” we were told recently by an education-committee
legislator who met with us at the capitol.
“And, throughout the state of
Colorado,” the legislator continued, “you adjuncts in the community colleges
are at the bottom in the whole state. You are at the bottom of the bottom. What you’re going to have to do, so to speak, is to push the rock off the
mountain and make it hit the bus,” was his advice.
So, how do you push a rock from the top if you are the bottom of the
bottom, not only in salary but in spirit? How do we get up there to do that?
Maybe this will motivate you: Consider the salaries and benefits of those who
walk the hallways you do. Their careers, it seems, have been predicated on your
ongoing relationship with poverty. Consider these CCCS average salaries, in
comparison with yours.*
Community college president: $151,172
+ benefits*
*Colorado Adjuncts thanks Rhonda
Bentz, Director of Media and Government Relations, Colorado Community College
System, for contributing these salary details.
What do you think of a 1.5% increase for the classes you teach, given
the fuller picture supplied here? Here
is your chance to add an anonymous comment to this issue.
