Mark DuCharme
of the FRCC English Department poses with a pie chart showing how
less than 12% of CCCS annual revenues go to the 4,600+ adjunct faculty who
teach 75% of all the courses the CCCS offers. Half the CCCS workforce is this adjunct
faculty, and they are paid poverty-level wages. Consequently, the community colleges are losing the great
teachers that have long been the hallmark of the
colleges.
Few Colorado taxpayers, students and hard-working,
devoted, adjunct faculty members are aware that there is not one person among
the hundreds of six-figure-earning administrators in the Colorado Community
College System (CCCS) charged with advocating for paying adjunct faculty a
living wage. In fact, recent, historic events prove that part of the work of CCCS
administrators is to
argue against living wages for
half the workforce in the CCCS; its army of 4,600+ adjunct faculty who teach
the lion’s share of the 29,000+ courses this system offers.
Let’s start at the top. Who advocates for
higher wages for CCCS top executives? CCCS President Nancy McCallin earns three times ($300K) the salary of Gov. John
Hickenlooper ($90K). Each of the CCCS Presidents ($130K-$180K) earns far
more than does the state’s governor. The dozens of CCCS Vice Presidents ($120K+) earn far more than does the state’s governor. Each of the scores of CCCS Deans ($80-$90K) earn nearly the same salary as Gov.
Hickenlooper. Advocating on their behalf is the state Department of Higher
Education, headed by Colorado’s Lt. Governor. (The state’s Lt. Governor, with a salary of $68K, earns less than the average CCCS program director ($80K).
Furthermore, the state pays the American Association of
Community Colleges (AACC) annual membership dues of $69K per year. Part of
the AACC mission is to coach college executives on how to negotiate higher
salaries for themselves. The AACC is a national lobbying juggernaut. The CCCS is
paying AACC dues partly to make sure Colorado taxpayers are paying higher wages to all CCCS executives.
Next in line, we have the full-time faculty
minority of approximately 1,200 full-time faculty. They average fewer than
100 full-time faculty at work in each of the 13 CCCS colleges. Most of them are
granted “release time” from teaching to serve as supervisors to the ocean of
adjuncts who keep the lights on by teaching classes at all hours, even
weekends, year-round. Advocating for higher wages and benefits for them are the
scores of CCCS HR department personnel. Their go-to (and usually only) source
of information is the other national, administration-focused organization, the
gigantic and well-funded CUPA-HR (College and
University Professional Association for Human Resources). CCCS HR also taps
the CCCS budget, if needed, to hire consultants such as Sibson Consulting to conduct surveys to help them press for
higher wages for full-time faculty, as they did a few years ago. The stats and
surveys Sibson supplied the CCCS HR provided the numbers that justified the CCCS
giving the full-time faculty a recent 20.3%
pay raise.
What about the CCCS HR? Don’t they advocate
for adjunct faculty? Sadly, no. In fact, in the first hearing for the equal-pay-for-equal-work
bill (HB 14-1154), the CCCS HR, represented by Aurora CC HR executive Cynthia Hesse, advocated fiercely against equal-pay-for-equal-work for adjunct faculty.
She argued that to do so would require hiring more HR staff to keep track of
all the paperwork. The CCCS HR administrators are the first ones to argue for
the status quo, because they act as the right hand of CCCS administration. It’s
a sad comment that, were the CCCS to have fewer adjunct faculty, each earning a
higher wage and teaching more classes (as HB14-1154 proposed), the ostensibly sophisticated and
software-savvy CCCS HR department would consider keeping track of them
daunting. Sadder still is that the CCCS pays an HR professional to argue to that
effect before legislative bodies. Since that time, the CCCS has hired
approximately 1,000 more adjuncts, each of whom earns peanuts for their work,
and no one hears any complaints from CCCS HR.
What about the classified staff at work in
the CCCS? Who advocates for their wages and benefits? That would be Colorado WINS,
a special SEIU-related union blessed by the Colorado governor. Through
WINS, the state gives raises to the workers keeping the lawns mowed, the
copiers running, and the trash emptied. They also get those workers drastically
reduced health-care benefits, such as a recent reduction of 66%. Colorado WINS
is barred from advocating for adjunct faculty in the CCCS, by legislative design.
What about the role of the Vice President
for Executive Leadership Training and Development, Linda Bowman, someone among top CCCS
leadership for the entire state? Wouldn’t part of that job description include
advocating that the CCCS needs a stable faculty who is earning equal pay for equal work? Again, no. CCCS VP Linda Bowman testified against
equal-pay-for-equal work for adjunct faculty in the Senate
hearing for SB 15-094 last year. She repeated the tired meme of how the
CCCS needs flexibility, and how seniority must not play a role in faculty
decisions. Seniority plays a powerful role, however, in administration salary
decisions and full-time faculty decisions, as evidenced by the numerous CCCS
surveys and salary comparisons listed above. For adjuncts across the state who
have been putting their hearts and souls into teaching community college students
for years, whenever they hear six-figure-earning administrators whose own careers
have profited mightily by seniority invoke the need for “flexibility,” it is widely
recognized as code for protected practices of wage theft and age discrimination
visited upon adjunct faculty.
What about the CCCS governing board, the
State Board of Community Colleges and Occupational Education? We strike out
with this group, as well. The SBCCOE has determined that the faculty majority
is so inconsequential that its members are considered part of the “public” and
thus are allowed only five minutes per month to say anything at all during the
SBCCOE monthly meetings. The SBCCOE only meets ten months out of the year,
leaving half the CCCS workforce less than one hour total, annually, to be
heard. Knowing that is the case, even so, during the first hearing for HB14-1154, SBCCOE Chair Russ Meyer told lawmakers that any issues involving adjunct faculty could be handled by the system through its shared governance procedures. Most CCCS adjuncts have never even heard of shared governance, and those
that do report that it seems to be something for full-time faculty only. The
SBCCOE itself models for Colorado its definition of shared governance: very
little sharing and an abundance of governance.
What about CCCS lobbyists at work in
the state Capitol? Don’t they routinely argue for higher wages for CCCS adjunct
faculty? Again, sadly, they do not. In fact, in the past two years, the CCCS
has paid its lobbyists, the Capstone
Group and JLH Public Affairs $132K to make sure both of the equal-pay-for-equal-work bills
that might have benefited CCCS faculty (HB 14-1154 and SB 15-094) were defeated. (The details of those invoices are available through the Colorado Secretary of State's office.)
There is NOT ONE person in the CCCS whose job it is to advocate for a living wage and
better working conditions for adjunct faculty. In fact, as the details
above describe, there are literally hundreds of people in the CCCS and under
contract to CCCS administration who are paid to argue against paying any CCCS adjuncts equal pay for equal work. This design needs
to change. Student success depends on a stable faculty able to focus on how
best to teach and inspire learners.
It is only the prestigious American Associationof University Professors (AAUP) that has taken up the charge of advocating for
CCCS adjunct faculty. With the help of the AAUP, we have also formed
relationships with numerous members of the Colorado
House and Senate who have been championing community college students by insisting to know why the CCCS cannot pay 75% of their teachers equal pay for equal work. The alarming situation in Colorado has the
attention of the executives within the AAUP, the
Colorado legislature, and the higher education community nationally. It is because of the firepower the AAUP has brought to the issue that membership in the metro area has grown, and more chapters of the AAUP are forming on still more CCCS campuses. The AAUP has led the charge for more
than a century for faculty rights, academic freedom and shared governance, and brings that experience to bear on all the sad details listed above.
* * *
#
# #
