New Jersey: Rutgers University

see the Rutgers report online

Colorado: Front Range Community College

Excerpt from Dana Waller's note: Front Range Community College (Boulder County Campus) Campus Equity Week setup. We had a display featuring "The Colorado Model of Higher Education", including Cut Funding, Increase Tuition, Hire Mostly Part-time Faculty, Threaten Academic Freedom, and Take Away Shared Governance, plus a petition calling for equal pay for equal work, and lots of buttons and educational material. We had tables set up for 3 days on 2 campuses, and were honored to have the Governing Board touring the campus on day 1.

see photos

Illinois: Triton College, River Grove

Note from Ms. Adrian Fisher: Triton College Adjunct Faculty Association (IEA-NEA), River Grove, IL, ran its first CEW information table last week. We distributed CEW/FEW buttons, which were very popular. The top administration got some too! We spent most of our time educating students, I hope to good effect. We are in the midst of negotiating our first contract, and CEW/FEW was a low-key way to get our message to the campus at large. Next year we plan to do more.

California: CFA Organizes Fair Employment Week Activities on All CSU Campuses

2005’s Week of Contingent Faculty Organizing is Devoted to Election Efforts: Chapter Lecturers Councils are holding special events, gathering cards pledging No on Propositions 75 and 76, doing phone banking, walking precincts, and setting up tables on campuses with information about the special election and Lecturer issues.

read on

California: Santa Monica Community College - Rational Exploitation

The SMC Faculty Association is planning to hold two teach-ins to accommodate the differing schedules of contingent faculty during Campus Equity Week.

read on

Report from Connecticut

A broad range of activities mark Campus Equity Week in Connecticut. These included a protest at the University of West Hartford and a statement from the Central Connecticut State University welcoming Campus Equity Week.

read Flo Hatcher's report

From the Neediest to the Greediest - Hearing at Syracuse

The Syracuse AAUP chapter is organizing a hearing on "Contingent Faculty Issues" entitled, "From the Neediest to the Greediest" on November 2, 2005.

see their flyer

Colorado: Front Range Community College

Front Range Community College will be having a variety of activities on its 3 main campuses including:

• Awards
  • students voting for the "favorite" adjunct teacher
  • full-time faculty nominating adjuncts for "community service", and
  • honoring the President of the Part-time Faculty Organization (PTFO)
• Tabling—staffed in the Commons area on Tuesday/Wednesday from 10-2 with
  • literature on adjuncts
  • a petition of support
  • CEW buttons
  • free candy/cookies.

Vermont: United Academics AAUP/AFT Plans

A coalition of Vermont organizations are organizing a press conference, setting up information tables, screening Degrees of Shame, preparing a taped interview with union leaders, distributing buttons, and taking out adverts.

see a longer description.

Tabling Activities: Cape Cod Community College, MA; Arapahoe Community College, CO; Central Connecticut State University, CT

The AAUP affiliate at the Cape Cod Community College in Massachusetts will tabling in the lunch cafeteria during CEW/FEW. They will also be distributing buttons.

The folks at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, Colorado will be distributing instructors' biographies and materials from the AAUP website.

At Central Connecticut State University, organizers are engaging in a creative CEW button campaign that will include ribbons with the biographies of contingent faculty. Visit the CCSU webpage.

NEA Resources for Contingent Faculty

The NEA Higher Education pages collect a number of essays and other resources that apply to contingent faculty. It defines the contingent academic labor force to include,  "[g]raduate teaching assistants, part-time faculty, adjuncts, and full-time faculty who are employed by the college or university to work on a temporary basis."

read on...

Update from AFT-Oregon

At the urging of contingent faculty advocates, the Oregon governor, Theodore Kulongoski issued a proclamation recognizing Campus Equity Week. Among the other activities are meetings with the State Board of Education and legislative work making staffing levels a part of bargaining.

Michael Dembrow, President, Portland Community College Faculty Federation, also issued a "Faculty Report to the State Board of Education." In it, he reviewed the transformation of higher education in Oregon and connected the issue of contingency with the broader demand for quality instruction.

read the update from Michael Dembrow

Contingent Faculty Rights Hearing at Rutgers University

New Jersey state assembly members and distinguished scholars will hold a hearing on contingent faculty rights at Rutgers University as part of Campus Equity Week. The activities are sponsored by the Rutgers Council of AAUP-AFT Chapters, the Part-time Chapter, the TA/GA Steering Committee, Non-Tenure-Track Caucus, and the Graduate Student Association. The hearing takes place on Tuesday, November 1, 2005. For more information, contact Rich Moser, 732-445-2278 x18.

read the hearing proposal

University of New Mexico

All UNM faculty are invited to a "Faculty Conversation" on Part Time Faculty and structural changes in the professoriate?; refreshments/light lunch; posters, and literature including the AAUP contingent faculty statement.

Noon-1pm subject would be "who are the part timers?" and "how are part timers different than tenure-line and lecturers/contingent with benefits" from various perspectives.

1-2pm invited panel contributing "what is the current situation?"
2-3pm "what could/should be done?"

Cal State - San Marcos

Faculty are invited to hear Roy Weatherford speak. Weatherford has been a guest at Fox’s O’Reilly Factor and Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now!; worked under Charles Reed when Reed was Florida State University chancellor (1985-98); and is acquainted with CSU-SM former interim president Roy McTarnaghan, founding president in 1993 of Florida Gulf Coast University, the FSU campus where professors do not have tenure but work, instead—not unlike CSU long-term lecturers—on renewable three-to-five-year contracts.

see the flyer

Mesa State College - Colorado

Mesa State College AAUP chapter will host an Equity table that week. We will have a professional-quality display of numbers of contingent faculty, salaries disparities and "thank-you" cards for appreciative students to write notes to contingent faculty.

From Pat Cihon at Syracuse University

We are planning to do a "public hearing" with part-time faculty giving testimony about their working conditions and pay and benefits (or lack thereof).

CUNY: CEW 2005 to Highlight Adjunct's Contributions

"There are a million part-time and adjunct faculty, graduate employees, full-time non-tenure-track faculty and continuing education teachers throughout the US. This number grew 41% in a 10-year period, according to Department of Education data for 2003. As of Spring 2005, CUNY had 9,600 part-timers teaching more than 50 percent of its courses," writes Marcia Newfield, the Professional Staff Congress' VP for Part-Time Personnel.

read the full article

Telling it like it is...

The American Federation of Teachers has launched its Campus Equity Week 2005 website. The site reflects the federation's "Telling It Like It Is" campaign theme for this year. AFT also provides sample media releases, stickers, and an op-ed.

visit the AFT site

Ordering Your Buttons

Many CEW/FEW participants will be distributing buttons during the events. To assist in this,the Steering Committee has a streamlined button-production and ordering process. Information and processing is now online.

Professional Staff Congress - NY Features CEW/FEW

In a powerful statement, Barbara Bowen, Professional Staff Congress president, urges that we "use Campus Equity Week to expose and address the labor scandal on which most of American higher education is built...[i.e.] the exploitation of contingent academic labor." Bowen notes, "there is no adjunct problem; what we really face is a funding problem, a political problem, a labor problem, an academic freedom problem." She adds, "The cause is the right-wing political lobby that has succeeded in arguing that any expenditure on public goods is a waste of taxpayers' money..."                           

read the full article

AAUP Campus Equity Week Starter Kit

The American Association of University Professors has just released its "Campus Equity Week Starter Kit." The kit is available from the AAUP's website. For more information, contact Gwendolyn Bradley (202-737-5900, ext. 3012.

From Dee Wood at College of the Desert, Palm Desert, CA

Our plans at COD will be:
1. Table with brochures, flyers and the buttons, of course, explaining what CEW is and why we're out there on the campus.
2. TV set running some of the PT videos that we have showing our situation on various campuses.
3. On Friday, November 4th, we are going to be in costumes and have candy in bowls.
4. Our Publicity release goes to the local TV stations (one of which is just across the street), the Desert Sun and other local papers as well as the radio stations.

The last time we did this we had lots of students and teachers stop by to watch the video and chat with us.

Let me know if others are doing something clever that we can use and when the media release is ready I'm sure you'll put it on line."

Dee can be reached via e-mail.