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Request to Evaluate Adjunct Faculty Several Associate Deans have requested that full-time faculty assist in the evaluation of probationary adjunct faculty, referenced in the recently negotiated Adjunct Faculty Organization (AFO) contract. As full-time faculty consider these requests, a little history and several complicating factors should be noted. History 1. The AFO contract calls for one evaluation during the four year AFO probationary period. The AFO, not the Administration, introduced the evaluation of adjunct faculty in bargaining. Their initial proposal called for a far more comprehensive evaluation process. Sadly, they had to fight to get this minimal level of evaluation. The AFO had hoped to engage senior adjunct faculty
in the evaluation process, paralleling the Evaluation of Performance
provision of the Local 1650 contract.
They were only able to negotiate language that indicates that the
Administration may involve them in the evaluation process The sad irony in all of this is that the AFO’s efforts to enhance quality instruction with a meaningful evaluation process were resisted by the Administration – and now the Administration is reluctant to utilize senior adjuncts in the minimal evaluation process the AFO was able to negotiate. One would think that after 10, 20, or 30 years of successful service at the College, adjunct faculty would possess the qualifications to assist in the evaluation process that the adjunct union brought into existence. 2. Article IV.A., paragraph 3, of the Local 1650 contract speaks to the role full-time faculty in the hiring process of adjunct faculty. It also indicates that this full-time faculty role in the adjunct hiring process might be fulfilled during the adjunct’s first semester of employment, given that so many adjuncts are hired at the last minute. Again, this Article speaks to the role of full-time faculty in the hiring process and not a probationary period evaluation process. Complicating Factors 1. The number of adjunct faculty now stands at 705 – a record number! Next year the number of full-time faculty will return to 205, twenty short of the 225 full-time lines when the College served 17,000 students, far less than the 18,000 now attending HFCC. Given the many Administrative initiatives underway, which are redirecting full-time faculty from the classroom and ongoing curricular and governance responsibilities, the shortage of full-time lines has become all the more problematic. The Federation is actively pursuing additional full-time lines at the College. Divisions can assist in this effort by letting the Federation know of their full-time staffing needs and requests – and by forwarding to the Administration requests that reflect their actual staffing needs and to a lesser number that a Vice-president contends is achievable. 2. Many faculty rightly contend that to assist the Administration in the evaluation of adjunct faculty makes it all the easier for the Administration to refrain from adding full-time lines. 3. Other full-time faculty worry that if full-time faculty do not assume the evaluation of adjunct faculty, no one will and programs will suffer. One consideration here is that mentoring might address concerns about instructional and program quality, without alleviating the Administration from its obligation under the AFO contract to evaluate adjunct faculty. 4. The Administration can not compel full-time faculty to assist in the evaluation of adjunct faculty. However, should full-time faculty volunteer to participate in the evaluation of adjunct faculty, they ought to insist upon non-teaching extra-contractual (EC) compensation for doing so. NOTE: such EC work may put a member over the contractual semester or annual limits on EC work cited in the Local 1650 contract and preclude teaching an entire class of EC. John McDonald September 28, 2009 |