BY THE COLORADO AAUP CONFERENCE
Fort Lewis College’s AAUP chapter registered a victory in March when President Dene Thomas announced that no faculty no tenured or tenure-track people will be eliminated as part of proposed FLC budget reductions. Her decision followed an FLC-AAUP analysis of the proposed budget that demonstrated cuts could be achieved without sacrificing faculty positions. In justifying her position, she even said, “While I don’t always agree with the AAUP, I agree with them on this issue.
Meeting March 16, the AAUP Executive Committee agreed to release to the public its policy letter to the State Board of Community Colleges and Occupation Education. The letter, entitled “Instructor Impermanence and the Need for Community College Adjunct Faculty Reform in Colorado,” reviews the dire working conditions of adjunct instructors in the Colorado Community College System and lays out a series of policy measures the State Board could adopt to address these conditions. The appointment of a new CCCS president, former Asst. Governor Joe Garcia, makes this a timely moment to consider needed policy reforms bettering adjunct community college faculty in Colorado. Jeni Arndt has recently proposed that the Colorado General Assembly establish a special committee to examine these issues over the summer [https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2018/04/19/rep-jeni-arndt-wants-know-why-adjunct-teachers-paid-so-little/525847002/].
Westword journalist Alan Prendergast is awarded the AAUP Colorado Conference’s Randy Fischer Friend of Higher Education Award for his series of articles last year detailing conditions among Colorado’s community college adjunct faculty. Prendergast teaches journalism at Colorado College.
Recent AAUP elections saw the Conference maintain representation in national elective positions. Conference Co-President, Jonathan Rees, was reelected to the AAUP’s District 2 Executive Council seat. While 2nd Vice-President Caprice Lawless (Front Range Community College) lost her reelection bid, she retains her seat on the AAUP’s Community College Committee and its Contingency and the Profession Committee. We are fortunate to have such dedicated faculty representing our conference in Washington, D.C.
AAUP faculty at CU Boulder report that AAUP faculty at CU Boulder report that an assistant professor in the School of Education has prevailed on CU’s Privilege and Tenure Committee for reconsideration of his tenure denial decision. This comes after AAUP delivered to the Provost a strongly worded rebuke of the rationale underlying the earlier decision.
