BY JORDAN HARPER AND ADRIANNA KEZAR
In the winter 2023 issue of Academe, our article “Reprofessionalizing the Faculty” highlights campuses that are making systemic changes to better support non-tenure-track faculty, including Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Penn State, and the University of Denver. These institutions provided insights into why supporting non-tenure-track faculty is advantageous for student success and have offered a clear vision for doing so. Non-tenure-track faculty over the years have experienced deprofessionalization and devaluation, and campuses nationwide have worked to buck this trend.
Since we wrote the article, as part of our work for the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success, there have been some notable movements in efforts to improve the working conditions of non-tenure-track faculty. First, two new campuses—Dominican University of California and Montgomery College—won the 2022 Delphi Award, which acknowledges institutions that “support non-tenure-track, contingent and/or adjunct faculty in pursuing strategic priorities such as student learning and community engagement.” We also designated two finalists: the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University Council-American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT)/University of California (UC) Unit 18.
Furthermore, adjunct faculty members at institutions across the country, such as the New School, entered strikes to demand better working conditions. We have also seen continued union organizing. For example, Skidmore voted to form a non-tenure-track union. With these new developments around union organizing and demands for improved working conditions made by and for non-tenure-track faculty, we wanted to highlight UC-AFT/UC Unit 18 and collective bargaining as another model to reprofessionalize the faculty. UC-AFT/UC Unit 18 achieved a historic win with its new collective bargaining agreement for 2021–26 following a bargaining campaign with the theme of “faculty equity—student success,” which drew an inextricable link between faculty working conditions and student learning conditions.
When it came time to negotiate a new contract, UC campuses were experiencing a low retention rate (8 percent) for lecturers (that is, part-time and full-time non-tenure-track faculty), attributed, in part, to a lack of preferential rehiring rights and resources to ensure faculty and student success. The new contract enhances job stability by offering multiyear appointments and preferential rehiring rights, which allow lecturers to keep their positions without competing against the pool of outside applicants. Lecturers were also able to negotiate guaranteed yearly salary increases. Although the UCs have been known to pay lecturers better than most other US universities on a per-course basis, work still needed to be done in this area because of increased housing costs. The new contract guaranteed lecturers an office and desk space, a computer, storage for secure files, books, and a faculty web page. Overall, the new contract increased equity for lecturers by providing them with instructional support, fair wages, and job security.
UC-AFT/UC Unit 18 provided collective bargaining best practices from which other unionized campuses could learn. First, they aligned their contract with university-stated commitments. The UCs espouse commitments to diversity, equity, inclusion, and high-quality instruction; lecturers carry significant teaching loads and work in proximity to first-generation students and students of color. Thus, they could use university-stated commitments as leverage to best meet their lecturers’ needs and improve student learning along the way.
UC-AFT/UC Unit 18 also determined its bargaining demand platform through an inclusive and democratic process, distributing confidential membership surveys to identify key issues to prioritize in the contract negotiations. Additionally, they hosted open bargaining sessions to give deeper insight into the bargaining platform and provided a space for members to offer testimony as to how the new bargaining demands would positively affect their livelihoods, sense of belonging, and the student learning experience. For a deeper read on UC-AFT/UC Unit 18’s wins and the bargaining process, see the Delphi finalist case study.
In conclusion, collective bargaining helps facilitate systemic change for non-tenure-track faculty and gives non-tenure-track faculty decision-making power. As non-tenure-track faculty nationwide continue to unionize and begin collective bargaining discussions, it is important to know that units like UC-AFT/UC Unit 18 have already provided a blueprint for others to follow and build upon. There are many strategies to reprofessionalize the faculty, and collective bargaining will continue to gain significant momentum in the years to come.
Jordan Harper is a research assistant at the Pullias Center and a PhD candidate in the urban education policy program at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education.
Adrianna Kezar is the Wilbur-Kieffer Endowed Professor, Rossier Dean’s Professor in Higher Education Leadership, and director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education and the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success at the University of Southern California.
