The CCC Road Scholar

PTFA Board Rationale for Name Change 08/16/12:

Your Board has been discussing for the past year the idea of changing the association’s name from the Part-time Faculty Association to a name which is not just a statement regarding how many hours a member is hired to work for the College.  Our view is that our members are not just faculty part-time; they, overall, live and breathe their position, a fact very true these days given Moodle and email on top of class prep, grading, and assessment and the need to stay current in their field of expertise.

Last fall the idea was floated that perhaps a name change to Adjunct would be a good idea. The thought was that adjunct was reflective of our positions as assistants to the Full-time faculty and College – both educationally appropriate and economically reflecting our place in the college structure. A few members reacted to that idea with passion, both positively and negatively. And since at the time closing a contract for our members was uppermost in our thoughts, we never moved towards globally asking the rest of the members which side of the divide they fell upon.

 After discussion, it was decided that Association of Academic Professionals covered what all our members do: both vocational instructors and non-vocational instructors.  We are all professionals in our varied fields, and we are all working as Academics. The reaction was swift when our discussion went prematurely public, well in advance of our readiness to have it do so. Some members really see some sort of difference between a person providing vocational instruction and a person providing academic instruction. Isn’t the need to be trained in the field one is teaching the same? Aren’t the lack of full-time benefits the same? Why would we (as a union) buy further into a stratified system that singles one particular type of instruction as somehow…less than academically professional?

We have been concerned all along that so few of our voting membership is being heard. Are they perhaps not part of the discussion because they fear negative response from other members for their views? Are they not part of the discussion because they simply don’t care?  (And yes, apathy is a vote. Not voting is a vote.)

So after some rather lengthy discussion on your Board’s part, we have decided to go ahead and put the proposed bylaws change out including the proposed name change as one single vote. If enough members vote yes on the dual proposal, fine. If enough vote no on the combined proposal, then retooling is in order. But it is only fair to let each individual have their own, non-public, vote.

THANK YOU FOR PARTICPATING.