By Charles Loiacono    

Adjunct Ascendance 

            The professional literature is replete with stories of adjunct accomplishments.

        The success of the adjunct faculty at NYU is a case in point. Their affiliation with the United Auto Workers seems to have paid off. They are Local 7902 of the UAW, known as ACT-UAW (Adjuncts Come Together). One of the most important victories in their first contract was a health benefit package.                     

        The following is an excerpt from the “Desk Drawer” of the March/April issue of the ADJUNCT ADVOCATE:

Coverage is determined by the number of hours an adjunct spends in the classroom. For adjuncts that taught a minimum of 126 hours of instruction in the classroom (equivalent to 9 contact hours at NCC) during the 2003-04 academic year, NYU will pay 75 percent of the cost of individualized coverage. NYU will pay half of the cost for those who taught between 84 and 126 hours.             

        Some adjuncts, who are not allowed to teach more than one class a semester, were not able to qualify for anything more than the 50 percent subsidy, but even then they were still happy to have qualified at all.

        ‘I could not be more thrilled that I have health benefits,’ said Judith Schoolman, an adjunct in the journalism department, whose child is also covered under the plan.

        Adjuncts enrolled on-line chose between three insurance carriers: Aetna, Health Insurance Plan of New York (HIP) or Oxford.

        The university has worked hard to make sure people were getting their proper subsidiary

  packages and have made an effort to get it done and  done right.

      While it is true that NYU has beaten NCC to the punch, as have other colleges, the AFA is intent on winning the same kind of protection for our adjuncts enjoyed by those that teach elsewhere. The number of uncovered adjuncts at our campus is small, but nonetheless it would be a sad commentary on NCC if it turned its backs on the handful of adjuncts that are as yet unprotected.

            NYU and the UAW have our congratulations and our respect.

A Harbinger of Things to Come?

            In an article titled, “Something’s Boiling in the CCV Sugar House, and it Isn’t Maple Syrup…” in the current issue of the ADJUNCT ADVOCATE,” the author, P.D. Lesko, writes, “What makes the Community College of Vermont stand out from among other two-year institutions is that the college employs a faculty comprised entirely of part-time instructors. These part-timers are hired and supervised by full-or part-time site coordinators, who oversee instruction at the institution’s 12 campuses. Perhaps even before John Sperling had dreamed of an employment model based on the almost exclusive use of part-time faculty, there was the Community College of Vermont.”

            At some colleges 80% of the teaching faculty is adjunct and moving toward the CCV model. Here, at NCC, we believe that a healthy, cooperative relationship with the full-time faculty is the best model.