There is a major problem developing at Nassau Community College concerning the assignment of distance learning classes to adjunct faculty. It has been reported by several Department Representatives and by individual adjunct and full-time faculty members that there is a clear antipathy towards assigning adjunct faculty to distance learning classes.

            The current trend toward the increase in the number of students interested in distance learning has put a premium on offering these courses in competition with other colleges and more especially in competition with specific departments in other colleges.

            It would seem that this would encourage the various departments at Nassau to increase the ranks of faculty that are qualified to teach these classes and encourage faculty to ask for these classes as part of their assignments.

            There is a caveat here. The idea of a university as a center for the development and exchange of ideas among students as well as between students and faculty is challenged if students never see each other and only interact with faculty through the internet. Dehumanization of the learning process can have a myriad of unlooked for consequences. Some of these were exemplified in the cultural upheaval of the late sixties and early seventies.

            While the debate over the efficacy of distance learning is in its early stages, some unlooked for consequences have begun to emerge at Nassau.

            One of these is the direct and unvarnished attempt to stop adjunct faculty from teaching these classes. This almost conspiratorial attempt to shut adjuncts out has resulted in several grievances which have been reported previously in this column. To date, the chair of the Department of Accounting and Business, Professor Lynn Mazzola, has cost the college nearly $15,000 simply by denying qualified adjuncts distance learning opportunities. There are still pending several other cases in that department which could add another $25,000 to the penalty paid simply to pass over adjuncts from teaching these classes.

            The situation becomes even more difficult when the adjuncts being excluded are recently retired members of that same department. What happened? An experienced full-timer, one who was there at the inception of distance

learning and helped to adapt the concept, is now retired and is to be cast aside like an old shoe—a stain on the lofty values of old ivy.

            Even more mysterious is the manner in which the chair seems to have manipulated schedules to accomplish her objectives.      

It seems that distance learning classes, that were unassigned a week before the semester, began all of a sudden to become part of full-time schedules; and regular face-to-face classes, that were assigned to full-timers, were now earmarked for adjunct assignment. This appears to have resulted in some full-time faculty in the Accounting and Business Dept. teaching more than 50% of their classes in the distance learning format, despite existing limitations.

            When you add to the distance learning classes internship classes that do not meet on campus, you create the possibility that an instructor will appear on campus once a week for a few hours. This does not seem conducive to creating the kind of campus community so necessary to the proper functioning of a college.

             Internship classes are a fine way to introduce students to that world of work they hope to enter after graduation. But imposing a non-contractual condition of recruiting students as a requirement for teaching the course violates the contract, as well as common sense. Recruiting students is not teaching. One is qualified based on credentials and the experience to teach, not on the ability to huckster. Once such a class is classified as an adjunct class the senior adjunct in the retention pool that is qualified by the usual criteria must be assigned that class.

            This leads back to the assertions made at the beginning of this column. The contractual provision governing adjunct assignments cannot be massaged by chairs to fit into a personal desire to take care of special, sweetheart deals. The contract provides a means of assuring thousands of well qualified adjunct faculty that their rights are protected. If those rights are violated, be assured that the AFA will be there to defend its members and call out any chair that treads on those rights. All the union asks is that the administration play by the rules they agreed to when they signed the contract. That contract binds both parties. Those that attempt to circumvent it will find us there to show them the straight and narrow.