Conservation and Activism:
The MCCEA and the Challenges of the 21st Century

A Position Statement by Steve Robinson
MCCEA Presidential Candidate

November 25, 1997

As you may know, political science professor Jim Hanley has decided not to seek another term as president of the Mott Community College Education Association (MCCEA). Professor Hanley has been an excellent leader for our union, and he leaves the position of president with a very healthy contract in place for our membership as well as a history of successful ongoing bargaining over the past several years. After much thought and consultation with colleagues, I have decided to seek the position of president of the MCCEA. It is important to me that members of our union understand my view of what this challenging job will entail, and why I am a strong and serious candidate for president. I am proud to serve as Delegate-At-Large to the Board of Directors of the MCCEA, to share a place at the table with the teachers who found the courage to organize this union. For me, being part of a union represents more than just a practical means of getting a fair shake and a secure future; it reflects a bold idealism that demands a hard and honest look at the difficult issues facing our profession as community college teachers. It would be a great honor for me to be the president of this union, and there are a great many factors which make me an excellent person to serve in this capacity.

As a teacher and a scholar, I am deeply concerned and involved with the labor movement in America. As we look at recent events, we can see that unionism in education is rapidly changing. It is clear that collective bargaining now plays a significantly different role in education than it has in the past. This is what NEA president Bob Chase has termed "The New Unionism." According to Chase, the New Unionism means "being as strong an advocate for the professional side of the education equation as we have been for the economic and social well-being of our membership."1 Our union has made impressive gains for the economic and social issues facing faculty at MCC, and we must now turn our attention to some of the larger concerns facing the professional sphere of community college educators. If elected president of the MCCEA, it would be my goal to bring the professional concerns faced by MCC faculty to the center of the discussion during our meetings and planning sessions. In light of the new focus of our national leadership, it is my view that our union should approach these concerns with a strategy of conservation and activism as we approach the end of the twentieth century. Because of my commitment to community college teaching and scholarship, I feel I am uniquely qualified to lead our union in this important new direction.

Conservation and Activism

The next president of our union will need to lead the MCCEA with a dual strategy of conservation and activism. In its nearly 30 year history, this union has done a great deal for the professional community here at Mott Community College. We are all of us very fortunate. We have a strong union, an excellent contract, and a secure future. Thanks to the dedication and courage of our leadership, the bargaining team, and the founders of our union, we are in control of our professional lives, and can therefore do the best possible job for our students and our school. It should be the first job of our union president to preserve and maintain the strength and respect our union has earned over the years. Our union should continue to protect the valuable and impressive document it has in the Faculty Master Contract. This document, the product of decades of intelligence, sacrifice and hard work, defines who we are and what we stand for as an organization of dedicated professionals.

As the faculty union, our organization has a role to play in shaping the future of the College. It is our responsibility to utilize our strength and respect to help improve the College, to make it a better place to work, and a better place to learn. As we move into the next century, a wide range of changes are beginning to take place in community colleges across the country. We must educate ourselves about these trends and work to respond to the challenges they present. This means that in addition to being a stable organization with an important past to preserve, the MCCEA must also be an activist organization, a group of professionals who are not afraid to assert themselves on matters that affect the teaching and learning taking place in our academic community.

In my view, there are three such matters that require the immediate attention of our union. These are specific action steps, matters that must be addressed in very practical and concrete terms. As we approach the 21st century, our union should:

These three professional concerns should be aggressively pursued as we work hard to preserve the progress we have made in our proud history. Each action step requires careful thought and coordinated effort on the part of the MCCEA and its members.

Resist the Corporate Metaphor for Education

Since leadership in higher education is prone to the same fads and fashions that circulate through the private sector, the College has been subject to a variety of futuristic management trends. Over the years, we have seen various task forces, study groups, and out-of-town consultants come and go on our campus, most having little or no impact on the daily operations of the College. These well-intentioned initiatives, some of which have actually sparked much needed dialogue on important issues, have been accompanied by a less benign growth in corporate-style practices in management and procedure. Frequently, the enterprise of education is likened to the operations of free-market capitalism. Our students are often referred to as "consumers," and the education they work so hard to achieve is reduced to a mere "product." This is not a simple quibbling over terminology; as educators, we must stand firm in the position that education is not a business, and that not all of the techniques employed by corporate management are appropriate for an institution of higher learning.

Along with the corporate metaphor for education comes a host of corporate solutions to educational problems. Downsizing is one such inappropriate solution, and this can be seen in the dramatic reduction of full-time faculty at the College. But as many large corporations are beginning to realize, drastic cuts in the talent and expertise found in a well-developed workforce can be harmful or fatal to an organization. By taking a short-range view of "the bottom line," schools have trimmed their faculty ranks only to realize that crucial factors like dedication, commitment, and knowledge have been lost in the process. Like downsizing, outsourcing is another strategy usually associated with large multi-national corporations like General Motors. Yet our administration has already begun to investigate the possibility of farming out programs like developmental education to private educational corporations such as Kaplan or Sylvan. This not only poses huge threats to faculty control over programs and course offerings, but also flies in the face of well-documented progress and developments in best teaching practices. The MCCEA should vigorously resist such initiatives on the professional grounds that they pose a threat to the integrity and efficacy of our educational programs.

As an organization of professional educators, we should by no means stand in the way of innovation or progress. Clearly there are a great many things in the world of higher education that will change in the coming years. It should be our goal to stay informed about these changes and ensure that we approach them in a way that is commensurate with our knowledge and expertise as educators. We are fortunate to have an administration that is rightfully preoccupied with the future. As a union, we should share this preoccupation, and face it with the knowledge that people can come together to construct their futures, not simply react to them. We should take a proactive stance toward change, approaching it with flexibility, openness, and a healthy skepticism. And we should continue to make our voice heard in every discussion about the future of Mott Community College.

Reverse the Erosion of Our Full-time Faculty

As a union representing the professional interests of our membership, we have steadily lost ground on the issue of part-time/full-time ratios here at the College. In the period between 1986 and 1996, full-time faculty employment at MCC dropped by more than 20%.2 The MCCEA collects data on these trends every year, yet little has been done to stop the bleeding caused by this serious injury. A 20% decline in regular full-time faculty employment over a period of ten years is a devastating blow to the quality of our academic community here at MCC. It should be a primary goal of our union to reverse this trend, and restore the ratio of part-time/full-time faculty to professionally-acceptable levels.

Our current contract language on the issue of part-time/full-time ratios is far too broad and open to interpretation, and it should be a goal of our union to make improvements in this section of the contract. Similar institutions in Michigan, such as Washtenaw Community College, have negotiated contract language that sets a specific limit on the percentage of courses taught by part-time instructors during an academic year.3 Our contract only provides for "every effort" on the part of the Board to ensure a "reasonable ratio" of full-time to part-time faculty.4 Such language commits the Board to nothing. This particular section is an ineffectual piece of contract language, and the administration has used its lack of power to erode the rich community of full-time faculty at MCC.

We should be careful not to make generalizations about part-time and adjunct teachers, but it is clear that the demographics of the part-time faculty at MCC are changing. In the past, many part-time and adjunct teachers were part-time by choice; many held positions in business and industry and taught in their fields of expertise. A great many of our part-time and adjunct teachers still fit this category. But a growing number are "full-time part-timers," meaning that they teach part-time at several different institutions for a fraction of full-time pay. This is an obvious blow to the community of scholars at a vibrant institution of higher learning.

The issues surrounding part-time and adjunct employment at the College go far beyond simple pay equity and faculty demographics. It is my view that part-time employment conditions at community colleges are a window into the future for all community college teachers. We must cease to view part-time issues as problems faced only by part-time teachers. Given the recent trends regarding part-time and adjunct hiring, compensation and treatment, we must ask ourselves how the community college teachers of tomorrow will fare. Will they work at two or three different schools, teaching class loads that are equal to or greater than those of their full-time colleagues, for significantly less than half the pay? Will they have health benefits? Will they feel that they are a part of the institutions in which they teach? These are the questions we should ask ourselves as we make part-time and adjunct faculty concerns serious bargaining issues.

Maintain Faculty Input in College Governance

Our contract allows for an impressive level of faculty governance in the planning of curriculum and academic programs. Through the activities of the College Professional Study Committee (CPSC), provided for by the Faculty Master Contract, our membership has the kind of professional control it deserves over the important issues of course offerings, program requirements, and related academic issues. Though it is expressly required by the language of our contract that the CPSC be consulted on all matters that fall under its jurisdiction, the administration has not made a secret of its dislike for the procedure. In fact, various initiatives across the college have attempted to avoid the attention of CPSC all together. An extremely important job of our union is to ensure the integrity of the CPSC as an authority on the professional issues facing the educational programs at Mott Community College. We should be vigilant and watchful that all relevant action at the College be directed toward the CPSC, since it is the most important part of our contractually-negotiated input into the important professional decisions to be made on campus.

Our contract also provides for MCCEA representation on hiring committees for key positions at the College. There has been a history of difficulty in obtaining adequate notice for the formation and meetings of such committees, and it should be an important goal of our union to increase the representation of MCCEA interests in the hiring of persons who will occupy important and powerful positions at MCC. The administration should be made to honor their commitment to MCCEA input on hiring committees, and the formation and meetings of these committees should proceed in a manner that allows for greater involvement by faculty.

Also important are the faculty meetings and various professional development opportunities that are part of the schedule of events during a regular academic year at Mott Community College. The MCCEA should work to increase dialogue at faculty meetings in an attempt to create a greater understanding between the administration and the faculty. As the faculty of MCC, we are one of its most valuable resources. We constitute a professional community of experts in the area of community college education, and our union should work to give the faculty a greater voice in all forums at the College.

Qualified to Lead

I have the ability to help our union face the challenges of the next century. In my five years as a full-time teacher here at Mott, I have been extremely active both inside and outside of the classroom. My commitment to the College is documented by the large number of committees and professional groups of which I have been a member. For the past three years, I have been a member of the Committee for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), serving on the Student Success and Technology subcommittees. I also currently serve on additional computer and Internet-related committees such as the Academic Computing Committee, and the Educational Technology Committee. During the College's two year self-study, I was an alternate member of the Alfred-Carter Strategic Planning Task Force. Currently I serve on the MCCEA Board of Directors as Delegate-At-Large. Through my teaching at Mott Middle College High School, I am currently working with the Labor Institute Project, a joint effort in local oral history between the UAW and MCC.

In addition to my extensive work on campus, I have also proven my commitment to community college teaching in larger professional spheres. I am nearly finished with my Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from Michigan State University, and my dissertation focuses specifically on the history and development of community colleges and their role in urban literacy education. I am a member of the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Michigan Council of Teachers of English. I am currently vice-president of the Michigan College English Association, and the founder of Community College Forum, a grassroots organization dedicated to community college teaching issues based in the state capitol.5

I have proven my commitment to Mott Community College, and I feel I would be an excellent leader for the Mott Community College Education Association. The years ahead pose a great many challenges to our union and our profession. I ask for your support in the upcoming election, and I sincerely hope that I will be chosen to lead our union into the next century.

In Solidarity,

Steve Robinson
MCCEA Delegate-At-Large

Notes

1 "Bob Chase: Higher Education and the New Unionism." Thought and Action: The NEA Higher Education Journal. Volume XIII, Number 1, Spring 1997. 9-17.

2 Rhoades, Gary and Rachel Hendrickson. "Re(con)figuring the Professional Workforce." The NEA 1997 Almanac of Higher Education. 63-73.

3 The Forward. February 1997.

4 Faculty Master Contract. Effective August 26, 1997 - August 23, 1999. Article IX, Section G. 24.

5 Community College Forum conducts most of its meetings and research projects online. Visit our web site at: http://www.msu.edu/user/robins11/ccf