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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AKRON, OHIO, MAY 24, 2010 - National advocacy group launches campaign to assist jobless part-time, adjunct professors.
New Faculty Majority (NFM) announced today a national campaign to help eligible adjunct college and university faculty obtain unemployment compensation in between academic terms.  Many instructors don't check to see whether they are eligible.  Others are denied on grounds of having reasonable assurance of re-employment, a phrase in federal law whose invocation by postsecondary employers has been challenged, most successfully in California and Washington, by arguing that employment which depends on variables like enrollment, funding, and administrative prerogative cannot constitute reasonable assurance. 
Adjunct (also called contingent, contract, or non-tenure-track) faculty are professors and graduate teaching assistants who work term-to-term, often at multiple institutions.  They constitute 73% of the postsecondary instructional workforce nationwide, numbering over one million.  They have the same responsibilities to their students as full-time, tenure-track faculty, but usually work for a fraction of the per-course compensation, often without benefits or adequate professional support, increasingly while carrying the same or a heavier workload.  Their ability to secure union support is often restricted. 
According to Maria Maisto, President of NFM, "Many adjuncts teach a full-time load and still qualify for public assistance.  Work is scarce between terms. Institutions should not obstruct eligible contingent faculty from access to unemployment insurance, one of the few economic rights that contingency, by definition, affords them.  In other industries, seasonal employees who face similarly precarious circumstances do not have to prove 'no reasonable assurance'; neither should college teachers who are denied continuing contracts.  This situation stems from higher education's overdependence on contingent employment, which is devastating the teaching profession and is detrimental to education."
The NFM Unemployment Compensation Initiative website (www.nfmuci.org) provides information on eligibility, applying, and on appealing denials.  It also includes links to available union resources. NFM will collect statistics about institutional and state practices in order to advocate for clarification of applicable state and federal unemployment laws. The initiative is part of a broader effort to enlist public support for the reform of faculty employment practices in postsecondary education.
NFM is a membership organization dedicated to improving the quality of American higher education by encouraging stable, non-exploitative work environments, advancing academic freedom, and achieving professional equity for all faculty. Its primary activities are education, advocacy, legislation and litigation. 
Contacts:
Maria Maisto, President
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Matt Williams, Vice President
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Ph: (202) 580-8341

www.newfacultymajority.org
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ORGANIZING COMMITTEE FOR NEW FACULTY MAJORITY: THE NATIONAL COALITION FOR ADJUNCT AND CONTINGENT EQUITY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 8, 2009

Contact: Maria Maisto - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - 216-262-4375

Economic Crisis Brings New Urgency to National Adjunct Group’s Formation

As budget cuts in California and other states threaten college access and make the already precarious jobs of nearly 800,000 adjunct and contingent faculty members even more tenuous, a new, independent, national, faculty advocacy group is on the verge of providing support in the form of a membership organization “committed to creating equitable, stable, non-exploitative academic environments that improve the quality of higher education,” in the words of its newly adopted mission statement.  The organizing committee for New Faculty Majority: The National Coalition for Adjunct and Contingent Equity, which was formed in February 2009, has established a new web site, www.newfacultymajority.org, and expects to be a functional membership organization before the beginning of the next academic year.  The group plans to be a vocal advocate for the nearly 70 percent of the teaching faculty who are on the front lines of the current economic crisis.  As vastly undersupported professionals, these instructors  are usually their anxious students’ first point of contact with the institutions of higher education in whom communities have placed their trust to help them weather the recession.  Facing increasingly untenable conditions themselves, many of these faculty members have responded to news of the organization’s formation with enthusiasm and relief. “It’s about time adjuncts formed an official group to deal with contingent faculty issues,” read one email to the committee from a 9-year adjunct. 

The organization’s mission statement declares its dedication “to achieving professional equity and advancing academic freedom for all adjunct and contingent faculty in American colleges and universities through advocacy, education and litigation” and asserts that it “seeks the greatest possible degree of economic justice and academic freedom for all faculty.”  The committee has held several teleconferences to discuss Bylaws drafts and other issues, including NFM’s relationship to existing faculty groups.  On the most recent call on May 31, the committee voted to incorporate in the state of Ohio, began to finalize its Bylaws, and endorsed the creation of a new, comprehensive web site that will facilitate membership, fundraising, and public education. 

In the last several weeks, the committee has also welcomed new members from all over the country and restructured slightly.  Maria Maisto, who served as co-chair with Deborah Louis, will now serve as chair and work with an executive advisory committee. “Our committee increasingly reflects the diversity of the adjunct and contingent population nationally and includes supporters from the ranks of both tenure-line faculty and administration,” Maisto said. “We look forward to working on behalf of the countless dedicated educators whose efforts continue to be overlooked and undercut at a time when it is clear that the country urgently needs to invest in them in order to meet current and future challenges to the quality of American higher education."  A list of current Organizing Committee Members is attached.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 19, 2009 

In their third conference call since their establishment as an organizing committee in early February, faculty activists from across the country agreed on the name New Faculty Majority: The National Coalition for Adjunct and Contingent Equity for the organization, which will represent the interests of and advocate for non-tenure-track faculty at colleges and universities nationwide.  During the two-hour call on Sunday, March 15, the committee also referred a draft of their mission statement back to subcommittee for refinement, reviewed a rough outline of the proposed organizational structure, voted to approve the establishment of a temporary web site until a permanent web site is constructed, and approved the formation of new subcommittees on research and fundraising. The committee also decided to seek 501(c)3 status after incorporating later this year.

The committee selected their name in a unanimous vote, noting that “New Faculty Majority” has been used to refer to fixed-term faculty since its appearance in Spring 2000 as the title of an article by Judith Gappa, professor of educational administration at Purdue University. At the time of Gappa’s article, non-tenure-track faculty constituted approximately 60 percent of the teaching faculty nationwide; today they account for 70 percent. “The New Faculty Majority” is also the title of a new blog by adjunct activist Steve Street.  The group’s subtitle, “The National Coalition for Adjunct and Contingent Equity,” reflects the fact that the organization will target both semester-to-semester contract adjunct faculty and multiple year/limited contract contingent faculty as its constituents, but will also welcome any interested individuals and groups to participate in the group’s advocacy and public education efforts.

“We feel that we’ve made significant progress in a very short period of time, which reflects the commitment and hard work of this committee,” said Co-Chair Deb Louis, observing that the committee has added three new members since its last teleconference and has agreed to add more as talented individuals continue to come forward.  “We are pleased that the composition of the committee increasingly reflects the composition of the adjunct and contingent population nationwide, and we look forward to welcoming more people who share our dedication to equity and excellence in higher education,” added Co-Chair Maria Maisto.

The committee will meet again by teleconference on April 5, at which time it expects to approve its web site, finalize its mission statement, vote on its organizational structure, and begin planning its summer activities.   The committee expects that New Faculty Majority will be a functioning membership organization by the beginning of the next academic year.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 3, 2009

The Organizing Committee for a national coalition for adjunct and contingent equity “met” in a second conference call Sunday afternoon to clarify several issues of language and focus before proceeding with the work of the subcommittees formed last week. The group affirmed its commitment to creating an organization that represents the interests of and advocates for all non-tenure-track (that is, all “fixed-term”) faculty in American higher education, with particular emphasis on empowering the adjuncts who represent the largest, least visible, and most vulnerable proportion of those ranks.

The group also affirmed, with appropriate adaptation, such models for the ideological foundation of the subcommittees’ current work as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Resolution on Fixed-Term Higher Education Teaching Personnel passed by the Education International 5th World Congress in 2007. Committee members agreed that these documents offer firm historical and pragmatic grounding for asserting the rights of adjunct and contingent educators to equitable and humane treatment by colleagues and employers alike. 

“On a lighter note,” reported Co-Chair Deb Louis, “We entertained an array of proposed names that spans a range from long and unwieldy to short and incomprehensible—with, fortunately, several interesting and worthy candidates in between!”  She expressed the Committee’s hope that agreement on a name will be forthcoming soon.

The group also streamlined internal communications and has begun exploring options for the establishment of an online presence.  Among the models that interest the group is momsrising.org, a grassroots, online membership organization and advocacy movement mobilized around key issues uniting mothers nationwide. “We see momsrising as both a possible model and a potential ally,” said Co-Chair Maria Maisto, who is a member of momsrising and the mother of three young children.  “We certainly share concerns about issues like living wages, equal pay, and access to healthcare and unemployment insurance, and we do know that a significant proportion of fixed-term faculty are parents.”

The flow of inquiries from around the country about how to join and how to help has continued steadily since announcement of the Organizing Committee’s formation and objectives last week.  The Committee continues to grow and to welcome additional input and participation. 

                                                                 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 22, 2009

The newly formed organizing committee for a “national coalition for adjunct equity” (its working title over the past few weeks) has emerged from a two-hour conference call this evening with an operational plan for accomplishing many of the front-end chores demanded by the task.  The group, which now numbers 14 with an open invitation for more active participants, agreed on some preliminary procedural issues, elected two co-chairs to facilitate and coordinate the establishment of the new organization, and formed three committees to accomplish the most immediate tasks.

The group decided to operate initially on a majority rule basis, and to consider its initial work as provisional pending input from a broader range of its adjunct constituency. Maria Maisto in Akron, OH, and Deborah Louis in Green Mountain, NC, were unanimously elected Co-Chairs of the organizing committee, which will focus its work on developing a mission statement, structural options and communications over the next three weeks.  Fundraising and delineation of organizational priorities are expected to command the group’s attention once the general direction and “nuts-and-bolts” of the coalition take more concrete shape.

“We are especially indebted to Peter D.G. Brown, SUNY New Paltz, a committed veteran of the struggle to improve the status and working conditions of contingent faculty in New York State, for convening this committee and coordinating its work to date,” said Dr. Louis.  “We have a tremendous amount of talent, experience and dedication here, and I’m confident that this effort will be fruitful.  None of us has time to waste!”

“Current economic conditions have made adjunct faculty even more vulnerable than usual,” added Ms. Maisto.  “We believe it is imperative that a national organization dedicated only to contingent faculty be formed to educate the public about the need for just and equitable treatment of what is now 70% of the teaching faculty nationally.”

In concrete terms, this is approximately 800,000 women and men who comprise more than two-thirds of the educators on U.S. college campuses.