P-fac Bargaining Unit members have rights guaranteed by our contract, and in some cases also by federal labor law. They include:
Academic feeedom: Part-time faculty are entitled to the same academic freedom as fulltime faculty. (more)
Access to personnel file: You may see your personnel file once per semester or in case of a grievance, and may have a P-fac representative present. (more)
Evaluation: The current contract, beginning in 2006, specified that the College would develop and implement a "multi-measure" evaluation procedure for part-time faculty. The college-wide Evaluation Committee (which included two P-fac members) envisioned and developed a proposal that was (more)
Grievances: Any member of the Bargaining Unit may file a grievance if he or she believes the College has violated a provision of the contract. Not all problems are potential grievances. (more)
Non-interference with union activities: The contract and federal labor law prohibit interference. (more)
Union leave: A P-fac member representing the union at an IEA/NEA event is allowed leave. (more)
Weingarten rights: Federal law guarantees you may have a P-fac representative present at any meeting which may result in disciplinary action. (more)
Workload: The current contract provides that a faculty member may teach up to 18 credit hours (more)
See also: pages on Appointments, Reappointments, and Seniority and Remediation, Discipline, and Termination.
Section V of the contract states that part-time faculty are entitled to the same academic freedom as fulltime faculty. The College’s definition of academic freedom rights is in the Faculty Handbook (LINK).
Academic freedom is not always easy to define or agree upon, as anyone who reads higher education publications will soon discover (check Inside Higher Ed, for example). For part-time and other contingent faculty without tenure, there are even more complicated considerations. The ease of firing someone with a semester-to-semester or year-to year contract, for instance, arguably creates a strong deterrent to a faculty member's speaking out on controversial issues or feeling free to take scholarly and teaching risks.
Contract section IV,8 states that you may see your personnel file once per semester or in case of a grievance, and may have a P-fac representative present. You must request Human Resources seven days in advance to see your file, and an HR staff member will be present when you examine your file. You may not remove items, but may copy them. You may also add items to your file, including statements disagreeing with something in your file.
If an item is being placed in your file, you are supposed to be notified. Failing to notify you is a contract violation.
Job security is perhaps the most difficult and complex of all issues in the P-fac contract, and for part-time faculty generally. The bad news: we are contingent faculty; that is, our jobs are contingent upon the College’s need and desire for our services from semester to semester. (The Spanish word for us is “Precariosos,” or “precarious faculty.”) Illinois, like most states in the U.S.A., is also an “at will” state—employers can fire employees whenever and for whatever reasons they wish (including no reason at all), except insofar as a collectively bargained contract limits them from doing so.
Fortunately, P-fac does have some contract protections related to job security. “Some” is admittedly the operative word. Seniority, instructional continuity, and academic year appointments are discussed on this page. Remediation, Discipline, and Termination are on another page.
A seniority system applies to all P-fac Bargaining Unit members in terms of salary. Article IX defines six ascending categories of cumulative credit hours taught and course fees to be paid. The lowest category is Unit Membership to 21 hours; the highest is 140-plus hours. Summer classes do count toward seniority, even though they do not count towards the maximum 18 hour workload.
Most seniority rights other than salary apply only to faculty who have accumulated 51 credit hours or more.
Bargaining Unit members in the lowest seniority category have one contractual disadvantage that disappears once they have 22 hours or more: they can be “bumped” by senior adjunct faculty under some circumstances. All of us, of course, can be “bumped” by fulltime faculty. But the contract allows (VII,1) a part-timer with 51 hours or more to bump either a first-semester part-timer or one with fewer than 22 hours if the senior person’s teaching load for the semester would be reduced to one or zero classes. For example, if a newer faculty member had two sections of Class XYZ and a senior faculty member who had also been assigned two sections lost one due to low enrollment or takeover by a fulltimer, the senior person would be entitled to “bump” the junior faculty member from one section.
“Instructional continuity” (VII,2) provisions require department chairs to notify faculty with 51 or more hours if a class is dropped, or fails to make its enrollment minimum, and to find a replacement class for the faculty member(A,B). It also requires chairs to notify faculty with seniority when content of a class will be “altered significantly” and to make “a reasonable effort” to find a new class for the faculty member if he or she is deemed unqualified to teach the new version (C).
Applying these contract protections to real-life situations is not always straightforward. While the contract states, “…it is strongly recommended that these procedures be followed in the case of all part-time faculty” (including those with fewer than 51 hours), it also includes caveats that department chairs and coordinators sometimes use to deny replacement classes or “bumping” rights to faculty who do have the contractually requisite seniority. If a newer faculty member has “special skills, knowledge, or certification,” or has been assigned a section designated for a particular “mode of delivery, venue, or special audiences,” he or she may be protected from being bumped. Furthermore, the last sentence of the “instructional continuity” section states, “The final decision of who teaches each course is the sole prerogative of the department Chairperson.”
Recently, some chairs and other administrators have argued that the contract does not require them to assign anyone two (or more) classes regardless of seniority. P-fac argues that the provisions of Article VII are predicated on the long-standing, college-wide practice of assigning experienced faculty two classes as the “norm.”
Therefore, “past practices” is a term union members should know when it comes to course assignment and reassignment. Many senior faculty have been assigned two or even three classes for many semesters and years in a row. If the faculty member suddenly is cut back to one or none, there is a good argument for the department chair to continue to assign the faculty member the “usual” number of classes. Far more situations regarding course assignment are resolved informally than through formal grievances, so it is definitely worth the effort to discuss any problems with the chair and/or coordinator, with a P-fac representative present.
Academic Year Appointments (VII,5)
The current contract includes a provision for one-year appointments (renewable for a second year). Applicants must have taught at least 51 credit hours at Columbia, demonstrate a history of effective teaching, and be appointed by their department chair. An application form is (online? LINK). Only a few such appointments have been made, but faculty are allowed to initiate the process with their chairs.
The current contract, beginning in 2006, specified in section IV,9 that the College would develop and implement a “multi-measure” evaluation procedure for part-time faculty. The college-wide Evaluation Committee (which included two P-fac members) envisioned and developed a proposal that was rejected by the Provost. The Provost’s Office developed a more limited program emphasizing hiring and firing decisions over faculty development; this program has standardized forms and procedures but leaves evaluation criteria on quality to the departments.
Faculty are evaluated during their first semester and before they reach 51 hours, and at whatever additional times the department schedules. You are entitled to advance notice if you will be evaluated, and P-fac strongly recommends that you discuss your department’s specific criteria and procedures beforehand with your chair or other designated evaluator. For details of the official program, see LINK. For P-fac’s policy objecting to the limitations of the current Evaluation program, see Evaluation Policy in Documents. If you feel you have been evaluated inadequately or unfairly, contact the P-fac office.
Any member of the Bargaining Unit may file a grievance if he or she believes the College has violated a provision of the contract. Not all problems are potential grievances; a specific contract provision must have been violated, misinterpreted, or misapplied. As this can be difficult to determine, P-fac recommends meeting with a P-fac representative and/or the Grievance Chair as soon as possible after a problem arises. Timeliness is especially important because formal grievance procedures include steps with deadlines (IX). It is also a good idea to create a written timeline of developments in the case.
A grievance may be filed by an individual, a group of faculty, or P-fac as an association. An attempt at informal resolution is always attempted first. Formal procedures may follow if informal attempts do not resolve the issue.
If you have fewer than 51 credit hours teaching at the College, your contractual rights are limited in cases involving loss/replacement of classes, or remediation. See Article VIII and the further discussion of “Appointments, Seniority, and Remediation”on this site.
Federal law prohibits College personnel from interfering with union activities. It is illegal to discourage you from becoming a union representative, for example, or to threaten you with dismissal or reduced class assignments if you support union positions or activities.
Article IV of the contract specifies that the College will allow use of meeting facilities, bulletin boards, interoffice mail, website links, and copy machines. The College is also contractually required to maintain an office for P-fac, and to pay for office work (XII,1).
Remediation applies to "unsatisfactory teaching performance"(contract article VIII,3).
Disciplinary Appeals Procedures apply to other types of disciplinary action which occur during a semester (contract article X).
“Remediation for Unsatisfactory Teaching Performance” (VII,3) is an important contractual right for faculty who have at least 51 credit hours. (Faculty with fewer hours may request remediation if they receive unsatisfactory evaluations, and P-fac recommends that they do so. However, faculty with fewer than 51 hours are not guaranteed remediation under the contract; it depends on persuading the department chair.)
The chair or designee is required to notify the faculty member of the “teaching deficiencies” and to provide guidelines for how the faculty member is expected to improve. A P-fac representative may attend this meeting if the faculty member so wishes (P-fac strongly recommends this). The department chair may (but does not have to) limit the faculty member to teaching one class during the evaluation semester.
After the remediation, the faculty member’s teaching must be reevaluated. The College may then “choose not to rehire” the person if his/her performance is not considered improved, and—unfortunately for us—there is no appeal procedure for this decision.
The College is also allowed to terminate a faculty member who refuses remediation.
Remediation for unsatisfactory teaching performance is the most protection the contract gives faculty for employment status. It is the only procedure that specifically protects experienced faculty from not being rehired for a new semester. Legally and contractually, otherwise the College may decide not to rehire any part-time faculty member for any or no reason—no matter what we may think of this ethically or practically.
“Disciplinary Appeal Procedures” (Article X) covers situations when a faculty member is disciplined during a semester. The article specifically excludes “decisions by the College not to rehire or renew a unit member’s appointment to teach for future semesters.”
The contract states that disciplinary action (including termination) during a semester be “for just cause” and defines “misconduct, i.e. an alleged act, omission, or failure to act.” This covers considerable territory. It should also be noted that remediation applies to teaching issues per se, but not to policy infractions or other non-teaching-related disputes.
The contract requires (VII,2D and X3&4) written notification and a meeting with the faculty member to inform her or him of the contemplated action and allow the faculty member to rebut the charges. A P-fac representative (or, technically, “a representative of his/her choosing”) may also attend this meeting.
Reprimands and warnings are supposed to be in writing, dated, and sent to the faculty member (VII,2D and X4), and only documented disciplinary action is grievable. This is a good reason to check one’s personnel file from time to time; there are not supposed to be any “surprises” inside. (You have a grievance if there are.)
If a faculty member is told he /she will be suspended or discharged, there is a 35-working-day period in which to file a grievance.
Anytime a faculty member has any difficulties with an administrator, P-fac recommends keeping a detailed chronology and contacting a department rep and/or the Grievance Chair as soon as possible. These measures will help P-fac help you.
Contract article XII,4 states that a P-fac member who is representing the union at an IEA/NEA event is allowed to miss one session per class per semester, with one month’s notice to the department chair.
The right to have a union representative present at any discussion that may result in disciplinary action is a federally guaranteed right for all members of a union Bargaining Unit. Contact a department representative or the P-fac office anytime you need this support.
The current contract provides that a faculty member may teach up to 18 credit hours a year, with a maximum of 12 in one semester (VIII,5). This was intended to improve the inflexibility of the past contracts (which limited faculty to 9 hours per semester) for faculty in departments with classes other than three credit hours. However, it should be noted that the administration insisted on hour limits. P-fac did not want specified limits. There is therefore no such thing as a “P-fac waiver” to allow a faculty member to teach extra hours.
The 18 hour limit does not include summer or J-term classes.