Greetings, Timothy!

Welcome to this edition of The Bulletin, the e-newsletter dedicated to the AFT’s Faculty and College Excellence (FACE) campaign and other issues related to academic staffing in higher education. In this edition, the AFT releases a new report on the academic workforce; thousands of graduate employees join the AFT; academic staffing matters percolate in the states; the Modern Language Association takes academic staffing concerns to the departments; and some questions worth discussing.

AFT Releases New Report on the Academic Workforce
The AFT has just released American Academic: The State of the Higher Education Workforce 1997-2007. The report documents the ongoing growth of contingent faculty in higher education and the continuing shift away from tenure-track positions. The data available from the most recent 10 years show not only a continuation of these trends, but a significant expansion. “The faculty trends revealed in this report represent a staffing crisis that threatens the quality of our nation's colleges and universities," said AFT President Randi Weingarten. "The truth is, disinvesting in faculty is unfair to contingent faculty, many of whom are miserably compensated. It also shortchanges students, who may have less access to a part-time professor who has to teach at several institutions to patch together a living."  The report, which is the first issue of an annual report that the AFT will be producing on the higher education workforce, provides more details on the instructional workforce as well as information on the non-instructional workforce in higher education.

• Read the report
• Visit the AFT Higher Education Data Center
• Read the AFT press release

Thousands of Graduate Employees Join AFT
Two new graduate employee unions were recently formed and affiliated with the AFT.  First to join were the graduate employees at Florida State University who, by an overwhelming vote of 448-140, voted in favor of having the United Faculty of Florida/AFT/NEA be represent them for the purposes of collective bargaining.  Meanwhile up north at Central Michigan University, the CMU administration was busy pressuring graduate employees to vote against the union.  They weren’t listening.  Graduate employees voted 152-21 in favor of the Graduate Student Union becoming the fifth graduate employee union in the Great Lakes state affiliated with AFT Michigan.  All told, over 3,000 graduate employees joined the AFT, which now represents over 20,000 graduate employees at 20 different universities.

Academic Staffing in the States
Out in the states, there is plenty of action on academic staffing issues. 

• AFT Oregon is working hard to keep FACE legislation active and moving through the statehouse. The state affiliate is pushing for legislation to obtain mandatory reporting of staffing levels at Oregon’s colleges and universities and provide a mechanism for contingent faculty to gain access to the state healthcare plan.
• The New York State United Teachers and affiliates continue to push for changes in “reasonable assurance of re-employment” language in their state statue to make it easier for contingent faculty to apply and qualify for unemployment insurance.
• Meanwhile, in Kentucky the lack of confidence in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System board of regents and president has now spread to a total of 13 of the 16 colleges in the state.

MLA Takes Academic Staffing to the Departments
The Modern Language Association is working hard to take concerns about academic staffing to the disciplinary and departmental level.  Not only has it recently released a new policy statement on staffing, it has also created an Academic Workforce Advocacy Kit and sent a letter to department chairs. The MLA is encouraging chairs to work institutionally to address the working conditions of contingent faculty and to advocate for better staffing levels at their college or university and in their state.

Questions Worth Discussing
In addition to keeping up with all the news at FACE Talk, we hope you will join in the conversation on line as our bloggers raise some questions worth discussing.  Jennie Smith, part-time faculty member at Community College of Philadelphia, wonders if it isn’t time for some beefed-up reporting on academic staffing at the federal level.  Our newest contributor, Lindsay Hench, looks at connections between faculty teaching abroad and the academic staffing crisis.  And Craig Smith challenges some well known bloggers to tackle the big question of how they would change higher education if they had the chance.

Make sure to visit the FACE web site and FACE Talk Blog at www.aftface.org to keep up with the latest news or just put the FACE Talk widget right on to your own web site. And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook. To share your stories, ideas and suggestions, just send us an email at highered@aft.org.