January 8, 2001 Dear Members: I have appreciated the feedback I have received from members about changes in internal MSCA communications, particularly this weekly message. I also promised to improve external communications and include below a letter to the editor that I sent to the Boston Globe in response to a January 1 article by David Abel about part-time faculty organization efforts in the Boston area.
Although the Globe has not published the letter, David Abel and I have exchanged several emails about the issues raised in the letter. I hope to pursue contacts with more education reporters throughout the state and would appreciate any contact information members may have with local, Globe or Herald reporters.
A detailed bargaining committee report will be distributed on campuses this week. A formal negotiations session is scheduled for January 10th at Worcester State.
Pat Markunas MSCA President
Submitted Letter to the Editor, Boston Globe To the editor: Without question, part-time and adjunct faculty benefit from organizing and uniting to pursue better salaries and working conditions ("Part-time faculty band together," Globe, January 1, 2001). At the nine Massachusetts state colleges, part-time faculty who teach in state-assisted day programs have been unionized since 1987 and will earn $3066 for each three-credit course, retroactive to January 1, 2000. This salary places their earnings in the top 14% of part-time faculty salaries, according the Globe's figures. Part-time faculty who teach in the state college's self-supported divisions of graduate and continuing education, also unionized since 1987, earn salaries in the top 37% of the salary range included in the Globe, and negotiations are ongoing to improve these salaries.
United action is beneficial for part-time faculty. However, attacks on tenure-track faculty and misrepresentations of their salaries and working conditions are not. The per-course figures cited in the Globe for full-time faculty yield a salary range of $74,400 to $110,000 -- far above the average state college full-time faculty salary of $50,000 for an annual teaching load of 24 credits.
And teaching is not the only activity required of full-time faculty. We must hold office hours; advise students at orientation, registration and throughout the year; serve on college committees and attend meetings; contribute to the community; and engage in scholarly/artistic and pedagogical activities. Our workload is equivalent to full-time state college faculty nationally, but our salaries are currently 18-20% lower than our colleagues at comparable institutions.
To misrepresent tenure-track faculty as overpaid individuals with "cushy fellowships" and compromised "intellectual integrity" does not serve the interests of faculty regardless of their status or the students we all take pride in educating.
Patricia V. Markunas President Massachusetts State College Association 30 Ocean Avenue Salem MA 01970 978-745-0021
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