AAA business meeting resolution on part-time academic labor

[Nathaniel Dumas]

Another important thing to keep in mind is that the research on  
contingent faculty is also very complicated because, for one, most  
institutions make it difficult to acquire quantitative data on how  
many contingent faculty members are in their institutions at a given  
time. The most common explanation in the literature is that it has the  
potential to cause damaging PR, and so many HR departments do not  
release this information, which also makes it difficult to create a  
randomly-selected pool of research participants for these studies.  
Another issue is that because so many contingent faculty face job  
insecurity and have no protection or due process for dismissal since  
they are at-will employees, they are hesitant to speak openly and  
honestly about their experiences. As such, much of the published  
research does not necessarily reflect the extent of the issues that  
many of them face (especially around the hiring processes). Thus, for  
those who have a desire to mentor and also advocate for contingent  
faculty, I worked with Adriana Kezar and Gary Rhoades, as well as  
other current contingent faculty members, to put together handouts on  
how to mentor contingent faculty effectively as well as how to  
advocate for them strategically in your institutions. We've learned  
that the key for rallying institutional support, such as what happened  
at Northwestern University which is the gold standard for contingent  
faculty (or as they refer to them, teaching faculty), is that it is  
not so much about equal pay as it is about learning outcomes and the  
working conditions of many contingent faculty do not support the  
conditions for successful learning outcomes of undergraduates, which  
is now becoming a huge deal again as the corporate sector is again  
publicly expressing its views about its dissatisfaction with  
undergraduate education as preparation for employment. If you would  
like the handouts, feel free to contact me offline.

Be well,
Nate

On Nov 13, 2013, at 6:08 AM, Laura Ahearn wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> Here are a couple of charts from AAUP depicting the dramatic changes  
> in faculty labor that make the resolution so important:
>
> http://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/Faculty_Trends_0.pdf
>
> Laura
>
> *****************************
> Laura M. Ahearn
> Associate Professor, Rutgers University
> Department of Anthropology
> Series Editor, Oxford Studies in the Anthropology of Language
> (703) 241-4127
> Twitter: @AhearnLaura
> http://www.anthro.rutgers.edu/fac/department-undergrad-a-grad-faculty/laura-ahearn
>
> On Nov 13, 2013, at 7:57 AM, Leila Monaghan  
> <leila.monaghan at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for passing the resolution about part time faculty on,  
>> Steve, and I
>> urge all my colleagues to attend the business meeting on Thursday  
>> night at
>> 6:15!
>>
>> all best,
>>
>> Leila
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 5:27 AM, Steven Black  
>> <stevepblack at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>> I'm writing to share some information that was forwarded to me  
>>> that is
>>> likely of interest to many listserv members, about a resolution  
>>> being
>>> raised
>>> at the American Anthropology Association business meeting about  
>>> adjunction
>>> and part-time academic labor:
>>>
>>> "Sharryn Kasmir has asked me to get the word out re: the CoLR  
>>> resolution on
>>> adjunct rights. For it to pass, supporters will need two things: a  
>>> quorum
>>> at
>>> the AAA business meeting and plenty of supportive voters to be  
>>> present. The
>>> business meeting is Thurs. Nov. 21 at 6:15. Try your best to be  
>>> there if
>>> you
>>> can!!
>>> Take care,
>>>
>>> Jeff Maskovsky"
>>>
>>> Here is a link to Savage Minds, which has the resolution posted:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://backupminds.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/aaa-to-hear-resolution-on-contin
>>> gent-and-part-time-academic-labor/
>>>
>>> I can't wait to see friends and meet new people!
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Steve Black
>>>
>>> Steven P. Black
>>> Department of Anthropology
>>> Georgia State University
>>> P.O. Box 3998
>>> Atlanta, GA 30302-3998
>>>
>>> Phone (404) 413-5168
>>> Fax (404) 413-5159
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Leila Monaghan, PhD
>> Department of Anthropology
>> Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Nathaniel Dumas
Research Associate, Department of Anthropology
University of California, Santa Cruz
nadumas at ucsc.edu