Part-Time Faculty
Part-Time Faculty
Fighting for the rights of a contingent workforce
Part-time faculty play a very active role in the union and the CFT has a standing committee dedicated to the issues of part-time faculty. The purpose and goal of the CFT Part-Time Faculty Committee is to advance, through political action and collective bargaining, the interests of contingent faculty in both public and private higher education. Find resources for part-time faculty created by committee members, and more, on this page.
Resources
Part-Time Faculty
Salary Comparisons
Find the CFT’s annual salary comparisons for part-time
and full-time faculty.
Part-Time Faculty Issue Paper
This single-page paper prepared by the CFT Part-Time Faculty
Committee provides an overview of issues facing adjunct faculty
in California.
Retirement Primer for Part-Timers
To make informed decisions, part-timers should understand their
retirement options, understand how their chosen retirement plans
work, be able to estimate their benefits from their plans, and
understand what, if anything, they can do to increase their
retirement benefits. This primer, written by a former part-time
instructor, attempts to address those issues. Special attention
is given to the CalSTRS Defined Benefit Program because a large
number of part-timers are members of that plan and its benefit
calculations are complex.
Useful Links
- Adjunct Nation News, opinion, analysis and more for the Adjunct Faculty Nation
- California Part-Time Faculty Association (CPFA) Professional association advocating for part-time faculty statewide
- Campaign for the Future of Higher Education (CFHE) A new grassroots national campaign to support quality higher education launched in January 2011 by leaders of faculty organizations from 21 states
- Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL) Integrated network of North-American activists for part-time and non-tenure track faculty
- Coalition on the Academic Workplace (CAW) A group of higher education associations, disciplinary associations, and faculty organizations committed to addressing issues associated with deteriorating faculty working conditions and their affect on students in the United States
- Contingent World This website curated by CFT Vice President John Govsky is packed with useful resources for part-time faculty, including an in-depth guide to applying for unemployment
- Faculty Association for California Community Colleges (FACCC) Information about retirement, unemployment insurance and filing, and, for members, health insurance options
- New Faculty Majority The national coalition for adjunct and contingent equity
CFT One Faculty Task Force Vision
Since 2023, the CFT One Faculty Task Force — made up of classroom and non-classroom part-time and full-time faculty from throughout the state — has met regularly to develop a strategic plan to transform the current exploitative two-tier system of faculty in the California community colleges into a one-tier system. As a first step in this process, the task force focused on clarifying what a one-tier faculty structure would look like. As we build a statewide campaign, the work of the task force will be driven by the following Agreements on Principles and Goals, which define our vision.
CFT Pushes Forward on a Vision of a One-Tier/Unified Faculty Model
CFT’s One-Tier Task force and CFT members, after over eight months of discussion, has created a definitive list of basic components deemed essential for what a one-faculty model should look like in the California community college system.
The work is the result of a team of core community college union leaders and activists, composed equally of both part and full-time members.
Bittersweet Legislative Year for CFT Part-time Faculty
Bittersweet would best describe the end results of the 2022-2023 legislative season for community college part-time faculty.
One of the clear positives was the realization of a record 8.22% cost-of-living allowance for California Community Colleges, up .09% from Governor Newsom’s initial proposal of an 8.13% COLA in January. The COLA followed off a fairly robust COLA of 6.56% in 2021-2022.