I agreeto Idea Where are the teachers?
Voting is Disabled

166 votes

I disagree

Rank5

Idea#36

This idea is active.
Industry Partnerships »

Where are the teachers?

Where are the teachers,especially contingent faculty, in this summit? It says above, "The summit is an opportunity for community colleges, businesses, policymakers, and students to discuss the importance of community colleges in training the nation’s evolving workforce, and their role in achieving the President’s 2020 college completion goal," Without including those of us who actually teach community college students, I wonder how you expect to get a full picture of the challenges and opportunities involved in educating our population. And please, do not limit community colleges to workforce training. We also give students a foundation in the liberal arts, in problem solving, in learning how to become thoughtful citizens in our democracy.

Submitted by bsmith 2 years ago

Vote Activity Show

(latest 20 votes)

Similar Ideas Show

Comments (18)

  1. vanessa.vaile

    My reaction exactly. I realized early on that the summit was less than committed to teachers but thought faculty on the front lines of community college teaching would be included. They are the ones with the hands-on experience and first hand knowledge. I was stunned to see how invisible and overlooked those doing the heavy lifting are. This is like talking about mining without talking to or about miners.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  2. robertby07

    If you do not include part time community college faculty who, by the way, teach the majority of classes and students in the community colleges, then you really don't have a good understanding of exactly what is going on in community colleges, nor will this conference serve to "wake up" all the stakeholders to their own "dirty secret" when it comes to admitting that part time faculty are the underpaid, overworked, and exploited edu-workers that keep the whole enterprise from sinking. Without part time faculty participation in this conference, you are missing the boat here, Jill! How much longer, Part Timers? RBYoshioka, Santa Maria, CA 93455 805-264-1142

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  3. Community Member

    I wonder how much those in charge really want to make substantive changes. I've no doubt that they think they want to, but why aren't we teachers more involved? Both comments are exactly on point: how can you understand what goes on in a classroom if you don't hear from the professionals who are in the classroom? And the fact that up to 75% of our classes are taught by adjuncts means that the voices of both seasoned and newly appointed adjuncts need to be heard.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  4. Community Member

    I would agree that teachers everywhere are not compensated enough for what they do. However, what hurts are the unions that try to negotiate contracts for faculty that give them less days to work per year and less hours to work per week, but also increase their salaries. Look your unemployed neighbor in the eyes and tell him that you only work 4 days per week as a full time faculty member and that your hours have been reduced from 40 to 35 per week and oh by the way, you have all summer off.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  5. Community Member

    If faculty is not included in this event, then it will be almost worthless. It will merely be a public relations vehicle and a schmoozing event for administrators. I hope the organizers realize their error and add faculty to that initial description.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  6. Community Member

    And do not forget us, poor ABE and ESL instructors. We are treated as if we are the bottom of the barrel. Sad enough that adjunct faculty don't get paid decent wages and don't receive benefits. We earn half of what they earn per hour and most of us have at least one Bachelor's degree, if not several, or a Master's. We have,on the whole, decades of experience. It is about time we got some respect in the form of a liveable wage and benefits. Mnay of my colleagues go without health insurance because they simply cannot afford it. We love what we do, but we need to be able to put bread on the table, too, not just crumbs.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  7. Community Member

    I think people are reading too much into this. Who says faculty are left out? I am a faculty member and I don't feel left out at all. When the White House says "The summit is an opportunity for community colleges, businesses, policymakers, and students to discuss the importance of community colleges in training the nation’s evolving workforce, and their role in achieving the President’s 2020 college completion goal," ....the term "community colleges" refers to ALL people who work at community colleges including full and part-time faculty.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  8. bsmith Idea Submitter

    I hope that the post above is correct, but I fear that "community colleges" means administrators, not faculty. When other groups are named, but faculty, and, more specifically, contingent faculty, who teach more than 50% of community college courses, are not named, can we assume that they have indeed been included? I'd like to see a list of participants, and I like to see some response by Jill Biden and the organizers of of this summit rather than just blog comments from those of us on the outside.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  9. robertby07

    Dear cseefer:

    Thanks for your comment. At the risk of playing psychic=for=a=day...is your chancellor Martha Canter (sp?) cuz if, working for her, you can't pull enough clout to get invited, what's the rest of us boobs to do? Anyway, this is a lost opportunity, and I am only sorry that so many well-meaning and honorable individuals spent so much time getting excited and putting efforts into this conference. Just goes to show how dire things are, and how blind members of most elites are when it comes to "knowing" what/who needs to be involved in order to give the "best" "unvarnished" reliable input and suggestions.

    If this is what is happening even in the Obama Administration, what hope is there if the right wingnuts prevail in November? I say, run for the hills!

    How Much Longer, Part-Timers?

    RBYoshioka, Ph.D. 805-937-4880

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  10. sandy

    "community colleges, faculty, businesses, policymakers, and students"

    I'm more concerned about the number of teachers who whined that the faculty isn't included, when it says faculty is included right there in this very tiny paragraph.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  11. Community Member

    Community College professors, both full-time and part-time, are the life-blood of the college. I can't understand how a summit as important as this one could exclude the most important voice at the table, the professors (next to the students, of course). We applaud administrators and community leaders in government and business for supporting our efforts as teachers to lead our students down the path towards successful lives. However, those of us who are in the classroom with students on a daily basis (and who also meet with students one-on-one after class hours) have a front-row seat to view the struggles and challenges our students face. The only way for the summit members to engage in an open, honest, and productive discussion about the issues is to have a strong faculty voice at the table.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  12. Community Member

    In higher education, faculty oversee curriculum, programs, articulation, advising, counseling, program design and review, the implementation and assessment of student learning outcomes, and, oh yes: teaching. Summit attendees would do well to include general education and vocational faculty.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  13. Community Member

    No education system would ever exist without educators. It seems that many times administrators (good and bad intentions) at all levels (in politics, in business, in education-which isn't "ethically and historically speaking" around the world conceived as a business) forget that. Perhaps the lack of inclusion of current day-to-day faculty at community colleges won't offer to much on what the real focus should be: how can we get more people educated to find different kind and better job opportunities in life? Isn't that different than simply considering the business oriented attitude that has caused and keeps causing very negative impact in our educational system over the last decades: "we need to provide survival skills to anyone and graduate students no matter what?" I hope we can start listening to something different this time as we were expecting real and positive change.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  14. Joy Walker

    I especially agree that education is NOT just about training for a job - it is about learning how to think and grow as a person - which in turn leads to qualities that help someone be more job ready for jobs that haven't even been invented yet.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  15. dario-beckerj

    I see that there are "break out sessions" in the agenda so don't lose hope yet...I am confident that there are some faculty members in there that will hopefully represent the academic and technical/vocational side of the conversation. Several campuses of the the largest community college in Virginia is almost at the doorstep of the conference venue so it will not cost the conference organizers a lot of $$ to bring these group of faculty to the table. After all, regardless of how tight the policies are on paper, the faculty, both full time and adjunct are the ones who will actually translate those policies into action. They can not ignore us!

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  16. robertby07

    Merely listing the possibility of "breakout" sessions, without specifying content for same is JUST NOT ENOUGH. Hoping that phantom faculty (here I am assuming full time edu-union backed tenured faculty) will even modestly represent their "part time colleagues" is a mighty stretch.

    Wake up, part timers. We have no friends within the structure. We are economically vulnerable, impotent and routinely left out of all discussions related to policy, procedures or content within community college governance. Get used to our continuing exploitation, and as so many full time faculty have blurted out on this blog, "get a life, get a real job, dissatisfied- then hold your own conference."

    Nobody ever thinks to include us, let alone ask for our input, or if input is sought, it is either via the vehicle of "full timers will, of course speak for part timers...yeah sure" in such matters.

    My guess is that we will only peripherally be mentioned by a few people at this conference, and no "mandate" will be crafted that will address part time concerns.

    Unfortunately, if we really are education's "dirty little secret - well maybe not so little -" then we should expect nothing to come out of this vaunted confab.

    How Much Longer, Part-Timers?

    RBYoshioka, Ph.D., Santa Maria, CA., 805-937-4880

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  17. Community Member

    The fact that adjunct faculty is not represented in this summit only works to make us more invisible to the community colleges and universities where we work.

    As an adjunct faculty member, I have "zero" say in both the university and community college where I work. I have no retirement, no benefits, no voice in matters of curriculum, and no job security.

    I make less than minimum wage (I calculated once that, with my planning and grading time included I make a little under four dollars an hour.)

    Why do I tolerate this? Because I love teaching and I love having the opportunity to give to others.

    How can I do this? I collect a pension from my years teaching in the public schools where I made six times what I make now.

    As colleges and universities come to rely more upon adjunct faculty, they must learn to see us as the professionals we are so that we can better serve the students.

    2 years ago
    0
    0
  18. habbibte

    I have been an adjunct instructor for three years. I am a single parent, yet I have traveled all over town, gone to more than one campus miles away from each other for different schools on the same day, I am not paid a living wage as I am limited in the number of classes I can teach at a college. I have no office, no phone number, no way to provide the office hours that my students should have with me, even the privacy to consult with them when they need me. I often work after hours with no support staff to help me when the copier,computer/technology breaks down, I walk a very long way in the dark to my car every night alone, I have no job security to speak of and student loan debt that is monumental because I have not been able to make payments on it in the last two years and the interest is just piling up, I live in a lousy neighborhood in the fourth largest city in the US, where I have to beg my landlord two or three times a year to let me pay half my rent this two weeks and then the other half the next paycheck because I have to wait so long to get paid after the semester starts. I am basically bankrupt only I cannot afford to file for bankruptcy, I am in desperate need of car repairs or a new car but would never qualify for a loan, never know if I am going to have a job next semester, cannot speak up or speak my mind in faculty meetings where I am unpaid for fear of losing my job, have applied to over one hundred full time jobs in the last three years and gotten two interviews, love teaching but I wake up every day angry and resentful that I am basically a temporary again, that I will spend at least four months out of the year unemployed because adjuncts typically have no summer employment and when there is the classes don't make in the summer and no affordable health insurance to speak of ($700 + per month just for me, not including my son), I went to school for seven years to become a temporary again. Thank you for marginalizing me and my participation in higher education, we are not represented in our workplaces and that is a travesty of exploitation, it is even worse that we are being ignored here.

    2 years ago
    0
    0