March 2000 Volume XIX Number 3
C O N T N T S	Ponderings of the President UPM ELECTIONS ON TAP FACULTY NEAR UNANIMOUS: NO-CONFIDENCE IN CHANCELLOR STUDENT SERVICES BLDG. INSPECTION: NO MAJOR PROBLEMS P-T EQUITY WEEK NEARS SABBATICAL LEAVES––NEW RULES FOR APPLICANTS Real-Time Weather from CoM CoM in the News Campus Events e-mail CoM Faculty College Forms on-line Back to Home Page

Ponderings of the President by Ira Lansing

Some of the original proposals did not meet the minimum qualifications and were not sent forward to the board of trustees. In the past, under old procedures, less than qualified proposals were given an opportunity to be rewritten. Under the new faculty contract, rewriting is not allowed.

I obtained the following transcript of a new cable TV game show. I thought if there was enough interest, some of us could put together a team to participate. Applause from the audience, theme music plays, off-stage announcer speaks Announcer: Once again, folks, it’s time for America’s favorite game show, ‘You Be the Judge’! And here is your host, your courtly magistrate, Johnny Ondaspot! Applause, Johnny runs in, theme music ends Ondaspot: Thank you, Don, and welcome everybody to ‘You Be the Judge,’ the show where each and every one of you gets to compete to determine the outcome of three real life situations. The contestant who successfully determines the greatest number of correct outcomes will be eligible to return tomorrow to compete for ‘You Be God.’ Now let’s hear our first case, Don. Announcer: OK, Johnny. First up is a college faculty member who was able to arrange for herself a higher salary than any of her colleagues. When her faculty union heard about this arrangement, they sued their college district to rescind the higher pay and demanded to negotiate the terms and conditions for this teacher and all other teachers in the future. The original teacher may or may not benefit under any new conditions. Ondaspot: Well, contestants, there’s the situation. Should the college instructor get her higher salary, should the union sue? You be the judge! Make your decision and lock in your answers now! Fine. OK, Don, let’s move on to the next case. Announcer: Here you go, Johnny. This one involved an organization that treats internally brain-damaged patients (‘oohs’ heard from the audience). Currently they are renting space from the local college, but will have to move out of their present location within six months. They have asked their landlord (the college) to provide them with another location at a reduced rate. They are even willing to put up portable buildings to accommodate their needs (more sympathetic ‘oohs’ from the audience are heard). However, the college board has a process for assessing and allocating facility space and the process could take at least eight months. Within the process other organizations may outbid the original tenant, or the college may decide they need the space themselves. Ondaspot: This could be a tough one, contestants. Should the first organization be given preferential treatment and receive new space or should the college board follow its procedures? Should the organization and the college both overlook other financial requirements and the feasibility of acquiring portable buildings by this group? You be the judge! Make your decision and lock in your answers now! Fine. Don, what’s our last case? Announcer: Our last case, Johnny, involves another group of teachers. It seems these faculty members all applied for sabbatical leaves. The leave proposals were reviewed by a joint union-district sabbatical leave committee. This committee sends to their board of trustees all the qualified proposals in ranked order. The board then awards the sabbaticals, in order, up to the number that are allowed that year. If a recipient chooses not to take the sabbatical, or takes less than was originally awarded, the next person on the list receives a sabbatical. Some of the original proposals did not meet the minimum qualifications and were not sent forward to the board of trustees. In the past, under old procedures, less than qualified proposals were given an opportunity to be rewritten. Under the new faculty contract, rewriting is not allowed. Ondaspot: So, contestants, the issue before you is rewriting. If the original unsuccessful applicants are allowed to rewrite, they could move higher on the list. Then some of the successful applicants could be moved lower on the list and theoretically not receive a sabbatical. Should these ‘displaced’ applicants be given a chance to rewrite their proposals? Should the original unsuccessful applicants be allowed to rewrite theirs? You be the judge! Make your decision and lock in your answers now! Fine. Well, I see, Don, that we are just about out of time. Let’s have a word from our sponsor and when we return we will see how our contestants did. Theme music plays, cut to commercial Author’s note: The scriptwriter for ‘You Be the Judge’ was contacted to obtain the rest of the script after commercial, especially the final decisions and outcomes. However, the writer only responded by saying there are no correct answers––you be the judge.

UPM ELECTIONS ON TAP

At the Exec Council meeting a week later however, one incumbent, who had neglected to get himself re-nominated, initiated a lively debate that resulted in the narrow passage of a resolution to extend the deadline

Five seats on the Executive Council are up for grabs this year, those currently held by full-timers Paul Christensen, Carl Cox, Theo Fung and Ira Lansing, and part-timer Jeff Kamler. Nomination Deadline Extended 3 Weeks As of March 6th, the original deadline for submitting nominations, there were four nominees for the full-time seats and two for the part-time seat. At the Exec Council meeting a week later however, one incumbent, who had neglected to get himself re-nominated, initiated a lively debate that resulted in the narrow passage of a resolution to extend the deadline. Claiming that he was not properly notified of the original deadline––since he is on sabbatical this semester he doesn't often check his mailbox, and no notice was sent to his home––he proposed that the deadline be extended. After a high-decibel discussion and by a vote of 4-to-3, the deadline was extended three weeks for anyone on sabbatical. Another resolution was immediately put forth that would extend the same privilege to all unit members. It passed easily. Shortly after March 27th, the new deadline for filing nominations, ballots will be distributed to all unit members. They must be returned to UPM by April 14th.

	FACULTY NEAR UNANIMOUS IN SUPPORTING NO-CONFIDENCE IN CHANCELLOR
	In January the UNION PRESS reported on a proposed vote of no-confidence in the Chancellor and Board of Governors for their opposition to legislative and budgetary solutions to the problem of part-time faculty equity. And the faculty of COM was urged to express its opinion on the issue. The results are in: If sentiment among UPM unit members is any measure, Chancellor Tom Nussbaum and the Board of Governors ought to consider mending their ways. The vote of no-confidence was approved overwhelmingly. 100% of the part-timers voting approved the resolution, as did 89.5% of the full-timers, for an overall total of 96%. These results, advisory in nature, were passed on to CFT, according to President Ira Lansing.
	STUDENT SERVICES BLDG. INSPECTION REVEALS NO MAJOR PROBLEMS
	In response to complaints about respiratory problems by employees in the counseling offices in the Student Services Building, the Health and Safety Committee requested that the District perform an inspection of the air ducts and related equipment. Since the system must be turned off during inspection, the inspection was conducted in December, during a holiday period. The filters in the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system were inspected and, as all had been replaced last August, all were found to be in good condition. The entire system was also inspected for signs of water. Water promotes mold growth, which can cause air quality problems, but no water or mold was found. The system was reassembled and turned back on. The only problem was in the economizers, valves which adjust the amount of outside air brought into the system. They were found to be stuck in the full open position, so the maximum amount of outside air is always being brought in. If the outside temperature is extreme, either hot or cold, the HVAC system must work at full throttle to control the temperature inside. If the system were working properly, the vents would close during extremes in temperature to limit the amount of outside air. As the economizers are difficult to replace, the situation is being left as-is for the time being. Having the economizers fully open all the time may help the indoor air quality, suggested Scott Miller in a memo to the Health and Safety Committee.

	P-T EQUITY WEEK NEARS
On average, a part-time California community college instructor earns only 37% of the salary earned by a full-time instructor with a comparable course load.	Details of the upcoming Part-Time Faculty Equity Week were featured in the January UNION PRESS. In conjunction with this activity, A2K (Action 2000 Coalition) has released a ‘fact sheet’ on the campaign for part-time faculty awareness. The text of the fact sheet is as follows: Unequal Pay for Equal Work: 37 Cents on the Dollar On average, a part-time California community college instructor earns only 37% of the salary earned by a full-time instructor with a comparable course load. A part-time instructor would have to teach almost 3 times as many credit-hours as a full-time instructor in order to earn the same annual salary. Average full-time salary for 15 in-class hours and all other duties: $59,295. This figure does not include the health and retirement benefits package. Average part-time salary for 15 in-class hours: $22,054. Part-time instructors are paid only for in-class instruction. They are expected to prepare lesson plans and grade assignments on their own time, but they cannot be required to hold office hours without compensation. Most districts do not provide health benefits, and retirement plans are universally inferior to the plans available to full-time faculty. Administrators often argue that part-time faculty should be paid less because they don’t participate in curriculum development and faculty meetings, but these ‘other duties’ comprise only 25% of their workload. Certainly they are not worth missing 63% of a full-time salary. Two-thirds of all California community college faculty members are part-timers. Part-time instructors teach 36.8% of all community college classes. Although some part--time faculty hold other full-time jobs, a very large portion of them make a living as "freeway flyers," teaching at several community colleges trying to cobble together a living wage. o Equal pay is mandated for part-time K-12 teachers by the California Education Code. Why should community college instructor pay be any different? o The 1999-2000 total budget for the California community colleges is over $2 billion. A $50 million annual increment dedicated to part-time salary equity is only a 2.5% increase. We can afford it ––AND it is the right thing to do. Action 2000 Coalition can be contacted at (714) 526-7220 or action2000now@aol.com. (COM part-timers are far better off than their brothers and sisters around the state. Instead of 37 cents on the dollar per instruction hour, COM’s part-timers earn 80 cents on the dollar, and enjoy health benefits and paid office hours.––Ed.) Reimbursement Update DENTAL PLAN FOR PART-TIMERS In the January UNION PRESS, it was announced that part-timers who qualify for health coverage now also qualify for dental coverage, up to $100 twice a year. To receive reimbursement, fill out a standard reimbursement form, available from Personnet, and submit it, along with a copy of your dental bill, to the Business Office.
	SABBATICAL LEAVES––NEW RULES FOR APPLICANTS
UPM will present a flex workshop in the fall that will help prospective applicants to write a successful sabbatical leave application. If you’re thinking about a sabbatical, be there.	It’s never to soon to start writing your application for a sabbatical. Or to wonder why you didn’t get one last year. The Sabbatical Leave Committee, consisting of four union members and one administrator, is charged with evaluating sabbatical applications and deciding who gets one and who doesn’t. There are three main criteria that are considered in making that all-important decision: How many sabbaticals the applicant has had; length of time since the last sabbatical; value to the District of the proposed sabbatical. For some time the District has wanted to make this last the most important criterion of the three. This has been accomplished by allotting a possible 25 points for value to the District, as compared with 11 points for time since last sabbatical and 12 points for number of sabbaticals. Points for the ‘value’ criterion are awarded in five-point increments; points for time since last sabbatical are equivalent to the number of years since the applicant’s last sabbatical, up to a maximum of 11; and points for the number of previous sabbaticals are 12 if no previous sabbatical, 6 for one previous, 3 for two previous and 1.5 for three. To qualify for further consideration for a sabbatical leave, an application must score at least 10 points on the ‘value of the sabbatical’ criterion, regardless of the number of applications and the number of available sabbatical leaves. In days gone by the Sabbatical Leave Committee read all applications twice. After the applications were read once and given initial rankings, some were returned to their writers if the committee felt they needed revision. Then the applications were re-read, final rankings were determined, and sabbatical leaves were awarded. This practice has been replaced by one in which the applications are read just once; no re-writes are permitted. See this month’s PONDERINGS OF THE PRESIDENT for further discussion of re-writing sabbatical leave applications. UPM will present a flex workshop in the fall that will help prospective applicants to write a successful sabbatical leave application. If you’re thinking about a sabbatical, be there.

Forms

Forms AFFIDAVIT FOR ENROLLMENT OF DOMESTIC PARTNERS FORM APPLICATION FOR SABBATICAL LEAVE FORM GUIDELINES FOR SABBATICAL APPLICATIONS "SLIDING SCALE" OF VALUES FOR EVALUATING SABBATICAL LEAVE PROPOSALS REQUEST FOR UNPAID LEAVE VOLUNTARY TRANSFER AGREEMENT INVOLUNTARY TRANSFER AGREEMENT Form ASSIGNED HOURS AND SUBSTITUTE ARRANGEMENTS FORM ASSIGNMENTS DISTRICT DIRECTED ASSIGNMENTS INSTRUCTIONAL PERFORMANCE OBSERVATION FORM HEALTH CENTER NURSE PERFORMANCE OBSERVATION FORM