CFA fights for lecturers

The California Faculty Association will ask for extended contracts for Cal State University lecturers in the next round of contract negotiations next year, said CFA representatives.

Half of the faculty at Cal State Long Beach are lecturers, who are considered temporary employees, said Elizabeth Hoffman, English lecturer.

CFA, the union that represents teachers in the CSU system, wants to reverse the trend of hiring more lecturers, because they do not have the stability of professors, said Bill Johnson, vice president of the CSULB chapter of the CFA.

Ken Swisher, a CSU spokesman, disagrees.

"There is not a trend in that area," he said.

Swisher said the CSU system is trying to return the amount of lecturers to the level reached before the recession in the early '90s caused a decrease in the hiring of faculty.

In 1994, shortly following the recession, there were 6,072 lecturers in the CSU system. By 1999, there were 9,665 lecturers, an increase of 3,593, Swisher said.

The number of full-time, tenure-track professors also increased in that five-year span, from 10,459 in 1994 to 10,936 in 1999, and increase of 477, Swisher said.

The use of lecturers is cheaper for the CSU system, which can eliminate lecturers when they reach the top of the pay scale, Johnson said.

Although, with fluctuations in enrollment numbers, departments need the flexibility to add or drop teachers when necessary, Swisher said.

Committees that consider promotions and raises for teachers have never had lecturers serving on them, Johnson said.

Lecturers can earn a series of raises, but they can only get so many until they have reached the top of their pay scale, Johnson said.

Even with a new provision in the contract to allow lecturers another salary step, bringing them to the equivalent pay of tenured associate professors, lecturers are still contracted for a very short period, Johnson said.

"It's always year by year by year," Johnson said.

Because lecturers are contracted for one or two semesters at a time, they opt out of getting involved in labor issues and contract disputes, Johnson said.

Lecturers sometimes feel their situation is so precarious that they will not take promotions or raises, for fear that the CSU system will view them as too expensive to renew a contract with, Johnson said.

Johnson said he would "like to see tenure changed all together, to not have tenured professors."
Tenure-track professor can get a bit stale, according to Johnson. It would be better to have five to seven year contracts instead of life-long tenure for professors to keep them on their toes, he said.