SOME GOOD NEWS, FOR A CHANGE

On the topic of Part-Timers v. Full-Time, Tenure- Track Faculty . . . . (read on)

The San Jose Mercury News of September 16, 2002 reports "...in an effort to keep up with the growing appetite for a college education and to scale back its heavy reliance on temporary instructors, the California State University system in the fall is conducting its largest recruitment drive in more than a decade for tenure-track faculty members.

The move is unusual because it would buck a national and statewide trend of 20 years. It follows a collective bargaining agreement

reached in the summer between the faculty union and CSU to increase the number of permanent instructors. The union has argued for the past few years that the decrease in the ranks of tenure-track faculty members hurts the quality of education at the university.

"As usual, California is in the forefront," said Ruth Flower, director of public policy and communications at the American Association of University Professors. "For budget reasons and for reasons of flexibility, there has been a strong increase in the use of temporary and part-time lecturers. But now states are looking at the effect of that on the quality of education."