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Muck-raking newsletter wins CTA Communications Award.
Budding faculty organizers might be wise to take a lesson from their colleagues at Citrus College, where the faculty association newsletter has become a key organizing tool for the CCA affiliate.
A recipient of this year's CTA Communications Award for newsletters, the "CCFA Newsletter" has served as a focal point for the association, and has managed to do a little hell-raising along the way.
At 16 to 24 pages per issue, the newsletter is voluminous. But the fact that it is published three times a semester is even more astonishing.
"We didn't have anything like this until last year," said Citrus College Faculty Association President Jack Wood, who credited newsletter editor Joe Harvey for taking on the editor job, investing in a desktop publishing program and turning out a regular bulletin. The newsletter costs about $350 per issue, but, according to Wood, "It's money well-spent."
Union had been inactive
Only two years ago, the faculty union had been fairly inactive.
"We didn't meet on a regular basis. In fact, we may have gone an entire year without a meeting," Wood said. But after he had attended a CCA conference two years ago, Wood learned of the many CCA resources available to local affiliates.
"We began to see what we had missed," Wood said, noting that CCA staff has helped local officers navigate through the Ed Code, and the Public Employees Relations Board law, in addition to providing bargaining expertise. The association recently revised its constitution to become a formal governing body that meets every month.
However, it's the newsletter that has given a voice to faculty. Whether it's providing announcements of faculty meetings, exploring the ins and outs of their contract language or investigating administration expenditures, the CCFA newsletter has it all.
Helped with esprit de corps
"As a faculty, there is much more unity and an esprit de corps now, and I think the newsletter has helped with that," Wood said.
For example, through the newsletter, the association has arranged for an ad hoc committee to meet once a month with representatives from each department. The meetings provide a forum for representatives to receive updates and to bring forth pressing issues.
Wood is particularly proud of some of the muck-raking the newsletter has been able to do. Last year, for example, the administration had plans to erect an $8 million building that would have been charged to the general fund.
"It sounded like a convention hall or something, and it would have put instructional funds at risk," Wood said. "We wrote about it and got the board to make a recommendation that faculty take a vote. We voted against the project, and as a result, the board tabled the whole thing. The building, has effectively, been stopped." |