From March 14 – 17, 2024, CCA attended NEA’s Higher Education (HE) Conference in Atlanta, GA, which offers members the opportunity to submit proposals and present workshops; network with colleagues from across the country; attend sessions on professional development, organizing, racial justice, collective bargaining and others; hear from NEA’s top officers, and participate in the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) membership meeting.

During the conference, CCA Vice President Randa Wahbe and Elizabethada (Liz) Wright from Minnesota presented New Business Items (NBIs) 9 and 10 that were adopted at the 2023 NEA RA. Both NBIs focus on HE inequitable working conditions and other contingent faculty issues. These NBIs and contingent faculty issues were discussed in several NEA HE sessions throughout the conference. For your reference, here is more information on each NBI:

9. Higher Education Working Conditions (Wright)

NEA shall work with the NEA National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) to develop a plan to help address the working conditions, compensation and benefits of the lowest-paid employees in higher education, who are often paid poverty wages and who labor in precarious positions despite their advanced degrees. NCHE will give its members a regular update on the progress on this NBI.

10. Contingent Faculty (Wahbe)

NEA shall use existing resources to work with state affiliates who represent higher education faculty and staff to create and support organizing campaigns that address contingent faculty issues including, but not limited to, wages, benefits and working conditions. NEA will use these resources to coordinate contingent faculty organizing campaigns to increase membership, identify leaders and successfully negotiate contracts or advance policy to achieve contingent faculty parity regarding benefits, compensation, dignity and respect. NEA will use the learnings in capacity building to inform future campaigns.

CCA is working closely with NEA to make these NBIs a reality for contingent faculty nationwide. Through CCA’s advocacy, there has been growing staff and support at the national level.

In connection with the work entailed in the two NBIs, Wahbe and Wright along with CCA Board Member John Martin facilitated two sessions around contingent faculty: The Fight for Contingent Faculty: Promoting, Protecting and Strengthening Higher Education and Contingent Faculty Networking Session.

The Fight for Contingent Faculty: Promoting, Protecting and Strengthening Higher Education focused on efforts that have taken place in California and through NEA NBIs 9 & 10 around contingent faculty issues. The Contingent Faculty Networking Session continued the dialogue that had begun in the previous day’s session and collected contact information from contingent faculty, including graduate students, who were in the room.

“CCA works on your behalf not just on a local and state level but on a national level. An injury to one truly is an injury to all. Strengthening working conditions for part-time/adjunct/contingent faculty strengthens higher education for all of us,” said Wahbe.

Karen Beck, part-time professor at Rio Hondo Community College and CCA member since 2005, also attended this year’s conference. She serves on the NEA Artificial Intelligence Policy Task Force and co-presented on AI in Education with a focus on HE on behalf of that task force. Beck said, “Our work with CCA and attendance at CCA conferences is very important. It is also important for CCA members, FT, PT (and other contingent workers), to become more active as members of our associations, CTA and NEA. We need to be involved, show an active, engaged presence and network with colleagues beyond CCA, at both the state and national levels.”

“Together, we are all more powerful than when acting as separate unions/associations. Now, more than ever, we need to pull together to protect education from extreme agents who seek to undermine our goals to provide education for everyone. All educators in K-12 and HE, including contingent faculty, need to be active both on behalf of the students we serve and for all who are proud to work in education. Our work to support an inclusive and equitable educational system must continue.”

–Karen Beck, Rio Hondo Community College

Martin said, “This is my first time being at an NEA HE conference, and so I was very impressed by the quality of the speakers and subject matters. I appreciated many of the NEA HE participants focusing on higher education issues, and I found more of them interested in what’s happening with part-time faculty. I encourage everyone to attend NEA HE conferences so you can connect with people from all over the country. I hope to return next year.”

“We must actively, consistently and completely commit to advocating and working for equity for all, including contingent workers,” said Beck.