NEA Higher EducationAdvocateVOL. 29, NO. 3 MAY 2012

The Inside-Out Classroom+The Birth of a Union: Adjunct faculty fight for fairness

Jill Biden reveals the best-kept secret in America

Where are the Latino faculty members?

Take notice! Your retirement security is under attack

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE2

THE BIRTH OF A UNION 3Adjunct faculty across the countryare organizing for respect.

THRIVING IN ACADEME 6Turn your classroom upside down,and find time for great teaching.

BY THE NUMBERS 11

THOUGHT & ACTION 12Latino faculty: Where are they?And why does it matter?

THE STATE OF HIGHER ED 13The attack on retirement security.

DIALOGUE 14Jill Biden on the best-kept secretin America: Community colleges.

CASE STUDIES 15The U.S. Supreme Court looks ataffirmative action in higher ed.

OP-ED 16For-profit colleges? Not so fast.

Advocate (ISSN: 1522-3183) is published five times a year, in September,November, January, March, and Juneby the National Education Associa-tion, 1201 16th St., N.W., Washington,D.C. 20036. Periodicals postage paid atWashington, D.C., and additional mail-ing offices. The Advocate is mailed toNEA Higher Education members as abenefit of membership. Postmaster:Send change of address to Advocate,1201 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C.20036. Copyright © 2012 by theNational Education Assoc.

National Education Association

Dennis Van RoekelNEA PRESIDENT

Lily EskelsenVICE PRESIDENT

Rebecca S.PringleSECRETARY-TREASURER

John C. StocksEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

NEA Office ofHigher Ed

Daniel R. RiveraDIRECTOR

Frances BeardASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

Mary Ellen FlanneryEDITOR

Marsha BlackburnPRODUCTION COORDINATOR

Alice TruedPRODUCTION

Groff Creative GRAPHIC DESIGN

Rachelle Estes Mark SmithBryant Warren Valerie WilkPhadra Williams-Tuitt

OFFICE OF HIGHEREDUCATION STAFF

Congratulations to NEA Higher Ed’sheroes of human and civil rights.

MARY ANN PACHECO AND PAUL HERNAN-

DEZ never stop thinking about the stu-dents who aren’t their students: the oneswho can’t go to college because they’retoo poor or lack the right papers, theones whose dreams will never be real-ized. They also never stop creating newopportunities for those young people.For this work, both Pacheco and Her-nandez have been selected by theirpeers to receive NEA Human and CivilRights awards this summer. Pacheco, aprofessor at Rio Hondo Community Col-lege in California, and a former presi-

dent of her local union, has fought tirelessly for the rights ofChicano students especially, spearheading a campaign for anew student center on her campus and working tirelessly forthe passage of the California DREAM Act. Hernandez, an as-sistant professor at Central Michigan University, is a formerhigh school drop-out. Now his “College 101” program and al-ternative pedagogy for K-12 teachers help to create the kindsof meaningful relationships that engage students and keepthem on the path to higher education. (Check out his articleon College 101 in the 2011 Thought & Action atwww.nea.org/thoughtandaction.) For all this and more,Pacheco will receive the César Chávez Acción y CompromisoHuman and Civil Rights Award, while Hernandez receives theReg Weaver Human and Civil Rights Award.

Don’t be a stranger! Welcome NEAHigher Ed into your inbox. NEA’S OFFICE OF HIGHER ED in-vites you to subscribe to thenew NEA Higher EducationeAdvocate, a monthlynewsletter delivered toyour inbox. Offeringtimely news of currentstate and federal legisla-tion, developing trendsin higher education,and more, as well aselectronic links thatyou click through to lobbylegislators and connect with your col-leagues on NEA discussion boards, the eAdvocatewill provide news that you can use. To subscribe, visitpages.email.nea.org/EnewslettersSubscription/

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Headline News

After nearly a decade spent inspiring

the students of East-West University

in Chicago, Professor Curtis Keyes,

Jr., recently was warned away from his campus gates by a security guard.

“You don’t know me?” Keyes asked, in disbelief. Everybody here knows Keyes,the president of the newly certified NEA-affiliated union of East-West adjunct faculty. But just a few months

ago, for the third time in nine years, Keyes was fired and forbidden from campus. It’s a serious blow, one that

has left him scrambling for work to pay the bills. But will it stop him from working toward a fair contract?

Not likely.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATEIllustration: Bülent Gültek 3

HOW ADJUNCT FACULTY ARE ORGANIZING FOR RESPECT

The BirthOFAUNION

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE4

He’s not the onlyone who thinks so.As the right-wingcontinues its assaulton the middle class,it is increasinglyclear that we allneed a union. Butthis is especiallytrue of contingent oradjunct faculty,

whose rights are often fewer thantenured or tenure-track colleagues,whose pay is almost always less,whose benefits are mostly non-exis-tent, and whose job security is worseeven than a worker at Mitt Romney’slatest venture.

For them, the union is the best hopefor respectful working conditionsand decent pay. It’s also the besthope for their students, who increas-ingly rely on contingent faculty for ahigh-quality college education. Fiftyyears ago, 75 percent of college fac-ulty had tenure. Now, as college ad-ministrators seek a low-cost, easy-

to-fire workforce, just 27 percent orfewer fit that description. In institu-tions that serve large numbers ofpoor, minority and immigrant stu-dents, the trend toward contingencyis even more pronounced.

“If we’re to succeed as a nation, wewill only succeed to the extent thatwe address and redress the workingconditions of contingent faculty,”said Gary Rhoades, professor ofhigher education at the University ofArizona. After all, those conditionsalso are the learning conditions ofstudents.

For its part, NEA strongly believespart-time faculty members should betreated as professionals, and no dif-ferent than tenured or permanentfaculty. When it’s clear that adjunctpositions are anything but tempo-rary, they should be converted tofull-time, tenure-track jobs. Mostimportantly, NEA supports the rightsof contingent faculty to participate ininstitutional governance and bargain

collectively. (To read NEA’s full posi-tion statement on contingency, visitwww.nea.org/he.)

The Long RoadKeyes remembers the first time hewas fired by East-West administra-tors. In the spring of 2010, they tookaway the classes already assigned tohim and four other union leaders,clearly hoping to shut down thefledgling union and intimidate theremaining faculty. It fell to his de-partment chair to deliver the news.“Sitting there in his office and beingfired like that, I was just reallyangry,” Keyes recalls. “And then Ithought to myself, ‘What do I have tolose now?’ We had no rights, no inputinto governance, and now no job.”

The East-West adjuncts organizednoisy protests on Chicago’s MichiganAvenue, which gained notice fromlocal and national media and supportfrom students. “If you gain rapportwith a professor, you may not seethat professor again because thisschool refuses to pay him what hedeserves to get paid. He leaves afterone class,” East-West alumni WilburWilliams told TV cameras. Forced toconfront a strengthening movement,the university tossed them a carrot: a13 percent pay hike. (Even with this,East-West adjuncts remain amongthe lowest-paid faculty in Chicago.)

“Consider this: if simply starting theorganizing drive can get this level of

urtis Keyes, Jr., remembers when the union talk began. In 2009, he and his colleagues were sitting in the East-West University faculty lounge, lamenting the sorry stateof their savings accounts. They hadn’t had a pay raise inmore than five years—even as their employers hiked stu-dent tuition by 38 percent and accumulated more than$17.5 million in cash reserves. They worked in fear fromsemester to semester, and contract to contract.

They were tired of eating peanut-butter sandwiches.They were sick of saying good-bye to two-thirds of their faculty colleagues at theend of each semester. They thought they deserved more for their hours of hardwork and dedication, and their lifetimes of education and experience that hadbrought them to this place. They also thought their students, only one-third ofwho would return to East-West after their first year, deserved more too.

So the fateful words: “What we need,” Keyes recalls telling his colleagues thatday in the lounge, “is a union.”

C

The BirthOFAUNION

Curtis Keyes, Jr., professor,East-West University inChicago and Adrianna Kezar,associate professor of highereducation, University ofSouthern California

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE 5

“We Need More Unions”In rural south-central Oregon, where fac-ulty at tiny Klamath Community Collegerecently ratified their first collectively bar-gained contract, it was students who keptthem going too. “We always kept in mind,‘how can we serve students better?’” saidMary Lou Wogan, chair of the bargainingteam, and math professor.

Consider the Klamath student who mighthave been hoping to meet last year withher writing instructor, Barbara Stouta-

more, a part-time faculty member. Firstthey’d find that she wasn’t allowed a col-lege email address, a real obstacle to mak-ing contact with the iPhone generation.Then, they’d learn that her formal meetingspace was a windowless closet, no biggerthan a horse’s stall, which she shared with30-plus other part-timers.

When the Klamath Falls Community Col-lege Faculty Association, an NEA-affili-ated unit of part- and full-time faculty,went to the bargaining table, they neverforgot that student. Now, thanks to thenew contract, adjunct faculty membershave additional office space, access to thecollege’s electronic grade book, and evenemail addresses. The contract also pro-vides an actual salary schedule, which in-cluded a 15 percent boost to part-timers,provisions around equitable layoffs, and aformal grievance policy..

“We have a much better situation,” Stouta-more said. “When we have to get in touchwith students and vice versa, we actuallyhave a professional looking email. Wehave an office! Granted it’s still just twocomputers, but that’s twice as many as wehad before…And we’re much closer to aliving wage,” she added.

Should Klamath faculty be the only oneswith these protections? Obviously not.“We just need more unionization,” saidAdrianna Kezar, an associate professor ofhigher education at the University of

Southern California, at a recent sympo-sium hosted by the New Faculty Majority(NFM), an association of adjunct faculty.

Kezar also noted that not all improve-ments of working conditions would costtheir universities a single cent. “The re-spect, the inclusion in governance, theprofessional development that already isbeing offered…” can easily be offered tocontingent faculty for free, she noted.

At that same event, Keyes also stood upand said he hoped his battle could serveas a model for others. Even as the NLRBweighs his case against East-West onceagain, he moves forward with faith in jus-tice. “You need to stand up.” he urged hiscolleagues. “In doing so, you will find pro-tection,” he promised.

BY MARY ELLEN FLANNERYEditor, NEA Office of Higher Educationmflannery@nea.org

a raise, just think what a fully organizedunit can do for working conditions atEast-West University,” exhorted NEAPresident Dennis Van Roekel in June2011. “We must…resist the intimidationtactics of this institution and build astrong vital union,” he said.

In the meantime, a National Labor Rela-tions Board (NLRB) administrative judgeordered East-West in December 2010 torehire Keyes and his colleagues, providethem back pay, and post prominently amessage in their workplace: “Federal

law gives you the right to form, join orassist a union... We will not fire you orrefuse to renew your teaching contractbecause of your support for a union.”

It was a lesson they didn’t take particu-larly seriously. In June 2011, the ballotscounted—and the East-West adjunctshad won themselves a union. In Decem-ber 2011, Keyes was fired again.

And still, Keyes persists along the longroad to a collectively bargained contractthat would provide job security to himand his colleagues; a real salary scale;and a voice in the working conditionsthat enhance student learning. The sup-port of colleagues—not just at East-West, but at other public institutions inChicago and across the country—keephim going, he says.

DOONESBURY (c)1996 G. B. Trudeau. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK. All rights reserved.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE6

Turning Your Classroom Inside Out

If you let the Internet deliver your lecture, you can spend more time

in the classroom really teaching your students.

Google knows everything these days. We’re not the ultimate authorities anymore. The Internet can provide lessons on vector calculus or Keynesian economics; it knows moreabout Regency England than I do, and my students can dredge up an online discussion ofprimogeniture in Pride and Prejudice that’s better than mine. (Yes, they can also come upwith far less useful material—I’ll get to that later). Sometimes I’m a little resentful that Inever got to be the all-knowing sage like my own professors were, but most of the time I’mrelieved that I don’t have to be.

What the Internet cannot do, at least not yet, is provide expert feedback. That’s where wereally excel—and where we can enhance students’ learning by simply adjusting how we allocate our time. When we make our “content” available online, we can use class time tohave students apply the material, solve problems, and analyze solutions. Meanwhile, we’reon hand to guide and respond. This “inside-out” structure puts more responsibility on students, and also tends to keep them more engaged.

As Grant Wiggins pointed out, “It’s not teaching that causes learning. Attempts by the learnerto perform cause learning, dependent upon the quality of feedback and opportunities touse it.” In other words, I could attend a seminar on golf conducted by Tiger Woods, takeexcellent notes, and dutifully review the material every night, but still miss the ball everytime. I’d make better progress taking a few swings with a competent caddy. What we needwhen we’re learning anything—not just a sports skill—is practice, coupled with targetedfeedback. What better place and time for that than class?

Thriving inAcademeREFLECTIONS ON HELPING STUDENTS LEARN

BY LESLIE RICHARDSONFlorida International

University

Thriving in Academe is a joint project of NEA and the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education(www.podnetwork.org). For more information, contact the editor, Douglas Robertson (drobert@fiu.edu) at

Florida International University or Mary Ellen Flannery (mflannery@nea.org) at NEA.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATEIllustration: Steve McCracken 7

How to turn your lectureinto homeworkWe know that audience attention drops offsharply after the first few minutes of anylecture: almost 40 years ago, Donald Blighgenerated reams of empirical evidence toindicate that we’re reaching very few stu-dents after the first ten or twelve minutesof any lecture. We’ve all heard complaintsabout students texting or using Facebookduring class, and there are more potentialdistractions lately, but if we’re honest, weprobably remember daydreaming in theclasses we once took—or even at that lastconference. When we make our students

responsible for the “content” outside ofclass, we free ourselves from this dynamic.

You can do this the old-fashioned way, orusing technology. Put your lecture into apodcast or take advantage of your school’scourse capture media, and students can listen to you at midnight; when the phonerings, the student can click ”pause,” ratherthan miss the most important point. Thisformat actually helps to differentiate instruc-tion. A confused student can replay a puzzlingconcept or check out supplemental mate-rial, while your advanced students can skipahead without having to wait for the others.Students appreciate this freedom to coverthe material on their own schedules, at

their own pace, and they’re likely to pay attention to a larger portion of it.

TECHNOLOGY TOOLS

The technology we use for teaching onlinemakes it easy to provide content to students.If you lecture with Power Point, you canrecord your voice to accompany the slides.If you have a tablet computer, you can make a screen-cast of every step you take as you solve a problem, and unite it withyour recorded voice. But you don’t evenhave to use your own lecture, and the Luddites among us needn’t feel anxiousabout software—we can assign lessons from Khan Academy or YouTube. (If you

I TALES FROM REAL LIFE > CAN YOU STOP TALKING?

Meet Leslie Richardson

Ihave to admit that I was reluctant, atfirst, to accept this

inside-out strategy,which is paradoxical,since I already ran adiscussion-centeredclassroom and expectedmy students to completea lot of assigned read-ing. But I didn’t want to

give up any of my timetalking to them. In aBritish Literature survey,for example, that gallopsthrough ten centuries ofassorted prose, poetry,and drama, I was wor-ried about covering the canonical texts. Ormaybe the less attrac-tive truth is that I just

enjoyed talking aboutthat stuff so much thatI hated to cede any ofmy time to activities.

Part of the problem, Icame to realize, wasthat I wasn’t sure whatI wanted my studentsto be able to do whenthey left my class. It

helped to make a mentallist of the skills I wantedstudents to acquire.Once we know whatwe want students to beable to do when theyleave our classrooms,we have goals we canarticulate. The nextsteps for learning arepractice and targeted

feedback. If I wantedmy students to becomeexpert at close reading,I needed to make thempractice delving intopassages, not just listento me doing it. If I say Iwant students to thinkhistorically, I have to askthem to actually do that.

Leslie Richardsonis the Director of the Center for theAdvancement ofTeaching at FloridaInternational Univer-sity, in Miami; she’s

also an associate professor of Eng-lish. She is particularly interested inservice learning, disaster-responsepedagogy, and learning-centeredclassrooms, and is amazed by thework being done by faculty at herinstitution.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE Illustration: Steve McCracken8

have twenty minutes for a great TED talk,watch Salman Khan: “Let’s use video to reinvent education.”)

Students already use the internet to supple-ment our lectures: if they’re confused ordissatisfied with our classes, they knowthey can find clearer explanations online.Rather than punish this impulse, harness it.When we assign particular videos, screen-casts, podcasts, etc., we can sift throughthe dross to make sure they’re getting thebest. You might even assign students thetask of determining the most effective videoresource and explaining the basis for theirjudgment: this sort of epistemological ques-tion can be a great learning experience.

If you don’t want to use video, reading isstill a great way to deliver information, especially if we provide context, signposts,questions to ask, and so forth. Faculty oftencomplain that students don’t do the reading;but when we assign pages, and then simplyrepeat the material in a lecture, we aretraining them not to read. We need to holdthem accountable for paying attention tothe online material. Consider that a quickquiz in the first minutes of class can standin for taking roll and tends to prevent tardi-ness. If you’re using a course managementsystem, you can administer the quiz onlineand set the cutoff time for the start of class.In any case, students need to see that we’reserious about them covering the materialon their own. Implementing in-class activelearning techniques, shows that we expectmastery, not just multiple-choice familiarity.

USE YOUR FREED-UP TIME!

Once we’ve consigned the lecture to home-work status, we free up class time for theguidance and feedback that students crave,and that enables transformative learning.Students really need us when they’ve hit asticky spot with a concept, when they’restruggling to make sense of a tough appli-cation problem, or when they’re wonderingwhether a thesis is incisive or self-evident.

This is the stuff that needs to happen inclass, when we’re on hand to coach them—not at midnight, when they’re bewilderedand solitary. We can pose more challengingproblems, demand more critical thinking,ask students to grapple with more complexissues, and then guide them with immediatefeedback. We tend to think that the readingis too tough for students. They can’t muddlethrough initial exposure to these conceptson their own, can they? But we forget thatapplication is the harder part. We can helpmore when we see where they get stuck,and coach them past the learning thresh-olds. We’ll also get better work from themthis way, so that reading those papers will

be less painful, and reviewing those projectsmore gratifying.

Turning your classroom inside out makesbetter use of your time and your students’time. We already know that learning is significantly enhanced when we can offerfrequent, timely, individualized feedback,but who has the time to provide it? By flipping the script, we can use class time to answer questions, identify and clear upmisconceptions, respond to performance,evaluate arguments or evidence, and do amillion other useful things. We can havestudents write, think, apply, analyze, respond,develop, create, critique… all the manytasks that are so much more useful thansimply listening.

Angelo and Cross’ perennially valuableClassroom Assessment Techniques is atreasure-trove of activities that generatelearning, tell us how much students are getting, and help them see where they stand.If everyone has to produce an argumenta-tive thesis statement during class, studentscan practice evaluating other claims and getfeedback on their own, without handingyou a hefty stack of extra grading. Every-one can solve a word problem and comparesolutions and approaches, or assume therole of historical figure in a debate; pairscan critique each other’s work; groups candesign a machine or a business plan; stu-dents can leave the classroom to collectand identify plant species, and reassembleto compare results. You can circulate, askingand answering questions, so that students

Last spring I attendeda colleague’s Physicsclass and suddenly I

was wistful about the scienceclasses I avoided as a collegeEnglish major. Not a singlestudent was texting or up-dating Facebook. Instead,students spent their time applying the class content.My colleague never lectures!And his labs are designed so that students feel they’rediscovering the laws of

physics. When I slipped in, a group of students let mejoin their project and ex-plained what was happening.To my amazement, I under-stood; and even more sur-prising, I was fascinated.The number of Physics majors is skyrocketing atour university—as it is inother schools around thecountry, owing to innovativeapproaches to teaching.These students are not

being spoon-fed: instead,they’re becoming rigorouscritical thinkers.

We don’t have to do labsevery day, or ever, in orderto make use of this model.The rest of us also can movein this direction. We all teachconcepts that we want stu-dents to be able to apply. Wetoo can demote the lectureand use class time for inter-action. One of my colleaguesin Linguistics has freed him-

self from delivering lectureson arcana, and developedcool, creative exercises tohave his students apply theprinciples to everyday speech.Now instead of dreading hisclass in advanced grammar,his students are excited tocome to class—and so is he.

WE ALL SAY WE WANT TOTEACH CRITICAL THINKING,BUT THE AVERAGE LECTURECLASS DOESN’T EXERCISE

HIGHER-ORDER COGNITIVE SKILLS.

I BEST PRACTICES > TEACH LIKE A PHYSICS PROFESSOR!

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE

can receive and use immediate feedbackboth from their peers and you. This waylearning is reinforced, misconceptions arecaught before they become entrenched,and the important skills are exercised.Plus no one falls asleep.

This approach will sound familiar to manyin the Humanities, where we frequently usea discussion format. In the sciences, it maysound more radical. Nonetheless, facultyacross the spectrum are using it to greateffect. About a decade ago, a group ofEconomics faculty, Lage, Platt and Treglia,described this technique in the Journal ofEconomics Education and labeled it “theinverted classroom.” There’s even a socialnetwork called “The Flipped Class Network:A Social Network Dedicated to EducatorsInterested in the Flip,” where faculty canpost and respond to questions from colleagues. There’s a thrilling movementtoward the inverted classroom going on inPhysics departments, where, despite thecopious and intensely challenging content,many faculty are devoting their class timeto labs and experiments. (See Best Practiceson page 8.)

The inside-out model is informed by thesame basic principles that motivate Team-Based Learning, and Just-in-Time Teaching(JiTT), but anybody can use it. It doesn’tdemand classroom teams or the pre-classexercises involved in JiTT, and it doesn’trequire a full-semester commitment. It’smade easier by the ready availability ofhigh-quality online material, but it workswith textbooks too. All we need is a littleflexibility and trust that our students, de-prived of our presence, can get the mainideas on their own—if we make it neces-sary that they do so.

We all say we want to teach critical think-ing, but the average lecture doesn’t exercisehigher-order cognitive skills. Criticalthinking isn’t just handed over along withthe diploma; it doesn’t strike like lightningwhen students graduate. We have to becoaxing, training, scaffolding, and reward-ing it all the way. If we want our engineersto be able to design sound structures, ournurses to react effectively in emergencies,then they need to be designing and reactingin our classes.

We’re busier and busier lately, and studentsfeel increasing demands on their time too.At my school a huge percentage work full-

time jobs, and even more work part time.If we want them to devote time to class,they need to be able to see value in thework they’re doing there. When we invertour classes, and make active learning theprimary instructional strategy, we keepour students involved day to day. They’reless likely to miss class, less likely to bomban exam, less likely to disengage. Theirtime is used wisely, and so are our talents.

REFERENCES:Ambrose, Susan, et al. How Learning Works:Seven Research-Based Principles for SmartTeaching. Jossey-Bass, 2010.

Angelo, Thomas A. and Cross, K. Patricia.Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Hand-book for College Teachers. Jossey-Bass, 1993.

Bligh, Donald A. What’s the Use of Lectures?Intellect Books, 1998 (first published in 1971).

Chickering, Arthur W. and Gamson, Zelda F.“Seven Principles for Good Practice in Under-graduate Education.” The American Associationfor Higher Education Bulletin, March 1987.

Lage, M.J., Platt, G.J., & Treglia, M. (2000).“Inverting the classroom: a gateway to creatingan inclusive learning environment.” The Journalof Economic Education, 31(1).

A blog by Derek Bruff, on the inverted class-room: http://derekbruff.com/site/blog/2011/04/28/mobile-learning-and-the-inverted-class-room-edusprint/

A website for the Flipped Network, wherefaculty can ask each other questions:http://vodcasting.ning.com/

Another resource, by two faculty members atthe University of Northern Colorado:http://www.flippedclassroom.com/

Salman Khan’s inspiring talk about makingcontent available online, and creating class-room space for activities: www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html

I ISSUES TO CONSIDER

Illustration: Steve McCracken 9

STUDENTS AREWELL-TRAINED IN PASSIVITY

When you first ask stu-dents to take charge oftheir own learning, somewill be skeptical. Theyknow it’s easier to listen,memorize a few things,and forget them after theexam. It will help if youcan set the right tone onthe first day. Rather thansimply reading over thesyllabus and then dismiss-ing class, practice the be-haviors you expect to see:have students work ingroups to come up withbig-picture questions theyexpect the class to answer.Assess their prior knowl-edge on your topic andgrapple with misconcep-tions. If they talk, write,analyze, and interrogatefrom the first moments ofclass, they’ll quickly adaptto the novel class culture.

You may need to teachstudents to work effec-tively in groups. You mayalso need to coach themin critical thinking, helping

them acquire the habitof questioning. If youturn your classroom in-side out, your studentswill end up workingharder—but you need tomake sure it isn’t “busywork,” which students re-sent; it needs to be clearlytied to the goals of theclass.

WHAT DO I DO WHILETHEY’RE WORKING? Some of our reluctance to “flip” arises from un-certainty about our ownrole. We’re used to beingpinned at the front of theclassroom, and it can feelstrange to move around.What do I do when stu-dents are writing quietly?!

You will need to rangearound the room, answer-ing and asking questions,checking progress, com-menting on work andideas, keeping groups ontrack, etc. Students willend up feeling more connected to you, sinceyou’re not behind an invisible barrier, but circu-lating in their space. Overthe course of the semester

you’ll have time to giveeach student at least afew moments of individualattention, no matter howlarge the class.

GETTING STARTED.A lot of us already employactive learning techniques,but we tend to use themto break up our lecturesor occasionally providefeedback on studentprogress. But when youthink about what youwant students to takeaway from your class,those active learningstrategies become yourfocus. Students can solvethose calculus problemsright in class—maybeeven aloud—and have tojustify their logic at eachstep. How much food doesa pioneer family need fora Nebraska winter? What-ever the ideas we want toinstill, we can provide ourstudents with practice in

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE10

NEA Members Insurance Trust! and Plan 2010 SUMMARY ANNUAL REPORT

(Plan Year Beginning September 1, 2010)

The following is the summary annual report for the NEA Members Insurance Trust® and Plan (collectively Trust), Employer Identification Number 53-0115260, providing information on the insurance programs sponsored by the National Education Association (NEA) including the NEA Life Insurance® Program, NEA Accidental Death & Dismemberment Insurance Program, and NEA Complimentary LifeSM Program for the period beginning September 1, 2010, and ending August 31, 2011. The annual report has been filed with the Employee Benefits Security Administration, as required under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). BASIC NEA MEMBERS INSURANCE TRUST FINANCIAL INFORMATION

The value of Trust assets, after subtracting liabilities of the Trust, was $97,799,896 as of August 31, 2011, compared to $89,794,720 as of September 1, 2010. During the Trust year, the Trust experienced an increase in its net assets of $8,005,176. During the Trust year, the Trust had total income of $114,565,123 including participant contributions of $98,805,996, a net appreciation in the market value of investments of $11,760,812, and earnings from investments of $4,636,345. Trust expenses were $104,006,546. These expenses included benefits paid to participants and beneficiaries, administrative and other expenses. INFORMATION FOR NEA LIFE INSURANCE PROGRAM

The Trust has a contract with Minnesota Life Insurance Company to pay all NEA Preferred Term Life Insurance claims and The Prudential Insurance Company of America to pay all other NEA Life Insurance claims incurred under the terms of this program. Because it is a so called "experienced rated" contract, the premium costs are affected by, among other things, the number and size of claims. The total premiums for the Trust plan year beginning September 1, 2010, and ending August 31, 2011, made under such "experienced-rated" contract were $56,322,586 and the total of all benefit claims paid under the contract during the Trust year was $48,585,381. The total number of participants was 506,102. INFORMATION FOR NEA ACCIDENTAL DEATH & DISMEMBERMENT (AD&D) PROGRAM

The Trust has a contract with The Prudential Insurance Company of America to pay all NEA AD&D claims incurred under the terms of the Trust. Because it is a so called "experienced rated" contract, the

premium costs are affected by, among other things, the number and size of claims. The total premiums for the Trust plan year beginning September 1, 2010, and ending August 31, 2011, made under such "experienced-rated" contract were $3,363,948 and the total of all benefit claims paid under the contract during the Trust year was $2,920,396. The total number of participants was 164,535. INFORMATION FOR NEA COMPLIMENTARY LIFE INSURANCE PROGRAM

The Trust has a contract with The Prudential Insurance Company of America to pay all NEA Complimentary Life Insurance claims incurred under the terms of the Trust. The NEA Complimentary Life Insurance Program is self-supporting and paid by premiums from the NEA Members Insurance Trust funds rather than from Member contributions. Because it is a so called "experienced rated" contract, the premium costs are affected by, among other things, the number and size of claims. The total premiums for the Trust plan year beginning September 1, 2010, and ending August 31, 2011, were $2,025,446 and the total of all benefit claims paid under the contract during the Trust year was $1,548,580. The total number of participants was 3,087,941. YOUR RIGHTS TO ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

As a participant, you have the legally protected right to receive a copy of the full annual report, or any part thereof for a reasonable charge or you may inspect the Annual Report without charge at the office of NEA Members Insurance Trust, Attn: NEA Member Benefits, 1201 Sixteenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 or at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. upon payment of copying costs. Requests to the Department should be addressed to: Public Disclosure Room, Room N–1513, Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20210. You also have the right to receive from the Trust Administrator, on request and at no charge, a statement of the assets and liabilities of the Trust and accompanying notes, or a statement of income and expenses of the Trust and accompanying notes, or both. If you request a copy of the full annual report from the plan administrator, these two statements and accompanying notes will be included as part of that report. The charge to cover copying costs given above does not include a charge for the copying of these portions of the report because these portions are furnished without charge.

24–29% The increase inmiddle-incomestudents choosing to attend community colleges.

12–22%The increase inupper-incomestudents choosing to attend community colleges.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE 11

Closing the Door, Increasing the Gap

BY THE NUMBERS

MAKING IT WORSE for poor students espe-cially, tuition at public two-year collegesalso is rising, an expected 5.6 percent over-all in 2012, according to community collegedirectors. (This is on top of steady increasesfor the past few years.) So, even if a studentcan get into a class, can he or she afford totake it? Are community colleges just for therich these days? “Rather than get into debtto pay higher tuition, many students simplydo not attend. They do not so much go intodebt as they just don’t go,” wrote Rhoades.

Increase in Enrollment by Income

Source: “How America Pays For College,” Sallie Mae, 2011.

DESPITE THE RECENT EMPHASIS on job creation programs at community colleges, and the White House’s efforts to steer billions of dollars more to those schools, morethan 400,000 qualified students have been turned away at community colleges in theU.S. in recent years, according to “Closing the Door, Increasing the Gap: Who’s notgoing to (community) college?” a report issued last month by The Campaign for theFuture of Higher Education (futureofhighered.org), and written by Professor GaryRhoades of the University of Arizona.

“THE PROBLEM IS INSUFFICIENT PUBLIC INVESTMENT IN THESE COLLEGES, NOT THEIR

FAILURE TO REDUCE SPENDING AND INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY.”

— Professor Gary Rhoades

The problem is particularly acute in California, where 133,000 first-time communitycollege students were unable to enroll in even one course in 2009-2010, according toa recent report of the California Community Colleges. But it’s not just California. In2009, Florida’s Miami Dade College announced it couldn’t serve 30,000 students. And,in Michigan last year, community college enrollment declined up to 5 percent overall.

Decline in Enrollment by Region

5.1%DECLINEIN ENROLL-

MENT AT COMMUNITYCOLLEGES BETWEEN

2009 AND 2010. Source: The National Student Clearinghouse

Research Center (NSC), “Signature Report,” 2011.

–1.6

%

–4.

9%

–1.6

%

–9.1

%

1205Advocate_pg11 revised_Layout 1 4/16/12 1:48 PM Page 11

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE12

Recruiting and RetainingLatino Faculty Members:

The Missing Piece to Latino Student SuccessBy Luis Ponjuan

the last decade (56 percent) and currentlyrepresent 16.3 percent of the United Statespopulation. Unfortunately, this growth hasn’tbeen mirrored in higher education. Latinostudents had the lowest percentage (27.5 per-cent) of college enrollment compared toWhite and Black students. Nevertheless,Latino enrollment numbers in higher educa-tion are on the rise: going from 14.8 million in1999 to more than 20 million in 2009...

While Latino students are enrolling in greaternumbers, Latino faculty have not seen similargrowth, making up only four percent of fac-ulty nationwide. These contrasting imagesbetween the faculty and student demograph-ics portend an inevitable truth that the highereducation student population is dramaticallychanging, while the faculty members of colorare still not representative of the incomingcohort of students of color.

As a Latino faculty member, these troublingtrends resonate with me and remind me thatadditional work is needed to understand howinstitutions can improve their commitment toLatino faculty members. In this article, Ioffer ten specific policy and programmaticrecommendations to improve conditions...

1) Improve Latino Doctoral Student Social-ization, 2) Educate Faculty Search Commit-tees, and 3) Develop Latino Faculty LearningCommunities... (As) Flores and Garcia note,

“Trying to feel you belong in a PredominantlyWhite Institution is very difficult, and some-times isolation overwhelms you. However, itall changes when you can sit down in a groupthat understands you.”

4) Create Post-Doctoral Development Pro-grams, such as the successful programs atthe University of North Carolina and Univer-sity of California system, and 5) DevelopPolicies for Pre-Tenure Faculty Doctoral Su-pervision Work: Even though the workloadfor all faculty members can be daunting andchallenging, this is particularly acute for in-coming Latinos. Deans need to develop poli-cies to prioritize and manage how Latinofaculty are assigned to service commitments.

6) Implement Pre-Tenure Faculty Tenure Re-view Policies, 7) Redefine Pre-Tenure FacultyMembers’ Mentoring Policies, and 8) ImprovePre-Tenure Faculty Work Roles: Researchershave found faculty members of color oftenface multiple or conflicting roles, whichoften lead to occupational stress. Recent re-search also highlights that female facultymembers of color often face additional bur-dens related to mentoring students.

9) Prioritize the Allocation of Department Re-sources for Pre-Tenure Faculty, and 10) Im-prove Faculty Department Climate. Chairsshould reexamine department practices andpolicies (e.g. office space and allocation, ex-clusionary tactics) that may create a passiveor active hostile climate for faculty membersof color.

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL

EDITOR’S NOTE:For his important workin helping to create anenvironment where allstudents can access

their dreams, Luis Pon-juan, assistant professor

at the University ofFlorida, has won the

2011 New Scholar Prizefrom Thought & Action’sreview panel. This is anexcerpt of his prize-win-ning article. To read theinterview in its entirety,

visit www.nea.org/thoughtandaction.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau,Latinos have accounted for most ofthe nation’s population growth over

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE 13

CaliforniaThe California Faculty Association (CFA) callsit the “CSU Presidential Perk Carousel,” andpoints to the recent $50,000-plus salary raisethat one state university president won forsimply moving down the freeway to anothercampus. Meanwhile, after 18 months of frus-trating negotiations, CFA members still don’thave a fair contract, and were gearing up fora massive strike vote in late April.

FloridaMore than $300 million for state universitieswill be cut this year, unless Gov. Rick Scottvetoes the Legislature’s misguided spendingplan. “This is a disaster for Florida,” said for-mer U.S. Senator Bob Graham, who urgedlawmakers to find savings by closing corpo-rate tax loopholes instead. How sensible!

KansasMore bad news for the middle class. A pend-ing pension bill, passed by the state House inApril, would eliminate defined-benefit pen-sions for new public employees, includingstate faculty. Good bye, retirement security.

LouisianaA massive pension reform package for thisstate’s public university employees wouldraise the retirement age to 67, and increaseemployee contributions by three percent to11 percent. The measures aren’t aimed at K-12 teachers yet, but the Louisiana Associationof Educators is working hard in opposition.

MichiganUniversity of Michigan and Central MichiganUniversity are the latest targets of this state’sout-of-control Legislature, which seeks multi-million dollar budget cuts at the two schools,apparently to punish them for their positionson stem-cell research and mandatory healthinsurance for students. Meanwhile, Michiganvoters are fighting back with the “ProtectOur Jobs” campaign, which would amend thestate’s constitution to strengthen the middleclass and their collective bargaining rights.Learn more about it at protectourjobs.com.

Minnesota“Right to work laws hurt the middle class,erode wages, and weaken worker rights and

benefits. The proof is in the states that havethese laws,” Damon Kapke, a Lake SuperiorCollege instructor and vice-president of theMinnesota State College Faculty, testified tostate lawmakers this spring. Did lawmakershear him? As of press time, an effort to placea right-to-work constitutional amendment onthe ballot this fall had gone nowhere.

Montana“Yes, we want a union!” exclaimed graduatestudents at Montana State University (MSU)in Bozeman, who voted three to one in Aprilfor the new MSU Graduate Employee Organi-zation (GEO), an affiliate of MEA-MFT. Nextup: A fair contract bargained in good faith.

New YorkAfter making more than 75,000 calls to statelawmakers, and successfully convincing themthat retirement security is actually good forthe middle class (duh!), union members suc-cessfully protected their state pension planand defeated an effort to move newly hiredfaculty and other public university employeesto a 401K-style retirement plan. Way to go!

THE STATE OF HIGHER ED

I TWO-MINUTE INTERVIEW > CAROL STENSVAD

What was happening inyour life in 2009?

When I married my husbandin 2004, he had some healthproblems, but we were ableto enjoy life. Then, in 2007,he was diagnosed with kid-ney cancer, and he was sentfor chemo treatments inNorth Platte, which is 70miles away. By 2009 he hadalso developed Type II dia-betes and bladder cancer. So

we had some major thingsgoing on. I was using FMLA(guaranteed by the federalFamily Medical Leave Act)leave to take him to the doc-tor, and my supervisor didn’tlike it. He told me to put Bobon the shuttle bus. I askedhim, “How is that going towork? Bob can’t even hear.”That day, when he called meinto his office, he gave me 15minutes to pack up 10 yearsof my life.

Did you like your work? I loved it! For 10 years, Iloved it. I loved meeting thepeople, setting up the pro-grams, hiring the instructors.

The power of paper is...When this all started, NSEAUniserv Director Ellen Yatestold me, “Paper trail, papertrail!” You have to keeprecords of conversations,notes, etc. If I got an emailand I knew it’d be pertinent,I’d sent it to my home emailaddress. That’s what reallymade the case.

Do you feel like your unionmembership helped?Without a doubt! It’s worthevery dollar you pay, and it’s

not that many dollars. With-out my union membership, Idon’t think an attorney inthe state of Nebraska wouldhave taken this case.

Any advice for colleaguesin similar situations?If you’re having a problem,contact your union represen-tative first and talk to them.Document everything.

What happened to yourterrible supervisor?He was terminated a yearafter me.

And how are things now?We are grateful for everyday.

CAROL STENSVAD was an administrative assistant atMid-Plains Community College in Nebraska in 2009when her boss said: “Come to my office,” and thenfired her for taking too much sick leave! Fortunately,as a union member she wasn’t alone in the fight forfairness. With the Nebraska State Education Associa-tion’s help, she won a $160,000-plus settlement.

Q: The president of NEA’s Na-tional Council for Higher Edu-cation, also a communitycollege professor, once said,“Community colleges are thebest-kept secret in America!”Is this changing? If so, why?

BIDEN: For a long time, Ifound myself saying the samething! I do think this is chang-ing... From the first-everWhite House Summit on Com-munity Colleges to the Presi-dent’s budget proposal for anadditional $8 billion for aCommunity College to CareerFund, it’s clear the value ofcommunity colleges is beingrecognized. The President iscommitted to forging part-nerships between communitycolleges and businesses totrain workers with skills thatlead directly to jobs.

People also are looking atcommunity colleges as a moreaffordable path. In these eco-nomic times, it can be atremendous relief for familiesto know that community col-lege is a great option.

Q: State funding to highereducation declined by 7 per-cent overall last year. In someplaces, those cuts have led tofaculty layoffs and studentenrollment caps, undercuttingthe promise of a public edu-cation. How can we addressthose issues?

BIDEN: The President hasproposed the College Afford-

ability and Completion frame-work, which provides incen-tives for states to commit tohigher education and strate-gies for student success.These policies include makingit easier to complete schoolon time and maintaining con-sistent funding for higher ed-ucation.

States can help by imple-menting policies that reducethe time it takes to earn a de-gree, while also developingdata systems to better tracksuccess. State budget chal-lenges should not becomethe burden of students andfamilies; states need to haveresponsible tuition policies.

Q: Mitt Romney endorsed aplan to deliver the biggest-ever cuts to Pell Grants, whileRick Santorum talks aboutcollege “snobs.” If they couldmeet your students, whatmight these candidates learnabout college affordability?

BIDEN: I am proud to be partof an Administration that hasmade education a priority byraising the maximum PellGrant amount, making it eas-ier to apply for student aidand manage student loandebt, and expanding theAmerican Opportunity TaxCredit.

Many of my students work sohard just to be in the class-room – they’re often jugglingjobs, families and other obli-

gations. They need to be ableto fulfill their dreams withoutbeing saddled with burden-some debt.

The President has said hewants every American to getat least one year of highereducation or post-secondarytraining, because we know itwill help them succeed in thelong term. Students shouldn’thave to choose between tu-ition and basic necessities fortheir family. A Pell Grant canmake all the difference.

Q: Are you the same teacheryou were 20 or 30 years ago?

BIDEN: No matter whatteaching methods I havechanged, I have found thesame premise to be true overtime – it’s all about buildingconfidence in your students.The bottom line is that at theend of the day, they need tobelieve they have the skillsthey require to be successful.

Q: One last question: Whatwould you recommend forour summer reading lists?

BIDEN: I always recommendLittle Bee by Chris Cleave, Un-broken by Laura Hillenbrand,and The Poisonwood Bible byBarbara Kingsolver.

This interview was excerpted froma longer interview at neatoday.org:

To check out the full text, visitnea.today.org/2012/03/26/

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE14

Suddenly, it seems everybody, including President Obama, is talking about community collegesand their vital role in training workers for American jobs. But Jill Biden, wife to Vice President JoeBiden, has known for years that community colleges provide a low-cost, high-quality education.That’s because Biden has a front-row seat at Northern Virginia Community College, where she

has taught Developmental English as an adjunct professor since 2009.

JILL BIDENAdjunct professor,Northern Virginia Community College

The best-kept secret in America:Jill Biden spills the beans on

community colleges

In November, Americanswill elect their president.Stay informed of the issuesand be alerted to volunteeropportunities. Register asan Educator for Obama atwww.neafund.org.

DIALOGUE

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE 15

Affirmative ActionThe Court considers college admissionsBY JASON WALTA

THE FINAL GAVEL has yet to fall on the Supreme Court’scurrent term. But, as eager as observers are to see howthe current cases shake out, one case in particular al-ready has many others looking ahead to the next term.

That case is Fisher v. University of Texas. And the rea-son it has drawn such attention is simple: it puts theissue of affirmative action squarely in the national spot-light just eight years after the Court upheld the use ofrace in the University of Michigan Law School's admis-sions decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger.

Prior to Grutter, the University of Texas filled most of itsfreshman class using a program that does not consider anapplicant’s race: the Top Ten Percent Plan, which auto-matically admits any Texas resident who graduates in thetop ten percent of her high school class. To fill the re-maining spots, university officials looked at factors suchas academic performance, essays, leadership qualities,and work experience—but not race.

After the Court’s decision in Grutter, the university keptits Top Ten plan, but added race as one of the factorsconsidered in the individualized assessment of appli-cants to fill the remaining slots. By doing so, universityofficials hoped to achieve greater diversity.

The plaintiff in the case, Abigail Fisher, is a white Texandenied admission, who argues that the admissions policydiscriminated against her because of her race and thatminority students with less impressive credentials wereadmitted instead of her. Fisher lost before the trial courtand the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, bothof which found that the university’s use of race as part ofa “a holistic, multi-factor, individualized assessment ofeach applicant” was permitted by Grutter.

What would prompt the Court to review an affirmativeaction policy so closely modeled on another policy ap-

proved just eight years earlier? Mostly the compositionof the Court itself, it appears. Grutter was decided by anarrow 5-4 vote, with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor au-thoring the majority opinion. Her replacement, JusticeSamuel Alito, is viewed as a reliable opponent of affirma-tive action. This means that the key vote will be JusticeAnthony Kennedy, who voted to strike down the policyat issue in Grutter but declined to join a wholesale con-demnation of affirmative action. Instead, Kennedy ac-cepted a key proposition for allowing affirmativeaction—that a certain level of racial diversity in highereducation is a “compelling governmental interest”—butdid not accept that Michigan’s particular plan was “nar-rowly tailored” to achieve that interest.

To complicate matters, Justice Elena Kagan is disquali-fied from participation, due to her earlier involvement asSolicitor General. Thus, even if Kennedy can be per-suaded to uphold the Texas policy, the likely resultwould be a 4-4 split. In that event, the lower court deci-sion upholding the policy would simply remain intact,but it would not set binding precedent for other courts.

But, for defenders of affirmative action, the more dismalprospect is that Kennedy will vote against the Texas pol-icy and write an opinion that—while offering lip serviceto the proven benefits of racial diversity in higher educa-tion—nevertheless places those benefits permanentlyout of reach because no plan will meet his exacting stan-dards for what qualifies as “narrowly tailored.”

And there is still one more wrinkle to this story. By thetime the case is heard, the plaintiff will have graduatedfrom another university. As a result, her case will havearguably become moot, which would ordinarily require adismissal. At that point, the case may come down to thetension that animates so many of the Court’s importantdecisions: whether the push for political expediency canresist the pull of seemingly settled legal doctrine.

Jason Walta isan attorney inthe NEA Office ofGeneral Counseland an adjunctfaculty member at American University’sWashington College of Law.

CASE STUDY

Class MattersALL GOOD EXECUTIVES know that peoplearen’t born wanting to buy a Mercedes.Desire must be created and nurtured inthe media, through government lobbying,and with big advertising budgets.

Such is the case with Andrew S.Rosen’s book, Change.edu: Rebooting forthe new talent economy. It is a well-writ-ten but pretty orthodox manifestation ofthe well-funded web of foundations, thinktanks, and task forces whose job it is todemonize public education and expandthe for-profit college market.

Rosen is chairman and CEO of Kaplan,Inc., one of the world’s largest for-profiteducation companies, and a graduate ofYale University. In his view, companieslike Kaplan, armed with the shiniest newmanagement strategies and ed tech inno-vations, have arrived just in time to boostU.S. educational attainment, save the newtalent economy, and most nobly, help thepoor and working classes get a no-non-sense grip on their own bootstraps.

Within the context that Rosen deftlycreates, his points about access and grad-uation rates make sense. But more inter-esting than his specific arguments are theways those arguments are framed. Themost revealing parts of Change.edu arethe things it takes for granted and thethings it leaves out.

Perhaps the scariest thing the booktakes for granted is the deplorable rate ofstate funding for public higher education.Rosen treats our wildly regressive taxpolicies and ever-declining public funding

as though they are ineluctable facts, notpolitical and moral choices. And, while hepoints out that state-subsidized higher ed-ucation is primarily a 20th century phe-nomenon, he fails to note how successfulit was. The past century’s tremendousgrowth of U.S. democracy, industry, andclass mobility was fueled by a system thatallowed large numbers of regular peopleto access the same world-class curricu-lum, faculty, and facilities that rich kids inthe Ivy League took for granted.

But it is on the subject of profit thatRosen is at his most disingenuous. With asunniness that would make Horatio Algerblush, Rosen dismisses the recruiting andloan abuses that spawned congressionalhearings. He assures us that the profitmotive actually forces private-sector col-leges to do everything possible to meetthe needs of their customers (much likecable TV companies, one presumes.)

In truth, privatizing education is elimi-nating one of the few remaining checkson capitalist exploitation and immisera-tion. When all of their faux-populistrhetorical smoke clears, we can see thateducation profiteers like Rosen under-stand this all too well. It’s why they keepsneding their kids to the same legitimateuniversities they went to.

NEA’s Office of Higher Education isnow on Facebook. To keep up withcurrent news and discuss events

with your colleagues find us at www.facebook.com/neahighered.

Bill Lyne is a professor ofEnglish at Western Washington University and a former president ofthe United Faculty ofWashington State.

TALK BACK:

A recent story on NEA’sEducation Votes websiteelicited a few commentsabout the dismal state ofadjunct pay, benefits,and working conditions,including this one:

“Have you tried gettinginvolved in your union?”asks Nancy Traver of Co-lumbia College, Chicago.“We have been workingfor two years (on a newcontract). What we getfrom the college negotia-tors is bad faith bargain-ing, intimidation ofmembers and interfer-ence in union activities.One of the problems forus is the lack of involve-ment by the other unionmembers. I understandthat people are very busytrying to earn a living,but if we want to showstrength, we have to getinvolved!”

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE16

1201 16th St., N.W.Washington, DC 20036-3290

OPINION