Part-time Pay for Office Hours!

By Renee Fraser

The single most important factor in student success in college, according to the students themselves, is contact with and access to their instructors. The lack of pay or spaces for part-time faculty members to meet with students has been a barrier to providing that contact, reducing student success.

However, at the state level, a portion of your union dues goes to the California Federation of Teachers (CFT), which, along with other groups like the Faculty Association of Community Colleges (FACCC), and California Part-Time Faculty Association (CPFA), lobby the Legislature in Sacramento for money to pay for part-time office hours.

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What this means for you

Under the current contract, the amount of office hours you will be compensated for is determined based upon your teaching load as shown in Figure 1.

In other words, if you are teaching two courses with a total .41 FTE load you will be paid for 6 office hours at your current hourly rate. While this is great news, part-time faculty must now include a listing of office hours in their syllabus.

All non-contract faculty receiving such compensation shall inform his or her students of the time and place of the office hours by including the schedule in the syllabus for each class that is a part of the faculty member’s assignment. Upon request from the Department Chair or supervising administrator, the faculty member shall also furnish that person with a copy of the schedule. The above shall be in compliance with Education Code sections 87880-87885 et seq.¹ 

1 Agreement Between Ventura County Community College District and Ventura County Federation of College Teachers, AFT Local 1828, AFL-CIO, July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2019. ​

What You Need to Do 

Aside from publishing your office hours and notifying your supervisor, nothing. The District will automatically calculate your office-hours pay based upon the above 10 AFT 1828 formula and it will be included in the final paycheck of the semester. There is no timesheet required, and no other paperwork at this time. 

Would you like to see more pay for part-time office hours? If these and other part-time specific issues are important to you, join the AFT Local 1828’s Part-Time Caucus. In this coming year we will be lobbying the legislature, and encouraging the Governor to put more money aside in the budget specifically for this and other purposes impacting part-time faculty. State legislators are not used to hearing directly from their constituents on these issues, so letters and calls are quite effective. United we can make a difference! 

To join the Part-time Caucus, please email Renee Fraser at rfraseraft1828@gmail.com from your private email address. 

Renee Fraser may be reached for comment at: rfraseraft1828@gmail.com