BILL REQ. #:  S-3980.1 

Read first time 01/16/08.   Referred to Committee on Higher Education.

     AN ACT Relating to faculty employment opportunities at community and technical colleges; and adding a new section to chapter 28B.52 RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   A new section is added to chapter 28B.52 RCW to read as follows:
     (1) It is the purpose of this section to provide faculty and college excellence for its citizens by addressing growing concerns about the academic staffing crisis in higher education and its affect on student achievement and retention. Staffing issues, including the economic exploitation of adjunct faculty along with the shrinking ranks of full-time tenured faculty, limit the ability of the state system of higher education to provide high quality education, improve retention rates, conduct research, and provide support for economic development. Promoting faculty and college excellence will result in better service for students, communities, and the economy.
     (2)(a) It is the goal of this section that at least seventy-five percent of the courses taught or academic assignments held in each department on each campus of a community and technical college district, if the department has at least eight full-time equivalent academic workloads as described in RCW 28B.50.489, shall be taught or held by full-time tenured or tenure track faculty by 2014.
     (b) It is a further goal that part-time and nontenured faculty in community and technical colleges receive consideration for continuing employment and for new tenure-track positions.
     (3) By fall quarter 2008, each community and technical college shall determine the number of full-time equivalent faculty appointments held by part-time, nontenured, tenure-track, and tenured faculty in each academic department and shall report their findings to the state board for community and technical colleges, their boards of trustees, and the exclusive representatives of the faculty.
     (4)(a) Those community and technical colleges that do not meet the goal in subsection (2)(a) of this section shall create a plan to meet the goal, subject to collective bargaining with the exclusive representatives of the faculty, by summer quarter 2009. In its plan, the institution shall state how it intends to meet its goal by, but not limited to, creating new full-time tenure-track appointments, creating opportunities for adjunct faculty to attain full-time positions, and converting classes or assignments left vacant by attrition, but not by discharging currently employed part-time or nontenure track faculty. Special attention should be paid to increasing the number of full-time faculty in departments of math, science, adult basic education, early childhood education, and English.
     (b) Those departments that do not meet the seventy-five percent goal as described in subsection (2)(a) of this section shall, subject to the availability of amounts appropriated for this specific purpose, beginning in September 2009, and in each succeeding year, plan to increase the share of positions held by full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty so that by 2014 the legislature's goal of seventy-five percent is met.
     (c) Each biennium, the governing board of each community and technical college shall submit in its biennial budget request an amount of funds sufficient to cover the projected costs of implementing this section.
     (5)(a) Each community and technical college shall establish a process, subject to collective bargaining, under which part-time and full-time nontenured faculty members, after successful completion of an evaluation period, receive timely notice of and priority consideration, consistent with other institutional and state policies, for academic employment assignments for which they are qualified in their discipline in coming academic terms. The priority consideration shall include either rights of first refusal for eligible classes and assignments or a continuing contract with due process rights.
     (b) Each institution of higher education shall create, subject to collective bargaining, a process for ensuring that qualified internal applicants receive priority consideration for attaining a tenure-track position when one becomes available such as, but not limited to, a job interview for positions where minimum requirements have been met.
     (c) The processes in this subsection shall be consistent with
institutional and state affirmative action and other personnel policies and shall ensure that nontenured-track faculty: (i) Accumulate seniority; (ii) are notified of job openings before the job is posted outside of the institution of higher education; and (iii) have priority consideration for appointments.