AN ACT Relating to supporting student success at community and technical colleges by increasing full-time faculty and stabilizing the use of part-time faculty; creating new sections; and providing an expiration date.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that having adequately staffed faculty at the state's community and technical colleges is a significant factor in providing students with academic excellence, better educational opportunities, and overall student success. It is the intent of the legislature to improve student success in the community and technical college system by increasing the number of full-time tenured and tenure-track academic employee positions at community and technical colleges. The legislature further finds that inadequate levels of compensation for nontenure track faculty at community and technical colleges, which includes associate, adjunct, contingent, and part-time faculty, undermines the quality of the educational experience by contributing significantly to limited time on campus outside of class time, the need to work at multiple colleges and take on unrelated additional work, lack of access to college resources for themselves as faculty and their students, and marginalization within the college community.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. (1) Subject to the availability of amounts appropriated for this specific purpose, the state board for community and technical colleges must study the ratio of part-time to full-time academic employees by discipline at each community and technical college and make recommendations for creating more full-time employment positions. Each community and technical college district must develop a plan to reduce reliance on part-time academic employees through conversion of positions to full-time status, salary improvements, and other remedies deemed appropriate given labor market conditions and educational programs offered and provide it to the state board for community and technical colleges. The board shall work with academic employee collective bargaining representatives to develop and submit a report on the study with recommendations for improving the ratio of part-time to full-time academic employees. The board shall submit the report to the fiscal and higher education committees of the legislature no later than December 31, 2020.