Historic win for adjunct faculty

Health benefits parity achieved for part-time instructors in LACCD

BY LINDSEY WHITTAKER Reporter

After months of negotiations, the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) has agreed to offer adjunct faculty the same health care benefits as full-time faculty.

According to a press announcement released by LACCD on April 12, the benefits option will be available to all adjunct faculty employed at a 0.33 full-time equivalent. The benefits also extend to eligible dependents and will take effect after the part-time health care measure from COVID expires later this summer.

AFT 1521 Chapter President Angela Belden said the change has been a long time coming.

“Part-time faculty are essential to the mission of community colleges and essential to the mission of higher education,” Belden said. “We absolutely cannot educate students without them.”

Formal negotiations have been ongoing since last fall, but for Belden and her colleagues, the seed was planted about one year ago.

It was not until Governor Gavin Newsom earmarked $200 million in a state budget proposal in January 2022, that the discussion started gaining traction. Belden said she went to Sacramento herself to lobby for this bill.

“I was up there with my colleagues, knocking on doors, shaking hands and pleading with legislators to please keep this $200 million in the budget and to allow us to provide health care for part-time faculty,” Belden said.

Pierce College alone has over 600 adjunct faculty, and even though they will have the right to opt-in to the benefits, it is unclear how many of them will benefit from the health care options offered.

Adjunct Professor of Anthropology Angela Kirwin said it would be helpful for herself and her family.

“The adjunct health insurance benefit was a wonderful surprise for me,” Kirwin said.

“It will make my life much easier as it will save me a lot of money each month that I am currently paying out of pocket for my husband's insurance.”

Assistant Professor of Cinema, Screenwriting & Media Arts Daniel J. Nyiri has been an adjunct professor at LACCD for about eight years. He said if the benefits offered are affordable he will take advantage.

“If the Memorandum of

Understanding (MOU) is honored, then I will probably switch to an insurance plan comparable to the one I have now,” Nyiri said. “Which will greatly improve my life, give me better access to health care, and save me a lot of money.”

While some faculty are celebrating the MOU, others feel there is still much work to do to create true parity between full and part-time faculty.

“Every victory is a step in the right direction,” Belden said. “But until we have 100% parity for our part-time faculty, there's still work to be done.”

To be eligible for benefits, adjunct faculty must maintain 33% of the required annual course load and each discipline has its own requirements.

For example, psychology and statistics are 30 units per year or 15 units a semester. For other

The Academic Senate meeting also covered several grants that were recently awarded or are in the works for Pierce, one of which was announced by Faculty Professional Development Coordinator Brian Moe.

The Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Practices “Best Practice Initiative” Grants were awarded to Pierce as well as 58 other schools. The goal of this $300,000 grant is to bridge the gap between performances of different demographics in schools and allow schools to better serve the students. The grant will be distributed to Pierce over the next 3 years with $150,000 issued for 2024 and 2025.

Pierce applied with a focus on the EDIT program - which is the equity, diversity, and inclusivity team developed by the English department. The goal of this grant is to provide services to lessen the equity gaps within the school.

“This is a way to expand that,” Moe said. “By putting some funding behind it, we get more programs involving different disciplines throughout the campus. It will better support our students and help us speak to a wide range of backgrounds.” disciplines, it is less but it can also go up to 24 credits per semester.

The next Academic Senate meeting will be held at the Faculty and Staff Center Monday, May 8, at 2:15 p.m..

However, it can be hard to get that many classes when fulltime faculty get the first pick of what to teach. Since getting a class may be difficult at their home college, adjuncts often look to additional opportunities at other community colleges within LACCD or even outside the district.

Belden noted that many adjunct faculty teach part-time, but they do it full-time across a handful of schools which can be logistically difficult.

“Let's say you were going to teach a 9:35 a.m. class at Pierce on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then you got offered a class that started at 11:30 a.m. at Valley or Mission,” Belden said. “You probably wouldn't be able to take that class because it takes 30 minutes or longer to drive between the two campuses.”

Nyiri notes that even if he works 12 teaching hours a week that works out to almost a full 40-hour week with all the work that goes on outside of class time.

“I have about 70 students currently in the district, and I figure that works out to about one hour per student per week if I do my job well,” Nyiri said.

Belden said having affordable health care through LACCD is one less thing for adjunct faculty to have to worry about.

“Having affordable health care that they can count on from LACCD is absolutely essential,” Belden said. “When our faculty are healthy, they're better at serving our students. They miss fewer classes, they're more attentive and they're able to just be human. That is so important.”

Having the chance to perform on a big bright stage, in front of an unfamiliar audience, is an opportunity that many artists crave.

Pierce College’s Music, Theatre, and Dance departments held a diverse performing arts showcase during Multicultural Day Thursday afternoon.

Percussion Instructor Kevin Good organized the program to include various music students along with having the theater department present a selection from their upcoming musical production of “Rent” by Jonathon Larson.

Performances featured music from the Pierce samba club, performance workshop class, and studio jazz band.

“Every performance opportunity the students get is incredible,” Good said. “One of the great and challenging things about performance workshop is everyone is coming from different backgrounds and different styles of music. That to me is what's going to really help build their artistry.” There were many different instruments played throughout the performance workshop and studio jazz band showcase. From the cello and the piano, all the way to bass, drums, saxophone, trumpet and guitar.

Music Professor Wendy Mazon reached out to Good and other music instructors, theater and dance departments to create a performing arts showcase that gave students the opportunity to perform in front of an audience.

“We have a course in the music school called ‘performance workshop,’ which is open to anyone,” Good said. “You don't have to be a music major, but we have music majors. That class is basically a safe and open space for people to practice performing in front of others.”

Pierce student and jazz musician Adrian Clark spoke of the importance of being comfortable on stage as an artist and musician.

“I feel like I've gotten pretty comfortable at performing in front of people at this point, especially as a jazz musician,” Clark said. “The trickiest part is just trying to be comfortable on stage because I feel like that's when you put out your best sound.”

Pierce’s musical production of “Rent” performed “La Vie

Boheme” to give the public a snippet of their upcoming show. Musical Director and Collaborative Pianist Ryan Espinosa’s dual role in this production involves working with the actors and their vocals, along with playing piano during the show rehearsals.

“This is one of, I want to say, 27 or so numbers in the show,” Espinosa said. “We've been spending about six hours, maybe a little more each week to prepare them for the show overall.” Espinosa shared how much time and effort everybody put into this production, in addition to preparing for their performance today.

“We began our processes in early February, right when the semester starts,” Espinosa said. “The actors learn their lines, and then I work with them on the music. Shaheen VaazChamarbagwala, our director, works with them on their acting skills and it's really a labor of love with everybody. Everyone puts in the effort and what the students put in is what they get out of it.”

Although every production is different, Espinosa expressed the outstanding cast they have put together throughout this process.

“With this particular production, we were very fortunate to have cast a really stellar cast,” Espinosa said. “But even with a stellar cast, you still need to prepare and everyone worked hard, especially for today's performance. It's all about their skill level and what they bring to the table. Working with their strengths and helping them with their weaknesses to build a well-rounded actor, musician, vocalist and dancer.”

The opening night of “Rent” is Friday, May 5 at 8 p.m., and will continue until May 14.

An evening under the stars at the STEM after dark and telescope event proved to be a thrill for anyone wanting to see the stars and sky through a state-of-the-art $2,000 telescope.

Guests who attended the event were able to walk away with new knowledge about stars and planets that they saw.

Chair of the Physical Science department and astronomer Dale Fields shared that the motive of this event was to enlighten people about our galaxy.

“We really just want to get people to know that things happen around us all the time,” Fields said. “Many people look up in the night sky and think what’s over in the west is a bright star and not realize that it’s actually the planet Venus. Let’s let people know what’s going on out there. That’s the real purpose of doing these kinds of events.”

Fields also expressed that the quantity of people showing up to the event has been higher than the pre-pandemic numbers.

“It makes me so happy to see so many people out here, and the incredible amount of energy,” Fields said. “I get off on the fact that people have the same love and passion for what I believe in.”

Fields explained what inspired them to pursue a career in astrology, as the science field was something they were always interested in since adolescence.

“From a young age I knew that I wanted to do science, but wasn’t sure what science,” Fields said. “As a kid, at one point I wanted to be a dinosaur expert, but for me the big thing was my dad who got me into reading science fiction books. When I read these books, I soon realized that the truth was cooler than fiction, and that is what pulled me towards the astronomy side of science,” Fields said.

Member of the LA Astronomical Society and special guest at the event Phillip Taylor previously worked at Aerospace for 45 years.

Taylor mentioned his family history with astronomy and explained the inspiration behind his decision to go into the astronomy field.

“My family has been into astronomy for about 300 years,”

Taylor said. “So I was born into it. As soon as I was aware of what was going on, I would attend planetarium lectures at the Griffith Observatory.”

Taylor said the more you know about astronomy, the more you can appreciate it.

“It takes a lot of knowledge, and the interest that you build grows on you over time. It still grows on me after 67 years,” Taylor said. “I feel like I just barely scratched the surface and won’t live long enough to learn more. There’s only so much you can learn as you’re only around for so long.”

Professor of Biology

Shannon De Veiny was present for the STEM event.

“I love nature. I love just the way that life works. I find it endlessly fascinating,” De Veiny said “Right now I have a bat detector here so we can look for bats and some of the other animals that are here on campus as it gets dark.”

In addition, De Veiny explained why she enjoys the teaching side of her profession, as opposed to just the biology part of what she does.

“I really love teaching, and teaching at Pierce in particular,” De Veiny said. “It’s just inspiring everyday because I think the students at Pierce are the most amazing. I have taught at other institutions and the students at Pierce are my favorite students of anywhere.”

De Veiny then added why she believes teaching at Pierce college is a special experience.

“It’s just amazing to see so many bright people who are really driven and want to make the world a better place,” De Veiny said.

De Veiny then went into detail about the importance of figures that inspired her to progress toward reaching her goals.

“I personally feel that I was lucky to have had a lot of great teachers along the way from elementary school and up through college,” De Veiny said. “I was lucky to have that, and now that’s something I want to pass on to others, and help the next generation to feel encouraged and empowered to pursue what really fascinates them.”

The next telescope night will take place at the Center for the Sciences on May 25.

The French Film Festival closed off its series of movie screenings with the film “Gagarine” on Thursday at the Multicultural Center.

“Gagarine” is about a red brick housing project called Cite Gagarine on the outskirts of Paris on the verge of being demolished— the main character Youri, a 16-year-old, dreams of becoming an astronaut. When he learns of the plans for the community home about to be destroyed, he embarks on a mission along with his friends Diana and Houssam to save Gagarine, transforming the estate into his own “starship” before it disappears into space forever.

Humanities and Speech

Professor Denis Pra introduced attendees to Art Architecture Professor Patricio Gallegos to answer questions. He explained facts about the film, and talked about the current state of the former site of the Cite Gagarine, which is now demolished. Demolition started in 2019 and took 16 months.

Pra explained why this movie was picked as the last of the festival.

“The reason we picked this one is because it is Multicultural Day today, and the movie is really talking about this community with people coming from many places in the world, so it made sense to show this movie today,” Pra said.

Festival attendee Louis Barbato shared her thoughts on the film.

“It was very emotional without a doubt,” Barbato said. “Even though this is Paris, it corresponds very well to people all over the world who are in exile, who find a place or are being displaced, and it’s very sad. ”

Barbato also explained her favorite part of the film involved a dog.

“The dog is just so lonely and by itself and yet giving comfort, it was just a little detail,” Barbato said.

Festival attendee Nicole Bolster shared her thoughts on a character in the film named Youri.

“I enjoyed how Youri kept a close eye on his community,” Bolster said. “And then ultimately, at the end, when he thought he was all alone, the community came back to rescue him and make sure that he knew that he was a part of the family or part of the community that was there.”