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Volume IX |
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Number Eleven |
In a surprise move, the governor, on Wednesday, June 21, 1995, removed $19.2 million in increases in the higher education budget "to help pay for new collective bargaining contracts with higher education faculty, we expect soon. It is essential for the Commonwealth to retain the financial capacity to fully fund collective bargaining agreements in the public higher education system. In other words, higher education will receive this $19.2 million, but it will be in the form of faculty salaries." Sound good?
First. The House, Senate, and Conference Committee found it important to increase funding to higher education. The governor has now pitted campus funding against contract funding. This is the first time that contract funding is being taken from a budget appropriation. What usually happens, and has happened in other agencies, is that a supplemental request is filed with the legislature to fund contracts. What Governor Weld, and, by extension, Administration and Finance (A & F) Secretary Charles Baker have done is put the health of campuses up against a funded contract. As of this writing, it appears that the legislature intends to override this veto.
Second. Completion of negotiations for the MCCC has stalled because A & F refuses to accept the salary article agreed to between the MCCC and the presidents. The MCCC has bargained a compressed salary schedule (19 steps with additional steps for professional staff) and a step increase. The money for our proposed increase falls within the offer from A & F- 8.5% for base rate increases. Though the dollar amount falls within the A & F guidelines, the distribution is different because of the compressed salary schedule and the steps. A & F, for the first time in collective bargaining, is trying to dictate how the pool of money will be distributed. The impact would be no step increase and an increase from 28 steps to 30 steps thereby preventing unit members, once again, from moving up on the salary schedule.
All unit members will receive in the mail a cover letter with four postcards. Please take a minute to read the letter, send the postcards, and call Governor Weld and Lt. Cellucci and ask them to accept our salary proposal as agreed to between the MCCC and the presidents. The entire effort will take but a minute! We must convince the governor and A & F to let us conclude bargaining: otherwise, we will remain in limbo. If we accept A & F package as presented, we will have forfeited the gains that the MCCC and the presidents have agreed are important. Both parties do not want to see an expansion between the highest and lowest salaries: they both want to reverse the pattern. All members must participate in this effort. Only with a concerted effort by everyone do we at least have a chance to conclude bargaining.
On other matters, the governor vetoed the early retirement
incentive. The outside section calling for a study of closings and
consolidations was eliminated in the Conference Committee, but the
section requiring the Higher Education Coordinating Council "to study
the amount of time spent in teaching activities by the faculty of the
public institutions of higher education in the commonwealth"
remained.
Virginius Bray Thornton, III was one of the recipients of the 1995 Human and Civil Rights Awards given by the Massachusetts Teachers Association at a dinner on May 18, 1995.
Thornton, a professor of History at Mass. Bay Community College has been active in the civil rights movement since the 1960's. He was one of the students who met with his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, to help form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He participated in sit-ins, registration drives, and strategic planning activities of the movement.
In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Thornton has developed student projects that advance diversity, mentored students of Amnesty International, and belongs to numerous clubs and associations. He continues his activism in his neighborhood by advocating for tenants' rights.
Currently, Thornton is working to have a postage stamp issued commemorating James Armistead Lafayette, a slave who rendered essential services to General Lafayette during the American Revolution. Thornton is a descendent of James A. Lafayette.
The Human Relations Council, the committee responsible for this
award, is chaired by Cynthia Parentela, until recently a full-time
professional staff unit member from Holyoke Community College.
Beginning in July, the MTA will have an exhibit in the State House featuring "Notable People" who have gone to the public schools in Massachusetts. The exhibit is another activity in the year long celebration of MTA's 150th anniversary.
If you know of anyone. graduate or attendee of a public school or public college or university in Massachusetts, alive or dead, who has distinguished him or her self in any arena, please let the MTA know. Submissions can also include fellow faculty members who have had scholarships established in their honor.
All you need is a name. The obviously well known or famous (or infamous) names may have been overlooked somehow. Even if you are not sure if he or she is a product of the public schools, you should submit the name.
This exhibit will culminate in a Formal High Tea in September in the State House.
If anyone has any information or names, please send, call, or fax them to Billie Lawrence at MTA (tel. 1-800-392-6175 FAX 617-742-7360), 20 Ashburton Place, Boston, MA 02108. She will assist you in any way.
Remember, all you need is a name! Any accompanying information you
may have will help, but it is not necessary. MTA will do the
rest.
The MCCC's interdisciplinary journal committee has decided to expand its requests from unit members to include original art work. The committee would like to use a couple of pages in the journal to show original works by MCCC members.
If you are interested in submitting a sample of your work please
send photos to Peter Meggison, Chair, MCCC Scholar, Massasoit
Community College, One Massasoit Blvd, Brockton, MA 02402. If you
have any questions, please contact the editor, Catherine A. Boudreau
at 617-266-9609.
"When I was discharged from the Army Infantry, I did not know what I wanted to do," Tom Sexton recalls. "I thought I did not have good enough grades in high school to go to college. Also, when I graduated, I thought the only kids who went to college were the ones who took college courses. So I decided to enroll in Newman Prop in Boston. But soon my money ran out. I knew I wanted to go to college, but finances were definitely a problem." A lot of the kids in Lowell were headed to a new college in Bradford, and I decided to go there also. In September of 1964, Tom Sexton, a quiet, shy, average student who hung around billiard parlors in Lowell, Massachusetts, went off to the Army, came home, and enrolled in No. Essex Community College.
"Being a veteran and a little older than most of the students made me somewhat self-conscious," recalls Sexton. "I worked part time as a security guard at the RCA plant in Burlington, and in no time I began to feel that No. Essex had been created just for me. I felt relaxed, and I began to gain confidence. I began to realize 1 could do the work. I guess today I would be called a nontraditional student." There was a fascinating collection of students in the old elementary school building that housed the college. He learned to play chess in the basement, rumored to be an old jail, while finding his academic direction. Jack Aronson a professor of Spanish at No. Essex was the advisor to the Chess Club.
The students ranged in ages from 18 to 30 and were from the surrounding cities and towns. "Even way back then, however, there was a diversity in the student population. There were Burmese, Indian, African, and Asian students, all good students, along with the local kids," says Sexton. The college had an excellent faculty and the curriculum was strong. There were no electives, and the 60 hours were designed to put you in a state college. "After the first semester, I knew I wanted to transfer. The University of Lowell was noted for music so Salem was: the logical choice," says Sexton. He liked English and History, but he knew that English would be his choice. "Thanks to the efforts of teachers like Marlene Mollinoff, and retired Professor Frank Padallaro (Economics) I realized I was capable of college-level work and my interest in literature and poetry was being encouraged and developed. Professor Mollinoff loved literature and made the students love it. She was an excellent teacher and treated us as if we mattered. And, she always had time for the students," remembers Sexton. "No. Essex was college! It was as important as going to M.I.T. No. Essex gave me the confidence that I could do anything I wanted to do. It provided me with a foundation and a direction. All I ever had up to this point was a vague idea I wanted to go to college, and by the time I left No. Essex, I felt I could do anything."
Sexton, intent on continuing his education, applied to Salem State College. In addition to its being affordable, the state colleges were beginning to expand into the liberal arts area and this was very important to Sexton. Salem was offering a B.A. in English, and it would accept all his credits from No. Essex. Three credits shy of an Associate's Degree (a math course), Sexton enrolled in Salem in the fall of 1966.
"Being at No. Essex and Salem during these years was exciting," says Sexton. The community colleges were a new concept that were providing higher education opportunities for students who were unsure what they wanted to do and for students who wanted to go to college but for financial or academic reasons were shut out of the private institutions. Salem, though not yet fully liberated, was expanding its curriculum, the enrollment was doubling, and buildings were sprouting up everywhere.
While at Salem, Sexton took courses in neoclassic and modern poetry and his poetry blossomed. He became the editor of the first literary magazine of the college. He, along with some other students, decided to create a vehicle for the publication of poetry. In the spring of 1967 they founded The Penny Sheet, "a weekly, mimeographed, eight-to-twelve page broadside with poems by students, faculty, and anyone else who cared to submit work." Sexton and his volunteer crew published The Penny Sheet and sold it on Fridays for whatever people wanted to pay.
In 1968 Sexton was graduated from Salem. Wanting to return to Alaska because of time spent there during his Army days, he applied and was accepted to the University of Alaska's (Fairbanks) Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) program. Using The Penny Sheet with his application as an example of his work, the University also awarded him a D,100 stipend and free tuition for work as a graduate assistant. He completed his requirements in two years and was immediately hired as a assistant professor at the University of Alaska in Anchorage. In addition to teaching graduate and upper division undergraduate courses in literature and creative writing, he became director of a newly established Creative Writing Program, a position he held until 1985.
In 1974 Solo Press published his first book, Terra Incognita, and it was nominated for a National Book Award. In 1981 Sexton became the poetry editor for the Alaska quarterly Review, and after a "lull" of about ten years, his second book, Late August on the Kenai River, was published by Limner Press in Anchorage in 1991. Another collection of poems, A Blossom of Snow, is scheduled for release soon by Mad River Press of Richmond, Massachusetts. Sexton has also published numerous poems as well as a collection of poems dedicated to his father called, A Bend Toward Asia which was published in 1983 by Salmon Run.
Though Sexton retired from his faculty position as Emeritus Professor of English last year, he has returned to Alaska after spending a year in Maine.
In December 1994 Sexton, the quiet, shy, average kid from Lowell,
Massachusetts, and the product of the Massachusetts public education
system, high school through college, was nominated by the Alaskan
State Council on the Arts to be designated the poet laureate for the
state. In March 1995 Tom Sexton became the poet laureate for
Alaska.
[ N.B. An extensive article on Tom Sexton and his poetry appears in the Spring 1995 edition of the Sextant, the literary magazine of Salem State College. The magazine is edited by Rod Kessler and the article was written by John McHale, both are professors of English at Salem.]
An arbitrator has issued as award of B,000 to the MCCC regarding
DCE office hours at Bristol Community College. In the fall of 1993,
the chapter filed a grievance when it learned that the college was
requiring day DCE faculty to hold office hours. The contract states
that DCE faculty should be accessible to students at a time that is
mutually convenient. Although this requirement did not continue
thereafter, the college's position was that it had the right to
require office hours. At the arbitration level, management also
claimed that it never required office hours as alleged, implying that
it was merely suggested. The requested remedy in the grievance was
for the faculty who held the office hours to be made whole. As such,
the MCCC will need to determine the distribution of these funds.
The MTA will hold its Summer Leadership Conference August 14-18 at Williams College in Williamstown. The MCCC is offering 30 grants to individuals to attend this conference.
This year, the conference will have two days of plenary sessions, Tuesday and Thursday, rather than four like last year. The evaluations for last year's new structure were very positive, but the week's program needs improving.
The higher education track will begin with a luncheon on Wednesday, August 16. Wednesday afternoon and Thursday, workshops will provide a perspective on what is happening across the country and in Massachusetts with respect to collective bargaining laws, and the impact of the federal budget on Massachusetts. In addition, a workshop is planned highlighting the numerous K-12 and higher education agreements and relationships that are in process already. This workshop will also include how the impact of the curriculum frameworks and common core of learning impact higher education. Friday morning a bargaining update and political action/legislative update workshop will be held.
These workshops are still tentative and subject to change prior to finalization at the end of June.
Anyone interested must apply to MCCC President Tom Parsons no
later than Saturday, July 7, 1995.
Anyone having a complaint or concern about the Blue Cross Dental plan and coverage should direct his or her comments to
Abe Sherf,
North Shore Community College.
He is the community college representative on the Health and
Welfare Trust Fund.
The vacancies within the community colleges are easily accessible on the MTA Bulletin Board System (BBS) (1-800-523- 8883) You can read, download, and/or print these vacancies at your terminal. If you do not have access to a modem, a printout can be faxed to you. Fax your request to the Communications Coordinator at 617- 236-0448. You must include the name of the college(s) where you work.
For the first time user. When you call into the BBS, you will need to provide some information to the systems operator. You can get on the BBS immediately and choose your password. Once you get on the BBS, follow these steps to get to the vacancy area. Enter your name and password, Select F(ile); 6(Vacancies in community colleges); (F)files in this area; (V)iew and type in the first two numbers of the last dated entry e.g., 42-11-1996 (You would type 42).
Only questions specific to the MTA BBS should be directed to the
systems Operator (SYSop) Ron Miller (1-508-653-7244), preferably
through the BBS. If you have specific questions about a vacancy, call
the college.
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Jun 30 |
Part-time (day) faculty summary evaluations |
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Jul 1 |
Professional staff pre-evaluation conference |
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Jul 1 |
Professional staff assignments received |
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Jul 15 |
Professional staff vacations days released |
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Jul 22 |
Leave of absence applications for spring, 1996 |
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Jul 22 |
Spring Sabbatical Committee recommendations |
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Aug 7 |
Part time (day) teaching assignments |
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Aug 15 |
Part time (day) seniority lists distributed |
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Aug 22 |
Dean's recommendations for spring leaves of absence |
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Aug 22 |
Presidents recommendation for spring 1996 sabbaticals |
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Catherine A. Boudreau MCCC/MTA Newsletter |
The MCCC Newsletter is a publication of the Massachusetts Community College Council. The Newsletter is intended to be an information source for the members of the MCCC and for other interested parties. The material in this publication may be reprinted with the acknowledgment of its source. For further information on issues discussed in this publication, contact Catherine Boudreau, Massasoit Community College, Brockton, MA 02402. |
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