This checklist was compiled by our colleagues at the UC-AFT to provide TT faculty with concrete ways to support NTT faculty in your departments and writing programs. A pdf copy can be accessed here.

What Can I Do to Support Lecturers in My Department/Unit? 

Departmental Checklist: 

• • Familiarize yourself with the current Unit 18 Lecturer Contract.
  • Use inclusive language. Lecturers Are Faculty. If you need to specify, say Senate Faculty and Non-Senate Faculty (NSF). Refer to lecturers as lecturers (NSF or Unit 18). Avoid using terminology that deprofessionalizes lecturers (like temporary or visiting). Instead, use language that focuses on appointment percentage and continuing appointments to emphasize the professional career track available to lecturers: pre-continuing and continuing appointments.
  • Integrate departmental websites. Lecturers should be listed alongside other faculty and instructors. Ask your department to put all faculty onto one page or to, at least, use faculty as the all-inclusive term (not only for tenure track faculty), then have subpages for each category if necessary: SF, NSF, etc.
  • Use correct job titles on departmental websites. Lecturers should be listed as either NSF or lecturers. Incorrect language sometimes used: Visiting Lecturers, Temporary Lecturers, or Temporary Faculty.
  • Invite (but do not require) lecturers to department meetings. Lecturers deliver (in some cases a majority of) instruction and should be included in decision-making, hiring and programmatic decisions. (Note Article 24: Workload). Lecturers do not receive compensation for service, but that should not preclude them from reasonable departmental participation.
  • Make sure lecturers have adequate, accessible, and private office space for student support meetings, and access to a computer or laptop, printing, copying, and other supplies for teaching to avoid out of pocket expenses.
  • Talk to lecturers in your department: introduce yourself, ask them what they need to feel included and successful. Let them know you are here for them. Treat them like your colleagues. They are.
  • Advocate for multi-year, full-time appointments when possible. Unit 18 lecturers can only access benefits (this means healthcare!) at 50% and above.
  • Attend to the teaching load, immigration paperwork, and wage implications for lecturers. Lecturers are considered full-time at UCSD when teaching 6 new courses (reflecting the extra workload of preparing new courses), or 9 repeat courses. A full-time appointment also determines eligibility for faculty housing.
  • Advocate for fair wages: Let lecturers know when initially appointed that they should negotiate wage. Lecturer salary is negotiable, and should be based on qualifications and previous experience: 
    • UCSD Personnel Manual (PPM – 230-21.C.) states that: “In proposing salary level for Unit 18 faculty, the following should be considered: highest degree attained; date Ph.D. was obtained, if any; teaching experience and ability; present status at home institution, if any; scholarly achievements, if any; and professional reputation, where applicable.” 
    • Speak out for pay equity. The gender pay gap is a problem that exists within all faculty groups and units at UCSD. Senate Faculty are currently 75% male, while non-senate faculty are over half female, and lecturers, who are the most institutionally vulnerable, are less likely to gain traction with registering complaints.  
  • Communicate clearly to lecturers in your department when there are openings in the upcoming year, so they can reapply to keep their job.
  • When hiring lecturers each year, consider those already working in the department first. Transparent assessment and reappointment processes reduce precarity, increase continuity for students, and help to ensure that those who are competent at their jobs keep them. This also reduces wasted resources on unnecessary searches due to needless turnover.
  • Rehire lecturers early in the spring. Lecturer benefits and salary lapse each year at the end of June. Departmental delays in rehiring put significant stress on lecturers. Rehire, and issue contracts for, your lecturers early.

Current Issues

• • Speak up when you see withholding of lecturer appointments due to budget concerns. We know it has happened. EVC in academic senate:
    • “So far there’s been no slowdown in hiring of Unit 18s because they’re essential to our teaching mission. This should continue into 2020-2021.”
  • Sign our pledge to rehire lecturers and join our virtual picket
  • Email (1-click auto send) UC admin (EVC Simmons, Chancellor Kohsla, and President Napolitano) to sign the contract lecturers have recently proposed.
  • Stay up to date on lecturer bargaining.
  • Draft and sign a department letter in support of lecturer bargaining (we have been bargaining since June 2019 and working out of contract since Jan. 31, 2020). (See these examples). Send to ucaftsandiego@gmail.com.  
  • Join UCSD Faculty Association and/or UCAFT Union in solidarity!