[Lecturers, students, and other supporters: This is a pledge for tenure-track faculty to sign. For maximum impact, forward it to UC senate faculty with a request for their signature.  Then, add yourself to our virtual picket for full employment and no layoffs. Much gratitude for the solidarity!]

The COVID crisis has brought into focus the extreme precarity that contingent faculty live with year in and year out. Tenured and tenure-track faculty across the country have expressed​ solidarity with their contingent colleagues. This pledge asks ladder rank faculty at the University of California to demonstrate solidarity in a very concrete way:

If you have a role in personnel decisions: Commit to rehiring existing Unit 18 teaching faculty (lecturers) before hiring anyone new.

If you don’t have a role in personnel decisions: Commit to advocating within your department to rehire existing Unit 18 teaching faculty (lecturers) before hiring anyone new.

In normal budgetary years, hundreds of excellent lecturers are let go while their courses are taught again by a different lecturer the following year.  According to data from the UC Office of the President, this pre-COVID status quo results in a 26% annual turnover rate for UC teaching faculty.  About 1,600 contingent faculty lose their jobs every single year.  Most are pushed out involuntarily even though their courses are still being offered, and they would jump at the chance to have a teaching-focused career at the UC.  Instead, thousands of students are deprived of their favorite instructors and mentors, while departments incur unnecessary recruitment and onboarding costs.  UC Senate faculty are uniquely placed to stanch these enormous losses.

Fall 2020 will be a testing ground for departments and programs.  While some Senate faculty are hearing that they will not be furloughed, it’s likely that up to 4,000 pre-continuing lecturers on short-term, temporary contracts will not be renewed because of the hiring freeze.  Some may be hired back as exceptions in the fall, but they may receive only a few days’ notice and will have to scramble to prepare.

The current hiring freeze intensifies and exposes the precarity of UC lecturers, but the real insecurity is built into reappointment practices within departments and programs.  As such, the real power to grant job stability to non-Senate teaching faculty resides with our Senate colleagues in department-level reappointment decisions.

This pledge is a commitment by tenured and tenure-track faculty to support high quality instruction at the UC, to combat precarity in the academy, and to do what you can to set a nationwide standard for non-tenure-track job stability in higher ed--a standard all of us at the UC can be proud of.

We, the undersigned, pledge to do the following in support of our non-Senate teaching faculty colleagues at the University of California:

• Rehire currently employed or previously employed lecturers to teach courses that they are qualified for before hiring anyone new.
• Advocate for multi-year appointments within our departments for our pre-continuing lecturer colleagues.
• Apply now for exemptions to the hiring freeze so that lecturers can receive timely reappointments and thoroughly prepare to teach in fall 2020.

[Reminder: This is a pledge for tenure-track faculty to sign. If you’re a lecturer, student, or other supporter, forward it to UC senate faculty in your department/field with a request for their signature.  Then, add yourself to our virtual picket for full employment and no layoffs. Thank you! #SolidarityDefeatsPrecarity]