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Conference Focuses on Contingent Faculty Issues
AAUP staff and leaders participated in the fifth conference of the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL), held in October at Concordia University in Montreal. The Concordia University Part-Time Association, with generous support from the university's administration, hosted the conference. The coalition, of which the AAUP is a member, was formed to help activists share information and coordinate strategies for bringing attention to the long-term erosion of tenure and the concomitant exploitation of contingent faculty prevalent in academia.
The conference drew attendees from Canada, the United States, and Mexico. AAUP president Jane Buck made a presentation in which she emphasized that academic freedom is imperiled without the protection of tenure. In the current atmosphere in which even many tenured faculty feel that their academic freedom has been compromised, Buck said, contingent faculty are especially vulnerable. Richard Moser from the AAUP's Department of Organizing and Services participated in a panel discussion that surveyed the state of contingent academic labor in North America, and he served as a facilitator for the concluding plenary session on future strategies and organization.
Conference participants chose Chicago as the location for the 2004 COCAL conference and determined that the next Campus Equity Week will be held October 27-31. Campus Equity Week is a weeklong series of events on different campuses designed to draw attention to the poor working conditions of part-time and non-tenure-track faculty.
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