Public Higher Education In Chicago: A Story Of Folly And Greed
By Robert Klein Engler (05/02/05)
After more than 30 years of dancing together, the City Colleges of Chicago and the Cook County College Teachers Union are still stepping on one another's toes. Together, they present to the taxpayers of Cook County a stumbling institution of higher education. Perhaps there is something in the water of nearby Lake Michigan that makes both partners in this 30 year long dance of folly with greed trip, fall and forget.
When the faculty union and the City Colleges Board do fall, the rattle of their bones will be heard beyond Chicago. The same glut of part-time instructors that contributes to the decline of the City Colleges of Chicago is also corroding the traditions of many other colleges and universities across the nation. Educators everywhere may soon be dancing to the tune of "Ashes, ashes, all fall down."
Folly at the City Colleges Board and Administration
Thirty years ago there were some good administrators at the City Colleges of Chicago, but over time they lost out to the ethnic politics of the Democratic party and were replaced by Affirmative Action candidates, minority technocrats and patronage appointees. These new administrators laid wild plans to change higher education in the city. Most of these plans were born dead. Some survived. The few that did survive fed off the clout and cronyism that is the diet of Chicago politicians.
Anecdotes about folly in high office abound at the City Colleges of Chicago. There was a "Caravan to Knowledge" once that strummed door to door in Chicago's housing projects, but netted only a handful of students. Rumors circulated of affairs between administrators carried on in high offices. When one of these affairs went bad, staplers were thrown at the departing lover through the office door. Back on campus, high paid Affirmative Action deans with PhDs in education sat at their desks eating pizza, while low paid secretaries did the work necessary to run the departments.
One after another, a succession of migrant administrators went through the revolving door of the City Colleges. Look at the career of just one City Colleges administrator and you will see that many administrators at the City Colleges of Chicago drink from the same cup. Gustavo Valadez Ortiz used to be vice president at Daley College, one of the City Colleges. Now he is the outgoing president of Del Rey Community College in Texas, where he was paid about $135,000 a year. That salary is more than 50 times what the average part-time instructor is paid.
What did Del Rey Community College get for their money spent? They got a migrant administrator who moved from the City Colleges of Chicago, to St. Louis, and finally to Corpus Christi. It seems they also got confusion and upheaval. Ortiz resigned amidst pressure from staff and faculty groups in July, 2003 (Fernandez, “Corpus Christi Caller-Times,” March 25, 2004).
It was a rainy, Chicago afternoon on November 14, 1972, when the Kennedy-King campus was dedicated. The design of the building received an award from the American Institute of Architects even before construction was started. At the dedication, Harold Grumhaus, then chairman and publisher of “The Chicago Tribune,” announced the gift of more than 3,800 books to the college library. "I want to thank you for a magnificent job in building this college...," Grumhaus said.
Now, there are plans to tear down Kennedy-King College and build a new one. College officials say they favor building a new facility rather than renovating the old, 630,000-square-foot structure, which has been plagued by massive water leaks from a failing roof, poor ventilation and a maze like architectural design. "If it costs $50 to renovate it, it would be too much," said Ralph Moore, a City Colleges board member. "That building has been a disaster from the beginning," Moore added.
Current City Colleges Chancellor Wayne Watson said repairing the roof alone would cost more than $10 million. "When it rains, there are large buckets set up in the middle of the hallway. The time has come to do something about this." Wayne Watson could have tried to fix the leaking roof at Kennedy-King College when he was appointed president there by Mayor Daley, but evidently he couldn't. Nevertheless, Watson was rewarded with becoming the chancellor of all the City Colleges.
Recently, the combined City Colleges faculty declared a vote of no confidence in his leadership, yet Watson still remains in office. "The declaration contended that Watson's 'divisive tactics' weakened student trust and confidence, and tarnished the reputation of the school." No mention was made of leaky roofs.
Not being a man who lets the drip, drip, drip of rain drown him out, current Board Chairman James Tyree said in regard to Watson's vote of no confidence, "The Board is and has been solidly behind the Chancellor. He is doing an outstanding job." No doubt there were drops from the waters of oblivion mixed with the rain that November afternoon in 1972 when the first Kennedy-King College was dedicated.
How did things get so bad at Kennedy-King in the first place? Ralph Moore was a City Colleges board member. The City Colleges Board built the Kennedy-King campus and is charged with maintaining it. If the board members did not do a good job with the first Kennedy-King College, why are they going to get another $150 million from the taxpayers to build a second one? A little leak here and a little leak there, and pretty soon the cup of folly overfloweth.
Then there is the example of Ronald J. Temple. A migrant administrator hired to be chancellor of the City Colleges system prior to Watson, he did little to preserve faculty traditions. On December 31, 1997, the “Chicago Sun-Times” announced: "Secret vote ousts City Colleges chief." The article went on to describe the work of the chancellor as insufficient. He was described as "indecisive, procrastinated on key decisions...and failed to cut enough administrators." Obviously, Temple didn't fix the roof at Kennedy-King College, either.
A week later, an editorial in the “Chicago Tribune” noted that the previous two chancellors also had their contracts bought out. In an editorial for January 19, 1998, the “Chicago Tribune” raised other questions about the City Colleges. "Talk about mixed signals! In 1996, the City Colleges of Chicago board of directors renewed Chancellor Ronald J. Temple's contract, gave him a cost-of-living raise and topped it off with a $50,000 performance bonus...But in 1997, the same board gave Temple the ax...Temple's critics cite a continuing decline in enrollment and failure to raise academic standards as reasons for his ouster."
Did anyone hear Temple shout "Students first!" as he left Chicago and they slammed the door behind him? Probably not. But so what? Temple's golden parachute opened and he landed safely at a high paid job in California.
Even when City College administrators do put students first, they can't get it right. A year later, the “Chicago Tribune” for June 10, 1998 reported, "A City Colleges dean hands out A's to 8 computer students for a required class that was never held. 'What does that mean if you can just give them out whenever you want?' an expert asks." The newspaper adds that this was done "to cover up for an administrative error that left the students with too few credits to graduate." Little wonder some of the faculty at the City Colleges have learned to suffer fools gladly.
Greed and the Cook County College Teachers Union
Having the same president for more than 30 years did not help the Cook County College Teachers Union confront a foolish administration. Norm Swenson, who served as long-term president may have seen the handwriting on the wall back in 1965 when the CCCTU separated from the Chicago Teachers Union, but if he did, he remained illiterate to its meaning. An instructor in the business department before he became union president, Swenson imposed a labor union model on the faculty when the union called it's first strike in 1966. In doing so, he sealed the fate of the union and the City Colleges.
Union membership in the U. S. reached its peak in the 80s. Since then membership has been in a decline. The 80s were also the height of growth in the Cook County College Teachers Union. After the 80s, teacher union membership began to decline, as well. With that decline came the increase in part-time instructors. College administrators everywhere foolishly decided that one way they could solidify their control and contain costs was to get as many part-timers employed as possible. The administrative profession to which liberal professors gave birth and nursed by Affirmative Action, grew up and turned on those professors to systematically reduce their numbers.
>From the decade of the 80s into the 90s, Swenson and his followers did little to organize part-time faculty or increase the number of full-time faculty at the City Colleges of Chicago. Instead, they looked to other sectors of the labor market to organize, thus polluting the profession of teaching and the impact faculty would have on the direction of education at the City Colleges. Now, the Cook County College Teachers Union represents professional employees, classified employees and others. It is no longer a faculty union per se, but a hodgepodge of economic interests.
Viewed from the perspective of 30 years, the greed of the Cook County College Teachers Union has been disastrous, as disastrous as the folly of the administration and City Colleges board. Besides creating a culture of conflict and mistrust on the urban campuses of the City Colleges, the union had the myopic focus of raising faculty salaries and benefits at the expense of the college as a whole. Most striking are these data: as faculty salaries increased over 30 years, the number of full-time faculty at the City Colleges decreased.
Most of the classes offered at the City Colleges of Chicago are now taught by adjunct professors. These low-paid adjuncts hardly have the time, let alone a desk in their office, to create a community of scholars. A cynic may say there never was a community of scholars at the City Colleges to begin with, but at least there was a community. Ten years ago there were 19 full-time professors in the social sciences department at Daley College. Now, there are only six. No community can survive that kind of loss, let alone a community of scholars.
According to the union's own data, it represents fewer faculty than it did 30 years ago. During the strike of 1975, when Norm Swenson was president of the Cook County College Teachers Union, 1,070 faculty members at the City Colleges participated in the strike vote. In 2004, the same union had only 550 full-time faculty at the City Colleges, along with 200 full-time and 150 part-time nonteaching professionals, and 500 campus police officers.
It's obvious what has happened to the faculty. It has diminished in size over the past 30 years by about 50 percent. As the union let faculty membership slide downward, it organized other nonfaculty groups to pick up the slack. In doing so, it gave its tacit approval to the poison of part-time faculty, all the while claiming to have "enhanced the professional status" of its members.
As faculty salaries increased for full-time and tenured faculty, the number of college credit and transfer courses offered to students at the City Colleges also decreased. For all practical purposes, the City Colleges of Chicago has become a remedial institution, abandoning the original mission of the community college to offer a liberal education for the working classes.
Likewise, as faculty salaries increased at the City Colleges, the number of traditional students declined. Most significantly, as salaries increased, the reputation of the institution as a place to obtain a quality, public education has drastically decreased. Just ask someone in the Chicago area or the registrars of colleges accepting credits from City Colleges' transfer students what they really think of this institution and many will tell you it is laughable. This is the dismal record of 30 years of labor union agitation.
In 2004, soon after Swenson's retirement, and under the leadership of a new president Perry Buckley, the union called a strike against the City Colleges. The disruption of that strike is still being felt. Buckley is quoted as saying during the strike that. "We will not stand idle and watch the destruction of the colleges we love, we serve, and to which we have dedicated our lives." Regardless of Buckley's rhetoric, the 30 year record of the union speaks otherwise.
The City Colleges of Chicago is at a time of crisis brought on in part by an arthritic faculty union that cannot see beyond paychecks and fringe benefits. Like the Democratic Party that runs Chicago, local 1600 has been entrenched in power too long. To add insult to injury, the union does not even realize it cannot solve the problem it now faces. The union cannot solve the problem caused by part-time faculty, because the union is the problem!
Folly and Greed Brew the Poison of Part-time Faculty
We may never hear from Norm Swenson why he did not resist the transformation of the City Colleges by an invasion of part-time faculty. Nevertheless, some reasons are obvious even without him saying so.
One reason is that new, full-time faculty threatened the overtime pay of many loyal Swenson supporters. A full-time professor could almost double his salary by teaching two or three overtime classes. It was not in their economic interests to have new faculty hired and then lose that extra income. As professors left the system or retired, the more overtime there was.
More full-time faculty also meant the threat of new union voters. There was no guarantee that the young Turks would follow the leadership of the old Hun. Swenson could lose his position as union president if many new faculty were hired and outvoted his long time cronies.
It was in the interest of the entrenched union leadership to keep the number of full-time faculty low and to keep supporters happy with lots of overtime pay. The longer Swenson and his followers stayed in power, the smaller the full-time faculty became at the City Colleges. In a union like the Cook County College Teachers Union, democracy works best when there is little of it.
Ten years ago a proposal to hire more full-time faculty at all the City Colleges campuses was brought before the union house of representatives, but it was never implemented. Although the Cook County College Teachers union went on strike 20 times in its 40 year history, it never went on strike to increase the number of full-time faculty at the colleges. It never will. Even during the strike last year, which may well be the union's swan song, no demand was made to hire more full-time faculty. When it did come time for the part-timers to organize, they voted to go over to the Illinois Educational Association, instead of Swenson's union.
The Cook County College Teachers Union refuses to take a stand and oppose the widespread use of part-time or adjunct faculty. Just as it is in many colleges around the country, the disproportionate amount of adjunct and part-time faculty at the City Colleges has ruined the institution. When instructors at the City Colleges hear someone claim, "We will not stand idle and watch the destruction of the colleges we love, we serve, and to which we have dedicated our lives," they know this is a voice that comes from the illusionary land of Oz.
If the faculty union really cared about the students and the college as they consistently say, then the union would have gone on strike and stayed on strike until the issue was settled in favor of increasing full-time faculty to the levels they were 20 years ago. Now, it is too late.
There were many faculty who spent their careers at the City Colleges of Chicago giving unselfishly to the institution, but the union wasted their efforts. Any hope these City Colleges professors had about a community of scholars evaporated. They have been overwhelmed by the forces of folly and greed they can no longer resist. "So much for preserving traditions. Let's just preserve our annuity," these professors say.
On paydays the union faculty count their compounded interest and realize they were sophists all along. They did it just for the money. After 30 years their work at the City Colleges takes shape. It is the shape of defeat and disappointment--the shape of shadows flashing in the abyss. Like those Enlightenment thinkers who yearned for humanity but had no heart for their own people, or philosophized about the state but forgot the community, many faculty at the City Colleges have exhausted the concepts they need to understand what has happened to them.
Once these professors leave the City Colleges, they never come back to where they taught, because there is nothing to come back and see. Their full-time positions are filled by part-timers, if at all. A liberal ideology has erased their names from the roster. So much for the promise of unionism!
The lack of a response by the union to the profound changes that an increase in part-time faculty brings to an educational institution is all the more glaring in that the invasion of part-time faculty was not happening only at the City Colleges. A glut of part-timers replacing full-time faculty is happening all around the nation. At a community college in Michigan, 74% of the credit hours taught are done so by adjuncts at $1,575 per three semester hour course.
Even private universities are not immune from the transformation brought on by part-time instruction. A small, liberal arts university in Chicago with an admirable reputation had 425 adjunct or part-time faculty in 2004. The number is even higher now. This university also had 202 full-time faculty and 223 administrators. The number of administrators is more than the number of full-time faculty, and the number of adjunct faculty is almost the sum of full-time faculty and administrators combined. In 2004, about 55% of the courses at this university were taught by adjuncts. Like many other colleges and universities, this institution is becoming an institution that administrates instead of one that educates.
At the City Colleges, the faculty union's inability to deal with an invasion of part-time instructors has turned the college system into what the sociologist Anthony Giddens calls a "shell institution." These are institutions that, "appear the same as they used to be from the outside, and carry the same name, but inside have become quite different."
Today, the City Colleges is a shell institution with a very thin shell. After 30 years of stumbling between business and scholarship, between ideology and tax bills, and between strikes and reprisals, the City Colleges is exhausted. All that remains is agreement between the faculty union and the college board that the shell is ready to crack. A misbegotten institution dominated by part-time instruction is about to emerge. Like that village in Vietnam, folly and greed both agree, in order to save the City Colleges they must destroy it.
A Remedy for Folly and Greed
There is a solution to the problems created by folly and greed at the City Colleges of Chicago. Unfortunately, it remains an improbable solution. A similar solution may be improbable also at many of our public colleges and universities around the nation that have succumb to political correctness, Affirmative Action administrators and part-time instruction. Yet, as improbable as a solution might seem, if no attempt is made to solve the problems of higher education brought on by the invasion of part-time instructors, then the next generation will know only the virtual reality of an education.
We need to make the City Colleges better, otherwise truth and tradition will be something only the wealthy can afford. To change the institution, to make the City Colleges a place where opportunity, citizenship and traditions are furthered, there must be a new, county wide elected college board free from the shortsighted policies of Chicago politicians. This new board must begin to hire numerous full-time faculty immediately. Then, the Cook County College Teachers Union must be left to wither away. This can be done easily by the reformed board not signing anymore contracts with the union.
It is ironic that in an age when liberalism as a political philosophy is passing away, most faculty at U. S. colleges and universities see themselves as politically and socially liberal. A recent report on college faculty by political science professor Robert Lichter of George Mason University claims that 72 percent of professors at American universities labeled themselves liberal, while just 15 percent said they are conservative.
Furthermore, 50 percent of faculty members identified themselves as Democrats and only 11 percent Republicans. The faculty at the City Colleges of Chicago fits this liberal mold fairly well. This being the case, the question to ask is: How can a unionized faculty that is predominantly liberal, even at times socialist, allow their ranks to be dominated by part-time instructors? How did they allow their community of scholars to become a sweatshop?
Answers to these questions suck us into the sewer that is Democratic, Chicago politics and the muddle that is liberalism. Polluted by folly and greed, the board and union at the City Colleges of Chicago are good examples of how liberalism and Democratic Party policies failed those who believed in them. All their ideology could give birth to was a new breed of college administrators who are liberal when they write their conference papers, but Fascists when they carry our their campus duties.
Hidden behind a smoke screen of ideology, both the City Colleges board and the faculty union have accomplished just the opposite of what liberalism claims is its purpose. Instead of creating a community, the board and union destroyed one. Instead of putting students first, they have placed first either their demand for political power or their selfish economic interest. At the City Colleges of Chicago, 30 years of folly and greed combined to expose how bankrupt liberalism now is.
Today, most students who attend the City Colleges know nothing about this past of folly and greed, or the reversed alchemy that turned gold into lead that the union and board conjured. This ignorance of history is the City Colleges' legacy to the future. The dregs of liberalism quench our thirst for knowledge with oblivion.
When an adjunct professor hears the faculty union president say, "We will not stand idle and watch the destruction of the colleges we love, we serve, and to which we have dedicated our lives," and then sees that this in fact has happened, and that the community college where he works is but a shadow of what it used to be, how can he join that faculty union and believe it will help him?
As she drives from campus to campus around Chicago earning $1,200 to teach a class, and then rubs shoulders with senior, full-time faculty making $80,000 a year and expecting a fat pension to retire on in Texas, what can the Cook County College Teachers union do for this part-time instructor? The very union that claims it wants to prevent the destruction of the college is the one that helped cause that destruction in the first place.
The next generation of faculty members at the City Colleges and elsewhere must organize and make something new if they want lifelong careers as teachers. But beware! When a migrant administrator from the City Colleges or a representative from the old Cook County College Teachers Union comes to your campus and offers you a drink from their cup, turn it down. Their brew is poison.
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