Community of Interest

Justice for Contingents – Holy Cross is a voluntary grassroots initiative bringing together contingent faculty (Visiting Assistant Professors, Lecturers, Instructors, and CNTT Faculty) to promote dialogue and advocate for our collective interests.

By identifying workplace issues and encouraging appropriate collective remedies, we strive to improve working conditions for our community of interest, improve learning conditions for our students, and help Holy Cross fulfill the commitments outlined in its mission.

Campaign

In accordance with the Holy Cross mission, and in keeping with the values enshrined in Catholic Social Teaching (CST), Justice for Contingents – Holy Cross strives to make our learning community a bastion of 1) Security, 2) Parity, and 3) Transparency.

Rationale

Contingent faculty make up more than a third of the total faculty complement at Holy Cross. Because we carry a 3-3 teaching load, we teach more than 40% of all classes over the course of an academic year. And since our teaching assignments are disproportionately comprised of required courses with high enrollment cutoffs, we teach an even greater proportion of the student body.

But while Holy Cross depends on us, the terms of our employment make clear that we are not recognized as valuable members of the community. And while our profiles are often comparable to those of our tenure-line colleagues, the terms of our contracts often undermine our capacity to make professional contributions.

Holy Cross’s mission and commitment to CST informs this program. Through its mission,the College seeks to “support the intellectual growth of all its members while offering them opportunities for spiritual and moral development”; however, this mission is undermined by the precarious conditions currently faced by contingent faculty. Because CST supports the dignity of work and rights of workers to organize and better their conditions, we have joined together to improve our working conditions and help Holy Cross fulfill its mission.

In 2020, the NECHE conducted an accreditation study of Holy Cross. The top three areas of concern about the College raised by the study were (1) longstanding issues of transparency, (2) an erosion of trust between faculty and the administration, and (3) a need for greater diversity in faculty. The concerns of Justice for Contingents – Holy Cross mirror those of the NECHE accreditation study: our lack of security, equity, and transparency all make it harder for minoritized contingent faculty to work at the College, and they erode our trust in the administration. Taking steps to rectify these concerns will help the College to achieve success over time, and to alleviate the concerns of NECHE in our next accreditation study.

Specific Concerns and Proposed Remedies

Based on discussions with members of our community of interest, Justice for Contingents – Holy Cross has identified the following specific concerns and developed the following proposed remedies.

We believe that these remedies will improve working conditions for our community of interest, improve learning conditions for our students, and help Holy Cross live up to the commitments outlined in its mission.

We therefore ask that our tenure-line colleagues endorse these remedies and encourage the administration to pay them heed. Additionally, we encourage students to endorse these remedies, recognizing that our working conditions are their learning conditions—and that we are bound together in what Dr. King once called “a single garment of destiny.”