Happy New Year!

The MATC Part-time Union would like to wish a happy new year to the Madison area and the interwebs at large.  After nearly a month long haitus, we are glad to be back in action.  The holidays allowed time to reflect on the past year, make plans for the future, and relish our families and friends.
We will have updates on our current state of affairs in the coming days, so stay tuned.

Christmas Ad Campaign

The first installment of our College Carol ad campaign was published in the Wisconsin State Journal last week.  Are the administration scrooges year-round?

New Date Set for Board Meeting

The MATC District Board meeting has been rescheduled for December 17 at 4:00 PM in Truax Room 148D.  All part-time union members are encouraged to attend.  Remember we have power in numbers.
The general public is also invited to support our cause.

Clarion Article Online

The full text of last week's MATC Clarion article is now online.  Again, leave comments letting the administration know how we feel and to allow students a chance to hear our individual voices.

On Learning

Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. - John Cotton Dana

Part-time Faculty Shares Her Story

MATC p/t faculty member Sue Faber shares her story with the Capital Times.

Dear Editor: I teach an ESL (English as a second language) course offered by Madison Area Technical College twice a week at the Lussier Community Education Center. Students in ESL levels one through five may enroll at any time, with more than 25 students enrolled this semester.

Normally, between 15 and 20 attend, ranging from those who cannot read any language to those who test at level four. Students are not required to purchase a text. Instead, the instructor develops curriculum materials for each student performance level from a range of resources.

For example, for last Tuesday’s class, I assembled a grocery bag of food items for teaching food vocabulary to the pre-literate/level one group, wrote three pages of dialogs for the level twos, and prepared two reading/writing projects for the level threes/fours. Luckily, I kept the class on schedule (no new students showed up to register) and we got everything done.

Does this sound like a challenging course to teach? It is. And yet Madison College entrusts this class to me, a member of the part-time faculty, someone who earns far less than half the pay of a full-time faculty member for a course of equal length.

Unlike many others, I do not have to support myself on a part-time instructor’s pay. Still, I feel exploited and undervalued as I follow the contentious negotiations between Madison College and the Part-Time Teachers Union. College President Barhorst has said I’m “not serious” about my work. And the college board wants to make an already-huge salary discrepancy between full-time and part-time faculty even bigger.

Perhaps college board members are simply out of touch with what part-time teachers deal with, gladly and professionally, every day. Maybe that’s why they persist in a business strategy that demoralizes and causes financial hardship to so many.

Sue Fieber

Madison

Sue made clear what all part-timers feel - that the administration has little respect for the work that we do.  More letters like this sharing personal stories will be the key to ensuring that the public understands what part-time instructors do for our community.

Does Madison College Really Change Anything?

The following text was taken directly from an email from Diane Walleser to MATC staff.

I wanted to update you on the work that is being done with the implementation of the new college logo. As you can imagine, it is a significant project with many components. I will lead the conversion project but will be working very closely with Tech Services, Divisional Business Analysts and all other college work units so we can have a successful implementation. We are still assessing scope and will not have our formal timeline completed until after the first of the year. We know you have many questions, so here is what we can share at this point:
1. Yes, it is okay to start using the logo. Logo style and usage guides are being developed and will be posted to the web for downloading and use by January 1st. If you have an immediate need please let me know and we can get an art ready logo to you.
2. We have a tentative goal of introducing the logo on level one and level two of the converted to new logo by January 1st. The deeper levels of the web will be changed out by the content managers when time and resources permit. Our goal would be to have MATC references removed from the Web site by the start of the Fall semester.
3. Tech Services is working on a plan for the conversion to madisoncollege.edu. In the interim please list realworldsmart.com as the college web address in any printed or web materials. This address will always redirect to our homepage and will be our transition address until our new address is ready for use.
4. We are currently working on a transition plan for employee and student emails. This is a critical part of the conversion and Tech Services is researching available alternatives. Since our email address will be changing sometime in the next six months you will want to limit your supplies of any new materials that list email addresses. As we work out the details we can be more specific on timing of the change so you can plan appropriately.
5. New letterhead, envelopes will be available after the first of the year and letterhead templates will be available on line. We will order business cards for Lead ship Council once we have our new email address confirmed.
6. We will be meeting with all work units on the transition. We will train you on the use of the new logo and help you develop a workable transition plan for your area. We will try and make the conversion as easy as possible and will share the unit conversion schedule once it is completed.
7. We are currently developing a FAQ for the website and a fact sheet for you to share with internal and external stakeholders. This fact sheet can be shared with community members, advisory groups and other groups and will help explain the process and rationale.
We will keep you posted on our progress. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Please share this information with your staff. Thanks! Diane

It seems like the MATC Administration is spending a lot of resources on what amounts to a nickname change.  The obvious question here is why?  Couldn't those resources be better spent on programs that will help students?  We should all take the time to contact the administration to let them know our frustration over the time and money spent on this frivolous change.