It has taken years of advocacy and months of negotiations, but the adjunct instructors, counselors, and librarians at Fullerton College, Cypress College, and North Orange Continuing Education are close to an agreement to receive paid office hours for the first time.

“We’re getting excited. We’re in the thick of it,” said Marlo Smith, NOCE site rep and lead negotiator for Adjunct Faculty United. “We are very optimistic about where we are.”

Irma Ramos, NOCCCD Vice Chancellor for Human Resources, confirmed via email that the district is in the process of signing the agreement with AdFac United.

The proposed agreement would make the NOCCCD one of a small number of districts in the state to have office hours for part-time faculty, according to Smith.

The AdFac United leadership sees paid office hours as important for fair working conditions for adjuncts. They also look to it as important for student access and success, in a district where approximately two-thirds of faculty members in the district are adjuncts.

“Quite often, at the end of class, I have students coming up to me asking a question. And I’m thinking this is going to require a deeper dive than just a five minute conversation,” said Smith, who teaches English as a second language. “So I’m really looking forward to it.”

“There’s so much that goes into teaching that goes beyond what you do in the classroom,” said Nora Castro, an adjunct child development and educational studies instructor at Fullerton College who is a union organizer with AdFac United.

Castro cites meeting with students, grading, and writing letters of recommendation as some of the tasks that faculty have to perform outside of the classroom. She offers office hours to her Fullerton College students, for which she is currently not compensated. She contrasts this with Cal State Fullerton where she also teaches and is paid for office hours.

“Having those benefits, which really is the bare minimum, is the least that the district can do to provide us that stability,” said Castro, speaking to the importance of support for adjuncts including paid office hours and healthcare.

Negotiations for the deal come at a time of increased scrutiny in California and nationally of conditions for the part-time and temporary academic workforce. Issues of adequate pay and benefits, job security, and advancement opportunities are long-term issues coming to the forefront.

At The New School in New York, students occupied the University Center in solidarity with what the part-time faculty there say is the longest adjunct strike in U.S. history. 48,000 teaching assistants, researchers, and other scholars recently went on strike throughout the University of California system, seeking better benefits and compensation.

AdFac United President, Seija Rohkea, is an adjunct art instructor at multiple Southern California community colleges and is currently suing Long Beach City College for inadequate pay and labor violations. In late October, part-time faculty members launched a similar lawsuit against eight other community college districts in California, as well as the state community college system.

Under the proposed terms of the deal between AdFac United and the NOCCCD, part-time faculty would be be able to apply for between 30 to 60 minutes of office hours a week (depending on the number and type of classes that they teach) and be compensated at a $40 an hour rate.

The deal would create a pilot program for adjunct office hours, running from spring 2023 through spring 2025. $800,000 would be budgeted annually with half allocated for fall semesters and half for spring semesters. The district would most likely only incur half that cost since it can apply for 50% reimbursement through a state community college system program.

AdFac United and the district have reached substantial agreement on the language of the deal, according to Dashiel Johnson, executive director for the union. A remaining item of negotiation is on the timing for adjunct faculty to request paid office hours each semester.

“We’re really pushing for that right now because we want our members to be able to get paid for holding office hours starting in spring,” said Johnson. “A lot of them already are, and we know that is going to directly impact a student’s success.”