The timeline for our election is as follows.
Voting will begin using our normal election procedures starting 10/18 with votes due by noon on 10/27. Only UF members from DVC will be eligible to vote in this particular election. (Each college elects its own representatives to the UF when we have more candidates than we have open spots.)
Please note that each voting link is unique. If you know someone who did not receive a voting link, ask that member to contact the UF Office at 925-680-1771. We can also process votes by phone or email at uf@uf4cd.org.
Here are brief statements from each candidate:
Candidate for PT Rep, DVC, UF E-Board: Nolan Higdon
My name is Nolan Higdon, Ed.D. I have taught at Diablo Valley College (DVC) for nearly ten years in the areas of history, social science, and journalism and am currently the Social Science Interest Area representative. I am seeking nomination to serve as a part time representative on the United Faculty E Board and I would appreciate your vote. Higher education is in flux and we need proactive leadership and union representation to meet the challenges we face to better serve our students.
Decades of treating DVC as a business to be administered coupled with the confused and complicated response to the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the campus to a breaking point. The pain and suffering that mismanagement has wrought is felt by our entire community, but none feel it more than our students and adjunct faculty. Our union needs to fight tirelessly for equity, job security, a livable wage, benefits, and work place protections for adjunct faculty to ensure our students get the best instruction available given that many of DVC’s courses are taught by nontenure track instructors. As your part-time representative on the UF E-Board, I will fight to reduce the administrative bloat, cultivate full time employment opportunities, and reassert faculty power in campus governance, working to close the equity gap between full time and contingent professors.
I am proud to say I was raised in a union household. I recognize that the viability of labor necessitates a complicated relationship with those in power– one that is both conciliatory and antagonistic depending on the circumstances. UF’s success depends upon having an antagonistic relationship when necessary with the campus administration to hold them accountable. When the administration wins in negotiations, we lose. I am tired of losing and I know you are too. That is why I am running to be your part-time representative on the UF E-Board. As your adjunct representative on the UF E-Board, I will not ingratiate myself with the district or administration. Nor will I allow us to continue to die from a thousand cuts of incrementalism and uptick of administrative work heaped on faculty (aka, admin creep or non-instructional busy work). Instead, I will aggressively fight to reassert the power of faculty in campus governance, reduce the bureaucratic workload of faculty so they can focus on better serving students, secure better IT support, and provide more opportunities for full time employment for adjunct faculty.
Candidate for PT Rep, DVC, UF E-Board: Renato Escudero
Dear Colleagues:
As a part-timer for six years working at five different colleges, sometimes three or four in the same
semester, I am hyperaware of how much adjuncts need proper and equitable representation at the
college. We tend to operate in the shadows, do remarkable work with our students, and at the end of
the class, we have to go to the next job. Adjuncts also have to hustle to make a living, and the hustle is
time-consuming, frustrating, and thankless, which is why we may appear as “ghosts” to some. And
ghosts are sometimes seen as “intruders.”
As your DVC PT REP, I will fight to change this mindset and push so that you get not only the
proper and equitable representation that you need and deserve, but
also, I will not stop fighting for positive change in terms of working conditions, “job security,” and dollars and cents.
We are so focused on equitizing the landscape for our students that we forget that we have to tend to
our own needs too. But they often seem to get put on the back burner and then tossed in the attic to
collect dust.
We need someone to never stop voicing our needs to the union and the college. We need
someone to champion part-timers for the wonderful work that they do and continually remind the
powers that be that we are indispensable. I am happy and willing to do all that. I am stepping up
precisely because we are in a time of crisis, and I want to make sure part-timers are not forgotten.
Feel free to email me if you have any questions: rescudero@dvc.edu.
In Solidarity,
REW
Renato Escudero
Candidate for PT Rep, DVC, UF E-Board: Ray Faulkenberry
Hello Everyone!
My name is Ray Faulkenberry and I would like to tell you a bit about myself as I am running for the e-board. I have been a member of the board for the last four years and have learned so much about shared governance and how academic institutions like ours run. During the last four years that I’ve served I have watched, listened, and learned how our Executive Board not only makes decisions but the manner in which they do it. I will say that I am very passionate about the concept of equity and parity – especially as it relates to faculty. I have had many spirited moments in our meetings in which I got very passionate about how we can better serve our faculty, and being a representative specifically for the adjuncts, I tend to speak very passionately about the conditions, issues, and challenges that face us part-timers.
I have been at DVC for ten years and am also a “freeway flyer” as I also teach at Las Positas and Ohlone in the psychology department and the classroom experience has always been amazing. I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to what happens politically in the world of academia and have witnessed first-hand all three while serving on the board.
However, I will say this for our board: In the four years that I have served on the board, there has and continues to be a wonderful push to help adjuncts achieve a level of parity and fairness as the board recognizes how valuable we are. The success that I’ve seen in the two terms has been wonderful in that we’ve gotten substantial raises, increased office hours, improved benefits, and recently we’ve achieved something that I haven’t seen on the other campuses I work at – ONE SALARY SCHEDULE that constituted incredible raises in most cases.
In the few years that I have left until I will step into retirement, I would just like to do all that I can to improve the adjunct situation – in all ways. I may not be around to reap all of the benefits that I am hoping will come from my potential spirited moments during meetings, but I want to leave the world of academia better than I found it.
Wishing you the best in all aspects of your lives!
