VOTING PROCEDURE

     The election will be conducted online. Voting instructions will be sent via email to adjunct faculty santarosa.edu email accounts beginning Monday, February 13. The deadline for casting a vote will be 12:00 p.m., Wednesday, February 22. Only current AFA members are eligible to vote in the election. Adjunct faculty members vote for the adjunct faculty representatives, and regular faculty members vote for regular faculty representatives. Election results will be announced on the AFA website and via email. The Council will elect AFA officers and negotiators for the 2012-13 year at the Council meeting on March 14, 2012.    

Alphabetical listing of candidates below.  Random listing will appear on ballots.

Four Open Seats — Eight Candidates

	PAULETTE BELL, COMPUTER STUDIES/APPLIED TECH     I am running for a second term on the AFA Council.     I can use the experience I've gained to bring matters forward that are beneficial to faculty, with special regard for adjunct faculty. In addition to regular duties, there are three things that concern you and me that I would involve myself with this term, to promote/recover/improve:     1. Article 16 in the Contract: This is our greatest protection when it comes to assignments and like load. Article 16 is currently under review and will likely be rewritten to make the language clear and concise.     2. Transparency and the Contract: Access to public information is vital to the health of this college and many instructors want instructor load information available to all. It keeps the scheduling process and assignments for each semester above board and transparent, and to make it available again, it may need to be negotiated into the Contract.     3. Grievance Procedure and the Contract: The grievance procedure needs to be streamlined, as well as giving you the opportunity to be actively involved in your own grievance. We need to have specific timelines, better communication, and an adjunct advocate/representative to be a part of the process at your request. At present – and I am speaking empirically – there are many irregularities in the grievance process that have frustrated many people and it needs to be fixed.     I want to improve the things we do have control over here at SRJC. For these reasons, I appreciate your consideration.     Contact me if you have any questions. Thank you for your vote.
	LARA BRANEN-AHUMADA, KAD/THEATRE ARTS     I have served on the AFA Council as adjunct representative for three consecutive terms (6 years). I currently also serve as a Negotiator (in a 4th annual term). I hope to continue in this role if elected to the council. I remain convinced that serving on the council and the Negotiations Team is a way to positively affect the conditions for part-time faculty at SRJC. There have been new challenges since the last time I ran. I understand the impatience of some adjunct faculty. Yet as a member of the council, I have seen that there has been progress – we now have 8 AFA adjunct representatives (as opposed to 6) and an adjunct officer position that assures that we are represented on the AFA cabinet. I played a part in affecting these changes and I believe that both these developments will strengthen the adjunct voice on the council. During my current term, I have been advocating for areas in which I see the need for further progress for part-timers and I will continue to do so if you re-elect me to the council. I very much appreciate your support in the last election and ask for your vote in this election so that I will have the opportunity to continue to represent SRJC's part-time faculty members.
	GERALD deBANÉ, EARTH & SPACE SCIENCES     Hello Colleagues,     I have long thought AFA has been thinking rather lightly regarding the conditions under which we all teach due to the funding crisis. Often it seems to me that we are functioning as if nothing has changed at JC and more of what has happened in the past is what should continue in our future. I don't think this keeps JC at the helm of the junior college system.     The loss of teaching positions, suffered almost entirely by the adjunct faculty, is a major educational flaw. It says that in a crisis the most important faculty to JC are those employed full-time. This assumption by the former members of the AFA has cause enormous harm when there are ways to share the pain and share the future.     We need to plan for the advancement of our courses for the time that we finally are out of this crisis. At the present time I see almost no future planning for our courses. AFA is not the designer of courses. It should create the ATMOSPHERE OF CHANGE so that individual instructors can provide a better educational platform for all courses. Change is necessary. Without it we drift toward mediocrity.     As a candidate for a seat within AFA, I will work for a greater future so JC remains as the best junior college in the state.
	TED CROWELL, PHILOSOPHY     I am currently one of the part time representatives on the AFA Executive Council. Since my term expires, I am seeking to continue working on behalf of the part time faculty. We are facing crucial decisions on salary, benefits, re-employment rights and loss of assignments. Our work is just beginning.     As a facilitator for the team that recommended the increase in representation on the Council, I have the background to help in this transition. Our recommendations, while not completely adopted, paved the way for the current improved configuration. I have served on the AFA negotiation team for 5 years; I am currently one of the AFA representatives on the District Tenure Review and Evaluation Committee (DTREC), and an AFA member from its early days. I am also serving as representative for independent unions on part time adjunct issues in meetings at the Chancellor's Office.     I am willing to continue working on your behalf.
	DEIRDRE FRONTCZAK, PHILOSOPHY     As an adjunct member of the AFA Executive Council, I would be honored to stand for fair representation of the concerns of part-time faculty: equitable distribution of benefits and burdens, increased access to full time positions, improved job security and parity for adjuncts, and full inclusion of their interests at the bargaining table. For the past six years I have taught philosophy here at the JC; I have also served at other institutions, both public and private, for more than 15 years. During that time I have gained a solid perspective on the many ways that adjunct and contract faculty can work together to safeguard their interests and reach common solutions. Moreover, as a long time business consultant I have partnered with executives and labor leaders to create appropriate channels for all employees to make their voices heard. Last year I expressed my concerns about the need to provide adjuncts with real representation and a clear and direct voice in decisions affecting our careers and our future. Based on the positive, collegial relationships within my own department, I am confident that full and part-timers can work together to ensure fair treatment for all, and to strengthen the inclusive culture for teachers, students and staff here at SRJC.
	RANDY HUNTOON, ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE     A few months ago I expressed my interest in the Executive Council. I still have that interest and wish to serve the council. I have held positions in the past with Police Associations and understand being a good representative, for the good of all.     We have a new College President and this is a good time to build lines of communication, along with looking to the future. I wish to build for a better future between the Regular faculty and Adjunct faculty. We are in and have seen the challenges California Colleges are facing. We need unity and that is what I am about.     Please consider me for a better future.
	ANNE MARIE INSULL, ENGLISH     My name is Anne Marie Insull, and I am interested in running for one of the open positions on the AFA Executive Council.     I have been an adjunct instructor in the English Department at Santa Rosa Junior College since the fall of 2003. Since then, I have been involved with many of the programs and out-of-class activities that make the JC such a varied and satisfying place to work. A few of these include but are not limited in my participation in Learning Communities, Work of Literary Merit and Common Reading Experience programs, the Second Chance Committee, and a Faculty Inquiry Group focused on Meaningful Assessment of Student Learning.     Also, as a "freeway flyer" with experience at three other colleges, I bring genuine sympathy and understanding of the difficulties involved in making a living as a part-time instructor. The fragmented working life of adjuncts often makes it hard, if not impossible, for them to effectively voice their opinions or even fully understand their rights at any one of the given colleges where they teach. In the past, I have really appreciated other adjuncts' representation of me on the AFA council, and I'd like to perform that role for others now.
	BUD METZGER, SOCIAL SCIENCES     Fair Budget Decisions—Union Transparency—Equal Adjunct Representation. These three elements are my concerns and what I will work for if elected. I am Bud Metzger, History Adjunct.     I will engage the issues of why class cuts only impact Adjuncts. I will reopen when salary and benefit cuts are not shared equally by all employees. There is the concept of one person one equal vote. That must be solved. Equal representation of Adjuncts on union committees must be addressed.     I have taught at SRJC since 2006, 25 three credit sections. My teaching background includes Penn State, Univ. of Maryland (Europe) and as an Assist Prof. USMA at West Point.     For 35 years I managed my department budgets for several major financial corporations. I reduced expenses three times with minimum staff disruption. Currently I serve as Trustee/Treasurer of a private boarding school with a budget of over 150 budget line items. With economy decline in 2008, we cut expenses and did not lay off one teacher.     Teaching is what a school is about and Teachers—not administrators—get that job done. I have been the Chair the Area Agency on Aging and the Healthcare Foundation that saved the Healdsburg Hospital. I understand the board process. I have monitored the communication net H-Adjunct@H-net.msu.edu. Sponsored by Michigan State. There is a national movement to solve the Adjunct Crisis. We need to be a part of that. I will serve you well.