Office Hours

Students deserve equal access to ALL faculty. Office hours is not only a part-time equity issue, it is a student equity issue.

Watch this video below to get a quick understanding of these differences between Full-Time and Part-Time Office Hour compensation as of Spring 2022. (Note the current negotiation wins below.)

Below is a side by side comparison of office hour obligations for Part-Time and Full-Time Faculty.

Part-time Faculty – Office Hours	Negotiations WINS for PT faculty August 2022	Full-time Faculty – Office Hours
Must complete a timesheet to claim hours at the end of each semester (If not completed by the due date, risks being unpaid).	No change	Submit their schedule at the start of the semester and are assumed to do their job as contracted (no verification).
Only a limited number of hours compensated • Up to 3-units = 4 hrs/sem = 15 mins/wk • Up to 6-units = 7 hrs/sem = 25 mins/wk • Up to 10-units = 10 hrs/sem = 37.5 mins/wk	Limited number of hours compensated: 1.5 hours per unit per semester • 3-units = 4.5 hrs/sem • 6-units = 9 hrs/sem • 10-units = 15 hrs/sem	All hours are compensated (5 hrs x 16 wks = 80 hrs/sem)
Pay is at $55/hour, less than Non-Instructional rates	Pay is now at faculty’s non-instructional rate per hour *This means our PT faculty will see an increase of $13.20 - $45.33 per hour, depending on their pay grade and step	Pay is contracted hourly rate (Annual Salary ÷ 40 hrs ÷ 16 wks ÷ 2 sem
Not required	No change	5-hours a week, required by contract

We are continuing our push for

Office Hour Parity

Goals:

1 hour per 3-unit class per week
Office hours as an expectation rather than extra option

How this impacts our students

When students register for our classes, they have the expectation of being able to reach their instructor and have their questions answered. Every Full-Time faculty is contracted for 5 Office Hours per week (all compensated). For a typical 3-unit course load, this means one Office Hour for each course taught per week. Logically, we would assume the same applies for our Part-Time faculty (one Office Hour per course per week), however this is not true.

For example, a Part-Time faculty teaching only one 3-unit course in a semester is only compensated for 4.5 hours of Office Hours ALL SEMESTER. Even in the best-case scenario of teaching three 3-unit courses (the maximum), a Part-Time faculty is only paid for 15 office hours ALL SEMESTER. This maximum is less than 1 hour per week for 3 classes of students. With 42 students per class, how are our Part-Time faculty supposed to support all student needs? This is not equitable for our students.

What this means for Part-Time faculty

Our Part-Time faculty value the success of our students just like Full-Time faculty. Ultimately with the minimal paid office hours Part-Time faculty have access to means that either their students suffer by not having the opportunity to get the extra help they need, or Part-Time faculty are volunteering a lot of their time to ensure their students’ success at Palomar. This only adds to the feelings of being undervalued and underpaid.

Adding insult to this experience, Part-Time faculty are required to spend even more of their precious time filling out a timesheet to get paid for these minuscule hours. They are required to show proof on their syllabus of their designated times and enter the information on a per course basis. This is not asked of our Full-Time faculty, they submit a list of their weekly office hours that are attended by ALL of their students regardless of their course. For equity purposes, the expectations should be the same for Part-Time faculty. While they should be paid for 1 office hour per week per course, at least the current limited maximum of 15 hours a semester should be allowed to be distributed across all courses without specification and follow the same procedure for submitting Office Hours as Full-Time faculty.