If you are old enough, you might recall the ads for a brand of cigarette named “Virginia Slims,” that was marketed toward women and proclaimed, “You’ve come a long way, Baby!”  Inevitably their ads showed a young, strong, liberated woman enjoying one of these cancer-causers along with her newly acquired independence

            While there are better ways to celebrate their journey women have made, it was seeing one of these ads that gave me the inspiration for today’s Wednesday Win, namely, the long way we have come since we started.  This is shown in many ways but one of the most poignant is the fact that we have three votes on the Academic Senate and one vote in every department.

            There was a time, and it wasn’t all that long ago, when we had no voice in our departments or on the Senate, despite our being the largest bargaining unit on campus.  And like everything else we have achieved, these did not come to us on a silver platter.  There was resistance from many places.  While most of our full-time colleagues have been very supportive of us in our quest for equality, there were some who feared what they called “a part-time takeover,” of both the academic senate and all the departments that we work in. 

            We were able to assuage their fears by patiently pointing out that we are teachers, counselors, and librarians, the same as they are, and that we want the same things they do:  To provide our students with the best quality instruction we can, to support them in every way possible, and to be of whatever help we can be to our colleagues.  Nowhere on a student’s transcript does it say that a course they took is worth less because it was taught by an adjunct instructor. 

            Eventually our persistence paid off.  We now have three seats on the Academic Senate, and one vote in each department.  So the next time you attend a department meeting, or hear of something the Senate did, you might pause and reflect that getting to these places has been a long journey, that we have come a long way and still have a long way to go.  Have a great evening everyone!  Mark

Mark James Miller
English Instructor
Teacher–Columnist–Novelist
Author of Red Tide, The White Cockade, & The Summer Soldiers 
President, Part-Time Faculty Association of Allan Hancock College
mmiller@hancockcollege.edu