Following receipt of that April 1, 2016 email, I resumed my teaching and advising duties at Community College of Philadelphia.
From April 1, 2016 to May 5, 2016, I repeatedly asked myself on a daily basis: How can I work (18 years) as a part-time academic adviser and not a full-time academic adviser?
That question ate at my intellect and it ate at my soul. As my mind and feelings wrestled with this question, I started to remember other significant events about the hiring practices of Community College of Philadelphia.
Most recently, award-winning (African-American) screenwriter, film director, film producer, and instructor, Brarailty "Rel" Dowdell had applied for and was twice rejected for a full-time faculty position despite making it to the fourth level out of the five levels of review needed to secure the position both times.
In response to the college's action Dowdell filed a racial discrimination compliant with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. Because Dowdell has the financial resources, he has secured a private lawyer to represent him in his case against Community College of Philadelphia.
A salient example of double-standards is this: CCP's October 2015 quarterly newsletter advertises and promotes Dowdell's accomplishments in that publication as well as special events held at the college.
Like Rel Dowdell, six senior African-American adjunct faculty had applied and were rejected for a full-time faculty position. CCP will tout Dowdell's accomplishments but will not afford him full-time employment.
Of those six African-American faculty members, four have filed employment discrimination complaints against Community College of Philadelphia.
At CCP, according to the college's website, in 2014, the faculty included 75.9 % white, 16.1% African-American, Asian 4.3% and Hispanic 2.9%. Also at CCP, according to the college's website, in 2013, the students included 59.2% African-American, 22.1% white, 6.5% Asian, 9.6 Hispanic and .5% Native American. In 1999, 70 percent of CCP's 40,500 students were minorities yet 80 percent of CCP's 375 was full time white faculty according to a Philadelphia Inquirer article.
Finally, to add insult to injury, some past and current CCP faculty and administrators will discuss the school's Minority Fellow Program as an initiative to "attract and develop minority talent as permanent, tenure-track employees."
Regrettably, some college personnel will lead the general public to believe this program addresses non-white full-time faculty representation at the college. In truth, a handful of the college's faculty and maybe administrators know the minority fellowship program is not effective due to lack of enforcement by the administration and the chairs of CCP's academic departments.
To be sure a second way to destroy the minority fellow program is a lack of funding for the program.
In short, the Minority Fellow Program has been window-dressing. No serious attempts exist at hiring more African-American full-time faculty at CCP -- a publicly funded college.
In closing, I have shared my personal narrative, briefly highlighted my colleagues' narrative and reported CCP's faculty and student demographics. Again, the critical point to this essay is that some senior adjunct African-American faculty cannot secure full-time positions at a publicly funded institution.
Remember, students receive PHEAA (state grant), Pell Grant (federal grant) and low interest student loans backed by the federal government. Why it is that African-American faculty cannot teach African-American students at CCP?
The urgency is now that U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and Philadelphia Mayor James Kenny launch an investigation into the hiring practices and policies at Community College of Philadelphia.
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