Columbus College of Art & Design faculty to unionize

Faculty at the Columbus College of Art & Design announced their intention to unionize Wednesday afternoon and join more than a dozen other collective bargaining units at colleges across the state.

More than 120 adjunct and full-time faculty members, about 72% of eligible faculty at the Downtown private arts college, filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board.

The CCAD Faculty Alliance will be affiliated with the Ohio Federation of Teachers, which works with 58 local unions representing active and retired public school teachers and staff, charter school teachers and staff, higher education faculty and staff, social workers, library workers and public employees.

“We’re forming our union because it will give faculty a larger voice in the way our institution is run and lead to more innovation,” said Carol Boramhays, an associate professor of art history and visual culture at CCAD. “It will also help bring about better working conditions for adjuncts and full-time faculty, and a more creative and equitable college for everyone.”

The two biggest issues cited by faculty as their reasons for organizing were having a greater voice in academic decision-making at the college and improving conditions for adjunct faculty, said Emi Gennis, an associate professor in the college’s comics department.

Gennis said CCAD’S faculty council is “purely advisory” and has no voting power. A union, Gennis said, would create “true shared governance.”

“We just want a real seat at the table,” Gennis said.

Thom Glick — a CCAD alum who has been an adjunct professor at the college for 13 years — agreed.

Two out of three CCAD faculty members are adjuncts, Glick said. Students often interact with adjunct professors more than full-time faculty, yet they don’t get benefits from the college and their contracts typically don’t last longer than a semester.

“Faculty are uniquely positioned to know the needs of students,” he said. “Forming a union is a way to more uniformly bring advice and insight to the table.”

Organizers are calling on CCAD’S Board of Trustees to voluntarily recognize the union due to the volume of signatures.

“Throughout higher education, the labor of adjunct faculty is not fairly compensated,” said Jessie Horning, an adjunct faculty member who teaches art history and visual culture.

“If CCAD wants to consider themselves an equitable institution, they need to be open to supporting all of their faculty with fair pay and other benefits that we can negotiate as a union.” shendrix@dispatch.com @sheridan120