My Turn: GCC deserves our support for putting students first

By LARRY DEAN

Published: 05-19-2023 2:26 PM

I’m writing to encourage gifts to support the Greenfield Community College Foundation and to tell you how Greenfield Community College stands out among the other 14 Massachusetts community colleges. In the 60 years of GCC’s existence, one incident in its history best represents how GCC distinguishes itself from the others.

In May 2000, 64 members of the Greenfield Community College Professional Association (GCCPA), the local chapter of the Massachusetts Community College Council (MCCC), an affiliate of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) and the National Education Association (NEA) voted on a new three-year contract negotiated by the MCCC. The GCCPA represented all faculty and professional staff, including counselors, nurses and coordinators who were not teaching faculty. Clerical and maintenance staff, directors, deans, and other administrators were not represented by the GCCPA.

Approximately 75% of the 2,000 MCCC statewide members voted for the new contract by a 2-1 ratio, 1,033 to 515. The new contract represented the most radical rewrite of the MCCC contract since the first contract in the early 1970s. The contract increased the workload of faculty from four to five courses a semester. With the increased workload came significant salary increases as well. Massachusetts community college faculty had been among the lowest paid among their peers nationwide.

While the contract was ratified by a 2-1 majority statewide, GCC faculty and professional staff overwhelmingly rejected the contract by a lopsided vote of 60-3. Only 5% of GCC faculty and professional staff supported the new contract. One other MCCC chapter in the state, Bristol Community College in Fall River, also rejected the contract, but that vote was by a razor-thin margin of 51-49.

Even GCC’s closest community college neighbors supported the new contract enthusiastically. At Holyoke Community College, 69% of the faculty and professional staff voted yes. At Springfield Technical, 85% voted in favor of the new contract. At Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield, 59% supported the new contract. Eighty-seven percent of faculty and professional staff at Mount Wachusett in Gardner voted for the new contract.

Why were GCC faculty and professional staff so out of step with their MCCC colleagues across the state? What could account for such a wide disparity in the way they viewed the new contract? What was so important to them that it was worth foregoing significant salary increases?

A distrust of state government has deep roots in western Massachusetts. In 1786 and 1787, Daniel Shays, an American Revolutionary War veteran, led an armed uprising against the Massachusetts government’s efforts to collect taxes on individuals and trades during a debt crisis among the citizens of the state. Shays’ Rebellion was short-lived and unsuccessful, but the seeds of distrust of state government were sown. A beautifully maintained home, barely two miles up Colrain Road from GCC, was a site where some of Daniel Shays’ men were forced to sign oaths of allegiance to the commonwealth. Reuben Wells, the owner of a tavern in the house, was also Greenfield’s tax collector and he had refused to send the town’s taxes to Boston.

More important, though, than a lack of confidence that the Board of Higher Education, the Democratic-controlled state Legislature, and the Republican governor would fully fund the salary increases that came with the new contract, was the effect the new contract would have on students and their relationships with faculty members.

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GCC faculty and professional staff knew that the increased workload would diminish the time, energy, and quality of their interactions with their students. While faculty and professional staff would benefit financially, their students would suffer substantially.

Philip Mahler, retired professor of mathematics at Middlesex Community College, was the MCCC vice president when the contract was negotiated and president of the union when the contract was funded. He recalled that “at Greenfield, average faculty salaries went from $42,671 to $60,183, with a third of them getting increases from 50% to 70%. The average there was 41%. The average for professional staff at Greenfield was 27%, mostly because they were paid relatively close to their “market” rates. But they included personal increases of 58% and 53%. Across the system, both faculty and professional staff saw 34% increases in that contract.”

While the long-term effects of the MCCC contract ratified in May 2000 may be debated, the fact that the view of the members of the Greenfield Community College Professional Association was dramatically different from their colleagues across the state is unarguable. That difference distinguished GCC from the other 14 Massachusetts community colleges.

GCC has always prided itself on the personalized treatment it gives its students. The May 2000 vote is demonstrable evidence of that commitment. By its willingness to forego significant financial reward, the GCCPA stood out among its peers in the commonwealth and stood up for the best interests of students, something that GCC faculty, staff, and administrators have been doing for 60 years.

I urge you to give generously to the GCC Annual Campaign by visiting its website at www.gcc.mass.edu/foundation/give-to-gcc/.

Larry Dean, a Greenfield Community College administrator from 1980-2009, lives in Greenfield.

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