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///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Academic Freedom and Tenure: Community College of Aurora (Colorado)1 (MARCH 2017) This report concerns actions taken by the administra- The college operates under the authority of the State tion of the Community College of Aurora, during the Board for Community Colleges and Occupational fourth week of the fall 2016 semester, to terminate Education, which governs all thirteen institutions in the appointment of part-time instructor of philosophy the community college system. The system’s president Nathanial Bork without affordance of academic is Dr. Nancy J. McCallin. due process. CCA has been accredited since 1988 by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC; formerly the North I. The Institution Central Association of Colleges and Schools). In The Community College of Aurora, with campuses October 2013, the commission acted to continue in the Denver suburb from which it gets its name as the college’s accreditation until 2022–23, “with well as in Denver itself, was established in 1983 as Interim Monitoring.” part of the Colorado Community College System (CCCS). The college enrolls a diverse population II. The Case of Nathanial Bork of about 10,500 students annually, approximately Mr. Nathanial Bork accepted his first appointment as 80 percent of whom are part time. According to an adjunct instructor of philosophy at CCA in January the most recent figures available from the National 2010, shortly after completing an MA in philosophy Center for Education Statistics, these students are at Colorado State University. By fall 2016 Mr. Bork served by fifty-seven full-time and 310 part-time had served at the college for more than six years, (adjunct) faculty members. The college’s president is teaching an array of courses in philosophy, ethics, Dr. Elizabeth (Betsy) Oudenhoven, who took office and comparative religion but typically no more than in December 2013 after having served briefly as one or two classes per semester. Mr. Bork also held an interim president and, prior to that, vice president appointment as an adjunct instructor of philosophy for student services and enrollment management. at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton (another Denver suburb), where he continues to teach at least four courses a semester. An advocate for adjunct faculty members, Mr. 1. The initial text of this report was produced by the members of Bork was twice elected adjunct faculty representative the investigating committee. In accordance with Association practice, to the CCA faculty senate, founded an adjunct the staff then edited the text and submitted it, as revised with the faculty organization at the college, and worked to concurrence of the investigating committee, to Committee A on advance the rights of adjunct faculty members at Academic Freedom and Tenure. With that committee’s approval, the staff sent the report to the subject faculty member, to the his own institution and throughout the CCCS. Both administration of the Community College of Aurora, and to other faculty members and administrators interviewed persons directly concerned. The final report, which has been prepared by the undersigned investigating committee readily for publication with the editorial assistance of the staff, takes into attested to Mr. Bork’s largely positive recognition account the responses received from these parties. on the CCA campus for these efforts. Along with © 2017 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS Academic Freedom and Tenure: Community College of Aurora (Colorado) other leaders in Colorado’s AAUP conference Mr. Bork immediately sought the advice and (Mr. Bork helped to found the AAUP chapter at assistance of his AAUP colleagues in the Colorado CCA and served as its first president), he actively conference. In a September 14 e-mail message to them, supported failed Colorado Senate Bill 15–094, he claimed that his appointment had been terminated which would have classified adjunct instructors as not for the stated reason but, as he put it in the subject faculty members in the CCCS and given them the line of his message, “for writing a report to the HLC “same responsibilities, benefits, and freedoms of about CCA’s efforts to increase student success via regular faculty.” Mr. Bork was featured, along with lowering standards.” Colorado conference secretary-treasurer Suzanne The report in question was addressed to the Higher Hudson and national AAUP second vice president Learning Commission and conveyed Mr. Bork’s “deep Caprice Lawless, in several media accounts of the concerns” about the college’s Gateway to Success situation of adjunct faculty members in Colorado. initiative, which modified certain entry-level liberal Rocky Mountain PBS broadcast one such account, arts courses (so-called “gatekeeper courses”) in an titled “Colorado Community Colleges Rely on effort to improve their pass rates. In his report Mr. Poverty-Level Instructor Workforce,” in March Bork specifically identified changes that he said he 2015. It shows, among other things, how some was required to make to Philosophy 111: a 20 percent undercompensated adjunct instructors have come decrease in overall course content; a reduction in to depend on food banks to feed their families. The writing assignments to an eight-page maximum for print version of the broadcast includes a picture of the semester; small group activities every other class Mr. Bork with his seven-year-old daughter, captioned session; and the inclusion of a larger percentage of as follows: “Adjunct college instructor Nate Bork material (the reported goal was 30 percent) produced reads with his daughter. Bork said he and his by women and minorities. “We have to continue wife are ‘good at being poor.’ Bork said the couple implementing new strategies,” Mr. Bork wrote, until has forgone a plumber to fix their broken kitchen they produce a “success rate” of 80 percent “for sink and expensive genetic testing to diagnose their all student groups, as defined by race and gender.” daughter’s developmental disability.” While Mr. Bork did not challenge what he said was In fall 2016 Mr. Bork was teaching one section his department chair’s claim that these required of Philosophy 111, Introduction to Philosophy, at changes were consistent with Colorado Department CCA. On September 13, during the fourth week of of Higher Education (CDHE) policies, he stated that the semester, he received a phone call from Dr. Bobby they nevertheless violated the “spirit of the law” Pace, chair of the Department of Social Sciences, and with respect to guaranteed transfer courses (general Dr. Ted Snow, dean of the School of Liberal Arts, education courses taken in a Colorado community notifying him that his appointment as an adjunct college that are transferable to the state’s four-year instructor of philosophy was to be terminated, institutions). “Simply put,” he wrote, “this class is effective the next day. (The philosophy program now much, much easier to get an A in or pass than it had been moved into the social sciences department was previously. It’s now so much easier that currently and thus under the direction of Dr. Pace, effective every single student on my roster has an A+, and to my July 1, 2016, as part of a program and administrative recollection the last time I was involved in a course set reorganization.) A letter from the director of human to this difficulty level, either as a teacher or a student, resources dated September 13 served as formal was early high school.” He continued, “If the people notification of his dismissal. The letter also informed we’re giving A+s to in the [guaranteed transfer] courses him that, despite his severance from service, the are only doing the equivalent of high school work at college would pay him the total contracted amount other colleges, I believe that sets up our students for of $2,559 for the course, $320 of which he had harm later on. Our student success rates will spike already received. As an explanation for the decision through the roof, but we’ll be graduating people who to terminate his appointment, the letter cited a “lack think they’ve received a college education, but in of effectiveness in implementing the philosophy reality have only done high school level work. curriculum redesign.” Mr. Bork would not receive And the harm from what I see as lack of rigor will a copy of the classroom observation reports upon become evident after they’ve left CCA and are forced which this determination was made until three to compete with their peers from other schools.” In his weeks later. final paragraph, he asked the accrediting commission 2 Academic Freedom and Tenure: Community College of Aurora (Colorado) to “review some of the new inclusive excellence explanation for declining to do so. Nor did it initially policies at CCA.”2 elaborate on Mr. Bork’s stated “lack of effectiveness To demonstrate that he was not alone in holding in implementing the philosophy curriculum rede- these views, Mr. Bork attached to his report a July sign.” On October 4, however, the administration 25 letter, addressed “to whom it may concern,” from did provide Mr. Bork with a copy of his person- fellow adjunct instructor of philosophy Dr. William nel file. It included two reports of observations of Honsberger. Dr. Honsberger wrote that he had “taught Mr. Bork’s September 9 Introduction to Philosophy in the field of philosophy for over thirty years,” the class, one by Dr. Pace and the other by Mr. H. Ray last eight of them at CCA, but had resigned from his Keith, an achievement coach in the College of Liberal teaching post at the college because he had come to Arts.4 Both reports, on forms specifically designed to believe that the mandated changes to Introduction to evaluate instructors’ success in implementing the new Philosophy were shortchanging students.

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