A draft of a new faculty agreement for the Maricopa Community College District sparked controversy by proposing reducing pay for one group of faculty members to bring their wages in line with another group’s. The final version mostly nixed the pay cut, but the agreement’s critics are still concerned. The district employs two kinds of faculty members: service faculty, who teach and work as campus librarians and counselors, and instructional faculty, who only teach. Each group includes adjuncts and full-time professors. A number of librarians in the district say they found out in December that a draft of a new faculty agreement included a pay reduction for adjunct service faculty members in order to achieve pay parity for adjunct instructional faculty members, who earn less than their service faculty counterparts.
