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A Message to Our Colleagues

November 5, 2025

Thank you for your patience, strength, and commitment to students and one another during this difficult and defining moment for HACC.

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This week made one thing undeniable: HACC does not function without its faculty.

Students showed up ready to learn. The administration told the public they were prepared.

But the substitute plan collapsed before it began. Across five campuses and thousands of students, only a handful of strike-impacted classes ran. Students saw empty rooms, confusion, and lost academic time despite being told instruction would continue.

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We did not strike to disrupt HACC; we struck to defend its academic integrity, student learning conditions, our profession, and the future of this institution. And we will continue defending those values as negotiations continue.

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Returning to Campus

We have paused strike action and will return to instruction. Our priorities tomorrow remain:

  • Support students first

  • Rebuild trust and clarity in our classrooms

  • Restore stability to learning environments

  • Lead with humanity and professionalism

 

Students were confused, stressed, and told substitutes would be there when they were not. They deserve care and grounding, not urgency or a rush back into content. Our classrooms restart with people, not just syllabi.

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On Colleagues Who Took Over Striking Faculty Courses

A small number of colleagues — some bargaining-unit, some not — accepted assignments to teach during the strike.

We understand personal pressures exist: Financial, professional, and otherwise. But we must be honest about impact:

Stepping into a course you are not qualified to teach does not serve students. It risks accreditation. It undermines program integrity. It damages trust. And it weakens our shared future.

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We will not shame individuals or attempt to sow division; that is not our model of leadership.

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At the same time, we will not minimize the consequences of those choices. We are deeply disappointed that some accepted assignments knowing they were not qualified. We know of at least one investigation already underway in a program requiring accreditation and faculty credential verification.

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The decision to bypass faculty expertise does not align with student success, educational ethics, or institutional integrity, and students knew it. Even so, we believe in calling colleagues in, not calling them out.

 

There is room for everyone in rebuilding a better HACC. We invite every colleague — including those who chose differently — to step forward now in solidarity for our students, our programs, and our shared future. What we are fighting for affects ALL faculty. 

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To Our Staff Colleagues

We know many staff were placed in impossible positions this week, expected to “make it work” without clear planning or infrastructure.

You deserved better.
We see your effort.
We value your work.

 

We are fighting for a college where faculty, staff, and students are treated with transparency, preparation, and respect, not scramble-culture and damage control.

 

Where We Stand

We return with clarity, optimism, and resolve.

We expect that leadership will now choose stability over disruption, fairness over delay, and student success over public messaging campaigns.

We are ready to finalize a fair contract today, November 5.

Whether another strike is necessary rests on administrative choices, not ours. We will continue to negotiate in good faith, as we always have.

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What Comes Next

We will continue to:

  • Center students

  • Protect academic standards

  • Bargain responsibly

  • Stand together

  • Build the college our community deserves

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And if compelled by leadership’s decisions, we are prepared to act again.

This moment was never only about a contract, as many of you know; rather, it’s about who we are, how we treat one another, and what kind of college HACC will be in the years ahead.

Thank you for your solidarity, your courage, and your moral clarity.

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In shared purpose,
HACC Faculty

A Message to Our Colleagues

 

We know this is an uncertain and stressful time, and we want to acknowledge the concern many of you may feel as you hear about a possible faculty strike. It is a stressful time for us as well. Please know that we did not arrive at this point quickly or lightly. For the past three years, we have worked hard at the negotiating table to reach a fair contract.

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What we face now is not simply a disagreement over money but a struggle for the kind of institution we all want to belong to: One led by trust, collaboration, and care rather than fear or control. 

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Many of you have experienced these same dynamics in your own work. They appear when decision-making happens behind closed doors, when those at the top protect their own authority at the expense of those who keep the college running, and when fear or retaliation replaces open communication.

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Our actions are about protecting students, certainly, but also about protecting the integrity of everyone’s work, yours included. The administration’s proposals would allow larger class sizes, permit the hiring of underqualified instructors, and even claim ownership of faculty course materials, allowing the college to use our work indefinitely. 

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These same cost-cutting instincts and power grabs affect you as well: When workloads increase, when staffing is reduced, when decisions are made without input from those who actually understand the job. We know you feel that pressure every day.

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We want to assure you that we have done everything possible to avoid a strike, especially since our “demands” are reasonable, even according to external parties. Faculty have repeatedly turned to neutral, third-party processes to reach an agreement in good faith:

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  • Mediation: We worked with an official mediator at negotiations meetings to help both sides find common ground.

  • Fact Finding: We supported the appointment of a state-appointed Fact Finder, who carefully reviewed both sides’ proposals and issued a neutral report recommending a middle ground. Faculty voted 97% to accept this report, but the administration and board refused to even formally respond to it.

  • Binding Arbitration: Faculty also voted overwhelmingly to move to binding arbitration, where a neutral third party would write the contract after reviewing all the data, and both sides would be required to accept the outcome. The administration refused to participate.

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These steps demonstrate how far we have gone to prevent a strike. Whether or not one occurs now rests entirely with the administration’s willingness to bargain in good faith. We believe, though, that administrators and faculty are operating under different definitions of good faith, as evidenced by the faculty’s commitment to accepting the ruling of neutral third parties in order to reach a fair contract and the administration’s choice to ignore it.

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We stand with you because we know that faculty, staff, and students form the heart of this institution. The health of any organization depends on leaders who listen, share power, and act with integrity. For us, “integrity” means avoiding us/them dynamics and taking special care to build trust in our community. 

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Our fight is not only about fair compensation but rather about insisting that leadership serve the community with styles and strategies grounded in 21st Century leadership science, not the intimidation and “strongman” tactics of days past. 

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You’ll see such tactics play out as the administration threatens our health insurance, jobs, and careers. You’ll see such tactics as they threaten the most vulnerable faculty population, ironically the people upon whom this institution relies in carrying out its mission: Adjunct faculty. 

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We will continue to keep you informed as negotiations move forward. If you have questions, we encourage you to reach out to us. Most importantly, please know that our commitment to students remains at the center of our work, just as it does yours. Our goal is not disruption, but a stronger, more stable, and more humane college for everyone who learns and works here.

 

With true care and solidarity,
Your Faculty Colleagues

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