In 2013, things were looking up at Columbia College. After several years of dicey relations between the administration and P-fac—the part-time faculty union that represents the majority of Columbia’s teachers—a new college president, Kwang-Wu Kim, was in place. It seemed to P-fac’s president, Diana Vallera, like the beginning of a new, much more congenial era.
The college included faculty, staff, and students in the development of a strategic plan last year, and is changing “because the world of creative work has changed, and we must prepare our students to succeed in that world,” according to a Columbia spokesperson.
Vallera says P-fac faced a chronic lack of service from the umbrella unions—which she says collected more than $200,000 in annual dues from the group. But P-fac’s departure was precipitated by the fact that the umbrella groups also represented the staff union, United Staff of Columbia College.
P-fac, which now hires its own legal help, has also hired an accountant to review the college’s finances.
“It’s not the Columbia that Dr. Kim promised to uphold,” she says. v
