SAN MARCOS -- Melvin Callender, a freshman at Palomar College, discusses his course work, career plans and other subjects with his professors during their office hours each week.

But when he takes classes taught by part-time professors, no such one-on-one meetings are possible because those instructors are not paid to conduct office hours.

"Office hours make you feel like the teacher wants to communicate with you and is easier to talk to," Callender said, while studying outside Palomar's student union Thursday morning. "When there are no office hours, you just don't feel connected to those teachers."

The fact that Palomar's 850 part-time professors are not paid to conduct office hours is a key sticking point in stalled labor negotiations between the two-year community college and its faculty union.

The union, which represents the part-timers along with 300 full-time professors, is asking for roughly $250,000 per year so that part-timers can have office hours. The money would cover three hours of office time each semester for every three-unit course.

"Many students have dropped classes taught by part-timers because those professors do not have office hours," said Julie Ivey, co-president of the faculty union. "Struggling students in a class with no office hours sometimes end up falling through the cracks."

Administration officials do not dispute the value of office hours, but they contend that budget woes make it impossible to pay for office hours out of district funds.

"It would certainly be nice to have office hours for our part-time instructors, but the funding formula for community colleges does not provide us with money to cover them," said college President Bob Deegan.

A higher priority

Ivey and her colleagues want the administration to make office hours a higher priority because of their contention that they are crucial to the learning process.

The part-time professors say it makes no sense to give 80 office hours per semester to full-time professors, who teach half the classes at Palomar, and zero office hours to part-timers, who teach the other half of the classes.

"It is vitally important for students to communicate with their teachers outside of class," said Sonia Gutierrez, a part-time English composition professor at Palomar. "Sometimes students fear their professors. But when they are approachable in an out-of-class setting, students feel much more comfortable."

Gutierrez believes so strongly in office hours that she already conducts them, even though she receives no pay for the extra time she is devoting.

"If the college started paying us for office hours, then I would basically be getting paid for what I already do," she said, adding that many other part-timers at Palomar conduct office hours as well.

Henry Bunch, a part-time math professor, said office hours are a key way for students to learn material that eluded them in class.

Bunch also teaches at MiraCosta College in Oceanside, the only college in San Diego County that currently pays its part-time professors to conduct office hours.

MiraCosta as a model

Deegan said MiraCosta can afford office hours for part-timers because it is among the top four community colleges in the state when it comes to per-student funding. In contrast, Palomar is 63rd out of the state's 72 districts in per-student funding.

But David Milroy, vice president of the part-time faculty union at MiraCosta, said securing office hours for part-timers is less about money and more about persistence.

"They really made us jump through hoops to get office hours at MiraCosta, but we just kept pressing," said Milroy, who also teaches at Grossmont and Southwestern community colleges, where there are no office hours. "It's about persistence and priorities."

After a long struggle, MiraCosta part-timers finally got office hours seven years ago that were similar to what the Palomar professors are seeking.

But persistence paid off again in spring 2005, Milroy said, when a new labor contract provided MiraCosta part-timers with a minimum of eight office hours per semester and a maximum of 16 hours.

Brent Gowen, president of Palomar's Faculty Senate, said there is enormous support for office hours for part-timers among full-time instructors.

"Every full-time professor I talk to recognizes the need for part-timers to have office hours," said Gowen. "But they also recognize the economic infeasibility of part-timers having a similar number of office hours to full-timers."

Milroy and Ivey said a key problem in the crusade for office hours is that colleges have not built them into their budgets, so it appears to administration officials that they will be taking on an annual liability that they have no money to cover.

"Some districts see them as purely a money item, and they lose sight of their importance," said Ivey. "Money for office hours needs to be gradually built into a budget."

Taking chances

Milroy said the state is taking chances with its most at-risk students by denying part-time professors pay to cover office hours.

"Professors at UCSD have many office hours, and the students there need them quite a bit less than community college students because UCSD students are more likely to be self-starters," said Milroy. "Community college students often need more interaction with teachers. Attrition rates at community colleges are definitely related to the ability to talk to teachers."

The state Legislature tried to encourage colleges to pay part-timers for office hours with a $1 million line item in the budget a few years ago, Milroy said, but the money was spread so thin over 72 districts that it didn't help very much.

Milroy estimated that 30 percent to 40 percent of community colleges across the state provide office hours of some sort to their part-timers.

A spokesman for the community college chancellor's office said he could not provide a list of colleges that provide office hours, because no such list has been compiled.

Hope on the horizon?

Deegan said this year's state budget now includes about $9 million for office hours thanks to a large surplus of money allocated for community colleges. If that money remains in the budget, Deegan said it might allow more colleges to have office hours.

Deegan also said he has high hopes for a negotiation session with the faculty union scheduled for this Thursday.

"We're going to get this remedied -- not completely -- but somewhat remedied," said Deegan, who declined to discuss specifics.

In addition to office hours, the union is seeking health insurance for part-timers and a restoration of previous policies governing sabbatical leave for full-time professors. The faculty union is the only bargaining group at the college that has not agreed to a contract for the current school year.

All employee groups at Palomar got a 4.23 percent pay raise this year based on state-funded cost-of-living adjustments. Salary is not an issue in the stalemate with the faculty union, Ivey said.

The faculty union also sought office hours for part-timers during the years of contentious negotiation that led to its first-ever labor contract in early 2005, said Ivey. But in the late stages of the process, the union compromised and agreed to drop office hours from their demands, she said.

Other complications

If Palomar agrees to the union's request, part-time professors would receive an extra $150 per semester for every three-unit class they teach because they would be holding three hours of office time over the course of a semester at a rate of $50 per hour.

At the current pay rate of about $50 an hour, a Palomar part-timer teaching two three-unit courses would receive $4,800 for a 16-week semester, plus $300 for six total office hours over the course of the semester.

But money is not the only issue complicating the fight for office hours.

Deegan said there is not enough office space on campus for 850 part-time professors to conduct office hours. Milroy said part-time professors may struggle to fit office hours into their schedules because they spend so much time racing from campus to campus to teach classes.

The best solution, Milroy said, would be for colleges to hire more full-time professors and have fewer classes taught by part-timers.

But until then, Milroy said part-time professors across the state must fight for what is fair regarding office hours.

"Most part-time professors figure out a way to meet with needy students outside of class, and it's not fair for us to be forced to give our time away for free," said Milroy.

Contact staff writer David Garrick at (760) 761-4410 or dgarrick@nctimes.com.