The last few decades in higher education have been marked by a dramatic rise in profit-oriented business-like models. This trend, one where students are simply customers, has negative consequences for everyone involved in an institution of higher learning. This is most obviously seen and felt among adjunct professors.
Adjunct professors are the temp workers of academia. They are considered part-time faculty, although they often work full-time hours. Hired and paid on a course-by-course basis, adjuncts are not guaranteed employment semester to semester. There is no guarantee that the courses they are awarded may actually happen — contracts can be cancelled or confirmed up until the first day of classes. They are also limited in the number of courses they can teach, because if they attain full-time status, universities would be required to provide health benefits. In this environment, adjuncts will often teach multiple courses at different universities and colleges just to make ends meet.
According to the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) pay scale, the maximum pay for an adjunct professor if they teach a full load, or four courses per semester at $700 per credit hour, is $16,800 a year. Thankfully, one of the first moves by the University of Memphis when we left the TBR system was to boost adjunct pay. However, because pay is already so low, many of these faculty still report struggling financially and applying for government assistance.
This increasing tendency for universities to rely on adjunct labor is certainly cheaper. However, the cost-cutting measures are neither enjoyed by the students nor by the adjunct faculty members. According to 2015 Department of Education data, contingent faculty, or those employed outside of the tenure track, make up about 70 percent of faculty positions nationwide, in some cases teaching 45 to 54 percent of all courses at four-year public institutions, and proportions were even higher at two-year public institutions. This means likely a majority of your or your child’s courses are taught by an adjunct faculty member.
The American Association of American Professors states, “The high turnover among contingent faculty members mean that some students may never have the same teacher twice, or may be unable to find an instructor who knows them well enough to write a letter of recommendation.”
Tenured and tenured track faculty should be just as concerned as students. Adjunct faculty are excellent teachers and scholars, but their precarious positions drives down wages for full time faculty and threaten faculty’s collective ability to have real shared governance. Adjunct faculty are essential members of the university, whose intellectual labor is necessary for the higher education to function as it does. They deserve better.
Across the country, adjuncts are fighting for fair raises and better working conditions including here in Memphis. They invite you to join them and learn more April 12 at 6 p.m. in the University Center room 320B for a panel discussion on Adjunct Labor and Poverty in Higher Education. For more information, contact fairness@ucw-cwa.org.
