California College of the Arts, SEIU 1021
Many Adjuncts are Simply Stuck
A Chronicle of Higher Education video by Dr. Stacey Patton
Facts on Adjunct Faculty
Talking Points for engaging your colleagues and educating students, administrators, and your community
1. Employment practices that degrade both faculty and students must be changed. The quality of higher education is compromised when faculty are not paid a living wage, not afforded job security, and not treated like the professionals they are.
2. About 75% of faculty in colleges and universities in the U.S. are working off the “tenure track,” more than 800,000 academic workers.
3. The general public is misinformed. They are led to believe that the average salary of a college professor is far higher than it really is. They also do not know that NTT faculty are precarious workers, unsure of where or how much they will be employed after the current term.
4. While the average annual salary of a tenured full professor is generally a living wage, the average per 3-credit course salary of an adjunct is estimated to be about $2700, or an annualized full-time salary of about $21,000. Some so-called "part-timers" work for several institutions teaching many more classes than a full-time professor for a considerably lower salary. Many are denied unemployment compensation.
5. Many part-time contingent/adjunct faculty do not have access to any benefits--health insurance, retirement contributions, sick leave, or even office space. At the same time, many of them are burdened with huge student loans to repay.
6. Despite decades of efforts by unions and other higher education organizations to reverse the trend, more and more full-time tenure-track positions are being converted to either part-time or full-time contingent positions. It’s time for action.
7. The mAsk4CampusEquity campaign invites individuals, groups, organizations and institutions to work together to improve the quality of our higher education system by reducing contingent academic employment.
8. Please help us take actions that will provide contingent faculty with equitable compensation, job security, access to professional development, advancement opportunities, benefits, and a voice in college governance.
See the Center for the Study of Academic Labor (CSAL) for scholarship related to contingent labor.
Growing Number of College Professors in Poverty
RT America on CEW 2015
Full Report on Faculty Diversity
from TIAA Institute
"Our union upgrades the quality of life, the profesional experience for all adjuncts, and especially for the most vulnerable and marginalized. We have more job security, transparency and predictable appointment. We have less arbitrary decision making."
-- Dick America, Georgetown University