“Adjunct professors now make up half of all college
faculties, and 76 percent of instructional positions are filled on a contingent
basis, according to the American Association of University Professors’ annual
report on the ‘economic status of the profession.’ There’s no starker way to consider adjuncts’
economic status than to hear that they’re paid an average of $2,000-$3,000 per
class, with few to no benefits. At SUNY New Paltz, for example, between 1979
and 2008, adjunct pay has fallen 49 percent, while salaries for college
presidents have increased 35 percent. The plight of adjuncts — what we’re
calling ‘adjunctivitis’ — is the subject on our upcoming Making Sense report.
“One of the adjuncts in the broadcast segment is
Arik Greenberg, who teaches theology at Loyola Marymount University. He’s been
active in the movement to unionize adjuncts and, at the invitation of the
Service Employees International Union and the New Faculty Majority Foundation,
recently took his case to the Rayburn building in Washington, DC, where he briefed congressional staffers on the working conditions of these part-time faculty. We wanted to share some adjuncts’ more
personal struggles with our readers, and Greenberg was willing to adapt his
testimony for the Making Sense page.
“Arik Greenberg: I am an adjunct professor of
theology at Loyola Marymount University (LMU), a major, private U.S.
university. I have worked there for over 11 years, teaching consistently almost
every semester. Despite the fact that I
have the same credentials as my tenured colleagues, there is no opportunity for
advancement. There are no full-time tenure-line positions that have opened or
been established in my particular discipline at LMU for many years. However,
they always seem to have more than enough classes that need to be taught in
those very same disciplines, so they hire numerous part-timers to teach them.
“As adjunct faculty members, we receive no benefits
of any sort. I have never received a merit-based raise or a ‘promotion’
(whatever that is), only the occasional cost-of-living adjustments that
everyone else at LMU receives every few years. I have no job security, no assurance of academic freedom, no dedicated
office space other than a small designated room that I share with four to five
other adjuncts. I am also institutionally ineligible for the grants and
professional development monies that tenure-line faculty have access to.
“Working numerous jobs, some in the classroom and
some in other segments of higher education, such as consulting and low level
administrative work for small startup colleges, I have no time to contribute to
research and publication in my chosen field. While I have done my best to
publish, that part of my dossier is underdeveloped compared to others who hold
tenure-line jobs. Their positions allow them to devote time to this; they are
paid to do so. But when I should be researching and writing, I have to drive to
another job. It has been this way with me for years. So even if a tenure-line
job were to arise that I am eligible for, that gap in my dossier would hold me
back, even though I have over a decade of highly successful teaching
experience.
“And even though I give my all to my teaching, my
ability to grade and prepare for classes in a timely manner is hindered by the
fact that I have to rush to another job. I could be offering more office hours
or spending more time developing more effective courses and teaching methods.
“Almost immediately after I first began teaching at
my school, they hired me for a short-term ‘visiting’ position, which was
full-time, non-tenure track. But after two years of this full-time position,
they deliberately let my contract lapse so that they would not be in danger of
my suing them for tenure — a risk that universities face when employing a
short-term contract employee for several consecutive years in a full-time
position. This is common practice at our school and elsewhere.
“But there was no evidence of my incompetence or
lack of excellence in teaching. I had rave reviews from all my students and had
wonderful relationships with all my colleagues, several of whom supported my
candidacy for a full-time, tenure-track position. In fact, as evidence of my
demonstrated prowess, after a short while they brought me back as a part-timer,
and I have been employed there every semester since as an adjunct lecturer. I’m
good enough to teach their students every semester for many years, but I’m not
good enough to hire permanently?
“After taking out nearly $140,000 in student loans
to pay for grad school, and after years of financial hardship deferments,
accrued interest has brought these loans to over $190,000. And on an adjunct
lecturer’s salary, even augmented with other side jobs, I can neither support
my family nor pay my student loans. My wife and I cannot afford to raise a
child on our combined income, so we have waited to raise a family. Now at the
age of 43, it may be too late…
“University
administrations have failed to safeguard their hallowed halls against greed and
the service of short-term savings, going the way of big business. And the
accrediting bodies have failed to guide and censure them as well. If this
situation continues unchecked, it will signal the destruction and
disintegration of higher education as we know it, though many tenured faculty
still do not recognize the inevitable, morbid outcome if this current trend is
not immediately reversed…
“There is a growing movement of adjuncts who are
willing to stand together to stem the tide of the avalanche. So when the union
came to our campus in the fall of 2013, I took out my lucky pen and asked,
‘Where do I sign?’ Our grassroots movement will prove to be the best thing that
happened to higher education since the advent of the erstwhile tenure model,
despite the common public opinion about unions fostering greed and mediocrity…”
From PBS.org: How one professor’s American dream — teaching — turned into the American nightmare
by Arik
Greenberg
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