Adjunct

The Longest Adjunct Strike In US History Comes To A Close

December 23, 2023 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. Resist! Adjunct, Higher Education, Strikes, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

The longest adjunct strike in U.S. history ended this week after part-time faculty at Columbia College Chicago voted overwhelmingly in favor of ratifying a new four-year contract that will grant them greater job security and more decision-making power over their working conditions. The 49-day strike was led by the Columbia College Faculty Union (CFAC), which represents approximately 600 part-time adjunct instructors at the private, arts-and media-focused institution in Chicago’s South Loop. The tentative agreement was reached on December 17. Eighty-five percent of the membership participated in the ratification vote, with 99.7% approving.

Organizing To Resist Corporatization Of Higher Education

January 25, 2016 Malini Cadambi Daniel, www.newlaborforum.cuny.edu Strategize! Adjunct, Corporatization, Higher Education, Wages, Worker Rights

By Malini Cadambi Daniel for New Labor Forum - The once hallowed and secure work life of American university faculty has for the past quarter century been in turmoil. Being a professor was once a respected, stable profession, but is now increasingly characterized by low pay, minimal benefits, and no job security. An expectation of tenure—the permanent status that was once a hallmark of the profession—is replaced by the reality of contingency, which means that college instructors must reapply to teach courses every year, or even every semester. This new contingency is not a temporary employment arrangement, nor is it confined to a sector of higher education such as community colleges.

Social Injustice Done To Adjunct Faculty: Call To Action

September 6, 2015 Randall B. Smith, www.thepublicdiscourse.com Organize! Adjunct, Education, Wages, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Randall B. Smith in The Public Discourse. Houston, TX - It’s August, and many of America’s teens are headed back to college. This means that not a few parents will be left with that empty feeling in the pit of their stomach—not only because their beloved children are leaving the nest but because the bills to pay for their children's new college homes are coming due. According to the College Board, tuition, fees, room and board in private four-year universities last year averaged $42,419. That was up $1,464 from the previous year. Was your pay raise that high? Parents might be left wondering where all the money goes. Are all these faculty members getting rich?

Faculty Join Fast Food in the Fight for $15

April 19, 2015 Justin Miller, www.prospect.org Resist! Adjunct, College, Fight for 15, Living Wage, Wages

Higher education institutions in the United States employ more than a million adjunct professors. This new faculty majority, about 70 percent of the faculty workforce, is doing the heavy lifting of academic instruction. These are positions with tenuous job security (often semester-by-semester), sparse instructional resources, limited academic freedom, and meager wages—the average working adjunct makes around $3,000 per three-credit course. An astounding 20 percent of part-time adjunct faculty rely on government assistance, according to a recent report from NBC News. That is to say, many faculty in the United States are among the ranks of low-wage workers. From Seattle University in Washington and the University of Southern California, to schools in Chicago and North Carolina, adjuncts made it clear yesterday that they are fed up with their second-tier status. This isn’t the first mass mobilization of adjuncts either. Adjuncts across the country participated in a National Adjunct Walkout Day back in February.

One-Quarter Of Adjunct Prof Families Receive Public Assistance

April 15, 2015 Jordan Weissman, www.slate.com Educate! Adjunct, Government, Teachers

Once in a while, someone publishes an article about adjunct professors who resort to food stamps in order to survive on the rock-bottom pay that so many college instructors are expected to live on. But until today, I had never seen a statistic summing up how many academics are actually resorting to government aid. The number, it turns out, is rather large. According to an analysis of census data by the University of California–Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education, 25 percent of "part-time college faculty" and their families now receive some sort public assistance, such as Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, food stamps, cash welfare, or the Earned Income Tax Credit. For what it's worth, that's not quite so bad as the situation faced by fast-food employees and home health care aids, roughly half of whom get government help.

Documentary About Higher Education’s Best Kept Secret

January 9, 2015 Bradley Rettele, www.freewayfliers.com Resist! Adjunct, Education, Worker Rights and Jobs

Freeway Fliers documents the growth of part-time (adjunct, contingent, associate, non-tenure track) faculty in America's colleges and universities, and the circumstances under which they work and contribute to the their students, our economy, and our society. Part-time faculty currently make up the majority of the faculty, instruct the majority of the courses, and the majority of the students at America's higher education institutions. Part-time faculty are paid significantly less than full-time (tenured, or tenure-track) faculty, generally do not have access to health insurance, do not participate in college governance, do not have access to the academic protection of tenure, and can be denied employment for any, or no, reason. This film is the story of the unknown outsiders of higher education, and the prospects for change.

Academic Sweatshop: My Life As An Adjunct

July 2, 2014 Nicole Troxell, www.socialism.com Educate! Adjunct, Education, Worker's Rights

When I was 19 years old, a college professor changed my life. I took his Feminist Political Thought course and realized for the first time that I could be smart and capable. I decided I wanted to give students what he had given me. I talked to professors about what it was like to teach college and it seemed perfect. There would be time for artistic and intellectual work, a chance to foster curiosity and critical thinking, building community, freedom to work a flexible schedule mostly from home, good wages and benefits, and opportunities to contribute to research. I knew this course would also make my family proud. I come from a long line of working-class union employees who spent their lives in tobacco factories, brickyards, construction, and working for the state. They had little choice of jobs and stayed with them until they retired.

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