Despite raise, adjuncts dissatisfied

By Boyd Fletcher
fletchar@mscd.edu

Metro's adjunct faculty was compared to migrant farm workers based on its compensation and benefits in a meeting Nov. 29.

According to the American Association of University Professors, there are two major types of adjunct, or part-time professors: the first are those who teach part-time and the second are those who teach full-time, but are not tenured or on track to be tenured.

This semester, Metro's Board of Trustees approved a pay increase for adjunct faculty salaries, from $788 to $960 per credit hour, to begin next semester. But some would say that's still not enough.

A group of about 25 students, faculty and staff gathered in the basement of the Golda Meir Center to discuss the current economic problem facing part-time and adjunct faculty on campus. The meeting was sponsored by Oneida Meranto's Politics of Education course.

A documentary film showed part-time faculty from across the nation discussing how they felt exploited by the institutions they work for, which fill needed positions for less pay and no benefits.

Colleges are hiring contingent faculty as opposed to tenure-track faculty because it is more economically viable for the schools, the video said.

The video parallels the life of part-time faculty members to that of migrant farm workers in that they are all expendable.

The panel of four included Mark Belkin, representative for the American Federation of Teachers, Dana Waller, vice president of the Colorado chapter of American Association of University Professors, Kenneth Keller, dean of letters arts and sciences and Tabitha Tobias, a political science senior at Metro.

"Growth of part-time faculty on campus is a huge trend in higher education," Belkin said. "It's affecting academic and educational quality."

Another point of the meeting was that part-time teachers' rights to academic freedom are not protected like those of a tenured professor.

"All students have to do is just make one complaint about a professor ... and essentially they are out of there," Meranto said. "Academic freedom isn't for adjuncts, it is only for tenure-tracks. It has a rippling effect on the type of discussions in the classroom."

According to Belkin, nearly 70 percent of faculty around the country is considered part-time.

"At Metro, 56.3 percent of our faculty is part-time," Tobias said.

Audience members brought up issues such as having professors who teach at more than one university around the state and are never on campus to help with student problems.

According to Belkin, none of Metro's adjunct professors have health care and many work multiple jobs just to make ends meet.

The problem of faculty overloading was also brought up. Waller said that because there are fewer of them, the full-time faculty is often overloaded.

Belkin said he would like to see a ration set of how many part-time faculty members can teach on campus so more tenure-track jobs could be created.

Keller said that Metro President Stephen Jordan has added 60 new tenure-track positions at Metro this year. However, the current adjunct faculty is not given any seniority in terms of being eligible for the tenured positions.

Other discussed effects of not having tenured professors included the lack of research that is done and advancements in the field in which a professor teaches.

"If the majority of the faculty members are not keeping up with their profession, then students are not getting the best possible education," said Waller.

Full-time faculty also sees a strain from the increase in adjunct professors.

"They are expected to do everything that the entire department of full-time faculty used to do," Waller said. "They have to do all the scheduling, they have to do all the hiring and firing and they have to do all the curriculum work."

Both Belkin and Waller agreed that organization is the best way adjuncts can gain a voice with the school and with the state.