Adjuncts Teach More but Earn Less
More and More Universities Tend towards Contracted Teaching
May 14, 2009
In many American universities, the number of adjuncts is surpassing the number of tenured professors. In the State and City University system of New York (SUNY and CUNY), where more than 600,000 students are registered, the proportion of adjuncts is around 50 per cent. In the mid 1970s, around 250,000 students were instructed by about 11,300 tenured professors. Today the ratio is 6800 tenured professors to about 226,000 students according to the CUNY Adjunct Project.
Parents and Students are Clueless
“When I tell students they are getting increasingly less for what they pay in rising tuition costs, they swallow hard,” says Antonia Levy in a March 2009 phone interview. The 34 year old, who came from Kassel to New York seven years ago, earns her living as a professor of sociology. In addition, she is very involved in the union concerning adjunct professors. Levy helped found an association for adjuncts, the CUNY Contingents Unite.
Many adjuncts do not have the time, money, or energy to demand better conditions. “If you aren’t teaching for fun or for idealism, but have to do it for a living, you have to dedicate yourself to it full time,” said Julie Bermann, an union organizer for New York State United Teacher, in a phone interview in March. This way, many parents and students are still clueless about the situation of the better part of their faculty.
Most adjuncts have a shared office (if they have one at all), no personal phone extension, and only limited access to computers. “Full time professors get a gigabyte for their email, adjuncts only 100 MB,” complains Arto Artinian, Lehman College political science instructor, in an April 3 interview at CUNY’s Murphy Institute Teach In titled "What is the impact of budget cuts on public education in New York and what can we do about it?“.
National Movement Demands Equity
Nevertheless, there are efforts to extend the movement throughout the country. Full time professors like Peter D. G. Brown, who has taught at SUNY New Paltz since 1971, have become driving forces. He fears that academic freedom might suffer without enough tenured professors. In a recent interview, he stated that in his department, the number of full time professors has shrunk from 30 to 10 per cent in the last three decades.
Reasons for this development are the budget cuts at many US universities. But adjuncts, who earn $1,900 to $3,000 per section – which is about a third of what their tenure track colleagues make, are not simply cheaper, according to the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. “The administration likes us because we can fit in so flexibly,” says Artinian. Every semester he must fear anew if he will have a sufficient number of courses to make ends meet.
Adjuncts Make Less than Minimum Wage
Since his wife is also an adjunct, their situation is doubly uncertain. He has medical insurance, but only as long as he teaches two courses per semester. “But before you qualify for it, you have to work a year without health insurance. I don’t feel much better placed, socially or financially, than my grandfather who was a factory worker in Bulgaria.”
And the numbers prove Artinian right. If he adds up the hours he needs to prepare lessons, to correct homework and to grade exams, he earns less than the minimum wage of $7.15 per hour.
Since they would otherwise qualify for medical benefits, many adjuncts are also restricted to teaching not more than two courses per semester. In order to survive with the $2,400 per section that he earns, Professor Trevithick has to teach five courses in anthropology and sociology at three different campuses in the New York area, as he stated in a phone-interview in April. Instructors like him are therefore often known as “roads scholars”.
National Adjunct Movement
Since adjuncts are cheaper and allow the administration to be more flexible, their number might rise further. On the other hand, many universities have to cut courses due to the budget cuts and the first to be cut are those taught by adjuncts, according to Professor Brown. To raise awareness about the inequity on a national basis and strengthen the status of the adjuncts, there are efforts to form a national movement, says Professor Brown.
