The Executive Summary of the American Federation of Teachers survey, as published in the March 2010 issue of American Academic, reads, “Most part-time/adjunct faculty members are motivated to work primarily by their desire to teach and have been at their institutions a considerable amount of time. About 57 percent of those surveyed say they are in their jobs primarily because they like teaching, not primarily for the money. This reflects their commitment and passion for the profession but not a high level of satisfaction with their working conditions, which a significant majority believes are inadequate.”
Click the link to see more: We're Constantly in Fear: The life of a part-time professor (page 5) | San Diego ReaderPoints:
- “There’s an atmosphere where we don’t feel safe to talk [publicly] because we’re afraid our opinions and our thoughts can work against us. We’re constantly in this fear that this could hurt me from getting classes assigned next semester or my comments could hurt me when I’m trying to apply for a position.”
- “Through my dean I learned that the administration does not want adjunct faculty to be advisors because they do not want to have to compensate them for the time they serve the students.”
- “…many ‘part-time’ professors, like Rall and Jenny, create full-time schedules across multiple campuses, often equaling more hours than tenured (or full-time) professors.”
- “I work five classes, and I’m making barely $40,000, probably more like $35,000. A full-timer teaches five classes and they’re making $65,000 a year.”
- “Out in the World Wide Web, one can find several highly political analogies in which the national ‘adjunct crisis,’ is compared to slavery, sweatshops, apartheid, indentured servitude, and the civil rights and farmworkers movements.”
Ponder: Are schools faced with a cash crunch from two directions: the cost of bringing more faculty on full-time status and slowing growth of enrollment that keeps schools from having enough cash to bring more faculty on full time?
