Adjuncts are screwed and soon we might be too

Here’s exactly why hundreds were protesting yesterday

Yesterday, CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC) lead a rally for a twofold cause: the prevention of student tuition hikes and the provision of a new, fair contract for CUNY adjunct faculty and staff.

Disparate treatment of adjunct lecturers relative to their full-time, tenured colleagues is nothing new.

The most evident difference is the inequality in pay—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A close reading of the most recent agreement between CUNY and the PSC shows that adjunct lecturers in CUNY are not simply paid a smaller hourly wage, but are also subject to different regulations regarding credit hours.

Courses with a large enrollment, typically over 60 students, will earn tenured professors double their standard hourly rate—for a three-credit course, full-time lecturers received six-credit hours worth of pay. This rate does not apply to adjuncts, who are paid for three-credit hours whether their class enrollments are under 20 or over 200.

The differences persist, as adjunct lecturers are allowed to teach 18 credits annually if they teach during all terms throughout the academic year—winter and summer courses included.

Full-time lecturers are allowed 21 credit hours, and full-time professors are allowed 27, providing them with a minimum salary of approximately $60,000 a year—a colossal amount compared to the $24,000 yearly salary that adjunct lecturers earn if they teach non-stop throughout the year.

The disparities in pay and labor regulations throughout the academic year, along with limited benefit packages and the possibility of not being reappointed, place adjunct lecturers in a position similar to the lowest-earning minimum wage workers in the country.

Adjuncts will take on multiple jobs to make up for the low-income CUNY provides—some teach in other colleges and universities in the city, while others get part-time jobs unrelated to their fields of study.

Interpreted at face value, these differences would suggest that adjunct lecturers receive less compensation not simply because they are considered part-time staff, but also because they are less qualified as lecturers and professors than tenured staff. If they make up the majority of the teaching staff, however, does this mean that most students at Hunter College are receiving lower quality education in classes taught by adjuncts?

Based on what students have to say, the answer is a sharp “no.”

Kevin Loux, a junior majoring in Psychology, said, “Some of the best courses I’ve taken at Hunter were with adjunct lecturers.

“Compared to the tenured staff I’ve had, who constantly changed their syllabi throughout their semester, the adjuncts I’ve had are dedicated to the course and its requirements from the beginning.”

Kevin Loux, center, with members of the Psychology Collective

Kevin’s friend, Thea Marans, another junior studying Psychology, noted how having a tenured professor in class is rare. She said: “The way adjuncts are treated isn’t human.

“So many of our teachers aren’t getting benefits that other staff at Hunter do. They get paid less, but they don’t care any less about their classes or their students.”

Students at Hunter know a lot about adjuncts’ situation. The student body has become more and more aware of the differences between their adjunct and tenured teachers, and recognize that while some adjuncts can survive because they have other means of living, this is generally not the case.

Carol Chau, a sophomore majoring in Computer Science, spoke about an adjunct lecturer she had in a Women and Gender Studies course.

She said: “Professor Seddon made me aware of the relationship between full-time staff and adjuncts, which led me to speak to another adjunct professor of mine in the Computer Science department. He’s a grad student, and said that the money he makes teaching is ‘just enough’ to provide for himself.”

“It’s just wrong. I tutor, and I know that teaching takes up so much more time than the hours spent inside the classroom.”

Many adjunct lecturers are graduate students—a part of life in the not-too-distant future for many students approaching graduation. Students like Brigid Maloney, a junior majoring in Behavioral Neuroscience, anticipates taking up a job as an adjunct lecturer in grad school.

She said: “I foresee myself as an adjunct: it’s an inevitable part of the process for what I want to do.

“Looking down the line, I already know that I’m not going to have benefits, and if my long-term partner also doesn’t have benefits, that’s going to leave us in a very uncertain position, where either we will have to rely on our parents for insurance if we are both still students or face the very real possibility of being uninsured if our budget does not give room for us to buy our own.”

Brigid Maloney and boyfriend Brandon

Realistically, if all the adjunct lecturers at Hunter stepped out of work, then the system could shut down. But adjuncts are skeptical. Professor Kimberly Meehan, a lecturer in the Geography/EES department, points out how adjuncts who step out could easily be replaced by another handful of graduate students in search of full-time work.

She said: “What would be gained from a work stoppage? There is the opportunity for adjuncts to actually get somewhere in negotiations, and give students permanent faculty who would be more ready for educational support because they are no longer financially secure.”

Even if a work stoppage were successful, students would be undoubtedly harmed at the loss of the bulk of their teachers—a detriment that adjuncts would never want to impose on students who share their love for learning.

Professor Meehan cites her department as her biggest help as an adjunct lecturer.

“The Geography/EES department has always gone above and beyond to accommodate me with as many teaching credits as possible,” she said.

“They are aware of the financial constraints adjuncts face and do what they can to alleviate pressures.

“Things only change when they have to change. The way things are done now ‘works’ for the pocketbooks of the institutions, even if it doesn’t for their labor force. Colleges and universities are not the pinnacles of liberal and progressive practices, they are academic business to varying degrees.”

The current CUNY contract is over seven years old. Without a new contract, adjunct lecturers at CUNY will continue to work without job security. The simultaneous rise in tuition only gives rise to the question: if students are paying more to be in school, where does the money go, if not to support the biggest providers of their education?

The solidarity between students and teachers is growing. Many students enter CUNY having no idea regarding the financial security of their professors.

Events such as Thursday’s rally, regardless of its legislative, policy-oriented result, can only further unify the faculty, staff, and students.

Though both students and lecturers may be unsure as to how to address tuition rates and teachers’ compensation given pre-existing attempts at doing so, the awareness of the “way the system works” reveals that accessibility to education is of utmost importance to students and lecturers alike.

Yesterday’s protest were evidence that students, lecturers, and faculty are all connected in the call for adjuncts’ rights. Chancellor Milliken, as the head of CUNY, is an obvious target of demonstrations such as yesterday’s—is he entirely to blame for the current condition of adjunct lecturers in his schools?

Milliken is only one player in the game deciding how to allot money towards education. The problem seems to lie more deeply in the city and state governments, who turn a blind eye to the unions lobbying for teachers’ rights and more importantly, education as a whole.

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