No college student expects to be taught by a teacher living on the edge of poverty. While student tuition continues to rise, more and more university faculty members are working part time for low pay. Many of these adjunct faculty members are struggling without benefits or job security. I am one of them.
I graduated with a Master of Arts in women’s and gender studies from DePaul, the largest Catholic university in the United States. When I was offered the chance to teach at my alma mater, I thought my dreams had come true. I love teaching. In my classes, my students learn to think critically about the world around them and put into action the social justice values at the heart of our school.
But I quickly learned that DePaul’s social justice values don’t translate into a livable wage for its adjunct faculty members. My dream job is becoming a dead end. If working conditions don’t improve, I will be forced to find a new profession.
As an adjunct faculty member, I earn less than $4,000 a course, equaling an annual salary of approximately $19,000. From quarter to quarter, I’m never completely certain what classes I will be teaching, how many I’ll be assigned or if I will be teaching at all. The heads of my departments have always tried to treat me fairly, but university policies prevent them from offering me a steady contract. I hold another part-time staff position at DePaul so I can pay my bills, but I still can’t afford the university’s health care plan.
These poor working conditions affect my students’ education. When they ask me to write letters of recommendation, I have to explain that my opinion as an adjunct faculty member isn’t respected. When they ask me what classes I’ll be teaching next quarter, I have to tell them I’m not sure.
About 70 percent of college classes in the United States are being taught by adjuncts like me. 31 percent of part-time faculty live near the poverty level, but the pay of college administrators is increasing. At DePaul, our president Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, C.M. makes over $800,000 per year, making him the highest paid Catholic college president in the country. How can DePaul call this Vincentian values?
Adjunct faculty members like me are calling on our school to put our students first by paying fair wages to the people who teach them. We are uniting around the demand of $15,000 per course in pay and benefits. We are also joining other low-wage workers who are fighting for a national wage of $15 an hour and the right to form a union. Over the past two years, these workers have won campaigns to raise the minimum wage in major cities, including Chicago. This spring, students and faculty are bringing that fight to campus.
In my classes, I teach my students about the history of unions and people’s movements. I tell them that when we organize, we can make our lives better. Now I’m ready to show them that is true. It is time for faculty to demand better for our students and ourselves.
Charles Miller • Feb 5, 2016 at 8:18 am
Adjunct or “contingent” (grant-money-based) employment is all the rage in universities. What makes me very sad (and cynical) is that tenured professors have done very little to improve the situation of “contingent” employees.
One would logically think that tenured faculty would see that they have a stake in trying to improve the conditions of colleagues who teach or do research right alongside of them. After all, tenure is under attack. By allying themselves with the “contingents”, the Tenured would make a better case for protecting all jobs.
Instead, there is an “us” vs. “them” attitude. I can, more or less, understand the motivation. If I had a tenured position (I am a “contingent” employee), I would feel “set for life” and perhaps not give a damn about others. Perhaps.
But this dissociation among the Tenured, well-paid Administrators, and the only growing group on campuses — the Contingents — is not healthy and will only downgrade the whole higher-learning enterprise.
Unfortunately, we live in an era where Money Talks, louder than other values. And universities have gone right along with that overall trend, I’m afraid. Here’s a simple example: I know of a large midwest university that built a new hospital building that had a $60 million cost overrun (yep, that’s right). Part of it was due to the fact that the tastemakers insisted on an ovoid shape for the building, which raised construction costs by an estimated 25%. This university might argue that it needed interesting building architecture to “attract the best and the brightest”. But that sort of line would be better found in the script of the move Idiocracy.
RP • Apr 22, 2015 at 10:12 am
Since so many in the comments are taking the route of ‘this was not meant to be full time income,’ I wish the author talked hourly breakdown of wage, which can go as low as 15 per hour for more labor intensive courses like teaching writing. Does that seem enough for the quality of work demanded and the tuition brought in? Also since over 50 percent are adjuncts, this is not an issue of a few classes being taught by people needing to find a second income. These are PhDs who used to get full time denied, these are people who are committed to professional development for years who, by the content of these comments, should grow up and move on. If you are think such widespread transience is good for higher education, I fear for our future.
RP • Apr 22, 2015 at 11:07 am
Also, I failed to mention what these comments are overlooking: tenured positions are disappearing in higher education (now a measly 1/3 of all faculty)! What a short sighted memory we have. And let’s not forget what is happening in higher education is happening everywhere in this country: underemployed, underpaid people are being told to toughen up and respect supply and demand, despite the fact that several decades ago, workers and citizens were protected and respected.
LR • Apr 21, 2015 at 8:10 pm
Adjunct faculty are incredibly important to all universities, especially DePaul. DePaul’s location in Chicago enables it to have a pool of intellectual wealth and experience to draw adjunct professors from. In fact, many of the adjunct professors had far more to offer me as a student than my tenured professors did.
Why I don’t think it’s wrong to argue for raise, let’s keep in mind what makes adjunct professors great- they aren’t teaching full-time for a living. The reason my adjunct professors had so much to offer me was that they were working professionals in their fields, outside of education. Adjuncts should not be able to solely rely on their wages from teaching a class or two a quarter for a living. (That’s what tenure track positions are for.)
Blame Yourself • Apr 21, 2015 at 7:52 pm
Look, basic reality check here. The reason you’re getting paid so little is because you keep taking the dang job. Come on people, THINK, you are supposed to be the educated ones, right? No one is holding a gun to your head to take this job. Find another one! You have degrees, you have certifications… be intelligent and maybe move past the cloisters of academia and actually use those degrees and get some experience, you’ll be more valuable later. That’s basic business. If the supply is higher than the demand, the price does down.
But thats the usual backwards liberal (lack of) thinking… take a job, then cry and stamp your feet crying unfair and saying you want more… even though you took that job as is in the first place. If you didn’t like the job, you should have negotiated for more and if that failed, then pass on the offer.
You, and your co-workers have no one to blame but yourselves.
Junior Student at DePaul • Apr 21, 2015 at 3:05 pm
The idea of paying an adjunct professor $15,000 a class is a little high in my opinion. With the numbers you provided, that would make your annual income come out to about $71,000 a year. Do you understand that some accountants, lawyers, engineers, etc. don’t even make that much? Trust me, I’m all for raising the salary of a teacher (or anyone in any profession for that matter) that performs his/her duty well, but the idea that an adjunct professor should be making that much is just absurd.
An adjunct professor, by definition, is someone who teaches courses in a specialized field. They are a specialist in a certain topic, but can not a full time employee. Why is this? Because the topic is so specialized that the classes they are asked to teach would not be able to be filled every quarter/semester, because enough students are simply not interested in it.
Now in your case, you teach Women and Gender Studies. An important field of study, I would never argue against. Now I’m speculating because of the lack of information I was given in the article, but I’m assuming the classes you teach are similar to “Sex in America” and “Social Movements in the early 1900’s”. Sadly, there are not going to be enough students to fill these classes for the entire year, thus lessening the need for the teacher to be full time. The niche specialization of these topics are just not substantial enough to generate revenue for the university.
I understand where you are coming from. The most honorable and respected occupation in the world is one that devotes their life to teaching. And the fact that you are paid minimally is sad. But the idea of using an adjunct professor is to bring people in that work out in the field, to teach a class or two on specialized topics in that major/school. The idea is that an adjunct has a full time, salaried, position that they work in outside of their teaching.
I respect everything you do. Thank you for teaching us, honestly. There is nothing more in the world I value than education. But if you’re in this for making money, find a new profession.
Side Note: Father Holtschneider lives minimally, and donates the bulk of his compensation to the Vincentian Mission and back into the university
Pete • Apr 21, 2015 at 12:57 pm
I’ve always been under the impression that adjunct positions are not intended to be full-time work. Most adjunct lecturer’s I’ve had in the past had day jobs, other than teaching, typically in a field related to what they are teaching. Isn’t the entire goal of teaching to move up through ranks (instructor/lecturer, assistant, associate, professor) or to move to another school where that’s possible? Wouldn’t bumping adjunct salary require bumping every other faculty ranks salary as well?
I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t understand how you not getting an ideal salary from a single school results in you leaving your entire profession behind… there are more schools than DePaul. I have questioned some of the financial choices the University has made in the past myself, but I feel that overall it tries to make this place affordable for the students.
Jason • Apr 21, 2015 at 10:55 am
Adjunct: a thing added to something else as a supplementary rather than an essential part
Perhaps adjunct professors should be using the salary they receive from DePaul as adjunct professor as supplementary income rather then their primary income. DePaul prides itself as university that promotes experiential learning and thus hire practitioners, in various careers, to teach students. These practitioners surely don’t treat their adjunct income as their primary income. Perhaps if people are adjunct professors are unsatisfied they should look at becoming full fledged professors or look towards another career path.
Annoyed Adjunct • Apr 22, 2015 at 4:36 pm
I appreciate your comments, but Jason and Pete, you both clearly don’t understand this issue. As a member of DePaul’s adjunct faculty who is staying anonymous for obvious reasons, I chose this profession because I believe in teaching and sharing my knowledge I invested in. However, if I had known when I graduated with my terminal degree that higher education would go the route it has, I would never have pursued this path.
As students at DePaul who choose their majors for their chosen profession and feel passionately about them, adjuncts pursued their own education post the bachelor’s degree for this very reason. Forty years ago, a person who graduated with a PhD, MBA, or MFA could find a tenure-track job or begin as an adjunct and later advance. Case in point is a current administrator at Oakton Community College who began her career in higher education as an adjunct.
Unfortunately, in the past twenty years, higher education (even education from kindergarten to high school) has a adopted a business model and has all but abandoned the education model. When I began teaching after receiving my terminal degree (and I had publications as well as several national and local awards for my published work), I was told by a fellow faculty member to no longer refer to students as students. Instead, students were now to be referred as “consumers of education.” I should have run for the hills then, but I was enthusiastic as well as naive. In addition, when I began, the number of adjunct in higher education were much less than the 286 percent The DePaulia named in its headline.
And to your point about adjuncts finding another profession or full-time job, it is not that easy. It has been studied and written that those with advanced degrees and those who have worked in higher education are not often called in for job interviews. I have applied from jobs related to my field in “the real world” as well as Starbucks. Despite my erudition and publications and the fact I worked full-time in another industry before teaching, I often receive a “thanks but no thanks.”
If you both are students, I suggest you do some reading about this matter further. You should also be rather angry that today that not only you are referred to as a “consumer of education” but the bulk of your education is taught by adjuncts who universities now merely look at as slave labor. They do not treat us with basic human dignity. Case in point, for years DePaul paid me summer unemployment when DPU did not offer my summer classes. Last summer I was denied, and when I appealed my case, DPU not only had HR on the phone but a company it had now hired to fight unemployment claims. I was bullied throughout my appeal. I tried to hire a lawyer to represent me, but no lawyer would take my case because of Illinois law based on a case of an adjunct who tried to argue his case himself. That sent precedent. Despite the fact California has a court case that now requires universities to pay their adjunct faculty unemployment benefits, California law is not Illinois law. To add to this point, years ago DPU began giving adjunct offer letters that are now called “Reasonable Assurance,” meaning you are assured a class. Doesn’t matter I have had classes cancelled in the past. When I began at DePaul, only three-course contract faculty received contracts. Adjuncts did not. Because of those offer letters, DePaul can now deny unemployment even if a summer class is not offered.
The comments I am reading on this forum basically same adjuncts and treat us with the same indignity that administrations nationwide are showing adjuncts. And you are being treated with indignity as well by being called “consumers of education.” Tuition is going up and students are graduating with debt before they own their first home. All of us are nothing but numbers and revenue now. Yet universities spend money on administrators and buildings instead of truly investing in faculty and students. And I have heard my share of complaints from DePaul students that echo my points.
For centuries, higher education, education overall, was not only invested in and treated appropriately but looked at as a safe profession. I suggest people on this forum slamming adjuncts start researching the issue of not only what is happening with our profession but also what is happening in Wisconsin with Governor Scott Walker and how he slashed the budged severely for the University of Wisconsin colleges. In Illinois, Governor Bruce Rauner is starting to do the same. You may also want to speak with some of your adjunct professor yourself face to face to gain some other better understanding about this issue.
In your chosen professions outside academia, you would not stand for this treatment, and you certainly wouldn’t stand for people telling you to change professions after you have devoted not only hours of study but finances toward it.
The phrase “Charity begins at home” has never been more appropriate regarding this issue. Because DePaul is a Catholic and Vincentian university, it should start applying their values to the adjunct faculty it hires. One of the sayings from St. Vincent de Paul that the university has in the Loop says that “All members of a community are to be valued.” If adjuncts are not valued at a university that champions those values, that university is hypocritical and the only part of its Catholic identity it fulfills.
I am glad The DePaul addressed this issue and called out not only DePaul but universities nationwide. Years ago an adjunct tried to start a union at DePaul. That faculty member was never heard from again.
Some Perspective.... • Apr 22, 2015 at 11:16 pm
You’re right, I wouldn’t stick around for this treatment. I would leave. Perhaps rather than complaining about how your WGS degree isn’t opening any doors, which is something you should have realized when you first signed up for DePaul, you should be looking for employment elsewhere in another field, or go back to school and get a degree that society has deemed more valuable.
I’m an Alum, and I would say about 90% of my classes were taught by adjuncts. Every single one of them had a high five figure or six figure salary because they were professionals in their field, and taught in the classroom because their talents as professionals were more practical and valuable to the students than some faculty member who didn’t know the subject material.
Also lets look at how ridiculous 15K a class is. At that figure, you could take two classes a quarter, and fund your entire year with that 30K. Sure life wouldn’t be glamorous at 30K, but you could keep the lights on and put food on the table at 30K.
Also as far as research goes, lets research some salaries that would be comparable to that 30K figure, which again, you could earn in 10 weeks. At 30K a year, you would be earning more than police and fire first responders, as well as US Soldiers and low ranking officers, all 4 professions involving death at any given moment. Or that you’d barely be making less than a dental hygienist? At 30K, for 10 weeks of work, you’re making less than several semi professional, and even some professional (pending the sport) athletes and coaches. At the salary you suggested, pulling the words straight from your mouth, you’d be making more than TSA agents, who have a rather important job 52 weeks out of the year, as compared to your 10 weeks of work.
I’m sorry you’re finding challenge in getting work with your degree, I really am. But to come here and passively aggressively complain about it isn’t the way to get in a better situation, and the fact that you’re probably carrying that attitude to the youth you’re educating is equally frustrating, and adds to the overall SJW downfall DePaul has experienced over the past few years.
Also for someone who teaches students to “learn to think critically about the world around them and put into action the social justice values at the heart of our school,” comparing your situation to ‘slave labor’ as you said is extremely ignorant.
Christi Clancy • Apr 20, 2015 at 9:19 pm
Thank you for writing this. As a fellow adjunct instructor, I know it can be difficult to speak out. I hope you receive a thoughtful response from the administration, and that they will pay more than lipservice to your concerns. How can an institution that promotes the value of higher education treat those of us with advanced degrees with so little regard? What message does that send to the students?
MC • Apr 20, 2015 at 4:49 pm
Keep in mind: Fr. Dennis (like all the Vincentian priests working within the university) has taken a vow of poverty and his salary goes directly to the Congregation of the Mission. This is the body of priests who are missioned to serve the poorest of the poor, in the manner of St. Vincent de Paul.