Dear College Students

bobbityhobbity:

(In the United States, that is.)

This is a reminder that, statistically, half of your professors are adjuncts, which means that they work part time, at an average of $2500 per course (not per credit hour, per COURSE, for an ENTIRE SEMESTER), which in some areas amounts to less than minimum wage. In order to make ends meet, many adjuncts work at multiple campuses, teaching up to seven classes at a time. They have to be re-hired every semester. They have to wait until the registration period is over before finding out if they will get any classes to teach. They make up substantially more than half of the instructional workforce at some institutions, but they have no role in governance, no voice with the administration. In many cases, they have no library or computer privileges, no professional support, and no office in which to meet with you.

Adjunct faculty are disproportionately women and people of color. 

If you think this likely has an impact on the quality of the education for which you are paying increasingly exorbitant tuition, then you are correct. You and your parents owe it to yourselves to find out what your university’s adjunct hiring practices are. If you are a high school student considering higher education, ask administrators for this information and let them know that it matters to you. Support the efforts of adjuncts to unionize. Universities in the US increasingly operate on the retail model of education. They see students and parents as the customer, and the best way to get them to change is to let them know that the customer is not happy.