Imagine you have two friends, Jim and Tom, and both of them are professors in Massachusetts. They are both 32, both major Celtics fans, and both have Anchorman as their favorite 2000s comedy movie. But there is one crucial difference: Jim is a tenured professor, while Tom is an adjunct professor.
As a tenured professor, Jim has a whole host of privileges including a six-figure salary, paid leave, healthcare and work-life balance. Tom the adjunct, on the other hand, does not have any of these benefits.
This story is much bigger than Jim and Tom. It is the story of how professors across America have been transformed from a united, well-paid profession into the highly unequal system of the present: the two-tier divide with tenured professors at the top and adjunct professors at the bottom.
Jim’s years of hard work getting his PhD have paid off handsomely since he snagged a professorship on the tenure track. The perks of tenure give Jim the peace of mind to dedicate himself to rigorous research, be the best teacher possible to his students, and live his life to the fullest outside of work.
Even though Tom worked just as hard to earn his doctorate, there are simply no longer enough professor jobs for all of the brilliant PhDs like him. But after spending 8 years on his PhD, Tom is determined to be a professor. All that is left, however, are “adjunct professor” jobs where you sign up to teach classes that pay poverty wages with no job security, benefits or support.
Adjunct faculty lack proper salaries because they are only paid for every class they teach. The average pay per class for adjunct professors is about $3500. Our adjunct friend Tom, like two thirds of adjuncts, earns less than $50,000 per year with all of his other jobs combined, while one quarter of adjuncts earn less than $25,000 per year. According to one survey, only one third of part-time adjunct professors received any contributions to their retirement plans or to health insurance.
It wasn’t always this way. The relegation of so many talented professors to adjuncting only happened because universities have drastically reduced the number of secure, well-paying professor jobs and replaced them with adjunct professor gigs. Tenure-track professors like Jim used to be the majority at universities, numbering 78.3 percent of all professors in 1969. But by 2020, the percentage of tenure-track professors had fallen to 31 percent of all college professors – less than half of what it was half a century ago.
Universities love to hire cheaper and more vulnerable adjunct professors precisely because they are cheaper and more vulnerable. Universities can deny adjunct professors the livable salaries, long-term employment and benefits like healthcare that for tenured professors are non-negotiable.
Because of how cheap adjuncts are, they are also easier to control. Without tenure, which protects against arbitrary termination, adjunct professors are also easier to fire and censor. Tenured professors ignore the oppression of adjunct faculty at their own peril: the abuse of adjunct faculty sets a precedent for eventually abusing tenure professors as well. It started with years of universities censoring adjuncts, but the latest crackdowns on tenured professors’ free speech rights show the consequences of tenured professors’ complacency.
The dismal working conditions of adjunct faculty hurt students the most. The Pullias Center’s Delphi Project found that colleges’ overreliance on overworked adjuncts has a whole host of negative effects on student learning.
In spite of this, adjunct professors like Tom work just as hard if not harder than regular professors and go the extra mile to help their students. According to one survey, 68 percent adjunct faculty participate in faculty meetings, 65 percent said they help students in crisis, and 81 percent said they write students letters of recommendation.
Overworked and underpaid adjunct professors like Tom clearly deserve better. We need to require all adjunct faculty to have decent salaries as well as healthcare, retirement plans and other vital support.
This is what two bills, the Adjunct Faculty Reform Act (S.930/H.3948) and the Adjunct Pilot Program (H.1434) would do if passed. The Massachusetts Teachers’ Association’s Adjunct Faculty Bill of Rights (S.940/H.1429) would also go a long way towards giving adjunct faculty the dignity they deserve. If you agree that adjunct faculty deserve better, you should urge your lawmakers to vote for these bills.
When adjunct faculty like Tom get the best treatment possible, students get the best education possible.