February 25 was National Adjunct Walkout Day across the country and right here in Tucson, Arizona on the University of Arizona campus.
What is an adjunct, and why should I care?
If you’re a college student or if you’re paying for your children’s college education, you should care.
Adjunct faculty are non-voting, non-tenure-track instructors, lecturers, and other lower-level teaching staff. As state legislatures have cut higher education budgets nationwide, universities and community colleges have shifted to employing more adjunct faculty to teach because they’re cheap contract labor it’s more cost effective. To put it simply: As budgets have been slashed and as tuition has gone up, universities and community colleges have replaced full-time tenure-track professors with part-time piece-workers adjunct or contingent non-tenure-track faculty.
Over the past 30 years, there has been a dramatic shift from 75% of teaching faculty being tenure-track professors to 75% being non-tenure-track. A full professor can make between $72,000 – $160,000 per year (more on the medical campus), while adjuncts make $22,000 – $27,000 per year, according to NPR. Part-time adjuncts make far less than that because they often teach only one or two classes for as little as $2000-3000/class… and live on the edge of poverty.