Adjuncts teach 66 percent of the courses at CSU, but are still paid chump change, at rates which fail to account for the majority of their labors. They’ll have an information booth in the Student Center from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
It’s not just the low wages, either, adjuncts claim. It’s the pay schedule.
“I started teaching on Jan. 12 and will not receive my first paycheck until Feb. 27,” said Dr. Brian Johnson, a longtime adjunct in CSU’s English department. He has been organizing and agitating the local group on Facebook. “People are equating adjunct faculty as the new fast-food workers, but McDonald’s doesn’t make you wait seven weeks for your first paycheck. They’d probably get sued if they did.”
The arguments in Cleveland are variations on nationwide themes: Much like fast-food employees, adjuncts are given only limited hours by the university. They’ve got no job security and no benefits. Furthermore, studies have demonstrated a measurable decline in retention rates and academic success when students are exposed to primarily non-tenure-track faculty.
Plus, the economics are “absurd.”
Students at CSU pay nearly $10,000 per year for a full course load. For non-residents, it’s closer to $18,000. An adjunct instructor is paid roughly $2,500 per class (before taxes).
(UPDATE: That $18,000 figure is for non-resident transfer students. Non-resident career student tuition is about $13,000. Thanks to commenter Tom Horsman below for pointing out).
Elizabeth Hoag was an adjunct instructor at CSU last semester.
“I taught a class of 118 students. That means that the college made about $140,000 from my class after paying me $2,500 with no benefits, and making me pay for parking! It’s absurd.”
On the CSU adjunct Facebook page, commenters concur that using classroom hours exclusively to determine adjunct pay is outrageous: it fails to account for the time it takes to prepare for class, grade assignments and exams, sit for mandatory office hours and provide additional assistance students often require.
A spokesman in CSU’s PR department said he hadn’t even heard that adjuncts were planning to walk out Wednesday, and has not yet responded to specific questions via email.
Disclosure: I myself am an adjunct in CSU’s English Department.
This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2015.
CSU’s full time undergraduate tuition for non-residents is $12,928 per year, not $18,000.
It’s unfortunate that colleges and universities operate like cut throat businesses rather than institutions of higher education. It’s a nice scheme for all the highly paid and abundantly redudant adminstrators.
Sam’s tuition is rounded up but not by much. Non-resident transfer students pay about $18,000 — not including “miscellaneous fees”
http://www.csuohio.edu/sites/default/files/Fiscal%202015%20UNDERGRADUATE%20Fee%20Schedule%20%28Fall%2014%2C%20Spring%2015%2C%20Summer%2015%29_1.pdf
Mr. Creative Writing is an adjunct at CSU? That’s fucking hilarious. He’s worth every penny they pay him and not a nickel more. Give us another story poking fun at Joe Tait’s wife’s disease. Or how about another look at Cleveland’s trivia scene? Sam Allard is Cleveland’s Superposer. Go pose somewhere, Sam. We need spineless dicks like you to tell us what’s what while doing NOTHING of substance.
Your students revere you and admire your passion and gusto for the job, but you can’t tell them that you have to work multiple part time gigs because even though you are a knowledgable educated charismatic professional, they’ll probably make more money than you in any full time gif they land. And all you can do is pray for another class, because every credit counts when you’re trying to pay the bills.
I’d be too afraid to pull this stunt where I teach, they might hold it against me when I’m hungry for work and classes are scarce. Plenty of other adjuncts in the sea.
Yes! Good!
Great and informative article. They need to have these adjuncts making very little or else the University President wouldn’t be able to rent a private plane for his trip to columbus.
I’d sure like to know where that 66% figure came from. Adjuncts usually teach one class at best, some 2. The tenure track faculty teaches at least 2 a semester and lecturers teach 4. Since the number of full time faculty exceeds the number of adjuncts, the full time numbers should be substantially higher.
The 2/3 figure in this article is moderately suspect. Of CSU’s 1030 full-time faculty, approximately half are in instructional, non-administrative, or non-departmental roles. This compares to 524 part-time instructors university wide, resulting in essentially a 50%/50% split, just a couple percent above the national average. Given the average teaching loads for full-time lecturers and assistant/associate professors is 4.5+ annually, and there are an additional 250+ Teaching Assistant graduates teaching a 1/1 load (i.e.: half the number of the adjuncts teaching approximately a third the non-full-time load themselves), it is almost mathematically impossible for these numbers to be right unless the average CSU adjunct teaches a 4/3 load or higher.
Combined with the accidental near-doubling of CSU’s non-resident tuition rates, this paints a dire, and inaccurate picture of the economic/labor situation at CSU compared to other schools.
I agree that the plight of the adjunct has to be addressed both at CSU and across the country, since, as a CSU part-time instructor myself, I understand the frustration of those instructors who decided not to do their jobs today, to the disservice of nobody other than the students they are ethically bound to educate. This walk-out is a mistake of monumental scale, and will only increase hostility between the already cutthroat Berkman administration and the under-powered adjuncts. It’s not in the best interest of students, departments, or the instructors themselves. It’s childish, and non-productive.
That said, even if I did agree with the walkout, which I could certainly see having my mind changed about given a competent argument in its favor, lying about the numbers to misrepresent the cause of adjuncts as more dire than it actually is makes the entire argument suspect, and makes the adjuncts, and the author in particular, appear not only foolish, but disingenuous.
Pay me more because I’m worth more. Pay me more because we can afford to pay Berkman and the administrators across Euclid far less for the value they add. Pay me more so I can afford to give even more of my time to my students and provide them a better and more engaging education. Pay me more because it’s the moral thing to do, because I’m a human being of value as a person AND a professional, because you profit from the fruits of my labor.
But don’t pay me more because my coworkers tricked you with fudged numbers.