It’s generally acknowledged that the rise of adjunct professorships at universities nationwide is linked to sweatshop-inspired corporate “cheap labor” ideals. Much like McDonald’s, universities would prefer not to pay salaries, and they certainly don’t want to deal with their employees’ benefits.
CSU’s no different. A well-reported piece in the most recent issue of The Cauldron highlights, in specific financial terms, the depressing realities of being an adjunct professor there.
Interviews with current professors, administrators, and adjunct activists reveal that most part-time professors struggle to make a living wage. At CSU, the average class pays about $2,200 per term.
The story also reports that as money allocated for academic expenditures decreases at CSU, money for administration increases. The American Association for University Professors tracked a net loss of 42 tenure track professors at CSU since 2011.
According to the CSU AAUP, President Berkman pledged to students and faculty last year that he would rebuild the faculty infrastructure with significant hiring or both tenure-track faculty and lecturers. The CSU AAUP found that “the replacement of tenure-track faculty by lecturers continues as a trend in this hiring pool, and represents another promise broken by the CSU administration.”
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2013.
As a former Adjunct Professor at CSU, I can only agree with this article. The pay is not even enough to cover the prep time and grading time, let alone office hours. Maybe if I hadn’t cared about the kids I was teaching it would have been easier. CSU should think about what type of school they’d be with outstanding faculty and a old-outdated student center.