Dr. Maria Maisto is president of New Faculty Majority and executive director of the New Faculty Majority Foundation.
“While the occupation of ‘college professor’ still retains a reputation as a middle-class job, the reality is that a growing number of people working in this profession fill positions not intended to provide the stability, pay, or benefits necessary for a family’s long-term economic security,” according to “The Just-In Time Professor: A Staff Report Summarizing eForum Responses on the Working Conditions of Contingent Faculty in Higher Education.”
Released on January 24, The Just-In-Time Professor study is reportedly the first-ever congressional review of the working conditions of U.S. contingent faculty. While its authors acknowledge the study was not designed as a scientifically conclusive research study, the report, which is based on 845 comments submitted by adjuncts from 41 states to an electronic forum, says that its findings are “consistent with news reports and other research that indicate contingent faculty earn low salaries with few or no benefits, are forced to carry on harried schedules to make ends meet, have no clear path for career growth, and enjoy little to no job security.”
The trend towards declining working conditions and stability for contingent faculty “should be of concern to policymakers both because of what it means for the living standards and work lives of those individuals we expect to educate the next generation of scientists, entrepreneurs, and other highly skilled workers, and what it may mean for the quality of higher education,” the report notes.
U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Ca., the ranking minority on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, has said that he expects that in the coming months, committee members, colleges, and adjunct faculty members will collaborate to develop solutions that address problems contingent faculty confront. This past November, Miller sought the eForum’s establishment to have contingent faculty and instructors from across the nation comment on working conditions, their ability to have a fruitful career and on how their working conditions may affect students and student attainment of educational goals.
“The number of part-time contingent faculty at institutions of higher education has been rising rapidly, with more than one million people now working as adjunct faculty, providing a cheap source of labor even while tuition is skyrocketing,” Miller said in a statement.
In 1969, an estimated 18.5 percent of college professors worked as part-time faculty members. The U.S. Education Department has reported that by 2011, contingent faculty (including part-time or adjunct faculty members, full-time non-tenure-track faculty members or graduate student assistants) in degree granting two- and four-year higher education institutions had jumped to, or 75.5 percent of the college teaching workforce, or more than 1.3 million people, according to the report.
