With the 2024 legislative session around the corner, Washington state adjunct college faculty hope they will be a priority for lawmakers.
Adjunct faculty teachers at the state’s higher education institutions are often paid far below their full-time faculty counterparts.
Kate Modic, adjunct professor of English at Highline College in Des Moines, said she and her colleagues struggle to get by.
“We have no real job security,” Modic pointed out. “We have contracts from quarter to quarter, and we really rely on the numbers of students enrolling or if full-time faculty get their full load. If they don’t get their full load, our classes can be canceled. So, there’s a lot of job insecurity.”
Modic noted most adjunct faculty do not have offices, which makes it hard to meet with students. They also usually work at multiple colleges. The Washington Education Association is calling for pay parity for adjunct professors during the upcoming legislative session.
Modic explained to start, adjuncts want at least 85% pay parity with full-time faculty.
“We need to be paid better right now across the state of Washington,” Modic contended. “I think that’s why we’re really focusing on pay parity. We need the band-aid and we’re not even getting that.”
Tobi Rosenberg, adjunct professor of English at Bellevue College, said adjuncts are overused and colleges are understaffed, which hurts student success.
“It has a huge impact on students,” Rosenberg argued. “I see this as the gig economy of higher education. We’re the Uber drivers here.”
The legislative session begins on Jan. 8.
— By Eric Tegethoff, Pacific News Service Washington
HAHAHA….Hey, if you don’t like the working / pay conditions , go get a job in the real world. I mean, really, you’re just substitute teachers after all.
Sounds like Mr. Demme has no idea of what goes on in higher education, or even secondary for that matter. If you think teaching at any level, or subbing, is not a real job, I despair for the future of our great country!
Laughing at people, and calling them “just” something. Great way to show respect of others.
Substitute teaching in hard, and those of us who have been full-time teachers know how much we owe good subs. You’d be ok with hiring just anyone to teach while the regular teacher was away, and who cares how they earn enough to make a living? “We need the band-aid” is a cry for help, not derision.
Please argue the issues rather than deriding the people.
Adjunct instructors are not substitutes. They’re untenured instructors, usually paid by the class and not a set salary. I was an adjunct at Seattle U Law School for a couple quarters and the pay came out to less than minimum wage when I included time spent preparing lectures and lesson plans, grading, and advising students. SU is a private university and the adjunct pay was even lower at the public universities.
Thank you – I stand corrected.
Higher learning institutions use adjunct professors on the cheap while maintaining bloated overpriced administrators. Raise adjunct professors pay, and clean house.
We seem to have an interesting set of values in this country. We pay guys who are good at throwing and catching footballs and the guys that coach them millions and think nothing of it. But; when it comes to paying someone for providing other people an education and at least a shot at some sort of good life, we choose to pay them peanuts and make fun of them for doing it in the process. Both my parents were teachers in the 1920’s and 30’s and the pay was terrible then too, but for the most part they were at least respected and held in some esteem by society. The low pay drove my Dad to another occupation and my mother to being a homemaker.