Loyola University Adjuncts Seek to Unionize
Just what American education needs. More unions.
The Nation reports.
Adjuncts at Loyola University Chicago Want a Union. Will the Jesuit University Respect Their Demands?
As a wave of labor organizing rolls across college campuses around the country, Loyola University Chicago now faces the challenge of putting its Jesuit principles into practice as frustrated professors push for a union.
The administration argues a union would interfere with the university’s “mission.” But according to Loyola’s struggling non-tenured faculty members, their poverty wages and exhausting working conditions prove that it is the administration’s corporate greed that is flouting the Jesuit tradition of social justice.
Like many adjuncts, English and gender studies professor Alyson Paige Warren has slipped into a kind of professorial purgatory, bouncing between teaching gigs at two local campuses and a non-profit. She constantly asks herself, “where do I need to cut from my own time? [Or] time that I should and could be using to research or publish or contribute to the community, or give more to some of my nontraditional students, instead [I spend] just flying from university to university.” Due to what Warren calls “second-class citizenship” imposed on Loyola adjuncts, she is excludes from benefits afforded to full professors, such as regular office hours or just a day-to-day presence on campus. So she ends up messaging students on the run and “grading papers on the train,” leaving even less time for actual teaching duties, like developing courses and programming.
These constant economic and professional pressures loom over some 6,500 non-tenured faculty at Chicago-area private colleges and universities, according to Service Employee International Union’s Faculty Forward campaign. The job of the adjunct is practically by definition unstable. Their schedules—and thus their income—can shift dramatically semester to semester, not only destabilizing instructors economically but also undermining the academic experience of undergraduates, who are often taught foundational courses by contingent faculty. About one in five part-time faculty at private institutions depend on public benefits.
Adjuncts at Loyola University Chicago Want a Union. Will the Jesuit University Respect Their Demands? (The Nation)
Comments
I make the following comments having worked as an adjunct faculty at a community college. I was not teaching a foundational course, but rather a very specialized course that there was no reason for the college to have a person full-time on staff to teach and one that required an instructor certification that is totally outside the academic environment.
Anyway, a couple of things: 1. if she is teaching foundational courses, why would she need to do course development and programming? If she is teaching a basic writing course for freshmen say, would she not be using what amounts to a canned course to teach? I doubt she is the only one teaching the course and I would think that the university (probably with oversight by one of the tenured faculty) would want all of the courses taught pretty much the same (same texts, same grading criteria, etc.) to ensure that all the students are getting the same foundation. Also, if she is teaching classes multiple times over successive semesters, I would think she would only have to make minor changes to her course over time. The foundational information which needs to be imparted, especially in the humanities, is not going to change that much one semester to the next.
2. In the base article, it talks about how she have tried multiple times to get tenure at Loyola and has not been granted tenure. Okay, it is just me, but it seems that the department has basically already told her that she has gotten as high as she is going to get at their school. It is not the university’s fault that she refuses to see the reality of the situation. Apparently there are enough English/Gender Studies instructors at Loyola and she is not at the top of her field.
Two issues come to mind. First, adjunct teaching at colleges is not really intended to be a full time occupation or the key source of a living. People who are good at what they do and enjoy teaching make good adjuncts. But, it makes little sense to do it for the money or full time. Second, assuming that adjunct pay was proportional to full time faculty pay, who would pay for the costs involved? Tuition and the costs of a college education are already breaking the bank. Unionize campuses and increase wages and who pays? Students, their parents, and taxpayers. Adjuncts are used partly to hold down costs and if you have to pay the same for an adjunct as for full time faculty, why hire any?