Adjunct faculty are exploited by universities, and the United Campus Workers of Tennessee are fighting for better. During the 2019-2020 academic year, as part of their fair pay campaign, members at ETSU conducted research on adjunct working conditions through focus groups, interviews and a survey. The project’s goals are to learn from adjuncts across the institution, refine the campaign demands accordingly, and release a public report to shine a light on the problems. As adjunct faculty and union member Dennis Prater says, “Conditions like this tend to thrive in the dark.”
The report will come out this spring and will be shared here once it is out. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, read the introduction below. And, to plan your own adjunct research project and campaign, review our Adjunct Data Toolkit & The ETSU Research & Campaign Design.
Exploitation at ETSU: How the Adjunctification of Instruction Harms Teachers and Students at East Tennessee State University
Introduction
There is a nationwide adjunct crisis. Low-paid, part-time faculty with no job security and few benefits now teach the majority of college and university courses (United States Government Accountability, 2017). Contrary to popular belief, most adjunct faculty do not have full-time careers outside of academia.
This report outlines findings from a 2019-2020 study on adjunct working conditions at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) and recommends a set of interventions to improve local and national conditions.
Over 550 adjunct faculty teach 30% of all undergraduate credit hours at ETSU and account for between 40-50% of total instructional faculty, depending on the semester (ETSU adjunct data, Spring 2018; ETSU adjunct data, 2017-2018; Tennessee HIgher Education Commission. 2017-2018; ETSU Fact Book. 2018).
In the 2018-2019 academic year, ETSU adjuncts made $750 per credit hour on average or $2,250 per three-credit course (Tennessee General Assembly, 2019). They taught an average of 2.6 three-credit courses per year for an average annual pay of $5,700. In 2019-2020, after United Campus Workers and student allies launched the Adjunct Action campaign, the minimum adjunct pay at ETSU was bumped from $600 to $700 per credit hour. While this is a good start, it is only the first step on a path to make things right for adjuncts at ETSU and beyond.
Between July 2019 and February 2020, members of the United Campus Workers of Tennessee conducted a mixed-methods, participatory action research (PAR) project on the working and living conditions of adjunct faculty. Our research team is adjunct-led, but also includes participants from tenure line and staff positions. The participatory process we undertook cultivated a deep sense of trust among study participants, and produced more reliable data as well as stronger findings. While relatively small in scale—about 10% of adjuncts at ETSU participated—our study is reinforced by similar findings that have come out of national studies.
The findings in this report come from the research team’s analysis of the following sources: an ETSU dataset of adjunct employment and pay, 2017-2019; a survey administered by the union and completed by 42 ETSU adjuncts; original in-depth interviews with 12 current adjunct faculty; and current discussions in academic and policy literature.
