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Our Position...We feel strongly about the need for a union at Illinois State University. Please read this article to see why it is important to Unionize NOW!
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Why Invisible Faculty Favor Unionsby Gretchen Knapp, Instructional Assistant
Professor I am an invisible professor, and I am not alone. Over 40% of Illinois State University's professors are invisible. We are temporary employees, known as nontenure-track or adjunct professors. About half of us work full-time, the other half work part-time. Although we teach one-third of all classes, most people don't even know we exist. Many temporary faculty have the same education, credentials, and teaching experience as our permanent colleagues, the tenured/tenure-track professors. We teach many of the same courses. We are proud to deliver the same quality of teaching. Inside the classroom students and parents can't tell us apart. Outside the classroom our status as valued employees seems to disappear. Being invisible affects our wallets, our job security, and our working conditions. Despite advanced degrees and years of experience, many full-time temporary faculty earn less than a newly hired public schoolteacher. Beyond the university setting, workers usually can expect to earn a minimum wage or salary level. But ISU has not set a minimum pay rate for part-time temporary faculty. No mechanism exists to reward the experience, seniority, or exceptional performance of adjuncts. Sometimes faculty salaries actually decrease with experience. In one case, a part-time professor who received multiple awards for excellence in teaching was paid less when he taught the same course again one year later. Many temporary faculty are hired or rehired shortly before the semester begins. Some are hired yearly, while others are on a semester-by-semester basis. Some of us have been "temporarily" employed over a decade. We might not receive contracts until weeks after we've begun working. The state routinely hires temporary and permanent professors on annual (what does this mean?). No contract, no paycheck. Sometimes we work for weeks on end without being paid. Not all adjunct professors have offices to meet with students in private and protect student confidentiality. About 15% of us are so invisible that we're not even listed in the university phone directory. Some temporary faculty don't have office phones while others don't have office mailboxes, university email, or access to office computers or copiers. In today's technological world, some of us work for an employer who diminishes our working conditions and needlessly reduces interactions with our students. Why don't we file a complaint, you ask? Because we are truly invisible. Unlike the rest of the University's employees, temporary faculty have no recourse to a grievance policy or procedure. Our students have a grievance policy, but we don't. We work for an employer who refuses to establish formal means to resolve workplace problems. Why, then, are we so invisible although so many? Since 1996, our numbers have increased almost 70% while the number of permanent faculty has remained practically static. Increased reliance on hiring temporary professors to replace tenured and tenure-track faculty erodes tenure, threatens academic freedom, and reduces faculty authority. Ideally, tenured and tenure-track faculty provide expert guidance in specialized subjects to students, contribute to the world's store of knowledge through research and publication, and serve the University and surrounding community in various ways. Temporary faculty should not be expected to fill the triple roles of teaching, research and service unless the University chooses to employ them permanently with appropriate compensation. By and large, temporary faculty do not have access to the resources and support available to tenured and tenure-track faculty. Those resources enable the science faculty to discover cures for diseases, the business faculty to create new economic indicators, and education faculty to continue improving public education. Universities serve students best when employing permanent faculty who receive the resources and support needed to fulfill their multiple roles. The best uses of temporary faculty are limited and specific. The National Education Association endorses the use of adjuncts when an educational program requires specialized training not available among full-time faculty, or when a tenure-track faculty member has a temporary absence or leaves without sufficient notice for the department to conduct a search to fill her position. Others recommend that no more than 1 in 7 faculty should be adjunct at any given time, but at ISU, the number is currently about 1 in 3. When employees are hired year after year to fill the same instructional needs, then clearly the University should create permanent positions to best serve our students. Why, then, do invisible faculty favor unions? Like many professional educators, we believe that a union is the sole means to guarantee the rights we seek and the respect we deserve. We are not alone. Our colleagues in Illinois and across the nation have shown us how organized labor benefits temporary faculty and their students. Adjuncts at Northern Illinois University, Eastern Illinois University, Western Illinois University, and more recently, Roosevelt University and Columbia College, are unionized. Through collective bargaining our colleagues were able to negotiate equitable salaries, better access to health benefits, standardized workloads, and improved working conditions. At ISU, we've waited patiently for decades while administrators chaired committees and prepared studies that brought about few substantive changes. Our long-term "temps" have watched university presidents and provosts come and go. Whether the University budget was rich or poor, the result has been the same: temporary faculty are invisible. We ask to be treated with the respect that university educators deserve. Our students deserve it, and so do we. |
