Instability is a way of life for adjunct professors
By Jona Kottler
I have taught interdisciplinary classes, including literature, politics, law, writing, creative writing and popular culture, at the Honors College at the University of New Mexico for over 10 years. Yet my title is “Temporary Part-Time Faculty,” and the pay is still so low that I have to supplement my income working as a freelance editor to make ends meet.
If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that life is not stable. However, as an adjunct professor I have coped with financial instability for my whole career.
My contracts at UNM are for a single term, and at the end of each semester I wait to see how many courses I will be asked to teach the next semester — if any. Like so many other adjunct and nontenure-track faculty, my courses are contingent, which means that, if enrollments are too low, my courses can be canceled just weeks from beginning.
I have never, since I began teaching in 2003, had employment in the summer. For the months of June and July, I have never had a paycheck.
If COVID has taught us anything, it’s that life is not stable. As an adjunct professor I have coped with financial instability for my whole career.
My students do not know that I am an adjunct instructor, or what that means. They expect, pay for, and deserve the same level of instruction they get from a tenure-track professor, but the university pays a much lower hourly rate to provide it to them.
The current national debate for a $15 minimum wage underscores the need for equitable wages. Adjunct pay at UNM ranges from $2,300 to $4,000 per course, the equivalent of an annual salary of $11,500 to $20,000 if you teach the maximum number of classes allowed each year. But the work we do is essential.
Nationally, adjunct faculty teach more than half of all college and university classes. We prepare classes on spec; find sources and pay for professional development ourselves; and devote hours to grading, working one-on-one with students, and writing dozens of recommendation letters for scholarships, study abroad programs and further education.
This is not sustainable for the adjuncts, for the students or for higher education at large.
This level of devotion to and care for our students well exceeds the bounds of our contracts and makes the math in calculating an hourly wage based on the work we actually do almost ludicrous. In addition, we occupy a strange no man’s land: Even in the best of times, I am often omitted from university meetings, activities and privileges. I don’t receive any continuing education and have to pick up new skills on my own time and at my own expense.
None of this is new, and those of us who are adjuncts knew the deal when we took it. But this is not sustainable for the adjuncts, for the students or for higher education at large. That is why 90 percent of the faculty at UNM voted to unionize in 2019, so that we can improve working and learning conditions on our university campuses. And that is why I testified before the New Mexico House of Representatives to support legislation that would ensure better working conditions for contingent faculty.
New Mexico’s proposed adjunct bill, HB 289, could be a model for other states. It addresses adjunct access to unemployment benefits, advance notice of course assignments, access to college resources and more.
Through our union and with our legislators, we are working for a more stable academic profession that provides reliable, sufficient income and support so that we can give our students the best education possible — and so we are not enduring the instability that the pandemic has forced on everyone even after COVID-19 is long gone.
Jona Kottler, M.A., is a part-time faculty member and teaches in the Honors College at University of New Mexico’s main campus. She is an active member of United Academics-UNM, the faculty union.
To learn more about the state of adjunct faculty and how the union fights for adjunct rights, see the AFT’s report, “An Army of Temps: AFT 2020 Adjunct Faculty Quality of Work/Life Report.”
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