On National Adjunct Walkout Day, Professors Call Out Poverty-Level Wages & Poor Working Conditions

Today is National Adjunct Walkout Day. Adjunct professors on campuses across the country hope to draw attention to what many say are poverty-level wages, with no chance to advance to a tenured track position. We are joined by Louisa Edgerly, an adjunct instructor at Seattle University, where she will join other adjuncts and students — along with tenure-track professors — in walking out at noon today.

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Transcript

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We end the show with another look at college education, this time from the perspective of those who teach. Today is National Adjunct Walkout Day. Adjunct professors on campuses across the country hope to draw attention to what many say are poverty-level wages, with no chance to advance to a tenure-track position.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Seattle, where we’re joined by Louisa Edgerly, an adjunct instructor at Seattle University, where she’ll join other adjuncts and students today, along with tenure-track professors, in walking out at noon.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Why are you striking?
LOUISA EDGERLY: Thank you for having me, and thank you for covering this important issue. We’re striking today and walking out, really, to raise awareness nationally of the situation that adjunct faculty face across the country, and really to highlight our desire for higher-quality education and more support for faculty across the board.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And talk to us about the extent of the problem, again, with these nonprofit universities and their increasing use of adjuncts or part-timers to teach their courses.
LOUISA EDGERLY: Yes, as a matter of fact, over the last 30 years, the proportion of faculty on the tenure track versus faculty not on the tenure track has shifted from about 75 percent who used to be on the tenure track to, today, about three-quarters of the faculty in higher education are nontenure-track, either adjunct, contingent—some are part-time, some are full-time. But across the board, we are paid less than our tenure-track colleagues. We have few, sometimes no benefits, sometimes no office space, very little time to meet with students. Many of us end up having to work multiple jobs at different campuses just in order to make ends meet.