Precarious — a word that means not securely held or in position, an adjective describing something that is dangerously likely to fall or collapse.

A word frequently used to describe a population of Syracuse University educators who feel they don’t have stable job security or benefits: part-time faculty.

An overall trend in higher education has shown that hiring part-time faculty has become increasingly popular. According to the most recent report from the American Association of University Professors, about 51.4 percent of total faculty in higher education comprise of part-time faculty. The AAUP also reported that the number of part-time faculty has grown by about 300 percent from 1975 to 2011. At SU, 481 people are considered part-time instructors.

The university differentiates adjuncts from part-time instructors as educators who have full-time employment outside of the university.

But while a majority of the educators on campus are not full-time faculty, many on campus feel adjuncts and part-time faculty aren’t receiving the salaries and benefits they deserve. Adjuncts United — a union on campus that represents contingent faculty— recently came to a tentative agreement with the university regarding contingent faculty compensation and rights and is just waiting for union members to vote and ratify the agreement.

Samuel Gruber, an adjunct professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and member of the union’s executive committee, said SU has come a long way in terms of its treatment of contingent faculty. But, he said, there’s still a long way to go.

“What happens is that you have a medieval social hierarchy where you have different levels of instruction and people at the top are getting paid the most and teaching the least, but the people at the bottom are paid the least and teaching the most,” Gruber said. “It creates a distorted and ultimately undesirable system of inequality. The students really suffer from that. I love to teach and I love my students, but I don’t get paid enough to be spending lots and lots of time engaged with them outside of the classroom.

“I have to go out and make money doing other things so that I can afford being an adjunct. And that’s a shame.”

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Laurel Morton says she wouldn’t be currently teaching at SU if it wasn’t for the union.

Now a part-time professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Morton was previously let go by SU in 2005.

Morton is also the president of Adjuncts United, which was first recognized by the university in 2006. The union is an affiliate of the New York State United Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers.

The negotiations for the third agreement, which if ratified is effective until May 31, 2017, took a majority of this semester, Morton said.

Notable changes in the tentative agreement include:

— Starting in the 2016–17 academic year, part-time instructors who are hired in August 2016 or later for the first time will be required to join the union as a condition of being hired.

— To get access to the modified benefit plan, part-time faculty will be on a probation period of four consecutive semesters, instead of two consecutive academic years. If a part-time instructor is assigned to only teach one semester during the academic year, then the non-teaching semester will not be considered “a break in service.”

— The probation and post-probation minimum per credit hour rate for part-time faculty increased. For probation faculty, it increased to $1,200 from $1,126 and for post-probation faculty, it increased to $1,250 from $1,177.

— SU will continue to provide a professional development fund for all part-time instructors. The fund will provide $30,000 each year for the next three years. If the entire $30,000 is used in the first year, SU will provide a one-time increase of $5,000 for the second year. Part-time faculty can also now apply for up to $1,000 per academic year, to be used at one time or spread over the two semesters.

Representatives from SU’s Office of Human Resources were not available to comment prior to publication.

Morton said she is confident that the union’s voting members, which are comprised of about 250 people, will ratify the tentative agreement. While progress was made in the tentative agreement, Morton said she wish more could have been done.

“… I wanted them to take the lead (in higher education) and empower the adjuncts on campus,” she said.

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Jessica Posner doesn’t tell her students she’s an adjunct professor. She says she wants them to value her and her labor more than the institution she works for does.

Posner, who’s currently in her second year as an adjunct, taught five classes last year which is considered a full-time load in her department, transmedia. She earned $17,229.45.

She’s a 2008 SU alumna, has $100,000 in student debt and doesn’t qualify for benefits. For Posner, it’s not about matching the compensation full-time faculty receives, it’s about adjuncts not being “exploited.”

Other part-time faculty members don’t tell their students because they have no job security since many are on a semester-to-semester or year-to-year contract, Posner said. Some don’t know if they’ll have a job next semester. And there are adjuncts that fear if they speak up, they’ll be replaced.

“I think there’s fear in speaking out against the administration or challenging anything at the university,” she said. “I think there’s a fear for action since there is a potential for repercussion.”

Adjuncts being paid an “obscenely” low amount of wages and having little job security are trends that are seen all across higher education, said Matt Huber, a member of the Labor Studies Working Group, which is an interdisciplinary group of SU faculty. The group discusses labor and employment issues.

Equity is a problem on campus because many students and full-time faculty aren’t aware of the issues the contingent faculty face, Huber said. Since contingent faculty are contracted out to just teach, they can “often become invisible,” he said.

“For the labor rights of adjuncts, grad students and other precarious populations on campus to get better working conditions on campus, it’s going to require tenure-track faculty and tenured faculty to speak up on their behalf,” Huber said.

Since contingent faculty members don’t have administrative duties, they’re not really part of the decisions that are made on campus, said Mark Grimm, a part-time instructor in VPA. Grimm said he doesn’t pay too close attention to campus initiatives, such as Chancellor Kent Syverud’s Fast Forward Initiative, because he simply can’t afford to.

“I get his emails every week, but I have other things going on,” Grimm said. “I’m busy, I have to actually survive and pay bills.”

With the current trend of universities shifting to create more adjunct positions, SU is currently at a crossroads in terms of what direction it will go, said Eileen Schell. Schell, an associate professor in writing program, wrote the book “Gypsy Academics and Mother Teachers,” which focuses how it’s more common for women to be part-time writing faculty members than men.

It’s going to be important to see how many adjunct positions will be added at SU, Schell added. While the raises for part-time instructors over the years have been promising, Schell said the overall contracts will need further improvement.

“If we want to fast forward into the future, then we need to fast forward into thinking who will be in front of the classroom,” she said

Published on November 19, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Meredith: mhnewman@syr.edu | @MerNewman93