by Warren Mosby
LAST SPRING I ATTENDED a meeting of the Adjunct Faculty
Association during which we discussed a recent survey of the Adjunct
Faculty at Mesa Community College in Mesa, Arizona. Since everyone
who responded was interested in money, I volunteered to survey some
community colleges across the country to find out how much our
counterparts earn, and what other benefits they receive.
I set the following ground rules for the research:
- Keep it simple to maximize the response rate.
- Use the internet and e-mail to minimize the cost.
I began to surf the net to see what I could find. From the web
site for the American Association of Community Colleges
<http://www.aacc.org>, I
found that there are 1,123 community colleges in the United States;
980 of which are public. Then, I found a web site at the University
of Texas that gives links to web sites of over 800 Community Colleges
around the country. Finally, I composed an e-mail message that
described what I wanted, and sent it to about 350 of the colleges.
In that message, I asked how the college pays its adjunct faculty
and what benefits it offers them. To date, I have received 170
responses. Most of the people whom I contacted were very happy to
respond, as I promised to share the survey results with them. To
lessen the suspense, I can tell you that California reported the
highest pay rate at $1,639 per credit hour and North Carolina
reported the lowest pay rate at $128 per credit hour.
To promulgate the survey, I tried to find the name and e-mail
address of a person at each college who might be interested in
helping me, and would have easy access to the information. Generally,
I contacted the college President or Human Resources Director. This
also explains why some colleges were not included. If I could not
find a contact at the college, I moved on to the web sites of other
colleges.
When I found that many colleges pay according to the seniority or
educational level of the adjunct faculty member, I decided to record
a pay range for each school. I also got enough information from each
school to normalize the pay data to reflect the pay rate per credit
hour for a 3-hour, one semester course in English or Mathematics. In
other words, I ignored pay rates for classes such as automotive or
computer repair and lab courses.
For comparison purposes, I calculated the mid-point of the pay
range at each school. That gave me a representative number that I
could manipulate. I should point out that I collected data, not
statistical data. I made no attempt to conduct a random sample of
community colleges. Thus, when I average the mid-points of the pay
ranges for each responding community college, I do not claim that the
result has statistical significance. The manipulations that I made
provide information. They can be used to make rough comparisons with
the situation at your school.
I compiled the data by state. For each state, I have recorded the
highest and lowest pay rates found in the state, as well as the
mid-point of the resulting pay range. I also give the number of
colleges responding from the state. Most likely, there is no one
school in the state that has that pay structure, but I believe that
such pay ranges offer useful comparisons.
Most states pay adjunct faculty between $400 and $600 per credit
hour. The actual pay ranges, mid-points and number of colleges
responding from each state are given in the table below. I did obtain
some information about the benefits that the schools offer. However,
I have not yet made an attempt to clarify the information that I
have. In most cases, the library card is the primary benefit.
However, some schools are beginning to offer a number of other useful
benefits. In some cases, adjunct faculty is unionized. As one might
expect, those schools tended to offer the most benefits. Among the
benefits offered and the number of schools reporting them were:
- Tuition credits for faculty members, accrued in some cases
(18)
- Retirement plans (18)
- Health care plans, partially or totally paid by the school in
many cases (11)
- Fitness/Wellness programs (6)
- Sick leave, accrued in some cases (4)
- Email/Voice mail accounts (4)
- Life insurance (3)
- Disability insurance (2)
- Internet access (2)
- Events pass (2)
In my compensation survey, a number of administrators mentioned
that the adjunct faculty morale was boosted by these types of
benefits. As a side note, many of the respondents to the recent
adjunct faculty survey taken at Mesa Community College were concerned
about their status in the community college. They asked for some of
the benefits listed above, and not necessarily the most costly ones!
Note: Those who have any questions, or who would like to
contribute data to Professor Mosby's survey, his e-mail address is
<wmosby@home.com>. The
complete survey will remain posted and be updated as Professor Mosby
receives responses from community colleges and faculty.
