Adjuncts at Harper College Sign First Union Contract

TRUSTEES AT HARPER COLLEGE recently approved the school’s first contract for part-time faculty, which includes a 5.7 percent pay raise.

The part-time teachers at the community college in Palatine will earn an average of $753 per credit hour taught each semester. The contract, which was approved in September, expires next year. The college has about 500 part-time faculty members, 300 of whom belong to the Adjunct Faculty Association. The college has 219 full-time faculty members.

Harper’s part-time faculty is now the second highest paid at a community college in the Chicago area, behind Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, where part-time pay averages $820 per credit hour, says Phil Burdick, a Harper College spokesman.