Part-Time Thoughts

Different tiers of faculty don’t always fight with each other over money and control. At Eastern Illinois University, which is suffering from a steep enrollment drop and reduced state support, tenured and tenure-track faculty just put…

An advocacy organization that represents 40,000 part-time college instructors across California is urging Governor Jerry Brown to make a sea change in how part-timers at schools like Gavilan College—which depends heavily on part-time…

by P.D. Lesko Ivy Tech Community College employs 120 full-time faculty and 500 part-time faculty. It's a common ratio at American community colleges these days and it's a ratio meant to achieve exactly one purpose: to save money.…

As the reliance on part-time faculty grows at colleges and universities across the country, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced legislation that would allow part-time faculty – who are often paid low wages with few benefits – to be…

Attending a four-year public college may soon be out of reach for all but the wealthiest. This is the greatest assault yet to the American dream. by Andy Kroll A few months ago, Bobby Stapleton, a 21-year-old student at the University…

by Jim Hightower If one obscure college professor dies, does it make any difference? If you’re Margaret Mary Vojtko, yes. Margaret Mary died last summer at age 83 — and her death has turned her name into an emotional rallying cry…

by Becky Stieber Villarreal The road to health benefits for adjuncts at Austin Community College (ACC) has been long and arduous. Since the college’s inception forty years ago, it has been plagued by its overreliance on contingent…

by Nick Anderson New rules for the Affordable Care Act spell out for the first time a federal method to define the workload of part-time college instructors, but the formula will not necessarily require schools to provide the instructors…

by Jodi Campbell This was the shocking realization I came to last week. My dog has an ophthalmologist and I don't. I had to take him to the ophthalmologist for a six month check up, quaking with fear the entire time that something would be…

The University of Michigan's Lecturer's union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), entered talks for the group's fourth contract with on November 30, 2012. LEO, as the union is known, represents some 1,500 full-time…