AAUP organizes part-time faculty, The

Academe, Nov/Dec 2000 by Moser, Richard

Although these developments are encouraging, AAUP staff still need to search for ways to reach the thousands of adjunct faculty in the difficult-to-organize private sector. If the movement continues to grow, and if an AAUP-sponsored health benefits program can be developed, the Association sees a real possibility for effective organizing outside traditional collective bargaining. The Association's Massachusetts conference has established the Council of Contract Faculty as a framework for just such an eventuality. The council has tentative plans to establish a clearinghouse or referral service that posts wage rates and disseminates information on the job market. (As a first step toward this initiative, the AAUP has posted on its Web site information on salaries and working conditions in the Boston area.) This approach lays the groundwork for the eventual development of a system that would allow adjuncts to exercise real control over the terms and conditions of their employment.

As faculty, our first concern is with education. The overuse and abuse of adjunct faculty teaches us all by example that ideas and learning are not highly valued. We are all tarred by that brush. The AAUP and its allies are setting a different example and teaching a different lesson. Good academic citizenship demands that we become the custodians of our institutions and act in the public good. Intellectual innovation and the free exchange of ideas cannot thrive in an atmosphere chilled by insecurity and the risk of dismissal.

The public interest in quality education is best served by stemming the tide of contingent employment and improving the conditions of all university workers, because students learn best in a setting characterized by continuity and coherence. By acting in unison with other campus constituencies and advancing the conditions under which academic freedom, due process, and shared governance can flourish, we set the example of community and citizenship so strikingly absent from the corporate agenda for higher education.

Richard Moser is a staff member in the AAUP's Department of Organizing and Services. Before joining the Association's staff, he was associate professor of history at Middle Tennessee State University.