Adjunct professors face difficulties with university policies

By Troy Simpson

Adjunct Professor Mitali Sen is torn between doing something she loves and earning a decent paycheck. And she is not alone.

Wages and departmental integration of many part-time professors - those not tenured or on tenure track - are under heavy scrutiny as more professors begin to question their value to the Santa Clara administration and faculty.

Non-tenured and tenure track professors are those that teach less than five courses over an academic year or are hired on a quarterly basis as opposed to a yearly contract.

Many part-time Santa Clara professors say the salary they receive in comparison to tenured professors and senior lecturers with respect to the cost of living in the Bay area is insufficient.

"I don't think you'd find any adjunct faculty in any university say that they think they are rewarded sufficiently, but I do it because I love teaching," said Sen. "I have another full-time job, but I love this."

Some non-tenured professors carrying heavier course loads also have reservations about the financial compensation they receive.

"It's a touchy subject for me to say that I'm satisfied - I'm paid 40 percent less than my colleagues who are full time -would be inappropriate," said Gail Kirby, lecturer for the marketing deprtment. "But if I wanted a job that paid me more, I'd work somewhere else. I have choices, and I made a choice to stay here."

Like Sen, some part-time and adjunct professors work full-time jobs outside the university, making their employment at Santa Clara an additional commitment in their field as opposed to the financial backbone of their yearly income.

"I'm working here basically for my own personal enrichment," said Kern Peng, adjunct professor for the engineering department. "It's not for money. I have a regular full-time job, so obviously it's personal interest. When I got hired I did not even ask the pay before I came to work. Whatever they give me is fine."

Jean Heriot, former adjunct professor, said that in addition to receiving unfair wages, she felt she was seen as an employee with no commitment to the university, and therefore the university had no commitment to her in return. However, Heriot said that similar treatment of part-time professors is common in virtually all universities.

"It's not that I think Santa Clara is unfair," said Heriot. "I think the entire university system is unfair because 50 percent of the people who are actually in the classroom teaching generally have to worry about where their food, rent and car payments are going to come from."

For its part, the school has made efforts to make their appreciation of adjuncts be known.

In a primarily social reception held on Monday for adjunct professors, President Paul Locatelli, S.J., said that adjunct professors are an important part of the university and on-campus community of scholars.

Locatelli said after the event that part-time professors are an additional asset to the educational environment at Santa Clara because professors working elsewhere in the marketplace add real-world experience to course curriculum.

"What part-time and adjunct faculty provide for us is the particular expertise that they bring to campus," said Locatelli. "The other thing is as student interest fluctuates, they provide enough flexibility to make sure that we have the right number of teachers for the different areas of study."

Robert Bekes, chair of the mathematics department, echoed this sentiment.

"Part time professors are necessary because a lot of times we have no real idea about the environment, so we need that flexibility," said Bekes. "We try to use them, but not to abuse them. But it's a fact of life that you pay them by the course and a lot of these part-time people are teaching at several institutions trying to make ends meet."

Dodson said, however, that although some consider the Santa Clara salary structure for part-time professors unfair, it is comparable to the current market for those positions.

"If I were a part time faculty member I might not think that [the wages are fair], but I think the salaries are fair within the marketplace," said Dodson. "Are they fair within the context of cost of living and qualifications? Arguably no. Why don't we go higher? We have very limited resources and constant demands of those resources."

Emile McAnany, chair of the communication department, said that part-time professors would have a difficult time surviving in the Bay area on wages from teaching alone.

"People would have trouble making a living just teaching as an adjunct unless they taught a whole bunch of courses," said McAnany. "When you get to be a lecturer, you make more money, but it's still relatively low pay."

According to Judy Gillette, assistant to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, quarterly part-time professors within the College of Arts and Sciences receive $4,000 per four or five-unit course, and academic year part-time faculty receive $4,200 per four or five-unit course, whereas the salaries for senior lecturers and tenure-track faculty are not on a specific system.

"The pay scale [for full time lecturers] is different and it is based on other kinds of factors; there isn't a rate," said Gillette. "Experience is a factor, market is a factor and degree may also be a factor. Usually, the initial salaries [of tenured professors] are higher, but they also have the responsibilities other lecturers do not have: advising, service to their discipline in the community and serving on committees. There hare higher expectations and there is more to lose with tenure-track."

Regardless of wages, many part-time professors make a conscious choice to remain part-time faculty as opposed to becoming full-time.

"We've chosen not to be publishing competitive academic scholars and not to go to committee meetings," said David Londow, adjunct professor. "You can't have your cake and eat it too."