Fighting faculty

Jennifer Knight

Thursday, Feb. 22, 2001 | 11:22 a.m.

Inside a drab portable office on the outskirts of the UNLV campus, Pam Cantrell casually talks about her credentials.

She holds master's and doctorate degrees in English from UNLV. She also hovers right above the poverty line with a salary of $16,000 a year earned by teaching at her alma mater.

"I basically live frugally. But I find the further I go on, I can't keep up with routine maintenance like fixing my car, buying clothes, things like that," Cantrell said.

Cantrell is one of 550 UNLV adjunct faculty members who make up 42 percent of the school's teaching faculty. They earn one-third the salary of their full-time tenure-track counterparts -- a gap that has widened over the years because part-time faculty salaries have remained stagnant for 10 years.

Several adjunct faculty members plan to bring their cause into view Wednesday by teaching their classes outside.

The protest comes just as the Legislature prepares to decide how to allocate higher education budget money.

The teachers want an immediate and substantial pay raise, nine-month contracts after a probationary period and a pay raise schedule so that adjunct faculty will not go another 10 years without an increases.

Adjuncts teaching one or two classes are paid $650 per class. A load of three or more classes earns them $2,150 per class.

But pay is not the only problem. In the academic world, where respect is everything, adjunct professors are treated like second-class citizens, they say.

"Within the English Department this last year, we were moved as a group into a trailer for a joint office, so we are no longer in the same building with our department," said Carol Conder, a part-time teacher and staff organizer. "In making that move, we don't have mail service. Again, we're kind of out here. But I would say that there is a feeling of invisibility."

Part-time teachers carrying a full class load receive some benefits, such as medical coverage and library privileges, but only during the time they are teaching. They have no pension, nor any assurance that they will return the following semester. And once they are released from their jobs at the end of each semester, they are not allowed to draw unemployment.

For most adjunct faculty members, the job is just an extra source of income or perhaps a way to keep their hand in academe, UNLV Interim Provost Ray Alden said.

"Sixty to 65 percent of our part-timers teach only one course," Alden said. "The exceptions are the ones who teach the same class in many sections. So it tends to be those two entry-level courses in English and math where you find part-time faculty teaching multiple courses."

With state funding for higher education shrinking nationally, universities around the country rely increasingly on this expandable work force to help them save money.

According to a 1999 survey conducted by Roper Starch and released by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce, 19.8 percent of introductory undergraduate courses nationwide are taught by part-time faculty. Of the remaining undergraduate courses, 17 percent of classes are taught by part-time faculty.

The same study shows that UNLV is out of step with the nation in providing benefits. On average, 76.6 percent of higher education institutions offer health benefits to part-time faculty, while UNLV offers benefits only to those who take a full load, and only during the course's term.

For Cantrell, who has taught a full load at UNLV for three years, and Conder, who has taught for 12 years, the semester-to-semester job is their primary income.

It has become a vicious cycle for them. Too tired to do anything but survive, they cannot find work elsewhere. Although Cantrell has a Ph.D. and meets the requirements of a full-time tenure-track professor, she has been turned down at UNLV. Her labor is just too cheap for them to hire her on permanently, she says.

As time passes, she increasingly loses touch with the research going on in her field, a factor that weighs against her when seeking full-time university positions.

"I'm busy just keeping up day-to-day financially. That leaves very little time for contemplation and research," she said.

After eight years of part-time teaching, Elaine Bunker is thinking about getting out.

"Because of everything that's happened here, it has caused me to lose some of my passion," she said.

Many say teaching college is all they are trained to do, and the local market won't offer many other options unless Henderson's state college opens -- a prospect that holds promise for many of the part-timers.

But one part-timer said after several years her financial situation has left her frozen.

"My daughter is now a teenager and I went into debt at least $20,000, because I couldn't make a living with this job," said the adjunct faculty member, who requested anonymity for fear of losing her job.

"I would lie awake night after night when I was unemployed, because I was paralyzed with fear of not being able to make a living. So now I have very tight purse strings. All of the things that other people consider necessities, I consider luxuries."

The UNLV protest comes at the same time a national effort to organize adjunct faculty is afoot, but Conder said she was unaware of the national effort.

She said she's having enough trouble organizing the part-time UNLV faculty members to rally. The nature of the classes -- scattered throughout the campus and at staggered times -- makes it hard to get people together.

The protest, however big or small, may have little effect anyway, the interim provost said.

"The budget this year is tight," Alden said. "There is no extra money to go around, and administrators have already been placed in the tough position of cannibalizing full-time tenure track jobs so that the leftover money can go to pay for part-time positions.