Part-time profs at UNLV are facing difficult financial times

Saturday, Dec. 3, 2005 | 8:01 a.m.

Christina Littlefield

UNLV English instructor Richard Abele is praying that his soon-to-be-born daughter will stay in her mother's belly until at least Feb. 1.

That's because as a part-time instructor who, despite the title, teaches a full load of classes, he does not receive health insurance between semesters. If his daughter is born during that six-week gap -- from mid-December until February -- his family will be in trouble, Abele said. The next semester begins Jan. 17, but Abele's insurance will not resume until Feb. 1.

More than 50 percent of the instructors at UNLV are part time, many of whom teach four undergraduate classes each semester. By virtue of being labeled part-timers, they are paid $22,000 a year. The few full-time, nontenured instructors make double that for teaching the same load.

It's a nationwide practice that Nevada System of Higher Education officials, from the chancellor to the presidents to the faculty, say they would like to change. But the system relies on the lower-paid, part-time instructors to make its budgets work.

"You can't take advantage of these people, that's not right," Chancellor Jim Rogers said. "That's immoral. Business is business, but morality trumps that."

The regents expressed similar outrage when Abele shared his story during public comments at Thursday's Board of Regents meeting and promised to take the issue up in the future.

But Regent Steve Sisolak said he felt the panel was simply paying "lip service" to the issue.

Because the Legislature has not approved previous requests to increase part-time salaries, Sisolak said he would like to develop an adopt-a-professor program where local businesses could contribute to raise salaries of part-time professors.

"We shouldn't have faculty teaching six classes and busing tables at IHOP to make a living," Sisolak said.

UNLV and Community College of Southern Nevada, meanwhile, have both developed awards ceremonies to honor part-timers to boost morale, officials said.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., spoke to the Board of Regents on Thursday about his two highest priorities: homeland security/national defense and education.

Investing in both areas is essential to maintaining and improving the quality of American life, said Gibbons, the first of the gubernatorial candidates to present his views to the regents.

Gibbons said he especially supports research initiatives that blend the two, such as ballistics testing at UNLV or the new Davidson Institute for Talent Development at UNR, which has the potential to breed "bright new minds" which the National Security Agency so desperately needs.

Gibbons said the state's congressional delegation was working with the Davidson Institute, which works with "profoundly gifted children," to encourage that partnership.

So far, the National Security Agency has hosted a field trip of sorts for students at the institute and some of the agency's mathematicians have mentored students at the institute in their spare time, founder Bob Davidson said. The agency has not given any money to the institute. But he would like it if they did, Davidson said.

Gibbons' speech rankled UNLV Student Body President Peter Goatz, who had gathered 100 signatures on a petition to protest the congressman's approval of a budget measure that will cut student aid.

"He says he wants to help students, and that it is just administrative changes," Goatz said. "I don't know how reducing all of that stuff was supposed to help us students."

Nevada's continually dismal college graduation rates are tied to several things, higher education officials said during a report Thursday.

For instance, at the Community College of Southern Nevada, where only 5 percent of students earn associate's degrees, students may be enticed away to the service industry, they may transfer elsewhere before they earn a degree, or they may enter without any intention of taking more than a few classes.

They also may take longer to get their degree, either because they are working full time or because they change their major. Those students would still be moving toward graduation, but would not register in the three-year graduate rates for community colleges and the six-year graduation rates for the universities.

The bottom line is that while the system needs to improve the rates through better advising, better transfer arrangements and other initiatives, school officials ultimately have to bow to the "needs and wants of our population." Regent Howard Rosenberg said.

"I've had eight or nine students this week change their majors, from civil engineering to art," Rosenberg said. "I think they'll starve but they will be happy."

Christina Littlefield can be reach at 259-8813 or at clittle@ lasvegassun.com.

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