Photo by Miranda Hawkins | The Signal
Advocates for adjunct (part-time) professors raised the question “Is your brain worth more than a Big Mac?” at a rally held at noon on April 30 in Georgia State’s Library Plaza.
Georgia State student Susan Conklin said the rally was orchestrated to spotlight the poor wages of adjunct professors.
“It’s [the rally] essentially for fair pay for adjunct professors,” said Conklin. “The university system does rely a lot on adjunct professors, especially at GSU.”
Conklin coordinated the rally with Faculty Forward, a national organization promoting fairer pay for higher education faculty.
She said adjuncts receive less than minimum wage for a part-time position that requires full-time hours.
“They get paid $2400 a class per semester. On average they work 60 hours a week which breaks down to about $6.92 an hour, which is less than minimum wage,” she said.
Georgia State Research, Evaluation and Consultation Coordinator Jennifer Zorland said she thinks adjunct professors are scantily paid, possess no job security and receive meager health benefits.
The national average salary for adjunct professors is $2,700 per a three-credit-course as of 2014, according to a report in the Washington Post.
Georgia State Public Relations and Marketing Communications Specialist Jeremy Craig said since the 1990s, and the university has shifted to hiring majority full-time professors and the amount of part-time professors employed is also lower than the national average.
“Overall, the majority of Georgia State University faculty are full-time. Out of 1,742 faculty members at last count, 32 percent (559) are part-time,” he said. “By comparison nationally, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) puts the part-time figure at more than 50 percent.”
Faculty Affairs Manager at Georgia State Reid Tankersley said the university hired 390 part-time professors for the 2015 Spring semester.
Tankersley also said the university caps part-time professors at two classes a semester, which is stated in the Part-Time Instructor Handbook.
Conklin said she believes the current wage can’t possibly sustain the price of living since adjunct professors must find other means of income, which may harm the professor and their students.
“What they have to do to survive on that little money is…to work at more than one institution, which means they don’t have time for students. They don’t have time to run research. They don’t have time to run student organizations, [and] they don’t have time to hold office hours and help kids outside of class,” she said. “So, it hurts everybody.”
