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Contingent Faculty: Where the Big Bucks Are Spent

Flickr user Ron Cogswell, Creative Commons

Fifty years ago, more than 75% of college faculty members were full-time and had tenure or were on track to get it.  Today, only a third are part of that elite group.  Many of those doing the teaching at American universities are poorly paid, have no job security and limited benefits.  Some have PhD’s but still qualify for government assistance to buy food.  

Students from Virginia who enroll at George Mason University this fall will pay about $27,000 a year in tuition and fees, room and board, books and other expenses.  Kids from out-of-state will pay $20,000 more than that, but a recent survey found little of that money goes to non-tenured part-time faculty members and people teaching on contract.

"46% live at or near poverty level, and being in the DC Metro area this is one of the highest cost of living areas of the nation, that is something that is very problematic to make ends meet.”

That’s Marisa Allison, Director of Research for the New Faculty Majority - a group organized to advocate for those who teach part-time or have short-term contracts but are not on the tenure track. 

Provost, David Wu, says pay at GMU is competitive, and some adjuncts, who teach one or two courses do quite well.

“Adjunct faculty in the law school and engineering school may pay very differently than in a different college. And that’s very much market driven.”

He adds that George Mason has a responsibility to ensure that higher education is affordable, and that’s increasingly difficult according to John Barnshaw with the American Association of University Professors.

“For public institutions, it really gets back to total state appropriations -- that when we saw the financial crisis hit, many institutions and many states had to cut their total state appropriations.  Most of them have not restored those, and in Virginia they're down about 11% over the last five years.”

He says private schools also suffered during the financial downturn.

“Their endowments took a big hit as a result of the financial crisis, and there’s essentially a lot more competition for grants and contracts and foundational gifts and donations and that kind of thing, so those institutions are feeling the squeeze as well.”

And while wealthy donors may offer to pay for buildings that will bear their names or endow special chairs for prominent faculty members, few want to pay the salaries of those who teach basic undergraduate courses.

The University of Virginia declined to comment on this trend.  At Virginia Tech, Vice Provost Jack Finney says 70% of full-time faculty members are tenured or on the tenure track, and many of those teaching part-time have other jobs.

“A good portion of them have jobs elsewhere, but some number is a group of people who only wish to work very part-time but stay involved with their academic roots.  Of the 244 people who are teaching part-time, I would say maybe a third of them are employed full-time or retired faculty from Virginia Tech.”

And George Mason’s Provost, David Wu, says many part-time contingent faculty members bring important real world experience to the classroom.

“Some of the members of our adjunct faculty are former Congressman.  We have the former director of the CIA as one of our adjunct faculty and the former director of the National Security Agency. It goes on and on.  We have professional engineers, lawyers, musicians, artists and journalists.”

He says those who work full-time on contract get full benefits, while part-timers have access to a retirement plan, discounted parking and tuition waivers. The deal at George Mason may improve further thanks to activities on other D.C. area campuses.  

Sandy Hausman is Radio IQ's Charlottesville Bureau Chief
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