A Day in the Life: Fixed-Term faculty offer a lesson in issues surrounding contracts
Fixed-term faculty took to the sidewalk between the Charles V. Park Library and the Fabiano Botanical Garden Tuesday to present "A Day in the Life of an Adjunct," which used street theater to illustrate difficulties faced by Central Michigan University professors.
The Spirit of Chaos, played by fixed-term faculty and Vice President of the Union of Teaching Faculty Mark Ranzenberger, introduced students to the disadvantages of being an adjunct, by spinning through categories on the Wheel of Misfortune. These included departmental changes, last-minute additions to workloads and non-renewal of contracts.
Ranzenberger has been a fixed-term faculty member at CMU since 1999.
"Most students won't realize there is a distinction between tenure and tenure track faculty and fixed-term faculty," Ranzenberger said. "In a lot of cases, we have the same academic background and we work basically under a state of uncertainty."
Adjuncts, or fixed-term faculty, as they are called at CMU, are given contracts to act as an instructor that range from a single semester to two years. Because of this, job security is a constant concern among the 348 fixed-term faculty employed by the university.
According the university website, one third of CMU faculty are fixed term.
Adjuncts typically earn $32,000 per year according to PayScale, a compensation analysis site. Teure or tenure-track professors earn an $87,000 salary with benefits.
Many faculty, such as philosophy and religion faculty Sara Moslener, have qualified for underemployment while working as an adjunct in the past.
"I have worked temporary jobs for the last five years," Moslener said. "I've worked as a pay-for-credit adjunct, which means (I) get paid based on the number of credits I teach, so I made less than $20,000 and qualified for underemployment. The federal government subsidized my income because I wasn't making enough money as an instructor. That was actually at Western Michigan University."
Other challenges were reflected in the various scenes of the walkthrough, including a scenario where an adjunct had to get a second job serving food to students in their class.
"We got the idea that we wanted to do a day in the life of an adjunct," Moslener said. "We thought it would be a great way to teach people about the challenges we face."
Amanda Garrison, president of the Union of Teaching Faculty, spoke as the lecturer of the fictional Adjunct University, shouting the plight of her kind to onlooking students.
"Nobody chooses to be fixed-term faculty," Garrison said. "Nobody earns a doctoral degree to become an adjunct."
Perry senior Lisa Conine, recruitment chair of Student Advocates for Medical and Responsible Use of Cannabis and vice president of Take Back the Tap, works with faculty but wasn't sure what the distinction was between fixed and tenure or tenure-track faculty.
"Today, there are faculty who are engaged and active enough to put on an event like this and get people's attention," Conine said. "It's encouraged me more to collaborate with them and reach out to them more because this is their campus too."
This is a bargaining year for the UTF, which will seek better salaries and more job security from the university.
