The Syracuse University community needs to be aware of the growing demographics of precarious populations on campus. These include adjunct faculty, part-time temporary staff members and students. Many students and staff — and nearly all adjuncts — are already working multiple jobs to make ends meet.

Many will spend decades re-paying student debt. I write as an individual in all of these categories, and I am not alone. I am an adjunct faculty member in the department of Transmedia, the Communications Coordinator at Light Work and a 2008 alumna.

According to http://www.syr.edu/about/facts.html, SU employs 1,043 full-time faculty, 94 part-time faculty and 472 adjunct faculty. Thirty-five percent of SU›s faculty is part-time or adjunct. By definition, adjuncts are peripheral. Often teaching several classes per semester for low pay and no benefits, we frequently feel exploited and underrepresented. According to fastforwardsyracuse.syr.edu, there is only one part-time instructor out of 91 working group members included in the Chancellor’s comprehensive effort to strategize SU’s future. Seeing as we make up more than a third of the faculty, this is troubling.

Last year, I was thrilled to accept an adjunct teaching position at SU. I taught 5 courses last year and was paid $17,229.45 with no benefits. I could not afford to pay my student loans.

As faculty, I am concerned about the financial/debt burdens students take on to fund their educations. Our best students make it work despite all odds, but I can’t help wonder how much more they could be doing if many didn’t have to spend 30 plus hours a week working to cover living expenses, while taking loans to cover ever-increasing tuition. Today’s graduate students will become tomorrow’s adjuncts.

Many staff would like to work full time, but cannot, because those are not the jobs being posted. For example, my current staff position is a part-time temporary, hourly position at 30 hours a week.

I do not qualify for benefits. Many others are in similar positions. Employing part time workers is a well-worn strategy for profitable corporations over the last 30 years, but it should not be a strategy for non-profit institutions of higher learning.

I sincerely hope the new administration’s Strategic Plan will consider the realities of the ever-growing precarious populations on campus. More justice and fairness should be brought to the workers and students that make SU possible. I call upon the new administration to make academic life less painful and precarious for all.

Jessica Posner
Adjunct Faculty, Transmedia, College of Visual and Performing Arts
Communications Coordinator, Light Work/Community Darkrooms
Summa Cum Laude, Class of 2008
Newhouse School of Public Communications

Published on October 8, 2014 at 12:03 am