{"id":55235,"date":"2013-06-18T12:00:26","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T17:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=55235"},"modified":"2013-10-31T04:10:13","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T09:10:13","slug":"professors-join-the-precariat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/06\/18\/professors-join-the-precariat\/","title":{"rendered":"Professors Join the Precariat"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the stereotype of the college professor might still be an elbow-patched intellectual cozied up in an office, it might be more accurate to place him in his car.\u00a0 A new report from the American Association of University Professors<\/a> finds that more than 40% of college instructors are part-time, often driving from campus to campus to cobble together enough classes to enable them to pay rent.\u00a0 These types of employees far outnumber tenured and tenure-track faculty, who make up less than a quarter.<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This data suggest that the term \u201cprecariat\u201d<\/a> applies well to a significant proportion of college and university professors. Coined by economist Guy Standing<\/a>, the term is meant to draw attention to the economic fragility of many lower wage workers in today\u2019s labor market.\u00a0 It\u2019s a combination of the word \u201cprecarious\u201d and \u201cproletarian,\u201d a word that is used to refer to the working class under capitalism.<\/p>\n

Part-time faculty count as part of the precariat because their jobs are contingent (renewed semester to semester), low paid, and bring little or no benefits.\u00a0 Let me put it this way.\u00a0 I just finished my first year as a tenured professor after six years on the tenure track.\u00a0 I teach five<\/b> classes.\u00a0 An adjunct at a public research university would have to teach more than twenty-three\u00a0<\/b>classes to earn my salary (average pay is $3,200\/class); someone teaching at community colleges would have to teach more than\u00a0thirty-three\u00a0<\/b>(at $2,250\/class).\u00a0 Of course, my salary also reflects research and institutional service, but my hourly wage is obviously far out-of-proportion to that of part-time faculty.\u00a0 Plus I get a wide range of benefits; adjuncts usually get nothing.<\/p>\n

When government funding of higher education shrinks, colleges and universities respond by cutting corners where they can.\u00a0 Hiring adjuncts is one way to do that.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to remember, then, that funding cuts hurt not only students; they also hurt jobs.<\/p>\n

See also How Many PhDs are Professors?<\/a><\/p>\n

Via Jordan Weissman at The Atlantic<\/a>. Cross-posted at Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the stereotype of the college professor might still be an elbow-patched intellectual cozied up in an office, it might be more accurate to place him in his car.\u00a0 A new report from the American Association of University Professors finds that more than 40% of college instructors are part-time, often driving from campus to campus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[209,29,36,98,253,304,76],"class_list":["post-55235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-class","tag-economics","tag-capitalism","tag-history","tag-the-state","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55235"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58011,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55235\/revisions\/58011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}