It's good to know that there are some influential voices in academic policy calling for equitable part-time faculty wages. Here's a statement put out recently by the Modern Language Association, entitled "MLA Recommendation on Minimum Per-Course Compensation for Part-Time Faculty Members." Happily, the MLA supports factoring in more dollars per course to compensate part-timers for having no medical benefits. This could be very important and helpful if the Federal health care reforms ever happen and we are all required to purchase coverage, one way or another.
Also, happily, for the 2009-10 academic year, the MLA recommends a minimum $6750 per 3-credit hour course for semester-based courses and $4500 per 3-credit hour for trimester-based courses. These figures were arrived at by starting with the principle that part-timers should be compensated "pro rata to full-time faculty performing similar duties" and are contingent upon the actual work load of the part-timer (3 courses/per semester would be the equivalent of "full-time"). There's a lot more to see on the website the link above takes you to -- bottom line, we're not alone in this BUWW (big, ugly working world). If this report has any teeth, I'd say a lot of us are due a nice pay raise!
Have your say about pay rates and more...please take the quick 5-7 minute "Adjuncts in Academia-2010 Survey" here!
Raye
No comments:
Post a Comment