ALMIRON: Rutgers cannot keep failing its faculty
Column: The Other Side of the Story
I have had great experiences as a student at Rutgers, and I would be lying if I said that a good part of it did not come from the University's professors.
It is wonderful to register for a course you believe to be entertaining after judging its title and then seeing that the instructor has a passion for the subject. You have probably had an instructor that awakened your curiosity and was eager to answer questions. The kinds of instructors who have a near-perfect score on RateMyProfessors and challenge you to expand your mind are what make certain classes at Rutgers so special. Many people can probably recall a personal example of the kind of instructor I am talking about.
Students may also be well acquainted with the exact opposite of this type of instructor. Most professors enjoy their job, but sometimes there are qualities about them that you wish you could change. Is it their teaching style? Their skills as a lecturer? The problem may extend beyond factors like these.
Sometimes, you want to know what your grade will be on a project as soon as possible, but it arrives too late. Sometimes, you wish the class was more engaging and that it was not always a section of more than 50 students in an unventilated room.
One does not simply give up on their academics due to these obstacles. But, these obstacles do signal a decline in the quality of education at Rutgers. Are individually "bad" professors to blame? In times where the Rutgers administration openly spends students' money on other aspects of the University, we must take a look at how faculty is treated first.
We call professors by their title and last name with the respect they deserve, but despite having the same title, not all of them are treated fairly by administration above them. Chances are that your classes may not always be taught by full-time professors. Some of your instructors may be graduate assistants. In other cases, they may be part-time lecturers or adjuncts.
Looking at the yearly salaries for graduate students and the livable wage for adults in Middlesex County alone paints a shocking picture of their conditions. A graduate worker earns an average salary of $33,999 per calendar year, while the living wage in Middlesex County for an adult without children is $41,037.
Adjunct faculty teach 30 percent of all courses at Rutgers, which is a large number or credits that administration does not compensate appropriately. They are paid $1,933 per credit, equaling $5,799 for three-credit courses. Even if adjuncts were to take a full workload of three courses per semester, they would earn $34,794 annually. This is not enough.
In addition to teaching, adjuncts and graduate students are expected to hold office hours, grade assignments and proctor final exams. The work that they put in is the same as that of full-time, non-tenure-track professors, who at a minimum earn approximately $9,909 per course, but without benefits like access to healthcare and with the added risk of having precariously late contracts.
All these things — unlivable wages, lack of benefits and weak job security — in any industry are a detriment to those who provide the service and those who receive it. The vulnerable position in which adjuncts stand results in a lack in resources for students and improper learning conditions.
Rutgers has the money to solve this. The enormous cash reserves that the University has and the fact that adjunct salaries make up less than one percent of the budget show that it is possible to give graduate instructors and adjuncts a living wage.
The administration prefers to spend money extravagantly on athletics, but this does not exhaust the University's funds. This is an issue with the priorities and interests of the administration. The struggle was never a call for defunding athletics, but a call for providing adequate funding to other departments.
The full-time, part-time and biomedical faculty unions affiliated with the University agreed to merge in 2022, a choice that, if acknowledged, would allow professors to more strongly bargain for better conditions. This initiative is still unrecognized and opposed by University President Jonathan Holloway’s administration despite majority approval from professors.
The pleas for a fruitful dialogue have yet to be listened to. As if refusing to recognize the union’s merger was not enough, adjuncts have gone without a collective contract since June 2022.
Talk of a faculty strike started to become louder when after continuously demanding that adjuncts earn the same as non-tenure track faculty, the unions received a counteroffer suggesting a two percent raise. This is without even discussing the current rate of inflation and rising costs. Above all, these factors are demonstrative of the University's disregard for working and learning conditions.
The problem here is obvious: Rutgers' leadership yearns for a "beloved community" while ignoring reality. A beloved community is one that stands for itself. As of now, the administration does not stand with those who are vulnerable in this community or even listen to them. If anything, they are actually against the entire concept.
Now is the time for the Rutgers administration to become responsible and be open for negotiations. Many have been asking for it. Rutgers cannot fail its faculty without failing everyone.
Paulo Almiron is a senior in the School of Arts and Sciences majoring in political science and minoring in planning and public policy. His column, "The Other Side Of The Story," runs on alternate Mondays.
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