Following up on last week’s feature story in the Post-Dispatch, the newspaper’s editorial board took a stand with adjunct faculty in the Labor Day edition. They wrote:
Despite lip service to the importance of attaining a college education, the critical need to compete with highly educated students from other countries, the value added to a life when educational goals are attained, the corporatization of higher ed demands the second-class citizenship of adjunct professors.
Many of these second-tier teachers are first-class educators being forced to teach without tools. They don’t have offices so can’t meet with students, unless they want to gather behind the trunks of their cars, which generally serve as their filing cabinets.
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Adjuncts are fighting back. On this Labor Day, their efforts should be heralded as they take a page from the annals of the working poor of earlier generations and other industries. The adjuncts are organizing.
Part-time and contingent faculty are working together in St. Louis to reverse trends that have lead to a marginalized workforce by forming unions. Stay tuned for more on campaigns in the St. Louis metro area this fall.
