Let’s begin by understanding a couple of terms tossed around as of late: “pay parity” and “pay equity.” Quick now! Which do you want? If you said pay equity, please stay after class and clean the erasers. Part timers who want equal pay for equal work want, yes, pay parity. Equity, on the other hand, is what we both agree it is — a terribly slippery slope.

So part timers want parity; heck, they’ve demanded it. Others within higher education have demanded it for them. Still, after three decades during which the number of part-time faculty members has grown to more than half-a-million souls, pay parity is still a hazy opium dream. Administrators say, There’s just not the money for pay parity. Uh huh. And I have a bridge to sell you. Of course there’s money. Let me give you a for instance. In New York, the union that represents 5,623 part-time, and 8,444 full-time, faculty members at the City University of New York recently negotiated a contract. It calls for a 10.5 percent “equal percentage raise.”

There’s just one problem with that. Part timers who teach math and statistics know right away that 10.5 percent of the $100K salary of a full timer is more cold hard cash than a $500 raise for each three-credit course taught by a part-timer.

What could be done differently? Well, the total pot of money given by CUNY to raise faculty salaries could be divvied in such a way to bring the part-time faculty pay up to parity levels. The 5,623 part-timers could be given, say, 80 percent of the total amount of salary money set aside in each year of the contract. The full timers could take 2-percent COLA raises and remember that they’ve got better benefits and more money for professional development. Solidarity requires sacrifice, after all. Divide the total salary dollars this way over the course of two successive contract cycles and, viola, the salaries for the union’s part timers would be pretty darn close to parity levels. After that, equal percentage raises would be … equal.

So why doesn’t that happen? I don’t have enough space to go into all of the reasons, but suffice to say there are those within higher education who believe that part-time faculty members are inferior creatures who don’t really deserve pay parity. Some think part timers “churn” through jobs, are unavailable to students, and bring little continuity to programs. Others believe full-time faculty members deserve the lion’s share of money for student instruction. Take Florida, for instance. Between 2004-2007, the state higher-education system spent $190-million on 15,000 full-time faculty salaries, and only about $10-million on 17,000 part-time faculty salaries. The part timers there teach half of all courses offered statewide.

Yes, yes, it’s outlandish. Now, stop breathing hard for a moment and think about it from the perspective of the full-time-o-crats: Part-time faculty members are hired using slip-shod procedures that rarely involve hiring committees. They’re evaluated infrequently, aren’t required to hold terminal degrees or publish, and don’t go through the Spanish Inquisition that is a tenure review. From that vantage point, part timers don’t deserve pay parity.

So how can part-time faculty members make an airtight case for pay parity? Look North. In Canada, Judy Bates, the president of the Wilfred Laurier University Faculty Association, was aghast at the thought of hiring non-tenure-track faculty members without terminal degrees, and who are not expected to fulfill the same job requirements as people in the tenure stream. Otherwise, she told me, her nontenured faculty members wouldn’t be adequately prepared or qualified to move into tenure-track appointments.

“Equal pay for equal work.” “Health Care is a Right Not a Privilege.” Those are all inspiring slogans. However, sweeping change always requires tough choices, and abandonment of the status quo. Thus, pay parity won’t come from having part timers and full timers teach the same courses, or even hold the same degrees. As Bates points out, that’s simply not enough to adequately prepare part-time faculty members to compete successfully in the battle for tenure-track jobs.

Editor’s note: P.D. Lesko is executive editor of AdjunctNation.com, and will blog occasionally for On Hiring. Share your thoughts about the pay-parity issue, and your questions in the comments section below.

Categories: General-interest, Faculty-hiring