2008 Woodie Awards
Contingent speakers encourage adjuncts to form unions
By: Trish Wallace
Issue date: 4/13/06 Section: News
Local instructors in higher education met at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Clayton April 8 to address complaints of adjunct faculty and ways to evoke change at their institutions. As part of the St. Louis Conference for Contingent Faculty, speakers challenged professors to form faculty unions on their campuses to ensure benefits and quality pay for adjuncts.
The Conference opened with a general session of speakers. Claudia Hilton, a full-time, non-tenured track professor at St. Louis University, provided a power point presentation comparing benefits for adjuncts between different schools and her own personal efforts to inspire changes at SLU.
Jan Gippo, an adjunct in Webster University's music department, talked about the importance of collective bargaining and called it instructors' "inalienable right."
"If you are hired, you are hired for your expertise and should get paid for it," Gippo said.
He added the best way to ensure the preservation of such rights is organizing into a union.
"Believe me, if you have a big enough group, management will listen to you," Gippo said.
As an adjunct at St. Charles Community College, Bridget Hurd has given great effort to get a faculty union started at her institution.
"How many of you have overdrawn your checking account just to attend a conference?" Hurd addressed the audience asking for a show of hands. "How many of you have pawned something recently? How many of you need to see a dentist?"
Honest and some hesitant raised hands dotted the room.
Hurd went on to explain that many adjuncts live semester-by-semester and work summers just to get by.
"I'd really like for this conference to be about figuring out
our game plan, to get a strategy," Hurd said.
Hurd strongly encouraged adjuncts to begin an effort to organize on their campuses. She warned the task is not easy and often frustrating.
"Make sure to make an appointment with your therapist," Hurd joked. "You have to do it because you have the fire in your belly. You do it because it's right."
The Conference opened with a general session of speakers. Claudia Hilton, a full-time, non-tenured track professor at St. Louis University, provided a power point presentation comparing benefits for adjuncts between different schools and her own personal efforts to inspire changes at SLU.
Jan Gippo, an adjunct in Webster University's music department, talked about the importance of collective bargaining and called it instructors' "inalienable right."
"If you are hired, you are hired for your expertise and should get paid for it," Gippo said.
He added the best way to ensure the preservation of such rights is organizing into a union.
"Believe me, if you have a big enough group, management will listen to you," Gippo said.
As an adjunct at St. Charles Community College, Bridget Hurd has given great effort to get a faculty union started at her institution.
"How many of you have overdrawn your checking account just to attend a conference?" Hurd addressed the audience asking for a show of hands. "How many of you have pawned something recently? How many of you need to see a dentist?"
Honest and some hesitant raised hands dotted the room.
Hurd went on to explain that many adjuncts live semester-by-semester and work summers just to get by.
"I'd really like for this conference to be about figuring out
our game plan, to get a strategy," Hurd said.
Hurd strongly encouraged adjuncts to begin an effort to organize on their campuses. She warned the task is not easy and often frustrating.
"Make sure to make an appointment with your therapist," Hurd joked. "You have to do it because you have the fire in your belly. You do it because it's right."