- Pitt Faculty Testimonials -
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Claudia Davidson:
I am an adjunct instructor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, where I teach labor law. I also practice law and have, for 30 years, represented unions and employees in all labor law–related fields.
There are many reasons why instructors at the University of Pittsburgh should embrace the idea of organizing a union. One of the most significant reasons is the importance of having an established position from which instructors, as a unit, can engage management over issues that are not only important to their employment, but to their students and to the university’s mission and objectives.
Having represented unions for the past three decades, I know firsthand how much better off employees are when they are in a union. Beyond having their interests better represented, union workers become more effective employees as well as co-workers to each other. Being in a union together with other adjuncts would allow us to take a more collective approach to our roles as teachers and University employees.
--Claudia Davidson, Law
I am an adjunct instructor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, where I teach labor law. I also practice law and have, for 30 years, represented unions and employees in all labor law–related fields.
There are many reasons why instructors at the University of Pittsburgh should embrace the idea of organizing a union. One of the most significant reasons is the importance of having an established position from which instructors, as a unit, can engage management over issues that are not only important to their employment, but to their students and to the university’s mission and objectives.
Having represented unions for the past three decades, I know firsthand how much better off employees are when they are in a union. Beyond having their interests better represented, union workers become more effective employees as well as co-workers to each other. Being in a union together with other adjuncts would allow us to take a more collective approach to our roles as teachers and University employees.
--Claudia Davidson, Law
Gurudev Dutt
I am an Associate professor in the Physics and Astronomy department at the University of Pittsburgh. Three years ago my life changed significantly when I became a full-time single parent of two young boys (then four and one year old). With no family in the area, I faced one of the biggest challenges of my life and encountered many difficult questions about myself, my future, and my priorities. Facing these questions has made me into a better scientist, teacher, and human being. I’m extremely grateful to my department chair, colleagues and staff, and the administration for their support during these challenging years. Pitt is a top-quality research and teaching institution, I’m proud to have found a home here.
My colleagues and I teach the next generation of scientists and leaders and carry out award-winning research. We obtain millions of dollars in funding from government and private agencies; give invited seminars at universities and scientific conferences across the world; organize science outreach events in our community and STEM workshops in local high schools. This is true not just in my department but across the university. But increasingly I see the support and resources available to the faculty eroding even as we are asked to take on greater administrative responsibilities. Every year salaries and benefits seem to decrease in real dollars even as childcare and living costs continue to escalate. And although the endowment of our university now sits at $3.6 billion (source: IPEDS Fiscal Year 2016 Financial Statement), the number of contingent and adjunct faculty keeps increasing. I don’t know how many of those faculty members are single parents, but I know I wouldn’t have been able to do my research and teaching and take care of my children without the security of a long-term contract.
While tenure-stream faculty members technically work on an eight-month contract, almost none of the professors I know actually stop working on their teaching, research, or grants during the summer months. Further, the university is allowed to claim any intellectual property we generate during those months. Is it any surprise then that many talented students and post-docs no longer view academia as a desirable career? Destroying the morale of our brightest, most highly motivated future scientists and faculty seems completely counter-productive. How will the university retain its status as a world-class institution that attracts the best STEM talent when it doesn't stack up against the Googles and Facebooks or even other universities that may be more equitable in their faculty support?
These are uncomfortable questions that challenge many of the assumptions that have become the norm not just at our university but at most other institutions of higher education in the U.S. From my own experience these last few years, I can say that whatever the final answer, honestly confronting these questions will make us a better institution. I believe a faculty union will be an important first step in that process.
--Gurudev Dutt, Physics and Astronomy
My colleagues and I teach the next generation of scientists and leaders and carry out award-winning research. We obtain millions of dollars in funding from government and private agencies; give invited seminars at universities and scientific conferences across the world; organize science outreach events in our community and STEM workshops in local high schools. This is true not just in my department but across the university. But increasingly I see the support and resources available to the faculty eroding even as we are asked to take on greater administrative responsibilities. Every year salaries and benefits seem to decrease in real dollars even as childcare and living costs continue to escalate. And although the endowment of our university now sits at $3.6 billion (source: IPEDS Fiscal Year 2016 Financial Statement), the number of contingent and adjunct faculty keeps increasing. I don’t know how many of those faculty members are single parents, but I know I wouldn’t have been able to do my research and teaching and take care of my children without the security of a long-term contract.
While tenure-stream faculty members technically work on an eight-month contract, almost none of the professors I know actually stop working on their teaching, research, or grants during the summer months. Further, the university is allowed to claim any intellectual property we generate during those months. Is it any surprise then that many talented students and post-docs no longer view academia as a desirable career? Destroying the morale of our brightest, most highly motivated future scientists and faculty seems completely counter-productive. How will the university retain its status as a world-class institution that attracts the best STEM talent when it doesn't stack up against the Googles and Facebooks or even other universities that may be more equitable in their faculty support?
These are uncomfortable questions that challenge many of the assumptions that have become the norm not just at our university but at most other institutions of higher education in the U.S. From my own experience these last few years, I can say that whatever the final answer, honestly confronting these questions will make us a better institution. I believe a faculty union will be an important first step in that process.
--Gurudev Dutt, Physics and Astronomy
Mrinalini Rajagopalan
I support the Pitt Faculty Union for three reasons. First, unions are quite simply the extension of democracy into the workplace; second, research and teaching excellence are compatible with providing equity for all faculty across ranks; third, when universities undermine academic labor, they perpetuate anti-intellectualism and damage our larger mission of sustaining scientific inquiry and critical reasoning.
The first point is a simple argument concerning engaged citizenship. As someone who has actively campaigned for the union for over a year, I often meet colleagues who say that a union will not solve all our problems. This is in fact true. Unions are not solutions to problems—they are simply a democratic apparatus for faculty to make their grievances and demands heard by an administration that is currently isolated from its workers. Like all democratic apparatuses, unions do not run on autopilot: they require engaged participation, fierce nurturing, and tireless vigilance. Our union too will need such commitment and solidarity across the ranks of faculty. The payoff, however, will be a stronger voice and leverage for faculty members who currently have to fend for themselves one-on-one with administrators or rely on the goodwill of department chairs and deans in order to be treated fairly. A union is the only way for faculty to advocate for our collective rights and enfranchisements.
Another specious argument made against faculty unions is that they would negatively impact research productivity and the institution’s ability to compete for the most talented workers in the knowledge economy. This is a variant of the same neo-liberal speak that has driven urban gentrification and privatized public services in the United States from primary education to health care and even drinking water. As critical thinkers, it behooves us to scrutinize narratives that demand unflinching piety to free-market capitalism. Rutgers, the University of Oregon, and the Graduate Center at CUNY are research universities that have strong faculty unions. Offering all faculty living wages and benefits, protecting the institution of tenure, and providing transparency in governance will make Pitt a more, rather than less, competitive university.
My third and final point addresses the connection between the union and the current climate of anti-intellectualism and the erosion of free speech in this country. In recent months, administrators, faculty, students, and staff at Pitt have admirably stood together against hate-speech and the marginalization of vulnerable minorities and in defense of environmental issues. Pitt now has a chance to support faculty who go to work every day and teach college students to be active and engaged citizens; whose research promotes scientific and fact-based knowledge production; and whose service supports local, national, or international communities. By dismissing the calls for a faculty union, university administrators would send a clear message that they prioritize profits and a docile labor force over workers’ rights, intellectual freedom, and respectful debate. I truly hope that my university chooses otherwise.
--Mrinalini Rajagopalan, History of Art and Architecture
The first point is a simple argument concerning engaged citizenship. As someone who has actively campaigned for the union for over a year, I often meet colleagues who say that a union will not solve all our problems. This is in fact true. Unions are not solutions to problems—they are simply a democratic apparatus for faculty to make their grievances and demands heard by an administration that is currently isolated from its workers. Like all democratic apparatuses, unions do not run on autopilot: they require engaged participation, fierce nurturing, and tireless vigilance. Our union too will need such commitment and solidarity across the ranks of faculty. The payoff, however, will be a stronger voice and leverage for faculty members who currently have to fend for themselves one-on-one with administrators or rely on the goodwill of department chairs and deans in order to be treated fairly. A union is the only way for faculty to advocate for our collective rights and enfranchisements.
Another specious argument made against faculty unions is that they would negatively impact research productivity and the institution’s ability to compete for the most talented workers in the knowledge economy. This is a variant of the same neo-liberal speak that has driven urban gentrification and privatized public services in the United States from primary education to health care and even drinking water. As critical thinkers, it behooves us to scrutinize narratives that demand unflinching piety to free-market capitalism. Rutgers, the University of Oregon, and the Graduate Center at CUNY are research universities that have strong faculty unions. Offering all faculty living wages and benefits, protecting the institution of tenure, and providing transparency in governance will make Pitt a more, rather than less, competitive university.
My third and final point addresses the connection between the union and the current climate of anti-intellectualism and the erosion of free speech in this country. In recent months, administrators, faculty, students, and staff at Pitt have admirably stood together against hate-speech and the marginalization of vulnerable minorities and in defense of environmental issues. Pitt now has a chance to support faculty who go to work every day and teach college students to be active and engaged citizens; whose research promotes scientific and fact-based knowledge production; and whose service supports local, national, or international communities. By dismissing the calls for a faculty union, university administrators would send a clear message that they prioritize profits and a docile labor force over workers’ rights, intellectual freedom, and respectful debate. I truly hope that my university chooses otherwise.
--Mrinalini Rajagopalan, History of Art and Architecture
William Scott
At the University of Pittsburgh, it’s clear that the work of each of us impacts the work of all the others, whether we’re talking about teaching or research. As academics, we’re incessantly reminded to “specialize:” to research and build knowledge in a particular, narrowly-defined area of our field. We are not encouraged to become curious about—or, even worse, invested in—other fields that may be relevant to our work, as doing so will almost certainly slow down our productivity. I know that my own “specialized” work, however, will ultimately play a role in the advancement of everyone else’s. Even as specialists, we’re all connected.
I’ve been working in the English Department at Pitt since 2005, and I am now an Associate Professor with tenure. In twelve years I have gotten to know only a few academics in other departments in the university whose work directly impacts my own; but I know that there are many, and many of these do not have tenure, or have possibly not even been promoted once in the twelve years since I have been here. They teach, research, and publish under agreements that sometimes bear little or no resemblance to my own, even though we all do similar amounts of work that places similar demands on us. When I started talking to faculty in other departments as a faculty organizer and member of the Pitt Faculty Organizing Committee, I learned that some of my co-workers in other departments and schools had job classifications such as “permanent adjunct” or “permanent part-time” (?), and that even some faculty with tenure had one-year appointments which required them to raise close to 100 per cent of their own salaries through outside grants.
Faculty members serve in many different capacities and are, in fact, specialized--this is one reason Pitt faculty are so productive. But, as an organizer talking to my fellow academics here over the last two years, I’ve come to learn that we have in common much more than it might seem at first glance. The most important thing we’re missing right now is a unified voice to express our common interests as faculty members. Though we may have a vast range of different titles and job classifications, and though our fields of work may not appear to intersect in any meaningful way, we are still linked together as members of a community of shared interests: for starters, we’re interested in having a say in how common university resources are distributed and divided among us, and we’re interested in having clear guidelines and procedures to know how we can be promoted and otherwise rewarded for our work. If we organize ourselves to speak together, as one voice, these basic goals would be within easy reach.
--William Scott, English
I’ve been working in the English Department at Pitt since 2005, and I am now an Associate Professor with tenure. In twelve years I have gotten to know only a few academics in other departments in the university whose work directly impacts my own; but I know that there are many, and many of these do not have tenure, or have possibly not even been promoted once in the twelve years since I have been here. They teach, research, and publish under agreements that sometimes bear little or no resemblance to my own, even though we all do similar amounts of work that places similar demands on us. When I started talking to faculty in other departments as a faculty organizer and member of the Pitt Faculty Organizing Committee, I learned that some of my co-workers in other departments and schools had job classifications such as “permanent adjunct” or “permanent part-time” (?), and that even some faculty with tenure had one-year appointments which required them to raise close to 100 per cent of their own salaries through outside grants.
Faculty members serve in many different capacities and are, in fact, specialized--this is one reason Pitt faculty are so productive. But, as an organizer talking to my fellow academics here over the last two years, I’ve come to learn that we have in common much more than it might seem at first glance. The most important thing we’re missing right now is a unified voice to express our common interests as faculty members. Though we may have a vast range of different titles and job classifications, and though our fields of work may not appear to intersect in any meaningful way, we are still linked together as members of a community of shared interests: for starters, we’re interested in having a say in how common university resources are distributed and divided among us, and we’re interested in having clear guidelines and procedures to know how we can be promoted and otherwise rewarded for our work. If we organize ourselves to speak together, as one voice, these basic goals would be within easy reach.
--William Scott, English
Lauren Collister
To the delight of librarians everywhere, the historian Shelby Foote once said that “a university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.” As a librarian, I believe we are fundamental to the intellectual life of the university. I love helping researchers and scholars and instructors with their projects, and nothing gives me more satisfaction than knowing I helped make their work possible. It is this viewpoint that most strongly brought me to stand in solidarity with my faculty colleagues across the University.
Although our library provides the materials, resources, and expertise that so much academic work relies upon, the librarians themselves occupy an indeterminate “in-between” space. Some faculty issues, such as the prevalence of contract employment, affect us directly - most library faculty like me are hired on short-term contracts of one year, and we haven’t been able to hire any new faculty on our version of the “tenure” stream for years. Under my “Visiting” contract, it is not possible for me to serve as the Principal Investigator for a research study with the IRB, or even apply for a grant without special permission, even though I am trained, qualified, and excited to do all of these things.
Furthermore, while we have had some improvements in our salaries in recent days, library faculty and staff still remain among the lowest paid not only at Pitt but compared to our colleagues at other institutions. Some of my colleagues have to work second jobs.
Imagine what librarians could do for the University community if we were treated and compensated as though we were indeed the central hub that Shelby Foote imagined. The faculty union can help us not only with bargaining power for the conditions of our employment, but also by fostering greater and deeper connections to our colleagues across the University.
--Lauren Collister, University Library System
Although our library provides the materials, resources, and expertise that so much academic work relies upon, the librarians themselves occupy an indeterminate “in-between” space. Some faculty issues, such as the prevalence of contract employment, affect us directly - most library faculty like me are hired on short-term contracts of one year, and we haven’t been able to hire any new faculty on our version of the “tenure” stream for years. Under my “Visiting” contract, it is not possible for me to serve as the Principal Investigator for a research study with the IRB, or even apply for a grant without special permission, even though I am trained, qualified, and excited to do all of these things.
Furthermore, while we have had some improvements in our salaries in recent days, library faculty and staff still remain among the lowest paid not only at Pitt but compared to our colleagues at other institutions. Some of my colleagues have to work second jobs.
Imagine what librarians could do for the University community if we were treated and compensated as though we were indeed the central hub that Shelby Foote imagined. The faculty union can help us not only with bargaining power for the conditions of our employment, but also by fostering greater and deeper connections to our colleagues across the University.
--Lauren Collister, University Library System
Gunduz Caginalp
It is clear that a union will benefit Pitt faculty. What is less obvious is that it will also benefit teaching and scholarship. The major universities have evolved into big businesses over the years, while the university hires an unending stream of high-paid administrators. There is now a large scale tug-of-war for resources among administration, athletics, construction, teaching, research and scholarship, etc. Without a union, faculty will continue to be among the weakest of these entities as more aggressive groups grow and flourish at their expense. More money will flow toward activities that are peripheral to the core mission of the university. And as fewer resources go into teaching relative to enrollment, either faculty salaries will decrease in purchasing power or class sizes will increase. Meanwhile, the percentage of faculty who are in secure positions (e.g. tenured) diminishes. This is undesirable from the perspective of learning. Without job security, faculty, particularly adjuncts, are not in a position to maintain high standards of grading. And although students may initially be happy with the looser standards, ultimately they lose.
Without collective bargaining, the administration is also able to make impositions disadvantageous to both the faculty and the university. An important example is the intellectual property agreement that the university has asked us to sign; under its terms, we are compelled to cede ownership of much of the intellectual property that we have spent our lives developing, even ideas developed during time periods such as the summer when many of us are not paid. If we refuse, the university will not process our applications for government grants. As a result, both parties lose not only overhead funds, but also the scholarly activity—including that of graduate students and post-docs—those grants would normally support. From the perspective of economic justice, the situation is a mockery, since salary raises and promotions depend on obtaining these grants that the university refuses to process.
--Gunduz Caginalp, Math
Without collective bargaining, the administration is also able to make impositions disadvantageous to both the faculty and the university. An important example is the intellectual property agreement that the university has asked us to sign; under its terms, we are compelled to cede ownership of much of the intellectual property that we have spent our lives developing, even ideas developed during time periods such as the summer when many of us are not paid. If we refuse, the university will not process our applications for government grants. As a result, both parties lose not only overhead funds, but also the scholarly activity—including that of graduate students and post-docs—those grants would normally support. From the perspective of economic justice, the situation is a mockery, since salary raises and promotions depend on obtaining these grants that the university refuses to process.
--Gunduz Caginalp, Math
Melinda Ciccocioppo
I was nine months pregnant when I defended my dissertation at the University of Pittsburgh. Writing and taking care of a two-year-old was a challenge to say the least, and after I defended I was ready to move on. Ready for more stability, more respect, and more money. Unfortunately, I would discover that my struggle for these things had just begun.
Having taught all through graduate school, I knew I wanted to keep teaching. Over the next four years, I worked as an adjunct instructor at several institutions in western PA, including Pitt. Yet I earned half as much money as an adjunct as I had made as a graduate student teaching fellow (which was barely enough to live on to begin with). In fact, at Pitt I was paid half as much to teach a course I had taught as a graduate student. Since there was no guarantee that I would be able to teach from one semester to the next, I took every course that was offered—some semesters I taught five courses at three different institutions.
Needless to say, I was ecstatic to finally land a full-time NTS position at Pitt last year. I love teaching. I love my department, and I love the University of Pittsburgh, but I still find myself searching for the stability, respect, and money that all faculty deserve. Last semester, I taught over 1,000 students, yet I make substantially less than tenure-stream faculty in my department, and my contract is up for renewal every year. I support the union because, without it, we have no power to influence the administration to enact changes that will benefit our faculty, our students, and ultimately our institution. Solidarity is our greatest strength.
--Melinda Ciccocioppo, Psychology
Having taught all through graduate school, I knew I wanted to keep teaching. Over the next four years, I worked as an adjunct instructor at several institutions in western PA, including Pitt. Yet I earned half as much money as an adjunct as I had made as a graduate student teaching fellow (which was barely enough to live on to begin with). In fact, at Pitt I was paid half as much to teach a course I had taught as a graduate student. Since there was no guarantee that I would be able to teach from one semester to the next, I took every course that was offered—some semesters I taught five courses at three different institutions.
Needless to say, I was ecstatic to finally land a full-time NTS position at Pitt last year. I love teaching. I love my department, and I love the University of Pittsburgh, but I still find myself searching for the stability, respect, and money that all faculty deserve. Last semester, I taught over 1,000 students, yet I make substantially less than tenure-stream faculty in my department, and my contract is up for renewal every year. I support the union because, without it, we have no power to influence the administration to enact changes that will benefit our faculty, our students, and ultimately our institution. Solidarity is our greatest strength.
--Melinda Ciccocioppo, Psychology
Josh Ellenbogen
I am supporting the union because I support the institution of tenure. Obviously, I deeply sympathize with all the other reasons people have for wanting a union, among them securing negotiating power and better working conditions for NTS faculty. But we also need to remember that our industry, once characterized by its provision of good-quality positions in the tenure-stream, has, over the course of the past three decades, increasingly divested itself of this employment model.
Currently in our industry, some 70% of instruction is carried out by contingent faculty. This situation has come about, in part, because of the intrusion of market logic into the academy, but it has also come about because faculty were not organized to resist it. With the disappearance of tenure, our industry loses positions that allow workers to live well and securely, makes it harder to provide the best teaching to students, and undercuts the central reason for the existence of universities—the creation of stable employment that enables scholars to generate important research.
Nothing less than the foundation of the university system is at stake in the systematic attack on the institution of tenure, and faculty must organize to protect and preserve the institution.
--Josh Ellenbogen, History of Art and Architecture
Currently in our industry, some 70% of instruction is carried out by contingent faculty. This situation has come about, in part, because of the intrusion of market logic into the academy, but it has also come about because faculty were not organized to resist it. With the disappearance of tenure, our industry loses positions that allow workers to live well and securely, makes it harder to provide the best teaching to students, and undercuts the central reason for the existence of universities—the creation of stable employment that enables scholars to generate important research.
Nothing less than the foundation of the university system is at stake in the systematic attack on the institution of tenure, and faculty must organize to protect and preserve the institution.
--Josh Ellenbogen, History of Art and Architecture
Scott Smith
My career path and life experience have given me the advantage of knowing the value of union contract, and of a strong union: I grew up in a household where unionism was the closest we came to anything like religion. When I was about ten, my dad pointed to our suburban Southern Californian tract house and our new Chevy and said, “If it wasn’t for the union we wouldn’t have any of this.” My first experience with a picket line was when I was five: I was bitterly disappointed when my dad wheeled out of line at the drive-in theatre rather than cross a picket line by the projectionists’ union. As my brother and I wailed in the backseat because we were going to miss Bambi, my dad said “I’m not crossing a picket line for a goddamned deer or anything else.”
My experience as a welder in a non-union shipyard in Newport-News, Virginia in the mid-seventies showed me that the neither the horrors of the industrial revolution nor Jim Crow job segregation were merely history. After many years making good money and benefits as an industrial electrician in the I.B.E.W., my interest in labor history landed me in the graduate program here at the University of Pittsburgh, where I earned my Ph.D. There is no need to retell the horrors of many years working adjunct, especially at Carlow College, other than to say that a union contract would have prevented many of the injustices and humiliations I both witnessed and experienced myself.
Most importantly, I know that union membership saves lives. When my son was almost two years old he came down with Spinal Meningitis. He was so ill that the doctors could not promise he would survive. At the same time, the son of one of the busboys at a restaurant where my wife waited tables was stricken with the same horrible disease. I had union health insurance so my son got immediate and excellent care: he made a full recovery. Without a contract that made healthcare available, the busboy’s son suffered permanent hearing loss and was lucky to survive.
All workers need and deserve representation—it’s a quality of life issue, and in many industries it can literally be the difference between life and death.
--Scott Smith, History
My experience as a welder in a non-union shipyard in Newport-News, Virginia in the mid-seventies showed me that the neither the horrors of the industrial revolution nor Jim Crow job segregation were merely history. After many years making good money and benefits as an industrial electrician in the I.B.E.W., my interest in labor history landed me in the graduate program here at the University of Pittsburgh, where I earned my Ph.D. There is no need to retell the horrors of many years working adjunct, especially at Carlow College, other than to say that a union contract would have prevented many of the injustices and humiliations I both witnessed and experienced myself.
Most importantly, I know that union membership saves lives. When my son was almost two years old he came down with Spinal Meningitis. He was so ill that the doctors could not promise he would survive. At the same time, the son of one of the busboys at a restaurant where my wife waited tables was stricken with the same horrible disease. I had union health insurance so my son got immediate and excellent care: he made a full recovery. Without a contract that made healthcare available, the busboy’s son suffered permanent hearing loss and was lucky to survive.
All workers need and deserve representation—it’s a quality of life issue, and in many industries it can literally be the difference between life and death.
--Scott Smith, History
Luke Peterson
In the evenings, between grading and writing lectures, between answering student emails and planning for next semester, I write a journal to my four-year-old son. I talk to him about all of the things he likes to do, the games he likes to play, the books he likes to read. I tell him about his preschool, which he loves, about his teachers and friends, and about his favourite toys strewn about our cozy home, surely the first one he will be able to remember in the years to come. The instability of our lives, however, leaves our family unable to plan for his future.
Being a non-tenured faculty in the American university system means existing in perpetual liminality. It means being on the move, everywhere and all the time. It means renting, not owning, guessing about the future, and living without a net. Worse yet, it means putting your family though all of that uncertainty right alongside you. It means constant, unending, deeply ingrained stress. It means near obsessive levels of seeking on job sites offering potential opportunities in far-flung locales. In means callous and indefinite silence from Search Committees month after month.
But the most difficult thing to accept through this lonely and occasionally humiliating process is the fact that I am, by all outward indicators, a highly successful young professor in my field. I excel as a teacher; I am an active writer. I work hard every day to make sure that my classroom is a challenging, open, and engaging environment.
But, despite all of my successes, I do not have a permanent place at the table at the University of Pittsburgh.
Years from now, I will print and bind my journal to my son. I will give it to him as a gift: a gift of memory. Together he and I will remember our time in Pittsburgh, our cozy home, and the early imaginings of his young life, flowering as it did in the din of the Steel City.
And I have no idea where we will be on that day.
--Luke Peterson, History
Being a non-tenured faculty in the American university system means existing in perpetual liminality. It means being on the move, everywhere and all the time. It means renting, not owning, guessing about the future, and living without a net. Worse yet, it means putting your family though all of that uncertainty right alongside you. It means constant, unending, deeply ingrained stress. It means near obsessive levels of seeking on job sites offering potential opportunities in far-flung locales. In means callous and indefinite silence from Search Committees month after month.
But the most difficult thing to accept through this lonely and occasionally humiliating process is the fact that I am, by all outward indicators, a highly successful young professor in my field. I excel as a teacher; I am an active writer. I work hard every day to make sure that my classroom is a challenging, open, and engaging environment.
But, despite all of my successes, I do not have a permanent place at the table at the University of Pittsburgh.
Years from now, I will print and bind my journal to my son. I will give it to him as a gift: a gift of memory. Together he and I will remember our time in Pittsburgh, our cozy home, and the early imaginings of his young life, flowering as it did in the din of the Steel City.
And I have no idea where we will be on that day.
--Luke Peterson, History
anupama (anu) jain
Faculty unions should be a no-brainer-- as in, we need them. They are not a panacea for all ills, obviously, but what is? Any faculty member (with whatever level of alleged job security) would be a fool to think that collective bargaining is a worse deal than arbitrary decision-making by administration. Without a union, faculty (individually AND collectively) have little to no recourse when bad administrative decisions are made that are not based on improving educational and research outcomes-- nor are they usually BACKED by sound research, such as the adjuntification of the professoriate for financial motives. Unless a faculty member is genuinely indifferent to the common good - and then I wonder if they should be in a profession focused on advancing knowledge - they need to support a union and then help to make that union as accountable as possible to faculty at their institution. I have been on the tenure track, I have been on 1-year contracts, I have been an adjunct (by choice)—seek out people with similarly diverse stories and I am certain one will conclude as I have.
--anupama (anu) jain, Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
--anupama (anu) jain, Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
Tyler McAndrew
I am currently working for my fourth consecutive semester as an adjunct instructor at Pitt. I love my job. I love my department. I trust and respect my colleagues and the administration that we work under. I have good health insurance. I make enough money to satisfy my needs. But as a non-tenure stream adjunct instructor, I have no job security, no guarantee of a contract at the end of each semester.
I live my life three months at a time: in September, I need start saving in case I don't have a job come the end of December, or in case I find out two weeks beforehand that I'm going to be teaching only one class instead of two. On top of the two classes that I teach, I also have another job working twenty hours a week at a writing center at a neighboring university – a safety measure to ensure that I have some income in case I'm not offered a new contract at Pitt. Holding down that other job means that, during the semester, I am working six days a week, Monday through Saturday. This has been the case for the past year of my life.
I am told, through my student surveys and teaching observations, that I am good at my job, and I like to tell myself that this is something I have a future in. But it's also hard to imagine escaping the cycle that I'm in right now – I can't take the risk of leaving my tutoring job, but my schedule doesn't afford me the time I would need to work on the sorts of things that might lead to a more stable position at the university. Worse than that, I worry that my students will eventually pay for it, that I won't be able to give the time and energy I should to their work.
I would support a faculty union at Pitt because it could provide stability for myself and other teachers who are caught in similar positions. I would support a faculty union because I love my job, but each year, come December, or come May, I worry that I will find myself without one.
--Tyler McAndrew, English
I live my life three months at a time: in September, I need start saving in case I don't have a job come the end of December, or in case I find out two weeks beforehand that I'm going to be teaching only one class instead of two. On top of the two classes that I teach, I also have another job working twenty hours a week at a writing center at a neighboring university – a safety measure to ensure that I have some income in case I'm not offered a new contract at Pitt. Holding down that other job means that, during the semester, I am working six days a week, Monday through Saturday. This has been the case for the past year of my life.
I am told, through my student surveys and teaching observations, that I am good at my job, and I like to tell myself that this is something I have a future in. But it's also hard to imagine escaping the cycle that I'm in right now – I can't take the risk of leaving my tutoring job, but my schedule doesn't afford me the time I would need to work on the sorts of things that might lead to a more stable position at the university. Worse than that, I worry that my students will eventually pay for it, that I won't be able to give the time and energy I should to their work.
I would support a faculty union at Pitt because it could provide stability for myself and other teachers who are caught in similar positions. I would support a faculty union because I love my job, but each year, come December, or come May, I worry that I will find myself without one.
--Tyler McAndrew, English
Jennifer Lee
I’ve worked at Pitt for twenty years. After earning my MFA here, I landed a full-time job teaching writing and shortly thereafter, directing the English Department’s teaching practicum. For many years, I was so grateful to be making my living reading, writing, and teaching that I willingly overlooked the inequities around me: I wanted to believe in my own exceptionalism. But eventually the sheen wore off (as it does, as it must) and it became impossible not to see and feel the disparity: that an Assistant Professor makes roughly $30,000 more a year than I do; that I make twice as much as an adjunct with the same course load. That some of us have our way paid to professional conferences, while others do not. That some of us are afforded great leeway in our student evaluations, while others are not.
I think of colleagues who teach part-time, thoughtful and deeply invested teachers who juggle several jobs, and have been refused classes because their schedules don’t readily “fit” the needs of the department. I think of colleagues who have gone up for promotion and been denied because “the criteria have changed.” These are things about which I despair. What I hope for is this: a conversion process whereby full-time NTS faculty like me can, after a certain number of years, be eligible to move into the tenure stream by a vote of her colleagues, and part-time faculty members are likewise able to move into vacant full-time positions by departmental vote. Until recently, I had no idea such things were was possible, but in fact they are (see Vancouver, Pennsylvania).
Someone asked me the other day if I thought it a good idea to organize across ranks. Yes, I said, because I know that some of my T/TS colleagues are as troubled by the inequities and lack of transparency as I am, and not just because they see the perils others face, but because those inequities and that lack of transparency affect their work and their working relationships too.
Teaching at Pitt means a great deal to me. I deserve to be paid equitably for the work I do, to have the terms of my employment articulated clearly and applied fairly. I hope for a work life in which I can continue to move and grow. These are things I want for myself and for my colleagues. For all of us.
--Jennifer Lee, English
I think of colleagues who teach part-time, thoughtful and deeply invested teachers who juggle several jobs, and have been refused classes because their schedules don’t readily “fit” the needs of the department. I think of colleagues who have gone up for promotion and been denied because “the criteria have changed.” These are things about which I despair. What I hope for is this: a conversion process whereby full-time NTS faculty like me can, after a certain number of years, be eligible to move into the tenure stream by a vote of her colleagues, and part-time faculty members are likewise able to move into vacant full-time positions by departmental vote. Until recently, I had no idea such things were was possible, but in fact they are (see Vancouver, Pennsylvania).
Someone asked me the other day if I thought it a good idea to organize across ranks. Yes, I said, because I know that some of my T/TS colleagues are as troubled by the inequities and lack of transparency as I am, and not just because they see the perils others face, but because those inequities and that lack of transparency affect their work and their working relationships too.
Teaching at Pitt means a great deal to me. I deserve to be paid equitably for the work I do, to have the terms of my employment articulated clearly and applied fairly. I hope for a work life in which I can continue to move and grow. These are things I want for myself and for my colleagues. For all of us.
--Jennifer Lee, English
Ward Allebach
Unions have gotten a bad rap in recent years. People have all-but-forgotten why they are here and what they have accomplished: to protect the rights of people who are being over-worked and under-paid by management who consider them replaceable. Unions are formed when people feel under-appreciated, under-valued, and in some cases, even threatened. When they worry that their livelihood could disappear if they speak their mind.
This is especially true for adjunct faculty. Colleges and universities across the country have made adjuncts part of their business plans to save money. By hiring more and more adjuncts to teach for low wages, full-time professors can presumably focus on bringing in more money for research and publishing. While this may seem to make sense from a business perspective, it de-values teaching and teachers. That's why I support the Union of Pitt Faculty.
--Ward Allebach, Geology and Environmental Science
This is especially true for adjunct faculty. Colleges and universities across the country have made adjuncts part of their business plans to save money. By hiring more and more adjuncts to teach for low wages, full-time professors can presumably focus on bringing in more money for research and publishing. While this may seem to make sense from a business perspective, it de-values teaching and teachers. That's why I support the Union of Pitt Faculty.
--Ward Allebach, Geology and Environmental Science
Tim Maddocks
When I think about why we need to form a union, I like to reflect on the stress I feel each summer. For me, this is where the uncertainty of life in the adjunct pool is most daunting. As a non-tenure stream writing instructor in Pitt’s English Department my summers are a time of financial uncertainty, uncertainty about my future course load, and uncertainty as to whether I’ll even have a job awaiting me when the Fall semester begins. When the Spring semester ends, precedent suggests there should be classes waiting for me in the Fall. But it’s never a guarantee. And I don’t usually hear about it until three to four weeks before classes begin. As an adjunct, I’m unceremoniously removed from Pitt payroll at the end of each Spring semester and am left scrambling for part-time work to pay my rent and put groceries on the table. Last Spring I was lucky enough to secure a year-long contract as a Visiting Lecturer, but it still left me in that same old precarious position. How would I pay my rent over the summer months? In past summers I’ve worked as a sanitation worker or as a tutor—patching together multiple part-time jobs to make it work.
This past summer, to bridge the gap, I worked on a moving truck, loading and unloading construction equipment at sites all across South Western PA. As the summer came to an end, I was offered the opportunity to apply for a job to drive the truck for a modest raise. When I considered this parallel universe in which I could drive a truck rather than teach writing for the University of Pittsburgh, I realized how unjust and damaging it is to be seasonal worker in the adjunct pool. I learned that as a full-time truck driver my wages—$14 an hour—equaled essentially the same as my salary as a Visiting Lecturer. Whether I taught full time at the university or drove a truck, I’d stand to earn a little over $30,000 per year. And, if my Visiting Lecturer contract wasn’t renewed (a possibility every year and a certainty once its been renewed three times), I’d actually earn more as a truck driver than I would in the adjunct pool.
This is no knock on truck drivers. It’s a knock on the utter disdain for meritocracy in the labor pool. The truth is, I’m not a trained truck driver. I’m a trained teacher. But for me, the wages are the same. And with the construction company, they don’t make me reapply for my job every year. As a truck driver, I wouldn’t have to wait until July to hear whether I’d have any work in August. I wouldn’t be unemployed every summer. As a truck driver, I wouldn’t have to face the pernicious uncertainty of life as an adjunct in the university. So, why am I still teaching? For three reasons: A) I love my students. And my OMETs tell me, they respect me and gain a great deal from my classes. It’s a nice arrangement. I like to think I’m good at this job. B) With two degrees and a daily writing practice, I’m infinitely more qualified to teach college writers than I am to drive a truck. C) I’ve hope that a faculty union could allow for university management to see me as more than a simple cog in their class scheduling. I have hope that things can change.
--Tim Maddocks, English
This past summer, to bridge the gap, I worked on a moving truck, loading and unloading construction equipment at sites all across South Western PA. As the summer came to an end, I was offered the opportunity to apply for a job to drive the truck for a modest raise. When I considered this parallel universe in which I could drive a truck rather than teach writing for the University of Pittsburgh, I realized how unjust and damaging it is to be seasonal worker in the adjunct pool. I learned that as a full-time truck driver my wages—$14 an hour—equaled essentially the same as my salary as a Visiting Lecturer. Whether I taught full time at the university or drove a truck, I’d stand to earn a little over $30,000 per year. And, if my Visiting Lecturer contract wasn’t renewed (a possibility every year and a certainty once its been renewed three times), I’d actually earn more as a truck driver than I would in the adjunct pool.
This is no knock on truck drivers. It’s a knock on the utter disdain for meritocracy in the labor pool. The truth is, I’m not a trained truck driver. I’m a trained teacher. But for me, the wages are the same. And with the construction company, they don’t make me reapply for my job every year. As a truck driver, I wouldn’t have to wait until July to hear whether I’d have any work in August. I wouldn’t be unemployed every summer. As a truck driver, I wouldn’t have to face the pernicious uncertainty of life as an adjunct in the university. So, why am I still teaching? For three reasons: A) I love my students. And my OMETs tell me, they respect me and gain a great deal from my classes. It’s a nice arrangement. I like to think I’m good at this job. B) With two degrees and a daily writing practice, I’m infinitely more qualified to teach college writers than I am to drive a truck. C) I’ve hope that a faculty union could allow for university management to see me as more than a simple cog in their class scheduling. I have hope that things can change.
--Tim Maddocks, English
Patrick Cooper
I’m a full-time lecturer in the math department at the University of Pittsburgh and an adjunct professor of physics at Duquesne University. I’ve also worked part-time at NYU and Cooper Union in Manhattan. All the adjunct labor I’ve done has been for about 4k per class, and not a single part-time job offered benefits.
Despite the precarious nature of my employment, ten years spent training in theoretical physics still feels worth it because the role we play as educators is fundamental to protecting our democratic institutions. With every presidential press conference, America takes another step closer to the double-speak dystopia of a George Orwell novel. It’s paramount that academics use their training to teach the lessons we learned during the scientific revolution: careful, thoughtful data collection, followed by a logical, reasoned discourse about its interpretation. Lessons that today, politicians ask us to forget.
This is no small task. Without the security of a contract that has been negotiated by the faculty, acting as a collective unit to ensure the health and well-being of our institution, I don’t see a bright future for academia. There are too many incentives for precarious instructors to teach in a way that, rather than doing what’s best for students, maximizes their chances of being able to pay rent next month. We must acknowledge that administrators will not voluntarily give us a meaningful voice in university governance, that if we want to better our living conditions, if we want to alter the course of the university away from a revenue-driven multinational corporation and back to the bulwark of a free thinking society, we must do so together.
--Patrick Cooper, Math - University of Pittsburgh; Physics - Duquesne University
Despite the precarious nature of my employment, ten years spent training in theoretical physics still feels worth it because the role we play as educators is fundamental to protecting our democratic institutions. With every presidential press conference, America takes another step closer to the double-speak dystopia of a George Orwell novel. It’s paramount that academics use their training to teach the lessons we learned during the scientific revolution: careful, thoughtful data collection, followed by a logical, reasoned discourse about its interpretation. Lessons that today, politicians ask us to forget.
This is no small task. Without the security of a contract that has been negotiated by the faculty, acting as a collective unit to ensure the health and well-being of our institution, I don’t see a bright future for academia. There are too many incentives for precarious instructors to teach in a way that, rather than doing what’s best for students, maximizes their chances of being able to pay rent next month. We must acknowledge that administrators will not voluntarily give us a meaningful voice in university governance, that if we want to better our living conditions, if we want to alter the course of the university away from a revenue-driven multinational corporation and back to the bulwark of a free thinking society, we must do so together.
--Patrick Cooper, Math - University of Pittsburgh; Physics - Duquesne University
David Marshall (left)
From the point of view of non-tenure-stream or adjunct faculty, the arguments in favor of a Pitt faculty union are overwhelming and clear. Is the same true for faculty in the tenure stream or with tenure?
“Tenure-stream and tenured faculty need to organize now in order to be ready to defend tenure itself” is one argument. “Tenure-stream and tenured faculty should organize in solidarity with more vulnerable folks in the university workforce” is another. I think both are persuasive, but I want to add a third. It’s not as dramatic or as broadly compelling, but it’s important. The terms and conditions of our employment contracts are not explicit and are not wholly predictable. Offer letters do not go into much detail, and the faculty handbook is not a legally binding contract. By clearly stipulating minimums (not maximums), a union would help make the terms and conditions of our employment explicit and binding.
I can make this point in a more personal way. My mother got very sick, and I wanted to be able to take a leave of absence for a semester to help her through some treatment. Initially, I was told that I would be able to take Family Medical Leave for just over a 12% reduction in pay. On that basis, I made plans to return home to New Zealand. Not long before I was due to leave, I was informed that taking Family Medical Leave would actually reduce my salary by a further 25%. In the faculty handbook, Family Medical Leave, on the one hand, and Maternity or Paternity Leave, on the other, are described in a very similar way. What I had originally been told was based on this analogy. In reality, however, the two forms of leave are administered very differently.
In the end, things worked out. I was able to use a separate fellowship to make the leave work, I went home, and my mother has been responding well to treatment. But the point stands: an explicit contract helps you to plan your life and be there for others when you need to be.
--David Marshall, Department of Communication
“Tenure-stream and tenured faculty need to organize now in order to be ready to defend tenure itself” is one argument. “Tenure-stream and tenured faculty should organize in solidarity with more vulnerable folks in the university workforce” is another. I think both are persuasive, but I want to add a third. It’s not as dramatic or as broadly compelling, but it’s important. The terms and conditions of our employment contracts are not explicit and are not wholly predictable. Offer letters do not go into much detail, and the faculty handbook is not a legally binding contract. By clearly stipulating minimums (not maximums), a union would help make the terms and conditions of our employment explicit and binding.
I can make this point in a more personal way. My mother got very sick, and I wanted to be able to take a leave of absence for a semester to help her through some treatment. Initially, I was told that I would be able to take Family Medical Leave for just over a 12% reduction in pay. On that basis, I made plans to return home to New Zealand. Not long before I was due to leave, I was informed that taking Family Medical Leave would actually reduce my salary by a further 25%. In the faculty handbook, Family Medical Leave, on the one hand, and Maternity or Paternity Leave, on the other, are described in a very similar way. What I had originally been told was based on this analogy. In reality, however, the two forms of leave are administered very differently.
In the end, things worked out. I was able to use a separate fellowship to make the leave work, I went home, and my mother has been responding well to treatment. But the point stands: an explicit contract helps you to plan your life and be there for others when you need to be.
--David Marshall, Department of Communication
