City Colleges of Chicago; Inside Scoop of an Adjunct Professor

By: Jenin Hattab

From transitioning out of high school, and into a college setting, new vocabulary arises like calling professor teachers. Teachers differ because they work with young children and teenagers in a K-12 school environment. Professors work with adults in college and university settings. Most likely, professors have attained a certain degree level and experience at the collegiate level.

Adjunct professors are part-time, represented in all seven city colleges, teaching 60% of the courses taught, with individual course contracts semester by semester-they have no guarantee of future employment. However, the terms of their employment are negotiated every four years. Randall Miller, CCCLOC Union Representative, clarified in-depth, “We [part-time professors] do have some job protection, and we are currently trying to negotiate for a new contract, but it does not expire until June 30th, which we are in the process of.” 

The bargaining began in February and is expected to continue beyond the June 30 date. The contracts are on a four-year basis, in 2020 the negotiation took up to a year. Before 2020, it took nearly six years to get a contract settlement, this all depended on the Mayor in office. Miller expressed that during Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s time in the office, the contracts were agreed on efficiently. Hypothetically, if the negotiation was not agreed upon by the beginning of the fall semester, part-time professors would continue to teach and would follow their current 2020-2024 contract. 

Photo Credits: Jenin Hattab

At the negotiation table, they are focussing on pay equity. Current full-time professors right out of college, with no experience, have a salary of $55,000. While most part-time professors make less than $30,000.“We are teaching the same classes, with the same students, and the expectations are the same for our job performance. We don’t think that there should be any difference in what we and a full-time faculty member are paid” Miller expressed. 

Full-time professors have job security, tenure, and are required to perform more duties outside of their teaching, taking leadership roles. Tiffany Drebenstedt, an adjunct professor in the sociology department has been working at Wright for 11 years as a notetaker, and simultaneously for the last seven years, as a sociology professor. She explained that full-time professors have a heavy class load, with a minimum of four classes needed. In contrast, adjunct professors can teach a maximum of four classes. 

Adjunct professors fill out a form each semester indicating their availabilities for the following semester and then send it to the department chair. Based on professors in the department, a schedule is made, and sent out, notifying professors of their classes the following semester. Unfortunately, this can be changed very quickly if a full-time professor is not meeting their minimum requirement, a class can be taken from a part-time professor’s schedule, which is common.

“There are a lot of adjunct professors, so there would be a lot of applicants, they [includes, the chairmen, people on the board] decide, through formal interviews, and it would be a collective decision. There hasn’t been an opportunity in seven years, it is hard.” Drebenstedt described more of the process of being a full-time professor.