By Daniel Borja, Columnist
The gradual increase in student enrollment and tuition fees are lucrative opportunities for the administration at Montclair State University. For adjunct professors, however, the growing number of students and tuition fees do not mean an increase in their low-wage salaries.
In the fall of 2014, student enrollment rose to 15,885 and with the growing number of transfer and freshman students, Montclair State’s student population will continue to increase in the next few years. This rise in student enrollment should present itself as an opportunity to the adjunct faculty for better working conditions and salaries. Instead, conditions remain the same: part-time employment, no job guarantee at the end of a contract (usually one-semester contracts to teach a specific class), no health and retirement benefits and reliance on teaching at multiple institutions to generate a sustainable income. Seeing how tuition fees and student enrollment are rising, shouldn’t this increase in numbers reciprocate and generate more health and teaching benefits for the adjunct faculty?
Robert W. Noonan, President of Local 6025, the union that represents adjunct professors at Montclair State, says that the average adjunct professor makes $3,875 per 3-credit course.
“When you lose state aid, you offset it by raising tuition,” said President Noonan, “by increasing the number of low paid adjuncts; the adjuncts and students become the cash cows of the university.”
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