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Dennis Camire of West Paris is an adjunct professor at Central Maine Community College and the University of Maine at Augusta.
I’ve been watching the Democratic debates for governor and following the candidates’ policies regarding education. Though I agree with all of them about increasing the starting pay of teachers to $50,000 a year, it is what they’re not saying that disturbs me. In short, none of them are expressing any concern with the non-living wage earned by adjunct instructors at our Maine Community College System.
As I mentioned in numerous opinion columns in the past, adjunct faculty at the Maine Community College System only earn around $33,000 per academic year — if they are fully employed and if they teach the same amount of credit hours as fully employed professors! In sum, we earn about half of what a full-time professor does even though we perform the same amount of work and duties. In addition to not earning a living wage, then, we are also not receiving equal pay for equal work.
Two social justice issues in need of reckoning and all of the candidates are silent to the injustice!
I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that all of them are so vocal about increasing the starting wage of K-12 teachers but are completely silent about increasing wages of adjunct faculty who, because they need to have an advanced degree to teach, have, on average, invested even more time and money in their education. Why is it that one who has worked more and invested more in their education is deemed less worthy of fair compensation?
Why is our economic plight being completely ignored? Why, in sum, are these candidates fighting for those who are better off economically than we are and who also have healthcare and pensions, two benefits that adjunct faculty are denied?
Just let me say that I cannot support any Democratic candidate until my profession is also honored, fought for, and mentioned in debates and in potential policies a new administration will advocate for and implement.
What’s more, as I’m sure many are aware of, I believe “free tuition” at Maine’s community colleges is pretty much only a possibility because adjunct faculty provide the non-living wage labor that makes such an expense affordable to the state of Maine and acceptable to her taxpayers. Indeed, what a complete lack of gratitude it is to champion free college tuition without first championing a living wage for those whose services you’re essentially giving away for free.
Imagine, if you will, a job you worked prior to public service. Consider how you would feel if your services were given away for free even though you were, statistically, considered part of the working poor. Consider, too, how, because the state now foots the bill for the tuition of in-state students, it now should have a moral obligation to ensure that the Maine Community College System is providing an ethical wage.
In closing, I can’t say how disappointed I am that none of the Democratic candidates for governor are advocating for adjunct faculty who teach well over half of the courses that are now being given away for free. And, if education is the engine driving our economy, how can they say they’re serious about growing the Maine economy if they’re unwilling to take care of a large segment of teachers in the Maine Community College System who are instrumental in training and teaching the next generation of workers.
It’s time for candidates to better educate themselves about one of the greatest economic injustices in this state.
