Statement of Principles

Part-time faculty members serving students and the public at universities and colleges across Washington, DC and Maryland are central to educational excellence. We are 43 percent of faculty in the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, 41 percent of faculty in the University of Maryland system and 77 percent of faculty in Maryland’s community colleges.

We teach the same courses to the same students as full-time professor and are held to the same standards of excellence. Yet, the compensation we receive is a fraction of that of full-time faculty members at the same institutions. Our compensation is often so low that we cannot earn a living wage by teaching even a full course load. We often have no access to benefits, must cope with inadequate office space and equipment, and are marginalized by the leaders of our institutions.

We call on institutions of higher education in our region to respect our dedication and our commitment to our students, our profession and our institutions by adopting the following principles in regard to part-time faculty:

• Compensation that equitably reflects the value of our teaching in the classroom, our scholarly credentials and expertise, and the reality that, for many of us, higher education is our profession.
• Job security, which is essential to the provision of teaching excellence, as well as to the maintenance of academic freedom.
• Proportional access to benefits, including health care and retirement benefits, that are already enjoyed by other employees and faculty in our institutions.
• Institutional respect and support for continuing professional development, scholarly research, and artistic activity.
• A role in institutional decision-making that affects our work, through productive collaboration with administrators and other faculty.
• Protection against unfair dismissal or non-renewal through clearly delineated grievance and arbitration procedures.