Part-time faculty deserve pay raise, more benefits

Editor,

I was delighted to read in Thursday's Daily Lobo that part-time faculty are being considered for a raise from the state. But I was dismayed by the attitude of Jamie Koch, president of the Board of Regents. Koch should be embarrassed to state flatly, as he did, that, "We're not increasing salaries for part-time faculty." No ethically run institution treats its employees with inequity simply because it can. In the corporate world, this is tantamount to running a sweatshop, where all the employees are replaceable.

Contrary to what the Board of Regents obviously believes, part-time faculty are not replaceable. Many of us teach a comparable or greater course load than our tenured or tenure-track colleagues. Like them, we put our hearts and souls into teaching because we are committed to the students and what we do.

Top companies are increasingly scrutinized for fair treatment of all stakeholders, employees included. If, as trends suggest, there is a growing number of part-time faculty in U.S. universities, then the situation will become very embarrassing, indeed. Thousands of qualified, committed faculty with no recognition or benefits work at a second- or third-tier level of inequality. Do students know, for example, that part-time faculty are allowed access to the library but not to Johnson Gym? That if we take a class to enrich ourselves, we pay full tuition for it? At the end of the day, we are indeed treated as nonentities. Our pay schedule, our lack of access to UNM facilities and our lack of benefits never changes, no matter how long we've been employed.

Wake up, President Koch - this sort of hierarchical bulldozing is no longer considered acceptable, or even expedient, in the modern workplace.

Jess Posniak

UNM part-time faculty