by Caprice Lawless
While still waiting for official publication of our
news, we heard from one of our community supporters, a finance director from
one of Colorado’s largest corporations. At our request, she has been studying
the recently published auditor’s report from our college’s governing board. She
is finding the report illuminating, especially one pie chart depicting
expenditures. She refined the pie chart, distilling from the data supplied the
value of adjuncts as reflected in the expenditures.
So this week, to celebrate both her fact-finding and
our chapter formation, we shared with adjuncts several super-sized apple pies
(a gift from another community supporter) and copies of the finance director’s pie
chart. We visited several different adjunct offices on campus with pies,
plates, press releases and membership forms in hand. It’s always so much fun to
watch their faces when colleagues realize how, especially to those outside the
walls of our campus, they are seen as valuable professionals in league with
peers across the country.
Like chummy policy wonks then, adjuncts stood around
chewing data and nibbling pie. The data is disturbing; it shows only 11% of the
$548 million spent last year went to the adjunct faculty who now teach
two-thirds of all courses offered. Even more disturbing is how the pie
chart shows that the 4,012 adjunct faculty comprise nearly half of all the
employees within our college system. Those were cold facts shared on a cold day.
Yet the pie was delicious and the conversations warm. Many adjuncts left with
copies of the chapter press release and AAUP membership forms.
