The Point: Abolish and Promote Associate Lecturers!
2/20/2025
This week’s Point was written by Steve Striffler, a professor in Labor Studies.
The FSU’s core bargaining team has proposed abolishing the Associate Lecturer category. Wait? What? Why? What will happen to the approximately 200 Associate Lecturers currently teaching on campus? They will get a promotion to Lecturer! -- a slightly less exploited category of NTT faculty.
Quick History: Although adjunct/contingent faculty have long existed in some form at UMass Boston, the category of Associate Lecturer dates back only about a decade, to the 2014-2017 contract. At the time, there was a recognition that this category of faculty already existed in practice (then called “per course lecturers”) and should be brought into the contract. For the Administration, the newly named Associate Lecturers were necessary to address “accidents” – to temporarily teach a course when tenure track faculty are on sabbatical, or to fill some other short-term need (see FSU contract language on page 61-62). This seemed reasonable enough.
The problem is that a category designed to address short-term teaching needs has expanded and morphed in ways that were not expected at the time of its creation – even the Administration acknowledges the category has been abused in practice.
Today: Associate Lecturers now represent at least 20% of all UMB faculty (a figure that could be closer to 30% if we include Summer/Winter courses). There simply are not that many “accidents.” Many ALs are teaching two or more courses – courses that are recurring teaching needs, not accidents. And around 80% of new NTT faculty hires are Associate Lecturers. In short, a category designed to address accidents has become the default way of hiring new faculty at UMass Boston – and has become a central feature of instruction, work, and life, or what the Administration refers to as the university “ecosystem.”
How does the Administration explain this? The Administration insists the Associate Lecturer category is necessary because it allows for the flexibility required to run the university. This is nonsense. The already existing category of Lecturer provides all the flexibility the Administration needs (and, frankly, is itself too flexible). It currently takes a Lecturer three years of teaching four courses each semester to become eligible for a continuing appointment (an appointment with no end date, absent termination for just cause); those three years would double to six years if the Lecturer were teaching only two courses per semester. At any point during that period Lecturers can be let go. Three or more years (or 24 courses!) is plenty to decide (a) whether a faculty member is a good instructor and (b) whether there are sufficient courses for them to teach.
What is the real reason for the category and its expansion? Money. And yet, the University can afford to do the right thing by abandoning this category and starting all new NTT faculty as Lecturers. Associate Lecturers at UMass Boston are paid a minimum of $5500 a course and are not eligible for the across-the-board (cost of living) raises all other faculty receive. By contrast, Lecturers, who technically are not hired on a per course basis (they are “salaried”), can be paid no less than $6625 per course and are eligible for raises every year. So there is a difference -- if you hire enough faculty as Associate Lecturers the $1000-plus savings for each AL hired adds up. However, because a portion of ALs are already paid more than the minimum of $5500, and in fact make more than the Lecturer rate of $6625, turning them into Lecturers would have no impact on the university’s finances (because they already make more than the minimum that converting them to Lecturers would achieve). Bottom line: it would probably cost the university somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000 per semester to abolish the AL category and turn those faculty into Lecturers (an attainable achievement that could be accomplished simply by cutting the salaries of a couple of our highest paid administrators!).
These newly promoted Lecturers would still remain some of the lowest paid faculty in the state. Adjunct faculty at other Boston-area universities are typically paid between $7500 and $10,000 per course. At Bridgewater State, where the cost of living is cheaper, adjuncts are paid $6700 per course; at UMass Amherst the pay is over $7600. UMass Boston per course pay is impossible to defend on any level.
What Happens to Associate Lecturers if we Abolish the Category? They get promoted to Lecturer! This is the status/level they should have been hired at in the first place. Getting rid of the category does not get rid of the people. It treats them better, recognizes the important work they do, and gets them on a path toward job security. Eliminating the Associate Lecturer category will not solve the larger problem of low faculty pay – Lecturers and many tenure-track faculty are poorly paid and the FSU is pushing to improve their conditions as well. But Lecturers are paid better, get raises, and have a considerably shorter path to job security and possible promotion.
Why is this important to everyone at UMass Boston? Why does it matter – beyond the moral issue -- that a significant portion of our faculty are really poorly paid and have no job security? Although the vast majority of Associate Lecturers, like the vast majority of all faculty, do an excellent job of teaching, the fact is that no matter how qualified and dedicated one may be, faculty teaching under such contingent conditions lack the time, professional support, and resources required for sustained teaching. Faculty working conditions are student learning conditions. Because faculty in contingent positions are really only paid for the hours they spend in the classroom, they are not given adequate institutional support or pay for the time needed to meet and mentor students, or even plan/prepare for classes. In this sense, simply paying Associate Lecturers more is not the solution – the category itself needs to be abolished.
More than this, as the percentage of contingent faculty grows, the proportion of those on the Lecturer and Tenure tracks declines. This means that not only are a larger percentage of faculty really poorly paid, in effect replacing one category of exploited faculty with an even more exploited category, but there are fewer faculty left to do the work of departmental, college, university, community, and professional service.
Despite the fact that the University can afford to get rid of the Associate Lecturer category, they will not do so without a fight – reliance on poorly paid faculty that can be hired and fired at will is an addiction the university will need help breaking. Please be ready to mobilize with FSU’s Contract Action Team around this issue in the next month. Details to follow!