Many University of Houston Graduate Teaching Fellows (GTFs) and Adjunct Lecturers (Adjuncts)––aka your English professors!––do not receive a living wage. GTFs and Adjuncts take on an overwhelming majority of the educational labor in the English Department. In the Fall of 2022, Adjuncts and GTFs taught 98% of 1301 classes, 98% of 1302 classes, and 90% of all 2300 level classes.  

To our knowledge, Adjuncts have not received any increase to pay in over thirty years, and GTFs have not received a significant pay increase in over a decade, despite a promise from President Renu Khator ten years ago to keep GTF stipends aligned with inflation and cost of living. We believe this to be a matter of public concern. Undergraduate students have a right to be made aware of the way financial constraints may affect the quality of their educational experience at UH. 

Did you know?

• Take-home pay for most full-time Adjuncts and GTFs is less than $20,000 per academic year. 
• Of those surveyed, 90% of GTFs and Adjuncts work additional jobs to make ends meet. 
• 95% of GTFs and Adjuncts surveyed feel they would be able to offer a better educational experience if they were relieved of their current financial precarity. 
• According to MIT’s Cost of Living Calculator, the 2023 living wage in Houston is over $35,000 per year. 

In light of these unsustainable wages, representatives from the GTFs and Adjuncts have met with both Dean O’Connor of CLASS and Provost Chase of the University to request a proposal for sustainable wage increase. A letter to the Provost, linked here, outlines the background of pay inequity in the department, and identifies specific requests, duplicated below. Having not received a proposal by the deadline of Wednesday, April 12th, and having resolved that the urgency of the situation demands an immediate solution, we are expanding our advocacy efforts.

Until we receive a sustainable wage proposal from the University administration, we will be engaging in on-campus and social media advocacy to raise awareness about our cause.

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter @UHENGLADVOCACY to follow our advocacy efforts.

We are also asking undergraduates and other UH community members who support our movement to sign on to the petition below, and pass it along to ten friends who might be interested in signing. Help us show the University that we deserve to be paid fairly for our essential labor!

Thank you for your support.

April 13, 2023

Dear President Khator and Provost Chase, 

We, the undersigned students, faculty, and staff of the University of Houston, as well as concerned members of the broader community, hereby petition the University of Houston administration to affirm and carry out in all possible haste, no later than the end of the Spring 2023 semester, the requests of Graduate Teaching Fellows and Adjuncts of the University of Houston English Department laid out below, and delivered previously to your offices by representatives of those communities. 

By collectively offering our signatures, we express our solidarity with the conditions outlined below: 

• We ask that the base stipend for GTFs (and graduate students who receive equivalent fellowships for alternate positions) be increased to a minimum of $35,000 per year, and that the base pay be raised to $9,000 per course section for Adjuncts. 
   
• We ask that all Graduate Student Employees be classified as “benefits-eligible employees” and that 100% benefit-coverage be available for all Adjuncts teaching at least 3 classes (9 credits) per semester.
   
• We ask for a reduction in per-semester teaching assignments for UH English GTFs from a 2-2 to a 1-1 course load.
   
• We ask that University leadership support a future request for Adjunct representation on the Faculty Senate.
   
• We ask that significant contingent faculty awards for conference travel and research funds be established at the University, College, and department level to support the professional development of UH Adjuncts. 
   
• We ask that an annual raise tethered to average inflation, CPI, and cost of living data from the previous year(s) be automatically allotted to the contracts of both Graduate Student Fellows and Adjunct Lecturers, to insulate our largest teaching base at UH from the ongoing, pernicious widening of future gaps in these categories. 

 

In solidarity,