Background

At the National Women’s Studies Association annual conference last November, nearly two dozen contingent faculty members and allies gathered together in a series of roundtables on feminist perspectives on contingency.  These panelists brought a human face to the struggles of contingent faculty in the modern university. They also highlighted important conversations on accountability for those with a stake in the discipline of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Several of these panelists have come together to form a Contingent Faculty interest group* to advocate for contingent faculty within and outside of the NWSA structure.

In honor of National Adjunct Walkout Day (February 25th, 2015), the Contingent Faculty Interest Group calls on feminist scholars in all positions – tenured/untenured, full-time and part-time, staff and faculty – around the country to sign the below open letter of support. Although not binding in any way, this letter is a symbolic gesture of solidarity for contingent faculty in our discipline and beyond.

We recognize that, as with all disciplines, WGSS departments and programs are under institutional pressure for precarious employment; and that this pressure, as recently found in research conducted by the New Faculty Majority, is perhaps even greater given the discipline’s already precarious institutional status. However, we also contend that complying with such institutional imperatives undermines our ethics as feminists and contributes to a system of inequality that is in direct opposition to the principles for which we stand.

*Opinions of the NWSA Contingent Faculty Interest Group do not reflect those of the National Women’s Studies Association or its members as a whole.

I Stand with Contingent Faculty - Open Letter of Support

As a Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies scholar, I recognize that this discipline, rooted as it is in principles of social justice, is a natural ally to the current contingent faculty worker movement and, moreover, has a particular stake in the neoliberalization of higher education.

In signing this open letter of support, I am agreeing to advocate for contingent faculty in my department and/or program. What this advocacy will look like will vary according to the needs on my campus, but could include:

- supporting graduate students who are organizing for fair wage

- advocating for salary structures for contingent faculty that are aligned to a comparable market, living wage

- providing funding opportunities for the professional development of contingent faculty with high teaching loads

- involving contingent faculty in departmental programming decision

- providing alternative (non-tenure track) professional development opportunities for graduate students

- keeping records of placement rates of graduate students and including non-tenure track job placement statistics in those records

- supporting contingent faculty decisions to strike

In signing this open letter of support, I stand with contingent faculty as an advocate for a more just educational system.

Please note that, as this is an open letter, all information that you share on this form (except for your e-mail address) may be included in the Contingent Faculty Interest Group’s public list of signatories.