Higher education is at a crossroads once again. As the coronavirus pandemic rages on with no clear end in sight, universities brace to take on the impending economic crisis.
While paying lip service to vague calls for community and togetherness, several universities have continued resolutely down a path of austerity. Though no one can say for sure what the future holds for the university system, one thing can be said for sure: it will be the lowest paid workers who take the biggest blow.
This has certainly held true at ETSU, where already many adjuncts and other low-paid campus workers have been let go or seen significant cuts to their class loads. Though the state has not yet cut funding to the university, administrators have begun to signal to departments that cuts are imminent.
Throughout the university, adjunct professors are seeing their classes cut in an effort to lower departmental spending while tenured faculty members have had to take up full class loads to compensate.
As former history adjunct professor Luke Gramith, whose courses were cut this semester, told the Johnson City Press, “[Adjuncts] have lost their already meager incomes and full-time faculty have had to take up extra courses. This means less instructional time for each student at a time when many professors are already going through difficult processes of learning how to teach online. This is not good for students.”
While the dust has yet to settle, the United Campus Workers at ETSU are setting out to fight cuts coming down the pipeline. The union’s fight for a livable wage for campus workers has been long and arduous. After making headlines by scoring their first raise for adjuncts in 20 years, raising the minimum salary from $600 per credit hour to $700 per credit hour in response to student and faculty protests, the union will have to continue taking on an administration dedicated to maximizing profits.
The next years will put universities like ours to the test. Will they live up to their rhetoric of familial bonds and communal trust? Or will the university continue to shut out workers’ voices to ensure members of the administration stay ahead? Only the future holds those answers and in time will be revealed.
