On Tuesday, the union for adjunct faculty at NYU voted to strike beginning on 21 April. While I don’t have any classes taught by adjuncts this semester, that’s probably the first time this has happened - probably something like half the classes I’ve taken at NYU have been with adjuncts, including a significant number of the philosophy courses I listed the other day. Although I don’t think anyone is looking forward to a possible strike, I do support the adjuncts’ efforts to get better contracts. I don’t think NYU treats them very well, and the tone of the latest all-University email doesn’t suggest that anything’s changed in the past week.

The union site is one place to read up on more of the background involved, and the NYU Adjunct Fan Club site is another (if you don’t mind goofy pink and purple graphics). The fan club site also includes a statistics page, with tidbits like “Did you know that while the average undergrad tuition collected for the College of Arts and Sciences is $76,874 per class, the adjunct teaching that class only gets paid $5,400?” I’m always skeptical of statistics when used in contexts like these, but it’s something to read, anyway.