Dive Brief:
- Adjunct faculty members at Barnard College will receive a 12% salary increase over the next four years, boosting their per-course base pay for three-credit courses from $7,000 to $10,000 annually.
- Experts say that the pay increase is a direct result of good faith negotiations with the campus' contingent faculty union, and sets a new standard for all of the nation's adjunct professors to broker living wage agreements with college administrations.
- The agreement will also include base increases for term faculty, which will move from $60,000 to $70,000 annually over the same period.
Dive Insight:
The growing faculty labor movement has increased in its exposure through social and traditional media, and for many colleges, it has expedited the need for officials to consider budget adjustments to meet union demands present or future. When added to the mobilization efforts of graduate students, increasing costs of pensions and benefits, and decreasing returns on endowment investments, campus leaders are finding themselves facing more commitments than the coffers may allow.
These changes could yield increases in tuition and fee costs, new demands for philanthropic partners and new elements of legislative lobbying and outreach to meet new demand.