Keith Hoeller, an adjunct professor at Green River Community College. (Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times)
This is to address the article regarding universities paying adjunct professors a lower pay than full-time and part-time professors [“New union at colleges? Adjunct instructors make push,” Local News, Feb. 19].
As a current student at Seattle University, I have spent half of my undergrad years with adjunct professors and have seen what they are capable of teaching. To be quite honest, I have taken more lessons they have taught in class and actually applied them to some of my internships and jobs than those taught by most of the tenure professors. I’m not here to bash on full-time and part-time professors, but to simply say it’s ridiculous how adjunct professors do not get paid the same wages even when they have the same academic qualifications.
One of Seattle University’s values is to put the good of students first. One of the ways the school can do that is by evaluating its pay system to adjunct professors. If the school really wanted students to excel and be ‘the premier independent university of the Northwest in academic quality,’ then it should consider the quality of pay it gives to adjunct professors.
Melissa Plantilla, Seattle