As Faculty Strike Wears On, Wright State Seeks ‘Long Term’ Adjuncts in More Than 80 Fields

Noeleen McIlvenna

As a faculty strike at Wright State University marched into its third week on Tuesday, an ad soliciting “long term” adjuncts in more than 80 fields exposed the extent to which the labor action is threatening basic university operations.

The ad, posted recently on The Chronicle’s and HigherEdJobs’ job boards, lists a range of disciplines in which the university wants to hire: biology, chemistry, computer science, English and literature, history, mathematics, philosophy, physics, and dozens of others.

Earlier in January, Wright State posted a separate advertisement looking for adjuncts, but it did not specify that the positions would be “long-term,” as the new posting did.

Qualified applicants must have a Ph.D. or a master’s degree in the subject to be taught, or in “related fields,” the ad says, and campus housing is available for people who don’t live near Dayton, Ohio, where the university is located.

The administration and the faculty union view the ad from opposite vantage points. According to the university, the search for adjuncts is a way to ensure that Wright State serves its students even as the strike becomes the longest in the history of Ohio higher education. But according to some leaders of the union, which is a branch of the American Association of University Professors, it’s a scare tactic meant to intimidate the strikers.

The strike began in late January after two years of failed contract negotiations. Overspending, along with declining donations and enrollments, had shrunk the university’s reserves by about $130 million in five years.

Administrators have maintained that, while the university managed to avoid financial disaster last year, belt-tightening is still needed. The union has repeatedly pushed back against that argument. Faculty members weren’t the ones to take the institution to the brink, the union has said, nor should they be the ones who pay the price by making sacrifices in their contract.

As the strike continues, the university has canceled some “specialized” courses, according to the Dayton Daily News. But most classes are still being held. Seth Bauguess, Wright State’s director of communications, said on Tuesday that the new classroom leaders are existing employees, such as adjuncts, staff members, and full-time faculty members, who are not part of a bargaining unit, as well as qualified people in the Dayton area.

Bauguess said he could not give a number, or even a range, of how many adjuncts the university needed to hire. Departments have been identifying their needs in real time, he said in an email. Meanwhile, he added, not all faculty members who are represented by the union are on strike: Nearly 260 of the 560 unionized professors are still coming to work, he said.

“We are looking forward to bringing in some more qualified instructors to provide instruction to our students,” he said.

A ‘Scare Tactic’

Martin Kich disputed Bauguess’s number in an interview with The Chronicle. Kich, the union’s president and a professor of English, declined to estimate how many faculty members are striking or not, saying it’s difficult to tally how many people are on the picket line and how many support the strike but are physically incapable of picketing.

But he said the figure of 260 unionized professors crossing picket lines is an overestimate.

“If it was that high,” Kich said, “they wouldn’t be having all the problems that they’re having just running basic classes.”

As for the ad, he said, it’s a “scare tactic” meant to “undermine our members’ confidence” by giving the impression that the university will find permanent replacements.

The job posting “is not a scare tactic,” Bauguess said in an email. “It is real.”

Wright State will “continue to operate,” he said. “The actions of those continuing to participate in the union’s strike do not change the university’s obligations to its students, the taxpayers, and the community.”

Before the strike began, said Noeleen McIlvenna, a history professor and a union officer, the university vowed to find adequately qualified instructors. This job posting sends a message to students that they have been deceived, she said on a conference call held by union leaders. “There was never a good plan.”

Meanwhile, some Wright State professors and strike supporters have been sounding the alarm on Twitter.

Anyone applying for the adjunct positions “would be walking into a bad situation,” tweeted Andrew Strombeck, an associate professor of English. They’d start teaching at four weeks or more into the semester, he said, with little chance of long-term employment.

“This is a desperate and reckless move,” he said, “to take advantage of adjunct labor.”

Emma Pettit is a staff reporter at The Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.