Adjunct faculty members at the college are preparing for a union election. In this video, three of the organizers talk about some of the gains they hope to achieve.

Desiree Robertson says the way in which she has to divide her time slows her growth as a professor.

Joe Fruscione has been trying for years to land a tenure-track faculty job, without success. Now he’s on the verge of giving up.

“A lot of adjuncts don’t know if they’ll have a job, if they’ll have income from one semester to another. That’s a big source of stress,” explains C.N. Le, a senior lecturer at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

“You can see these other full-time professor positions, and you’re qualified for them,” says Shannon Berry, an adjunct, but the rigors of earning a living don’t leave her time to finish her dissertation.

Hoping for tenure is “like moving to New York City and trying to become a dancer on Broadway,” says Matt Thompson, of Old Dominion University.

Rob Balla teaches up to eight classes a semester on as many as four campuses in northeastern Ohio. “This is the best job I’ve had. I honestly like it,” he says. But Mr. Balla and his family live on the economic edge: “I can’t remember the last time I actually went and saw a doctor. We go to school…

Irene Schmidt’s pay barely covers her family’s electric bill, and she relies on her husband’s earnings to support her and her two children. An adjunct professor of Spanish at Johnson County Community College, in Overland Park, Kan., Ms. Schmidt can exist on meager pay because of her circumstances,…