“A lot of adjuncts don’t know if, you know, 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. Mr. Le notes that his union, negotiating with the state, has created what he describes as a parallel system that creates greater job stability and an opportunity for advancement. “Structurally, it’s still an adjunct position,” he states. He adds that a tension exists between adjuncts and tenured faculty members. Mr. Le believes that tenured professors see the move “as the administration’s way of chipping away at the tenure system, and eventually getting rid of tenure altogether.”
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