Contingent faculty in Illinois are responding to instability and inadequate compensation with union activism. AAUP executive director Julie Schmid disagrees with claims that graduate student instructors should not have collective-bargaining rights because they are primarily students rather than employees.

The Labor Department has added online adjunct instructors and postdoctoral fellows to the category of academic workers ineligible for overtime pay. AAUP president Rudy Fichtenbaum said, “This is just a continuation of that rolling back [of protections for workers] and making sure that adjuncts continue to receive the same shitty pay they’ve been getting.”

Each year, AAUP’s analysis touches on different aspects of faculty pay. The new report discusses salary compression, or when professors at lower ranks are paid close to what higher-ranked professors are paid due to market and other differences at their points of hire.

A rise in the cost of living chipped away at salary gains by full-time faculty members in the 2017-18 academic year, according to new survey data published by the AAUP.

AAUP Council member and EMU accounting professor Howard Bunsis explains how Eastern Michigan University's controversial plan to cut four sports teams to save money will actually end up costing money. He says the only way for EMU to save money on sports is to switch the expensive football program from Division 1 to Division 2.