After teaching at Georgetown University for over two decades, Bonnie Morris resigned from her adjunct position and left Washington, D.C. in 2017.

Morris, who now teaches part-time at the University of California Berkeley, said she could not afford to live in the city on an adjunct’s salary.

“Nobody could live on $20,000, even if you were living in a closet,” Morris told The Hoya. “The point is that there was never any plan for someone to live full-time on a part-time income.”

“There was just no way for me to stay in D.C. and feed myself,” Morris added.

The Hoya spoke with more than two dozen adjunct faculty members to understand their experiences at Georgetown and in the District. Nearly a decade after Morris’ departure, the vast majority said cost-of-living issues are still a constant challenge. 

At a school where about 41% of faculty are part-time, Georgetown adjuncts face continued problems with insufficient income, limited benefits and uncertain futures. Though these issues impact universities nationwide, Georgetown has long prided itself on its robust benefits package and fair treatment of employees — which adjuncts say are notably absent from their experiences.

To address these concerns, Georgetown adjuncts voted to unionize in 2013 and have since approved three collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), which define their terms of employment. Though current faculty members have seen some improvements, issues persist.

A university spokesperson said adjunct faculty, who are contracted to teach and do not have the same research or service obligations as full-time professors, are essential to students’ success. 

“We deeply appreciate the contributions that adjunct faculty make to the Georgetown community,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “Georgetown is committed to respecting the dignity of all members of our community.”

Christopher Shinn, an adjunct in the English department, said the lack of support for part-time professors is systemic.

“It’s a permanent subclass,” Shinn told The Hoya. “I don’t mean that necessarily in a derogatory or contemptuous way. I simply mean that that’s the reality — structurally, that’s our reality. There’s no way to move up.” 

Money Talks

Scip Barnhart has worked part-time at Georgetown for over two decades, teaching six art classes each year and spending hours each day operating the university’s printmaking studio. Rather than only working at Georgetown, Barnhart also teaches at American University (AU), splitting his time between the schools to scrape together a decent salary.

Even with two sources of income, Barnhart said he struggles to cover his basic needs. 

“Adjuncts at Georgetown haven’t gotten a significant raise in a very long time,” Barnhart told The Hoya. “It’s always a hiring freeze or the economy. I have to go with that flow, but in the meantime, I still have to support myself, and it’s always paycheck to paycheck.”

Under the union’s 2021 CBA, Georgetown must pay adjuncts a minimum of $7,000 per three-credit course. Adjuncts can only teach seven credits each semester, limiting their base pay to about $54,000 a year, assuming they maximize their course load across the fall, spring and summer terms — which many faculty do not.

The university’s compensation policy aims to offer employees competitive salaries in order to attract well-qualified faculty. Georgetown offers a higher starting rate than both AU and George Washington University (GWU), which pay a minimum of $5,400 and $5,225 per three-credit course, respectively. 

Though Georgetown’s base pay is locally competitive and the adjunct union has negotiated some wage increases — an additional $250 each year from 2021 to 2024 for long-term adjuncts — Theodora Danylevich, a part-time English professor, said her salary remains unlivable.

“The pay isn’t good,” Danylevich told The Hoya. “Even though, because of our CBA, because of our union, we’ve gotten a bottom line that is better than most of the other local universities, that doesn’t mean it’s good. It doesn’t mean it’s livable. It’s just not possible and yet, there are those of us who are doing it full time.”

In addition to considering local expenses, Martin Conway, an adjunct in the School of Continuing Studies (SCS), said Georgetown should measure adjunct pay against peer institutions that compete for the same faculty, not just other D.C. universities.

“That has always been something that we object to, but they continue to bring up,” Conway told The Hoya. “While they want to compare the university’s overall profile to other schools, when it comes to paying adjuncts, they would like to compare the profile to the local universities.”

The University of Chicago, which Georgetown identifies as a peer school and whose adjunct faculty are also unionized, pays a minimum of $8,883 per three-credit course. Adjuncts at Brown University, also part of Georgetown’s slate of peer institutions, receive about $10,000 per course. 

Beyond issues with their pay rate, Shinn said adjuncts’ salaries do not account for the co-curricular support they offer students.

“Anything that we do beyond teaching is up to each individual faculty,” Shinn said. “If we want to work with students, say, on their theses or projects, or help with clubs around campus and so on — those are sort of extracurricular activities that we do — we’re not compensated for it at all. There is a kind of invisible labor that we have.”

According to emails obtained by The Hoya from administrators in 2020, Georgetown assumes an adjunct professor will work a total of three hours per week per credit, amounting to nine hours a week for a three-credit course. In a standard 15 week semester, that means adjuncts would be paid about $52 an hour. 

But between teaching, grading, planning and holding office hours, many adjuncts say they clock far more time than the university’s estimate. 

Kimberlee Holland, an adjunct in the sociology department, said her hourly wage would be significantly lower if Georgetown included this work in its calculations. 

“I don’t know what they are thinking in their own minds of what they should be paying us per hour, but sometimes I drive past the street and the bus driver in my neighborhood for my high school is getting paid $23.80 an hour,” Holland told The Hoya. “I wonder if that’s what I’m even making, when you sit and figure out the sheer hours.” 

“The pay is just paltry,” Holland added. “I mean, people can’t live.”

Compared to their part-time peers, Georgetown’s full-time faculty are among the best-paid in the country, earning an average salary of almost $210,000.

Barnhart said he holds no animosity toward these full-time colleagues.

“It’s just the luck of the draw — if you’re just lucky enough to get a full-time job,” Barnhart said. “That’s why you’ve got to be really on your game and be prepared if that situation comes up, because they don’t come up very often.”

Now an adjunct for almost five decades, Barnhart said he is resigned to a long, difficult tenure.

“This is what we come up with, and this is what we’ll live with,” Barnhart said.

Fringe Benefits

For full-time faculty, Georgetown offers a robust benefits package that includes health insurance, tuition discounts and a retirement savings program. As part-time employees, however, adjuncts are not privy to most of these benefits.

They are eligible to participate in the minimum retirement plan and can access some fringe benefit programs, such as an informal wellness program and the Hoya Federal Credit Union. Adjuncts receive no health care coverage or tuition assistance.

Danylevich said the policy makes adjuncts especially vulnerable. 

“It’s like you’re assumed to either have access to benefits through your mythical full-time job, or to be young and strong and healthy and not be bothered by the lack of access,” Danylevich said. 

Nick Wertsch (COL ’09, LAW ’12), who studied adjuncts’ unionization campaign while working at the university’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, said Georgetown’s unwillingness to support adjuncts is an institutional failure.

“Georgetown charges really high tuition,” Wertsch told The Hoya. “It has this academically prestigious standing and reputation. It’s nuts that the people who are central to that mission, the professors who are educating the students who are paying the tuition, aren’t covered. They’re not taken care of the way that they need to be.”

In the current fiscal year, Georgetown’s fringe benefit rate, which represents university spending on student and employee benefits, is over 2.3 times higher for full-time employees than for some part-time faculty.

Because she was not eligible for major benefits, Morris said she paid for them herself, spending over $350 a month on health care coverage.

“It was not only the low figure of salary, it was the lack of benefits,” Morris said. “I did not ever get anything paid into retirement from Georgetown. I did not get health care. I didn’t have those basics, and if you don’t have them through your university, you pay them yourself.”

Barnhart said he attempted to access tuition assistance benefits, which cover 67% of tuition for an employee and their dependents, but was disappointed to find they were reserved for full-time staff. 

“The tuition assistance thing — that would have been a great help,” Barnhart said. “Even if it was half tuition, that would have been a great help. I applied for it, but I was told it was unavailable.”

Holland said she wished the university would recognize her commitment to the school with some benefits, such as a 401(k) retirement plan.

“This is my seventh year at Georgetown,” Holland said. “I wish there was some sort of benefit to get a break if my kids go there. I would like some sort of 401(k) contribution. I think if you’ve shown some loyalty to the school, I would like to see that.”

Zein El-Amine, a former creative writing and Arabic professor, said he was frustrated by Georgetown’s persistent lack of benefits.

“Of course, I want the full-time job,” El-Amine said. “Of course, I want health insurance. Of course, I want the benefits, and I’ve tried that — I’ve attempted and I haven’t been able to get it, even though I’m fully qualified.”

“We even have to pay for the gym,” El-Amine added. “If you don’t give an adjunct health insurance, at least let them exercise to be better. It won’t cost the university much. I had to even pay just to keep my health steady because I couldn’t afford to get sick.” 

Lacking university support, many adjunct professors rely on spouses or other family members for insurance. 

Emily Matson, who teaches modern Chinese history, said her husband’s insurance is the only way she can access health coverage.

“I’m very fortunate that I have a partner who has a full-time job and I can get health care through his employer,” Matson told The Hoya. “Otherwise I would be in a bad spot. I would have to pay for my own health care out of my already limited funds.”

Without an external source of benefits, Danylevich said being an adjunct is totally untenable. 

“If I didn’t have access to benefits through my partner, it would probably lead me to leave the profession,” Danylevich said.

Easy to Hire, Easy to Fire

In 2024, after working at Georgetown for six semesters, El-Amine planned to continue teaching for the foreseeable future. Instead, the class he was scheduled to teach in the fall was unexpectedly canceled. 

El-Amine said he had a strong performance record and administrators did not provide any explanation for the change. 

“I just had an amazing semester — what I would call a rockstar semester — because of my relationship with the students,” El-Amine said. “I was workshopping with them, even when they weren’t my students asking for help, and the students that I was helping were winning awards.”

“That’s the vulnerability that we experience,” El-Amine added. 

Most part-time faculty are employed on a semester basis, meaning that they are not guaranteed long-term work. The most recent CBA requires administrators to consider “good faith” reappointment for adjuncts who have taught a course multiple times, but does not guarantee their rehiring. 

Even if adjuncts are rehired, the university reserves the right to cancel classes for a number of reasons, including underenrollment.

April Brassard, an adjunct in the performing arts department, said this short-term instability prohibits adjuncts from pursuing long-term professional development. 

“I often feel like you’re being hired on a ship as just a crew member with a great deal of experience all over the deck, and you’re just, like, ‘Where do you need me?’” Brassard told The Hoya.

“You have to have sea legs — I don’t think you can be an adjunct and be rigid or unable to adapt because you have no job security,” Brassard added. 

As a result, Bulbul Tiwari, a former adjunct in the theology department, said it is nearly impossible to break out of part-time work. 

“It’s almost like once you start becoming an adjunct, that’s it — you’ve joined a different trajectory,” Tiwari told The Hoya. “You’re never going to get tenure. That’s honestly what it felt like. I don’t think I ever remember making that decision, but I think at some point it became clear to me that I’m just never going to be a tenure-track faculty member.”

Adjunct faculty are not paid to conduct research, but it remains an important part of their career trajectory because departments weigh it heavily when hiring full-time staff.

Mimi Khúc, who taught in the disability studies program for two years, said adjuncts receive little institutional support for research.

“While tenured faculty are seen as faculty, no matter what they’re doing — whether they’re teaching or on sabbatical doing research — they’re still full time, employed with the university, and seen as a full member of the department,” Khúc told The Hoya. “Adjunct faculty, structurally, are treated like second-class citizens, so that when we don’t have a contract or we’re in between contracts, we’re suddenly not a part of the department anymore.”

“We are exploited just for our teaching labor, and so we’re not seen as value added to the university for our research or anything else we do for our program,” Khúc added. 

Shinn said adjuncts are forced to finance their own research, which can be difficult on such paltry pay. 

“Most of our adjunct faculty do really want to keep a pace with their fields, so they do attend conferences, they do present papers, and they do publish as much as they can,” Shinn said. “So it’s not something that falls off simply because they’re adjunct. But then, of course, it means that they have to be self-supporting. They have to draw from the salaries that they do have, and it’s very difficult.”

In light of these barriers, adjuncts face poor job prospects.

Matson said she feels stuck as an adjunct and is reconsidering her career in academia.

“Things haven’t really turned out exactly as I had expected,” Matson said. “I feel like I have a full-time job, but I’m not being paid for one. Not only am I teaching multiple classes, but I’m also doing research too.”

“I’m looking for jobs outside of academia right now just because going the full-time academic route, even though it’s what I wanted to do after grad school, it hasn’t really panned out,” Matson added. 

Danylevich, who has applied for multiple full-time positions at Georgetown, said it is difficult for adjuncts to move up in academia.

“Georgetown loves its elitism, and that can be a barrier even to a very qualified applicant who knows your student body, has worked here a lot, has contributed to the programs that they teach in, but because they are an adjunct, it’s like this implicit bias or explicit bias against allowing them into a different, more enfranchised status,” Danylevich said.

“When you’re overworked and when your mental load and emotional load is occupied with survival, it’s really hard to pivot,” Danylevich added.