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The American Association of University Professors on Tuesday issued a statement calling on colleges not to deal with new health-care requirements by cutting adjunct hours. A number of colleges have done so, seeking to keep adjuncts below the minimum levels at which employers are required to provide health coverage. The AAUP statement outlines what it considers to be fair ways to calculate adjunct work (stressing the planning and grading that takes place outside of class time). But regardless of how hours are calculated, the AAUP says that colleges should not respond to cost concerns by limiting adjunct hours.
"We have been dismayed by news reports of a handful of colleges and universities that have threatened to cut the courseloads of part-time faculty members specifically in order to evade this provision of the law," the statement said. "Such actions are reprehensible, penalizing part-time faculty members both by depriving them access to affordable health care as intended by law and by reducing their income."
