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Only 29% of lecturers have full time contracts.
And even they earn poverty wages. Literally:
In 6 out of the 9 UC campuses that employ lecturers, the starting full-time lecturer salary is below the low-income threshold established by the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for a 1-person household.
Data sources:
https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/compensation/2021-22-academic-salary-scales.html
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il.html#2020_data
UC lecturers are more poorly compensated than their counterparts at Community Colleges and in K-12 public schools.
But what about the California State University (CSU) system, you ask?
Our CSU brothers and sisters are in a fight of their own. To find out more, go to https://www.calfac.org/
(Unlike the UC, CalState has agreed to conducting transparent teaching reviews.)
Waaait a minute...
How come teachers at K-12 schools and community colleges are treated as career professionals, while 4-year universities are short-changing their teachers, even though the minimum qualifications for the job are higher?
After all, almost all UC lecturers hold PhD's, many of them from the UC!
Huh. I wonder if there's a connection...
Oh, you poor man!
Why, don't you recognize pure cold-hearted genius when you see it?
As any good businessman knows, the only thing better than being the only employer in town is lining up more employees to elbow one another as they beg for scraps!
After all, why treat lecturers well, when UC can make more of them just as it pleases?! So many fresh graduates, so few tenure track positions...
Plus, these poor bastards are used to working for peanuts! They've been living on nothing but high ideals for 5-7 years already - why not a couple more?!
But doesn't that mean that the University of California is exploiting its own PhD students, even after they graduate?
Not to mention that undergraduate students are given fewer chances to learn from experienced instructors and to form mentoring relationships, which are especially crucial for those from disadvantaged backgrounds - whom the university claims to care about!
Is President Drake's rhetoric about social mobility only a sham?
As I said, GENIUS. Now go away, pesky little girl!
Well done, President Drake and UC Regents, my fellow corporate overlords! I'm not a young chap anymore, but you have schooled me with your devilish scheme.
I remain your humble student,
Montgomery C. Burns
Mr Burns is onto something:
UC Merced, with its still-young doctorate programs, offers most its lecturers full-time contracts.
Meanwhile, Berkeley has the smallest share of lecturers who qualify for healthcare benefits (only 40%).
Statewide, barely over half of lecturers are able to purchase health insurance through UC.
This means the other half need to rely on a spouse in order to keep teaching. The high churn rate also puts their family at risk of losing income - this in the context of continually rising housing prices and generalized inflation.
Data source: UC-AFT database.
Unfortunately, UC publishes very limited statistics on appointment percentages (only full time vs. part time, where by "full time they mean 75% or more appointment)
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