College and university faculty, both full-time and part-time/adjunct, are the heart and soul of quality higher education for the nation’s college students. The Faculty and College Excellence Campaign is a national effort spearheaded by the American Federation of Teachers. The purpose of the campaign is to:
- Convince the nation’s public officials that excellence in higher education is coupled with—in fact, requires—both a strong, secure full-time tenured faculty corps and fair and equitable treatment of part-time/adjunct and other nontenure-track faculty.
- Challenge the nation’s colleges and public officials to curb the financial exploitation and unprofessional treatment of hundreds of thousands of instructors hired to teach on a part-time/adjunct or other nontenure-track basis with disproportionately low salaries and totally inadequate professional support.
- Alert the American people to the dangerous erosion in the corps of full-time tenured teachers and researchers in our colleges and universities.
- Develop a Faculty and College Excellence standard of staffing practices that promotes high quality education.
- Win the introduction and passage of state legislation to bring the Faculty and College Excellence standard to each state.
The goal of the campaign is to ensure that all faculty members receive the financial and professional support they need to do their best work and to establish a better balance between full-time tenured faculty and part-time/adjunct and other nontenure-track faculty in our colleges and universities.