Our guest speaker will be Jessica Lawless, a former adjunct professor and currently a Field Representative for California Faculty Association (CFA) a member of the California Higher Education Staff Union. She will walk us through organizing for better working conditions at Santa Fe Community College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with the support of SEIU and the New Faculty Majority.

Higher education reflects both the current gig economy and the current capitalist economy. Though adjunct faculty are highly educated, they are highly underpaid, work on a semester-to-semester basis, and receive no pensions or medical benefits. In some cases, they hold meetings with their students in their cars or share offices with other adjuncts. Tenure has been reduced and academia is swarming with administrators who earn high salaries. This is the result of neoliberalism’s forty-year effect on higher education. We must end it — all workers deserve a living wage!