We, students of Tufts University, stand with our part-time faculty in their ongoing contract negotiations this semester. As students, we believe that what is good for our professors is good for the entire Tufts community; thus we fully support our professors in their pursuit of fair pay and better working conditions through an adjunct union.

Our situation at Tufts is part of a broader crisis in education. Across the country, universities are adopting a model of education that relies less on tenured professors and more on part-time faculty. Today, adjuncts make up over 30 percent of our teaching faculty here at Tufts. We depend on part-time staff to teach a myriad of courses, particularly those which are meant to provide a foundation for the rest of our academic careers, such as in English and foreign languages. These professors voted that a union can best improve their working situation and education at Tufts, and we agree.

A strong part-time faculty union with the support of Tufts students and workers will create a better learning environment and a more unified campus. The new union is a vehicle for part-time professors to express their concerns and stand on equal footing with the administration. We believe that the people at Tufts most responsible for our education deserve to have more of a say in how things are run, to be treated fairly and equally, and to work in good conditions.

We as students recognize and experience most directly the valuable contribution that adjunct professors make to the Tufts community and realize the ways in which increased support for them will benefit our own educational environment. Their working conditions are our learning conditions. We call on Tufts to support and partner with the adjunct professors in order to act in accordance with our university’s position as a leader in higher education.

**This is a public petition that will be published in The Tufts Daily and distributed throughout the Tufts campus.**