Adjunct professors (PTTIs) have worked tirelessly through the pandemic, many teaching the same course loads as Full Time instructors, without university-sponsored health insurance. Graduate workers are also a critical part of the University of Alabama teaching work force and face tremendous barriers to accessing care, especially mental healthcare, due to the limitations of United Healthcare's student health plan.

The University of Alabama community rallied throughout the pandemic to ensure a safe educational environment. The institution’s failure to ensure reasonable and affordable healthcare to the most vulnerable members of our community is not only an affront to our values and vision, but a challenge to recruitment and retention: as an R1 institution, the university cannot compete for the best graduate students while offering a inadequate health plan. Furthermore, at a time when workers are increasingly reluctant to work in dangerous and thankless environments, the refusal to guarantee quality affordable health insurance to adjuncts– who often perform the same labor as Full Time instructors despite not being categorized and compensated as such–hinders the university’s personnel needs, reputation, and ability to retain employees.