June Pullium is an English instructor in the College of Arts and Sciences. A single mother, Pullium’s salary does not cover all of her expenses and those of her 13-year-old daughter.
The Office of Budget and Planning’s online Web site said an instructor’s salary averages around $34,518.
A teacher since 1990, Pullium subsidizes her income by grading independent study courses and teaching summer school every year, for which she receives an extra one-ninth of her salary.
“I don’t mind it – sometimes it’s tiring though,” she said concerning summer school.
But summer school isn’t her only “after-school” job. Pullium also participates in evening school programs.
The evening school originally was designed to work around the schedules of non-traditional students, or students with schedule conflicts such as jobs and families.
Pullium said because of the unavailability of many classes, traditional students often are forced to take evening school, overloading the classes and their teachers.
“When I first started teaching evening school, it was older, non-traditional students who needed the flexibility,” Pullium said. “Now we have people who just need the class. There are very few non-traditional students.”
Evening School Interim Associate Dean Joanee McMullen said a recent survey differed from Pullium’s views.
“Surveys showed a good percentage of students needed classes during those times because of jobs and family commitments,” McMullen said.
She also said her office gets complaints from instructors about evening school pay.
“There has been debate over pay. We try to make sure we serve the entire community,” she said. “It may change.”
English instructor Becky Larkin has taught evening school in the past and also served in the Faculty Senate, where she challenged former Provost Dan Fogel to raise evening school teacher’s pay.
“He flat out said it was not going to be done,” Larkin said. “The University is getting a cheap deal. Instead of having to hire [new] faculty members, they are getting [current] faculty members for $2,500.”
Larkin has stopped teaching evening school and is now focusing on grading lessons for independent study.
“Personally, I think one-ninth [of an instructor’s salary] would be reasonable,” she said. “It’s a lot of grading, and you have to prepare materials for that class, just like a regular class.”
One-ninth of the average instructors’ salary would average $3,835.
Because professors make more money than instructors, Pullium said the quality of instruction often is not as good as it could be.
Anthropology sophomore Levi Burrows said he has never taken an evening school class, but evening school teachers should be paid more because his tuition is going up.
“I think the teachers are underpaid regardless – I wouldn’t teach here,” he said.
Pullium suggested an additional fee be applied to evening school classes to subsidize teachers’ salaries.
“Instructors, not professors, teach evening school,” she said. “At any flagship or Ivy League university, teaching is seen as women’s or caretakers’ work. It’s not compensated as highly as research. We’re basically the housewives.”