Abstract
The case of contingent faculty union organizing merits special attention by education researchers. Currently, the majority of courses at US higher education institutions are taught by faculty who are neither tenured, nor on the tenure track. Of all faculty, "adjuncts" are less likely to have access to job security, livable wages, office space, clerical support, professional development opportunities, and health/retirement benefits or shared governance. One notable response to the material conditions of their workplaces is for adjuncts to form labor unions. While there is increasing research interest on the topic of adjunct union activism, a review of the literature found that at present there are no hermeneutical phenomenological studies of adjunct faculty and their experiences as union organizers. Utilizing an interpretive framework of social constructionism, this dissertation examines the lived experiences of five contingent faculty members who organized a separate adjunct faculty union at a Massachusetts public university. The research questions posed in this qualitative study are 1. How do the participants make sense of the experience of organizing an adjunct faculty union? 2. How does the process of organizing an adjunct faculty union impact the participants' sense of identity? The data collection for this project consisted of semi-structured interviews with the participants to obtain detailed first-person accounts of their experiences. An analysis of the data through Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) revealed several key themes: a high value placed on unions, strong and enduring relationships among organizers, challenges to organizing adjunct faculty, varying views of "adjunct," concern for students, and fear of retaliation. The conclusion of the study is that the meanings attributed to their experience as union organizers is strongly connected to the participants' identity as adjuncts and activists, as well as their personal relationships with their fellow organizers. It is the hope that this study will contribute to the growing body of research regarding union organization of contingent faculty.