Part-time Waubonsee instructors to get raises

The pay for adjunct instructors at Waubonsee Community College has been increased, in a contract college trustees approved Wednesday night.

Adjunct instructors are divided in two groups: The 321 who teach credit courses and the 43 who teach adult-education classes.

Those who teach credit courses got a 3.1 percent raise, to $825 per credit hour. A credit hour is the time an instructor is scheduled to teach each week, over the course of a semester.

Adult-education adjuncts will be paid a dollar more, at $37 per student-contact hour.

Credit adjuncts ratified the contract July 12; adult-education members did so June 15, according to a spokesman for the college.

Besides the adjuncts, Waubonsee has 115 full-time faculty members. They are covered under a different contract.

The adjunct faculty are represented by the Waubonsee Community College Adjunct Faculty Association

At neighboring College of DuPage, adjunct credit faculty signed a contract in August 2017 that started them at $1,065 per credit hour, for people who had 18 or fewer semesters of experience, up to $1,145 for those with 45 or more semesters of experience. The four-year contract provides for raises of 1 percent to 3 percent, tied to the annual rate of inflation plus a half-percent.

At Elgin Community College, there are two levels of adjunct instructors. The top-paid ones are paid $1,212 to $1,344 per credit hour, depending on their level of graduate-school education and seniority.