Class divide on campus: Adjunct professors fight for better pay, benefits (NBCnews.com)

     …Adjuncts are a diverse group: graduate students building their resumes, professionals making money on the side, and long-time faculty like Newfield who simply never managed to score a tenure-track position. The position of "adjunct" was popularized in the 1960s in response to a shortage of qualified professors wielding a Ph.D. Nowadays, there's a surplus. According to the American Association of University Professors, the ratio of tenure-track openings to new doctorates is around 1 to 4. Universities, particularly cash-strapped public schools, have responded in kind. Three quarters of American college and university instructors fall into a contingent faculty category.
     On a growing number of campuses across the country, adjuncts are unionizing to demand a living wage and benefits, some with the help of a recent national campaign run by the Service Employees International Union. Still, these victories haven't yet reversed what has long been a reality in academia: a two-tiered university system for professors who have virtually identical job descriptions….

Richard Nixon in Yorba Linda, 1952