Part-Time College Teachers

Thank you for Gordon’s article.

I am a part-time teacher at a local community college. I am limited to nine hours of teaching per week at any one college; if I had more class time, the college would be obliged to give me benefits. Heaven forbid!

I am single and pay no rent because I live in my grandmother’s house. Therefore, I am able to live on my teaching income as long as financial emergencies don’t arise. Many of my teaching colleagues, however, can only survive economically by becoming “freeway flyers,” who spend lots of time traveling between teaching jobs.

I appreciate that, in some cases, part-time jobs might be good for some teachers who have full-time jobs elsewhere, who are full-time university students, or who have a spouse who works full time. However, many of us depend on our part-time teaching as our main source of income.

For myself, I could live with the inequity in pay and the absence of job security, but I would desperately like to be eligible for group medical insurance. I think it is inexcusable that part-time teachers do not have access to a group medical insurance plan.

JAN A. COPELAND

Long Beach