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Eligibility for adjunct professors


Guest QueenB

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Guest QueenB

I have a university client asking how other universities treat adjunct professors for eligibility purposes. They used to have 2 classes per week, but now many are up to 3 or 4. How many hours are being counted (towards the 1000 for eligibility) for class time and prep time?

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They are not. Faculty plans usually cover employees by categories, E.g. full time or depending on faculty class, e.g. Professors, Associate professors, etc., because faculty members dont punch clocks and are usually unionized. Adjuncts are part time faculty who teach specialized subjeucts and can be included or excluded depending on the Univ's employment / HR policy since they are rarely unionized. Some Univ allow adjuncts to make sal. reduction only; some exclude adjuncts from plans since most adjuncts have day jobs. You might google some info from the American Association of University Professors web site (AAUP).

mjb

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If your reference to 1000 hours means you are looking at nondiscrimination or vesting requirements, that's a more complex question. The question is for what hours the adjunct is being paid. I have seen adjuncts who labored endlessly to prepare, and others who could teach their class while still not fully awake from a nap, and both got paid the same. That means the payment is for class time plus required faculty activities like faculty meetings and office time available to students. Now, that means the hours are low, which is a good thing and a bad thing. Good in that keeping them out of the plan likely won't be a nondiscrimination problem, bad in that they would never move up a vesting schedule (if there were one) unless equivalencies were used for vesting service, at least. Of course, as to deferrals, excluding any category is problematic under the almost-universal availability rule in 403(b)(12). Last, the adjunct may not be properly an employee; I have experience with adjuncts treated as amployees and adjunncts treated as independent contractors.

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I have never heard of adjuncts being compensated for prep time. Every place I have taught as an adjunct professor pays a lump sum for teaching a course of x hours for y weeks, e.g., 3 hours a week for 12 weeks = 36 hours. You need to check the adjunct's contract to see what the terms of employment are. Adjuncts are not eligible for participation in the plan if they are treated as ICs.

mjb

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