Amanda Dotson’s office at Morgan State University is exactly what you would expect from a physics professor: a chaotic mix of scattered Lego creations and stacks of ungraded and graded assignments.
But Dotson’s nine-year contractual non-tenure-track employment at Morgan isn’t only reflected on her desk; it’s on her phone.
An alum of St. Mary’s College and a Ph.D. graduate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Dotson opens her banking app and pulls up her most recent direct deposit.
$1,380.56.
This figure represents the biweekly take-home pay for a faculty member with a doctorate who teaches Physics 205 and 206 at Morgan State University. Engineering, mathematics, and chemistry majors must pass these courses in order to graduate.
“I really consider teaching my vocation,” Dotson says. “If I didn’t like it as much as I did, I would’ve moved on years ago. But if my husband died, I’d have to sell the house and move in with a roommate. I wouldn’t be able to afford it by myself.”
Dotson is a contractual, non-tenure-track faculty member at Morgan who is hired on a semester-to-semester basis, rather than holding a permanent, tenured position.
She teaches required courses and supports students, but she does not have the same job security, long-term contracts, or institutional protections as tenure-track and tenured faculty. She is one of hundreds of faculty members the university relies on to teach core classes year after year, yet she, like others, remains in temporary positions without many opportunities for growth or promotion within the system.
Dotson’s modest salary stands in contrast to her position as a faculty member whom Morgan State University relies on as it pursues the elite “R1” research classification, a designation awarded to universities with the highest levels of research activity and doctoral degree production.
The university has raised a ‘record-breaking’ over $100 million in research funding.
Administrators often frame the push for R1 status as a rising tide that lifts all boats. However, Dotson says that’s not necessarily the case.
“The research faculty are bringing in these millions of dollars in grants, and that’s great, but I’ve stood up in front of the president and the provost at the Faculty Institute every semester for three years and asked: ‘What plans do you have to support your contractual faculty?’”said Dotson.
The answer, she says, is usually a polite handshake and a promise that the administration “hears her.”
While the university has secured funding for a multimillion-dollar science center currently under construction, contractual faculty members say there has been little progress on job security and long-term contracts – until now.
In April 2026, Maryland lawmakers passed a law granting non-tenure-track faculty across the state’s public universities collective bargaining rights. The law applies to full-time, part-time and adjunct instructors at institutions within the University System of Maryland, as well as Morgan and St. Mary’s College of Maryland and establishes a separate bargaining unit for those employees.
Dotson and other contractual faculty members were among the ones who appeared before the Maryland General Assembly in support of the legislation.
“We just want to have the ability to talk on a level playing field and be heard,” said Dotson.
David Hecker, a consultant with the American Federation of Teachers who worked with organizers in Maryland, said the law is about giving faculty a real voice in decisions that affect their work.
“Everyone deserves the right to engage in collective bargaining… for faculty to have a real voice on campus,” said Hecker.
EXPANDING FACULTY RIGHTS
Supporters of the legislation say the measure addresses long-standing gaps in how faculty voices are represented in university decision-making.
“The university system does not have an appropriate structure in place to provide the proper platform for the voices of the workers on campus,” said Sen. Benjamin Kramer (D-19), one of bill’s sponsors. “It’s my belief that faculty should, if they choose to do so, have the right to bargain collectively,” he said.
Nicole Morse (they/them), a tenured associate professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, said collective bargaining can also affect students.
“Teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions,” said Morse.
They added that without job security, faculty may struggle to consistently support students.
“Having long-term relationships with faculty… to mentor students, advise thesis projects, and write letters of recommendations… are easier when faculty have a say over their working conditions,” said Morse, who is not directly affected by the legislation.
Jared Ball, a professor at Morgan State University, said the issue comes down to access to a basic labor right. “Everybody should have the right to unionize or collectively bargain,” said Ball.
A NATIONAL SHIFT IN FACULTY WORKFORCE
The debate over collective bargaining rights for contractual faculty comes at a time when national data shows a shift in faculty employment, pay and job security across higher education.
According to a 2023 data snapshot report from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), about 68% of college faculty in the U.S. are in non-tenure-track positions, with nearly half working part-time. Many face lower pay and less job security, with some earning under $25,000 a year.
More than 70% of college instructors are off the tenure-track and teach more than half of all courses in the U.S., according to a 2024 report on adjunct faculty trends.
In 2024, an AAUP report found that faculty pay remains about 6.2% lower than it was in 2019 when adjusted for inflation. For adjunct instructors, pay at four-year public institutions typically ranges from about $3,500 to $5,500 per course, according to the 2024 AAUP report.
Unionization among faculty has also increased. Between 2012 and 2024, unionized faculty grew by about 7.5% nationwide, driven largely by non-tenure-track and younger faculty organizing around pay, job security, and working conditions, according to data on higher education labor trends.
Starting July 1, 2026, the law will extend collective bargaining rights to thousands of non-tenure-track faculty at Maryland’s public universities, bringing the state in line with more than 25 other states.
CONCERNS ABOUT DISRUPTIVE CHANGE
Not everyone supports the change, though.
In a written testimony to the Maryland General Assembly, the University System of Maryland said the bill could create a “massive burden” for the institutions by increasing the number of employees eligible for collective bargaining significantly.
University leaders across Maryland raised concerns about cost, governance, and faculty structure. Officials from the University of Maryland, Baltimore argued that the bill did not account for institutions where faculty are funded through clinical revenue or external research grants rather than state funding.
“Including these faculty … would place significant strain on [the university’s] operating model and introduce risks,” the university wrote.
At Morgan State, President David Wilson said extending collective bargaining rights could strain financial and administrative resources.
“[The bill] will impose considerable strain on the University’s administrative resources, financial resources and academic independence,” Wilson wrote.
He added that the university may need to hire additional staff and could face pressure to raise tuition or make cuts elsewhere to cover those expenses. The university estimated that supporting unionization efforts could cost between $2 million and $2.5 million or more, not including any future increases in wages or benefits that could result from negotiations.
Hecker rejected the idea that collective bargaining would create new financial pressure for universities.
“Collective bargaining is not about expanding the pie,” he said. “It’s about how that money is being spent, whether it goes to administration or to the people teaching the students.”
WHAT COMES NEXT
This past fall, Dotson co-founded the Physics Tutoring Center, a “Physics Clinic” funded by grants to help students – many of whom admit they “hate math” – not “washout” of the program.
“Math was never a subject I found much interest in, but Dr. Amanda taught me that within my appreciation of physics an appreciation of mathematics is a bit of a requirement,” said Xavier Maple, a junior engineering physics major, who participated in the program.
“We’re here to support those students and get them through those required classes,” Dotson explains.
For years, Dotson and other contractual faculty members have helped students navigate some of Morgan’s most demanding courses while working without the long-term security many say they need themselves.
Now, the collective bargaining rights set to take effect in July, Dotson says contractual faculty are preparing for the next step: organizing for a voice in the system they have spent years helping sustain.
“I’m very excited the bill was passed,” said Dotson. “Now the work of organizing like-minded Morgan contractual faculty begins so we can eventually have a vote for unionization.”
This story is a senior capstone project of the Multimedia Journalism department of the School of Global Journalism and Communication. The writer, Aleisha Robinson, graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Science degree May 16, 2026. Aleisha is a former editor-in-chief of the MSU Spokesman.
