Contingent faculty make up a significant number of those teaching on college campuses today and that number continues to steadily grow. Reliance on contingent labor has at this point become normalized, yet this group of faculty continues to be treated as second class citizens in many ways, primarily in the areas of financial compensation and in support of efforts to undertake and produce research. For these reasons, the Society for Classical Studies has created a grant program for contingent faculty working in our field.

These grants are intended to serve two purposes: The first is to enable contingent faculty to do work that is important but may not be rewarded or recognized by their home institution -- what we might broadly term “professional development” -- for example, research funding, course reductions that allow time for developing new courses, or organizing student-involved outreach. The second is to help contingent faculty, particularly those who work part-time, on a course-by-course or semester-by-semester basis, survive and thrive in an environment where they are under-supported and under-resourced. It would be up to the faculty member to decide how best to use this money, but this “financial assistance” grant could be used to pay for health insurance or medical bills if a faculty person is uninsured, as a bridge grant for those who work on short-term contracts and receive no income during this summer, and for relocation or caregiving expenses.