My pay ain't on here. I teach ~74% of full time (usually a 3/3/2 load, for those in the know). I'm paid by gift cards (a thank you for doing my damn job), free dinners (department meeting at the Golden Corral, yo), the student that comes back two semesters later telling me he's still thinking about Akira Kurosawa's use of color in Ran, the student this semester who told me my speech class got him through his sister's funeral, the student who told me that our screening and class discussion of Miss Representation changed his life. I get paid in heartbreak for every "E" grade that I enter, every student who didn't quite make it and might not be coming back again. I get paid in standing at commencement with the full time faculty whose pay you see below and applauding until my hands hurt the ~4,000 students who did make it.
But I don't get paid enough to make it myself. I'm damn lucky, I'm not the only one making money in my family, and my spare time is usually running kids around, taking care of kids, taking care of the needs of my family. My profession doesn't respect me enough to pay me what I'm worth. So I have to subsist on the other things.
