According to a recent report released by Forbes, Washington University has been named the 13th best employer in the United States and the number one employer in the education sector.

The report is based on an independent survey—conducted by statistics company Statista.com—of nearly 20,000 employees working for various companies or institutions with over 2,500 workers. Washington University ranked ahead of companies such as Facebook (15th overall) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (21st overall and second best in the education sector.) According to a 2013 report, the Washington University as a whole has over 13,000 employees and pays over $1 billion in wages each year.

Although full-time faculty seemed to agree that they enjoyed working at the University, some adjunct faculty said the University still had room to improve. After the recent formation of a union for adjunct professors, the school is currently negotiating with adjuncts about long-term appointments and increased workers benefits.

Durai Sundaramoorthi, a full-time professor in the Olin Business School, said that he is definitely happy working for Washington University. When not teaching, Sundaramoorthi is involved in consulting with private companies, and although he usually waits until the summer to focus on these endeavors, he is grateful for the administrative support the University provides.

“We have so many associate deans for different things. If you want anything you can go talk to them. Anything reasonable, they’ll provide you with that,” Sundaramoorthi said.

Sundaramoorthi also noted that one of the benefits of being employed at the University was the students that the professors get to work with inside of and outside of the classroom.

“Nationally, if you look at the SAT scores of admitted students, [Olin] is number one,” Sundaramoorthi said. “As a faculty member, having such high-caliber students is always great news. You are always teaching to really smart students.”

In a previous interview with Student Life, Chancellor Mark Wrighton shed light on how the University works to finance the outside research of professors. The university will match a typical grant by up to 25%, but ends up having to match larger grants, such as a $20 million grant from the Gates Foundation, by around 75%.

“Am I going to tell the person who gets the grant, ‘Oh, that’s too expensive for us. We can’t afford your winning this big grant’?” Wrighton said. “No, I’m not going to do that that. I’m not going be the first the chancellor in America that tells a faculty member you can’t accept that award. We have to find ways to finance that very important project.”

Wrighton said the money to match such a grant comes from the University’s endowment, rather than its tuition.

Though many full-time professors report high job satisfaction, adjunct professors have spent the past few months organizing a union to improve their standing.

Scott Granneman, an adjunct professor in the University College, is an alumnus of Washington University and has been heavily involved in the adjunct unionization that has occurred over the past year. As a member of the bargaining and organizing committees for this movement, he believes that the University still needs to take steps to provide adjuncts with more job stability.

“Wash. U. overall does a great job supporting its tenured faculty and, overall, in many ways does a good job with adjuncts,” Granneman said. “That said, there are issues we need to address and the adjunct’s union will be addressing those in the very near future.”

Although Granneman acknowledged that Washington University was the best employer for adjuncts in the St. Louis area, he noted that the school still had to take strides to match the compensation of other schools nationwide such as Tufts University, where adjuncts have secure multi-year appointments and health benefits.

“[Adjunct professors] are just trying to make it so that we can continue to offer [education] in a way that benefits everybody. We are here to work with students and educate them. It’s a calling most of us treasure so that’s why we are doing this,” Granneman said.