BY JAMES FERRY Academe editor Michael Ferguson reached out to me. He recalled that one of my gigs was teaching at a local prison, and he wanted to know if I’d be interested in writing an article about my experiences. I leaped at the chance since graduate students don’t often get pitched on publishing opportunities.…
BY JENNIFER BRIER AND JORDAN “JT” TURNER Despite decades of activism and change, LGBTQ college students continue to face challenges that affect their experiences with higher education. Some are similar to what straight and cis students confront on a daily basis—economic struggles that make paying for school a significant hardship or mental health issues that…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN In December graduate student employees at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) began a wildcat grading strike, refusing to submit fall quarter grades until they get a salary increase. The university administration said that as many as 12,000 students had their grades withheld. Today the strike expanded as student…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following is the text of a statement in support of the union representing non-tenure-track faculty members, or lecturers, in the University of California issued today by the Berkeley Faculty Association (BFA), which includes tenured and tenure-track professors (so-called “senate faculty”) at the University of California, Berkeley. BFA is affiliated with…
BY LAURA W. PERNA According to a January 2020 Gallup poll, only 27 percent of adults in the United States believe that college is affordable. Democratic presidential candidates have responded to these concerns with proposals for free tuition at community colleges, student loan debt-forgiveness, and more. Some proposals, like increasing the amount of money that…
BY EVA-MARIA SWIDLER I wrote “The Purge of Higher Education,” which appears in the winter 2020 issue of Academe, this past fall while at the start of a year-long furlough from a financially troubled, unconventional liberal arts college. I wondered what would be left standing on the college landscape once the current purge of institutions…
POSTED BY SARAH MINK Winter 2020 | Vol. 106, No. 1 Contributors to this issue of Academe articulate a broad vision of higher education’s social mission. Articles focus on addressing the needs of working, low-income, and incarcerated students; victories in coalitional student-led organizing; institutional reckonings with the legacy of slavery; and other topics. Follow the links…
BY OLGA GARCÍA ECHEVERRÍA This creative essay was inspired by Jane Harty’s Academe Blog post “Stress and PTSD in the Academy” and modeled after Judy Brady’s 1971 satirical feminist essay “I Want a Wife.” I belong to a category of workers known as adjuncts. I am an adjunct. According to the Oxford online dictionary, an…
BY STEVE MUMME AND CAPRICE LAWLESS This op-ed appeared originally in the Boulder Daily Camera [openforum@dailycamera.com]. It’s indicative of the dire state in which Colorado’s Community College System adjunct instructors now labor that the American Association of University Professors’ Colorado branch launched a Christmas season GoFundMe campaign to help tide them through the annual…
BY AARON BARLOW Dr. Bruce Gilley, are you trying to pick a fight? You are a professor of Political Science at Portland State University and have penned a disturbing piece, “Was It Good Fortune to be Enslaved by the British Empire?” that appeared on September 30, 2019 on the website of the National Association of…