Laura McKenna has written an excellent article for The Atlantic, titled “The Cost of an Adjunct.” I include the paragraph that references the AAUP’s analysis of the contingent component of the professoriate. Ms McKenna, however, is somewhat confused about the estimated percentages of tenured, tenure track, full-time “term” appointments, and part-time faculty. The AAUP summary states…
This is a guest post from an instructor at Louisiana Tech, who writes anonymously for fear of retribution. I see so many of my colleagues suffering, mostly in silence because what else can they do? They fear losing their job every day as it is. Their stories are painful to hear—increasing debt, depending upon parents to…
In what passes for “business” these days, institutions of any sort become potential cash cows for those at the top, structures allowing extraction of wealth while providing a minimum in return. Until, say, twenty years ago, educational entities were somewhat exempt, operating on a slightly different paradigm. Their mission was not to enrich those at the…
The following is the Executive Summary of a report issued by the California Faculty Association, which represents all faculty in the 23-campus California State University system. The report is the fourth and final one in a series. To see the entire series go to http://www.calfac.org/race-to-the-bottom Over the last decade, the administration of the California State…
The following is an edited transcript of remarks given by Noam Chomsky via Skype on 4 February 2014 to members of the Adjunct Faculty Association of the United Steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Robin J. Sowards prepared the transcript and there was additional editing by Noam Chomsky. While our New York-minute society may recoil at a post that…
One often hears complaints that legislators, especially at the federal level, court donations from powerful interests, introduce and seek to advance legislation that serves those interests, and then, when they leave office, continue to promote those interests as paid lobbyists. Although the monies involved might be somewhat smaller, depending on the state, the same thing…
The following is the Executive Summary of a report issued recently by the California Faculty Association, which represents all faculty in the 23-campus California State University system. The report is the third in a series. To see the entire series go to http://www.calfac.org/race-to-the-bottom The job of college professor used to be a solidly middle-class profession.…
In the Sunday Review section of the New York Times, Paul F. Campos has offered his opinion on “The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much.” [The whole piece is available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/the-real-reason-college-tuition-costs-so-much.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0] Campos argues that attributing the rise in tuition costs to reductions in state funding is a fairy tale that administrators have been…
The following letter was published in the Toledo Blade this past week. It was written in response to a seemingly well intentioned and fairly thoughtful op-ed on the increasing tuition and fees being paid students and their families, which unfortunately suggested that faculty compensation and the leverage provided by unionization were among the main culprits:…
The following is the Executive Summary of a report issued recently by the California Faculty Association, which represents all faculty in the 23-campus California State University system. The report is the second in a series. The first paper in this series, “Race to the Bottom: CSU’s 10-Year Failure to Fund Its Core Mission,” examined faculty…