Forbes has just published an article by Kathryn Dill titled “The Ten Best- and Worst-Paying Education Jobs.” Here is the explanation of the methodology: “To determine the Best- And Worst-Paying Education Jobs, Forbes consulted the most recent Occupational Employment and Wages data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which reflects May 2014 salary and employment data,…
In January, Joan Axelrod-Contrada wrote an article for the Boston Globe in which she profiled a number of professionals who have moved from the private sector into higher education. Beyond providing such personalized illustrations of what is involved in such a change in career direction, the article explains why many skills are not only transferable…
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…
This is a guest post by Victoria Scott, an art historian with considerable experience as an adjunct faculty member. _________________________ Dimidium facti qui coepit habet: sapere aude, incipe. (Half done, she who hath begun: Dare to be wise, begin.) Horace, First Book of Epistles The two biggest obstacles to organizing scholars—graduate students, adjuncts, and…
Earlier this month, two items appeared on the same day on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s website. The first article was written by Charles Huckabee and concerns the decision by Smith College to consider and admit transgender applicants who identify as female. Several years ago, Smith had generated controversy first by rejecting a transgender applicant…
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…
The following is the text of my keynote address at “Hurdles on the Horizon: Governance & Student Success in the Connecticut State College & University System,” a conference organized by the Faculty Advisory Committee to the CSCU Board of Regents for Higher Education at Manchester Community College on April 10, 2015. Let me begin by…
Janet Napolitano, the President of the University of California system recently wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post in which she argued that, despite the challenges created by unprecedented cuts in state support for public higher education, it is a gross exaggeration to assert that American higher education is in crisis. Scott H. Levine,…
Rudy Fichtenbaum has sent me the following statistical analysis in response to the assertions made by Campos in the article in the New York Times and as a follow-up to my own post on that article. I don’t think that anything that Rudy points out in this analysis substantially contradicts anything that I have asserted…