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…
Replace “technologies” with “reforms” and “economic” with “educational,” in Paul Krugman’s New York Times column today and he could be writing about our schools and colleges. He claims, “the whole digital era, spanning more than four decades, is looking like a disappointment. New technologies have yielded great headlines, but modest economic results. Why?” He goes…
From the Conclusions of the report, “Academic Freedom and Tenure: Felician College (New Jersey)”, May, 2015: In terminating the appointments of sixteen fulltime faculty members, seven of whom sought the Association’s assistance, the administration of Felician College attributed its action simply to “the exigency of the college’s financial status” without any further explanation. The administration’s…
From the Conclusions of the report, “Academic Freedom and Tenure: The University of South Maine” of May, 2015: In terminating the appointments of sixty of the 250 full-time faculty members and eliminating, reducing, or consolidating numerous academic programs, allegedly on financial grounds, the administration of the University of Southern Maine acted in flagrant violation of…
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…
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of joining the leadership and some members of the Illinois Conference at their annual meeting in Chicago. I had previously met several of those in attendance, and I had the opportunity to meet in person several others with whom I have corresponded about posts to this blog and…
The administrative superstructure that characterizes American higher education is coming under increased scrutiny. Yet administrators keep multiplying anyway, as do the “managerial pathologies” that Benjamin Ginsburg vividly described in his recent book The Fall of the Faculty. It seems like a good time, then, for someone to try to provide guidance to the growing number of faculty who are…