In an article titled “Outsourced in Michigan” written for Inside Higher Ed, Colleen Flaherty chronicles the movement among Michigan’s community colleges to outsource the hiring of adjunct faculty and the management of related “payroll duties” to a corporation called EDUStaff. EDUStaff had previously specialized in providing substitute teachers for K-12 systems. So, if you have…
A recently released research article in the July issue of Frontiers in Psychology, authored by Gretchen M. Reevy and Grace Deason, finds that the nature of non-tenure-track employment—now a reality for some 70% of higher education faculty members in the U.S.—brings with it an increase in stress, depression, and anxiety. Appropriately titled “Predictors of depression, stress,…
The following post by Richard B. Simon, Professor of English at City College of San Francisco, appeared initially on the Forum Blog of the California Part-Time Faculty Association (CPFA) and is reposted with the author’s permission. CPFA serves approximately 40,000 Non-tenure Track Faculty in California Community Colleges and has been advocating for Part-time faculty in…
MacInnes, Helen. Assignment in Brittany. Boston: Little, Brown, 1942. Among authors in the espionage category, MacInnes stands out for her lack of cynicism and for her faith in the essential decency of individuals who are willing to expose themselves to hazard for the sake of a good cause. This sensibility makes her work very distinct…
Bonuses, both for performance and longevity, have become commonplace for higher-ed administrators at both public and private institutions. Indeed, these bonuses have become so commonplace that they now generally go unnoticed and unquestioned. But when such bonuses continue to be given during periods of great budget constraints, while faculty and staff compensation and/or positions are…
For centuries, imperial China endured an examination system that created a putative meritocracy of imperial bureaucrats. Based on a carefully curated body of knowledge, it created a cognoscenti with no need to look “outside,” to be curious, or to explore. I thought of it this morning as I was reading Meredith Broussard’s article for The Atlantic,…
By the end of the 20th Century, a number of American colleges and universities – often in close geographical proximity – began to look for ways to cooperate. Regional college-based consortia emerged in a number of places and took a variety of forms. New relationships emerged with institutional leaders looking to move beyond the lobbying…
My morfar (grandfather on my mother’s side) hunted alligators by a lake in Småland. If this sounds strange to you, imagine how my mother must have felt when as a child in the 1940’s in Sweden she read Pelle Svanslös i Amerika. Or for that matter, how strange and incredulous a journey to America Gösta…
Here’s a news item that you may have missed: “Beachgoers in New York and New Jersey were outraged when they saw a plane towing a banner with swastika imagery Saturday afternoon. “Promoting the Web site proswastika.org, an organization called The International Raelian Movement aimed to reclaim the swastika symbol, saying it was ‘hijacked by the…