POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Any resurgence of the American labor movement is going to have to focus on workers in the most exploited categories—from warehouse workers to misclassified “independent contractors” to adjunct faculty—whose numbers will continue to increase due to automation and the corporatization of the public sector. Under the headings “A Prime Day for…
POSTED BY KELLY HAND In his article recently published in the January–February issue of Academe magazine, “A New Reality? The Far Right’s Use of Cyberharassment against Academics,” Joshua A. Cuevas offers a firsthand account of being targeted by malicious online attacks using fabricated information. In counteracting these efforts to sabotage his professional reputation, Cuevas documented the…
BY MIKE MAUER Our colleagues at Montgomery College are in the process of learning, first hand, the value of a modification to their collective bargaining agreement that they won in the last round of negotiations. For decades, the chapter kept winning stronger and stronger protections for faculty at the only unionized college in the two-year…
Tomorrow, at 11 a.m., outside the UNC Center for School Leadership Development, Defenders of Civil Rights, a coalition group of students, faculty, alumni, and concerned North Carolinians will stand in support of the UNC Chapel Hill Center for Civil Rights and urge members of the Board of Governors to vote down a proposed litigation ban. The litigation ban would…
BY AARON BARLOW What do you think of when someone says, “college student”? Probably a white kid, well spoken, from an upper-middle-class professional family—especially if that is your own background and was your own college experience. This was David Brooks’ experience. Yale, Duke and the University of Chicago are the campuses he knows and, very…
BY AARON BARLOW I’ve been told, and by people I respect, not to use the word “neoliberal,” especially when dealing with education–let alone politics. “It is too amorphous,” they say. “It doesn’t really mean anything; it’s just something to rail against.” That has changed. Not only that but, today, we can no longer keep neoliberalism…
BY KELLY HAND We already knew from the Trump administration’s initial “skinny” budget proposal, released in March, that higher education would be on the chopping block. The fleshed-out budget proposal released on May 22 details cuts that would have a devastating impact on student aid, the arts and humanities, scientific research, and international education. Following up…
BY NICOLE MONNIER When my article on taking the “contingent” out of “contingent faculty” appeared in the recent issue of Academe, I was feeling the irony, and not the good kind. Because I had just learned that thirty-eight of my NTT Mizzou comrades were likely to lose their jobs for the next academic year. When…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has issued its annual “Beach Books” attack on colleges for their common reading programs. According to the NAS, “Common readings frequently emphasize progressive political themes—illegal immigrants contribute positively to America, the natural environment must be saved immediately…” In reality, the NAS found that few of…