BY NICOLE BRAUN A few weeks ago, I participated virtually in the very first Higher Ed Labor Summit: Building a Movement to Transform U.S. Higher Education. It was a fabulous, inspiring, stimulating and visionary experience. During the conference, we were put into small focus groups to explore the question of power, how to obtain power,…
BY MICHAEL THADDEUS A depressingly familiar trend in higher education has been the gradual erosion of ladder faculty positions and their replacement by positions with no prospect of tenure. The former tend to be relatively well-paid and secure; the latter, undervalued and marginal. Though it ranks among the richest American universities, my own institution, Columbia…
Currently, about one in five U.S. workers is contingent—that is, not directly employed by the company for which he or she works. That percentage is expected to rise to about 30% over the next decade. One of the major drivers of this increase in contingent employment has been the use of “temp agencies” to avoid…