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The Adjunct Underclass

Author: Herb Childress

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-04-24

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 022649666X

Class ends. Students pack up and head back to their dorms. The professor, meanwhile, goes to her car . . . to catch a little sleep, and then eat a cheeseburger in her lap before driving across the city to a different university to teach another, wholly different class. All for a paycheck that, once prep and grading are factored in, barely reaches minimum wage. Welcome to the life of the mind in the gig economy. Over the past few decades, the job of college professor has been utterly transformed—for the worse. America’s colleges and universities were designed to serve students and create knowledge through the teaching, research, and stability that come with the longevity of tenured faculty, but higher education today is dominated by adjuncts. In 1975, only thirty percent of faculty held temporary or part-time positions. By 2011, as universities faced both a decrease in public support and ballooning administrative costs, that number topped fifty percent. Now, some surveys suggest that as many as seventy percent of American professors are working course-to-course, with few benefits, little to no security, and extremely low pay. In The Adjunct Underclass, Herb Childress draws on his own firsthand experience and that of other adjuncts to tell the story of how higher education reached this sorry state. Pinpointing numerous forces within and beyond higher ed that have driven this shift, he shows us the damage wrought by contingency, not only on the adjunct faculty themselves, but also on students, the permanent faculty and administration, and the nation. How can we say that we value higher education when we treat educators like desperate day laborers? Measured but passionate, rooted in facts but sure to shock, The Adjunct Underclass reveals the conflicting values, strangled resources, and competing goals that have fundamentally changed our idea of what college should be. This book is a call to arms for anyone who believes that strong colleges are vital to society.

Reclaiming the Ivory Tower

Author: Joe Berry

Publisher:

Published: 2005-11

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13:

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Reclaiming the Ivory Tower examines the situation of adjunct professors in U.S. higher education today, describes the process of organizing them to improve their conditions of work, and puts forward an agenda around which adjunct labor can mobilize and transform the universities. In the last twenty years, higher education in the United States has been eroded by massive reliance on temporary academic labor—professors without tenure or prospect of tenure, without benefits, working without offices or research assistance, often commuting between several campuses, and paid a fraction of the salaries of the tenured colleagues. Contingent faculty now constitutes the majority of faculty at U.S. colleges and universities. Analyzing the changing composition of the academic workforce, assessing the strength of new organizing initiatives among adjuncts, and weighing up their strategic options, this is the most comprehensive and engaged account to date of an issue that will become increasingly important for the future of higher education in the United States and in the global context.

Breaking Ranks

Author: Colin Diver

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2022-04-12

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1421443066

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Some colleges will do anything to improve their national ranking. That can be bad for their students—and for higher education. Since U.S. News & World Report first published a college ranking in 1983, the rankings industry has become a self-appointed judge, declaring winners and losers among America's colleges and universities. In this revealing account, Colin Diver shows how popular rankings have induced college applicants to focus solely on pedigree and prestige, while tempting educators to sacrifice academic integrity for short-term competitive advantage. By forcing colleges into standardized "best-college" hierarchies, he argues, rankings have threatened the institutional diversity, intellectual rigor, and social mobility that is the genius of American higher education. As a former university administrator who refused to play the game, Diver leads his readers on an engaging journey through the mysteries of college rankings, admissions, financial aid, spending policies, and academic practices. He explains how most dominant college rankings perpetuate views of higher education as a purely consumer good susceptible to unidimensional measures of brand value and prestige. Many rankings, he asserts, also undermine the moral authority of higher education by encouraging various forms of distorted behavior, misrepresentation, and outright cheating by ranked institutions. The recent Varsity Blues admissions scandal, for example, happened in part because affluent parents wanted to get their children into elite schools by any means necessary. Explaining what is most useful and important in evaluating colleges, Diver offers both college applicants and educators a guide to pursuing their highest academic goals, freed from the siren song of the "best-college" illusion. Ultimately, he reveals how to break ranks with a rankings industry that misleads its consumers, undermines academic values, and perpetuates social inequality.

Standing for Reason

Author: John Sexton

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2019-04-16

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0300245408

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A powerful case for the importance of universities as an antidote to the “secular dogmatism” that increasingly infects political discourse John Sexton argues that over six decades, a “secular dogmatism,” impenetrable by dialogue or reason, has come to dominate political discourse in America. Political positions, elevated to the status of doctrinal truths, now simply are “revealed.” Our leaders and our citizens suffer from an allergy to nuance and complexity, and the enterprise of thought is in danger. Sexton sees our universities, the engines of knowledge and stewards of thought, as the antidote, and he describes the policies university leaders must embrace if their institutions are to serve this role. Acknowledging the reality of our increasingly interconnected world—and drawing on his experience as president of New York University when it opened campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai—Sexton advocates for “global network universities” as a core aspect of a new educational landscape and as the crucial foundation-blocks of an interlocking world characterized by “secular ecumenism.”

The PhDictionary

Author: Herb Childress

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-05-02

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 022635931X

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Navigating academia can seem like a voyage through a foreign land: strange cultural rules dictate everyday interactions, new vocabulary awaits at every turn, and the feeling of being an outsider is unshakable. For students considering doctoral programs and doctoral students considering faculty life, The PhDictionary is a lighthearted companion that illuminates the often opaque customs of academic life. With more than two decades as a doctoral student, college teacher, and administrator, Herb Childress has tripped over almost every possible misunderstood term, run up against every arcane practice, and developed strategies to deal with them all. He combines current data and personal stories into memorable definitions of 150 key phrases and concepts graduate students will need to know (or pretend to know) as they navigate their academic careers. From ABD to white paper—and with buyout, FERPA, gray literature, and soft money in between—each entry contains a helpful definition and plenty of relevant advice. Wry and knowledgeable, Childress is the perfect guide for anyone hoping to scale the ivory tower.

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

Author: Professor X

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2011-03-31

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1101476206

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A caustic expose of the deeply state of our colleges-America's most expensive Ponzi scheme. What drives a former English major with a creative writing degree, several unpublished novels, three kids, and a straining marriage to take a job as a night teacher at a second-rate college? An unaffordable mortgage. As his house starts falling apart in every imaginable way, Professor X grabs first one, then two jobs teaching English 101 and 102-composition and literature-at a small private college and a local community college. He finds himself on the front lines of America's academic crisis. It's quite an education. This is the story of what he learns about his struggling pupils, about the college system-a business more bent on its own financial targets than the wellbeing of its students-about the classics he rediscovers, and about himself. Funny, wry, self-deprecating, and a provocative indictment of our failing schools, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower is both a brilliant academic satire and a poignant account of one teacher's seismic frustration-and unlikely salvation-as his real estate woes catapult him into a subprime crisis of an altogether more human nature.

Adjunct Faculty Voices

Author: Roy Fuller

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-07-03

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 1000979369

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As the debate regarding the increasing use of adjunct faculty in higher education continues to swirl, the voices of adjunct faculty themselves are rarely heard. Stories abound regarding the poor working conditions in which most adjunct faculty labor, yet many of those that employ adjunct faculty are unaware of how the conditions impact an adjunct's ability to teach effectively. Adjunct Faculty Voices gives a voice to this growing population. It shares the experiences and clear benefits adjuncts gain from having access to professional development opportunities. In spite of a shortage of resources, there are institutions offering development programs that target the pressing needs of this population.The first part of the book features the voices of adjunct faculty who tell their stories of finding professional development and creating or connecting with communities of colleagues for mutual support. These adjunct voices represent a range of disciplinary perspectives, career stages, and institutional types. In the second section, the authors draw upon a benchmarking study of adjunct faculty developing programs, examine specific challenges and highlight successful practices. Institutions can support adjunct faculty through teaching academies and faculty learning communities; mentor programs; conference support; and adjunct faculty liaison positions.Topics discussed include:• Best professional development practices that support and benefit adjunct faculty• Faculty social isolation and community-building opportunities• An overview of changes affecting the academic workforce• An outline of issues and working conditions• Current demographics and types of adjunct faculty• Survey results from adjunct faculty developers• Adjunct faculty narratives featuring their professional development and community experiencesTeaching and Learning centers across the country are responding to the growing adjunct cohort in innovative and efficient ways. Administrators, deans, department chairs, and adjunct faculty will all benefit by hearing the voices of adjuncts as they express the challenges faced by adjunct faculty and the types of professional development opportunities which are most beneficial.

Lower Ed

Author: Tressie McMillan Cottom

Publisher: New Press, The

Published: 2017-02-28

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 162097102X

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More than two million students are enrolled in for-profit colleges, from the small family-run operations to the behemoths brandished on billboards, subway ads, and late-night commercials. These schools have been around just as long as their bucolic not-for-profit counterparts, yet shockingly little is known about why they have expanded so rapidly in recent years—during the so-called Wall Street era of for-profit colleges. In Lower Ed Tressie McMillan Cottom—a bold and rising public scholar, herself once a recruiter at two for-profit colleges—expertly parses the fraught dynamics of this big-money industry to show precisely how it is part and parcel of the growing inequality plaguing the country today. McMillan Cottom discloses the shrewd recruitment and marketing strategies that these schools deploy and explains how, despite the well-documented predatory practices of some and the campus closings of others, ending for-profit colleges won’t end the vulnerabilities that made them the fastest growing sector of higher education at the turn of the twenty-first century. And she doesn’t stop there. With sharp insight and deliberate acumen, McMillan Cottom delivers a comprehensive view of postsecondary for-profit education by illuminating the experiences of the everyday people behind the shareholder earnings, congressional battles, and student debt disasters. The relatable human stories in Lower Ed—from mothers struggling to pay for beauty school to working class guys seeking “good jobs” to accomplished professionals pursuing doctoral degrees—illustrate that the growth of for-profit colleges is inextricably linked to larger questions of race, gender, work, and the promise of opportunity in America. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews with students, employees, executives, and activists, Lower Ed tells the story of the benefits, pitfalls, and real costs of a for-profit education. It is a story about broken social contracts; about education transforming from a public interest to a private gain; and about all Americans and the challenges we face in our divided, unequal society.

The Gig Academy

Author: Adrianna Kezar

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2019-10-29

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1421432714

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Why the Gig Academy is the dominant organizational form within the higher education economy—and its troubling implications for faculty, students, and the future of college education. Over the past two decades, higher education employment has undergone a radical transformation with faculty becoming contingent, staff being outsourced, and postdocs and graduate students becoming a larger share of the workforce. For example, the faculty has shifted from one composed mostly of tenure-track, full-time employees to one made up of contingent, part-time teachers. Non-tenure-track instructors now make up 70 percent of college faculty. Their pay for teaching eight courses averages $22,400 a year—less than the annual salary of most fast-food workers. In The Gig Academy, Adrianna Kezar, Tom DePaola, and Daniel T. Scott assess the impact of this disturbing workforce development. Providing an overarching framework that takes the concept of the gig economy and applies it to the university workforce, this book scrutinizes labor restructuring across both academic and nonacademic spheres. By synthesizing these employment trends, the book reveals the magnitude of the problem for individual workers across all institutional types and job categories while illustrating the damaging effects of these changes on student outcomes, campus community, and institutional effectiveness. A pointed critique of contemporary neoliberalism, the book also includes an analysis of the growing divide between employees and administrators. The authors conclude by examining the strengthening state of unionization among university workers. Advocating a collectivist, action-oriented vision for reversing the tide of exploitation, Kezar, DePaola, and Scott urge readers to use the book as a tool to interrogate the state of working relations on their own campuses and fight for a system that is run democratically for the benefit of all. Ultimately, The Gig Academy is a call to arms, one that encourages non-tenure-track faculty, staff, postdocs, graduate students, and administrative and tenure-track allies to unite in a common struggle against the neoliberal Gig Academy.