The Adjunct Underclass

Download or read book The Adjunct Underclass written by Herb Childress and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-04-24 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Adjunct Underclass written by Herb Childress and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-03-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Breaking Ranks written by Colin Diver and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2022-04-12 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Standing for Reason written by John Sexton and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.”

Download or read book Reclaiming the Ivory Tower written by Joe Berry and published by . This book was released on 2005-11 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book How the University Works written by Marc Bousquet and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncovers the labor exploitation occurring in universities across the country As much as we think we know about the modern university, very little has been said about what it's like to work there. Instead of the high-wage, high-profit world of knowledge work, most campus employees—including the vast majority of faculty—really work in the low-wage, low-profit sphere of the service economy. Tenure-track positions are at an all-time low, with adjuncts and graduate students teaching the majority of courses. This super-exploited corps of disposable workers commonly earn fewer than $16,000 annually, without benefits, teaching as many as eight classes per year. Even undergraduates are being exploited as a low-cost, disposable workforce. Marc Bousquet, a major figure in the academic labor movement, exposes the seamy underbelly of higher education—a world where faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates work long hours for fast-food wages. Assessing the costs of higher education's corporatization on faculty and students at every level, How the University Works is urgent reading for anyone interested in the fate of the university.

Download or read book The PhDictionary written by Herb Childress and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-05-02 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.