Walmartisation of academia

[energyresearch]

This post published in 'Hightower lowdown' about the "Walmartisation" of the aspiring academic made for a rather depressing read. Has the state of American academia already spread to other parts of the world? Would unionisation help, or is it merely a minor delay to the inevitable?

Maybe I should abandon the increasingly unrealistic dream...

For

Comments

[gobsmacked]

I don't know how this is news that requires so many articles. It's been the situation of many adjunct faculty for a couple of decades at least.

[historychick49]

Yeah, I love how the article talks about how things were in 1970. Which is great, but that was 44 years ago, y'know?

[fountaingirl]

Personally, I actively discourage students from a career in academia now. But ymmv.

[trundle]

As much as I agree that the devaluing academic labor is one of the most significant challenges facing higher education today*, this article comes off as pretty insulting to the "stereotypical minimum-wage worker[s] with little education, experience, or credentials" whom it implies might deserve conditions like these. The author's moral outrage that a highly-educated person has to work a second job is laughable in an economic environment where it is all too common to be working three or four jobs and still require public assistance to feed a family. Management is capping hours to avoid giving benefits? My stars! Somehow I suspect this author wasn't quite so vocal when universities began subcontracting service and custodial positions decades ago for precisely the same reasons

[nzraya]

I think the article actually does quite a good job of saying that these conditions are ALSO bad when Wal-Mart or McDonald's impose them. The difference is that we already know how shitty Wal-Mart and McD's are as employers, whereas a lot of people (including the faculty and management/administration at colleges that rely on adjuncts) still think of colleges and universities as somehow nobler -- they're "non-profits," after all! And their mission is to spread knowledge and enlightenment, not sell cheap crap

[agentdanger]

Another difference is that students pay thousands and thousands of dollars for their college educations, often sinking deep into debt themselves. It may surprise them that many of the people teaching them get paid next to nothing.

The stereotype of professors as comfortable old hippies who enjoy total job security and excellent salaries for doing next to nothing just really needs to be smashed.

[gobsmacked]

On the other hand, this sort of story doesn't help the image of entitlement -
Oregon law professor loses it over proposal to donate faculty raises to students

[knut_hamson]

I'm union. It doesn't help.