Workers, exploitation, and the "business model" of higher education

[blackletter]

When I was at U of A, there was an adjunct there whom I liked a lot. He was one of my favorite teachers when I was an undergrad and then when I was a grad student I worked with him teaching summer classes. One day in the office after a summer class lecture, he told me that in addition to his teaching load at the uni, he also taught classes at the

Comments

[mellifluous_ink]

And tuition costs are going up???

I just threw up in my soul a little bit.

That is IT.

I am NEVER going to school in this country.

[blackletter]

And tuition costs are going up???

Yeah. That bit *really* angers people. And people who have done number crunching have figured out that the money's not going to paying for new technologies, which is what people originally thought. The money is going into administration. The top admin people are not only getting paid more, but admin in general has become *enormous*. Some of the admin people--the "working admin," clerks and the like--are essential but a lot of the mid-to-top level admin could stand to be seriously culled.

[mellifluous_ink]

Yeah screw that. I mean, I'm not going to say no to university jobs--I can't afford to have ethics like that right now--but I can at least hold off attending school until it wo'n't make me feel like I'm doing the equivalent of breaking you on the wheel. Because seriously, that is how sickening this information is to me.

[aubrem]

Reminds me of this article I read a little while back: http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846/

You would think that leaders in academia would be a little more enlightened. : /

[blackletter]

Part of the problem is that a lot of the top level admin people are business people, not educators. They see the uni in terms of profit and loss, and to them more employees for cheaper = better, never mind what it does to education.

The other problem, I think, is that it is *hard* to get academics organized for a cause and all moving in one direction. Like herding cats.

That said, I think Thomas Benton's articles are too cynical, since a job in academia is not the only thing a person might get (or want to get) out of a humanities graduate degree. So I think his policy of discouraging people from grad school is misguided and just reinforces the cultural message that the humanities are worthless.

[rexluscus]

Oy vey. :(

[blackletter]

Yeah. I sometimes get discouraged, but then I figure that if I don't try to bust into academia I'll regret it for the rest of my life and wonder if I could have make it.

[alfrecht]

Welcome to my life, kiddo.

I am one of those adjuncts barely scraping by, who can't get on disability and such because I make too much money (some months of the year); but, I have a Ph.D., and have written lots of stuff that is published or is in the process of doing so. Everyone who has evaluated me has thought I teach exceptionally well; most of the students I've taught have loved my classes. Will a college take a second look at my applications to work for them, though? Generally, not a chance.

[blackletter]

Right about when I got into my PhD program, someone sent me a link to www.howtheuniversityworks.com and I've been appalled ever since. It's a bit funny, so loving and so hating an institution at the same time.

[amedia]

It's a criminal shame is what it is. And I mean shame in the strongest possible Greco-Roman sense.

I got my Ph.D. in '91 and my first t-t position in '96, and in-between I patched together 4-6 classes per semester at various places plus temp typing jobs. You can do that when you're young. I don't think I could do it now. TODS' history is similar except that he was adjunct at the same place where I was t-t from '96 to '02 and was treated like ... what's lower than garbage? Sewage?

They had some great sneaky ways to look good on paper. Adjuncts could qualify for pro-rated benefits if they taught nine hours or more. Courses there were four credits each, and adjuncts were not permitted to teach more than two.

I was on a committee there to try to improve conditions for adjuncts. Right before I was denied tenure. (I actually don't think there was a direct connection. No one in my cohort got tenure.)

[blackletter]

They had some great sneaky ways to look good on paper. Adjuncts could qualify for pro-rated benefits if they taught nine hours or more. Courses there were four credits each, and adjuncts were not permitted to teach more than two.

Ugh. I wish things like that were illegal.

I was on a committee there to try to improve conditions for adjuncts. Right before I was denied tenure. (I actually don't think there was a direct connection. No one in my cohort got tenure.)

Replaced the whole cohort with adjuncts, perhaps?