Category Archives: Writing

I am not sure why I believe this, but I think that academia has to reach some final bottom– like a drug addict– before it can even begin to address its own recent history, particularly the steady destruction of full-time faculty positions. At some point– 50% or 75% part-time?– the problem will become so self-evident that it can no longer be ignored. I sometimes wonder if it will become evident to the public before it is self-evident to academics.

It’s hyperbole, of course, to equate American teachers with an Indian caste, but this piece (“When Adjunct Faculty are the Tenure-Track’s Untouchables”) suggests that full-time faculty complicity may be one important reason change can seem so distant:

Truth is that ladder-rank faculty are growing old and we are not prepared to pick this important fight with our administrations or UCOP. We are edging towards retirement, counting our beans in our pension funds, and just holding on until we escape amidst encircling doom. Safe in retirement, many of us will tut-tut and speak of the halcyon days when ladder rank faculty were little gods with real rights.

“When Adjunct Faculty are the Tenure-Track’s Untouchables” Chris Newfield

Newfield is referring to California universities; as goes California, the saying goes, so goes the United States. The article is worth reading, although it does little more than repeat the obvious: in recent years: our fight is increasingly not simply against an administrative culture overly concerned with markets and business models but also with status-bound, complacent full-time faculty. Maybe that last complaint signals that rock bottom is closer than ever.

It seems obvious that any reform of academic culture– and any hope of restoring professional status to the adjunct majority–has to include a complete transformation of administrative culture. Here’s a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education (“4 Public-College Presidents Pass $1-Million Mark in Pay“) that illustrates not simply that universities pay their presidents too much but also that these presidents can be well compensated and practised liars.

The piece tells the story of one Jo Ann M. Gora, president of Ball State University, who apparently made a public show last year of turning down a salary increase. Meanwhile, in the backrooms, someone was having a bit of a laugh at the gullibility of the public:

Unmentioned, however, was a deferred-compensation payout of the same amount, which she received three weeks later. That payout, which had accumulated over five years, combined with other benefits to bring her 2011-12 total compensation to $984,647. Just four other public-college presidents in the nation made more than that.

I am not sure what is more amazing: that a university president could be paid a million dollars a year after years of rising tuition and shrinking numbers of full-time academic jobs or that President Gora is still president after being caught being so profoundly dishonest. That’s just a start. Graham B. Spanier, the highest paid president, “was fired in 2011 in connection with a child-sex-abuse scandal involving a former assistant football coach.” Bob’s your Uncle!