Contingent Academic Labor Against Neoliberalism

Abstract

If the fulfillment of American democracy includes a system of higher education that provides equal means of access, opportunity and accommodation for all social classes in society, then we need to better understand how the vastly enlarged use of contingent academic labor plays a role in its formation. This essay argues that although the expansion of higher education has been significant over the past forty years or so, there are hidden disparities within it that hinder the development of equality. The extensive use of contingent academic labor, although allowing for more affordable growth of higher education in the short run, has contributed to a higher education system that is more highly managed via an expanded administrative apparatus and focused more toward a corporate-centered agenda. It also facilitates higher education's reproductive role with regard to social class stratification. This essay presents a brief analysis of these dynamics and offers a review of some of the significant organizing activities that have taken place to counter these trends.

Notes

¹ Clyde W. Barrow, Universities and the Capitalist State: Corporate Liberalism and the Reconstruction of American Higher Education, 1894–1928 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990).

² Rebecca S. Lowen, Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997); Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold War and American Science, The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1993).

³ Steven Brint and Jerome Karabel, The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900–1985 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 77–79, 225, 231.

⁴ Sheila Slaughter and Larry L. Leslie, Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 7.

⁵ Ibid., 7–8.

⁶ Jennifer Washburn, University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2005), p. 57.

⁷ Ibid., 57–72; Slaughter and Leslie, Academic Capitalism, pp. 44–48.

⁸ Washburn, University Inc., p. 59.

⁹ Ibid., passim.

¹⁰ National Science Foundation – National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, “Chapter 5: Academic Research and Development,” National Science Board - Science and Engineering Indicators 2014, Arlington, VA (NSB 14-01), February 2014; Washburn, University Inc., p. 8.

¹¹ Ibid; Also see Washburn notes No. 17 and 18, p. 251, for further details.

¹² National Science Foundation (NSB 14-01); Washburn, p. 180.

¹³ Washburn, University Inc., p. 180; Also see Patricia J. Gumport, “Universities and Knowledge: Restructuring the City of Intellect,” in Steven Brint (ed.), The Future of the City of Intellect (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. 49.

¹⁴ Ry Rivard, “A Few States are Spending More on Higher Ed than Before the Recession Hit,” Inside Higher Ed, April 21, 2014.

¹⁵ Joe Berry and Helena Worthen, “Higher Education as a Workplace,” Dollars & Sense: Real World Economics (November/December 2012).

¹⁶ Gumport, “Universities and Knowledge,” p. 49.

¹⁷ John W. Curtis and Saranna Thornton, “Losing Focus: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2013–2014,” Academe (March–April 2014). They report that from 1976 to 2011 there has been a massive increase in full-time non-faculty professionals (369%), and more than a doubling of senior administrative positions (141%). This compares to full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty, which only grew by 23% during the same period.

¹⁸ Richard Chait, “The ‘Academic Revolution’ Revisited,” in Steven Brint (ed.), The Future of the City of Intellect, The Changing American University (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 294–295.

¹⁹ Burton Clark, “Faculty: Differentiation and Dispersion,” in A. Levine (ed.), Higher Learning in America, 1980–2000 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), p. 170. Cited by Chait, The Future of the City of Intellect, p. 295.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, 2004, Table 227: Full-time and part-time instructional faculty in degree-granting institutions, by employment status and control and type of institution: Fall 1970 to Fall 2003.

²² Ernst Benjamin (ed.), “Editor's Notes,” in Exploring the Role of Contingent Instructional Staff in Under-graduate Learning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Number 123, Fall 2003), p. 6.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Ibid. Benjamin derives this data from the US Department of Education, Digest of Educational Statistics, 2001 (Washington DC: US Department of Education, 2002), Table 226.

²⁵ John W. Curtis, Director of Research and Public Policy, American Association of University Professors, “The Employment Status of Instructional Staff Members in Higher Education, Fall 2011,” Washington, DC, April 2014. Table 1, “Trends in Instructional Staff Employment Status, 1975 and 1976 to 2011,” p. 2. Curtis tabulated the data from the US Department of Education, IPEDS Fall Staff Survey.

²⁶ Judith M. Gappa and David W. Leslie, The Invisible Faculty: Improving the Status of Part-Timers in Higher Education (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1993), p. 113. Their analysis is based on the 1988 National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:88), and supplemented with extensive interviews with part-time faculty from around the country. The data from subsequent years continues to support the general thrust of their analysis.

²⁷ Curtis, “Employment Status,” Table 5, “Instructional Staff Employment Status, by Institutional Category, Fall 2011,” p. 8.

²⁸ Gappa and Leslie, Invisible Faculty, p. 118.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Curtis, “Employment Status,” Table 3, “Trends in Faculty Employment Status, 1975 and 1976 to 2011,” p. 5.

³¹ Karen Thompson, “Contingent Faculty and Student Learning: Welcome to the Strativersity,” in Ernst Benjamin (ed.), Exploring the Role of Contingent Instructional Staff in Undergraduate Learning (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003), pp. 41–47.

³² Ibid.

³³ Extrapolating from John Curtis' tabulations (Table 5, “Instructional Staff Employment Status, by Institutional Category, Fall 2012,” p. 8) we find that zero percent of Graduate Student Employees teach at “Public Associate's Colleges” where part-time faculty, as noted above, comprise 70.3% of the instructional staff in this category.

³⁴ Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini, How College Affects Students: Findings and Insights from Twenty Years of Research (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1991), p. 412.

³⁵ John Dewey cited in “John Dewey on Hutchins' Philosophy of Education, 1937,” in Richard Hofstadter and Wilson Smith (eds), American Higher Education: A Documentary History, Volume II. (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 952.

³⁶ Richard Moser, “The New Academic Labor System, Corporatization and the Renewal of Academic Citizenship,” American Association of University Professors, June 12, 2001.

³⁷ Daniel Czitrom, “Reeling in the Years: Looking Back on the TAA,” in Cary Nelson (ed.), Will Teach for Food, Academic Labor in Crisis (Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota Press, 1997), p. 218; Also see “TAA History, The First Thirty Years,” TAA Membership Handbook, 1996–1997, Teaching Assistants' Association, AFT/WFT Local 3220, AFL-CIO, pp. 21–23.

³⁸ Czitrom, p. 218.

³⁹ Ibid., 219–220.

⁴⁰ Emily Abel, Terminal Degrees: The Job Crisis in Higher Education (New York, NY: Praeger, 1984).

⁴¹ Full Disclosure: I am the founder and co-moderator of ADJ-L, one of the founders of COCAL, and a long-time member of the COCAL International Advisory Committee.

⁴² Don Eron, “Colorado Community College Equity Act Song and Video,” The Academe Blog, American Association of University Professors, posted Feb 14, 2014.

⁴³ Joe Berry, Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education (New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 2005).

⁴⁴ C. Wright Mills, “Mass Society and Liberal Education,” The Politics of Truth: Selected Writings of C. Wright Mills, selected and introduced by John H. Summers (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vincent Tirelli

Vincent Tirelli is a visiting assistant professor in the Government Department at Manhattan College in Riverdale. He obtained his PhD from the Political Science Department of the City University of New York Graduate Center in 2007. His research interests include education policy, urban politics, American national institutions, social movements, and political theory.