On #ClassWarfare in Academe

…@InsideHigherEd commentary by #PeterDGBrown—SUNY New Paltz UUP Bullhorn editor, Mayday Declaration author.  Veteran academic activist Peter announces, "a commentary I wrote, 'Class Warfare in Academe,' was published today in Inside Higher Ed." Briefly excerpted—read the rest here and Peter's Bullhorn editorials/articles here.

Class warfare in the academy is unlikely to end any time soon. Meanwhile, we urgently need to connect the dots, to stop underfunding and privatizing public higher education. At the same time, we need to put an end to wasteful spending and overly generous perks that top administrators dole out to themselves. Saddling our students with backbreaking tuition loan debt is simply unsustainable. They, their parents, taxpayers and legislators deserve to know where their hard-earned tuition and tax dollars are going. The quality of their education and thus the future of our country depend on providing a living wage, job security and benefits to those actually teaching in our classrooms.

As we well known the conditions Peter describes are not limited to SUNY or New Paltz

...thousands of adjuncts within SUNY, who deliver a substantial portion of our educational mission, continue to work for near-poverty wages. Adjuncts are the only employees for whom there are no minimum salaries in the contract between New York State and United University Professions (UUP), the nation's largest higher education union with over 35,000 members. My research shows that when adjusted for inflation, adjunct wages at New Paltz have plummeted by some 49 percent between 1970 and 2008.

More about Peter, Mayday Declaration and The Bullhorn because taking action matters and newsletters still rule

IHE Bio note: Peter D.G. Brown is a Distinguished Service Professor of German Emeritus at the State University of New York at New Paltz. In addition to being a founding member of the board of directors of New Faculty Majority: The National Coalition for Adjunct and Contingent Equity (NFM), he is president of the New Paltz chapter of United University Professions.