Reading Room: the fault lines of american #highered « #Omnivore @bookforum

…another outstanding Omnivore collection of briefly annotated higher education links that I could not decide where to trim so kept them all. All of the topics are familiar and a number of the links will be too, but there are also links I don't recall seeing shared around the adjunct corner of social media. The first chunk is admin related; the next, institution and profession; and the final two about, adjuncts, grad school, academic labor and the job market.

From the New York Times Magazine, Michael Sokolove on the trials of Graham Spanier, Penn State’s ousted president. The coup that failed: Talbot Brewer on how the near-sacking of a university president exposed the fault lines of American higher education. Avoiding disastrous presidencies: Ry Rivard reviews  Presidencies Derailed: Why University Leaders Fail and How to Prevent It by Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, Gerald B. Kauvar and E. Grady Bogue. 

There’s the war on college, and then there’s Rick Perry’s war on the University of Texas. Nicholas Lemann on the soul of the research university. From Polymath, a special issue on being a professor (and part 2). The teaching class: Rachel Riederer on how teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone paying tuition should care. What do college professors do all day? Lisa Wade investigates. 

Adjuncts aren't just teaching college kids,they're trying to keep them together: Sarah Marshall on the unique privilege of being young, white, female, and relateable. Joshua Rothman on fixing the PhD: To really respond to the crisis, they will have to do something unthinkable — turn good students away. Should I go to grad school? Jessica Loudis interviews Sheila Heti (and more and more). More on 100 reasons not to go to graduate school: “There is no getting ahead”. 

From Workplace, a special issue on the new academic labor market and graduate students. Jordan Weissmann on the unending horror of the humanities job market, in one chart. When Ph.D.s realize they won’t be professors: Josh Dehaas on how young academics struggle with the transition from school to work. What can you do with a humanities Ph.D., anyway? Elizabeth Segran on how the choice to leave academia does not have to mean life as a barista.

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