Introducing #PrecariousFaculty Network Links (weekly)

… initiates a regular series, this week's links collection opens with a 2009 article that benchmarks where we were then and still holds important observations. Despite significant advances and increased public awareness, not as much has changed as we'd like to think. There's a lot of déja vu all over again to be read in:

• The Adjuncts' Mandate | Inside Higher Ed
  In January, 2009 Gregory Zobel wrote in Inside Higher Ed, "Adjuncts must lead their own labor reform movement. We need our own national movement separate from the AAUP, AFT, and NEA."
  Tags: IHE, Jan5.2009, Zobel, adjunct-labor. Notes:
• recent reports on academic labor by the American Federation of Teachers and Modern Language Association.…Exploitation of contingent academic laborers is growing in scale.…Most essential – the larger picture – is that more adjuncts are being hired, exploited, and abused at more community colleges and universities around the United States than ever before

Precariat? R'us? If not, then who?

We're who but not the only ones; now what about who else and 'what'? The University of Sydney, cited below, gives an overview in its news release introducing visiting speaker, UK economics professor Guy Standing (truly, a minimalist home page). 

The precariat consists of a growing number of people around the world who live in social and economic insecurity, without occupational identities, drifting in and out of jobs and constantly worried about their incomes, housing and much else. (sound familiar?)

highered defunding, the future of work

Don't skip over the NYT links in Chris Newfield's recent posts on taxation and higher ed financing in California. They are more than just props. The Squeezed Middle and its tale of workplace changes are our story. 


In case you may be foolish enough to think that's not where you are: remember and respect the saying about the state as bellwether. Consider both posts and NYT articles as background reading for talking about higher ed policies and how to change trends.