DOL Doesn’t have a Clue: Handbook Description of Higher Ed Teaching a Work of Fiction

Accordingly, Matt Williams writes,  

I have created a petition addressed to U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis requesting that the DOL revise and update their characterization of the profession. Please take a moment to add your name to the petition.

Setting background for his petition, Matt explains, reposting from his akronadjunct blog,

How can our own government get it so incredibly wrong? The U.S. Department of Labor publishes occupational outlook data in its Occupational Outlook Handbook. This publication (available online at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/) reports median and average salaries for various occupations along with details about types and amount of education typically required to enter professions, typical working conditions, total number of jobs, growth or contraction outlook, etc.


The DOL OOH (pronounced “doooh!”…the L is silent) identifies the median salary for college professors (i.e., postsecondary teachers) to be $62,050. The median wage is the wage at which half of the workers in the occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. Median wage data are from the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics survey.

CAW Survey redux

…and as often as necessary until you read it, stop preaching to the choir and find ways to share it with non-academic stakeholders... and maybe academic ones in denial.

You've seen the first round of the articles in higher ed media. You've read, added trenchant or glowing comments to articles and blogs. Guess what? Just reading articles, pro or/and con, is no different than getting by with the Cliff Notes version.


(The graphic to the left is from the Inside HigherEd article by Kaustuv Basu ~ shout out to NH Adjuncts United for reminding me about it ) 


If you haven't seen actual results, this report from the CAW website will be of interest, if depressing and hardly surprising, and comes highly recommended as a research documentation of contingent faculty conditions of employment.

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates, June20

...news & links about #ContingentFaculty & #organizing in #highered. To subscribe to regular Updates, email joeberry@igc.org.  More about Joe Berry.  Updates are also archived at chicagococal.org. Follow COCAL International on Facebook. 

 Special Notice: Register for COCAL X before July 2nd for Early Registration Discount!  David Milroy writes, 

"We wanted to remind you that the COCAL X Mexico (English) is taking place on 8/9/2012 - 8/12/2012 at Avenida Universidad 3000, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510 Delegación Coyoacán, Ciudad de México, DF. We expect the available registrations to fill up quickly. So, we would like to offer you the opportunity to reserve your spot at a reduced early bird rate! To RSVP, click here . We look forward to hearing from you!  Thank you,  David Milroy." 

New study on adjunct assessment practices seeks interviewees. Survey overview, pdf. Emily Lopez-Padilla, UN-L, writes, 

BYOP: CAW Survey video on ExtraNormal

Today opens the 2nd (and last) month for taking the CAW Survey. Don't let it stall midway through. If you haven't already, take it now. 20,000 have, but there are millions of us. Millions minus 20,000 slackers and procrastinators. Don't be one. Do you need a ribbon, a badge or a gold star?



Video heads up courtesy of AFTFACE. Please share ~ re-blog, forward, backlink, bookmark, review, vote for it on BuzzFlash, like and share on Facebook, and so on. Do you need a tutorial? That can be arranged.