So this is a little bit of a stretch (only a little) and a little bit of blog nepotism (really only a little), but everyone should head over to Free Exchange on Campus and read about what is happening at Moore College of Art & Design. The basic story is here is about an administration that wants faculty to behave like children of a century ago: to speak only when spoken to. And when faculty do speak out? Fired. 

This story is important for two reasons. One, Moore administration should feel some heat for their behavior, and two, because it is an example of the direction in which some want to push higher education - a direction in which faculty are merely cogs in the delivery system of the knowledge skills factory. It is, of course, no surprise that Moore is moving to an almost completely contingent workforce with no job security. So why don't folks let Moore administrators know what you think of their behavior?

Inside Higher Ed is also reporting on this case here.

From where I sit, it is overcast outside today and the news from the Internets this Monday morning is not much different. Here is a sample.

• The University of South Carolina graduate employees are throwing down, well at least in that academic sort of a way. They put together a report showing how poorly they are paid and sent a letter tot eh administration and the trustees. USC has done the responsible thing:  they formed a committee for further investigation!
• Polk Community College, like other colleges and universities in Florida, is trying to weather the fiscal crisis in that state. As a result, they are watching enrollment closely before addressing personnel costs including raises for faculty to make them more competitive and addressing the increasing reliance on underpaid contingent faculty.
• And Marc has a not-so-happy 4^th of July post over at HTUW.

Somebody have some better news out there? Anybody?

The NY Times is reporting that the '60s are "fading as liberal profs retire." The article examines the impending departure of large numbers of faculty members hired in the late '60s and early '70s and their replacement with a younger and apparently ideologically different set of new professors.  I'll leave the ideological debate to our very capable sibling blog, but seriously, how many times have we heard the narrative about a "vast generational change" in higher education?

Baby boomers, hired in large numbers during a huge expansion in higher education that continued into the ’70s, are being replaced by younger professors [snip]. 

The author does note that some changes in the make-up of the faculty have changed what "the faculty" is due to "market pressures," but the general premise still seems to be that "the faculty" hired in the '70s is being replaced by "the faculty" of today--and boy are they different!  Just look at these two people we profiled. This, of course, is more journalistic device than real analysis that, as Mark from Kyoto points out, misses the real transformation shaping the faculty--a transformation that, from my perspective, is more of a slow boil than a rapid turnover and ideological shift. Over the jump for Mark's insight.

A point made by letter-writer Walter Marquardt in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer is worthy of some thought. The Seattle paper had run an article on the economic impact of the increasing cost of gas on students' commutes. In response, Marquardt makes that point that the people who are going to get hit particularly hard are the contingent faculty freeway flyers in metropolitan areas.

Most of the teaching load in community colleges in Seattle is carried by faculty who are forced to teach part-time at multiple campuses, not because there is a staffing need for part-timers, but because employing lots of part-time faculty costs less than employing people fulltime (with fulltime benefits). This cost-saving technique for colleges puts an enormous financial and physical burden on the faculty member trying to somehow bunch together enough campuses to make 20 credits and, hopefully, a living. The practice also, of course, contributes to our environmental mess. Now the cost of that commute is going up and up. Marquardt predicts, "When the colleges can no longer find enough part-time instructors because commute costs make it impractical, they'll start looking at changing hiring practices." However, I bet a lot of campuses are going to suddenly wonder just where all the part-timers went when everyone starts figuring out they can no longer afford to teach.

UPDATE: The Chronicle has a piece today (subscription) on the tough choices being faced by adjunct faculty due to high gas prices.

Yesterday, The Arizona Republic ran a well-balanced, in-depth piece on the declining tenure rates in the Arizona University system and the potential impacts of this trend. In many ways, the academic staffing issues facing the Arizona university system is microcosm of the national picture and the discussion about the national trends. The online version of the article also has a series of questions that students and parents might ask related to academic staffing when considering a college. It would be great to see this kind of attention drawn to these trends in more regional papers, because clearly education is needed on these issues.

Now with that said, the article does take up a line-of-discussion that just about always drives me crazy: tenure-as-lifetime-employment. And, of course, it is this issue that the good readers of the Republic pick right up on. Over the jump for the debate.