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Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

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Articles 1 - 17 of 17

Full-Text Articles in Education

From “Spring Break” To “Reading Days”: Contingency, Relations Of Power, And Positionalities In Experiences Of Overwork During Academic Breaks, Kelli R. Lycke Martin, Ann Shivers-Mcnair Mar 2022

From “Spring Break” To “Reading Days”: Contingency, Relations Of Power, And Positionalities In Experiences Of Overwork During Academic Breaks, Kelli R. Lycke Martin, Ann Shivers-Mcnair

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

In this article, the authors analyze the impacts of their university eliminating Spring Break and replacing it with intermittent Reading Days during the Covid-19 pandemic. With particular attention to contingency, relations of power, and positionalities, they offer narratives of their lived experiences with Reading Days as a graduate student (Author 1) and as a pre-tenure faculty member (Author 2). They also offer analysis of the public conversations surrounding the institutional decision. The article addresses how the particularities of the narratives are symptomatic of a culture of overwork that predates and continues beyond the moment in time and place of the …


Zoom ‘N Gloom: Performativity And Inclusivity During The Pandemic And Beyond, Sarah V. Seeley Mar 2022

Zoom ‘N Gloom: Performativity And Inclusivity During The Pandemic And Beyond, Sarah V. Seeley

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

The pandemic has variously amplified, eliminated, and otherwise transformed the experiences and meanings of work across sectors and nation states. In the context of higher education, this transformation has taken many shapes, which have been molded by pre-existing, if not predictable, inequalities. If we set up all the well-documented pandemic-induced obstacles to work alongside the performative nature of academic work, there is a notable uneasiness. Insofar as the nature of work is changing— becoming more challenging, in general—there must be further implications for work that is “on display.” Within this context, the article focuses on the experiences of teaching and …


The Pandemic, Contingent Faculty, And Catholic Colleges And Universities, Jason King Mar 2022

The Pandemic, Contingent Faculty, And Catholic Colleges And Universities, Jason King

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

In this paper, we explore the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on contingent faculty in Catholic higher education. As a baseline for comparison, we draw on our 2019 essay which traced the increasing reliance on contingent faculty in Catholic higher education from 2001-2017. When compared to 2020, we find three significant results. First, Catholic colleges and universities responded to the pandemic by reducing all employment – administration, staff, tenured/tenured track faculty, and contingent faculty. In this general reduction, contingent faculty was reduced by 2.6%. Second, the reduction in employment was particularly pronounced in small Catholic schools. At these schools, contingent …


“Drown[Ing] A Little Bit All The Time: The Intersections Of Labor Constraints And Professional Development In Hybrid Contingent Faculty Experiences, Courtney Adams Wooten, Brian Fitzpatrick, Lourdes Fernandez, Ariel M. Goldenthal, Jessica Matthews Mar 2022

“Drown[Ing] A Little Bit All The Time: The Intersections Of Labor Constraints And Professional Development In Hybrid Contingent Faculty Experiences, Courtney Adams Wooten, Brian Fitzpatrick, Lourdes Fernandez, Ariel M. Goldenthal, Jessica Matthews

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

Faculty teaching during COVID-19 have been asked to adapt to a wide range of instructional modalities that have often increased the labor they experience without commensurate compensation. Hybrid courses, which were already popular pre-pandemic, have become even more common as schools and universities have rushed to adapt instruction to students’ needs. This article reports on interviews with faculty teaching hybrid courses to investigate their perceptions of the labor involved in teaching in this instructional modality, drawing connections to the labor many faculty are experiencing as they adapt to hybrid or other, similar instructional modalities. It then argues that targeted professional …


Contingent Faculty Performing Scholarship And Service: Examining Academic Labor And Identity At A Public Flagship University, Sarah Bartlett Wilson, C. Veronica Smith Mar 2021

Contingent Faculty Performing Scholarship And Service: Examining Academic Labor And Identity At A Public Flagship University, Sarah Bartlett Wilson, C. Veronica Smith

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

The faculties of many colleges and universities in the United States are comprised of rising numbers of instructional contingent faculty who are ineligible for tenure. Although these positions generally do not require scholarly or service activities because their primary focus is teaching, the extent to which these faculty members still choose to perform like tenure-line faculty, with at least some kind of balance of teaching, research, and service, is understudied. The current study attempted to address this omission in the literature by collecting data from contingent faculty members at a public flagship university (N = 176) about their engagement with …


Administrative Rhetorical Mindfulness: A Professional Development Framework For Administrators In Higher Education, Melvin E. Beavers Mar 2021

Administrative Rhetorical Mindfulness: A Professional Development Framework For Administrators In Higher Education, Melvin E. Beavers

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

As part of the post-secondary educational landscape, online programs and courses help institutions reach and enroll more students. To meet the needs of increased enrollments in online education, part-time faculty are often hired to teach online courses. Part-time contingent faculty represent a growing majority across many fields of study in colleges and universities. As Rendahl & Breuch reported, first-year courses, specifically freshman composition, are increasingly taught online. This study uses a mixed-methods design to examine how, and in what ways, writing program administrators (WPAs) approach preparing part-time faculty to teach writing online. The findings reveal that WPAs often encounter workload …


Fyc’S Unrealized Nnest Egg: Why Non-Native English Speaking Teachers Belong In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Asmita Ghimire, Elizabethada Wright Mar 2021

Fyc’S Unrealized Nnest Egg: Why Non-Native English Speaking Teachers Belong In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Asmita Ghimire, Elizabethada Wright

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

Overviewing rhetoric and composition's evolution from “English” to “Englishes,” this article shows how the denigration of non-native English-Speaking Teachers (NNEST) of writing on the basis of English difference disregards linguistics’ understandings of the evolutions of language. Additionally, this essay demonstrates that when we consider writing via the lens of the threshold concepts and see writing as an exercise of mind, ideas and thinking, NNEST of writing can be a strength in twenty-first century First Year Composition (FYC) course.


Studenting And Teaching With Chronic Pain: Accessibility At The Intersection Of Contingency And Disability, Beth Greene Mar 2021

Studenting And Teaching With Chronic Pain: Accessibility At The Intersection Of Contingency And Disability, Beth Greene

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

While much attention is given to undergraduate students with disabilities, far less is devoted to graduate students, particularly those who also act as faculty: Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs). This article discusses issues of accessibility encountered by these contingent faculty members, specifically GTAs who have invisible disabilities, and how approaching discussions of contingency and disability with an ethos of transparent vulnerability—a level of transparency that necessarily leads to vulnerability—can help combat the stigma that continues to surround contingency and disability in higher education.


Academic Collective Bargaining: Status, Process, And Prospects, Daniel J. Julius, Nicholas Digiovanni Jr. Nov 2019

Academic Collective Bargaining: Status, Process, And Prospects, Daniel J. Julius, Nicholas Digiovanni Jr.

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

The authors provide a perspective, as scholars and practitioners, of the organizational, demographic, legal and contextual variables that inform the past and the future of faculty unions in U.S. colleges and universities. They ask, how best to conceptualize and evaluate the impact of faculty unions; from the inception of academic unionization in the 1960’s to the present, and further, what is known and not known about collective bargaining. Issues examined include: factors that influence negotiation processes, governance, bargaining dynamics, the institutional and demographic factors associated with faculties who vote in unions, compensation and the legal status of graduate student unions. …


Intergroup Solidarity And Collaboration In Higher Education Organizing And Bargaining In The United States, Daniel Scott, Adrianna J. Kezar Nov 2019

Intergroup Solidarity And Collaboration In Higher Education Organizing And Bargaining In The United States, Daniel Scott, Adrianna J. Kezar

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

For too long in higher education, different worker groups have conceived of themselves as separated by distinct, even competing interests. The isolation between groups reduces communication, fosters unawareness of common interests, and hinders their ability to effectively collaborate in solidarity, as does the divided and largely independent structure of the unions and bargaining units representing them. Without greater collaboration and solidarity, members of the higher education community are less able to resist the harmful trends that have been transforming the sector over the previous decades, subjecting them to increasingly similar working conditions and distancing higher education from its student learning, …


(Mis)Alignments Between Institutional Mission Statements And Service Learning Handbooks, Charisse S. Iglesias Nov 2019

(Mis)Alignments Between Institutional Mission Statements And Service Learning Handbooks, Charisse S. Iglesias

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

Institutions self-identifying as social justice advocates are expected to perform social justice roles through their disciplines, policies, and actions (Feldman, 2008). Applying Tania Mitchell’s critical service learning framework (2008), this study examines (mis)alignments between service learning handbooks and their respective institutional mission statements. The first phase was a critical discourse analysis of the service learning handbooks to measure expressions of reciprocity. The second phase was a content analysis of the corresponding institutional mission statements to analyze conceptions of community engagement, social justice, etc. Findings reveal how institutions frame handbooks, considers how that framing undermines reciprocity, and analyzes how universities practice …


Sustaining Community-Engaged Projects: Making Visible The Invisible Labor Of Composition Faculty, Jessica Rose Corey, Barbara George Nov 2019

Sustaining Community-Engaged Projects: Making Visible The Invisible Labor Of Composition Faculty, Jessica Rose Corey, Barbara George

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

Increasingly, service-learning, community-engaged projects, or community-engaged learning are encouraged in higher education as part of HIPs, or High Impact Practices. While the authors' experiences with service-learning or community-engaged learning in our composition courses have been positive, and while student engagement is generally acknowledged as a desirable outcome of any pedagogy, we posit that there are questions about the labor system needed to sustain such practices. We use narratives to reflect upon our experiences holding various identity positions within academia (from graduate student, adjunct, to NTT and TT positions), and research about the work involved with community engaged projects, to interrogate …


‘Care Work’ And University Scapegoating: Making Social Reproduction Visible In The Teaching Of Writing, Rachel T. O'Donnell Nov 2019

‘Care Work’ And University Scapegoating: Making Social Reproduction Visible In The Teaching Of Writing, Rachel T. O'Donnell

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

No abstract provided.


Reviews Of Daniel Davis's Contingent Academic Labor And Lisa Del Rosso's Confessions Of An Accidental Professor, William Christopher Brown Oct 2018

Reviews Of Daniel Davis's Contingent Academic Labor And Lisa Del Rosso's Confessions Of An Accidental Professor, William Christopher Brown

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

This review covers Daniel Davis's Contingent Academic Labor: Evaluating Conditions to Improve Student Outcomes and Lisa del Rosso's Confessions of an Accidental Professor. Davis's book offers a rubric for evaluating the working conditions of contingent academic laborers. del Rosso's Confessions is a memoir of her experience as a contingent academic laborer.


Instructor Impermanence And The Need For Community College Adjunct Faculty Reform In Colorado, Stephen P. Mumme Oct 2018

Instructor Impermanence And The Need For Community College Adjunct Faculty Reform In Colorado, Stephen P. Mumme

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

This policy letter, prepared for the Colorado State Board of Community Colleges and Occupational Education and submitted in January 2018 reports on the occupational conditions of adjunct faculty in the Colorado Community College System. The document describes the adverse employment and instructional conditions present in the CCCS, arguing that current conditions threaten the quality and integrity of the General Transfer Pathways program (GT-Pathways) in Colorado. The letter advances a range of practical policy reforms for the consideration of Board that, if adopted would improve current working conditions for adjunct faculty and strengthen quality of community college instruction in Colorado.


Terms Of Time For Composition: A Materialist Examination Of Contingent Faculty Labor, Jesse Priest Oct 2018

Terms Of Time For Composition: A Materialist Examination Of Contingent Faculty Labor, Jesse Priest

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

Bruce Horner’s seminal book, Terms of Work for Composition: A Materialist Critique provided Comp-Rhet WPAs with a methodology for infusing our conversations about work and labor with a holistic understanding of how these reflect on the lived experiences of students, teachers and administrators. Drawing on empirical data including surveys of contingent faculty at a large northeastern research university, as well as textual analysis of teaching material and an NCTE position statement, I propose the inclusion of a materialist-oriented conceptualization of time to the discussion began by Horner and others. Using the lens of how time is allocated, I argue for …


"Collegiality As A Dirty Word? Implementing Collegiality Policies In Institutions Of Higher Education", Courtney Adams Wooten, Megan A. Condis Oct 2018

"Collegiality As A Dirty Word? Implementing Collegiality Policies In Institutions Of Higher Education", Courtney Adams Wooten, Megan A. Condis

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

Abstract: Collegiality is integral to the healthy functioning of any academic department and is a necessary professional attribute for new faculty, who often spent their graduate school careers with relatively little involvement in institutional politics, to develop. However, the recent trend to explicitly outline tenure and promotion requirements for collegial behavior gives us pause. We question if a collegiality statement for tenure and promotion could function as yet another obstacle between faculty from background that have historically been underrepresented in the academy (women, people of color, LGBTQ individuals, people with disabilities, etcetera) and their bids for tenure.