How the University Works is an amazing blog by Marc Bousquet, an English professor at Santa Clara University in the south bay, about the gradual erosion of higher education. He pays particular attention to the horrible working conditions of adjuncts around North America (includes Canada), but also addresses changes in tenure and especially how university administrators work. Most of this is stuff I knew already (as I scrape by on my 25K below median income with massive student loan debt and one bankruptcy to my name), but it’s great to get details, numbers, studies, etc., behind my intuition. He also spends a lot of time on how undergraduates, especially from working class and poor backgrounds, experience their studies. If you care about Higher Education, check this out.
His book by the same name has just been released by NYU Press. Here’s a review of the book from Inside Higher Education.
15 January 2008 at 9:52 pm
Thank you for this link. I just sent the info on to my Dept. Director who was recently ousted for political reasons (ie. too progressive and too successful). The “God-like” powers that be kicked him out under the radar so that no one would know what happened until it was already final. They would have a riot on their hands otherwise. Working in admin. I see evils everyday and feel a sense of loss whenever students come in who’s only goal is to get a degree that will make them a lot of money. What the hell happened to the importance of learning for learning’s sake? (says me, the english, art, philosophies major).