How The University Works

An award-winning play about organizing grad employees opens May 3 in Philadelphia.
ADMINISTRATOR: Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste. I go by many names. Doctor, Boss, Sir, Chairman, Gentleman, Scholar, Dean, Pillar of the Community, Cheap Bastard, but you can call me the Administrator. –Joe Camhi, “Screw U, […]

As a couple of folks have noticed: I haven’t issued a new video in a while, despite having fifteen or so great interviews backed up on my monster new 750-gig external hard drive.
The videos will begin releasing again in May, about 1 per week. They include great interviews with AAUP past president Jane Buck and […]

Frank Donoghue argues that  professors of the humanities have already “gone too far to rescue themselves.”

This week’s posts are all inspired by the Rethinking the University: Labor, Knowledge, Value conference in Minneapolis April 11-13. In attendance will be plenty of Minnesota folks, like Paula Rabinowitz and Lisa Disch as well as a great […]

If you’re trying to get the book from an online bookseller and seeing an estimated delivery of 1 week, it’s because the first printing of HTUW has sold out. The second printing was due in warehouses April 4, and should be shipping shortly. (The best price–$15.84 to $17.60–is at Barnes and Noble. Ordering directly […]

Friday April 11, 4:30 pm “Extreme Work-Study.” Panel presentation. University of Minnesota. Rethinking the University: Labor, Knowledge, Value. CSOM, room L-110.
Saturday April 12, 12:45 pm. “The Faculty Organize, But Management Enjoys Solidarity.” Keynote Address, 54th Annual Meeting of Michigan Conference AAUP. Marriott Hotel, Eagle Crest Resort, Ypsilanti.
Wednesday April 16, 4- 5:30 pm. “Permanently Temporary: How […]

I don’t know how long this ultra-discounted price will last, but Amazon has just posted the lowest price for the book ($15.84, matching the Barnes & Noble ‘member’ price, and the NYU Press “convention discount.”)
Next month, I begin a series of book-related appearances with April stops in Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina and New […]

With the whole first-time dad thing, I’ve been a bit behind on the video project! I have twenty interviews on the external hard drive and another thirty or so scheduled for this spring (I’m taking advantage of my book tour to collect more important testimony than my own). At the rate of one interview […]

With Emile’s arrival, I’ve had to turn down some invitations, but I do have some travel plans for the rest of the year. I’m best able to accept invitations that can be connected to travel to which I’m already committed.
Spring 2008
March 19, Interview with P.D. Lesko, for Adjunct Advocate
March, unscheduled, Interview with Gregory Zobel, […]

If you’re a diehard Amazonian, they’ve once again dropped the price on HTUW, to $17.25. I’m not sure how this is triggered. Perhaps it’s by the book’s rank on a competitor, such as B&N. I am not going to change the list price on all the pages this time–I’d just as soon […]

I’ve had several interesting responses to the health-care question. More on that later, as the primary season heats up.
In the meanwhile, I’ve had a commentator respond to both of my posts so far at Brainstorm, neither really on-topic, both expressing a perfectly understandable anger at the tenured. I’ll just share one of the comments and […]

As of Monday, February 4, How The University Works and yours truly will also be available at the Chronicle of Higher Ed’s Brainstorm, which already features Gina Barreca, Dan Greenberg, Laurie Fendrich, Mark Bauerlein, Stan Katz, Robert Zemsky, and Stephen Joel Trachtenberg.

This should be interesting! For the first week or two over there, I’ll […]

says Andy Smith of his years as a nontenurable instructor at a public institution in the great state of Tennessee, where the board of regents imposes a _maximum_ wage, not a minimum wage on its faculty–of, he says, about $2100 a course. For much of that time, he earned just 1,650 per class. Many […]

I’m putting together the first interview (with Berube) in two installments. In the meanwhile, check out the trailer. The mpeg version is better quality:
Quicktime version (.mov)
Windows version (mpeg-1)

During the week of December 10, I’ll be customizing this space, including links to other folks who care about the same set of issues. Drop me a line at pmbousquet (at) gmail if you want to be included, know someone who you think should be, or if you have any thoughts at all about the […]

The first copies of How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation should be available at the MLA annual convention–just drop by the NYU booth. Or else you can order it from Barnes and Noble ($17.60) or Amazon ($17.25). I’ll be there, shooting a bunch of video interviews–with Cary Nelson, Jeffrey Williams, […]

Interviews with Jane Buck, Michael Berube, the California Faculty Association leadership, architect of the Free Higher Education platform Adolph Reed, and much, much more.
Check back about December 15!!