Nov

26

Tennessee Takes “Turkey at the Top” Award

Category: "quality" and other fighting words, Precarity, academic labor system, administrators, corporate university, decline of the west (hurray!), health care for all faculty, intellectuals are workers, meet the trustees, nlrb, political hijinx 2008, proletarian thought, real institutional sleaze, solidarity and a tiered workforce, university-corporate partnerships, youth is a category through which class is lived | 3 Comments

Turkey at the top is always intensely competitive. This year’s contenders included first runner-up Robert Felner, the U of Louisville dean indicted for conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion in what the feds allege are repeated acts of embezzlement of grant monies amounting to over $2 million. Not content with these […]

Nov

20

Faith-based economics

Category: Precarity, academic labor system, corporate university, decline of the west (hurray!), disciplines, faculty on food stamps, health care for all faculty, proletarian thought, youth is a category through which class is lived | 1 Comment

 Colbert tells like it is: “Let’s just classify belief in the free market as a religion.”

Hint: drag cursor to 4:40
I don’t know about you, but I’m always looking for help with dislodging the market fetish, whether I’m talking to undergraduates or economists. Some regular Brainstorm contributors have all been expending a ton […]

Nov

17

Administrators are Modestly Underpaid, but Faculty are Super-Exploited

Category: academic labor system, administrators | Leave a Comment

In connection with the Chronicle’s Executive Compensation supplement, Sandy Ungar of Goucher College and I just appeared on NPR–and we agreed on most things. Sandy for instance described faculty compensation as “appalling,” and concurred regarding our over-reliance on contingent appointments. I argued that we needed to rebuild our crumbling faculty infrastructure, and that presidents should […]

Nov

13

Iraq War Ends–Bush Indicted For Treason

Category: academic labor system, administrators, current events, decline of the west (hurray!), faculty on food stamps, graduate education, health care for all faculty, youth is a category through which class is lived | Leave a Comment

College tuition is free; and executive salaries capped at 15 times the minimum wage.
The Yes Men media pranksters have claimed responsibility for a million-copy spoof edition of the New York Times handed out yesterday on Manhattan streets.
It captures the gap between what is needed–what we hope and long for–and what we’re likely to get with […]

Nov

8

Boots on the Ground, Eyeballs on the Screen

Category: current events, health care for all faculty, political hijinx 2008, proletarian thought, solidarity and a tiered workforce, youth is a category through which class is lived | 3 Comments

He texted. He Twittered. YouTube visitors played his official campaign videos for almost 15 million hours. But what impact will social media have on his governing?
We now know that a first-term U.S. Senator overcame two of the most successful political machines in recent history — the Clinton network and the Republican 72-hour get-out-the-vote operation — […]

Nov

1

Facebook the Vote!

Category: academic labor system, corporate university, current events, intellectuals are workers, political hijinx 2008 | Leave a Comment

At 12:01 am on election day, thousands of younger voters and activists will simultaneously reset their Facebook pages to display a get-out-the-vote message–using a new application that allows users to “donate” their status lines to a third party.
The application allows users to specify whether they want to get out the vote for a particular […]