This is the fifth post in a sequence called Strange Rumblings in the Meritocracy.

Given that we as a discipline seem to feel empowered to develop a foreign policy, I figured I’d offer a few domestic policy ideas, a few resolutions that might take care of some our own local inequities.

The purpose of these resolutions is to suggest some ways out of what most everyone agrees is a generally miserable situation for those currently coming of age or working in academia. More or less, all of us want jobs for scholars and a free education for our students. Repeat that to yourself: jobs for scholars, free education for students. In proposing these, I’m also suggesting that we have some power over our academic, professional and disciplinary destiny and can and should act in concert. I see the decline in tenure-line positions, the specter of academic debt, and even the coercive and jealous guarding of scholarship by publishing cartels, as an invitation to collective action. We already have a communications infrastructure, national and international associations in place, as well as active local chapters across the globe (those hot-beds of activism, academic departments). From this point of view, we’re actually very well organized. All we need to do now is raise some consciousness and come up with a few action items. Should you doubt whether collective action is worthwhile or appropriate, it’s also worth keeping in mind the ways in which activists and unions are making the university a more livable, humane place (one example of each).

Here follow three resolutions. They are drafts. I accept and apologize for their limitations and shortcomings. They don’t talk about all that’s worth fixing (how could they?). I offer them to imagine what collective action on our problems might look like. Interested academic associations should consider them for debate, improvement, and vote.

NB: The preamble portion of these resolutions are going to be much shorter than they might be. There is a tremendous amount of research on precarity in academia and the conditions that creates. I suspect readers of Savage Minds are relatively familiar with this stuff. Moreover, were these to actually go live, they would be worked over, edited, revised, and most importantly, gilded with citations. The most certainly would not be the work of one person.

Resolution on Accreditation Standards and Adjunct Labor

Whereas universities in the United States are accredited by self-governing non-governmental associations and thereby receive legitimacy to generate knowledge and offer degrees;

Whereas universities in the United States are chartered by the states in which they reside and thereby receive the benefits of non-profit and or educative incorporation, and are thereby allowed by their state government to offer degrees and enjoy a variety of favorable tax statuses and state aid;

Whereas there has been a historic shift towards a reliance on poorly-paid, short-term, contract appointments, with no tenure protections to satisfy the research and teaching aims of the Academy;

Whereas these conditions have led to the destroyed lives, thwarted dreams, and unfulfilled potential of thousands of competently trained scholars, our disciplinary children;

Whereas this is no way to treat your children;

Whereas society deserves to benefit from the broadest field of scholarly inquiry possible; and

Whereas students deserve to learn from permanently employed scholars with guaranteed freedom of inquiry.

Now therefore:

We resolve that all states and organizations that offer accreditation or incorporation shall deny accreditation and incorporation to any university, college, and or institution of higher learning that, except in cases of emergency or unanticipated vacancy, and in cases in which a professional practitioner who is gainfully and currently employed in his or her area of expertise would be required for a particular course offering, makes use of any part-time and or non-tenure track faculty to offer courses or conduct research;

We resolve that no university, college, or institution of higher learning shall, however accredited and legitimized, except in cases of emergency and or unanticipated vacancy, and in cases in which a professional practitioner who is gainfully and currently employed in his or her area of expertise would be required to make a course offering, make use of any part-time and or non-tenure track faculty to offer courses or conduct research;

We resolve that no academic shall work in such an institution that has not made such changes, above enumerated; and

We resolve that all academics who are members of and represented by the below-signed academic associations shall immediately cease research and teaching duties, thereby going on strike until such time as the above resolutions on incorporation and accreditation are met.

Resolution on University Governance

Whereas universities in the United States are accredited by self-governing non-governmental associations and thereby receive legitimacy to generate knowledge and offer degrees;

Whereas universities in the United States are chartered by the states in which they reside and thereby receive the benefits of non-profit and or educative incorporation, and are thereby allowed by their state government to offer degrees and enjoy a variety of favorable tax statuses and state aid;

Whereas the standards of accreditation, incorporation, as well as the general norms of university governance expect that trustees or their equivalent shall stand outside of the university community and thereby be “unconflicted”;

Whereas this reliance on outside governance for ultimate budgetary and executive authority in the University has led to a situation in which boards are often made up of people whose professional and personal experience has left them seemingly unfamiliar with the norms of scholarship and university teaching; and

Whereas, due to the nature of university board structures, universities in the United States have increasingly adopted the norms of governance that typify for-profit business enterprises, often referred to as the “corporatization” of the university, or one more manifestation of “neoliberal” ways of running something that is of great public benefit. Such norms include but are not limited to :

Exorbitant executive pay;

Bureaucratic bloat;

An embrace of audit culture;

An efflorescence of debt financing;

An over concern with PR and Marketing;

Prioritizing resort-like amenities over the academic mission;

Prioritizing athletic performance over the academic mission;

A reliance on poorly conceived yet bureaucratically appealing metrics;

A growth of institutes and centers, outside of departmental control, offering instruction;

A disregard for the debt and life possibilities of students, often referred to as “customers”; and

A general degradation of the professoriate.

Now therefore:

We resolve that all states and organizations that offer accreditation or incorporation shall amend their accreditation and incorporation standards to require:

1. That all boards be composed of equal portions faculty, students, alumni, non-academic staff, and community members;

2. That all universities, colleges, or other institutions of higher education shall have democratic processes by which such boards are constituted, and may be challenged and changed;

3. Students shall have a veto over all tuition related decisions;

4. Faculty shall have a veto over all research, academic employment, and tenure related decisions;

We resolve that no academic shall work in such an institution that has not made such changes, above enumerated;

We resolve that all academics who are members of and represented by the below-signed academic associations shall immediately cease research and teaching duties, thereby going on strike until such time as the above resolutions on university governance are met.

Resolution on Student Debt

Whereas many measures of income, for the vast majority of people working in the United States have remained stagnant or declined over the last several decades;

Whereas universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher learning in the United States have become increasingly and relatively expensive;

Whereas American society has increasingly relied on debt and loans to pay for higher education, thereby placing the financial burden of provisioning for an education squarely on the shoulders of students and their families ;

Whereas we feel that it is society’s general and no person’s individual responsibility to provide for education and scholarship;

Whereas education and open scholarship are best conceived of as public goods or public commons;

Whereas student debt unreasonably constrains an individual’s life opportunities, and unacceptably commodifies education,  thereby denying the expression of human potential and flourishing that is one of the aims of higher education;

Whereas numerous public and private universities have historically had far lower, inflation adjusted tuition;

Whereas numerous public and private universities have offered an education at no cost to the individual;

Whereas a measure of the worth of a society is how it treats following generations; and

Whereas by this measure of worth we come up wanting.

Now Therefore:

We resolve that all universities, colleges, or institutions of higher learning shall offer education free of charge to all comers;

We resolve that all universities, colleges, or institutions of higher learning shall develop a plan to go tuition free;

We resolve that all universities, college, or institutions of higher learning shall develop a plan to go student-debt free;

We resolve that all state and private sponsors of universities, college, or institutions of higher learning shall create the conditions under which universities, colleges, and institutions of higher learning shall be able to go tuition and student-debt free;

We resolve that no academic shall work in such an institution that has not made such changes, above enumerated; and

We resolve that all academics who are members of and represented by the below-signed academic associations shall immediately cease research and teaching duties,
thereby going on strike, until such time as the above resolutions on student debt are met.