Battling the Corporate University

A New Book Helps Frame the National Fight Against Precarity in Higher Education

Joe Berry and Helena Worthen are both academics and have spent years in the struggle to bring equity to the higher education work force. I talked with them recently as I was working on a story for The Progressive, because they have a new book — Power Despite Precarity — that offers a road map for activists on how to win better contracts for faculty and alter the balance of power on campuses.

We talked before the wave of strikes hit, before adjuncts won a historic contract at NYU and before adjuncts, who teach 90 percent of classes at The New School and the Parson’s School of Design, hit the picket line this week.

I teach at Rutgers University and serve on the executive board of the adjunct union. I also teach at two community colleges — Middlesex College and Brookdale Community College. This semester, I am teaching six classes — that is about 20 hours of work in the classroom (or on Zoom) and another 40 or so hours doing prep work and grading. It’s an unsustainable load, but I’m committed to doing so — to helping prepare young journalists (as I do at Rutgers) and helping students new to college develop basic writing skills (as I do at the community colleges). I teach at three locations because I have to, because Rutgers does not pay its adjuncts a fair wage and because the community colleges do not pay adjuncts anything close to a living wage.

This is unsustainable — not on a personal level, but for higher education as a whole. Colleges and universities have bought into a corporate mindset, one in which the goal is to increase revenue and build reserves and endowments, while spending as little as they can get away with without angering students or their parents.

Adjuncts, grad students, contract instructors — all of whom are contingent — are fighting back. They are striking — joining their exploited peers in the service industry (see Starbucks). And we are winning.

You can purchase my book, a hybrid collection of poetry, photos by Sherry Rubel, and reporting by contacting me here.. Or become a paid subscriber and get a copy as bonus.