Heather Steffen on the Labor of Universities
History for the Future
This week on History for the Future, I interviewed Heather Steffen on the structure of the labor force at American universities. We discussed the increasing use of the casual labor of adjunct teachers, the crisis in the tenure system, and highly exploitative world of student internships. Steffen pointed to the ways that recent changes in the university may serve as a “canary in the coal mine” for broader developments in U.S. capitalism.
Heather Steffen is a doctoral candidate at Carnegie Mellon University in Literary and Cultural Studies where she is writing a dissertation entitled, “The Struggle for the University in the Progressive Era.” She also serves on the delegate assembly and the committee on the status graduate students in the profession for the Modern Language Association, and was recently featured in an forum in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the future of graduate education in the humanities
To Listen to the Interview and to Access More Resources
Showing posts with label Graduate Students. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Graduate Students. Show all posts
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Kate Sandilands: Radical Democracy -- A Contested/ing Terrain
Radical Democracy: A Contested/ing Terrain
by Kate Sandilands, York University, Toronto
Synthesis/Regeneration
Not that long ago, during a discussion of university teaching, a friend of mine posed an interesting question: "who," he asked, "is your ideal student?" After some thought, I replied something like this: one who has understood the course materials in relation to her own experiences of the world; one who has considered the validity of these course materials, challenged them, and found them to be inadequate on their own; one who has formulated her own, independent analysis of the world and her own position within it, and has found that these, also, are not complete.
Upon further reflection, I found that this "ideal student" closely resembles my vision of an "ideal citizen" in a radical democracy. Substitute "common good" for "course materials" in the above description, and see what happens. To me, this similarity underscores the relationship between education and democracy. Not only should education (formal and informal) foster the types of awareness, empowerment, and participation that are crucial to active, democratic citizenship, but the processes of democracy themselves should be educative, dynamic, and ongoing. In this context, universities need to be both sites of education for democracy and sites, themselves, of democracy.
Clearly, this is no small task. The distance between what universities are now, and what they might be, is as great as the distance between what Bush and Mulroney (and, almost certainly, Clinton) claim as "democracy" and what we might envision. But "vision" (not necessarily "utopia") is a crucial part of our transformative project; without it, we are left with a series of practices devoid of the dynamism of a future orientation. Crucial though they may be, "techniques" for democratization, or floor plans for the forum, do not a radical democracy make.
It is my contention that this "visionary" moment is central to the project of radical democracy and radical citizenship, as it appears in formal education and elsewhere. So my contribution begins with this question: what is the radical democracy, and the radical citizenship, we are trying to foster? Beyond specific practices, beyond "techniques" to bridge the gap between present and future, what is the shape of our project?
The OED defines democracy as "government by the people," and radical as, among other things, "affecting the foundation, going to the root." We could thus argue that our vision of radical democracy begins in a space that combines these concepts: government going to the root. This definition may seem vague, but I would argue that it captures something quite complex, something that often gets "lost" in many discussions of democracy, namely, the "double-movement" that sets radical democracy apart from other versions.
First, radical democracy is, clearly and crucially, government by the root, by "the people." Although there are a number of different ways of thinking about "the people," I would argue that radical democracy understands "the people" to be constituted through diverse experiences, needs, and desires as both individuals and members of communities. Thus, radical democracy is a form of politics that recognizes diversity, and invites participation from a variety of social spaces. But radical democracy does not simply "represent" this plurality, as if "diversity" were a static enumeration of "who" people are; rather, it fosters the continual proliferation of new voices, new communities, and new identities, as part of an ongoing process of democratization. What this means is the recognition that many struggles are "democratic."
At the same time as radical democracy recognizes and fosters plurality, however, it also acts to define some common terrain in which this diversity can converse, and from which this diversity can be fostered. Thus, radical democracy is also government of the root, affecting "the people," constituting them as citizens. It is a form of politics that constructs a "we": at the very least a common language of discussion, but importantly, an articulation of something common. Thus, radical democracy is not simply a matter of fostering participation from more and more different communities; it also constitutes these people as citizens, as members of a democracy in addition to being members of specific groups. What this means is the recognition that "many" struggles are democratic.
The delightful paradox is that what counts as the "we," what counts as "citizenship," is always already subject to change through the very process of democratization, the continual inclusion of new voices to challenge the adequacy of any existing enumeration. In other words, "democracy" is never captured (Slavoj Zizek might call it a "sublime object": something desired but never attainable). There is, instead, a continual motion between proliferating democratic struggles and their constitution as struggles of citizenship.
This dual agenda with its inherent dynamism is, I think, the core of any radically democratic project. What we have, in essence, is a recognition of the contingency of diversity and commonality. In a radical democracy, it is precisely the double-movement between proliferation of specificities and constitution of a "we" that defines its difference from other versions of democracy: neither the universal nor the particular is sacred.
To Read the Entire Essay
by Kate Sandilands, York University, Toronto
Synthesis/Regeneration
Not that long ago, during a discussion of university teaching, a friend of mine posed an interesting question: "who," he asked, "is your ideal student?" After some thought, I replied something like this: one who has understood the course materials in relation to her own experiences of the world; one who has considered the validity of these course materials, challenged them, and found them to be inadequate on their own; one who has formulated her own, independent analysis of the world and her own position within it, and has found that these, also, are not complete.
Upon further reflection, I found that this "ideal student" closely resembles my vision of an "ideal citizen" in a radical democracy. Substitute "common good" for "course materials" in the above description, and see what happens. To me, this similarity underscores the relationship between education and democracy. Not only should education (formal and informal) foster the types of awareness, empowerment, and participation that are crucial to active, democratic citizenship, but the processes of democracy themselves should be educative, dynamic, and ongoing. In this context, universities need to be both sites of education for democracy and sites, themselves, of democracy.
Clearly, this is no small task. The distance between what universities are now, and what they might be, is as great as the distance between what Bush and Mulroney (and, almost certainly, Clinton) claim as "democracy" and what we might envision. But "vision" (not necessarily "utopia") is a crucial part of our transformative project; without it, we are left with a series of practices devoid of the dynamism of a future orientation. Crucial though they may be, "techniques" for democratization, or floor plans for the forum, do not a radical democracy make.
...what counts as the we, what counts as citizenship, is always already subject to change through the very process of democratization....
It is my contention that this "visionary" moment is central to the project of radical democracy and radical citizenship, as it appears in formal education and elsewhere. So my contribution begins with this question: what is the radical democracy, and the radical citizenship, we are trying to foster? Beyond specific practices, beyond "techniques" to bridge the gap between present and future, what is the shape of our project?
The OED defines democracy as "government by the people," and radical as, among other things, "affecting the foundation, going to the root." We could thus argue that our vision of radical democracy begins in a space that combines these concepts: government going to the root. This definition may seem vague, but I would argue that it captures something quite complex, something that often gets "lost" in many discussions of democracy, namely, the "double-movement" that sets radical democracy apart from other versions.
First, radical democracy is, clearly and crucially, government by the root, by "the people." Although there are a number of different ways of thinking about "the people," I would argue that radical democracy understands "the people" to be constituted through diverse experiences, needs, and desires as both individuals and members of communities. Thus, radical democracy is a form of politics that recognizes diversity, and invites participation from a variety of social spaces. But radical democracy does not simply "represent" this plurality, as if "diversity" were a static enumeration of "who" people are; rather, it fosters the continual proliferation of new voices, new communities, and new identities, as part of an ongoing process of democratization. What this means is the recognition that many struggles are "democratic."
At the same time as radical democracy recognizes and fosters plurality, however, it also acts to define some common terrain in which this diversity can converse, and from which this diversity can be fostered. Thus, radical democracy is also government of the root, affecting "the people," constituting them as citizens. It is a form of politics that constructs a "we": at the very least a common language of discussion, but importantly, an articulation of something common. Thus, radical democracy is not simply a matter of fostering participation from more and more different communities; it also constitutes these people as citizens, as members of a democracy in addition to being members of specific groups. What this means is the recognition that "many" struggles are democratic.
The delightful paradox is that what counts as the "we," what counts as "citizenship," is always already subject to change through the very process of democratization, the continual inclusion of new voices to challenge the adequacy of any existing enumeration. In other words, "democracy" is never captured (Slavoj Zizek might call it a "sublime object": something desired but never attainable). There is, instead, a continual motion between proliferating democratic struggles and their constitution as struggles of citizenship.
This dual agenda with its inherent dynamism is, I think, the core of any radically democratic project. What we have, in essence, is a recognition of the contingency of diversity and commonality. In a radical democracy, it is precisely the double-movement between proliferation of specificities and constitution of a "we" that defines its difference from other versions of democracy: neither the universal nor the particular is sacred.
To Read the Entire Essay
Monday, February 08, 2010
Thomas H. Benton: The Big Lie About the 'Life of the Mind'
The Big Lie About the 'Life of the Mind'
By Thomas H. Benton
The Chronicle of Higher Education
...
The myth of the academic meritocracy powerfully affects students from families that believe in education, that may or may not have attained a few undergraduate degrees, but do not have a lot of experience with how access to the professions is controlled. Their daughter goes to graduate school, earns a doctorate in comparative literature from an Ivy League university, everyone is proud of her, and then they are shocked when she struggles for years to earn more than the minimum wage. (Meanwhile, her brother—who was never very good at school—makes a decent living fixing HVAC systems with a six-month certificate from a for-profit school near the Interstate.)
Unable even to consider that something might be wrong with higher education, mom and dad begin to think there is something wrong with their daughter, and she begins to internalize that feeling.
Everyone has told her that "there are always places for good people in academe." She begins to obsess about the possibility of some kind of fatal personal shortcoming. She goes through multiple mock interviews, and takes business classes, learning to present herself for nonacademic positions. But again and again, she is passed over in favor of undergraduates who are no different from people she has taught for years. Maybe, she wonders, there's something about me that makes me unfit for any kind of job.
This goes on for years: sleepless nights, anxiety, escalating and increasingly paralyzing self-doubt, and a host of stress-induced ailments. She has even removed the Ph.D. from her résumé, with some pain, but she lives in dread that interviewers will ask what she has been doing for the last 12 years. (All her old friends are well established by now, some with families, some with what seem to be high-powered careers. She lives in a tiny apartment and struggles to pay off her student loans.) What's left now but entry-level clerical work with her immediate supervisor just three years out of high school?
She was the best student her adviser had ever seen (or so he said); it seemed like a dream when she was admitted to a distinguished doctoral program; she worked so hard for so long; she won almost every prize; she published several essays; she became fully identified with the academic life; even distancing herself from her less educated family. For all of those reasons, she continues as an adjunct who qualifies for food stamps, increasingly isolating herself to avoid feelings of being judged. Her students have no idea that she is a prisoner of the graduate-school poverty trap. The consolations of teaching are fewer than she ever imagined.
Such people sometimes write to me about their thoughts of suicide, and I think nothing separates me from them but luck.
Scenarios like that are what irritate me about professors who still bleat on about "the life of mind." They absolve themselves of responsibility for what happens to graduate students by saying, distantly, "there are no guarantees." But that phrase suggests there's only a chance you won't get a tenure-track job, not an overwhelming improbability that you will.
Some professors tell students to go to graduate school "only if you can't imagine doing anything else." But they usually are saying that to students who have been inside an educational institution for their entire lives. They simply do not know what else is out there. They know how to navigate school, and they think they know what it is like to be a professor.
There should be a special place in hell for the professors who—at the end of an advisee's 10-year graduate program with no job in sight—say, "well, academe is not for everyone."
The main point of another column I wrote six years ago ("If You Must Go") is that students considering graduate school should "do their homework." But the problem is that there is still almost no way—apart from the rumor mill to which they do not really have access—for students to gather some of the most crucial information about graduate programs: the rate of attrition, the average amount of debt at graduation, and, most important, the placement of graduates (differentiating between adjunct, lecturer, visiting, tenure-track positions, and nonacademic positions). Programs often claim that graduates who are working as adjuncts or visiting faculty members are successfully placed in the profession.
Most departments will never willingly provide that information because it is radically against their interest to do so. I can see no way for that information to become available unless it becomes part of accreditation or rankings in publications such as U.S. News and World Report. Perhaps departments might start offering details if students started demanding it in large numbers, with support from organizations such as the American Association of University Professors. Maybe it's possible for graduate students themselves to start gathering and reporting this information on a Web site.
Graduate school may be about the "disinterested pursuit of learning" for some privileged people. But for most of us, graduate school in the humanities is about the implicit promise of the life of a middle-class professional, about being respected, about not hating your job and wasting your life. That dream is long gone in academe for almost everyone entering it now.
If you are in one of the lucky categories that benefit from the Big Lie, you will probably continue to offer the attractions of that life to vulnerable students who are trained from birth to trust you, their teacher.
Graduate school in the humanities is a trap. It is designed that way. It is structurally based on limiting the options of students and socializing them into believing that it is shameful to abandon "the life of the mind." That's why most graduate programs resist reducing the numbers of admitted students or providing them with skills and networks that could enable them to do anything but join the ever-growing ranks of impoverished, demoralized, and damaged graduate students and adjuncts for whom most of academe denies any responsibility.
To Read the Entire Article
By Thomas H. Benton
The Chronicle of Higher Education
...
The myth of the academic meritocracy powerfully affects students from families that believe in education, that may or may not have attained a few undergraduate degrees, but do not have a lot of experience with how access to the professions is controlled. Their daughter goes to graduate school, earns a doctorate in comparative literature from an Ivy League university, everyone is proud of her, and then they are shocked when she struggles for years to earn more than the minimum wage. (Meanwhile, her brother—who was never very good at school—makes a decent living fixing HVAC systems with a six-month certificate from a for-profit school near the Interstate.)
Unable even to consider that something might be wrong with higher education, mom and dad begin to think there is something wrong with their daughter, and she begins to internalize that feeling.
Everyone has told her that "there are always places for good people in academe." She begins to obsess about the possibility of some kind of fatal personal shortcoming. She goes through multiple mock interviews, and takes business classes, learning to present herself for nonacademic positions. But again and again, she is passed over in favor of undergraduates who are no different from people she has taught for years. Maybe, she wonders, there's something about me that makes me unfit for any kind of job.
This goes on for years: sleepless nights, anxiety, escalating and increasingly paralyzing self-doubt, and a host of stress-induced ailments. She has even removed the Ph.D. from her résumé, with some pain, but she lives in dread that interviewers will ask what she has been doing for the last 12 years. (All her old friends are well established by now, some with families, some with what seem to be high-powered careers. She lives in a tiny apartment and struggles to pay off her student loans.) What's left now but entry-level clerical work with her immediate supervisor just three years out of high school?
She was the best student her adviser had ever seen (or so he said); it seemed like a dream when she was admitted to a distinguished doctoral program; she worked so hard for so long; she won almost every prize; she published several essays; she became fully identified with the academic life; even distancing herself from her less educated family. For all of those reasons, she continues as an adjunct who qualifies for food stamps, increasingly isolating herself to avoid feelings of being judged. Her students have no idea that she is a prisoner of the graduate-school poverty trap. The consolations of teaching are fewer than she ever imagined.
Such people sometimes write to me about their thoughts of suicide, and I think nothing separates me from them but luck.
Scenarios like that are what irritate me about professors who still bleat on about "the life of mind." They absolve themselves of responsibility for what happens to graduate students by saying, distantly, "there are no guarantees." But that phrase suggests there's only a chance you won't get a tenure-track job, not an overwhelming improbability that you will.
Some professors tell students to go to graduate school "only if you can't imagine doing anything else." But they usually are saying that to students who have been inside an educational institution for their entire lives. They simply do not know what else is out there. They know how to navigate school, and they think they know what it is like to be a professor.
There should be a special place in hell for the professors who—at the end of an advisee's 10-year graduate program with no job in sight—say, "well, academe is not for everyone."
The main point of another column I wrote six years ago ("If You Must Go") is that students considering graduate school should "do their homework." But the problem is that there is still almost no way—apart from the rumor mill to which they do not really have access—for students to gather some of the most crucial information about graduate programs: the rate of attrition, the average amount of debt at graduation, and, most important, the placement of graduates (differentiating between adjunct, lecturer, visiting, tenure-track positions, and nonacademic positions). Programs often claim that graduates who are working as adjuncts or visiting faculty members are successfully placed in the profession.
Most departments will never willingly provide that information because it is radically against their interest to do so. I can see no way for that information to become available unless it becomes part of accreditation or rankings in publications such as U.S. News and World Report. Perhaps departments might start offering details if students started demanding it in large numbers, with support from organizations such as the American Association of University Professors. Maybe it's possible for graduate students themselves to start gathering and reporting this information on a Web site.
Graduate school may be about the "disinterested pursuit of learning" for some privileged people. But for most of us, graduate school in the humanities is about the implicit promise of the life of a middle-class professional, about being respected, about not hating your job and wasting your life. That dream is long gone in academe for almost everyone entering it now.
If you are in one of the lucky categories that benefit from the Big Lie, you will probably continue to offer the attractions of that life to vulnerable students who are trained from birth to trust you, their teacher.
Graduate school in the humanities is a trap. It is designed that way. It is structurally based on limiting the options of students and socializing them into believing that it is shameful to abandon "the life of the mind." That's why most graduate programs resist reducing the numbers of admitted students or providing them with skills and networks that could enable them to do anything but join the ever-growing ranks of impoverished, demoralized, and damaged graduate students and adjuncts for whom most of academe denies any responsibility.
To Read the Entire Article
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