How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation

Marc Bousquet's How the University Works should be required reading for anyone with an interest in the future of higher education, including administrators, faculty members, graduate students, and--even more significantly--undergraduates and their parents.

--Thomas Hart Benton, The Chronicle of Higher Education

How the University Works is a serious wake-up call for the entire profession, and, based on what I overheard at the 2007 MLA] book fair, Bousquet is about to emerge as the Al Gore of higher education.

aThomas Hart Benton, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Marc Bousquet is the most trenchant theorist of the current academic labor situation, and How the University Works is the best study of academic labor conditions in the U.S. since the 1970s. It is thoroughly and creatively researched, theoretically bold, often mercifully frank, and frequently poignant in its arguments and findings.

aVincent B. Leitch, General Editor of the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism

As much as we think we know about the modern university, very little has been said about what it's like to work there. Instead of the high-wage, high-profit world of knowledge work, most campus employees a including the vast majority of faculty a really work in the low-wage, low-profit sphere of the service economy. Tenure-track positions are at an all-time low, with adjuncts and graduate students teaching the majority of courses. This super-exploited corps of disposable workers commonly earn fewer than $16,000 annually, without benefits, teaching as many as eight classes per year. Even undergraduates are being exploited as a low-cost, disposable workforce.

Marc Bousquet, a majorfigure in the academic labor movement, exposes the seamy underbelly of higher education a a world where faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates work long hours for fast-food wages. Assessing the costs of higher educations corporatization on faculty and students at every level, How the University Works is urgent reading for anyone interested in the fate of the university. ALSO OF INTEREST Author interview with Cary Nelson Author Blog on The Chronicle of Higher Education Call to Arms for Academic Labor--Review by Inside Higher Ed Author's Blog View the Table of Contents

Read the Introduction

Latinos are the fastest growing population group in the United States.Through their language and popular music Latinos are making their mark on American culture as never before. As the United States becomes Latinized, how will Latinos fit into America's divided racial landscape and how will they define their own racial and ethnic identity?

Through strikingly original historical analysis, extensive personal interviews and a careful examination of census data, Clara E. Rodriguez shows that Latino identity is surprisingly fluid, situation-dependent, and constantly changing. She illustrates how the way Latinos are defining themselves, and refusing to define themselves, represents a powerful challenge to America's system of racial classification and American racism.

As much as we think we know about the modern university, very little has been said about what it's like to work there. Instead of the high-wage, high-profit world of knowledge work, most campus employees—including the vast majority of faculty—really work in the low-wage, low-profit sphere of the service economy. Tenure-track positions are at an all-time low, with adjuncts and graduate students teaching the majority of courses. This super-exploited corps of disposable workers commonly earn fewer than $16,000 annually, without benefits, teaching as many as eight classes per year. Even undergraduates are being exploited as a low-cost, disposable workforce.

Marc Bousquet, a major figure in the academic labor movement, exposes the seamy underbelly of higher education—a world where faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates work long hours for fast-food wages. Assessing the costs of higher education's corporatization on faculty and students at every level, How the University Works is urgent reading for anyone interested in the fate of the university.

Marc Bousquet is Associate Professor of English at Santa Clara University and the founding editor of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor. His previous books include Tenured Bosses and Disposable Teachers and The Politics of Information: The Electronic Mediation of Social Change.