“Faculty Majority” defends academic democracy, but how?

A discussion piece

 

Just two years ago, a new organization came to life, the New Faculty Majority. What majority? According to its founding president, Maria Maisto, and  its board member, Steve Street, a group of “activists in the contingent faculty movement” came together in 2009 to found the NFM as a voice for the adjuncts and part-timers who now constitute a majority, and growing, of the faculty in the colleges and universities. They are hired by management to replace the traditional full-time tenured faculty. It is not clear how many adjuncts actually belong to the NFM, but it proposes to be their advocate, because they are not only used as a cheap labor force; they are denied respect, deprived of insurance benefits, and security. According to Maisto and Street, the percentage of hiring of adjuncts rose from 45% in 1975 to almost 75% in 2010.       

 

The NFM is not a union, nor is it hostile to unionism; it will even help adjuncts form a union, where they want one.  But its aspiration soars far beyond  the ordinary goals of union collective bargaining. “Clearly,” they write, “the contingent faculty crisis is simply the most obvious manifestation of the steady erosion of community in higher education.” The NFM, itself,  does call -- and vigorously -- for fair play for adjuncts in the here and now. It advocates “equity in compensation, job security, academic freedom, faculty governance, professional advancement, benefits, and unemployment insurance.”  But Maisto and Street insist that these objectives be “rooted in a larger goal... "the fundamental principles of the idea of the university and in the purpose and functioning of our democracy: the protection and refinement of academic, or campus, democracy for the purpose of ensuring quality education and safeguarding and advancing our national democracy.”"  

 

“If the concerns of contingent faculty had only to do with working conditions, then the progress made over the last generation might not have required NFM'’s formation... But NFM is not just about improving working conditions, it is about improving working conditions for an ultimate purpose; to ensure the quality of education and the integrity of the profession.” Their aspirations are far-reaching, but where are they to find the force that will power the program? That’'s the problem.

 

The two NFM leaders find that "“The solutions that have been offered by unions, activists, and progressive administrations... have been too few and too isolated."” They decry “the pessimism or fear of would-be reformers.”

 

They find the "“tenure-stream faculty... too small in number or too cowed to initiate or resist change effectively... while faculty off the tenure track, though the majority in number, must risk their livelihoods to do so."”  If the New Faculty Majority cannot look to the new faculty majority where can it find its strength?  It is a curious position. Does the NFM propose to speak for the adjuncts but not to depend upon them?  The two leaders seem to look elsewhere. Their appeal seems to be directed to “campus leaders” and to a vague social conscience: “What is needed is a core that builds on the body’'s natural strengths. What is needed is a realization of the concept of academic democracy... that embodies the values of liberal education.”  

 

Campus leaders and concepts of academic democracy are a feeble base for the NFM’'s own program. It sees the future of academic democracy linked in living practice to the fate of the adjuncts, that new majority. Where do they fit in?  If the majority will not act for itself, who will take them seriously? There is an arena where the weight of that majority can be effective: unions in education.         

 

Unions are there in education. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have a combined membership of over 2.5 million; add the independents here and there, and we have a formidable force of over three million. At a time when public hostility is whipped up against teachers, unions strive to defend their rights and standards.  Why not turn to them in defense of the rights of adjunct teachers? The trouble is that NFM leaders are ambivalent toward unions and union goals. 

 

They warn that “"Treating symptoms... can further mask the real root disorder.” The danger of this  kind of “instrumentalism,"” they warn, "“is not that it makes small changes over time, it is that without a clear view of the ultimate destination, small changes over time can actually obstruct progress toward a definable goal.”" Even if we leave aside the question of how “definable” their goal really is,  the thought here is noble -- but disorienting: it sees a conflict, a contradiction, between calling for an inspiring goal and working for limited changes. But great goals become realistic when they can be implemented by small gains. The pursuit of small changes gains power when they are linked to great goals. 

 

The formation of the NFM does have the potential for advancing the cause of social justice in higher education  precisely because it argues so persuasively that the needs of the “new majority” of adjunct and contingent faculty are closely linked to needs of “national democracy.” Is there any other group that does it so effectively? The need is to take the goal out of the stratosphere of intellectual discourse and bring it into the realm of actual social battle. A new majority? The basic message of the NFM can inspire  that new faculty majority to immerse themselves in a labor movement -- one that already exists -- and use all their legal  rights, as citizens of their country and of their unions, to advance the cause.