Administrators, budgets, and 'it's the economy, stupid': we aren't that dumb

Tenured faculty are generally in a pretty good position for riding out the recession. Most of us don't have to worry about unemployment. Many of us are likely to keep fairly decent insurance and retirement plans. And, we are likely to retain this security even as others employed at our colleges and universities risk losing their jobs and even as more students will face more challenges in paying for a college education. We will retain security (although we may not get cost of living raises) at the same time as we watch the detrimental impact of the market and overall global economic crisis on our institutions, particularly on the endowments and the portion of the operating budgets that come from these endowments.

What this will mean is that many administrators will start wielding the explanation 'the economy' for all sorts of decisions. Any time they confront disagreement or noncompliance, perhaps even any time they are asked for reasons or to fund conventional elements of academic life, they will bring up 'the economy.' We should expect, then, a crackdown on more radical, innovative, creative, non-easily monetarized fields, activities, and speakers. So we need to be vigilant: what is getting cut? what is funded? why? What was reasonable and expected two years ago may now be cut.

But not everything is cut--faculty need to be on top of what is cut and why. Is money available for projects related to homeland security? green technology? what about contemporary radical philosophy and psychoanalytic theory? what about philosophy departments? political theory? LGBT, cultural, SSST, postcolonial studies?

We should also be aware of self-censorship: do we stop proposing projects, speakers, symposia? do we alter the topics in ways that are less radical, creative, or experimental, in ways that conform in advance?

We should not let administrators pull divide and conquer moves.

Correlative to this is recognizing tendencies of some faculty to think and act from the perspective of administrators rather than from the perspective of faculty.

We should learn from the history of the labor movement and be attuned to attempts to add to the length of the working day and intensify the output of faculty labor. This will be done as non TT faculty--whose work is crucial to the operating of many colleges and universities and nearly all large state universities--are let go.

We should not accept the assumption that faculty time is infinitely elastic. Again, this assumption will fill in the gap left by the elimination of "contingent faculty." It will also be an ever-increasing technique of power, one that deliberately expends faculty time in some areas to prevent its deployment elsewhere, one that increases a sense of vulnerability among faculty, and one that is likely to be instrumental in increasing resentment and thus fragmentation among faculty.

Faced with any set of cost-cutting options, we should ask why these rather than others, whose interests do the cuts serve, how were the options determined.  We should not be like so many Congressional zombies mindlessly following Henry Paulson. There is time to reflect, consider, and evaluate.

Here is an example, a couple of years ago some colleges and universities realized that they could save hundreds of thousands of dollars in food costs (not to mention energy) by getting rid of trays in student cafeterias. Students couldn't load up on extra food; they'd have to go back if they wanted more. It seems, though, that some other colleges got opposition from this reasonable proposal from the food services with whom they contract. So this kind of reasonable cut gets sidelined.

Another example: the myriad programs catering to students as enjoying consumers or vulnerable children that have devoured larger portions of academic budgets over the last 20 years come to be seen as 'mission critical' even as entire academic departments and programs are dissolved.

We must not let the problems in the economy achieve what the right has been fighting for for decades. This is culture war by other means (just as culture war is...).

Comments

[John]

I very much appreciate the rest of this post, but I have one question. I'm usually pretty good with my acronyms, but I'll admit that you've got me (and 5 minutes worth of googling) stumped. So what does SSST stand for?

[Jodi]

social studies of science and technology

[miggy]

"But not everything is cut--faculty need to be on top of what is cut and why. Is money available for projects related to homeland security? green technology? what about contemporary radical philosophy and psychoanalytic theory? what about philosophy departments? political theory? LGBT, cultural, SSST, postcolonial studies?"

To which I would add: foreign language departments and programs.