Why the Gig Academy is the dominant organizational form within the
higher education economy-and its troubling implications for
faculty, students, and the future of college education. Over the
past two decades, higher education employment has undergone a
radical transformation with faculty becoming contingent, staff
being outsourced, and postdocs and graduate students becoming a
larger share of the workforce. For example, the faculty has shifted
from one composed mostly of tenure-track, full-time employees to
one made up of contingent, part-time teachers. Non-tenure-track
instructors now make up 70 percent of college faculty. Their pay
for teaching eight courses averages $22,400 a year-less than the
annual salary of most fast-food workers. In The Gig Academy,
Adrianna Kezar, Tom DePaola, and Daniel T. Scott assess the impact
of this disturbing workforce development. Providing an overarching
framework that takes the concept of the gig economy and applies it
to the university workforce, this book scrutinizes labor
restructuring across both academic and nonacademic spheres. By
synthesizing these employment trends, the book reveals the
magnitude of the problem for individual workers across all
institutional types and job categories while illustrating the
damaging effects of these changes on student outcomes, campus
community, and institutional effectiveness. A pointed critique of
contemporary neoliberalism, the book also includes an analysis of
the growing divide between employees and administrators. The
authors conclude by examining the strengthening state of
unionization among university workers. Advocating a collectivist,
action-oriented vision for reversing the tide of exploitation,
Kezar, DePaola, and Scott urge readers to use the book as a tool to
interrogate the state of working relations on their own campuses
and fight for a system that is run democratically for the benefit
of all. Ultimately, The Gig Academy is a call to arms, one that
encourages non-tenure-track faculty, staff, postdocs, graduate
students, and administrative and tenure-track allies to unite in a
common struggle against the neoliberal Gig Academy.
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