Labor Studies Working Group
| PARCC's Labor Studies Working Group is an interdisciplinary group of Syracuse University faculty members from African-American Studies, Anthropology, Geography, Religion, Sociology and Writing and Rhetoric. The primary goal of the group is to institutionalize Labor Studies at Syracuse University and to elevate labor - broadly defined - as a topic of intellectual inquiry and social and political importance on campus. Since 2011, this group has met on a regular basis to discuss urgent issues concerning labor and employment and to spark conversation on these topics on campus and in the community.
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Working Group Members
Gretchen Purser (Sociology)
John Burdick (Anthropology)
Linda Carty (African American Studies)
Cecilia Green (Sociology)
Matt Huber (Geography)
Vincent Lloyd (Religion)
Chris Merchant (Public Administration)
Don Mitchell (Geography)
Tod Rutherford (Geography)
Eileen Schell (Wright and Rhetoric)
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NOTE: Labor Studies Working Group Meeting - Tuesday, April 16, 4:30 p.m., Eggers 400A
Recent Event: Labor Studies Symposium, March 29, 2013
"The Crisis of Academic Labor: Grad Students, Adjuncts and the Making of the Low-Wage University"
To register for this free event, send an email to Glenn Wright (glwright@syr.edu)
indicating your name, institutional affiliation, and academic department or program.
Over the last four decades, American universities have increasingly shifted their academic labor force toward a pool of part-time and underpaid adjuncts, graduate students, and a whole variety of hybrid non-tenure track faculty. Today, according to the American Association of University Professors, nearly 70% of faculty members are non-tenure track, characterized by low wages, difficult working conditions and negligible job security. Meanwhile, universities continue to raise student tuition while spending exorbitant amounts on administration salaries and building construction.
How has this happened? How do the eroding conditions for academic labor mirror wider trends in American capitalism toward low-wage job growth and increasing inequality? How have these trends affected Syracuse University? How are technological trends and new teaching platforms transforming the conditions of academic labor? What are the prospects for graduate students working toward a career in academia? What is the future of tenure? Finally, and most important, how have these trends been resisted through adjunct and grad student unionization and other forms of labor struggle? How does Syracuse University's status as a private institution structure the legal environment of such struggles? This workshop and event on academic labor will explore such questions and provide a venue at Syracuse for discussion and debate by all those concerned with the state of academic labor.
9:30 a.m. - WELCOME Maxwell Auditorium
10:00-11:45 a.m. - THE STATE OF ACADEMIC LABOR TODAY Maxwell Auditorium
- Max Haiven, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and Edu-Factory Collective
- Maria Maisto, President, New Faculty Majority
- Terry Weiner, Provost, Russell Sage Colleges
- Rana Jaleel, PhD candidate and grad student organizer, NYU
12:00-1 p.m. - LUNCH - Eggers 220
1:00-2:45pm - ACADEMIC LABOR JUSTICE AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY Eggers 220
- Eileen Schell, Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric, SU
- Don Mitchell, Faculty representative to SU Board of Trustees
- Laurel Morton, President, Adjuncts United, SU
- Emily Mitchell-Eaton, PhD student in Geography, SU
3:15-4:15 p.m. - BREAKOUT SESSION
4:30-5:45 p.m. - KEYNOTE TALK - Maxwell Auditorium
"Resistance Is Not Futile: The Future of Higher Education," Cary Nelson, Past President of the AAUP and Jubilee Professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This
event is co-organized by PARCC's Labor Studies Group and the Future
Professoriate Program, and is co-sponsored by the College of Arts and
Sciences, the Maxwell School, GSO, and the Departments of Geography and
Sociology.
PAST EVENTS ORGANIZED BY PARCC'S LABOR STUDIES WORKING GROUP
The Labor Studies Working Group organized a series of four symposia for the 2011-2012 academic year, all of which were designed to bring together leading labor scholars with activists and/or practitioners to explore pertinent issues facing workers and workers’ movements:
