"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." Thomas 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." Vincent 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 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 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.
