Adjunct Professors Unite: Labor Rights On College Campuses

Related to our Flagship Cause for the 2012-13 academic year, listen to a podcast from the Kojo Nnamdi show, originally aired on October 1, 2012 on WAMU 88.5 – Washington, DC.

Colleges and universities increasingly rely on part-time and non-tenure track faculty, who now teach half or more of all classes on many campuses. Many adjunct faculty complain of low salaries and little respect, including those who have been teaching full time for years. Some adjuncts are turning to labor unions to negotiate better pay and benefits, including adjuncts at George Washington University and American University. We explore the issues.

Guests

Peter Schmidt

Senior Writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education

Kip Lornell

Adjunct Professor of Africana Studies and Music, George Washington University; Vice President for HIgher Education, Service Employees International Union Local 500

Maria Maisto

President, New Faculty Majority; Adjunct Faculty, English Department, Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland, Ohio

Think Tanks’ Growing Role in Policy and Politics

Listen to a podcast from the Kojo Nnamdi show, originally aired on March 28, 2012 on WAMU 88.5 – Washington, DC.

D.C. is a “think tank” kind of town — from those that follow the scholarly “university without students” model to those with a more ideological “government in waiting” approach. Kojo examines the rise of think tanks and analyzes what the dispute over the future of the libertarian Cato Institute says about the role think tanks play in shaping public policy.

Guests

Tevi Troy

Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute; former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Neera Tanden

President, Center for American Progress; Counselor, Center for American Progress Action Fund; former senior advisor for health reform at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Jim McGann

Assistant Director of the International Relations Program and Director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania; Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute; author of “World Rankings of Think Tanks”

More information regarding the subject can be found here.