Higher Ed is cooked, faculty. You can either start looking for an alternative profession, or unionize to save it. No amount of effort to appeal to morality or utility is going to save us - ThreadSky

tgpeterson.bsky.social • 6 hours ago

Higher Ed is cooked, faculty. You can either start looking for an alternative profession, or unionize to save it. No amount of effort to appeal to morality or utility is going to save us

Reposted from Ali Winston

“They’re trying to break the academic enterprise. And cutting academic science has impacts on the educational mission of the entire university” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/u...

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natkpowell.bsky.social•6 hours ago

Unfortunately, the solution isn't going to come from inside the academy either.

tgpeterson.bsky.social•6 hours ago

I have very little faith

paulecohen.bsky.social•6 hours ago

as the structures permitting the social reproduction of faculty and knowledge production are swiftly dismantled before our very eyes, I am increasingly of the view that we need to begin reimagining building new institutions of teaching/research, outside the university

paulecohen.bsky.social•6 hours ago

What they would look like, how we would go about this, and where we would find the resources are obviously pressing questions, to which I do not have answers right now

But I'm not sure the traditional university can be saved before it is destroyef

paulecohen.bsky.social•6 hours ago

*destroyed

tgpeterson.bsky.social•6 hours ago

Yes

tgpeterson.bsky.social•6 hours ago

There are many faculty, especially in STEM, who believe that if they can just show how useful their work is, they can keep their funding and keep going under this anti-constitutional regime and survive. You are wrong. You, too, are the enemy now. Labor solidarity is the most powerful tool we have.

tgpeterson.bsky.social•6 hours ago

For decades, faculty have refused to fight for their colleagues as whole disciplines were defended and 70% of faculty were casualized. We have set ourselves up for this moment. If there is to be aby hope of surviving it with the academy intact, we need to embrace a politics of radical solidarity.

tgpeterson.bsky.social•6 hours ago

Start a @higheredlabor.bsky.social chapter. Start an @aaup.bsky.social chapter. Start a local chapter of a state union. Start a wholly new union drive. Or simply accept that your job and field will be slashed and burned until there's nothing left.

valeriedeacon.bsky.social•6 hours ago

Hello from Canada, where (thankfully) most faculty are unionized in some way. Unfortunately, nothing protects against program closures - not tenure, not the union. It's really dire.

tgpeterson.bsky.social•6 hours ago

"Financial exigency" is a powerful institution-level tool, which is why we need a labor movement that spans universities

tgpeterson.bsky.social•6 hours ago

I will add that I'm not a pie-in-the-sky idealist. I think we already missed the boat on this. But these are unprecedented times.

valeriedeacon.bsky.social•6 hours ago

Yes! And up here one of the first things that needs to be done is some organized resistance to external consulting firms that seem to be guiding the program closures.

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