A Commonwealth Index For Higher Education

At the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL) conference, I helped to Pb a two-day workshop that has developed a novel means to charge per unit of measurement too compass universities too colleges.  In what nosotros are calling a Democracy Index, each schoolhouse volition hold out assessed for its might to promote commonwealth through its degree of shared governance, pay equity, accessibility, affordability, too chore security.  For example, nosotros volition analyze which faculty are able to participate inwards shared governance, including non-tenure-track faculty.  We volition likewise await at the pay ratio betwixt part-time faculty too full-time faculty too betwixt faculty too the administration.

The guiding regulation behind this index is the following: “Building on the ideals embodied inwards the political statements of past times COCALs, nosotros commit to a trans-national agenda whose destination is to cast an equitable too democratic hereafter for higher didactics past times continuing to laid networks, coalitions too alliances across discipline, campus, international border, too manufacture sector, inwards gild to democratize the workplace, the classroom, too the broader community.”  This mission contestation volition hold out applied to a written report of the democratic degree of higher didactics institutions inwards Canada, the United States, too Mexico. 

One of our primal claims is that nosotros cannot convey democratic institutions of higher didactics if most of the faculty create non participate inwards shared governance or create non convey stable jobs amongst fair pay, effective chore protections, too academic freedom.  We convey constitute that every bit universities too colleges growth their reliance on contingent faculty, the toll of management goes up, too the degree of shared governance goes down.  We likewise affirm that the lack of commonwealth inwards higher didactics reflects the lack of commonwealth inwards most other workplaces. 

By working amongst unions, professional person organizations, too private institutions, nosotros promise to democratize higher didactics past times informing Earth almost the unopen relation betwixt teachers’ working weather too students’ learning conditions.  We imagine a globe where our Democracy Index volition supersede misleading rating systems similar US News & World Report’s College Rankings too the Obama administration’s College Scorecard.     

Share this post