The 10 most-cited articles in Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy, 2021

As the U.S. starts to come out of the pandemic, public declamations about and private deliberations within colleges and universities are framed in part by negotiating getting back to some form of “normal.” At the center of and delimiting these labor/management negotiations is an all-too-familiar master narrative articulated by management invoking a “new normal,” a time of conditions and challenges borne of, transmitted by, and/or accelerated and amplified due to Covid-19. Yet, I suggest that yet another iteration of disaster/disastrous academic capitalism is neither called for nor does it offer a compelling future for higher education. In addition, there is a counter-narrative articulated by some in the media, scholars, activist groups, and labor that the pre-pandemic “normal” was deeply problematic due to systemic and enduring patterns of disinvestment and of inequity. The premise and promise is that we need to get to better than the preceding normal. If progress is to be made in that direction, then I suggest some important markers in broader public discourse and policy as well as…

The purpose of this article is to speculate on the future of higher education as online technology, including adaptive learning (also referred to as personalized learning) infused by artificial intelligence software, develops and matures. This is a risky undertaking since predicting the future, and in this case the evolution of technology, is difficult. While many try to predict what will happen and sometimes get it right, predicting when something will happen is far more challenging. Online and blended learning have already advanced within education, but the most significant changes are yet to come. Evolving technologies have the potential to change the traditional roles in our schools, colleges and universities to the point that many educators are reconsidering their purposes and roles as teachers, researchers and administrators.

Rider and the AAUP were last at the table for a full-fledged renegotiation of their contract during the summer of 2017.The bargaining was concessionary, as my university --- like so many small-to-medium sized private colleges --- struggled with a looming deficit. Last year, no doubt, the union and its members looked forward to a return to the table with high hopes of recuperating some of those 2017 concessions. But, as Humphrey Bogart once famously observed, fate took a hand.