The National Context
How are we to make sense of what is happening here?
Professor Eve Weinbaum’s email on September 1st may be understood as a call for help. When the email was circulated, alumni of the program and friends in the labor movement acted quickly, generating hundreds of letters in a matter of days.
So why such a swift response?
Well, first because the UMass Amherst Labor Center is an amazing program! Anyone who has come into contact with it, or any of its more than 1000 alumni would agree with that.
Second though, the response was swift because many of us in the labor movement are all too aware of how many labor centers at colleges and universities around the nation have been defunded and eliminated over the past 20 years. While attacks on labor centers are often driven by anti-union animus, more generally the corporatization of higher education plays a decisive role.
In the Fall of 2015, the United Association of Labor Educators (UALE) put out a report detailing the state of labor studies programs in higher education. The entire report is available here. The report examines all 53 labor programs housed at colleges and universities in the United States. The report concludes:
"What is more likely to harm a program, is not a specific attack on labor education per se, it is the trend that affects higher education in the United States generally: the push to shift the mission of higher education from providing citizens with the opportunity to get a traditional “good education” for democracy and a good society, to employer-and-industry designed, labor-market driven workforce development and professional vocational programs. This trend is ideologically in alignment with the external and explicitly political attacks and the impact is much larger and more permanent. Also, it is implemented by an institutional governance structure that resembles a mid-century industrial bureaucracy, heavy with administrative middle management and topped by high-salaried, democracy-proof CEO’s. "(p.5)
The UALE report also details the impact of corporatization in higher education on labor centers and labor education programs. What they describe is practically identical to the UMass Labor Center budget cuts Professor Weinbaum describes in her letter. The report’s authors write:
"What follows is a list of impacts labor education programs have experienced. In some cases, they have fought back and survived. In other cases, these are ongoing “frog-in-boiling water” situations. The common theme here, is that step by step, programs are tested to see if they can become better at generating revenue – if they can contribute to the institution as a business. If they fail that test, they are vulnerable to losing funding and staff until they can no longer function.
Sound familiar?...
Can anything be done?
One of the other key take-aways from the UALE report is that when university labor centers mobilize allies and alumni, they can successfully fend off the funding cuts that threaten to undermine their programs.
Here, we can also look to the lessons from other labor centers. Professor David Fasenfest from Wayne State University writes about the experience of the WSU Labor Center. You can find his full essay here and it is certainly worth a read. He writes, “What was once one of the premier sites of labor education and research has become toothless or non-existent; labor research no longer has a strong center of gravity, but is now relegated to scattered efforts by faculty in various departments across the university.”
Professor Fasenfest goes on to say:
"It is very likely that it may already be too late for the program at UMASS—the lesson to be learned from the dissolution of CULMA is that too many people who could have fought the dissolution believed the administration’s promises and so did not act to stop the dismantling of the college and its labor programs. Senior administrators are now hired with the mandate to increasingly manage universities as if they are businesses, and to make decisions that are driven by cost calculations rather than by the underlying mission of the institution. Promises that little will change and the continuation of support for the labor agenda at UMASS may well be made by good intentioned individuals, but if the experience at WSU is any indication, either they are hollow or are being made by people who are fooling themselves."
We are left with the conclusion that—despite the UMass administration’s claims to the contrary—the end of funding for graduate students, cuts in funding for part-time faculty, and reduced staffing all serve to set up the Labor Center for failure. We need to act now before it is too late.
Professor Eve Weinbaum’s email on September 1st may be understood as a call for help. When the email was circulated, alumni of the program and friends in the labor movement acted quickly, generating hundreds of letters in a matter of days.
So why such a swift response?
Well, first because the UMass Amherst Labor Center is an amazing program! Anyone who has come into contact with it, or any of its more than 1000 alumni would agree with that.
Second though, the response was swift because many of us in the labor movement are all too aware of how many labor centers at colleges and universities around the nation have been defunded and eliminated over the past 20 years. While attacks on labor centers are often driven by anti-union animus, more generally the corporatization of higher education plays a decisive role.
In the Fall of 2015, the United Association of Labor Educators (UALE) put out a report detailing the state of labor studies programs in higher education. The entire report is available here. The report examines all 53 labor programs housed at colleges and universities in the United States. The report concludes:
"What is more likely to harm a program, is not a specific attack on labor education per se, it is the trend that affects higher education in the United States generally: the push to shift the mission of higher education from providing citizens with the opportunity to get a traditional “good education” for democracy and a good society, to employer-and-industry designed, labor-market driven workforce development and professional vocational programs. This trend is ideologically in alignment with the external and explicitly political attacks and the impact is much larger and more permanent. Also, it is implemented by an institutional governance structure that resembles a mid-century industrial bureaucracy, heavy with administrative middle management and topped by high-salaried, democracy-proof CEO’s. "(p.5)
The UALE report also details the impact of corporatization in higher education on labor centers and labor education programs. What they describe is practically identical to the UMass Labor Center budget cuts Professor Weinbaum describes in her letter. The report’s authors write:
"What follows is a list of impacts labor education programs have experienced. In some cases, they have fought back and survived. In other cases, these are ongoing “frog-in-boiling water” situations. The common theme here, is that step by step, programs are tested to see if they can become better at generating revenue – if they can contribute to the institution as a business. If they fail that test, they are vulnerable to losing funding and staff until they can no longer function.
- Declining enrollment is punished with cuts in funding; this is a management strategy for an institution as a whole, especially if it is one of several institutions in a system that are made to compete with each other.
- The program exists as a line item in the state budget and is lined out entirely by the Governor or the legislature. One program had all its funding cut – except for $1,000. That $1,000 per year is presumably still rolling into a university budget category somewhere.
- In a given institution, every program that stands out is eliminated, with Centers especially, vulnerable, being faculty-heavy. Foreign language centers, Cancer Research centers, Agriculture Extension Centers – all gone.
- Programs are shuffled around and moved to new locations; in this new location, new contracts are written that increase costs, requiring them to cover rent, overhead, etc. Needs such as video conferencing equipment is lost in the move.
- An administration decides to “apply all rules” in ways that small programs with little or no staff cannot follow, such as keeping buildings open during vacations when faculty are away.
- Class size minimums are raised; if enrollment falls below 15 (or 20 or 30), the class is cancelled. Whether the class is an extension class at a university or a community college class where funding is a per capita formula, the entire revenue is lost. If the teacher is an adjunct, they lose a teaching job.
- Staffing is reduced to below where the work can actually be done (recruiting, publicity, administration, outreach, teaching).
- Tenure lines are eliminated or changed to contract positions. No approval is given to hire into tenure lines.
- Organizational structures are downgraded: a Center becomes a Department, a Department becomes a Program, a Program becomes a set of courses dispersed through other Departments; a major is eliminated." (p. 12-13).
Sound familiar?...
Can anything be done?
One of the other key take-aways from the UALE report is that when university labor centers mobilize allies and alumni, they can successfully fend off the funding cuts that threaten to undermine their programs.
Here, we can also look to the lessons from other labor centers. Professor David Fasenfest from Wayne State University writes about the experience of the WSU Labor Center. You can find his full essay here and it is certainly worth a read. He writes, “What was once one of the premier sites of labor education and research has become toothless or non-existent; labor research no longer has a strong center of gravity, but is now relegated to scattered efforts by faculty in various departments across the university.”
Professor Fasenfest goes on to say:
"It is very likely that it may already be too late for the program at UMASS—the lesson to be learned from the dissolution of CULMA is that too many people who could have fought the dissolution believed the administration’s promises and so did not act to stop the dismantling of the college and its labor programs. Senior administrators are now hired with the mandate to increasingly manage universities as if they are businesses, and to make decisions that are driven by cost calculations rather than by the underlying mission of the institution. Promises that little will change and the continuation of support for the labor agenda at UMASS may well be made by good intentioned individuals, but if the experience at WSU is any indication, either they are hollow or are being made by people who are fooling themselves."
We are left with the conclusion that—despite the UMass administration’s claims to the contrary—the end of funding for graduate students, cuts in funding for part-time faculty, and reduced staffing all serve to set up the Labor Center for failure. We need to act now before it is too late.