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Daniel Normolle

The current model of university management, in which increasing numbers of junior faculty are employed on a contingent basis without opportunity for promotion or even job security, is creating a race to the bottom for the next generation of academics. Only a union can address the imbalance in power, so that workers--faculty and post-doctoral and graduate students--can be recognized as fully vested stakeholders in the academic enterprise. Some fear that unionization will generate conflict and insecurity, but that potential disruption must be balanced against the very real daily disruption in the lives of young people whose only employment option is adjunct positions. Unionization can be an opportunity for the university administration to deal in an orderly and equitable fashion with the biggest challenges constraining the productivity of instructors and researchers who make the university more than just a business.


--Daniel Normolle, Department of Biostatistics