HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Senior Prof Tells Penn: I’ll Retire When You Agree To Hire A Tenure-Track Replacement. “A mass retirement by senior professors wouldn’t derail the adjunctification train; if anything, it would speed the train up. But suppose, instead, that we actually put our bodies in front of it? If we all said we’d stay put unless we were replaced by full-timers, our institutions would be forced to hire tenure-track professors instead of starving itinerants. I realize that all of this will be a lot easier for fabulously rich private universities — like my own — than it will be for many public institutions, which are struggling with declining enrollments and budgets.”

Universities complain about capitalism exploiting workers, but they are among the most exploitative employers in the country, and it’s mostly because of the truly massive shift to low-paid, short-contract workers in the classroom.