Keywords
women in academe
faculty of color in academe
collaborative teaching
critical university studies
How to Cite
Abstract
The extensive amount of academic labor of minoritized faculty, especially at research institutions, has been well documented in the academic literature. Three tenured associate professors at The University of Texas present the genesis, evolution, and postscript of leading and serving in an initiative to de-silo and encourage collaboration across the university, culminating in a collaboratively taught course. Integrating concepts of teaching in the neoliberal university context, the gendered and raced distribution of academic labor, and slow scholarship, the authors discuss the pedagogically productive process of collective teaching and decision-making, the frustrations inherent when employing radical pedagogy, and institutional shifts that prioritize a customer-service model of teaching, learning, and rapid research productivity. The authors conclude with reflections and recommendations for scholar-researchers similarly placed in institutional contexts where encroachments upon academic freedom and an embrace of business models collide with personal goals of career satisfaction, collective work, and improving pedagogy.
References
Allen, W. R., Epps, E. G., Guillory, E. A., Suh, S. A., & Bonous-Hammarth, M. (2000). The Black academic: Faculty status among African Americans in U.S. higher education. Journal of Negro Education, 69, 112-127.
Antonio, A. L., Astin, H. S., & Cress, C. M. (2000). Community service in higher education. The Review of Higher Education, 23(4), 373–397
Barry, J, Chandler, J., & Clark, H. (2001) Between the ivory tower and the academic assembly line.” Journal of Management Studies, 38(1), 87-101.
Banowsky, B. (Producer), & Mims, S. (Director). (2016). Starving the beast [Motion picture]. United States: Violet Crown Films.
Bawab, N. (2015, August 26). PCL Learning Commons to offer increased resources to students. The Daily Texan. Retrieved from: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2015/08/26/pcl-learning-commons-to-offer-increased-resources-to-students
Berg, M. & Seeber, B. K. (2016). The slow professor: confronting the culture of speed in the academy. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Cassuto, L. (2015). The graduate school mess: What caused it and how we can fix it. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Churchman, C. W. (1967). Guest editorial: Wicked problems. Management Science, 4(14), 141-142.
Collier, A. Surprising Insights, Outliers, and Privilege in Design Thinking (April 17, 2017). Digital Learning at Middlebury. http://digitallearning.middcreate.net/reflections/surprising-insights-outliers-and-privilege-in-design-thinking/ Accessed 15 August 2018
Cross, N. (1982, October). Designerly ways of knowing. Design Studies, 3(4), 221-227.
D. R. Dimes & Company, Ltd. (2018). Harkness tables. Retrieved from: http://www.harknesstables.com/product-catalog/harkness-tables
Rith, C. & Doubberly, H. (2006). Why Horst W. J. Rittel matters. Design Issues, 23(1), 72-91. doi: 10.1162/desi.2007.23.1.72
Estalami, H. (2015). The effects of survey timing on student evaluation of teaching measures obtained using online surveys. Journal of Marketing Education, 37(1), 54-64.
Exum, W. H., Menges, R. J., Watkins, B., & Berglund, P. (1984). Making it at the top: Women and minority faculty in the academic labor market. American Behavioral Scientist, 27(3), 301-324.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed (trans. Myra Bergman Ramos). New York: Continuum.
Gardner, L. (2017). Can Design Thinking Redesign Higher Ed? Chronicle of Higher Education 64(3), https://www.chronicle.com/article/Design-Thinking-Is-a/243472?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=4bc7cc9fd2c44e0da92e69a213823b4f&elq=9538439d2ab243c391caaf7067b48829&elqaid=19208&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=8722, accessed 15 August, 2018.
Guarino, C. M., & Borden, V. M. (2017). Faculty service loads and gender: Are women taking care of the academic family? Research in Higher Education, 58(6), 672-694.
ICOGRADA Education Manifesto, 2011. Retrieved from: http://www.ico-d.org/database/files/library/IcogradaEducationManifesto_2011.pdf
Joseph, M. (2015). Investing in the cruel entrepreneurial university. South Atlantic Quarterly, 114(3), 491-511.
Konrad, A.M. (1991). Faculty productivity and demographics. Thought and Action, 7(2), 19-54
Lepore, J. (2014). The Disruption Machine: What the Gospel of Innovation Gets Wrong. The New Yorker, June 23, 2014, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption-machine?reload=true, Accessed 15 August, 2018.
Link, A. N., Siegel, D. S., & Bozeman, B. (2007). An empirical analysis of the propensity of academics to engage in informal university technology transfer. Industrial and Corporate Change, 16(4), 641–655.
Lorenzo, D. (2016). Why Higher Education Needs Design Thinking. Fast Company. Dec. 7, 2016. https://www.fastcompany.com/3066293/why-higher-education-needs-design-thinking-right-now, accessed 15 August, 2018.
Lucas, C. J. (2006). American higher education: A history. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Malpass, M. (2013). Between wit and reason: Defining associative, spectulative, and critical design in practice. Design and Culture, 5(3), 333-356. doi: 10.2752/175470813X13705953612200
McGee, E. O. & Kazembe, L. (2015). Entertainers or education researchers? The challenges associated with presenting while black. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 1-25. DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2015.1069263
Miller, P. N. Is Design Thinking the New Liberal Arts? The Chronicle Review (March 26, 2015), https://www.chronicle.com/article/Is-Design-Thinking-the-New/228779, accessed 15 August, 2018.
MacNeil, L., Driscoll, A., & Hunt, A. N. (2015). What’s in a name: Exposing gender bias in student ratings of teaching. Innovative Higher Education, 40(4), 291-303.
Mountz, A., Bonds, A., Mansfield, B., Loyd, J., Hyndman, J., Walton-Roberts, M., ... & Curran, W. (2015). For slow scholarship: A feminist politics of resistance through collective action in the neoliberal university. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 14(4), 1235-1259.
Newfield, C. (2011). Unmaking the public university: The forty-year assault on the middle class. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Newfield, C. (2014). “Christensen’s Disruptive Innovation After the Lepore Critique,” Remaking the University (blog) http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2014/06/christensens-disruptive-innovation.html Accessed, 15 August, 2018.
Newfield, C. (2016). The great mistake: How we wrecked public universities and how we can fix them. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Nola, R., & Irzik, G. (2006). Philosophy, science, education and culture. Dordrecht, NL: Springer Science & Business Media.
O’Connell, M. (2014, January 29). The stunning success of “fail better”: How Samuel Beckett became Silicon Valley’s life coach. Slate. Retrieved from: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/01/samuel_beckett_s_quote_fail_better_becomes_the_mantra_of_silicon_valley.html
Porter, S. R. (2007). A closer look at faculty service: What affects participation on committees? The Journal of Higher Education, 78(5), 523–541.
Reddick, R. J. (2011). Intersecting identities: Mentoring contributions and challenges for Black faculty mentoring Black undergraduates. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 19(3), 319-346.
Rith, C., & Dubberly, H. (2006). Why Horst W. J. Rittel matters. Design Issues, 23(1), 72-91.
Rittle, H. W. J. & Webber, M. M. (1973). Planning problems are wicked. Retrieved from: _HYPERLINK "http://cec.prodwebb.lu.se/sites/cec.prodwebb.lu.se/files/rittel_and_webber_1973_planning_problems_are_wicked_problems.pdf"http://cec.prodwebb.lu.se/sites/cec.prodwebb.lu.se/files/rittel_and_webber_1973_planning_problems_are_wicked_problems.pdf
Rudolph, F. (1962). The American college and university: A history. University of Georgia Press.
Samuels, R. (2017). Introduction: Teaching Critical University Studies. Radical Teacher 6, 1-4, 56.
Shearer, A. (2015). Abduction to argument: A framework of design thinking. Landscape Journal, 34(2), 127-138.
Simon, H. A. (1996). The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Slaughter, S. & Rhoades, G. (2000). The neo-liberal university. New Labor Forum, 6, 73-79.
Steffen, H. (2017). Inventing our university: Student-faculty collaboration in critical university studies. Radical Teacher, 108, xx-xx.
Thelin, J. R. (2011). A history of American higher education. JHU Press.
Trustees of Phillips Exeter Academy. (2018). The Harkness gift. Retrieved from: https://www.exeter.edu/about-us/harkness-gift
Veysey, L. R. (1970). The emergence of the American university. University of Chicago Press.
Waks, L. J. (Ed.). (2015). Listening to teach. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Whelan, A. (2016). Agnosis in the university workplace. Australian Universities Review, 58(2), 51-58.