Bibliography of Resources on Labor in College Composition

White Papers, Professional Statements, and Reports

Contingent and Adjunct Positions

Center for Community College Student Engagement (2014). Contingent Commitments: Bringing Part-Time Faculty Into Focus (A special report from the Center for Community College Student Engagement). Austin, TX: The University of Texas at Austin, Program in Higher Education Leadership.
“A National Survey of Part-time/Adjunct Faculty,” American Academic, American Federation of Teachers, March 2010.
Tipple, Robert, “Effective Leadership of Online Adjunct Faculty.” Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, vol. 14, no. 3, Fall 2011.

Workforce Data

American Association of University Professors. The Employment Status of Instructional Staff Members in Higher Education, Fall 2011.
Academic Workforce Data Center: The Academic Workforce Data Center presents Department of Education (DOE) data about the composition of the academic workforce at 4,246 colleges and universities in the United States. Users can look up statistics on part-time, full-time, tenure-track, and non-tenure-track instructors at each institution and compare data from 2009 and 1995.
Background Facts on Contingent Faculty, American Association of University Professors
Chapman, Diane. “Contingent and Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty: MOtivations and Incentives to Teach Distance Education Courses.” Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, vol. 14, no.3, Fall 2011.
Desrochers, Donna, and Rita Kirshstein. “Labor Intensive or Labor Expensive? Changing Staffing and Compensation Patterns in Higher Education.” Delta Cost Project at American Institutes for Research, Feb. 2014.
Education in the Balance: A Report on the Academic Workforce in English, MLA, 2008.
Faculty Compensation Survey, American Association of University Professors
Feal, Rosemary. “Contingent Faculty Members: More Alike than Different?” MLA Newsletter, vol. 42, no. 2, 2010, pp. 5-6.
Gere, Anne Ruggles. “Initial Report on Survey of CCCC Members.” James R. Squire Office of Policy Research in the English Language Arts. 2009.
A Portrait of Part-time Faculty Members: A Summary of Findings on Part-Time Faculty Respondents to the Coalition on the Academic Workforce Survey of Contingent Faculty Members and Instructors. The Coalition on the Academic Workforce, June 2012.
McClelland, Ben W. “Part-Time Faculty in English Composition: A WPA Survey.” WPA: Writing Program Administration, vol. 5, no. 1, 1981 pp. 13–20.
Summary of Data from Surveys by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce, MLA, American Historical Association, and CAW, 1999.
US Government Accountability Office. Report to Congressional Requesters. “Contingent Workforce: Size, Characteristics, Compensation, and Work Experiences of Adjunct and Other Non-Tenure-Track Faculty.” October 2017.

Preparation Recommendations

Rethinking the Master’s Degree in English for a New Century, ADE Ad Hoc Committee on the Master’s Degree, June 2011.

Working Conditions Recommendations

Council on Writing Program Administration. “‘The Portland Resolution:’ Guidelines for Writing Program Administrator Positions.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 16.1/2 (Fall/Winter 1992): 88-94.
MLA Issue Brief: The Academic Workforce (2009): The MLA Executive Council created this issue brief to inform members of the profession and the general public of the circumstances faced by the academic workforce in the humanities. It provides background information and explains the council’s working assumptions. The brief then lays out an agenda and recommends a course of action to improve working conditions for the academic workforce.
Professional Employment Practices for Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Members: Recommendations and Evaluative Questions Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession, June 2011.
Statement on Non Tenure Track Faculty Members, Modern Language Association, 2003.
Statement on Working Conditions for Non-Tenure-Track Writing Faculty, Conference on College Composition and Communication, April 2016.
One Faculty Principles, American Association of University Professors
Tenure and Teaching-Intensive Appointments, American Association of University Professors, 2009.
- Recommendations from Report
Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession, American Association of University Professors 2003, updated 2014.
The Employment Status of Instructional Staff Members in Higher Education, Fall 2011.
Connected Academics, Preparing Doctoral Students of Language and Literature for a Variety of Careers, Modern Language Association, website.

News Stories and Columns

Adjunct activism in CUNY system, Inside Higher Ed, July 2017
“A Tenure Track for Teachers?,” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 2017.
“Fixing Our Job Market Problem,” column by Kevin Gannon, Chronicle of Higher Education.
“Faculty Member Critics Lose Jobs at Sierra Nevada,” Inside Higher Ed, July 2017
“Bad Idea About Writing: Anybody Can Teach It,” column advocating for non-tenure track faculty support, Inside Higher Ed, August 2017
“Negotiations Required,” NLRB ruling on compensating adjuncts based on credit hours, Inside Higher Ed, 2016
“A Kinder Campus for Adjuncts?,” Questions for colleges to consider regarding teaching conditions for adjunct faculty, Inside Higher Ed, July 2016
“The No-Jobs Myth,” advocating for faculty involvement in governance, Inside Higher Ed, June 2016.
“Contracts Up Close,” focusing on contract provisions for adjuncts that go beyond better pay, Inside Higher Ed, April 2015
“New Model of Tenure,” argument for new model of tenure by Michael Berube, Inside Higher Ed, March 2015
“Full time, Off Tenure Track,” reporting on a survey of job satisfaction among adjunct faculty, Inside Higher Ed, September 2015.
“Supporting Online Adjuncts,” results of a study on online adjunct instructors and program coordination, Inside Higher Ed, November 2015.
Flaherty, Colleen. “Withering Humanities Jobs: Full-time jobs in English and languages continue to decline, reaching a new low, says preliminary annual jobs report from the Modern Language Association.” Inside Higher Ed 21 November 2017.
Kelsky, Karen. “How the Tenured Are to the Job Market as White People Are to Racism.” The Professor Is In, 1 Jan. 2014.
Barlow, Aaron. “To My Tenured Colleagues.” Academe Blog, 14 Oct. 2013.
Ruth, Jennifer. “When Tenure-Track Faculty Take on the Problem of Adjunctification.” Social Science Spaces, 16 July 2013.
Patton, Stacey. “New MLA President Pledges to Improve Conditions on the Nontenure Track.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 26 January 2012.
Schmidt, Peter. “Faculty Leaders at American U. Seek Old-School Rights for a New Work Force.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 June 2011.
“When Adjuncts Push for Better Status, Better Pay Follows, Study Suggests.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 Nov. 2009.
Street, Steve. “Why Don’t We Insist on Equity?,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 2 Dec. 2010.
“Surge in Adjunct Activism is Spurred by Bad Economy and Hungry Unions.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 14 Dec. 2009.
June, Audrey Williams. “An Activist Adjunct Shoulders the Weight of a New Advocacy Group.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 10 Sep. 2009: A1.
Jaeger, A., and M. K. Eagan. “Effects of Exposure to Part-Time Faculty on Community College Transfer.” Research in Higher Education, vol. 50, no. 2, 2009, 168–88. .
Jaschik, Scott. “The Adjunctification of English.” Inside Higher Ed, 11 Dec. 2008.
“Part-Time Faculty Members Try to Organize Nationally.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 26 Jan. 2001: A12–A13
Wilson, Robin. “‘Chronicle’ Survey Yields a Rare Look into Adjuncts’ Work Lives.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 18 Oct. 2009.

Disciplinary Scholarship (Historical, Contemporary) on Labor

Adler-Kassner, Linda. The Activist WPA: Changing Stories About Writing and Writers. Logan: Utah UP, 2008. .
Bartholomae, David. “Teaching On and Off the Tenure Track: Highlights from the ADE Survey of Staffing Patterns in English.” Pedagogy, vol. 11, no. 1, 2011, pp. 7-32.
Connors, Robert. “Overwork/Underpay: Labor and Status of Composition Teachers since 1880,” In Composition in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis and Change, edited by Lynn Z. Bloom, Donald A Daiker, and Edward M White, Southern Illinois UP, 1996, pp. 47-63.
Corbett, Edward P.J. “Teaching Composition: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going,”
College Composition and Communication, vol. 38, no. 4, 1987, pp 444-52.
Holbrook, Sue Ellen. “Women’s Work: The Feminizing of Composition Studies.” Rhetoric Review, vol. 9, 1991, pp. 201-229.
Klausman, Jeffrey. “Not Just a Matter of Fairness: Adjunct Faculty and Writing Programs in Two-Year Colleges.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 37, no. 4, 2010, pp. 363-71.
Robertson, Linda R., et al. “The Wyoming Conference Resolution Opposing Unfair Salaries and Working Conditions for Post-Secondary Teachers of Writing.” College English, vol. 49, no. 3, 1987, pp. 274-80.
Sledd, James. “Disciplinarity and Exploitation: Compositionists as Good Professionals.” Workplace: A Journal of Academic Labor, 4.1 (2001).
—. “Return to Service.” Composition Studies, 28.2 (Fall 2000): 11-32. Web.
—. “Why the Wyoming Resolution Had to Be Emasculated: A History and a Quixotism.” Journal of Advanced Composition,11.2 (Fall 1991): 269-281.
Soliday, Mary. “Symposium: English 1999, Class Dismissed.” College English. 61.1 (July 1999): 731-741.
Trimbur, John and Barbara Cambridge. “The Wyoming Conference Resolution: A Beginning.” Writing Program Administration, v. 12, no. 1-2, Fall/Winter 1988, 13-

Labor Focused Scholarship and Critique in Writing Studies

Bérubé, Michael. “The Blessed of the Earth.” Will Teach for Food: Academic Labor in Crisis, edited by Cary Nelson, U of Minnesota P, 1997, pp. 153-78.
Bousquet, Marc Tony Scott, and Leo Parascondola, eds. Tenured Bosses, Disposable Teachers: Writing Instruction in the Managed University. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2004.
Bousquet, Marc. “The Rhetoric of ‘Job Market’ and the Reality of the Academic Labor System.” College English, vol. 44, no..2, 2003: 207–28.
College Composition and Communication, Special Issue on Political Economies of
Composition. Vol 68, No. 1, September 2016.
Cox, Anicca, et al. “The Indianapolis Resolution: Responding to Twenty-First-Century Exigencies/Political Economies of Composition Labor,” vol. 68, no. 1, Sept. 2016, 2016, pp. 38-67.
Fulwiler, Megan, and Jennifer Marlow. Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Labor. Computers and Composition Digital Press/Utah State UP, 2014.
Hansen, Kristine. “Face to Face with Part-Timers: Ethics and the Professionalization of Writing Faculties.” Resituating Writing: Constructing and Administering Writing Programs, edited by Joseph Janangelo and Kristine Hansen, Boynton/Cook, 1995, pp. 23-45.
Harris, Joseph. “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss: Class Consciousness in Composition. College Composition and Communication, 52 (2000): 43-68.
Hassel, Holly, and Joanne Baird Giordano. “Occupy Writing Studies: A Redefinition of College Composition by the Teaching Majority.” College Composition and Communication on “The Profession.” 65.1 (September 2013): 117-139. Print.
Kahn, Seth, William Lalicker, and Amy Lynch-Biniek. Contingency, Exploitation, and Solidarity: Labor and Action in English Composition. WAC Clearinghouse, 2017.
Kezar, Adrianna. “Spanning the Great Divide Between Tenure-Track and Nontenure-
Track Faculty.” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, November–December
2012.
Lamos, Steve “Credentialing College Writing Teachers: WPAs and Labor Reform.” WPA: Writing Program Administration, 35.1 (Fall/Winter 2011): 45-72. Print.
Lamos, Steve. “Toward Job Security for Teaching-Track Composition Faculty: Recognizing and Rewarding Affective-Labor-in-Space.” College English, 78.4 (March 2016): 362-386.
McClure, Randall, Dayna V. Goldstein, and Michael A. Pemberton. Labored: The State(ment) and Future of Work in Composition. Parlor Press, 2017.
McMahon, Deirdre, and Ann Green. “Gender, Contingent Labor and Writing Studies.” Academe, vol. 94, no. 6, 2008, pp. 16-19.
Mendenhall, Annie S. “The Composition Specialist as Flexible Expert: Identity and Labor in the History of Composition.” College English, vol. 77, no. 1, 2014, pp. 11-31.
Miller, Thomas. “Why Don’t our Graduate Programs Do a Better Job of Preparing Students for the Work that We do?” WPA: Writing Program Administration. 24.3 (Spring 2011): 41-58. Print.
Murphy, Michael. “New Faculty for a New University: Toward a Full-Time Teaching-Intensive Faculty Track in Composition.” College Composition and Communication, 52.1 (Sept. 2000): 14-42.
Nelson, Cary. “Between Crisis and Opportunity: The Future of the Academic Workforce.” Will Teach for Food: Academic Labor in Crisis, edited by Cary Nelson, U of Minnesota P, 1997, pp. 3-31.
Penrose, Ann. “Professional Identity in a Contingent-Labor Profession: Expertise, Autonomy, and Community in Composition Teaching.” Writing Program Administration, v. 35, no. 2, Spring 2012, pp. 108-126.
Ritter, Kelly. “‘Ladies Who Don’t Know Us Correct Our Papers’: Postwar Lay Reader
Programs and Twenty-First Century Contingent Labor in First-Year Writing.” College
Composition and Communication, 63.3(2012): 387-419.
Schell, Eileen. Gypsy Academics and Mother-Teachers: Gender, Contingent Labor, and Writing Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1998.
Schell, Eileen and Patricia Lambert Stock. Moving a Mountain: Transforming the Role of Contingent Faculty in Composition Studies and Higher Education. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2001. Print.
Schell, Eileen. “The Cost of Caring: ‘Feminism” and Contingent Women Workers in Composition Studies.” Feminism and Composition: In Other Words, edited by Susan Jarratt and Lynn Worsham. MLA, 1998, pp. 74-93.
Tirelli, Vincent. “Adjuncts and More Adjuncts: Labor Segmentation and the Transformation of Higher Education.” Social Text, vol. 51, 1997, pp. 75–91.

Sources on Higher Education, Labor, and Advocacy

Baldwin, Roger G., and Matthew R. Wawrzynski. “Contingent Faculty as Teachers: What We Know; What We Need to Know.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 55, no. 11, 2011, pp. 1485-509.
Benjamin, Ernst, and Michael Mauer, eds. Academic Collective Bargaining. New York: MLA, 2006.
Benjamin, Ernst. “How Over-Reliance On Contingent Appointments Diminishes Faculty Involvement in Student Learning.” Peer Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 2002, p. 4.
Berry, Joe. Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education, Monthly Review P, 2005.
Cross, John G., and Edie N. Goldenberg. “Why Hire Non-Tenure-Track Faculty?” Peer Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 2002.
Eagan, M. Kevin, et al. “Supporting the Academic Majority: Policies and Practices Related to Part-Time Faculty’s Job Satisfaction.” The Journal of Higher Education, vol. 86, no. 3, 2015, pp. 448-80.
Ehrenberg, Ronald and Liang Zhang. “Do Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Matter?” Cornell Higher Education Research Institute Working Paper #53, 2004.
Gavaskar, Vandana. “Can the Subaltern Speak? Contingent Faculty and Institutional
Narratives.” Forum, College Composition and Communication, vol. 64, no. 1, 2012, pp. A1-A3.
Gilbert, Daniel A. “The Generation of Public Intellectuals: Corporate Universities, Graduate Employees and the Academic Labor Movement.” Labor Studies Journal, vol. 38, no. 32, 2013, pp. 32-46.
Grigs, Claudine. “Off the Tenure Track: The Tenuous Act of Adjuncting.” Forum: Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty, vol. 12, no. 1, 2008, pp. A3-A5.
Hammer, Brad. “The ‘Service’ of Contingency: Outsiderness and the Commodification of Teaching.” Forum, College Composition and Communication, vol. 64, no. 1, 2012, pp. A3-A7.
Hammer, Brad. “From the Editor: The Need for Research in ‘Contingency Studies.’ Forum: Newsletter for Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty, vol 14., no. 1, 2010, pp. A1-A3.
Jacoby, Daniel. “Effect of Part Time Faculty Employment on Community College Graduation Rates.” The Journal of Higher Education, vol. 77, no. 6, 2006, pp. 1081- 103.
Maisto, Maria. “Adjuncts, Class, and Fear.” Working-Class Perspectives, 23 Sept. 2013.
Mattson, Kevin. “How I Became a Worker.” Steal This University: The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement, edited by Benjamin Johnson et al. Routledge, 2003, pp. 87-96.
Maynard, Douglas C., and Todd Allen Joseph. “Are All Part-Time Faculty Underemployed? The Influence of Faculty Status Preference on Satisfaction and Commitment.” Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education Research, vol. 55, no. 2, 2008, pp. 139-54.
Nardo, Anna K. “Our Tangled Web: Research Mandates and Staffing Practices.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, vol. 11, no. 1, 2010, pp. 43-50.
Schell, Eileen. “Toward a New Labor Movement in Higher Education: Contingent Faculty and Organizing for Change.” Workplace. N.p., 2001 (4.1). Web. 8 Nov. 2009.
Street, Steve. “Don’t Pit Tenure Against Contingent Faculty Rights.” Academe, vol. 94, no. 3, 2008, pp. 35-37.
Thedwall, Kate. “Nontenure-Track Faculty: Rising Numbers, Lost Opportunities.” New Directions for Higher Education, vol. 143, 2008, pp. 11–19.
Torgovnick, Marianna. “How to Handle an Adjunct.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 33, no. 4, 1982, pp. 454-56.
Wyche-Smith, Susan and Shirley K. Rose. “One Hundred Ways to Make the Wyoming Resolution a Reality: A Guide to Personal and Political Action.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 41, no. 3, October 1990, pp. 318-324.