Academic Labor

The Challenges Faced by Adjunct Faculty

Jonathan D. Parsons, adjunct professor of philosophy at the College of DuPage, will be giving a presentation on the curricular and professional challenges faced by adjunct faculty at the upcoming Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA). (more…)

A Thoughtful and Thorough Academic Job Ad

What if I told you it was possible for an advertisement for an academic position to explain why the hiring department is hiring in a particular area, provide a profile of the kind of colleague the existing faculty are looking for, describe the work environments the successful candidate will find themself in, convey the values the department aims to promote, and deta..

APA Board Expresses Support for Grad Student Right to Unionize

“Whether unionization will best serve their employment interests and educational objectives and values is something that faculty and graduate students should be entitled to decide for themselves,” says the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association (APA) in a statement released yesterday. “It is thus the APA’s position that graduate students should ..

Compensate Graduate Students for Service Work (guest post by Carolina Flores et al)

The following is a guest post * by Carolina Flores (Rutgers), Milana Kostic (UCSD), Angela Sun (Michigan), Elise Woodard (Michigan), and Jingyi Wu (UC Irvine), graduate students in philosophy who comprise the organizing team of Minorities and Philosophy (MAP). (more…)

Philosopher-Created Research and Productivity Software for Philosophers

Jason Winning, who worked developing commercial database software for medical professionals before recently earning a Ph.D. in philosophy and cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, has created a free, open source “personal productivity/database application” designed to be especially useful to philosophers. (more…)

Flying Less, Videoconferencing More (guest post by Colin Marshall)

In the following guest post *, Colin Marshall, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Washington, proposes a modest step philosophy departments can take to become more environmentally friendly.

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Seven Principles of Humane PhD Advising (guest post by Eric Schwitzgebel)

The following is a guest post * by Eric Schwitzgebel (University of California, Riverside). It originally appeared at his blog, The Splintered Mind.

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Loyola’s Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Strike

Non-tenure-track faculty at Loyola University Chicago went on strike this morning, after two years of negotiations between between their union (Service Employees International Union Local 73 Branch, which they joined in 2016) and the university’s administration. (more…)

Leeds Declares Punitive Pay Measures Against Faculty; Philosophers Respond By Resigning As External Examiners

The University of Leeds has told its faculty and staff that they will not be paid while on strike, and will be docked 25% for each day, after they’ve returned to work, that they fail to reschedule class time missed during the strike, according to Leeds Live. (more…)

Why Are UK Academics Striking?

Since late February, professors and staff at UK universities have been striking over changes to their retirement plans. (more…)

University of Illinois Grad Students Strike Today

Graduate Students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are set to go on strike, starting this morning. (more…)

When To Engage With Harmful Ideas

Are some ideas so harmful or offensive that scholars should not work on them, or even bother to respond to them? And if so, how do we figure out which ones? (more…)

Plagiarist’s University Issues Criticism …of the Whistleblower

Last month we learned how philosophy professor Michael V. Dougherty (Ohio Dominican) and his students discovered and reported that Peter J. Schulz, a Professor of Communication in the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the University of Lugano (also known as Università della Svizzera italiana, or USI), plagiarized the work of philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny and Pope..

Philosophical Conflicts of Interest

As the discussion of funding in philosophy and its disclosure continues, it might be worth considering some related questions, prompted by this tweet from John Christmann, a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder:

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“Research Active Faculty” Criteria

(NOTE: I’m reposting this because there appeared to be problems with commenting on the original version.) A philosophy professor writes in with some questions about whether, and if so, how, various universities classify tenured faculty and distribute responsibilities among them: (more…)

Philosophy PhDs Worthless According To Proposed Immigration Point System

“Had I received this job offer under the newly proposed plan for immigration reform endorsed by President Trump, I’d have been deported back to Canada.” (more…)

New Faculty Salary Data

The 2016-17 edition of the American Association of University Professors’ Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession has been released. It provides a wealth of information about faculty salaries in the United States. (more…)

Does Referee Gender Make a Difference?

Once again, Jonathan Weisberg (Toronto), one of the managing editors of Ergo, looks at the journal’s data to see what, if anything, can be learned from it. This time, he focuses on what difference the gender of an article’s referee makes. (more…)

Influences on Faculty Salary

A new study reveals the effect that various factors, apart from scholarly productivity, have on faculty salary, according to a new study reported on by Inside Higher Ed. The data is for political science faculty, but probably displays a pattern common to most disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. (more…)

Who Is On The New APA Graduate Student Council?

The American Philosophical Association (APA) announced plans last fall to launch a graduate student council that would be responsible for “reporting to the board of officers on issues of interest, concern, and relevance to philosophy graduate students.” The council has 12 seats. Four positions will be filled by graduate students elected by a vote of the student asso..

A Broad Conception of Philosophical Skills (guest post by David Wallace)

The following is a guest post * by David Wallace, professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, on the skills an academic philosopher needs.

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Academia and Unselfishness

Academia is a selfish sport. From the time you begin graduate school, you are rewarded for self-absorbed fixations on your personal advancement and narrowly focused research… Opportunities are rare, time is short, and prioritizing yourself at the expense of others is encouraged, even as there is a veneer of service, public engagement, and commitment to your own s..

Philosophers Develop Free Recommendation Letters Service

Philosophers David Faraci (Georgetown) and Graham Leach-Krouse (Kansas State) have developed a new automated, secure, and free system for emailing confidential letters of recommendation. It’s called MARGY (Managing Academic Recommendations Gratis Yay). (more…)

Faculty on Strike at Public Universities and Colleges in Pennsylvania

Faculty at 14 public institutions of higher education in Pennsylvania are on strike owing to a failure in contract negotiations. According to Inside Higher Ed, the faculty had been working without a contract in place for 477 days. (more…)

The Job Insecurity of Philosophy Instructors: A Case Study

“I love being a professor. I have been a professor my whole life. I don’t know what I am going to do.” That’s Pamela Ryan, who has been a philosophy instructor at Morehead State University for 15 years. This past Friday she was called into the office of the Dean of the Caudill College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Morehead, M. Scott McBride, and told t..