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People with Power Pressuring People without Power

I recently wrote on the Northwestern football team unionization vote and the larger questions attached to it. The push for unions in American institutes of higher education, however, is not limited to its sports programs. On Wednesday, May 14, Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota hosted a debate for union leaders and administrators to present their cases for and against the unionization of contingency professors at Macalester. Such a push for unionization isn’t unique to Macalester; similar movements have been successful at Tufts, Northeastern, Georgetown, George Washington, American, and most recently, nearby Hamline.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a “contingency” professor refers to an instructor who is not on a track for tenure. For those unfamiliar with that term, a “tenured” or “tenure-track” professor is a full-time professor with benefits and job security. A contingency professor, of course, is an adjunct with no benefits and rarely more than a year-to-year contract. The plight of adjunct professors is a hot topic in academic now, but an article in Salon offers an entertaining summary.

I’m going to refrain from projecting a strong opinion in this case, much like I did when I wrote about football players at Northwestern, for the simple reason that I don’t have enough information to do so. It’s a complex issue with many important variables; without such information at my disposal, the best I can do is listen, read, and process.

However, the serious concern that I have seen in both cases is the proclivity of what I’ll call authoritative bullying. At Northwestern, most of the football players who voted on April 25^th were confused at best or afraid at worst. Confused as to what changes would occur if a union were to be enacted. Afraid of losing playing time or worse (that massive scholarship that NU football players get). Why? Because all authority figures in their world—former NU president, current head football coach, and many other powerful people in the Northwestern community—pressured them to vote against unionization.

My sister is a former tenure-track faculty member at Macalester, who left to pursue a full-time writing career, but is recently back to teach periodic courses. She’s one of the fortunate few in academia for whom things worked out. She got a prestigious, tenure-track position. When she left, she did of her own volition (and much to the dismay of her peers who envied her position). When she returned, it was for fun—not out of need. And yet when she spoke up in support of unionization for contingency professors at Macalester at the aforementioned May meeting, she was summarily shushed. Administrators, it turns out, aren’t the biggest supporters of the unionization of contingency faculty.

I’m a super college nerd. By that, I mean that I love higher education and the culture on intellectual college campuses so much that I read about them voraciously, envision attending hundreds of them myself, and work with countless students, helping them find their best fit schools. Macalester has long been one of my favorite schools. It’s a PhD placement factory, underlying its intellectual atmosphere and the personal investment in undergraduate students that most faculty members hold. It’s a liberal place that is a hotbed for political activism, social justice, and in short, equality. Add in its urban location and ambitious student body, and its #10 overall ranking in my personal rankings makes a lot of sense.

I don’t know if unionization is the best way to improve the situation of contingency professors, but there is one thing that I do know. Contingency professors are abused. And when people in power use that power to intimidate those without power, I begin to question the integrity not only of those administrators but also of the institution. For Northwestern and Macalester, unquestionably two of my very favorite schools, to feature prominently in this conversation—albeit in very different circumstances—deeply saddens me.

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Northwestern and Unionizing College Athletes

Throughout much of the early part of 2014, my alma mater has drawn headlines across the collegiate sports landscape for its push toward the unionization of college athletes. Former quarterback Kain Colter became the unofficial leader of this move by Northwestern athletes, validated by Chicago’s National Labor Relations Board, to officially recognize their status as employees of the university.

Northwestern has fought back. From former president Henry Bienen to head football coach Pat Fitzgerald, the authority figures at Northwestern University encouraged football players to vote against unionization on the April 25^th vote. (The results will not be made public for some time.)

There are numerous serious questions at hand here. On one side, yes, it’s clearly unfair that athletes spend far more than the 20-hour per week maximum set forth by the NCAA and risk—and often suffer—life altering injuries all while generating enormous revenue for a university and are compensated with only a scholarship.

Now, at Northwestern and peer schools like Stanford and Duke, a full scholarship is worth around $60,000 annually. That’s no small amount of money. But what about future medical bills and medical conditions that result from injuries suffered as a collegiate athlete? Especially with the recent publicity of the long-term effects of concussions, this is a very real, very scary situation—especially for football players. Apparel companies make serious cash through jersey sales, always bearing the number of a few star players from that years’ team (everything but the name), but that player sees no profit from any and all uses of his (sometimes her, but still usually his) likeness.

My last parenthetical reference brings up problems from the other side. If compensation for athletes is tied to the revenue they bring in, what happens to the non-revenue sports? At present, men’s football dominates the money scene, with men’s basketball, the only real competitor, a distant second. What happens to women’s lacrosse, which is the primary sport of which NU alumni can be truly proud? What happens to the wrestling program? The tennis teams? Most women’s sports? Title IX, passed in 1972, was a triumph for the women’s rights movement and applies in NCAA athletics by requiring equal resources and scholarship money to be distributed among men and women. The gains in equality here would be put to the test if compensation for college athletes becomes tied to the revenue they bring to the school. Henry Bienen even suggested that places like Northwestern might cease to fund college athletics.

Northwestern Athletic Director Jim Phillips recently shared his opinions with ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg, a classmate of mine and fellow Wildcat, on the problems that have been exposed through the Colter-led union push as well as on the unionization of college athletes. I’ll write more about this pressure from authority figures not to rock the boat in the future, but Phillips at least recognizes the issues illuminated and agrees that changes must be made. I don’t know of a clear answer here, but what I do know is that Colter’s movement has opened eyes to serious problems in the NCAA’s current mode of operation, and I’m proud that Northwestern is the place where this movement began.