Mayan predictions for the end of the world aside, the years ahead are likely to be quite different for higher education than the past 100 years.  As our holiday gift to you, we have put together this anthem for the end of higher education as we know it.  Sing along!

Please sing to the tune of The End of the World As We Know It by R.E.M.  If you’re not familiar with it, you can see a video of R.E.M. singing it and/or read the original lyrics. 

The End of Higher Ed As We Know It

That’s great, it starts with a MOOC quake.

Talk and tape, cost defrayed, and Science Guy is not afraid.

Eye of a hurricane, it’s unclear who will reign.

We want it for free, budgets stretched wildly.

Go online faster now, get more know-how.

Ladder start to clatter with fear that adjuncts matter.

Fire in a wire, course gurus need to hire.

Creativity sparked, new funding earmarked.

Seems blurry and coming in a hurry

With the provost breathing down your neck.

School by school dive in now, edX, Udacity.

Liberal arts in the dark? Fine, then.

Uh, oh, overflow, class askew, TA new, but it’ll do.

Save yourself, education, improve the nation.

Present seems absurd, students with dreams deferred.

And the left and the right.  Right.

You technologic, patriotic, change, strange.

Bubble here?  Not quite so clear.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.

And I feel fine.

Here’s wishing you a very Happy New Year!

All the best,

Margaret and Dayna

At least, that&rsquos what I&rsquom attempting to keep telling myself.

Cash and salaries in academia are hot topics appropriate now, as the AAUP just released its annual salary report. My institution has a couple of issues they can be proud of: a higher percentage of each complete-time and tenure-track faculty (more than 75% total-time, rather than the other way close to) and over 90% salary parity amongst male and female salaries. But, as the chart exhibits, we are &ldquofar under median&rdquo when it comes to salaries at all ranges.

But I was mainly struck by how higher the instructor salaries look to be. Did that include rewards? If not, how was it that the regular salary was so substantial, or rather, so much increased than my salary? I was under the impression that there weren&rsquot raises for instructors for merit or promotion, nor have salaries risen over at least the most current past. Does that imply that the base or commencing salary stayed stagnant when raises have been awarded? Or that there is, in reality, a tiered technique, even at the instructor degree?

I know that salaries are a hot topic on our campus, even just before the AAUP numbers had been released. Faculty and the administration are making an attempt to figure out how to pay faculty at a degree that is on par with comparable institutions, regardless of the cuts in the money we are receiving from the state. But I wonder the place instructors fit into the discussion. How are we rewarded for the perform that we do?

Because I perform for a public institution, all salaries are public, but that doesn&rsquot suggest that they are straightforward to find. Fortunately (or probably not), a single of my husband&rsquos colleagues showed us the place we could simply search a database of salaries at our institution (as well as other state universities). Turns out, I&rsquom the third-lowest paid faculty member at the university. I say this due to the fact I know that the support staff make even much less. Look for yourselves.

On the 1 hand, I can recognize as I am 1 of the most up-to-date hires but on the other, I was led to feel that we didn&rsquot get raises based mostly on seniority. My issues aren&rsquot with my colleagues or even my institution it&rsquos the lack of transparency on problems of salary, above-all, in higher education for these of us who are off the tenure-track. The Adjunct Project exhibits that there is a need for this type of fundamental information, but there also wants to be data on how raises are awarded, base salaries are made a decision, and whether or not there is any space for negotiation. Has encounter been taken into consideration? Degrees earned?

Instructors are in a odd place: on the one particular hand, we&rsquore supposed to be grateful that we&rsquore not adjuncts, thankful for rewards, and so on, etc, etc. But we also remain silent on how much we make, practically as however we feel that any incremental boost we get might be found and taken away. Numerous people worry that talking about salaries will breed resentment, but that&rsquos used to preserve us in the dark about what&rsquos going on, salary-wise, at our institutions. &nbsp

Right now, I&rsquom genuinely coming to terms with the truth that I work too. Damn. Hard.