Sharp critiques from inside the academy's walls
More than seven in ten faculty appointments in American higher education now sit off the tenure track. Following one instructor's weekly commute across five institutions reveals what 'flexibility' actually means when it is imposed from above.
Presidential news cycles dwell on scandal and retreat, but a handful of campus leaders have delivered genuine structural reform. Their playbooks — on budget bloat, curricular drift, and accreditation peril — deserve wider circulation.
Sweet Briar, Corinthian, and other fallen institutions did not die suddenly — they bled out in plain sight while boards and accreditors looked away. A dispassionate autopsy of American university closures reveals a recurring pattern of enrollment denial, debt-fueled construction, and governance failure that most campuses still refuse to study.
From a shared basement office with four desks, one outlet strip, and a rotating cast of departments, contingent faculty keep the American university running. This essay argues that tenure-track reform conversations miss the point: the adjunct condition is not a symptom of higher ed's troubles — it is the load-bearing wall.