Reviewing three key areas of literature in our field (college choice, state policy, and faculty) the article identifies gaps that we can fill by reembodying and repoliticizing "choice," by which is meant moving beyond the individualized and "neutral" market logic in addressing the actions of collective entities in relation to…

This study considers a distinct case of a college outreach program that integrates student affairs staff, academic administrators, and faculty across campus. The authors find that social networks and critical agency help to understand the integration of these various professionals and offer a critical agency network model of enacting change.…

This paper presents two clarifying cases of socially oriented student entrepreneurship. The findings illuminate an overlooked organizational space located at the intersection of the public good and academic capitalist knowledge/learning regimes (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004) that provides students with the entrepreneurial agency to create social…

This paper introduces the emergent role of the state-sponsored student entrepreneur within the academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime. Drawing on two clarifying cases of such entrepreneurship, the study explores the shifting boundaries between public and private sectors, the creation of new circuits of knowledge, and the entrepreneurial…

This qualitative study of graduate employee unionization seeks to explore the critique graduate student organizers have of the contemporary academy. The number of unionized graduate employees has increased by 175% since 1990; close to 40,000 graduate employees are now unionized. Data were collected using a multisite case study approach, a method…

Content analysis of the collective bargaining agreements of 183 higher education institutions/systems found extensive managerial discretion and limited professional constraints regarding the use of part-time faculty, in appointment/release workforce actions such as retrenchment, and the ratio of part-time to full-time faculty. (Author/MSE)

The special consideration given to academics in American higher education creates a relatively closed political environment that increases higher education's resistance to change and diversification. However, since in this system the consumer has recognized rights, more study should be made of the interplay of consumers, academics, and political…

This discussion of costs of college administration offers explanations of escalating costs in different branches and levels of administration and looks at the analytical value of two sets of constructs: (1) internal position (organizational distance) and budgetary authority of administrators, and (2) relationship between internal administrative…

Examination of retrenchment clauses in the faculty union contracts at 42 colleges and universities focused on implications for tenure rights and the roles prescribed for faculty and administrators. Concepts of financial exigency and shared governance are highlighted. Contracts were found to provide faculty with a limited and reactive role during…

A social analysis of policy discourse on undergraduate education, through four reform reports, suggests that the ideas embedded in the reports are framed by the conception of the elite liberal arts college as the collegiate ideal, and value and advantage some social groups more than others. (Author/MSE)