Academic Labor: Research & Artistry has released volume 8, a special issue on poverty in academia. Edited by Bruce Kovanen and Andrew J. Bowman, the new issue includes work by Harvey J. Graff, Bethany Hellwig, Alex Evans, Anwesha Chattopadhyay, Sheri Rysdam, Cathryn Molloy, Thomas Miller, and Charles McMartin.
Kovanen and Bowman introduce the articles in the special issue by observing, "From worsening working conditions to increasing food and housing insecurity to pressures on major selection and career trajectories, poverty’s impact on higher education cannot be overstated. Such changes in the academic workforce have been traced by labor unions like the American Federation of Teachers who estimate in recent reports that 75 percent of faculty are non-tenure track, a dramatic shift from early decades when those percentages were reversed. These changes have ushered in what Adrianna Kezer, Tom DePaola, and Daniel Scott refer to as the 'gig academy,' which they define as “a university that has become fully dependent on a patchwork of loosely connected contingent workforces to service both its central missions and its day-to-day operations” (36).