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Browsing by Author "Shulman, Steven, author"

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    The costs and benefits of adjunct justice: a critique of Brennan and Magness
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-03-21) Shulman, Steven, author; SpringerLink, publisher
    In their controversial 2016 paper, Brennan and Magness argue that fair pay for part-time, adjunct faculty would be unaffordable for most colleges and universities and would harm students as well as many adjunct faculty members. In this critique, I show that their cost estimates fail to take account of the potential benefits of fair pay for adjunct faculty and are based on implausible assumptions. I propose that pay per course for new adjunct faculty members should be tied to pay per course for new full-time non-tenure track instructors or to pay per course for new assistant professors. That framework for adjunct faculty justice yields an aggregate cost range of $18.5 billion to $27.9 billion, one-third to one-half lower than the range computed by Brennan and Magness. Its opportunity cost would not be borne by students since students and faculty are complements, not substitutes, in the educational process. Instead it could be financed by reducing spending on non-educational purposes. Current adjunct faculty members would be protected from job displacement in this justice framework. The real obstacle to achieving justice for adjunct faculty is the priorities of university administrators, not budget constraints or opportunity costs.
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    ItemOpen Access
    Do right-to-work laws matter? Explaining the variation in union density among states
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2003) Hogler, Raymond, author; Shulman, Steven, author; Weiler, Stephan, Weiler, author
    Do right-to-work laws lower union density? This question is addressed with a cross-sectional model of the variation in union density among states. Control variables capture employer hostility to unions, social capital, and political ideology, so that the remaining effects of right-to-work laws are independent of state-to-state variations in social, cultural and political context. The study is unique in its use of state-level indices for employer hostility and social capital. The findings show that right-to-work laws exert a significant, negative effect on union density, with right-to-work states exhibiting union densities 6.6 percentage points lower than their otherwise identical counterparts.