Who’s Ready to Take Risks for the Rewards of PSA?

Dr Lisa Corrigan of the University of Arkansas is doing what is expected of an academic. She is using her experience and expertise to engage with periods of deep social change. She has a vision of what higher education (HE) should be, including how it is meant to impact and be impacted by people. Given that HE is an important pillar of modern societies, the affected people are arguably every member of society. The battleground of social change in question is located in West Virginia, where its flagship R1 university has cut 28 programs from across its 355 majors and 143 of its 6,000+ full and part-time faculty. She is not alone in condemning what the consultants and administrators call, “rightsizing” the higher education institution (HEI). A wide audience has been following the case of West Virginia University (WVU), with many joining the local chorus of condemnation that includes: students, faculty, politicians, unions, taxpayers, even a notable from my neck of the woods, author Margret Atwood.

As part of her expert contribution, Dr Corrigan has offered threads of advice on X (Twitter) that help the affected to be better activists. It is one of these threads of advice and encouragement that forms the scaffold for this post. Screen captures will be provided so that her numbered insights, strategies, tactics and cheers can be connected to my activism in support of the study and adoption of the Professional Society of Academics (PSA) model for HE provision. This is a model that is meant to replace or be recombined with the HEI model of universities and colleges – the latter of which frames the activism which Dr Corrigan supports. [NOTE: Not all points in the X post will be addressed.]

#1 Exactly, so I keep voicing this viable, desirable response to the continuous demolition of HE under the HEI model. I sometimes feel like I’m exploiting the many, many similar cracks and collapses in the HEI model, pushing my alternative narrative, my alternative perspective on how to mitigate or correct the gross inadequacies of the HEI model we have inherited. But the reality is I created the model back when I was an MA student precisely because I saw the damage being done to HE and people around the world. So, even though I haven’t managed to change the course of this slow motion HE train wreck we have all been witnessing over the decades, I must continue to speak.

#2 Indeed, look at the 900-year history of HE in the west, with particular emphasis on the last 50 years. The question is which model can help us best navigate the inevitable ebbs and flows. I insist that it is not the current institutional model of universities and colleges. We have given it a very long try and it has generally been a failure, and even where it succeeds, under a model like PSA the failures might have been avoided and the successes amplified.

#4 This one has proved very elusive for me. I have addressed and tried to form relationships with those whom I expected to have interest in improving HE for their own interests or those that they purport to represent: unions and education associations, individual scholars of HE and politicians, students and faculty… Now, it might be something about me personally, but they have not been responsive and in not a few cases they have been down right hostile. Another possibility is that the HEI model is so embedded in the collect consciousness that people are unable to see beyond the institutional boxes and the conceptual confusion of HEIs (the means) with HE (the ends). As an academic and particularly as a philosopher, one thing that I have yearned for but have yet to receive is meaningful criticism of the model, which might then explain the tone deaf reception PSA has received.

#5 This highlights one of the major deficiencies of the HEI model – that is, its increasing invitation to unionization. Unions principally support dues-paying members, who, when “rightsized” drift into the unemployment ether beyond the university or college employer within which faculty unions are fixed, as the other side of the capitalist labor coin. Not only do unions fail to meaningfully take care of individuals like the 143 who have lost their jobs at West Virginia University (WVU), they are impotent to stop operational changes that HEIs now either embrace or entertain in response to economic, technological, or political forces; and they are utterly impotent to change the monopolistic nature of the HEI model which sequesters HE within its walls, leaving those like the 143 no viable options to earn a living in HE. PSA is not impotent in any of these regards, it is potent.

Further, PSA obviates the increasing need of donor funding for HE and those who work within (academics) or seek (students) it. If academics are professionals like lawyers, physicians, dentists, etc., then there is no need to seek philanthropic care for those axed by the institutional employers, since they can exercise their right to earn a living as an independent HE practitioner – not a union represented employee vulnerable to capitalist labor practices. Physicians or lawyer can and do work as employees of hospitals and firms, but the difference between these formal professions and academics is that professionals don’t have to. They are not similarly subjected to the sort of monopolistic hold universities and colleges have on the means of production and work in HE, so they can walk away and offer their expertise as independent practitioners. The PSA model makes this possible for the 143, for all academics. Imagine what benefits this offers HE and the people it affects.

#6 Yup, that’s what I am doing, aiming to work together with others to build a new, radically different future; and, yup, people seem to be afraid.

#8 The HE model I have developed can be applied to K-12 and the way things are going at this level of education, it could stand to adopt it. PSA is a sandwich much closer to that served by Mondragon University in the Basque Region of Spain, or the rare but real, co-operative charter schools in America.

The term “privatization” is more complex than many proponents of social justice seem to acknowledge. For instance, is there no difference between a private university that operates on capitalist (faculty) employment labor relations and one like Mondragon that is private but operates on (faculty) worker-cooperative socialist labor relations? Obviously, there is and we could add “for-profit” to the mix and the social justice differences would remain. PSA is a model that fits nicely in the capitalist or socialist frameworks and does not require complete displacement from the public sphere of influence/power; in part because the sort of profession designed by PSA requires founding legislation similar to that of the legal or medical professions. This means public oversight is not completely dissolved, but societal interests are placed in the public trust of the Professional Society of Academics.

#9 Clearly, I think the last claim is false. There absolutely is another way and as I have said, the model I offer can help in ways that the AAUP and other worker unionist, solidarity, support organizations cannot dream of helping – including the West Virginia Campus Workers and West Virginia United Student Union. As indicated earlier (#4 and #6), over the years, I have repeatedly reached out to such organizations, including the AAUP…roll tumbleweed graphic…

I want to help. The PSA model is a one-man labor movement or so it has seemed to me. I invite you to become a part of it.

#10 The PSA model completely removes the muzzle, by placing principal responsibility for stewardship of HE in the hands of academics and students, not institutional administrators, politicians, or private corporations. And yes, stop waving fingers of moral condemnation at individuals like Gee or the BOG of WVU. Looked at from the perspective of PSA, they are not the disease, they are merely a symptom.

Unfortunately, I think the structures that Dr Corrigan has in mind are those of the diseased and decaying HEI model. Clearly, I aim to do more than tweak and tape the HEI structures so that the model can get back in the game. I want to fundamentally change how the game is played, by introducing fundamentally different structures. HEIs are not HE and never have been. They are a structural means to an end, and they are inferior means to those offered by PSA.

#11 I’ll say it’s on-going, for at least four decades now and rooted in the 13^th century! And will continue until we start to make real, structural change, not the tweak and tape strategies, tactics, and aims that have left this obviously vulnerable and deformed institutional model in place.

#12 Also, read and teach about the history of HE and professions.

#13 Well, I partially agree. But actually, some faculty in some fields are experts in creating, reading and doing forensics on budgets, along with other experts in the history of HE and the professions, and micro-macro economics, education and labor law, pedagogy, social activism, and much more that can be used to help more fully shape and establish an alternative model like PSA. Yes, interpret and adapt budget documents, only do so with reference to models other than the institutional one you have unquestioningly inherited.

Here is some budget work on a national level I have done for the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Failure to do so limits responses to the ills of the HEI model to tacks like: “Look how much the President gets paid and how little frontline faculty and GAs get paid. This is unjust!” “Look how much the system suffers from administrative bloat. We need to reduce administration!” "Look how the government continues to divest in HE. It’s all corporate interests to them!”

First, such interpretations of institutional budgets are generated within a funding frame that is persistently insufficient for the HEI model and vulnerable to economic and political forces. Second, these budget interpretations continue to assume, as the model demands, that there be an institutional President and a body of administrators. This is never in question. It’s only a question of how much and how many. Recognize this. It is important if we are ever to escape the conceptual clutches of the HEI model we have inherited.

I have offered on X (Twitter) some cursory interpretations of the budgets at WVU and through the PSA lens shown how there is plenty of revenue from net tuition alone to operate, under the protection and direction of a legislated Professional Academic Society, an independent academic practice in such fields as education, languages, and communications – with no need for university Presidents or administration or other features common to the HEI model. But of course, I am not an expert in budgets, which is why I continue to extend invitations to those who are and those in any other relevant fields to apply their expertise to the PSA model. I’m a philosopher, what I can do is analyze the key concepts and then conceive outside the box.

#14 This is a prime example of the point I have just made. “Top-down” assumes the HEI model, where the “top” is the President and BOG – even though there is supposed to be shared governance – and the “down” is the faculty and students. By the way, with a proper understanding of PSA, you will see it is also a model of shared governance, only it has reduced the number of interested parties at the table (e.g., Presidents, administration, and BOG) and weighted the sharing toward those that are essentially relevant to HE (e.g., academics and students).

The “professors” are the frontline of service and PSA is designed so that they are also at the top – in concert with students and the wider communities we service. This is what a professional service model offers, not subordinate employment that must navigate top employer interests, ineptitude, and immorality for stewardship of the frontline service that professors provide. In a profession, compliance is with one’s self, as a participating member of the profession.

#15 Good idea, unless you’re in my position, offering a seemingly radical new idea – with centuries of historical basis! The tired complaints, charges, angles and narratives are easy to digest for the press and their mainstream audience. I continue to search for a popular outlet to publish the PSA model. If anyone has some ideas on where to publish, please let me know. I have various versions ready for popular consumption, from non-fiction to fiction.

#16 I’m trying! Again, a one-man show with amateur media production skills making diagrams, videos, even writing fiction to frame a narrative for the PSA model. Again, if anyone has talent in these areas, I’d love some assistance.

#17 Tell me about it. For obvious reasons, the response to PSA from tenured faculty has ranged from indifferent to inimical. What really stumps me though is the 60-70% of faculty who are on precarious employment contracts, who have no real hope of anything better, some of whom are feed with food stamps and live out of their cars, even they forego PSA.

Maybe it is because they are so entranced by the dream of a full-time tenure-track position. But this is a dream and with nearly nothing to lose, they still seem dumfounded by the idea that they could be independent professionals making two or three times the average income they do now, with numerous other benefits for themselves and others in the HE system. The same curiosity is found in the inert response that I get from student organizations that are supposed to champion the plight of students who also can’t afford to feed and shelter themselves or even go to college because the tuition is moving ever farther out of reach or putting them ever farther into debt. And don’t get me started again on the labor unions and organizations that are supposed to be the champion of the proletariat!

#18 Again, this advice is necessitated by the inherently adversarial nature of the HEI model, with its plethora of competing interests, which PSA substantially reduces. The admin of a professional society is formed from among the members of the society, who are elected, who serve fixed terms, who are (if necessary) removed by members, and so on. In such a professional structure, the members are my “buddies” alright, because they are my peers, subject to the same rules and discipline as I am, because they subscribe to and are subject to the same mission and vision for the HE sector as I am. Nothing like this is available to the HEI model and if it does happen it is by accident, not by structural design as it is in PSA. As a contrast, the faculty of WVU held a no confidence vote that overwhelmingly spoke for the removal of the President, but he is still there and very likely will remain until the end of his contract - all bark with no bite.

#19 I’m white. I’m male. I was an adjunct, semester-to-semester faculty member for ten years at all three universities in my hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, with my last stint of precarious work at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. This was not a sustainable career and so I left academia for high-rise window cleaning, which offered better stability and pay. But this was also not sustainable: I’m a teacher who craves intellectual stimulation and so after six years of hanging off the side of buildings, I took my savings and went to China to teach my subject of philosophy, or more specifically, critical thinking. On the other side of the world, I found full-time work in universities. I also found love. I opened a private education business with my partner, who is also a teacher. I was now steeped in teaching and intellectual stimulation. Together we grew the business. After six years of these part-employee, part-entrepreneur working conditions, because of changes in the political atmosphere of China and a now healthy saving account, we left for Ecuador and semi-retirement. It is there that you find me writing as an activist for HE reform.

Obviously, I can “shoulder hella risk” too. But risk and reward form a complicated complex. The assumption of risk is relative to reward – for instance, a frontline soldier with very little privilege might take the ultimate risk to save the lives of his comrades, receiving a posthumous award. In the less dramatic context of WVU, the reward seems to be a mix of salvage for the 143 faculty positions, 28 programs, and the anticipated loss of education opportunities for West Virginians, but also beyond Mountaineers where WVU is the thin edge of a wedge meant to undermine the people and purpose of HE on a much larger scale.

Seen in this light, it seems that those who care ought to personally risk quite a bit to secure these rewards, though not if the risk is very unlikely to result in the rewards. But of course, risk is not only measured by the probability of successful reward, it is also measured by the probability of being harmed and the degree of harm (or what is at risk).

So, to adapt a thought experiment from Peter Singer, if on a rainy day I risk ruining my new shoes by protesting the cuts at WVU, then this is worth it if the reward is (say) improved solidarity, a personal sense of empowerment and purpose, and the possibility of moving the needle, however slight, in favor of reversal or reduction of the cuts. Obviously, any risk-reward analysis is a highly personal and so varied calculation.

This cursory analysis in hand, four further observations are relevant in this context: First, Dr. Corrigan is a full professor, I suppose with tenure, and this does present a very low probability of being harmed by the institutional employer, the more so if labor union representation is involved – though not zero, especially as the HEI model continues to erode tenure, academic freedom, means of operations, and the like. How such a loss might impact her is not for me to say – maybe she detests her job. Second, though I have things of value to risk losing, I have even less chance of being harmed by my activism than does Dr Corrigan, since, unlike her, I am no longer an employee of one of these capitalist-leaning HE institutions. Third, regarding the 143 faculty of WVU who have lost jobs, who presumably have roots in West Virginia, and presumably will find it difficult to find comparable employment in the region, we might say they have nothing to lose by joining me in activism for PSA – even if it is as they hang off the side of a high-rise building. Fourth, the reward(s) sought by the various interested parties who have coalesced in and around West Virginia are principally local and marginally national in scope, but not global and not fundamental. I say this because the risks they take are for rewards granted from within the HEI model of universities and colleges - so, largely the status qua remains.

The rewards I seek with virtually no personal risk are changes for protection on a global scale, changes for protection on a fundamental level. The rewards that come from the sort of change and protection PSA offers has never been historically present in HE and certainly cannot hope to be achieved within the existing HEI model. I will not list here the rewards that can be expected from PSA – this blog is full of their exposition and defense – but I assure you that relative to such rewards the risks one should assume are very high. At the same time, for so many like the WVU 143 or those who have never even gotten a chance to work inside the monopolistic HEI citadels, there is nothing to lose.

Before this discussion ends, in the context of this 19th thread entry, I will identify one reward that PSA offers: All academics enjoy the sort of privilege that Dr. Corrigan and a very small minority do in the HEI model. In a professional service model, all licensed members (say lawyers or physicians) enjoy the same privileges, rights and responsibilities including: the right to earn a living as employees or independent practitioners, self and collective advocacy, control over their working conditions, responsibility for stewardship of the profession, and more – even if they don’t actually practice in their fields!

#21 Well, this blog is my bullhorn and I’d love if its content was contributed to by even one other person. But no matter what happens, I will continue to broadcast the benefits of this model, until as any good philosopher would do, I am convinced that it is not a viable and desirable alternative to the HEI model.

I sincerely praise and thank Dr Corrigan and the many others who have been activated by the events at West Virginia University. More specifically, I am thankful for Dr Corrigan’s published thread, as it has allowed me yet another opportunity to weave PSA into the discourse on ways to improve HE. If you are ready to take a risk with me or just engage in some intellectual exploration, please let me know.