THEY PRETEND TO PAY US, WE PRETEND TO WORK. Historiann evaluates the reaction of her colleagues to the assorted cost-cutting measures at her university.

I’ve noticed the growth of a kind of resignation in my department among the tenured faculty: why rush to get that second book out and go up for promotion–there’s no money in it? We’re all turning into Alfred E. Neumans captioned by “What–me bother?” We’re not inclined to line up for volunteer work, friends–not in a world where there are no raises, and the workload for regular faculty has increased because we can’t hire new colleagues. That’s Baa Ram U.’s fix for our budget troubles: no raises since ‘08, the caps on our classes have been raised (from 40 to 44 in upper-divsion undergraduate classes), and the service burden is heavier because we keep losing faculty to retirement and other unis, so the same workload just gets shifted around to fewer people.

The ambitious people and the risk-takers are willing to jump through the tenure hoops elsewhere; the people who develop institution-specific human capital are subject to hold-up, although they're capable of pushing back by opting out.

The conversation continues, elsewhere.

Interestingly, back in 2008 Tenured Radical and Dr. Crazy were at odds, but now they’re singing from the same hymnal. (Keep reading the long comments thread–Dr. Crazy has more to say, and many of you are represented there, I’m sure!)

I used a Soviet description of what worker solidarity became as the evil empire imploded, Historiann invoked Mad, no doubt somewhere John Galt is chuckling.