THE ACADEMIC JOB MARKET. Lots of new posts from SCSU Scholars here, here, and here, from Invisible Adjunct here, here, and here, and at Econ Log, who asks, "In another industry, if there were an excess supply of workers, a competing firm might offer a lower wage in order to cut its costs. Why does this not happen at colleges and universities?"

In a way, it does. The research enterprise relies heavily on graduate assistants and, in some disciplines, adjuncts, to do most of the scut-work (photocopying in libraries, grading papers, teaching introductory courses -- that's a mistake in itself, but that rant comes later tonight, but not serving on committees or providing self-studies and assessments (find those rantssuch here and here)) and that's at the heart of the conversation in progress. More to come on that after the current wave of thunderstorms clears out.