Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry (ALRA) is a peer-reviewed open access academic journal launched in 2016 by the Center for the Study of Academic Labor (CSAL) at Colorado State University and supported by The WAC Clearinghouse and Humboldt State University. The journal encourages ongoing research on matters relating to tenure and contingency in the academy, both nationally and internationally. Along with our center and web site, we offer a research home for those undertaking scholarship in areas broadly defined as tenure studies and contingency studies. To meet this objective, we invite a wide range of contributions, from the statistical to the historic/archival, from the theoretical to the applied, from the researched to the creative, and from empirical to essayist forms. Our editors and reviewers include social scientists, artists, and theorists specializing in labor issues.

We welcome scholarly articles, reports, policies, position statements, essays, organizing and advocacy toolkits, photographs, photographic essays, personal narratives, social science research, original art, artifacts of curated performance art, op-eds, reviews in print and multimedia formats, etc. We also welcome histories of academic labor efforts; for instance, if your institution or program has engaged in efforts to establish or improve practices and policies and would like to have a backup location for archiving the papers, please send them our way and we will work with you on creating a secure, digital file. If you do not see a genre mentioned that you are interested in pursuing, please contact the lead editors, Sue Doe and Sarah Austin (sue.doe@colostate.edu; sarah.austin@afacademy.af.edu).

Submissions should not exceed 10,000 words in length, including abstract, notes and citations. ALRA has no minimum required word count. Aligned with ALRA’s mission to encourage conversation among a broad range of stakeholders, we welcome shorter pieces, including briefs, on topics aligned with the journal’s mission and aims.

ALRA is interested in pieces concerning topics including but not limited to:

  • Diversity in higher education
  • Hiring practices
  • Labor policy and law as it affects higher education
  • Women and contingency
  • Faculty retention
  • Transformative practices, advocacy and activism
  • Case studies of labor reform
  • Student labor and student faculty relationships
  • “Slow professorship” and influential arguments about / characterizations of faculty life

If you are interested in becoming a reviewer, please contact the editors:
Dr. Sue Doe: sue.doe@colostate.edu

Dr. Sarah Austin: sarah.austin@afacademy.af.edu

 

Call for Proposals

 

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry (ALRA)

Issue 8: A Special Issue guest edited by Diana Silverman - Poverty in Academia

 

Approximately 40 percent of the professoriate is paid poverty wages, classified as “part-time” employees despite teaching a “full-time” course load, in positions with few or no employer-funded benefits.  Meanwhile, 58 percent of students were experiencing food insecurity, housing insecurity, or homelessness, in the year 2020, according to Temple University’s Hope Center for College, Community and Justice.  This poverty poses existential threats to the academic enterprise, above all student outcomes.  In an age of devastating climate change, war, social injustice, refugee displacement, and economic inequity, the poverty in academia impedes educating the electorate that determines policy, and, in this sense, academic poverty poses dangers to the human experience on earth. 

ALRA welcomes proposals for articles on faculty poverty; the intersections of educator and student poverty; the potential impact of the campus poverty crisis on global policy; the effects of campus poverty on student outcomes and experiences; the economics of poverty in higher education; the consequences of campus poverty in terms of the role of higher education in a well lived life and in the education of voters, as well as in terms of the place of higher education in society.

Please send proposals to special issue editor Diana C. Silverman, Ph.D., at argento235@alumni.princeton.edu

Schedule

February 2, 2024: Completed articles due to the editor.

March 2. 2024: Peer review process completed and directions for revisions are sent to the authors.

April 2, 2024: Revised final draft articles due to the editor.

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry (ALRA) is a peer-reviewed open access academic journal launched in 2016 by the Center for the Study of Academic Labor (CSAL) at Colorado State University. ALRA is supported by a generous grant from CSU Open Press. The journal encourages ongoing research on matters relating to tenure and contingency in the academy, both nationally and internationally. Along with our center and website, we offer a research home for those undertaking scholarship in areas broadly defined as tenure studies, contingency studies, and critical university studies. To meet this objective, we invite a wide range of contributions, from the statistical to the historic/archival, from the theoretical to the applied, from the researched to the creative, and from empirical to essayist forms. Our editors and reviewers include social scientists, artists, and theorists specializing in labor issues.

We hope that you enjoy Issue 7. Here’s the link if you missed it:  https://wac.colostate.edu/alra

The Center for the Study of Academic Labor and ALRA welcome varied genres, such as scholarly articles, reports, policies, position statements, essays, organizing and advocacy toolkits, photographs, photographic essays, personal narratives, social science research, original art, artifacts of curated performance art, op-eds, reviews in print and multimedia formats, etc., so long as they associate favorably with the Center and Journal’s theme. We also welcome histories of academic labor efforts; for instance, if your institution or program has engaged in efforts to establish or improve practices and policies and would like to have a backup location for archiving the papers, please send them our way and we will work with you on creating a secure, digital file. If you do not see a genre mentioned that you are interested in pursuing, please contact the lead editors, Sue Doe and Sarah Austin (sue.doe@colostate.edu;  sarah.austin@afacademy.af.edu). ALRA has no minimum required word count. Aligned with ALRA’s mission to encourage conversation among a broad range of stakeholders, we welcome shorter pieces, including briefs, on topics aligned with the journal’s mission and aims.


View Past Calls for Proposals