WINTER 2012 - National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and ...

Blue-Collar Teaching
Before him, in 1962, Michael Harrington’s The Other America: Poverty in the
United States talked of a hidden America of the underclass (1962/1997). Before
Harrington, President Roosevelt in his 1936 inaugural speech spoke of one
third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished. We are a nation divided
by class, overlaid with other differences such as race and gender. Ernst Bloch
(1977) once argued that certain social contradictions persist over time, even if
they manifest themselves differently in different epochs. His point is that racism
and sexism have always existed, but so have class distinctions. But class is the
real issue. Take away the economic sanctions or power that sexism and racism
possess, and much of the sting of these two forms of discrimination is removed.
Many studies point to the growing gap between the rich and poor in the
United States (Congressional Budget Office, 2010; DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, &
Smith 2011; Yen, 2011). Objectively, rich and poor exist in America, although
few want to admit they are anything but part of the middle class (Hacker, 1971).
Kennedy and Schultz (2011, pp. 62–64) describe class—along with race, gender,
region, and religion—as one of the major fault lines in American politics. Class
has often been used to divide America, or it has served as a rallying cry or point of
debate in numerous policy issues ranging from tax cuts to welfare to labor policy.
CLASS AND THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
Many factors explain why class is overlooked in American politics. But why
in the university, and why among professors, are class distinctions often invisible?
There are two basic reasons. One is the push for universities to become marketdriven
entities; the second is the class nature of the professorate.
Market-Driven Education
According to Schultz (2005), the fiscal crises of states have recently
pushed higher education to develop market-driven curricula. From a high in
the 1960s and early ’70s when states and the federal government provided
generous funding to expand their public systems to educate the baby boomers,
state universities now receive only a small percentage of their money from the
government. In 2004, the State of New York constituted only 29% of SUNY’s
funding and 31% of CUNY’s (New York State Public Higher Education
Conference Board, 2004). By 1998, New York was spending more on its prisons
than on higher education (Gonnerman, 1998). In 1991, states provided 74%
of the funding for public universities; in 2004 it was down to 64%, and state
systems in Illinois, Michigan, and Virginia were down to 25%, 18%, and 8%
respectively (Dillon, 2005).
The fiscal crisis of higher education has produced the corporate university.
Colleges increasingly use corporate structures and management styles to run
the university (Bok, 2003; Geiger, 2004; Washburn, 2005). This includes
abandoning the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) shared
Journal of Public Affairs Education 75