Academia is a cult
[Music]
hi
i want to talk to you today about a cult
that is recruiting some of america’s
best and brightest young people
this cult has centers in every major
city and many small towns
and it keeps its victims for years those
who get caught in its clutches end up
coming out years later unemployed deeply
in debt
sometimes even homeless and physically
and mentally battered
what am i talking about i’m talking
about universities
universities that dangle the dream of
advanced degrees in front of smart and
talented people
with the promise of illustrious and
secure careers in academia
at the end of it they extract years of
effort tens or hundreds of thousands of
dollars in payment
only to eject those masters and phds at
the end
with job prospects self-esteem sometimes
even physical health and certainly
credit rating
virtually shattered how do i know this
because i myself am an escapee from the
university cult i’m a former tenured
professor
and department headed a big tent
institution and i’m sharing what i
saw as a phd student a faculty member
department head
and then as someone who left 10 years
ago to start a business called the
professor is
in now let me hasten to add when i say
universities indoctrinate smart students
into a cult
i don’t mean the fox news claim that
so-called leftist professors are
imposing marxism feminism and black
lives matter on our vulnerable
youth no what i mean is the professors
are selling the lie
that pursuing an advanced degree will
lead to a prestigious and secure
academic career
academia has not been a secure and
viable career since about the 1980s
because of 40 years of systemic
disinvestment
and with covid it has gotten
exponentially worse
between 2009 and 2018 almost all states
cut funding drastically
arizona cut by 55 percent
universities are now run on a corporate
walmart basis
cutting costs is the name of the game
and cutting full-time employees with
benefits is
absolutely the bottom line and just like
that just like walmart at universities
76 percent of faculty
are hired on a contingent precarious
basis
without benefits without full-time
secure positions
right now only two to seven percent of
people entering phd programs
will go on to get a secure tenure track
or tenured position
and yet almost every one of them goes
into these programs
believing they’re going to be the
exception and they are allowed to
believe that by their faculty members
and their advisors
and yet this graph shows in the field of
history the vast mismatch
between the phd’s awarded and the jobs
available for them
this information is not secret it’s
shared in the chronicle of higher
education the new york times
it’s everywhere but professors don’t
tell the truth about it
instead they like to engage in arcane
arguments about
should this be called an undersupply of
jobs or an oversupply of phds
but the stakes are very high 25 percent
of adjuncts are paid so poorly they
qualify for food stamps and welfare and
all of this
is funded by catastrophic debt grad
students
only constitute 15 of students but make
up 40
of debt grad school debt is the fastest
growing debt
and 25 percent borrow more than a
hundred thousand dollars
and full funding is no protection these
quote-unquote full-funding packages that
you departments offer
especially in the humanities and social
sciences they don’t cover
actual costs they are not pegged to
actual cost of living
so even students with full funding
packages still have to take out loans to
make ends meet
and of course covet has now caused a
staggering and unprecedented contraction
the greatest since the 1950s when the
labor bureau started keeping data
and so this uh situation i’m describing
is going to get exponentially worse in
the coming years
now you might ask if these students are
so smart why do they allow this to
happen
why do they enter this cult and why do
they stay
well first of all they’re flattered and
groomed
by their undergraduate professors for
whom the absolute highest praise is you
are so smart
you should go to graduate school and so
starry eyed and filled with hero worship
young students believe them and why
wouldn’t they so they go on
into phd programs like lambs to the
slaughter
and then once in those programs they’re
encompassed in groupthink
which ties identity to academic
achievement
only academic accomplishments are
legitimate everything else
is a failure and in fact
prioritizing financial compensation or
job security
is a betrayal of the religious ideology
and those who leave or try to do
something else are shamed
your very identity your sense of self is
tied up with
academic accomplishment exclusively so
students enter their programs but
they’re programs of gaslighting and
delusion
and suffering in poverty is not a sign
of failure but a sign of moral
righteousness self-sacrifice is good
martyrdom
is even better the most famous case of
course is
the catastrophic case of margaret mary
voiko an
83 year old adjunct in the field of
french who in 1983
died of a heart attack on her lawn after
being abruptly let go by duquesne
university
ironically a catholic university in
pittsburgh after 25 years of adjuncting
she said teaching is not a profession or
a career it’s a devotion a dedication
it should not be looked on as a job or
source of income
she died destitute and just last year
someone said to me karen teachers good
teachers give to their students till it
hurts
good teachers don’t look at the clock or
the bottom line
adjuncts take miserably low wages
because they love their students
unquote so this way of thinking is alive
and well at the present day
now love has entered our conversation
and that’s because
do what you love is the most perfect
ideological tool of capitalism
when you do what you love it hides the
fact that if we acknowledged all of our
work as work
we would set appropriate limits for it
demanding fair compensation and humane
schedules
as mia tokumitsu said in her book about
the do what you love phenomenon
so martyrdom in fact proves your purity
and the greatest victims those who are
the most in depth with the least job
security
for them the delusion of spiritual
superiority is really the only thing
left to cling to
now how do i know that because when i
left my academic job to start the
professors in
my business coaching grad students and
faculty
in employability and how to move on and
do
in their careers well i was called many
things but most of all i was called a
grifter
because to apply careerist thinking to
the holy mother church of academia
could only be a lie a cheat and a con
as some as an adjunct said about me just
a few months ago
i do think my adjunct job is morally
superior
to kelski’s in short
by helping people with their careers i
am apparently the donald trump of
academia
so consequently for anyone who tries to
leave it does feel like being cast out
in deep space
all alone rejected by everyone but it
should be clear by now it’s academia
that’s the grift
so what to do if you are in a graduate
program right now please know that your
choice to
pursue advanced degrees was an honorable
thing we need
people with advanced degrees desperately
to solve the urgent problems we’re
confronted with like global climate
change
immigration the rise of the right wing
and so on
the grift is when the risks of this
pursuit are misrepresented
and programs and professors gaslight
their students
so if you are currently a graduate
student no you can do something else
you don’t need institutional validation
you are already entrepreneurial
you have countless skills that you have
mastered on your path
your worth is not tied to either a
degree or an institution
or a particular career outcome
prioritizing a livable
income is an honorable choice you are
not becoming a monk
you do not need to take a pal a vow
of poverty you can reclaim your own
priorities
vis-a-vis the cult and some of those
might include getting paid for your work
living in a place you love not applying
to academic jobs
and remembering that you are not alone
there is support
a lot of support out there for those of
you who are students undergrad
students or parents of students please
ask this who’s teaching
your classes and where is your tuition
money going
because it’s not going to the teaching
faculty and tell your legislators to
adequately fund
higher education so in conclusion
when the spoken and unspoken messages
for people and phd programs that your
entire worth is tied to a career that is
no longer viable
know that you are being
told a lie ask that
higher education is adequately funded at
the state and federal level
and for all of you who are near the
academic cult you can reclaim your
autonomy
you can decide to do something else you
can declare the freedom
to move on good luck
[Music]
you