Over half of Americans go to some college and now most of the teachers they have do not have and will never have tenure. What does that mean for what they can and do teach and how they teach it? What does that mean for the political activities that they can afford (literally) to support the students in (like the encampments where we noticed it was all tenured faculty who were out there)? Etc. The lack of tenure has created an overall campus academic freedom collapse that affects courses and campus activities alike.

Eva-Maria Swidler is an environmental historian with particular interest in the fields of historical theory, agricultural studies, and world political economy. Her writing has appeared in the popular press and a wide variety of academic publications. Most recently she co-edited The Routledge Handbook of the Gig Economy, coming out in October of 2022, and authored a chapter in Platform Labour and Global Logistics: A Research Companion, forthcoming in early 2023, also from Routledge. She has taught at several colleges and universities and has a particular interest in alternative pedagogy and the philosophy of learning.