If you are a part of a learning innovation or educator development community, chances are that you either know (or have heard about) Robin DeRosa. It was, therefore, big news (and a source of consternation) across our networks when Robin published a piece in her blog this October titled “I Lost My Job.” With the knowledge that many of our faculty and nonfaculty educator colleagues are navigating similar employment precarity, I asked if Robin would be willing to share her story with our IHE community.
Q: When I read your Oct. 19 post, I had two reactions. The first was that this is a story I’ve been hearing from many alternative academic colleagues. And second, I was surprised that someone as respected and accomplished as you was navigating the elimination of a position. Can you tell us what happened to your role (and others) at Plymouth State University?
A: New Hampshire has been 50th in the nation for public funding of higher education for years. Generally, less than 10 percent of the operating budgets for our now three state universities (it used to be four, but one has recently merged with our flagship) comes from state funding, and the rest comes from tuition, which explains why tuition is high and our students have the highest student debt load in the country.
This year, after yet another double-digit cut from our Legislature, my institution, Plymouth State University, really hit the end of the line. After more than a decade of austerity, we were informed that there was simply nothing left to cut without digging into our tenure-track faculty lines and our academic programs.
My Learning & Libraries director position is gone, along with 16 other tenured faculty lines that were lost when we took “voluntary” buyouts that were pushed on us as a better option than retrenchment, which was promised if we did not separate on our own. I have been at PSU for 25 years and the loss is personally devastating (financially and emotionally—especially the latter because I loved my work there so very much), but the real tragedy is more systemic; most of the separated faculty come from the humanities, and some humanities programs have only one tenure-track faculty member left.
It certainly looks like some of these programs will not be sustainable and also that contingent faculty will become the norm for staffing these programs moving forward. New Hampshire is a canary in some ways, but the public higher education coal mine is caving in across many parts of the country.
Q: The elimination of the director of learning role at PSU seems to be part of a larger story of disinvestment in areas of learning innovation, instructional design and educator development. The challenge is that we don’t have good national data, so everyone thinks that their story is unique and institution-dependent, when, in reality, we might be seeing a broader set of trends. What do you think? What are you hearing from colleagues at other institutions and what do you think is behind this disinvestment trend (if it is a trend)?
A: Certainly, teaching centers and the critical work they do are at risk as budgets dry up. Teaching centers are also often at the forefront of equity-based initiatives, which have been targeted for critique and attack federally and in so many states, including my own. But the broader tidal wave that engulfs this landscape is about the systematic devaluing of the public good in all of its forms, in favor of the privatization of education and the consolidation of educational power into the hands of corporate America (though this is a global trend, unfortunately).
As a result, if your work in higher education does not directly serve the market, you are likely to see your contributions questioned (at best), co-opted (and used against your core mission) or cut. The sad thing to me is that the “market” is now so squarely tied to immediate financial returns rather than the common good.
An example of this is that many public universities in states with critical childcare shortages are cutting their early childhood education programs (as my own university did) because there is no “market” for the major. Students with high tuition costs shy away from studying in the field because the pay is so low when they graduate.
Obviously, cutting this major is damaging to the health of our state (and to the economy, ironically, since young families don’t settle here due to the lack of child care), but instead of public universities and legislatures working together to incentivize areas of high public need, we quietly cut pathways to save the short-term dollars and make the growing large-scale social problems someone else’s issue to solve. What a waste of the incredible potential of public higher education.
Q: You have always had a broad portfolio of scholarly and consulting projects that have complemented (and brought value to) your roles at PSU. As you think about your next steps professionally, what are the opportunities that you are prioritizing? What are the consulting, part-time and potentially full-time roles that would be a good fit for your passion, expertise and experience?
A: I am very lucky that the terms of my separation allow me to continue to draw a salary for a period of time and, most importantly, to continue for a while to receive health insurance (I am the sole earner for my family, and I carry my child’s health insurance on my policy).
I am, of course, watching the ACA subsidy issue closely and fighting in solidarity with so many American academics—displaced and contingent—who need to buy insurance on the exchange. But despite the anxieties that accompany precarity, I am privileged to be able to reject the many job opportunities that pop up each day, inviting me to apply to the next glittering educational start-up (no doubt AI-powered) that is promising to fix what’s broken in education.
But the irony is, they are not only not fixing what is broken, they are a shining example of the brokenness itself. My dedication has always been to an educational vision that serves learners and our common humanity rather than the profit motive. It’s a hard reality that the spaces for this work in higher education are rapidly constricting. I hope we all will be able to push through to a time when we can get back to our good work together.
Meanwhile, I am working down at my town’s fire department, studying to be an EMT, which allows me to keep serving the community I love. I want to be very careful about my next steps in education; I have expertise and creativity that I want to share, but I also have a keen sense of what the pitfalls are for those of us who want to work in truly learner-centered ways. I am mostly looking for a team that is willing to stand strong and remain defiantly joyful in the face of incessantly debilitating counterforces.
