Every discipline has its own specialized language, its membership rites, its secret handshake. In its most benign and neutral definition, jargon signifies "the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group." More often, however, the jingly word that Chaucer used to describe "the inarticulate utterance of birds" takes…

Scholarly groups have long served as hubs of academic life and the embodiments of their disciplines, but they face uncertain and divergent futures. Some disciplinary associations are struggling to remain relevant and financially viable as demographic and technological changes threaten their traditional sources of revenue. The core of their…

Describes how, as adjunct professors flock to unions, they face a choice: Join with full-timers, gaining strength in numbers? Or go their own way, to keep an independent voice? (EV)

Describes faculty's efforts to unionize at Sage Colleges in Troy, New York, including legal hurdles (the Supreme Court's decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University), reasons cited by faculty for the union effort, and administrative reaction. (EV)

Some 175 Black professors have established the National Congress of Black Faculty to deal with issues such as the recruitment and retention of Black faculty and the problems Black faculty members encounter in trying to undertake or publish research. (MLW)

The National Association of Scholars, a three-year-old college faculty association, promotes the study of Western culture and offers a forum to professors who have felt inhibited from questioning affirmative-action programs, required courses on ethnic diversity, and other issues whose advocates are increasingly described as "politically…

Describes how, after a stint as an adjunct professor that made her feel "powerless," Linda Cushing went from union foe to labor activist. (EV)

Explores whether commerce and academic collaboration can coexist as Universitas 21, a group of 17 universities on several continents, puts years of planning to the test in an online education venture. Faculty unions fear a lack of quality in the venture. (EV)

Describes how the University of Akron's board of trustees reacted to a newly formed union by substantially reducing the faculty's decision-making role. (EV)

Describes how coaches in Pennsylvania's state-college system have formed a union for more bargaining power. (EV)

Discusses the increasing movement toward organization of part-time college faculty, graduate students, and full-time faculty members who are off the tenure track, describing activities of the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor and the California Part-Time Faulty Association. Notes that despite active organization on both coasts, the movement…

Administrators at several public institutions have filed complaints with state labor relations boards, claiming that their faculty have managerial status and should be barred from collective bargaining, as in a 1980 Supreme Court case concerning the private Yeshiva University. (MSE)

Describes how, at community colleges in California, faculty unions play a big role in who becomes a trustee, which can spell trouble for presidents. (EV)

On campuses around the country, part-time and temporary instructors are pushing for power, and many see unions as the most likely way to get results. At issue are salaries, benefits, terms of appointment, etc. (MLW)