Lean Semesters: How Higher Education Reproduces Inequity

Critical University Studies

by Sekile M. Nzinga

Addressing in depth the reality that women of color, particularly Black women, face compounded exploitation and economic inequality within the neoliberal university. More Black women are graduating with advanced degrees than ever before. Despite the fact that their educational and professional opportunities should be expanding, highly educated Black women face strained and worsening economic, material, and labor conditions in graduate school and along their academic career trajectory. Black women are less likely to be funded as graduate students, are disproportionately hired as contingent faculty, are trained and hired within undervalued disciplines, and incur the highest levels of educational debt. In Lean Semesters , Sekile M. Nzinga argues that the corporatized university―long celebrated as a purveyor of progress and opportunity―actually systematically indebts and disposes of Black women's bodies, their intellectual contributions, and their potential en masse. Insisting that "shifts" in higher education must recognize such unjust dynamics as intrinsic, not tangential, to the operation of the neoliberal university, Nzinga draws on candid interviews with thirty-one Black women at various stages of their academic careers. Their richly varied experiences reveal why underrepresented women of color are so vulnerable to the compounded forms of exploitation and inequity within the late capitalist terrain of this once-revered social institution. Amplifying the voices of promising and prophetic Black academic women by mapping the impact of the current of higher education on their lives, the book's collective testimonies demand that we place value on these scholars' intellectual labor, untapped potential, and humanity. It also illuminates the ways past liberal feminist "victories" within academia have yet to become accessible to all women. Informed by the work of scholars and labor activists who have interrogated the various forms of inequity produced and reproduced by institutions of higher education under neoliberalism, Lean Semesters serves as a timely and accessible call to action.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published October 13, 2020

Reviews

[haleykeg · Rating 5 out of 5]

ok so this turned out to be more of a long scientific article than it did a book, both in organizational structure and language, but I found it a really powerful read once I put myself into the more academic mindset! glad I finally was able to get a copy to read. put into stark contrast the differences between people getting funded "tuition free" phds (like mine) and those paying for their own research + school + living while pursuing them. and, I learned a lot about the adjunct faculty job market I did not know. made me reconsider a mental frame of higher education leading to a linear improvement in social+economic possibilities for all. definitely want to read more in this area of research, because parts of the nuances about the ways neoliberalism has affected academic dynamics definitely went over my head.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nzinga's book is a must-read for anyone interested in the state of academia today, particularly in the plight of contingent faculty. Nzinga rightly points out the whiteness of most accounts of adjunct and contingent labor, and provides a rich sociological account of how Black women have been left out of these narratives. Her central thesis is that the academy produces inequality, rather than rectifying it. Backed with statistics and many interviews with contingent Black women in the academy, her thesis shows how Black women pay the greatest cost for higher education, literally and metaphorically. She ends by highlighting the ways that these Black women theorize their own experiences and the current state of academia. Nzinga's book should be read by everyone working in higher education today.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful exploration of how universities are primed by neoliberalism to exploit Black women in academia.