Kevin R. McClure

Nov 27, 2024 | chronicle.com | Kevin R. McClure

Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a new column on how to improve the higher-ed workplace. Read the first essay, “Colleges Are Still Failing Their Employees.”There came a point in her recovery from thyroid surgery when Elizabeth Popp Berman questioned if she could continue being a professor. In the middle of teaching a class on research methods, Berman advanced the slide in her presentation and fell silent. “I couldn’t make sense of it,” she told me.

Oct 23, 2024 | chronicle.com | Kevin R. McClure

I’ve spent the past four years researching the higher-education workplace, sharing what I’ve learned along the way in essays and in a forthcoming book. And there are still so many issues to explore. But the truth is, one problem preoccupies my recent thinking more than others: Colleges still fail to adequately support faculty and staff members.

May 21, 2024 | chronicle.com | Adrienne Lu |Megan Zahneis |Kevin R. McClure |Brian F. O’Leary

To better understand the economic realities of the professoriate, The Chronicle embarked on a project to examine faculty members’ pay, and how purchasing power is affected by the cost of living, according to a county-by-county index. A Heavy Burden Debt of all kinds, particularly from student loans, is affecting the day-to-day finances and retirement preparedness of academic employees, a new report shows.

May 3, 2024 | chronicle.com | Kevin R. McClure |Kevin Gannon

A right-wing news site recently targeted staff members at several universities in Texas. The undercover “reporter,” posing as someone who supports diversity, equity, and inclusion, secretly video-recorded the staff members’ answers to questions about what was possible under Senate Bill 17, the new law in Texas that bans DEI programming, offices, and employees. The resulting video segment led to the suspensions of several staff members while their institutions investigated.

Mar 21, 2024 | chronicle.com | Kevin R. McClure |Pete Ryan

College employees have navigated a dizzying array of changes since the pandemic, but one thing has stayed largely the same: their paychecks. Poor compensation is a bedrock feature of working in higher education, as seemingly immovable and enduring as the main administration building. Although some institutions bumped salaries by modest amounts in a bid to attract and retain talent in the aftermath of the Great Resignation, pay for many employees remains astonishingly low.