Nate Kreuter

The 1980s were a consequential decade for universities. The marketization of higher education, the adjunctification of labor, and culture wars over curriculum transformed the landscape in a short period of time. The Battles of Texas traces the lived consequences of this upheaval by focusing on one influential institution: the writing program at the University of Texas at Austin.Drawing from university records, newspaper archives, and present-day interviews, Nate Kreuter and Mark Garrett Longaker provide an on-the-ground perspective of the radical creation of UT Austin’s writing program and the subsequent events that made national headlines: the mass firing of lecturers in 1985, the national debate over “multicultural” content in the first-year curriculum, and the divorce of the writing program from the English Department in 1992. Despite these pressures, however, the authors also reveal how writing program administrators at UT Austin exerted their own agency to resist economic and political forces in service of their students and adjunct lecturers. By highlighting the parallels between the 1980s and current labor and political pressures in higher education, The Battles of Texas offers a strategic perspective for academics and administrators today. Combining a narrative institutional history with a public digital archive, searchable and arranged in exhibits and in chronological annals, The Battles of Texas provides academics with the resources they need to survive in times of rapid transition.

The 1980s were a consequential decade for universities. The marketization of higher education, the adjunctification of labor, and culture wars over curriculum transformed the landscape in a short period of time. The Battles of Texas traces the lived consequences of this upheaval by focusing on one influential institution: the writing program at the University of Texas at Austin.Drawing from university records, newspaper archives, and present-day interviews, Nate Kreuter and Mark Garrett Longaker provide an on-the-ground perspective of the radical creation of UT Austin’s writing program and the subsequent events that made national headlines: the mass firing of lecturers in 1985, the national debate over “multicultural” content in the first-year curriculum, and the divorce of the writing program from the English Department in 1992. Despite these pressures, however, the authors also reveal how writing program administrators at UT Austin exerted their own agency to resist economic and political forces in service of their students and adjunct lecturers. By highlighting the parallels between the 1980s and current labor and political pressures in higher education, The Battles of Texas offers a strategic perspective for academics and administrators today. Combining a narrative institutional history with a public digital archive, searchable and arranged in exhibits and in chronological annals, The Battles of Texas provides academics with the resources they need to survive in times of rapid transition.

In cases where, in one language, a particular term is applicable to several professions, industries, etc. while the foreign equivalent varies according to the industry, etc. in which it is used, the particular branch of industry is noted in parenthesis in accordance with the "Explanations of Abbreviations and Signs" given at the beginning of the book. This reference has, however, been omitted where there can be no doubt as to the industry, etc. covered by the term. Expressions which are preferred, or are used almost exclusively, in the United States, are marked (A). I would like to sincerely thank all the individuals, institutions, firms, etc. for their generous as- sistance in placing their excellent and valuable material at my disposal. Their ready co-operation has enabled me to include in this dictionary a large number of technical terms which have not, to my know- ledge, as yet appeared in any dictionary devoted to Engineering, Agriculture, Commerce, or Communi- cations. The number of those who, by making valuable original contributions available to me, have added to the contents of this new edition, is too large to permit of all their names being recorded here.