American public universities have assumed business-minded practices and norms that more closely align with the goals and values of corporations than social institutions charged with creating and disseminating knowledge. One consistent strategy to lower costs involves faculty labor. Institutions have outsourced educational missions to a largely contingent workforce to decrease instructional costs; over the last two decades, the number of adjunct or part-time faculty now comprises 70% of all faculty. As a result, policies have decreased instructional costs and provided administrators with increased flexibility to respond to student demands. However, research indicates compromised student outcomes, less shared governance, and faculty work–life pressures that can undermine commitment, motivation, and professional identity. The following literature review examines the locus of academic capitalism and faculty labor, theorizing how faculty labor policies infer consequences for equity, inclusion, and social justice in higher education.

The key to doctoral student persistence lies in the relationship between the student and their advisor. This study aimed to investigate doctoral students’ perceptions of mattering to their advisors within the context of their college and to determine how these perceptions influenced their commitment to degree completion, employing a qualitative multiple-case study design. Through the use of semi-structured interviews and observations, ten doctoral student participants across two academic colleges at a doctoral-granting research university in the western United States was obtained to understand their perceptions of mattering, using the three dimensions of attention, importance, and dependence. This study found that students who had more interactions and stronger relationships with their advisor also had a heightened perception of mattering, thus resulting in a stronger commitment to degree completion.