In "Working-Class Women in the Academy," Laura Weaver explains how her working class background affected the attitudes she developed toward members and the elements of the middle-class academy. Weaver says she considers education a privilege, something that must be earned. She holds a particular empathy for working-class students who know that education is not something they can take for granted. Her experience has sensitized her to the importance that members of the academy attach to socioeconomic and educational background. For scholars specializing in communication studies, the sense of conflict in the academy is strong. Michelle Tokarcyk and Elizabeth Fay, editors of "Working-Class Women in the Academy," contend that institutional values become discriminatory when they require working-class women to assume a hefty financial burden and maintain a facade of financial well being. Tokarcyk recounts several personal stories about anxiety: anxiety about graduate school expenses, the job search, and an empty refrigerator. After struggling to complete her education, Tokarcyk found it doubly difficult to meet living expenses because she had monthly loan payments to make. During her job-hunting days, Tokarcyk had to apply for food stamps to defray the costs of dressing for success and interviewing for positions. These women face a crisis in community. In order to become part of the academy, they are asked to shoulder unreasonable financial burdens and at the same time to reject a value system with which they grew up. (TB)