This post continues the thread of choice quotes from Marc Bousquet’s How the University Works.

From “Introduction” (44):

Late capitalism doesn’t just happen to the university; the university makes late capitalism happen. The flexible faculty are just one dimension of an informationalized higher ed — the transformation of the university into an efficient and thoroughly accountable environment through which streaming education can be made available in the way that information is delivered: just in time, on demand, in spasms synchronized to the work rhythm of student labor on the shop floor. The university has not only casualized its own labor force; it continusouly operates as a kind of fusion reactor for casualization more generally, directly serving the casual economy by supplying it with flexible student labor (that is, by providing flex workers with the identity of “student”), normalizing and generalizing the experience of casual work. The casualization of the higher education teacher has been accompanied by the wholesale reinventing of what it means to be an undergraduate: the identity of “student” has been disarticulated from the concept and possibility of leisure and vigorously rearticulated to contingent labor. In the twenty-first century, “being a student” names a way of work. The graduate employee understands that the gen-x and millenial structure of feeling proceeds from the generational register of the economic order, insofar as casualization colonizes the experience and possibilities of “youth,” cheerfully extending the term of youth and youthful “enjoyment” into the fourth decade of life — because youth now delimits a term of availability for superexploitation.

This post continues the thread of choice quotes from Joe Berry’s Reclaiming the Ivory Tower.

From “Getting Down to Work” (114-5):

Our years of schooling tend to convince us that the best way to change anything is to learn all we can about it and then write up our findings and conclusions in the most balanced, rational, complete, and detailed way we can. We have been conditioned to think that finding the full truth about something, whether in our own academic field or our employment situation, will make us free all by itself. Unfortunately, this is not the case. My father, a teacher for over forty years from secondary to graduate school levels, used to toll me that too much formal education tended to make people lose their common sense. He blamed formal education for the fact that it took most teachers until the 1960s and 1970s to realize they needed a union when most carpenters had figured it out by 1900 or 1910. The idea that individually knowing the truth would make us free, without any collective action on our part, was an example, to him, of that loss of common sense. Luckily, even the “overeducated” can still learn, albeit sometimes painfully and slowly. The key to this learning is doing it together.

So, your first step is not to study and write an article. The first step is to find a partner. Combining efforts with another person is much more than doubling your own power and resources. You not only generate ideas and energy from another person, you start to build the base for a worker organization, mutual help and solidarity between fellow workers. This relationship is what makes it possible to keep going when we’re discouraged, helps us avoid the mistakes we can make when angry, and gives us a wider network of people to relate to than any of us have individually. Your second step is to form a committee, even if only a committee of two. The failure of many of our colleagues to understand this is one reason why more has been written about our situation than has been done to change it. Helena, my spouse and (non-tenure track) colleague, tells the story of how, soon after she got actively involved in her AFT local as a California community college part-time English teacher and writer, she was told by one of her mentors, “Writing is not organizing.” It took her a while to figure out what that meant, but she came to embrace it. Of course, we do need to write: articles, newsletters, books, leaflets, picket signs, e-mails, contracts, grievances, and even manifestos. But what moves people into action isn’t writing per se but the communication that builds relationships and makes information meaningful. Writing is part of that communication, but not the only part.

I am not the top tech guy I know. Still, when I talk to colleagues or friends about some new tech tool, many of their faces go blank. As most folks know, talking tech can often lead to frustration and tension when the parties involved have differing levels of knowledge. To ease this tension, Web Worker Daily has put together a useful list of tips for dealing with folks who are not as tech savvy as you may be. Sure, they may not all apply — or they may seem extremely basic — but they are good reminders before heading into any meeting or orientation that has an audience.

Courtesy of Web Worker Daily, HP provides a collection of free templates for numerous types of business documents. There are plenty of documents adjuncts can use in their own personal and professional lives as well as in the classroom, including calendars, flyers, letterheads, and business cards.

Courtesy of Librarian in Black, EDUCAUSE’s concise, clear, and useful tips about using FLICKR. If you’re thinking of using this site for your class — or even personal or professional development — reading this as a basic introduction or foundation could help you make the most of your time.

The Chicago Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor has published a handbook about unemployment benefits. You can download the pdf for free at the linked site, or you can order a hard copy directly from the site for $5 plus $2 shipping. Either way, you’ll be getting some essential information about your rights to collect unemployment and how to engage in the process.

Again, if you have ever wondered how or why you, as an adjunct, should get unemployment and how to go about that process, this booklet is a great place to start!

A big thank you to COCAL for putting this out!

The folks over at the Academic Productivity blog have a great post about keeping your ideas and writings organized. Like all suggestions, this is worth testing before giving it your full commitment. If you are on summer break like I am, then this is the perfect time to try out new organizing methods without the added stress of classes and grading.

Filing for unemployment is not one of my favorite things to do. However, each time I file I resent the process less and less. When I filed this season — nearly a month ago — it was actually pretty easy. As I expected, the state wanted a follow up call to confirm my information. The state employee was actually friendly! I was rather astonished, but I was also grateful.

Regardless, I have still not received my first check even though I filed a month ago. Why? Because some of the information I filled out was contradictory according to the state. So, I had to file the same form again. I am still waiting for the check. Unfortunately, I did not follow my own advice and make a copy of the form I sent in. Foolish me. If I had, I would be able to locate what they were talking about. And in spite of how I rack my brain, I do not grasp how the information I gave them was contradictory. Alas, maybe some day I will decipher the employment department’s thinking process.

Last year, when I was first going through this process, I had no idea these kinds of delays took place. I did not plan ahead, and my finances were not ready for this kind of problem. This year, I tried to plan ahead and have some reserve cash just in case the state delayed my pay. And they have. And my life has been less stressed as a result of my foresight.

So, my gentle advice to you is to document everything and try to have a couple hundred bucks socked away somewhere. If you do, then the checks will probably arrive on time. But if you don’t, more than likely the state will want follow up interviews. I know it sounds pessimistic of me, but dealing with large bureaucracies is a matter of patience, perseverance, and long-term planning.

Inside Higher Ed just published a great piece by an adjunct about his 20-year quest for a tenure track position. Don’t miss it!

This post continues the thread of choice quotes from Marc Bousquet’s How the University Works.

From “Introduction” (26-7):

Nearly all of the administrative responses to the degree holder can already be understood as responses to waste: flush it, ship it to the provinces, recycle it through another industry, keep it away from the fresh meat. Unorganized graduate employees and contingent faculty have a tendency to grasp their circumstance incompletely — that is, they feel “treated like shit” — without grasping the systemic reality that they are waste. Insofar as graduate employees feel treated like waste, they can maintain the fantasy that they really exist elsewhere, in some place other than the overwhelmingly excremental testimony of their experience. This fantasy becomes an alibi for inaction, because in this construction agency lies elsewhere, with the administrative touch on the flush-chain. The effect of people who feel treated like waste is an appeal to some other agent: please stop treating us this way — which is to say to that outside agent, “please recognize that we are not waste,” even when that benevolent recognition is contrary to the testimony of our understanding. (And, of course, it is only good management to tell the exploited and superexploited, “Yes, I recognize your dignity. You are special.”)