AcademHack on Tenure
February 25, 2009 4:49PM
Dave at AcademHack riffs on tenure. As always, Dave’s writing is sharp, honest, and insightful.
Posted in: The Academic Scene
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{ archive for the ‘The Academic Scene’ category }
YouTube Video: The Adjuncts
February 16, 2009 9:35PM
Chloe Smolarski and allies put together a great video on adjuncts. Watch it here. Thank you! Thank you! Hopefully other contingent academics will document their efforts as well.
Posted in: Jobs, The Academic Scene
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Let Bedford Pay Your Way to the Cs!
December 27, 2008 11:51PM
Bedford/St. Martin’s, the publisher and sponsor of this blog, is giving away up to FOUR $1,000 travel grants. Go here for more information! Yes, I keep reposting this! I want some adjuncts to get to a conference!
Posted in: Professional Development & Service, The Academic Scene
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Blogs on Adjunct Exploitation
December 26, 2008 1:36PM
Given the recent release of the reports from the MLA and AFT about academic labor, it is little surprise that many folks are blogging about them. Here are a few links:
Posted in: Jobs, The Academic Scene
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Joe Berry’s Call for Organizing Adjuncts
December 26, 2008 12:04PM
Here is Joe Berry’s call for organizing adjuncts. It is unedited and reproduced with his permission.
11/15/08 Proposal to COCAL Advisory Committee Conference Call, Joe Berry
Some notes on a strategic response to the present opportunity
Further note 12/08: This proposal was framed for the COCAL advisory committee. The particular formulations could be changed in many ways depending on who chooses to take up this idea. The idea of taking advantage of this window of opportunity is the main thing. I have made a few revisions and updates to the original.
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The results of the election, and the campaign that succeeded in electing Barak Obama, present us in the contingent faculty movement, as part of the broader faculty union movement, the larger labor movement, and the labor and progressive movement generally, with a window of opportunity that we should not let slip by. The activism that the Obama campaign sparked was not just a campaign for Obama but represented a hope for the reality of change sweeping the land. It is over 20 years since anything like this level of hopefulness for change has been out there in the mainstream. Perhaps the JFK election in 1960 was the last time, though some were also animated by the Jesse Jackson candidacies in the 1980s. In any case the balance between fear and fatalism on the one hand and hope and courage on the other has temporarily shifted favorably and it not limited to electoral politics anymore than it was in the 1960s or 1930s. We, by our action in the coming months and year or two, can greatly influence whether this period and the Obama presidency is remembered as merely the third term of Clintonism or rather a real change, like the New Deal of the 1930s. It will not depend mainly on Obama himself or who he initially appoints to various offices, but rather, just as it did in the early 1930s, the movement we can develop at the base to push forward for what we need and thereby push him in the direction of fundamental change
Two examples of this change in public mood are the plant occupation by UE workers at Republic Windows in Chicago, which generated great public support, all the way to Obama himself, and which won their demands (for back pay, vacation pay, health benefits, and WARN Act money) over B of A and the employer. One of the best worker quotes from this struggle was, ”I wasn’t afraid because I wasn’t alone.” They are now working on getting the plan reopened.
Another example is the victory of the over 4,000 workers at Smithfield meat packing in North Carolina (the biggest meat packing plant in the US) who finally won a union representation election (UFCW) after multiple attempts and huge employer intimidation. One worker said, “If we can change the White House, we can change the hog house.” Both of these victories came from workers previously said to be unorganizable: mostly Latino immigrants (many “illegal”) in Chicago and mostly Black workers in North Carolina.
We can best make this potential real by organizing where we are, and in our case, that means on the job, as faculty and especially as contingent faculty, to move forward toward both greater equity within and transformation of higher education. We can do it, with the established unions if possible or without them if necessary. To not be bold now would be a terrible mistake. This is a moment when we can make serious inroads into organizing the hundreds of thousands of our unorganized colleagues and toward activating a greater percentage of our colleagues who are now organized. Doing so can give us the leverage to change the present direction of higher education from corporatization (call it neoliberalism, marketization, commercialization, etc.) to something that can better serve the interests of both our students, the workers in higher education (including us), and the society as a whole. If President Obama will say helpful things in this effort, that is great, and I think he will if we can demonstrate the potential. If not, it will be his loss.
We are not in a particularly strategic physical place in the economy, like truckers or longshore workers, with their great power to influence massive profits directly by their actions. However, we are in a very strategic political place in the society, since we can speak to millions of students, their parents and the rest of society who look to academics for informed opinions on public issues. The state of higher ed, its financing and accessibility, the need for truly universal health care, the need to stop the conversion of good permanent jobs into temporary bad jobs, are all example of public issues we can speak to with credibility, if we are organized. If we are bold now, we can organize our colleagues and, in doing so, speak on behalf of more than just ourselves, just as the workers at Republic Windows did. There is a great desire out there for someone to stand up on behalf of regular working people and we can be a uniquely situated part of that.
I propose that we create an organizing structure to reach out to the unorganized on a broad scale with a regional strategy, under the COCAL name, and coordinated nationally in the US. I propose that we raise the money right now to do this on at least a bare bones level. The important thing is to get as many of our folks into motion as possible and capitalize on the mood of hopefulness that affects so many today. In this time of financial collapse, our employers are going after us even more than in the past, with layoff notices being drawn up daily and other cutbacks in the news.
We need to project a broad struggle to put a public face on the destruction of higher education as a public good. In doing this we can unite with students facing monumental tuition increases, other campus workers facing cuts and privatizations, our FTTT colleagues, and the labor movement generally. I believe a massive movement toward organizing at the base on the job and in communities is about to emerge that we can be a part of. Our current organized members can be activated to a greater extent than ever before if we can project some leadership now and come up with the rudiments of a strategy of direct action, supported by media, good legislative initiatives, contract and collective bargaining campaigns, etc.
I do not have a whole plan now, but I propose that we appoint two committees to do two separate tasks. One – to raise the minimal funding needed to get this off the ground meaningfully, which I project as $100,000. We should go first to the academic unions, then to other labor sources at all levels, and also to foundations that might be helpful, (especially the foundation geared to organizing women workers (get name and contact info)) Second – we need a committee to draw up a more detailed plan of action that can make this real. Most important, if people agree, we need to sound out all the serious activists that we can on this idea.
We may never have this good an opportunity again in decades. Let’s give it our collective best shot.
In Hope and Solidarity,
Joe Berry
Posted in: Jobs, Professional Development & Service, The Academic Scene
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On Mentoring in the Academy
December 18, 2008 4:05AM
Doug Lederman has an interesting view on mentoring in the academy.
Posted in: Professional Development & Service, The Academic Scene
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Bedford Travel Grant: $1,000
December 4, 2008 11:50PM
That’s right, I am echoing several prior posts! Bedford/St. Martin’s, the publisher and sponsor of this blog, is giving away up to FOUR $1,000 travel grants. Go here for more information!
Posted in: Professional Development & Service, The Academic Scene
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Adjuncts in the News! Yet Again!
December 4, 2008 5:43PM
More coverage of contingent academic laborers. The latest flurry of activity surrounds the AFT’s report about the increasing (ab)use of adjuncts in higher education. Fortunately, this report has received some mainstream attention. One view of this report is here at Inside Higher Ed. Dean Dad provides another perspective on this very same report (and at a blog reproduced by IHE). Neither last nor least, USA Today has an article about the presence and role of adjuncts in higher education. On top of these main venue discussions, my RSS feed is getting multiple hits on “adjunct” as a variety of blogs and online venues discuss the AFT’s report. Please do your part by visiting these sites and engaging in the topic!
Posted in: Adjunct Culture, Health & Welfare, Professional Development & Service, The Academic Scene
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Dissertation Selection Advice
December 2, 2008 1:50AM
An insightful post at the Pragmatic Idealists blog that includes a downloadable dissertation selection advice PowerPoint.
Posted in: Adjunct 2.0, The Academic Scene
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Dean Dad on the Adjunct Issue
November 27, 2008 4:16AM
I like Dean Dad’s blog; he gives me hope that there are more than just a few civil administrators out there. Here he discusses aspects of the adjunct issue. If Dean Dad is not on your RSS feed, you might want to ask yourself why.
Posted in: Adjunct Culture, The Academic Scene
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