[Not Yet] Summer School for X-Fac

Excerpted from Marc Bosquet's Aug 2, 2009, Brainstorm column in CHE, also crossposted at How the University Works. I have no idea why an August 2009 column would take so long to show up in my rss reader, so don't ask... but I'm glad of it.  Good reading list even if referenced articles and topics are from last summer. I've already recommended Chris Newfield's splendid and indispensable Remaking the University, with Journal of the Edu-Factory Collective high on my "to-blog" list. Academe and Workplace, please note, have long been listed on our sidebar. "X-Fac" in subject line refers to recent thread on naming at adj-l list and Marc's determination to replace familiar but demeaning and/or inaccurate standbys. I'm not sure what with, hence the "X"  ... that or for X-men who teach.... Summer School For Faculty Possibly you're tired of beach reading--or perhaps you couldn't afford the beach this year? You say you'd like to get beyond the "Thank you, sir! May I have another?" school of governance?  I have a few suggestions.  AAUP's Academe. Read it online for free. Better yet, join the militant new AAUP, helmed by the dream team of Cary Nelson and Gary Rhoades. Former editors include heavy hitters like Paula Krebs and Ellen Schrecker; be sure to look for the completely overhauled website and investigative-journalistic mission promised by incoming editor Cat Warren.  The new Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor. When Wayne Ross fled Louisville and its subsequently-indicted education dean for the University of British Columbia (think of it as Canada's Cal-Berkeley), he took Workplace with him. Featuring an all-new format, energetic new board and coeditor, the journal now releases articles in a timely pre-print fashion. Recent releases include Bruno Gulli on the Super-Exploitation of Contingent Academic Labor  and fellow Louisville escapee John Welsh's two contributions, Theses on College and University Governance: A Critical Perspective and The Status Degradation Ceremony: The Phenomenology of Social Control in Higher Education.  Journal of the Edu-Factory Collective. The current top article is an essential piece by Chris Newfield on Militant Chairs, about the possible stiffening of spines--even at R1s! even in nonconfrontational California! even by chairs! in response to the opportunistic wage-cutting by capo di regimes at the University of California. Featuring an international cast of mostly radical intellectuals, you'll keep up to date with the quarter-million strong German education strike and occupations of Italian admin buildings and the sleazy new Australian conversion of foriegn students into indentured guest workers.  You'll learn how educators and students across the planet have been fighting (sometimes winning, sometimes losing) many of the fights we have in the U.S.  Polygraph 21: Study, Students, Universities. Fair warning: these kids are Marxists. This issue of what is perhaps the best-run graduate student journal in the U.S. is sparked by a simple, core, observation: There are students in the university.   Remaking the University. Together with two collaborators, Newfield's blog, currently devoted to the running thuggery in California. Chris makes the best and most thorough case for the defunding-of-the-u dimension of the current disaster. See especially his discussion of the furlough's bias and his analysis of the Cal budget from 1990 planning and benchmark insitutions to the moment of "Extreme Arnold." CFA Headlines. Keep up with the news on the California Faculty Association's struggle to keep mandatory furlough days under faculty control. The most recent column, sitting into today's feeds is full of good links for your reading list and/or to add to your feed ~ watch for excerpts in a day or so