@DeanDad: Where is He?

I am very tired, in a good way, after our wonderful NFM-AAUC conference in DC. Read more about it here and here. Then I stumbled across a recent reference to our noble organization on Friday Follow-ups, to which I take exception. Following are my remarks, to Dean Dad ~ some of you may know him, even his name. Anyway, this is just for the elite, the cognoscento, as it were. Gosh, I really am tired. Anyway, I chunked this in here because I can't seem to get it out on the great webish highway any other way:

Dear Dean Dad, 

Your comments, as always, are most provocative. You must be enjoying yourself. As a board member of New Faculty Majority though, I have to take exception to your comment about New Faculty Majority’s advocacy of the “Vancouver model” for paying adjuncts making you worry about your hair because you “pull out what little” you have left whenever you read NFM on such subjects. Please. Whatever your notions about Canada being where it is, and not being in the United States, the published NFM position is that we advocate equity in compensation, job security, academic freedom, faculty governance, professional advancement, benefits, and access to unemployment insurance. 

The Vancouver Model that Jack Longmate and Frank Cosco based Program for Change on is but one model that is of interest, and it is a good one, in the opinions of many, but we others discuss others. We do not believe that there is just one model. Recently, for instance, there has been interest in the model of Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), which is in the United States, actually. Other models were discussed at our recent conference in D.C., held in conjunction with the American Association of Colleges and Universities. We would have loved to have you there and to hear your views, if not to know your name.  

In fact, we discuss many models and give a respectful hearing to all of them, but our overall view is that there are many roads to improvement in the currently dreadful working conditions for adjuncts and contingents, who are the majority teaching faculty in the United States. You are always welcome. 

I am invited below to "choose an identity." I am Dr. Alan Trevithick, Board member, NFM, and adjunct in anthropology and sociology at Fordham University, Westchester Community College (SUNY), and LaGuardia Community College (CUNY). I invite you and all who are interested to discuss models with me at my personal email address, dralt@optonline.net. Please look after your hair.