To the CNN News Desk and Piers Morgan:
I write with your investigative team in mind as well as hosts like Piers Morgan who can raise awareness of the next bubble that’s going to burst within the next year: higher education.I left teaching in January 2012 after completing a very successful eight year run at River Valley Community College (Claremont, NH)
....served as a field representative during the Adjunct Union drive that was ratified in May 20122 (August 2010-March 2011). I worked “the Western corridor” between Claremont and Keene, NH as well as provided analysis, commentary, and editorials throughout this time period. I have an intimate knowledge of higher education, labor abuse, and abject fraud on the part of the Community College System....
The plantation itself is always in debt, the masters and mistresses know of the abuses and do not care, and the loss of life and deadly working conditions (how many teachers without health insurance died in the last few years simply because they didn’t have regular medical attention? how about the rise in diabetes type 2? Stress-related ulcers and other complications leading to cancer and, of course, mental duress that results in anxiety that leads to admission into the mental hospitals — which all seem to be flourishing here in the age of the migrant intellectual worker. We know the plantation model only produces debt and death, so why allow it to persist? Why not look to the people on the front lines to provide the most innovative solutions?
Here’s a better way: harness that innovation, intelligence, etc. in a way that grows programs, creates the conditions for regular employment, increases revenues — and yes, dear Child of God, you need to pay us — and meets the needs not of the System or the Trustees or even the faculty: instead, let’s meet the needs of students who long to develop new job skills, encounter new ways of thinking through old problems, and increase their own sense of self-worth by way of an increase in their knowledge of themselves and their world.
New Faculty Majority -- you rock my world. All the time. I cannot thank you enough for getting the word out. Vanessa -- we've done this kind of battle before, I just know it. Two kindred spirits cannot constantly be on the same page for so long without addressing the uncanny bit of deja-vu I always experience when you and your crew come out to support the Migrant Intellectual project.
ReplyDeleteHere's the timeline --
Monday 12/3/12
FoxNews scoops the competition with first contact by Chris Wallace (Executive Producer at Special Report); we spend the next few days discussing the interview, the kinds of questions that help get to the bottom of this problem, and some private matters regarding the biographical sketch that includes images broadcast of my family. They were excellent, accommodating, and fair (and balanced) in their pre-production, especially when it came to me denying access to my home and family.
Monday 12/10/12
Fox crew arrives at Shepard's Pie in Quechee, VT where they set up the interview in the dining room. I waited in the bar section, blogging, reading, prepping, and quite frankly meditating, writing, listening to Nine Inch Nails and, for some reason, R. L. Burnside (oh, I remember why -- because he's awesome?)
Another pre-meeting where we discuss the most contentious issue: whether or not being on food stamps or having applied and used in the Spring the social benefit of being a VTer actually counts as use. My response off camera is the same: you can take the austerity angle and shove it. This is about the micro-economy and all the sources of funding, the survival tactics, the triage of living a life without equal pay for equal labor. I repeated myself again and again (on and off camera) that if Fox really wants to follow the story, then they need to bring the cameras to Dean's offices, Provost's offices, President 's offices, Chancellor's offices. But, for now, since we have this moment, let's go deeper down the rabbit hole.
Then "b" roll; additional conversations about the show; the role of "intellectuals" in the news division, etc.
There you go! :)
-Migrant Intellectual
I've been adding update links as comments to the FB iteration and (multiple) scooping/reblogging the follow ups, which them show up on twitter but on the stream that is more mine, @VCVaileNFM in case the "speaking for" issues comes up. I do both but @NewFacMajority is the "official."
DeleteTime for an update post here too even though I've been updating on FB, adding MI post links to the thread for the initial post. The update would aggregate related intermediate posts.
ReplyDeleteI'd sure like a look at the press releases. Would any be on the VT or NH CC pages yet or are they just getting them ready ahead of time?
Watch for a Storify too. I haven't had this much fun since taking on the US Army.