#FutureOfWork in the #Adjunct/iverse—discontinuity…opportunity

…or both in the #JanusList 2014 column. How would you apply ideas from Stowe Boyd's recent GigaoM article, "Beneath the chatter about the Future Of Work lies a discontinuity," to the future of precarious academic labor? Try substituting higher education terms for the corporate ones even if doing so raises your hackles

Instead of conceptualizing the company [university] as broken into managed units [departments], with managers [chairs] leading each unit and subordinates doing their piecework, we need to conceive of the company [university] as a world — an ecology — built-up from each individual connecting to other individuals. And stringing these together into an interconnected whole involves associations like sets, and discernible elements like scenes, but increasingly, nothing like brigades and squads 

I’ve already called out some major trends in a piece last week (see The future of work: 4 trends for 2014) which forms part of a longer report, Tech trends for 2014.

The result could look like interconnected, cooperative networks with autonomy replacing subordination. Read the rest at Beneath the chatter about the Future Of Work lies a discontinuity — Gigaom Research

#AcademeToday—2013 in Review

…how do these compare to an #adjunct's precarity driven Janus List?

Academe Today Monday December 30, 2013 Subscribe to this newsletter Highlights From 2013

a new collaboration on #education

…from Works & Days—Cultural Logic…HT #JoeBerry's #COCAL Updates.  No telling when or even if we will get back to updating archived updates but you can always subscribe to your own by email. Just email joeberry@igc.org

"Education for Revolution," a special issue collaboration of the journals Works & Days  and Cultural Logic has just been launched.

Works & Days, published by the English Department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, explores problems of cultural studies, pedagogy, and institutional critique, especially as they are impacted by the global economic crisis

Cultural Logic has been online since 1997 and is a non-profit, peer-reviewed, open access, interdisciplinary journal publishing essays, interviews, poetry, and reviews by writers working within the Marxist tradition

This is the second collaboration between the two journals.

2013 ending/2014 beginnings…

Share your picks for top 2013 #adjunct /contingent faculty news items, articles, victories, trends, best new blogs, media features or services. Some are obvious; others less so. Let's look at as many contenders as possible. What are your contenders for the Big Ideas that could change the adjunctiverse in 2014? Who knows? We might just retrieve, bring to light and share that important story or big idea otherwise missed. Throw in a handful of predictions and sprinkle with wishes for 2014.

PS... don't overlook early 2013 or smaller, less publicized but still significant events and accomplishments either...

I ask because it's that Janus time of the year again: beginnings and transitions, a time to look back and review the high points of the year ending; make predictions about the one coming on. Although not usually on the media menu, 'emergent' is an appropriate category too for projects and actions with a foot in each year. The best, most promising 2013 items are also emergent -- the worst and most threatening too.

Ending #AcademicApartheid

…Thanks to WA #adjunct #JackLongmate for comments & a reminder to re-post this Psychology Today article, which also appeared on Dr Fuller's blog, Omaha Free Press, Utne Reader, Firedog Lake, Daily Kos and other publication -- one of which we posted to Facebook from. Please note page tab to Program for Change just below the blog header. The tab links directly to the VCCFA page. PF hopes to feature more on both Program and Keith Hoeller's "Equality for Contingent Faculty." 

There's a Psychology Today on-line article entitled "Ending Academic Apartheid, Equity and Dignity for Adjunct Professors," worth reading. The article calls a spade a spade, saying

5-minute Film Festival: Best Education Parodies of 2013

 …#adjuncts, looking for a holiday treat? @Edutopia to the rescue for…BYOP! 

I can't believe it's already the end of the year again and time for all the wrap-ups and best-ofs you can stomach. Among my favorites each year are Google's get-the-Kleenex Zeitgeist and YouTube's Rewind -- which is like the most meta-parody-mashup video you can imagine. I had a blast putting together the Best Education Parodies of 2012, so I thought I'd do it again for 2013. I hope this list gives you a few belly laughs, not too many obnoxious ear-worms, and a sprinkling of good ideas for fun student projects in the new year....Watch the player below to see the whole playlist, or view it on YouTube.

Five-Minute Film Festival: Best Education Parodies of 2013 | Edutopia

Sign #precarious ally @DomesticWorkers' petition

… for  #TemporaryProtectedStatus for Filipinos…we'll be posting more petitions from all over #TempLand because #wereallinthistogether

Take action so that hundreds of thousands of Filipinos can help their families recover from Typhoon Haiyan Imagine fearing that your two teenage sisters had drowned in Typhoon Haiyan. Imagine knowing that you can't to return to the island to help your aging mother recover their bodies and rebuild her home. That's the reality for Robert, and hundreds of thousands of Filipino immigrants in the United States. But relief is possible — the US Department of Homeland Security can give Filipinos working in the United States Temporary Protective Status (TPS). TPS would allow Filipino immigrants like Robert to return to the Philippines temporarily to help their families recover from this tragedy. A month after the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan, the impact is still being felt around the world. The death toll has exceeded 5,800 people. Millions of Filipinos have been displaced, families torn apart, children orphaned, and people made refugees within their own country. Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos in the US, many of them domestic workers, have family members in hard hit regions and right now, they can't return to help their loved ones recover. On Monday, the Philippine government made an official request for the designation of Temporary Protected Status to the US Government. It's time for the US Department of Homeland Security to take swift action and grant Temporary Protective Status designation to the Philippines as it did in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti and in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch Click here to sign the petition and help us get to 2,000 signatures by Friday! We'll hand deliver your signature to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security on Monday. Thank you for taking action for Robert and hundreds of thousands of other families today.   Join Us | Support Our Work | Follow us: National Domestic Workers Alliance. To contact the NDWA, click here.

On #ClassWarfare in Academe

…@InsideHigherEd commentary by #PeterDGBrown—SUNY New Paltz UUP Bullhorn editor, Mayday Declaration author.  Veteran academic activist Peter announces, "a commentary I wrote, 'Class Warfare in Academe,' was published today in Inside Higher Ed." Briefly excerpted—read the rest here and Peter's Bullhorn editorials/articles here.

Class warfare in the academy is unlikely to end any time soon. Meanwhile, we urgently need to connect the dots, to stop underfunding and privatizing public higher education. At the same time, we need to put an end to wasteful spending and overly generous perks that top administrators dole out to themselves. Saddling our students with backbreaking tuition loan debt is simply unsustainable. They, their parents, taxpayers and legislators deserve to know where their hard-earned tuition and tax dollars are going. The quality of their education and thus the future of our country depend on providing a living wage, job security and benefits to those actually teaching in our classrooms.

blog updates—new pages & other confusion mitigation

…#PFR, short for Precarious Faculty Rising, is taking shape as a network. Yesterday, I changed the look and name (again) ►. Today, I added About, PFR Network, Canada and Global pages, and consolidated NFM to a single tab by adding, not just the main website link, but also the whole kit and kaboodle—Facebook, Twitter, Foundation, LinkedIn, G+ Community—to the newsletter archives on this site.

End of year report from #adjunct BFF @USAS

…by Martin Macias, USAS. In case you thought United Students against Sweatshops was just tees and sweats, take note of and learn more about these important allies, whose mission includes organizing for student and worker power. Students in Boston, LA and DC are standing with adjuncts in their fight for a union voice. Now on with Martin Macias' years end report on old and new campaigns:

Support worker rights by making a $50 donation to USAS today, and we'll send you a union-made USAS t-shirt!

Our tiny and scrappy staff ensures that your contribution goes directly towards giving more student organizers the skills and tools they need to take on the biggest corporations in the business of exploiting workers.

Donate Now

It feels like only yesterday students were gathering at the USAS Summer Retreat to make plans for the coming academic year. Now, at the end of fall semester, we've put those plans into action and accomplished so much! We've made tons of progress on old campaigns, and launched exciting new efforts to rein in abusive corporations like T-Mobile.

We've also got some exciting new projects in the works, which we'd love to tell you all about soon. But we really need your support to keep doing our important work, while laying plans for future, even more ambitious campaigns.

Let's also take a moment to reflect on our successes this year — check out the report below for the highlights!

on recent #socialmedia changes

…from @VanessaVaile—I’ve made changes in my network–most visible on Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger—that may have you wondering what’s going on. Short version: New FacultyMajority ~ The National Coalition for Adjunct & Contingent Equity is going big time. You’ve seen the all the press – they are on their way to going truly national and reaching the public the way we’ve always dreamed of.  That means a professional Social Media Director is what they and the movement need now.   

I’m going indie, my choice and preferred mode. Of course, I’ll still be covering New Faculty Majority with all I’ve got, just like I always have, but now I’ll spend more time on other stories.  It’s been a great ride, and I’ll miss taking that final lap with them – just not enough to give up following my own path before it’s too late and I run out of time. We’ve had a good run, from the beginning until now. I expect and sincerely hope that we will still cooperate, share resources and continue working toward the same goals, just on different tracks, perhaps listening to different voices.   

Remember: all the content on my distributed network is open for them and you to use, share and share alike, just like it has always been.

Habits of the Effectively Connected

…on #socialmedia & other online distributed networks, whether for learning, distributing information, making connections, organizing, communicating or just social sharing. 

Published on YouTube, Dec 14, 2013: Habits of Effective Connected Learners with Stephen Downes

Working and learning in an online environment is fundamentally different from working and learning in a physical environment. It becomes much more important to make connections and leverage the store of knowledge at your disposal. Relations between people depend more on cooperation and less on collaboration. Information that was valuable only when withheld is now valuable only when shared. Marketing gives way to meaning. In this presentation, Stephen Downes reviews the habits he has cultivated to thrive as a learner and researcher online, providing practical advice from network theory and a lifetime of experience.

Education International - Staying united

…@eduint updates…stories on #CFHE & global counterparts #united4ed

The University of Alabama has a choice to make

…a message from our caroling friends @usuas…'tis the season…

Right now our USAS group is caroling outside of our President's office in hopes of catching her attention with our rendition of "Jingle Bell Rock."

PISA results headlined in Education International's CONNECT

…@eduint is the voice of educators worldwide. A global federation of about 400 unions in more than 170 countries and territories, E-I represents 30 million teachers and education employees. In case you are still asking why 'blogging a new faculty majority' is posting it, then, briefly, the answer is because we are all in this together. US and even COCAL area (US, Canada, Mexico) higher ed problem and working conditions are more than national or regional. They are global. We want to be too: "think globally, act locally," used in so many contexts, works here too.

Can New Jersey Adjuncts Break Down a Stone Wall? by Bill Lipkin

On October 26, as part of the start of Campus Equity Week activities in New Jersey, United Adjunct Faculty of NJ held its Delegate Assembly meeting. Present were 68 delegates from 10 Community College Chapters and members of the AFTNJ Executive Board. A major focus of the Assembly was on the Affordable Care Act and how it was already affecting adjuncts in the state.

The State of New Jersey had issued a letter several weeks before concerning the ACA and the four year Colleges and Universities in NJ. This letter instructed HR directors to determine hours worked for adjuncts by crediting them 8 hours for every day they had a class on the campus. In other words if you had one Monday/Wednesday/Friday class (3 credits) that would count as 8 hours per day or 24 hours a week. You would not be able to teach on Tuesday or Thursday. We did convince the State how ridiculous this was since an adjunct would be able to teach all day on those three days, teaching 18 credits and still be credited with 24 hours a week. Plus this did not address on-line courses.

Education International Newsletter HT @eduint…

because education is a global issue & we are all in this together… November 2013 News highlights from the global education scene

COMPROMISE BETWEEN COLLEGE AND ADJUNCTS

Since April our Union leadership has been in discussions with the administration of Union County College in New Jersey involving adjunct teaching loads in relation to the Affordable Care Act. At first these discussions were quite contentious, and our members were motivated to write letters to the editors of local newspapers and stage a threatened walk-out at a 'Adjunct Forum' where the administration was ready to take the hatchet and drastically reduce our teaching loads. The presence of local news reporters and health care experts from AFT National forced the administration to back off a little.

Fordham #Adjunct @eValerick aka +Alan Trevithick explains

…Faculty Exploitation, #StudentDebt, Origin of Universe…lagniappe…

In addition to the usual adjunct issues, conference/ news/ personalities coverage, this post is also a combination BYOP (Bring Your Own POPCORN), "meet your New Faculty Majority board member," testing improved YouTube sharing to Blogger, and participating in Alan's experiment .

Interesting and worth following, like the legendary floating crap game,  the experiment is worth looking for even if you're never quite sure where to find it. That last may not be a social media plus but adds a certain something to the adventure. We'll be entertained and learn a lot. I'm skeptical about explaining all the other and still having time for the origins of the universe but remain open minded

HE media recaps #CALconference

…in CHE/IHE…in case you missed live #socialmedia coverage, multiple twitter streams, Facebook coverage, SEIU's outstanding CAL Conference Storify (which gets my personal better reporting than usual media award) …now that the fat lady has not just sung but left the building …HE media tells us and the rest of higher ed what to think. It remains to be seen if mainstream media even notice Local 500's conference. Based on previous events, my guess would be that CAL conference organizer Anne McLeer, Adjunct Action's Mariah Quinn and the rest of their DC crew will not drop the ball on sending out press releases. One thing at a time: we'll get to those…

Conversations: #highered, #adjuncts & chatting up Mr Ed.Gov

…because they want input. Yours. Mine. Ours. Input is not just for organizations and individuals who can make it to the various "college affordability" hearings around the country. You can read about CFHE testimony at the California one just past in the Academe blog. NFM will be represented at the DC area hearing at George Washington University, this Wednesday, aka tomorrow. There will be additional hearings at LSU in Baton Rouge and another at an Iowa campus.

So where does that leave the individual adjunct in the usual throes of feeling voiceless?

Notice has been relatively short on hearings. Some but not all organizations have canvassed members. There is a form for members on the NEA Higher Ed page but moderated, which means your voice may be heard, but then again maybe not. Also membership pages and closed groups are less than open fora.

To finish answering the question:

#CEW2013 reflections HT @USAS & others

USAS "Thriller" Flash Mob - video

…in a word, hectic. Others would be productive, exhilarating, strenuous, downright fabulous (would that be two?). Making connections and gains, large and small. The large may count for more in some eyes, how many signatures, followers, shares, likes, RTs and so on, not to mention the status of who by/to/from. It's the social media version academic citation syndrome. There's a whole 'nother post there about that syndrome and what it says about being network clueless ~ but that and counting digital coup is another post. Today we celebrate them all.

The small, often personal and sometimes even private actions are as precious as the large. No one can know which will be looked back on as the tipping point 20 years on. Chaos theory and the butterfly. Cherish, revel in and celebrate all of them. Large or small, all take a bow...follow the lead of USAS flash mobs across the country and dance in the streets

Bienvenidos, Southwest #Adjunct #Roadrunners

…to our Virtual #CEW2013 Meetup. Beep Beep!  As you know, we are embarking on an experiment of sorts to begin with. Nobody has put on this kind of Campus Equity Week event. Ever! 

Are you getting curious? Take a look at the practice area ChatRoll module we set up on the Virtual Meetups  page. The  meeting will be just like it except for the name of the chat area.

#CEW2013 pushed us into it, but now we’re psyched, and I am learning a lot, since I am the tech novice, the intern around these parts! But how nice to be the apprentice to a real master, someone who teaches me the ropes while being my colleague and friend, and not telling me, as many schools do, that we are so valuable, that they cannot do anything without us, yet where is our recompense? Unlike Higher Ed, during this jammin’ session, we are all one. 

Welcome to Virtual MeetUps Grand Opening

…& other #CEW2013 happenings, projects, ideas. SW #adjuncts aka Roadrunners are making today's grand entrance, not as post but the page hosting the Roadrunner shindig, what the greenhorns back east would call a Campus Equity Week Event. It's multi-state for Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma (because out here in the west where horizons are large and campuses more distant, they do things big). Visitors welcome.

There's more today but I'll keep it short, save for coming posts. It will be a busy week. NFM wants to add more CEW blogging to it. There have been Twitter calls to bloggers for CEW posts and will be another here. Here's the short version. Blogging about Campus Equity Week is a another way to participate.

blogging #CEW2013

Joe Berry, CEW 2001, Workplace

…& back to my resolution to blog more now that Campus Equity Week is bearing down on me. This year it is a well oiled, well funded machine spewing out links, resources, events, and so on to be shared, re-posted, RT'd, turned into blog fodder. I can pawn some but not all off on other social media and ever trusty syndication. As sponsoring organization, the New Faculty Majority's still official blog has a feed on the CEW page. With that comes obligation. Obviously, I need a blogging plan to make it through the month - one that does not no point in duplicate. No point in that. Here's what I have in mind:

CEW 2001, Workplace

• personal reflections on CEW experiences; 
• integrating, weaving together, the many threads
• highlighting events and activities; 
• noting key issues
• looking out for orphans
• revisiting past CEW activities and events; 
• lots of pictures
• reviewing the history of Campus Equity Week and Fair Employment Week (Canada);
• covering the coverage
• looking forward

Even with ramped up CEW blogging, I will have to blog like one possessed to make a decent showing for the year. Deadlines and challenges can help. Let this be one that does...

newsletters still rule

…for campus or regional communication and as community building tools at the grassroots level. We'd like to post more from them for readers to learn more about campuses and workplace conditions in other parts of the country. Not everything changes and many traditional ways are as good as ever. Smart change is keeping what works, using new tools to share and make it better.

Board member Peter D.G. Brown is also President of the SUNY New Paltz UUP Chapter and edits its award winning newsletter, The Bullhorn. Peter shares this link to the September Special Issue noting that much of it is "devoted to contingent issues, as usual. I'd like the p. 4 article on Lavallee to get wide exposure, since he is being showered with money, while the campus administration cries poverty when it comes to increasing pay for adjuncts." Read and compare Peter's articles on Lavallee and New Paltz adjuncts posted below. But don't miss out on the rest of the issue or the Mayday Declaration (formerly Mayday $5K) for a living wage and basic workplace rights for adjuncts. Sign it. Share it.

in the air…#CEW2013, #NCC strike, other precariat actions

…are they precursors of change or another round of promises? Will momentum continue to build, moving toward a tipping point, a major swerve? I'm still working on another change post, building off the last. The concept no sooner gels than something pops up to change it. Change is like that. This is not about change but not quite not about change. Starting as a gap fill post, it has come to feel more like watching for the wave.

With a month and a half to go, a new Campus Equity Week page launched. What did Mission Control used to say? We have lift-off. Later than advised but well ahead of the 2009 and 2011 late starts.

From its inception, CEW was as a genuine grassroots effort. Yet without the focus of a dedicated home base and a point person designated to round up, report, announce and share resources, it was not thriving as it had earlier. Not that anyone wanted to see it go, but there was no concerted effort for a large scale push. Pockets of activities persisted on scattered campuses.

Announcements & Reminders

Due to technical difficulties, blog, Facebook and Twitter posts will be extremely limited until these are resolved. I will try to check in when I can but time and access will be limited. Needless to say, this will also effect our hour other pages will also be on hiatus. Pages syndicated to Facebook - OPFTA, Workplace, Changing Universities, and CFHE - will not be affected. Please send suggestions for additional subscriptions.

Closing reminders: don't forget Labor Day next Monday, September 2.  World Teavechers Day is October 5 ~ over a month away but still not too early to starting planning or to share your event with the world.


 
Today is the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington. Tomorrow is a Nationwide Fast-Food Workers Strike. Both events share goals with and hold great significance for our own mission.

What does a theory of change look like?

…Change…we have different ideas about it (often so strongly held as to become more obstacle than motivation), what it is, how to achieve it…but whatever it is and by whatever means, we want it. I had the notion of writing about hours and spent more that a few pulling material and making notes by the time this article caught and held my attention. The piece, instead of jelling, was turning into The Blob. I needed a change. So do adjunct working conditions.

Firstly it’s ‘theories’ not ‘theory’. When people talk about a single ‘theory of change’ (ToC from now on), alarm bells should ring – in the worst case it’s just a new jargon for old-school linear change, impact chains, logframes etc. Instead of a deluded search for a single grand theory of everything, we need to learn to recognize and manage a range of theories, throw them at a problem, and see which ones are helpful (see my recent experience of doing this in Tanzania). 

Some but not all #highered groups offer suggestions for #HEA revamp

…@InsideHigherEd article notes administrators, admin oriented organizations, accreditors, ACE, even for-profits had a say. By stark and, frankly, shameful contrast, students, families, in the classroom educators, even HE unions were either not heard from or their input went without notice.


Were we invited? Our input solicited? Did anyone on the above list (higher ed media included) notice our absence? It's too late now: the deadline for input was August 2. Even the IRS treated adjunct faculty with more respect.

Read the rest at Higher ed groups offer suggestions for revamping Higher Education Act | Inside Higher Ed and then read the letter from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce...the one addressed to the "Higher Education Stakeholder" (but apparently not all of us...)

the university & its challenges

Welcome to the Reading Room, briefly annotated links rounding up the usual higher ed suspects. Institutional pubs, UK and US press, journals and magazines weigh in on university culture, online education, open access, academic publishing, race, gender, movies, adjuncts (thank you, Omnivore!), graduate school, grim futures (so what else is new?) and so on...

Leon Botstein (Bard): Resisting Complacency, Fear, and the Philistine: The University and Its Challenges, The Hedgehog Review, Summer 2013. From Notre Dame Magazine, a special issue: Is college worth it? Male academics rarely suffer more than a bit of rudeness, but women have it far worse, according to Luke Brunning. 

Who Ruined the #Humanities?

…revisited before returning to counting ACA hours, UI appeal strategies, organizing, #CEW2013, adjunct stories, HE and NTT in the news and other Future of HE concerns. 

Perspective and premise developed in this WSJ article may not sit well with humanities faculty, in particular those among us professing literature. Increasingly, NTT faculty teach more upper division and even graduate courses. The turn Lee Siegel anticipates so joyously would affect tenured faculty and lit teaching lecturers like +Joseph Fruscione and others. 

Yet, how many community college adjuncts teach literature, let alone their research specialty? Early cuts humanities offerings did not make much dent in graduate enrollments. Further, deeper ones might. Beyond the obvious and real concerns for professional futures, what then of the university as home to and primary patron of the humanities (and humanist scholars as gatekeepers and guardians)?

You've probably heard the baleful reports. The number of college students majoring in the humanities is plummeting, according to a big study released last month by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. The news has provoked a flood of high-minded essays deploring the development as a symptom and portent of American decline.

Fewer and fewer undergraduates are majoring in the humanities, and critic Lee Siegel couldn’t be happier. As he tells WSJ’s Gary Rosen, great poetry and novels are meant to be experienced in private and alone, away from the competitive pressures of the classroom.

It's Alive! #SocialMedia Musings

Image credit: EDUniverse: It’s Alive!
A New Approach to Communications

…May 23, 2010, post rediscovered in Drafts. Let's apply digital electrodes and reconnect to find out if it's still alive. The general observations are still sound, but the links may not be. There are more drafts to check out and perhaps post, as well as back posts worth revisiting. Digital does not have to be ephemeral, posted and forgotten. Indeed, our all time most popular post, 2,489 views, a guest post by Jen Bills about the public service loan forgiveness program, dates back to 2009 ~ and still gets hits, 100+ just last month.

What has changed? Changes have been more quantitative and qualitative. We have more board and regular members blogging, using Facebook, Twitter, added more social media ~ YouTube, Pinterest, Google+, another bookmarking tool ~ and changed feed readers when  Google Reader closed. Far more important than tools, we are adding connections and growing our network that is part of a larger, loosely connected adjunct / contingent faculty network, substantial and growing. 

The #GatesEffect…@Chronicle special

…on How the World's Largest Foundation Is Remaking Higher Education. Wherever you stand on venture philanthropy (or philanthropiracy) and Gates Foundation's influence in higher ed, on community colleges in particular, and shaping U.S. education policy in general, information ~ all perspectives and positions ~ is the indispensable mind tool for our HE defense kits. We apologize in advance for any pay walls you might encounter along the way. 

See also:

• When Billionaires Become Educational Experts: "Venture philanthropists" push for the privatization of public education, Kevin K. Kumashiro in May-June 2012 issue of Academe
• Got Dough? Public School Reform in the Age of Venture Philanthropy, Joanne Barkan, Truth-Out via Dissent Magazine

Bastille Day!

…July 14 seems an auspicious date to plan, lay the groundwork and, if not start a revolution, then at the very least, initiate change (expressing the same in a more genteel and less threatening manner). Storm a Bastille today...personal, academic, professional, career or societal.

More than a national holiday, Bastille Day marks a deeply symbolic historical moment of solidarity and revolt against injustice, Bastille Day is commemorated world-wide, especially in Francophone countries (ironic considering French colonial history). Even in south Louisiana where conservative attitudes, social and political, are deeply ingrained, Bastille Day is a big deal. Had it fallen during the school year, it would have been a school holiday. Now I'm thinking it would make a dandy holiday for the academic precariat.

blogging through the doldrums

…The NFM blog is having a mid-life crisis. As remedy, I'm thinking swerve ~ a change of direction heading for territory less frequented by social media ~ but keep the furniture (tabbed pages, widgets, feeds), change carpets, curtains and put down a fresh coat of paint. Please share your thoughts…

Why now? Today is reflection day, not just here but across various networks. That is what I told myself this morning and look how far along I am not. Instead of the ubiquitous and easily ignored to-do list, consider a didn't-do list. I am. It seems more realistic. At the end of May, I bemoaned a four post month and promised to do better in June. Instead, I matched with another four. April was a five post month. Blogs do have mid-life crises. Some succumb to them. This one has been going since 2009, cultivated readers, added pages, news stream, video bar, feeds, widgets and such, but, like so many blogs, been eclipsed by social media...hence crisis and now reflection.

Oh my, pundits & profs. Oh Humanities!

…let the juxtapositions speak for themselves…with zeugma like these, who needs more words?

You can also view Oh, humanities! on Storify.

new pages… #adjunctstories & more

…We've opened two new Tumblr pages, New Faculty Majority News & Links and Adjunct Stories, for quick posts that aren't quite full fledged blog posts. News, as its name indicates, is just for news links, reasonably relevant stories - ACA, precariat, part time worker actions, organizing academic labor, higher ed news. The links will also be easier to find later. There is also a "submit" option to encourage visitors to contribute. They aren't the only new adjunct media nodes in the larger, ever expanding adjunctiverse

Upton Sinclair's The Goose Step

… (1923) is about US #highered, early corporate influence ~ and extensively cited by Frank Donoghue in The Last Professors (our post here), pointing to parallels with Veblen and current concerns over corporatization. Donoghue does not share Hammermeister's dismissive and hypercritical attitude that, unfortunately, permeates other selections in the series, notably Ortega y Gasset.

By Kai Hammermeister (associate professor of German at Ohio State University)

Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a monthly series intended to introduce new generations of faculty members and administrators to a core set of classic books about higher education and its institutions.The first three columns are here,here, and here.

There are two ways to ruin a university. The first is to submit it to the demands of industry and finance. That is the way that Upton Sinclair criticizes in his 1923 treatise, The Goose-Step: a Study of American Education. The other way is to hand it over to a revolutionary political agenda. That is the way that Sinclair advocates. 

In his book on higher education, the self-confessed "socialist writer" Sinclair travels the country and visits colleges and universities. Every time he boards the train, he relates the overlap between the local railroad magnates and the board of trustees of the largest university in the region he's visiting. His conclusion: "Our educational system is not a public service, but an instrument of special privilege; its purpose is not to further the welfare of mankind, but merely to keep America capitalist."

Rereading the University Classics, Part 4 - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Problem Social Media Cannot Solve

…thoughts for activists and organizers to consider, even if the excerpted and linked article is about marketing, even if paying someone else to build your page not an option (less likely to be an option for the adjunct activist)

Stop. Don’t send that tweet. Don’t post that video on YouTube. It’s time to face facts: It doesn’t make sense to do anything in social media if you don’t have a good Web site.

Your Web site is your welcome mat. It’s your most important selling tool. The ultimate goal of social media marketing is to drive traffic and potential customers to your Web site and then convert those leads into phone calls, meetings and sales (or in our case, memberships, support, signatures, action). And yet, if you are great at social media but have a lousy Web site [or none at all], your social media efforts will just allow you to annoy more people faster. 

If your Web site needs work, do not put it off. 

If you don't have one, get a place of your own online instead of renting from social media. Facebook pages are no substitute. That's what free Google sites, Wikis and blogging platforms are for. More about that and harnessing social media in future posts.

There will be more to come... a series of posts rather like tutorials or a silent, asynchronous webinar in installments to read rather than listen to. For the obligatory something to listen to and look at, I'll look for podcast and video links.

Now go read the rest of The Problem Social Media Cannot Solve (NYT)

#MOOC my day ~ the next chapter

…another round of #highered disaster (and/or hysteria) blogging…but that's the way it breaks today. For today's post, I added selected links and a few amusing images to an existing Storify about MOOCs ~ or, as recently renamed by David Wiley,“Massively Obfuscated Opportunities for Cash.” 

convergences: coming together

"spiral" from convergences series by tom cartmill

…this month has been a time of convergence for #adjuncts, precarious & #academiclabor issues. The adjunctiverse is buzzing; the flow, unrelenting.

The myriad issues and concerns related to and unforeseen consequences of the Affordable Care Act and preparing for the IRS contributed to the deluge (and still are) but are not its entirety. No doubt these have influenced, even initiated, other actions, and certainly contributed to increased coverage and thus public awareness.

movie break

…now showing…last of the profs aka the great train wreck…still on topic…#academiclabor featuring the #adjunct as Gunga Din, post inspired by The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities by Frank Donoghue, Fordham UP, 2008, the  most recent entry in  the Academe blog series, Reviews of Recent Books Concerning Current Issues in Higher Education,

Donoghue thinks (2008) it's too late to turn back and that we've already passed the tipping point. Asked at the beginning of the interview above to describe last profs in ten words or less, he replies, "a train wreck with no survivors."