CFHE Conference January, 2014…

The CFHE Conference in Manhattan, hosted by PSC CUNY, was fantastic and a great success. The PSC staff went out of their way to accommodate the over 100 attendees, and Mike Fabricant ran the tightest, yet most informative and collaborative, conference possible. I am sure I speak for all attendees when I offer a resounding THANK YOU!

The conference began Friday evening with a unique dinner featuring tastes from all over the world and a comprehensive discussion of the accreditation battle at City College of San Francisco. It is amazing how corrupt an accreditation board can be.

Saturday morning began with a panel discussion on 'Effective Higher Ed Campaigns'.

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.

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.

#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...

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.