@NatM4Equity endorses #NAWD…gets FB page—@MMStrikesback writes @NEIU BoT—#WeAreNNMC petitions

…"again" on letter writing (here) and petitioning about NNMC (here and here). National Mobilization for Equity (NME) already has a page plus blog, recently added Twitter, even more recently endorsed National Adjunct Walkout Day and is now on Facebook. Still, a whole post in a title that will still fit in a tweet with characters left over for a link should qualify as a social media sub-genre or at least a hat trick So what do I do for the rest of the post?...besides make it a short one. With pictures. PS be sure to catch and sign the petitions as you scroll down...all the way down

Cover and profile photos for National Mobilization for Equity on Facebook

Here's the endorsement from the NME Action page:

links & tweeps for #COCALXI opening sessions

I'm still working on the Twitter list for following online…in the meantime check out the few I have below and on Facebook. Following #COCALXI on twitter is still the best way to keep up. 

Plenary panelists like +Sylvain Marois may be too busy to tweet. So far, the most active tweeps are +Krista Eliot, +Lee Kottner, @AFTHigherEd and @SylviaJMarques. @AAUP and Margot Young for @cupepse have joined the conversation. Chronicle Vitae columnist +Sydni Dunn is less active but will no doubt be posting articles. Either tweets from Interest Group sessions are thinner or missing identifying tags.

Back channel tweets and email are harder to track, but we welcome those too ~ anon if preferred. DM @VCVaile or @precariousfac or email vanessa.87036@gmail.com. A few disconcerting accounts of rumor mongering are emerging too but on hold awaiting confirmation.

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...

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. 

Monday morning

…musing or media musings…banal, too much alliteration…TW3 recap + notes toward a do list that probably won't get done is more like it. TW3 = TWTWTW or That Was The Week That Was. This round is mostly about social media media ventures but won't always be. So here's  more about how the New Faculty Majority spends its Web 20 electrons. More about that page and the NFM Foundation another time.

Facebook analytics are by day by day overlapping 7 day chunks. The New Faculty Majority Facebook page shows 2,869 "reached" between 11/18 and 11/24. Although comments and discussion threads are more active, many visitors still choose to remain anonymous. No one really needs an explanation for why, do they?

Ana M. Fores Tamayo of  better pay petition renown has joined NewFac page admin as a content editor. Having such an active contributor is a huge boost for the page and even more help to me. I'm sure it comes as a relief to board members tired of my nagging. Is Ana aware that FB is just the gateway: micro and other blogging sure to follow? In the meantime, we're making plans to coordinates posts and issues to address. Input and suggestions, please. We'd sure like to see your posts and shared links too and plan to highlight those more.

Lost in cyberspace, Nov13: 1

…found by Storify on the New Faculty Majority Facebook page & Twitter stream, with pit stops at New Faculty Majority and NFM Foundation Web 1.0 hideouts, YouTube flyby and more. This inaugural issue opens with selected stories and discussions currently unfolding on Facebook: CFP deadlines, conferences and a pay wall. More to come. Join the discussion. 

Ed note: this Storify, created by Vanessa Vaile, collates shared links and visitor comments from NFM's public Facebook page and does not necessarily reflect NFM policy or opinions of other board members.

In the Middle: The Best MLA is the One I Didn't Attend: Tweeting the Conference

JJ Cohen writes,

Because I'm on fellowship leave, and because I'm committed to an extraordinary amount of travel in the semester ahead, I didn't attend the MLA conference in Seattle.

I followed the event at a distance through friends on FB and the occasional text message or phone chat. I know a few people who are on the job market, and a delegation of GW English faculty were conducting interviews for our Romanticist position. And maybe that says it: the MLA convention is easy shorthand for the US academic hiring process in literature, since in hotel rooms at that conference most of the interviewing is undertaken.

This year, though, I also experienced the unfolding of the meeting via Twitter.

In the Middle: The Best MLA is the One I Didn't Attend: Tweeting the Conference

Same here and we're not alone. Lee Skallerup tweeted and Storified MLA12 and  AHA2012 without attending either. Brian Croxall tweeted both but attending just MLA12. Haystackers in Seattle and Chicago kept the back channels busy. Later, John A Casey Jr, who presented at AHA, posted thoughts on the current conference system, its frustrations, high costs and possible changes:

Yet another way that non-elite faculty are prevented from full participation in the discipline they help sustain.

Among the many changes that I hope will take place as the discipline of English is forced to evolve or disappear is a reexamination of the annual convention model....changes are all desperately needed.  Maybe regional conferences affiliated with national ones could pick up the slack.  Or perhaps a lot of the work needed could be done online.

In any event, if we want all the members of the profession to have a say in its future, we need something better than the traditional annual convention.  The premium for attendance is too steep.

Chronicle Facebook page

The Chronicle of Higher Education, that Grey Lady of the academic press, has a Facebook page. OK the Chronicle did not put up the page and does not manage it. There is no wall for visitors to post on. You can, however, leave comments on posted links.  Direct Facebook access to Chronicle blogs will speed up sharing on the NFM Facebook page.

The page is bot generated from a Wikipedia entry and fed by syndicated rss feeds of Chronicle articles and references on Facebook. No humans involved (or employed).

Check out the profile picture. Yes, that's the issue with Maria Maisto on the cover. Hope they keep and that the page does not auto-refresh for new images. If so, at least I captured this one.

Call for Adjunct Blogs

I'm collecting URLs for a new sidebar feature here: a blogroll of adjunct blogs. Quite a few new adjunct blogs have been cropping up lately. Some are primarily about adjunct issues. Others blog individual personal interests. Many mix personal; professional (discipline) and career (adjunct issues). Plus there are a number of new "state of the profession" academic blogs that cover adjunct issues ~ perhaps enough for a separate feature.

Do you have or know of an adjunct blog? Please share by posting annotated links in comments ~ and so I can add them to the blogroll.

Did you see or participate in "My blog fights climate change"? I did. The proliferation of adjunct blogs leads me think about a blog-based "My blog supports equity in academic employment" campaign based on the same concept. Who's up for designing a cool badge?

 

 Then there are Blog Carnivals.... you'll have to excuse me. I grew up in South Louisiana and have Mardi Gras on the mind this time of the year. Here it's networking, organizing, strength in numbers. Admittedly, who would object to a little Bakhtinian topsy-turvy ~ mocking institutions and upending authority?


Recently updated: 

• New Faculty Majority Coalition on Facebook
• @NewFacMajority, Twitter microblog

Happy New Year: philosophy & other advice for #adjunct faculty

Break is almost over but today is still a holiday even if my New Year's Eve was quiet and sober. MLA09 was well covered by tweet, not just mine.  Summing up tweet (MLA 09 in under 140) and the entire #MLA09 archive, a cast of thousands: download from site or subscribe to feed.

I've been diligently collating more materials than I can possibly use ~ but will somehow try. In the meantime, here's a little something to help you be more philosophical about what's facing us in 2010. Enjoy...





More to enjoy. I discovered a blogging soul mate at I Used to Be Disgusted But Now I Try to Be Amused, self-described as "a low-level academic who likes to vent his spleen a little too much." Inspired, insightful snark, and we like the same books and movies. Granted, I'm not much on basketball but there's always beer.

• A Modest Proposal to Deal With the Rise in Unemployed History PhDs
  
• Administrative Buzzwords and Phrases, and What They Really Mean
• What a Glenn Beck Student Essay Would Look Like

Techie notes: I set up sync apps to auto-post links to blog posts to both @NewFacMajority on Twitter and the New Faculty Majority Coalition Facebook Page in case you prefer getting your updates and following us via either of those popular social media.