#newfac12 TWTSTW

Press Release-National Higher Education Summit Meeting Links Faculty Working Conditions to Student Learning Conditions.pdf Download this file

= That Was The Summit That Was, an acronymization that dates me in this era of information half-life shrinkage. Considering #newfac12 Summit twitter action, TWTSTW could also be read as Tweets To Watch, remarkable for an event put on by a distinctly "tweet lite" group. More tweet now than did before the Summit. You may consider that as either progress or a further sign of the collapse of Western Civ as we have been imagining it. New Faculty Majority President Maria Maisto (@MariaMaistoNFM) and VP Matt Williams (@ohioadjunct) are giving the Twitiverse a try, as is Board member Alan Trevithick (@eValerick) to a lesser degree. There are a few others, mostly account holders in name only but a few lurking on the bank watching the twitter stream go by. 

 

Apropos #NewFac12 Summit 2012, this means anyone could, and many did, follow the Summit live online. Still missed the Summit? Catch the rerun online. The Summit Resources page has a Final Schedule/Program, Reports, Tweets, and Published Responses to NFM Summit (naked links to be embedded, expanded and annotated in another post) and other links. But this is neither history lesson nor social media cautionary tale. It's about outcomes, actions and change. 

Outcomes ~ in addition general consciousness raising/ increased awareness and revitalization, an growing list not limited to:

• Network building manifested by increased membership, online traffic, discussions, information sharing, independent and group actions large and small as well as...
  
• Widespread public sharing of adjunct stories, as yet informal and diffuse across multiple threads and locations, that could coalesce into a more organized project 
  
• A Chapter Toolkit page right here (check the tabs at the top of the page) in response to a  post-Summit surge of interest in starting new NFM Chapters (a page for existing chapters is on the drawing board)
• NFM Foundation's Framework for Change and Task Force ~ both pages are interactive, please visit and comment
  
• Josh Boldt's Adjunct Project and crowdsourced data collection compiling information on adjunct pay and working conditions
  
• Other new networks, projects, individual actions we can't wait to learn more about and share. (Spoiler Alert: John A Casey Jr of the splendid and influential Adjunct Manifesto and Occupy English has plans afoot well worth watching for)
• Your own ideas and plans for change ... take Lee Bessette's excellent advice, "there is always something you can do" to heart ... and share them with us. A nifty new feature if I do say so myself.

Posted via email from Academentia

Summit Up #NewFac12!

Summit Program - Final.doc Download this file

  

Yes, today is the day. Can't be there? Got it covered: Twitter, Facebook, live blogging, social media team at the ready and other attendees armed with mobiles. Follow #newfac12 on Twitter. Lee Bessette will be liveblogging the Summit at College Ready Writing. Check out her pre-Summit post with resource links and listing the team so I don't have to again here. 

Check @NewFacMajority and NFM's Facebook wall for introductions and links. We'll add others as they come up. I'll be here and there, dropping in on Twitter and Facebook, checking mail and rss feeds. All from New Mexico...

Alas, no livestreaming video. Who knows, maybe there will be mobiles with web cams in the crowd. Never discount serendipity. Audio will be available after the event.    

 

Talking Points: plus a great late add from Gary Rhoades, visibility

News from New Faculty Majority, Issue: #7

Table of Contents

• Continuing to Move Forward

• NFM's Health Insurance Plan Launches

• Meet the NFM Board

• NFM and the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education

• How to Organize or Raise Awareness on Your Campus

• Present the Facts

• My Experience as an Adjunct: A Tale of 2 Faculties

• A Word from NFM's Treasurer

• Follow Your School's Re-accreditation Process

• Announcements

Continuing to Move Forward by Maria Maisto, NFM President

Dear Colleagues: One of the lessons that every teacher learns is that you can't be a good teacher without being attuned to what it feels like to be a student. Over the last two years as we have worked to get NFM up and running, all of us on the NFM Board have periodically found ourselves feeling very much like our students: alternately confident and confused, often elated and occasionally dejected, determined but exhausted, sober but energized. We try to remind each other that while our objectives are ambitious, every step we take is instrumental, and every new member who joins us is a reminder of the first steps we all took to become activists for change and of the hopes that we all had, and continue to have, for NFM as an agent of change. That's why we're especially proud to announce that, after some unexpected delays, our health insurance initiative has officially launched! Thanks to the tireless work of Board member Tracy Donhardt, NFM members can now obtain health insurance in most states. As Tracy explains, some states are excluded, so we are working to see what might be available in those states excluded by the carrier with whom we have partnered. Keep checking back for updated information, and if you know of plans (or other solutions) that might be accessible to contingent faculty, please let us know. We are also thrilled to report that our nascent 501(c)3 foundation will be receiving grants from The Ford Foundation and the French American Charitable Trust to support the educational, outreach, advocacy and research effort embodied in our January 28, 2012 "summit" on contingent academic employment in Washington DC. This meeting, to be held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, will launch a nationwide effort to mobilize all stakeholders in higher education - faculty, administrators, students, legislators, and the public - to work together to achieve FTE - Fair Trade in Education for faculty and students. Naturally, we want to have a healthy contingent of contingent faculty at this event, so keep up to date on plans for this summit at the NFM Foundation website: www.nfmfoundation.org.