#adjunct miscellany…#BCCAgora, Mary-Faith, Kilgore & #academicfreedom

…so I fell off the daily post wagon, not the first time—won't be the last either. The adjunctiverse did not stop turning to wait for me, although end semester grading slowed social media fire hose flow somewhat

Saturday was #BCCAgora, which, not withstanding occasional tech glitches, an encouraging success for organizer Fabian Banga. Glitches go with the online conference territory, so anyone bothered—get over it. The conference and video open with Audrey Watters on Robots and Education Labor; the adjunct session starts at 2:18:06 ~ I tried but couldn't figure out out how to key the embed to start then. All (coffee breaks excepted) are worth watching.

tools…using them—not being one

…this might not be a post either: call it an extended meta blogging update…planning out loud. Feel free to contribute your 2¢ worth. Let the musing begin:

Tools

I've been exploring Diigo blogging and sharing tools. Using is the best (only) way to learn a new tool. These turn annotated bookmarks into blog posts. If truly useful and making blogging/online information sharing quicker, easier — more efficient, then they will become part of the repertoire. If not, then not — and will fade from regular use. Until then, expect more Diggo blogging and auto-blogging. 

Special Projects

Keith Hoeller's links and commentary, a weekly annotated links post will include links to articles by and about Keith. I'm not the only one who has long thought he should have his own page or blog. Hardly believing he didn't, I started saving links on Delicious in 2008. The project starts with bookmarking and then blogging entries from Keith Hoeller's PT Faculty Links & Commentary on Diigo. Eventually, we'll find them a cyberspace home on the range of their own so they don't have to crash in random locations like a homeless adjunct. The Washington PartTime Faculty Association had a web page...but on a now defunct platform that disappeared from cyberspace taking all the WPFA pages with it...and there you thought nothing disappeared from cyberspace.  

Letter to Texas A&M on behalf of Professor Bradford

*Below, Attached, and By Fax*

                                                                                                June 4, 2012

President Maria Hernandez Ferrier

Texas A&M University-San Antonio

One University Way

San Antonio, TX 78224

Dear President Ferrier:

I am writing on behalf of New Faculty Majority to protest San Antonio A & M's non-renewal of Adjunct Professor of Criminology Sissy Bradford, and to request your immediate intervention.

Given the facts of the case, we are gravely concerned that it appears that in rescinding Professor Bradford’s courses at the same time that Professor Bradford has been speaking publicly about the incident involving the display of religious symbols on a new building entrance, and at the same time that she has objected to the university's handling of the threats against her, the University is engaging in retaliation against her.  If true, this would violate the principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech that the university is committed to uphold. We urge you to reaffirm those essential principles by renewing Professor Bradford’s appointment for the fall semester. 

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates, 23Feb12

Email joeberry@igc.org, to subscribe to regular updates in brief and links by email. More about Joe Berry, COCAL, publications, links. 

COCAL Updates in brief and links Capeheart v. NEIU: continuing free-speech/ academic freedom struggle at Northeastern IL U  ~ see below

1. Santorum defends for-profits, Inside HigherEd
2. Victory for union as U of Michigan Trustees oppose bill to forbid grad research assistants from unionizing, over the objections of senior administrators, Inside HigherEd 
3. Economic numbers to die for [we are far from alone in suffering in this economy]
4. For-profit higher ed and the Occupy movement and a new crack down on the for-profits  
5. Pasadena City College students protest class cuts and adjunct layoffs  
6. In case you have not heard, Occupy national congress set for July in Philly and more about it in WaPo. [Contingent faculty should be there!]
7. Learning from Finland by Diane Ravitch  (and I wonder what their higher ed looks like too)
8. Sue Doe of NFM testifies to Colorado state legislature about us.  
9. Tenured professor fired at Indiana U, South Bend More on Columbia College union, PFAC, NLRB charges against Columbia Collge administration

Updates in full

Southwestern College makes news again

when it receives Jefferson 'Muzzle' Award for Egregious Censorship

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has awarded a 2010 "Jefferson Muzzle"—a dubious distinction reserved for "egregious or ridiculous affronts to the First Amendment right of free speech"—to administrators at California's Southwestern College. 

The public college earned its Muzzle by "consistently refusing to heed and apply such clear principles of free expression in the governance of an institution of higher learning" in dealing with a peaceful student and faculty protest over budget cuts. The college banned from campus faculty members who participated in the protest. 

FIRE has been extensively involved in defending the faculty members and advocating for the dismantling of Southwestern's unconstitutional "free speech zone." This is the third consecutive year that a school at the center of a FIRE case has been awarded a Jefferson Muzzle. 

(an example of Column B)