Sunday Matinee reruns: #LastProfessors revisited + next Barbara Wolf installment

…opens with taking our in-house Wayback Machine to Sunday, May 5, 2013 for movie break…last of the profs aka the great train wreck featuring the #adjunct as Gunga Din. Donoghue, interviewed about his 2008 book, says 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." The playlist is keyed to follow with parts 2 through 4 of the video interview. 

See also: Donoghue chapter in Keith Hoeller's Equality for Contingent Faculty and Stanley Fish on Last Profs, Opinionator, NYTimes 2009. PS...Henry Giroux interview on the corporatization of American education follows 

Now for our weekly pre-COCAL XI video from A Simple Matter of Justice series, accompanied by Chris Carter's 2002 Workplace Interview with Barbara Wolf, director of Degrees of Shame  (1997) and this series. This week's matinee closes with Chapter 3, "APBU: Joining a Full-time Faculty Union" (Canada). In many locations in Canada, part-time faculty are joining the full-time faculty union, but beginning with separate bargaining units. Next week's destinations Boston and Chicago

Media & #Adjunct Activism: What you missed at the MIT-Knight #CivicMedia Conference

So why should contingent faculty give a rat's ass ? For starters, thanks to the internet and social media, we're doing better but still overdue on taking charge of our own voices and media. Citizen journalism is the way to do it. Blogs, web pages, online magazines, Twitter and other social media platforms count as media too. So do online journal and newsletters (even ones published in pdf format.

The annual MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference
wrapped up here in Cambridge yesterday. This year’s theme was “The Open
Internet and Everything After,” and over the course of two days,
speakers highlighted various efforts to take advantage of the open web
as well as steps they’re taking to ensure the Internet remains open and
free.

If you were unable to watch the conference live or follow along with the Twitter hashtag #civicmedia, you can rewatch the full conference.

But with nearly two full days of talks, panel discussions, and
presentations it can be quite overwhelming to watch it all. Here are
some of the highlights.

 Here’s what you missed at the MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference ~ Nieman Journalism Lab. Follow the MIT Center for Civic Media on Twitter at @civcMIT and UT's Knight Center at @utknightcenter. International Journalists Network at @ijnet is another. Think BIG. PS Knight Center offers free online courses in new media journalism and using social media in journalism

NCSCBHEP: 2014 Conference Pics & Podcast Highlights

The Impact of Contingent Faculty on Higher Education Results with panelists Michelle Kiss, Hongwei Yu and Daniel Maxey. Jeffrey Frumkin moderated this panel discussion.

discovered on tubz…@SoapBoxBooks…purpose reminds me of #PFRNetwork

…except that the Precarious Faculty Network is 100% digital—no meat space meeting space either, but I try for most of the rest and could re-open the Chatroll "e-meet up"

SoapBox Books & Zines is a non-hierarchical, volunteer-run, not-for-profit community space that distributes alternative media, provides the community with access to information, and promotes independent and critical thinking. We offer a safe space for community-building projects, events, meetings, research, skill-sharing and education. By empowering ourselves and promoting non-hierarchical organizations, we can begin to build a world that is free from exploitation and oppression toward a more just, egalitarian and sustainable future.   About | SoapBox

David Blacker: The Falling Rate of Learning & the Neoliberal Endgame

…makes a powerful case that in the present phase of capitalism, our rulers are abandoning the previous era’s principle of universal education. No shit.

Blacker’s specific focus is on education in the Western states but his contextualisation also includes hard-hitting analyses of political economy, environmental degradation and socialist strategy. The book is written in an erudite but witty style that leaves the reader with the clear and distinct impression that the next few decades will decide the fate of the human race. Blacker ominously warns us that the current global hegemony of the capitalist order presents most of our species with a grim choice: ‘we are subject to the harsh survivalist disjunction - we will have to kill it before it kills us’ (p.19).

Read a review of the The Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame in Counterfire and listen to an interview (one of many) with David J. Blacker,

Community Unionism—an #organizing idea for #adjunct fac to think about?

…A new organizing model that gives non-union workers a chance to engage and organize…by Roxanne DuBois in Canadian Dimension

At Unifor’s founding BC regional Council, a speaker stood up at the mic and shared an idea. As a member of the Vancouver-based Local 3000, representing workers at various White Spot locations and elsewhere in the service industry, the speaker shared thoughts about how to reach out to non-union restaurant workers and to engage them with the union, its services, and its knowledge. Restaurant workers exemplify what precarious work is all about: many of them are young, but not exclusively; they work irregular shifts, have dodgy contracts at best, and certainly don’t have any backup if they have problems getting paid or issues with their boss.

Movie Marathon: #Labor & #Adjunct Organizing…#NormaRae & #KeithHoeller

…A film festival! Let's make a marathon out of it. More from Barbara Wolf's A Simple Matter of Justice, plus classic labor movies. Here's a 2013 list from Freelancers Union by Sara Horowitz: 

... [of t]he best labor-related movies that'll make you want to fight for the underdog. Who doesn’t love movie night? People often ask me about my favorites, so I’ve put together a list of my top labor-related movies. Many of them are based on actual events. Of course they’ve been dramatized, Hollywood-style, but they're still great stories. Documentaries will come next. Enjoy!

.... Norma Rae (1979), this one's for @mmstrikesback

Thursday Miscellany—#rhizo14, CO2 pipeline, mobilizing to end contingency

…so much for hitting the blog in a more timely manner and early enough in the day to remember those morning blogging ideas (not to mention focused enough to develop them. Some of the day went to Rhizo14 (Rhizomatic Learning, after D&G's rhizome applied to learning), which started as a connectivist MOOC. A larger chunk went to local interests, online community media, where I'm following and reporting on local concerns over the construction of a proposed CO2 pipeline ~ in addition to the usual community garden/farmers market notices, Forest Service fire alerts and local festivals, as noted at Mountainair Online and elsewhere

Enter National Mobilization for Equity, started by Peter Brown with “Mayday Declaration on Contingency in Higher Education,” founding text for the Mayday $5K Campaign at SUNY New Paltz. It's been growing since its Mayday origins and picking up endorsers ~ not just academic organizations either. Yesterday was the first teleconference meeting of the steering committee representing the supporting organizations, representing over 7 million members.

Starbuckaroo & #adjunct comment blitzing too

Skeptical all-agog-ness at news of Starbuck's (not quite) free higher ed degree offer abounds on adjunct enclaves around the tubz. On the adj-l list, which had been quiet until Anna Spiro posted a link to the NYT Starbucks OpEd. Conversation picked up. Ana Fores posted,

I wrote a letter, which was published, and I encouraged folks on Adjunct Justice to join me & write in, to give their own point of view. I am sure some heeded the call, but I don't know who.  

If we want to have our voices heard, we need to do so in the mainstream media, especially in papers such as the New York Times with its huge readership. Write in your comment. I think they may still be taking them!

More #highereedmedia musings + #AcademeToday @Chronicle…minus paywalled links, #admin jobs etc

…@InsideHigherEd's newsletters come w/links for easy FB sharing…unless it slips through the memory hole, I post weekly and monthly newsletter not daily. Academe Today does not so it's blog, share from another FBer or nothing. That's not fair to IHE (bitching about the paywall not withstanding).

I've been accused of bad 'tude about about mainstream higher ed media. That depends on perspective. I want more speaking for ourselves, in our own voices and on our own platforms — but no throwing out any babies with media bathwater. Nor do I see any point in multiple daily posts of articles already posted on multiple groups and widely RT's. Plus, both show up regularly on Precarious Dispatches aggregation posts, CHE perhaps more frequently (suggesting a lingering print bias even on Google News).

So here's Monday's AcademeToday, adjunct proofed, as it were. Sure wish IHE did weekly and monthly reviews though..

AFT #ADJUNCT/CONTINGENT FACULTY CAUCUS

If you are planning to attend the AFT Convention from July 11-14 in Los Angeles, and you are adjunct faculty or contingent faculty, please come to the brand new caucus meeting on Saturday, July 12 from 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM in Room 407 of the Los Angeles Convention Center.

This will be an organizing meeting where the purpose and mission of the Caucus will be defined. We will be establishing committees to work on the formal By-Laws and proposed resolutions for the future.

We also plan to create a steering committee of local leaders all over the country to drive the agenda between conventions.

Bill Lipkin, Acting President

AFT Adjunct/Contingent Faculty Caucus

Sunday Night at the Movies…#Adjunct version

…which is to say, free viewing and BYOP. Depending on what I find in the vault. I'm thinking double feature. One socially/movement relevant but the other not in the least, just for fun. It's already been a serious day, what with a new #StandwithMaryFaith article on Democracy Chronicles about the fundraiser (donations, no #selfies please).

Whether or not you are going, COCAL XI is coming. With that in mind, movie night kicks off screening Barbara Wolf's 2001 A Simple Matter of Justice video series.

Introduction: Political & Economic History

Introduction: Political & Economic History from Adjunct and Contingent on Vimeo

#adjunct news, issues, posts, feeds…#digitalmedia stuff

…Friday was more of a news catch up day than one for thoughtful blogging, never mind those three posts sitting in drafts and others in the back my by now tired brain case. Maybe I get to be thoughtful in retrospect ~ hard to be curating, editing and web formatting on the fly. Not finishing last night gives me the opportunity

Besides the thinking, there is also the reminding and the weaving. Not all visitors check out the blog tchotchkes. Although a number of the links on the blogroll and all the feeds in the viewer gadgets syndicate to Precarious Faculty's Facebook iteration, none go to +Vanessa Vaile (G+) unless posted manually. Meh. My other Blogger posts go to G+ too. I want a +Laura Gibbs-type space there — 100% public, tag sorted, eclectic — not just about adjuncts. My plan here is for regular posts about media tchtchke, Twitter/ Facebook items, other blogs and recent Tumblr posts to cover that media gap. There are other platforms too, but I'm taking this project a few steps at a time. Today—issues and two (Tumblrs) for the road. Tomorrow? New subscriptions and syndicates feeds (on the list for this until it got too long), those pesky drafts, whatever interesting this way comes…and surely more issues.

Adjunct Issues + Two for the Road:  

On #tenure…from the archives, 2010

Serendipity rules! I'd been looking for this back post from the archives, as much for the carrot image as the content and blogger David F Ruccio's comments on an NY Times Debate about tenure (link below). Today, when I was no longer looking for the post, it popped up among the " You might also like" selections at the end of a post. 

Then I noticed that I hadn't carried Ruccio (also blogging at Real World Economics Review) over to the new blogroll, rebuilt after the contents unraveled during migration to this domain. It's there now.  

The About page describes occasional link & commentary (on economics, culture and society) as consisting of  "occasional links and bits of commentary—some humorous, others more serious, often a combination." Let me add that it is fabulously illustrated with charts, graphs (hey, he is an economist), cartoons, public art, lithographs. prints and paintings. Now follows the post as it appeared July 20, 2010:

#adjunct realities: crossing domains, navigating networks

PoSR graphic ©1978-2014 Sally A Applin & Michael D Fischer 

…or why I keep having such a hard time keeping up on this blog I now have three fat posts in drafts. The quick catch-up one got fat in a hurry thanks to Vegara v. California, #WeAreNNMC,  #yesallwomen, and a fund-raising campaign for Mary-Faith Cerasoli that is suffering side effects of retaliation and bullying (yes, sometimes #adjuncts abuse other adjuncts ~ power relationships trump solidarity and humanity here too). With the bullying/retaliation and a uses of twitter post, that makes three.  Any one of the so-called quick catch-

Such is our polysocial reality, mine in particular navigating and crossing back and forth across interest domains and social media. Turns out too that PolySocial Reality (PoSR) is a cross-disciplinary sub-domain that

In Brief—Nassau #adjuncts, Mary-Faith Cerasoli donation pages

…the PayPal donation link at Stefan Krompier's NCC Adjuncts United site, down yesterday, is now a go…so GO …now.

…the story—Mary-Faith, mass firing threats, her hunger strike,
starts here, September 2013, at the Nassau AFA strike

Then stop by Frank Freiser's  I Stand With Mary-Faith, that is linked to his GoFundMe campaign, Mary-Faith Is Fighting for Adjunct Rights. 

Are these campaigns connected? Why have two? Won't that just confuse people?

#NCC #Adjuncts United: Mary-Faith Cerasoli donation page…

by Nassau professor Stefan Krompier, who has posted a personal appeal for Mary-Faith, friend, colleague and homeless teacher. He explains:

In the fall of 2011 Mary-Faith possessed a Temporary Teaching License and was teaching full time. At this point in time the New York State Education Department informed her that that she needed to obtain a Permanent License in order to continue teaching in a NYS Public School.  

She followed the Departments written instructions and completed the two specific courses in adolescent pedagogy necessary to obtain her permanent teaching license. However, because these courses were recommended in error and not the specific two courses she needed, Mary-Faith no longer had a teaching license, a job, or the ability to get a teaching job in a NYS Public School. 

Her advanced degree and extensive teaching experience enabled Mary-Faith to secure employment at four different colleges as an Adjunct Instructor. She worked six days a week and was able to support herself. Personal health issues, her mother’s worsening dementia, her lack of a full-time teaching position and the on-again-off-again nature of adjunct work has depleted her savings to the point where she is now homeless. Her night time hours are split sleeping in her car and when lucky on the couch in a friend’s house.

More information at NCC Adjuncts United: Mary-Faith Cerasoli Donation Page

Movietime for #adjunct activists

…and as a reminder about the Videos page here. The playlist stands at 105, not counting Barbara Wolf's A Simple Matter of Justice series and others on Vimeo or Left Forum videos to be added. To be honest, it's also because the post on uses of twitter (advocacy, learning/PD, fun) for adjuncts is not ready for prime time. 

We'll open with some music courtesy of the Colorado Adjuncts aka Front Range Community College AAUP...




Thomas Paine 1776 & NOW! Flanders-West-Hedges-Wolff, June 1 at Left Forum 2014 in New York City at John Jay College