a global artistic collaboration

…file under ideas for #adjunct action…public art with cause applications…do we have causes? You betcha…where to start? #FAIR_PAY! #dueprocess #ACA fallout, #RTW & organizing, UI & "reasonable assurance," mutual support networks (expect to hear more from the Homeless Adjunct and #newfac social on this one)...more. What are your actions, ideas, suggestions? Please share

The vintage Photo-Automat Booth has transcended into a social networking artistry of global proportions. Upload your portrait and state your personal story or social cause, if you’re caring and inclined towards humanity.

Receive your photo as a black and white poster. Paste it anywhere for the world to see. It is then documented throughout their website, Facebook, and your own community to see. INSIDE OUT is turning into a global artistic phenomena, which has already covered seven continents.

Blog Action Day 2012, Oct15: #powerofwe

…Calling all #highered bloggers to blog for #contingent #academiclabor issues. Let's do this one: try some Power of We on for size. You can choose your own cause to blog for (or blog for more than one). One recommendation suggests focusing on a social change movement. This is ours.

Not a blogger? Maybe it's time to start. Imagine if this one day all the contingent faculty bloggers (even ones not blogging on academia or issues) and our tenured friends like More or Less Bunk, Here Comes Trouble or The Professor is In, AAUP's Academe blog, Campaign for the Future of Higher Ed bloggers and others blogged about this social change movement. Surely someone would notice. 

Hello Bloggers

A March 1 "Virtual Sit-in"

Tomorrow, more on other #M1 actions, which we've tweeted today and will follow on Twitter tomorrow. For a good overview/ preview, see Angus Johnston on "Student The March First National Day of Action — What to Expect on #M1." Coverage includes linked background on2009 and 2010 March actions, which preceded and the Occupy movement. Check Occupy Colleges for lists and locations. The 2010 March Action included a Virtual Sit-In that involved logging into the UC portal and adding a pin with your name and location to a Google map. Presumably this version, details forthcoming shortly, will be different enough to avoid DDoS investigations, as in 2010.

UC San Diego issues a Call to Action for a Virtual Sit-In (truncated and snipped version, complete version online here)

 

March 1st is one day of action in a growing movement, but there are any number of ways to support it. This one is a call to VIRTUAL ACTION. UCSD cordially invites the citizens of the world to become actors in a performance of Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD) through a virtual sit-in that borrows tactics of trespass and blockade from earlier social movements, applying them to the virtual sphere. 

Electronic Civil Disobedience, as a form of mass de-centralized electronic direct action, utilizes virtual blockades and virtual sit-ins. Unlike the participants in a traditional civil disobedience action, an ECD actor can participate in virtual blockades and sit-ins from home, from work, from the university, or from other points of access to the Net. 

The virtual sit-in will begin on March 1st at 12:00 AM and end on March 5th at 11:59 PM. To participate, follow reclaimucsd.wordpress.com or send an email to march1stvirtualsitin@gmail.com. Details will be posted to the blog and sent out via email about how to participate....See you on the streets and the virtual networks of the world.

How Well ARE Students doing after they graduate? Oregon: Call Home

February 9, 2012, Senator Ron Wyden D-OR introduced S-2098, titled the “Student Right to Know Before You Go Act." (watch unveiling on YouTube)


I just got off the phone with the Senator's office, where his helpful staff assured me that my well-reasoned demands—that this bill include "transparency" in regard to the phantom work-force that now runs higher ed—would be heard. 

Join Occupy College Feb 22-23 Teach-Ins

@OccupyColleges's National Solidarity Teach-ins are prep for Mar 1 ~ training, warm-up. Although not coming out for these, the AAUP and other organizations affiliated with the the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education (CFHE), of which New Faculty Majority is one, have officially endorsed Occupy Education and are promoting this year's upcoming March 1 Action. A recent AAUP letter to members and chapters urges participation and suggests activities very much modeled on Campus Equity Week (CEW). I am not entirely clear on the difference between the two groups, although OE seems more establishment and OC more in the streets, the former planning one day, March 1, and the latter a week of action ~ no matter really as long as they are headed in the same direction and work together.

TODAY: Statewide UW Walkout 12n

from the Defend Public Education forum  

From inside the capital, workers on the job supported the rally by displaying a sign of "SOLIDARITY!" through the window for protesters to see. (Fight Back! News/Staff)

University of Wisconsin State-wide Walkout Thursday:
Spread the word -  Students will walk out of all UW schools on Thursday at 12n CST in opposition to Governor Scott Walker's budget proposal that will break unions.

Wisconsin school walkouts,
Students all over Wisconsin have walked out and schools in Madison are being closed because of "excessive teacher absence," which looks to me like a strike.  The attack against collective bargaining, notice that police unions are exempt, is unprecedented but the response to this, which is part of the austerity measures happening across the country, is tremendous and we need to unleash this type of response nationally as the workers, students-- the community as a whole in Wisconsin has.

East High School students walk down East Washington Avenue Tuesday with police escort to protest Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to remove collective bargaining rights for most Wisconsin public employees. Photo Credit: Matt DeFour - Wisconsin State Journal

Local News

• Appleton East students show union support 
• Stoughton students walk out of class to protest Walker’s moves
• Hundreds of East High students leave school in protest of Walker proposal 
• Viroqua students walk out in protest 
• Students stage impromptu protest at Shorewood High 
• Eyewitness photos of Tuesday protest 

Photo: Chronicle, 2/15/2011
 With Unions Under Threat, Academics Join Huge Rally in Wisconsin

AAUP Action Alert: Keep Our Educators Working

I can't say for sure just how much this particular campaign addresses adjunct and contingent faculty issues. Read the AAUP and decide for yourself. If you think it is lacking, write the AAUP and let them know. Some time back there was word in adcon circles about a letter writing campaign asking for equity language in the higher funding bill. Haven't heard any lately, but would it hurt to ask? 

Needless to say, if you prefer emailing to telephoning, you can adapt the phone script in the Government Relations section - or write your own script for phone or email. Put an ad/con spin on your appeal.

As the economic crisis continues to threaten all of our nation's institutions, the AAUP is the ONLY national faculty organization pushing to restore funding for higher education faculty and staff in the upcoming federal supplemental appropriations bill. As Congress prepares to vote, we ask that you join other advocates of higher education in contacting your Representative and encouraging him or her to stop this round of massive layoffs in higher education, to stop the increase in class sizes, to stop the reductions in course offerings, and to vote to preserve quality higher education in our nation. In an open letter to Congress, AAUP general secretary Gary Rhoades details how a failure to invest in postsecondary educators could close the doors of opportunity on our students, would compromise our potential as a nation, and could sabotage the combined efforts of community, industry, and the government to recover from this economic downturn. Visit the Government Relations section of the AAUP Web site to learn more about how you can stand up for postsecondary faculty and staff.

The AAUP Online is an electronic newsletter of the American Association of University Professors.  Learn more about the AAUP. Visit us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Contact us at govtrelations@aaup.org.

Then if you're still in advocacy mode and have all those addresses handy, write and put in a word for extending unemployment and revising federal codes to safeguard adjunct and contingent faculty unemployment rights

AFT Action Alert: Bank on Students

Money for banks or to invest in students and institutions? Which is the better investment? Reblogged from AFT / FACE Talk, Thursday, 11 March 2010

Call NOW! 866/327-8670  Tell your senators:  include student loan reform  in reconciliation bill Stop. Go to your phone and contact your Senator right this minute.  Why? Because right now, the Senate is in a serious debate, the outcome of which could jeopardize the fate of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.  Republican Senators and key Democratic Senators are opposing the inclusion of SAFRA in the reconciliation process.  But as Rep. George Miller stated today, the choice is clear: