AAUP Joins Week of Action for Higher Education

Yesterday, November 17, was a Global Day of Action, which may seem to have come too close to Oct 7th for some. Maybe it's a generational thing, whether attention span, age thing or tiring more easily than the students. You can still follow the action at Defend Education, Global Wave, on Twitter and at various blogs. 


The university is conflicted: nor is anyone ~ students, staff, faculty, techs. researchers, managers ~ in it immune. Does it have to be an either/or when it comes to aligning ourselves with either the suits at conferences or bullhorns in the streets. Wherever individual sympathies lie, we must ~ in my personal opinion ~ listen to / work with both (however long a spoon that may call for), cannot ignore either. 


The 2nd Annual SEIU Forum on Part-Time Faculty Unions is this coming Saturday, Nov 19,  ~ D.C. in case you're in the neighborhood. AAUP Shared Governance Conference (with workshops) was last weekend, Nov 12-14. Reports in my RSS reader await an ever dwindling attention span.  In today's mail, a reminder from the "National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions"  about its 38th annual conference, April 10-12, 2011. If there is a more ungainly acronym than NCSCBHEP, I don't want to know about it.

AAUP Report on October 1-7 week of action... 

Reclaiming the University: video & so much more

The Community College Summit is over, and yes, follow-up + comments, commentary, response statements, links, transcripts (if available) are on the blogging agenda. However, today, the day after the Summit, overrepresented by administration, pols and corporate interests but underrepresented by faculty, is Oct 6, the day before tomorrow... and

Tomorrow is Oct 7th, the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education. So it's back to U... and defending it. Students and faculty working together... Admin, for-profit mouthpieces and corporate reps will be conspicuous by their absence.

UMN March tuition hikes and furlough protest

From the U Minn faculty blog FERPE (Faculty for the Renewal of Public Education) post, Reclaiming the University video:

"Did you miss the FRPE/EAC event, "Reclaiming the University: Fulfilling Our Promise to Students and the Public," on September 30? Luckily, a student volunteered to videotape the event and has posted the files on the web, both as a streaming video and as a direct download."

While you are there, put FERPE on your rss reader and don't overlook their Reclaim the U! statement of purpose in the sidebar to the right of the main message area.

Now back to October 7th, Bob Samuels a posts for the occasion, "October 7th: Get Out The Vote And Support Higher Education" today ("say no to privatization and yes to public education"). I 

"On October 7th, people throughout the country will be demonstrating to support public education. This date also marks one of the last days people can register to vote for the November election, and so many groups are calling for joint activities to support officials who will defend public education."

FERPE will be out tomorrow. So will others from "sea to shining sea," from California to New York State. What about you?

Check out the October 7th twitter page at http://twitter.com/forpublicedoct7. Post your action updates to twitter and use any of the following tags to have your post syndicated on the national website: #oct7, #oct7th, #october7th, #pubed. (@NewFacMajority has been using#Oct7 but will now add others)