Joe Fruscione with a PBS adjuncts update

…posted this morning to @NewFacMajority's FB timeline… let's follow this, track it's progress, coordinate an even broader response. You can still leave your 2¢ at the News Hour/Making Sen$e and "how long will you work?" pages. Let them know we're watching <*y*> ... Joe writes,

"Some potential good news from PBS NewsHour:

'We've heard from a number of contingents willing to be interviewed for our upcoming story. Thanks for reposting our query. We're working on a few other stories for our older workers series right now but we plan to turn our attention to this one after that. It may not be until the end of April or so, but I will be in touch with you (and the respondents to our online query) when we're able to focus on the story.'

I'll keep everyone in the loop about what I hear." 

Rob Baum, dba MI @rcbatp and sundry noms de guerre, notes, 

They are slowly emerging our story from within their series. It's a great strategy -- frustrating but very very intelligent. Besides, isn't May when Lee and others are planning the May Day events? By the end of May I hope to have gathered the minions for the ADJUNCT VERSUS first look reading.

(Ed Note: links and further details on the above activities to be posted as they come our way. Do you have or know of a May adjunct event / action to add? Let's coordinate...)

On Watching Myself Being Interviewed as a Road Scholar

…by Joseph Fruscione, Road Scholar, circuit riding GWU and other D.C. area teaching destinations, on the most recent installment (part 1 here) of his News Hour adventure on Paul Salmon's Money Sen$e segment. Joe writes, 

Disappointed is a word that comes to mind. Or, more colloquially, meh.

            

I found out that Monday March 18 was the air date at about 1:00 in the afternoon, after I came home from teaching. I shared the information with family, friends, and colleagues via social media and text messaging. At first, there was a little confusion about what time PBS NewsHour airs in particular markets and time zones: 6:00? 7:00? What about times outside the east? Luckily, between live broadcast, DVR, live streaming, and YouTube, almost everyone I know has seen the piece. 

Even before it first aired around 6:30 in the east, I knew the story about faculty retirement and contingents was going to miss the mark: the teaser at the beginning of the broadcast featured an older professor, and News Hour's initial framing took the "graying professors clogging the tenure pipeline" approach. I watched it with my wonderfully supportive wife, and we had similarly ambivalent reactions, sort of a You sounded great but they missed a lot of what you said response.