#TalkingUnion & Other #Union Songs

…music to #mobilize4equity by…from Pete Seeger, the Almanac Singers & the Song Swappers…because it's time.

“Like hymns and patriotic songs, union songs are songs with a message."

Released in 1955, this record is an enduring collection of working man’s anthems that have been passed down through generations of laborers. Liner notes include an introduction by Pete Seeger and song explanations.

On #ClassWarfare in Academe

…@InsideHigherEd commentary by #PeterDGBrown—SUNY New Paltz UUP Bullhorn editor, Mayday Declaration author.  Veteran academic activist Peter announces, "a commentary I wrote, 'Class Warfare in Academe,' was published today in Inside Higher Ed." Briefly excerpted—read the rest here and Peter's Bullhorn editorials/articles here.

Class warfare in the academy is unlikely to end any time soon. Meanwhile, we urgently need to connect the dots, to stop underfunding and privatizing public higher education. At the same time, we need to put an end to wasteful spending and overly generous perks that top administrators dole out to themselves. Saddling our students with backbreaking tuition loan debt is simply unsustainable. They, their parents, taxpayers and legislators deserve to know where their hard-earned tuition and tax dollars are going. The quality of their education and thus the future of our country depend on providing a living wage, job security and benefits to those actually teaching in our classrooms.

newsletters still rule

…for campus or regional communication and as community building tools at the grassroots level. We'd like to post more from them for readers to learn more about campuses and workplace conditions in other parts of the country. Not everything changes and many traditional ways are as good as ever. Smart change is keeping what works, using new tools to share and make it better.

Board member Peter D.G. Brown is also President of the SUNY New Paltz UUP Chapter and edits its award winning newsletter, The Bullhorn. Peter shares this link to the September Special Issue noting that much of it is "devoted to contingent issues, as usual. I'd like the p. 4 article on Lavallee to get wide exposure, since he is being showered with money, while the campus administration cries poverty when it comes to increasing pay for adjuncts." Read and compare Peter's articles on Lavallee and New Paltz adjuncts posted below. But don't miss out on the rest of the issue or the Mayday Declaration (formerly Mayday $5K) for a living wage and basic workplace rights for adjuncts. Sign it. Share it.

Nov-Dec 2012 issue of The Bullhorn

…the outstanding, award winning & #contingentfaculty aware newsletter of the SUNY New Paltz UUP Chapter, edited by NFM Board member Peter D.G. Brown. View Bullhorn back issues online. While on New Paltz UUP site, check the Contingents section, resources, links, articles, petitions & more. It's a good model for anyone looking to insert more contingent faculty information into their organization pages or just building a resource list. 

Download this file: BULLHORN November-December 2012.pdf.  NFM Foundation president Anne Wiegard reminds us,

October 2012 Bullhorn

…New Paltz UUP chapter newsletter, The Bullhorn, courtesy of Peter DG Brown, Chapter President and NFM member; Note links to current and back archived issues on the New Paltz site. 

This newsletter always has good articles on contingent faculty issues and the academic precariat. NFM Foundation President Anne Wiegard has a piece in this is issue. There is also a reprint of an article by Steve Street and a report on a labor-management meeting, specifically noting interactions on adjunct issues.

BULLHORN OCT 2012.pdf 
Download this file

Posted via email from Academentia

The Bullhorn, Feb-Mar2012 #newfac12

BULLHORN, Feb.-March 2012.pdf Download this file

 

Attached, courtesy of NFM board member Peter D.G. Brown, is the February-March issue of The Bullhorn, the New Paltz UUP chapter’s newsletter / magazine, also available online. Most of the issue is devoted to contingency and the NFM Summit last month.

Posted via email from Academentia

Confessions redux

From the June Higher Ed Insider Update "In Case You Missed It" column: 

"And our most commented article? An essay by Peter D.G. Brown, Distinguished Service Professor of German at the State University of New York at New Paltz and founding member of the board of directors of New Faculty Majority: The National Coalition for Adjunct and Contingent Equity on why he's an advocate for adjuncts despite being tenured."

Confessions hits the beltway

Beltway Blips covers the Twitterverse reception of "Confessions of a Tenured Professor"  by NFM Board member Peter DG Brown. Coverage (including my tweet on those same tweets) is ongoing, updated as new tweets appear ... Visit, vote, share, link.... let's keep this going viral and in the mainstream social media, not just buried in the academic press. If I'd blogged the article as planned and expected when it came out, we'd have missed this. As good as the article is, and good it is, the reaction, commentary, comments, blog posts, tweets, shared links, and so on complete the story... Please join the conversation by adding your comments.


insidehighered.com - 4 days ago

InsideHighered: Confessions of a Tenured Professor 

—

I must confess right off that I did not become a contingent labor activist until I turned 60, a mere six years ago. Until then, I was a fairly typical senior professor, passionately involved in teaching my students and interacting with my tenured colleagues on a variety of faculty governance 

REACTIONS (four pages so far)


Just  few among many blog reactions, these collated by Beltway Blips

Bad Feminist Bitch. Ph.D. — Thank god for this must-read piece in IHE today. I very seldom keep up with academic news any more, but an old Internet friend posted the link on FB. It happens that she herself is also an unemployed adjunct, but I probably only clicked it because in my head she's filed under the category "mommy" rather than "academic"--I met her online via a mommy forum--and "mommy" is where most of my identity lies these days. ...

Why Does Academia Treat its Workforce So Badly? Megan McArdle :: The Atlantic — A piece on adjuncts in Inside Higher Ed has been attracting a lot of attention among academics of my acquaintance.  Its description of academic life is shcokingly brutal--shocking even to me, who knows enough PhDs to be acquainted with the dismal facts: ... 

[my note: the Atlantic piece includes copious comments, some must read and others more likely to infuriate. Review them and add your own]

Academic Labor Market Exploitation Outside The Beltway | OTB — ... This might seem a ridiculous question, given that most people think professors are overpaid, underworked prima donnas who can never be fired.  But she cites Peter D.G. Brown’s recent Inside Higher Ed piece explaining that, if it was ever the case, it’s not longer true: ...