Good Morning #Adjunct/iverse

… & other #highered denizens of the internet, whoever & wherever you are! Trolls, stay under your bridges. Everyone else: have some news with your morning coffee. Do not feed the trolls. it only encourages them. 

leading stories this morning : offshore tax shelters revealed in leaked docs, CA hiker found, one still lost; jobless claims at four month high; new Carnival cruise ship incident; and a goat walks into a bar in Butte, Montana.

BUT this is today's ABSOLUTE top story in the Adjunct/iverse: go Jack! Olympic College nailed by Education Dept. Accuses Accreditor of Neglecting Adjunct's Complaint - Chronicle of Higher Education (behind pay wall so mug someone for zir password)

Good Morning Adjunct/iverse

…welcome to a new blog feature modeled (somewhat) on one I just initiated on my main community blog, a still undefined variant on speed blogging (mostly links). To avoid confusion, the hashtag should not be #GMA...suggestions welcomed. 

Purposes (tentative): quick catch up; news; brief announcements; some links; calls for information... and above all hitting cyberspace before noon (MT). So far, I've been cutting that last part close but hope to push compose and send time back to morning for ET readers too.  

The #fakeadvice game is rolling along with comments coming in here and on Con Job. Add yours and tweet/RT/share threads and comments.  

I'm looking for amusing foolery for April 1. "What you want to hear" would fit right into "How can an adjunct tell when an offer is really an April Fool's Day prank?"

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates, late May

To subscribe to regular Updates, email joeberry@igc.org.  More about Joe Berry.  Updates are also archived at chicagococal.org. Follow COCAL International on Facebook 

Updates in brief and links

Around the Adjunctiverse

'Junct Tour is home again! Catch up with road trip posts on 2255 Films, Chris LaBree's blog, the Homeless Adjunct and 'Junct Tour Event page.

Josh Boldt has a post about media aggregation on the Adjunct Project plus new Forum and Job Board 

Carol Leitner, former Westchester CC adjunct sues, says she was fired for expressing opinions (which included support for Arizona's controversial 2010 immigration law, and student complaints.)

Rowan AFT adjunct union endorses no-merger with Rutgers-Camden resolution

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates, Mid-May

Check & click new Petitions Feature. Are you shopping an adjunct or higher ed petition? Email link to vanessa.vaile@newfacultymajority.info to add to add here. 

To subscribe to regular Updates, email joeberry@igc.org.  More about Joe Berry.  Updates are also archived at chicagococal.org. Follow COCAL International on Facebook 

Updates in brief and links

Petitions

• Ana’s Adjunct Pay Petition
• Petition OR State U admin to recognize graduate employees' bargaining unit 
• Support forgiveness of student loans
• Tell Vice President Biden: Don't Blame Faculty for the High Cost of College; Most Are "Working Poor!"

Around the Adjunctiverse

Susan Schacher, of Peralta CCD, Laney College, Oakland, CA gets major award.

In her 24th year as a part time temporary instructor and contingent activist at Laney College, Susan is the recipient of the Margaret Quan Part Time Advocate of the Year award presented by the FACCC, the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges.  

• Watch for the Adjunct Tour interview: Duquesne adjuncts to request voluntary union recognition with USW and university declines to recognize union
• More from Debra Leigh Scott, finishing Day 2 on the road with the Adjunct Tour, blogging about disrespected adjuncts as being like stupid sluts at 'Junct Rebellion.
• Why adjuncts unionize, Kalamazoo College MI and their blog Raritan Valley CC (NJ) adjuncts eye raises 
• Utah Valley U adjuncts protest new requirement to reapply for their jobs each semester, more here
• A Gannett story on adjunct faculty use at ULM
• Collection of back posts on Chronicle adjunct / community college blog, The 2-year Track
• A somewhat limited but unnerving, ominous article on contracted academic "coaches" and the company supplying them
• Washington State union adjunct gives unemployment benefits advice.Another (Business Insider) PhD adjunct [from UC Berkeley] on food stamps and yet another (newser, a conservative content mill) recycle the original Chronicle article. Finally, NPR (where it has been replicated on NPR sites across the country) 

HigherEd, Mundo Bizarro

• AFL-CIO blog on Rutgers study on recent grad debt and unemployment, also see comments
• Yet more on consequences of student debt [in depth story, no mention of us contingents]
• A passes new regulations governing for-profits
• Federal consumer board investigating for-profit Corinthian
• CUNY (NY) activists fight for greater access, lower tuition and fees,  and roughed up by cops, in Alternet. Ed (not Joe) note: Alternet runs excellent articles on higher education and labor issues: following highly recommended. Consider spending comment time there to get heard outside the Ivory Silo™ of highered media.
• Severe police attacks on Quebec student strike demonstrators, another account, an adjunct union's evaluation of the "deal" and a good summary update article on the whole Quebec anti-tuition struggle 

Taking Action

• Midwest School for Women Workers: Workers’ Rights, Women’s Rights, Human Rights, July 25-29, 2012, The University of Iowa Labor Center, Iowa City. Visit the Midwest School web page or contact the University of Iowa Labor Center at 319-335-4144 or labor-center@uiowa.edu with any questions. 
• There is another one, also in June, on the West Coast, in SF Bay Area (Sonoma) this year, also July. Check UALE page for details on both. [both are great events, highly recommended]
• NYC cabbies, another group of contingent/precarious workers organizing

Visit COCAL International for information on the  Tenth (X) Conference on Contingent Academic Labor in Mexico City, August 10-12, 2012 at Universidad Nacional Autónimo de México (UNAM), Mexico City. Join International COCAL listserv online or email adj-l@adj-l.org with send "Subscribe" in the subject line. If you have problems subscribing, e-mail vtirelli@aol.com

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates 16April12

Email joeberry@igc.org, to subscribe to regular updates in brief and links by email.  More about Joe Berry.  Updates are also archived at chicagococal.org. Follow COCAL International on Facebook 

Updates in brief and with links: emailed Apr16; reformatted, edited for web Apr19

Breaking... 

AAUP Election Results Reflect Backlash Against Recent Leadership Decisions: Election results (including released late Wednesday showed that all seven members of a slate calling itself "AAUP Organizing for Change" easily won races for the association's top posts, by Peter Schmidt, Chronicle. Incoming AAUP President, Rudy H. Fichtenbaum, Chronicle photo by Leonardo Carrizo  

. 

Taking Action...

Bill Barry (shown here with Mother Jones) has come out with a new book, Union Strategies for Hard Times,  to address every situation an organizer, or an organizing program would confront trying to rebuild the union movement. (PS, love the Labor Studies program tees: "Danger! Educated Union Member")

 The book, 130 pages long, is based on the experiences of many organizers and covers in every topic three different areas—private sector unions, public sector unions and building trades—and includes materials that have been developed both for real campaigns and for organizers' training sessions that Barry has run. The book is $17.00 and can be ordered from me (4204 Elsrode Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21214) or from Union Communications, Inc. in Annapolis. Discounts for orders of more than 10 copies.

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates 13Mar12

Email joeberry@igc.org, to subscribe to regular updates in brief and links by email. More about Joe Berry. 

Updates in brief and links

Joe Berry issuing report card to Chicago college 

[COLORADO] tops today's list

• Colorado House legalizes enforceable contracts for adjuncts  
• Editorial supporting new adjunct legislation in CO

[NORTH ATLANTIC] 

• Boston College adjunct let go over his criticism of Church for failure to ordain women
• Unionization bill  (for contingent faculty) pulled from Maryland Legislature  (AFT Maryland accused of back door deal)
• More  on American University since the successful election