#newfac12 TWTSTW

Press Release-National Higher Education Summit Meeting Links Faculty Working Conditions to Student Learning Conditions.pdf Download this file

= That Was The Summit That Was, an acronymization that dates me in this era of information half-life shrinkage. Considering #newfac12 Summit twitter action, TWTSTW could also be read as Tweets To Watch, remarkable for an event put on by a distinctly "tweet lite" group. More tweet now than did before the Summit. You may consider that as either progress or a further sign of the collapse of Western Civ as we have been imagining it. New Faculty Majority President Maria Maisto (@MariaMaistoNFM) and VP Matt Williams (@ohioadjunct) are giving the Twitiverse a try, as is Board member Alan Trevithick (@eValerick) to a lesser degree. There are a few others, mostly account holders in name only but a few lurking on the bank watching the twitter stream go by. 

 

Apropos #NewFac12 Summit 2012, this means anyone could, and many did, follow the Summit live online. Still missed the Summit? Catch the rerun online. The Summit Resources page has a Final Schedule/Program, Reports, Tweets, and Published Responses to NFM Summit (naked links to be embedded, expanded and annotated in another post) and other links. But this is neither history lesson nor social media cautionary tale. It's about outcomes, actions and change. 

Outcomes ~ in addition general consciousness raising/ increased awareness and revitalization, an growing list not limited to:

• Network building manifested by increased membership, online traffic, discussions, information sharing, independent and group actions large and small as well as...
  
• Widespread public sharing of adjunct stories, as yet informal and diffuse across multiple threads and locations, that could coalesce into a more organized project 
  
• A Chapter Toolkit page right here (check the tabs at the top of the page) in response to a  post-Summit surge of interest in starting new NFM Chapters (a page for existing chapters is on the drawing board)
• NFM Foundation's Framework for Change and Task Force ~ both pages are interactive, please visit and comment
  
• Josh Boldt's Adjunct Project and crowdsourced data collection compiling information on adjunct pay and working conditions
  
• Other new networks, projects, individual actions we can't wait to learn more about and share. (Spoiler Alert: John A Casey Jr of the splendid and influential Adjunct Manifesto and Occupy English has plans afoot well worth watching for)
• Your own ideas and plans for change ... take Lee Bessette's excellent advice, "there is always something you can do" to heart ... and share them with us. A nifty new feature if I do say so myself.

Posted via email from Academentia

Welcome to Ohio Mr President ~ NFM Press Release

New Faculty Majority Challenges President Obama: Extend Economic Proposals to Adjunct Faculty

Akron, Ohio - September 8, 2010 - New Faculty Majority President Maria Maisto challenged President Obama to take action on the issue of the mistreatment of adjunct and contingent faculty on American college and university campuses.  The president was in Cleveland, Ohio today to deliver a speech at Cuyahoga Community College, where Ms. Maisto serves as an adjunct instructor in English.  

 "It's great that the president came to my campus to address the economy today," said Ms. Maisto, "because we know that he understands the critical role of higher education in driving economic growth.  

"Unfortunately, however, while it is clear that his concern for the middle class is real, neither his economic recovery plan nor his higher education agenda directly assists the hundreds of thousands of adjunct faculty in the United States who do not receive a living wage, have little job security, are typically denied unemployment compensation when they aren't working, and do not have access to affordable health care." 

"These professionals need economic relief, and they need it now.  They did their part.  They went to college, earned an advanced degree, and are giving back to the next generation of students.  But they are treated like second class citizens in the institutions that depend upon them to teach the highest possible number of critical introductory courses across the curriculum."

Press Release: National Unemployment Initiative

Ed Note: I missed the usual "immediate" part but better late than never. This version is also on the website. There's a shorter one too that I'll post when I find the file. We invite you to share this press release, this length or shorter with your local or campus newspaper and blogs. Broadsite it: go the traditional, low-tech broadsheet route: print it out and pin to the break room bulletin board. Slip it under doors anonymously... and wherever else your imagination takes you, the more original the better. Let us know where that takes you. Anything but just standing in line passively, waiting passively. 

National advocacy group, New Faculty Majority, launches campaign to assist jobless part-time, adjunct professors.

(May 24, 2010) NFM announced a national campaign to help eligible adjunct college and university faculty obtain unemployment compensation in between academic terms.  Many instructors don’t check to see whether they are eligible.  Others are denied on grounds of having reasonable assurance of re-employment, a phrase in federal law whose invocation by postsecondary employers has been challenged, most successfully in California and Washington, by arguing that employment which depends on variables like enrollment, funding, and administrative prerogative cannot constitute reasonable assurance. 

Adjunct (also called contingent, contract, or non-tenure-track) faculty are professors and graduate teaching assistants who work term-to-term, often at multiple institutions.  They constitute 73% of the postsecondary instructional workforce nationwide, numbering over one million.  They have the same responsibilities to their students as full-time, tenure-track faculty, but usually work for a fraction of the per-course compensation, often without benefits or adequate professional support, increasingly while carrying the same or a heavier workload.  Their ability to secure union support is often restricted.