Bienvenidos, Southwest #Adjunct #Roadrunners

…to our Virtual #CEW2013 Meetup. Beep Beep!  As you know, we are embarking on an experiment of sorts to begin with. Nobody has put on this kind of Campus Equity Week event. Ever! 

Are you getting curious? Take a look at the practice area ChatRoll module we set up on the Virtual Meetups  page. The  meeting will be just like it except for the name of the chat area.

#CEW2013 pushed us into it, but now we’re psyched, and I am learning a lot, since I am the tech novice, the intern around these parts! But how nice to be the apprentice to a real master, someone who teaches me the ropes while being my colleague and friend, and not telling me, as many schools do, that we are so valuable, that they cannot do anything without us, yet where is our recompense? Unlike Higher Ed, during this jammin’ session, we are all one. 

Welcome to Virtual MeetUps Grand Opening

…& other #CEW2013 happenings, projects, ideas. SW #adjuncts aka Roadrunners are making today's grand entrance, not as post but the page hosting the Roadrunner shindig, what the greenhorns back east would call a Campus Equity Week Event. It's multi-state for Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma (because out here in the west where horizons are large and campuses more distant, they do things big). Visitors welcome.

There's more today but I'll keep it short, save for coming posts. It will be a busy week. NFM wants to add more CEW blogging to it. There have been Twitter calls to bloggers for CEW posts and will be another here. Here's the short version. Blogging about Campus Equity Week is a another way to participate.

blogging #CEW2013

Joe Berry, CEW 2001, Workplace

…& back to my resolution to blog more now that Campus Equity Week is bearing down on me. This year it is a well oiled, well funded machine spewing out links, resources, events, and so on to be shared, re-posted, RT'd, turned into blog fodder. I can pawn some but not all off on other social media and ever trusty syndication. As sponsoring organization, the New Faculty Majority's still official blog has a feed on the CEW page. With that comes obligation. Obviously, I need a blogging plan to make it through the month - one that does not no point in duplicate. No point in that. Here's what I have in mind:

CEW 2001, Workplace

• personal reflections on CEW experiences; 
• integrating, weaving together, the many threads
• highlighting events and activities; 
• noting key issues
• looking out for orphans
• revisiting past CEW activities and events; 
• lots of pictures
• reviewing the history of Campus Equity Week and Fair Employment Week (Canada);
• covering the coverage
• looking forward

Even with ramped up CEW blogging, I will have to blog like one possessed to make a decent showing for the year. Deadlines and challenges can help. Let this be one that does...

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.

in the air…#CEW2013, #NCC strike, other precariat actions

…are they precursors of change or another round of promises? Will momentum continue to build, moving toward a tipping point, a major swerve? I'm still working on another change post, building off the last. The concept no sooner gels than something pops up to change it. Change is like that. This is not about change but not quite not about change. Starting as a gap fill post, it has come to feel more like watching for the wave.

With a month and a half to go, a new Campus Equity Week page launched. What did Mission Control used to say? We have lift-off. Later than advised but well ahead of the 2009 and 2011 late starts.

From its inception, CEW was as a genuine grassroots effort. Yet without the focus of a dedicated home base and a point person designated to round up, report, announce and share resources, it was not thriving as it had earlier. Not that anyone wanted to see it go, but there was no concerted effort for a large scale push. Pockets of activities persisted on scattered campuses.