Magical Thinking in Higher ED-NEVER STOPS

More Magical Thinking

You should all really have a look at this column in Inside Higher Ed: Castes and Higher Ed, Gloria Nemerowicz. It is just another in an apparently endless line of “reformist” essays featuring a tenderness of feeling for the poor and the downtrodden, conjoined to a faith in the power of higher education that is rendered ridiculous by some inability or unwillingness to look at the caste system in our colleges and universities. Look:

“Income and wealth inequality in the United States, which has become even more pronounced since 1967, continues to interfere with the national need for an increasingly sophisticated and skilled workforce and citizenry.”

Yikes! Does this author really not know that at least one very sophisticated and skilled workforce—the one doing all the higher ed teaching—is, well, you get the idea.

Furthermore, In regard to the author’s own institution, while the Pine Manor College website claims, no doubt truthfully, that "The College employs nearly 200 individuals, including full- and part-time faculty and staff, http://www.pmc. edu/fast-facts, the US Department of Education reports via IPEDS that PMC has 53 employees whose primary task is instruction, and almost half of these are part-time.

DO have a look and make polite comments in response.

Campus Equity Week is October 24-28, 2011

Ok-so that cool photo up at the right is from www.opednews.com/articles/Occupy-Santa-Fe-Photo-Ess-by-Meryl-Ann-Butler. Well done guys.

And, in that spirit, what are you doing for Adjunct Equity week? I mean, insofar as you know that ejicashun and gud jobs don't go together like they shud? I suggest:

1) Making this known to you full-time faculty colleagues, who generally don't know about adjunct/contingent trends or conditions: if they knew, they would surely help out. 

2) Wearing a loudly informative hat and/or t-shirt, such as those available through the New Faculty Majority web store. You can get stuff printed with Higher Ed Hand, or Fair Trade in Education.  There's a nice bumper sticker too: ADJUNCTivitis is a social JUSTICE disease, thought I think maybe the printing on it should be clearer. BTW, have any catchy slogans? 

3) Organizing an informational meeting with your union, if you have one, or with your faculty senate or other faculty organization if possible, or just getting everybody to shut down the college or university for a couple of weeks until you get your point across.

And here are other places for other ideas-

http://www.cocalinternational.org/ http://www.aft.org/higher_ed/cew/ http://www.fpse.ca/library/few http://www.fneeq.qc.ca/en/accueil/communiques/communiques_2007/new019.html http://www.caut.ca/pages.asp?page=572 http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/issues/contingent/cewpage.htm  (Events from 2009, plus many helpful sample documents)