new pages… #adjunctstories & more

…We've opened two new Tumblr pages, New Faculty Majority News & Links and Adjunct Stories, for quick posts that aren't quite full fledged blog posts. News, as its name indicates, is just for news links, reasonably relevant stories - ACA, precariat, part time worker actions, organizing academic labor, higher ed news. The links will also be easier to find later. There is also a "submit" option to encourage visitors to contribute. They aren't the only new adjunct media nodes in the larger, ever expanding adjunctiverse

Upton Sinclair's The Goose Step

… (1923) is about US #highered, early corporate influence ~ and extensively cited by Frank Donoghue in The Last Professors (our post here), pointing to parallels with Veblen and current concerns over corporatization. Donoghue does not share Hammermeister's dismissive and hypercritical, an unfortunate attitude that permeates other selections in the series, notably Ortega y Gasset.

By Kai Hammermeister (associate professor of German at Ohio State University)

Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a monthly series intended to introduce new generations of faculty members and administrators to a core set of classic books about higher education and its institutions.The first three columns are here,here, and here.

There are two ways to ruin a university. The first is to submit it to the demands of industry and finance. That is the way that Upton Sinclair criticizes in his 1923 treatise, The Goose-Step: a Study of American Education. The other way is to hand it over to a revolutionary political agenda. That is the way that Sinclair advocates. 

In his book on higher education, the self-confessed "socialist writer" Sinclair travels the country and visits colleges and universities. Every time he boards the train, he relates the overlap between the local railroad magnates and the board of trustees of the largest university in the region he's visiting. His conclusion: "Our educational system is not a public service, but an instrument of special privilege; its purpose is not to further the welfare of mankind, but merely to keep America capitalist."

Rereading the University Classics, Part 4 - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Problem Social Media Cannot Solve

…thoughts for activists and organizers to consider, even if the excerpted and linked article is about marketing, even if paying someone else to build your page not an option (less likely to be an option for the adjunct activist)

Stop. Don’t send that tweet. Don’t post that video on YouTube. It’s time to face facts: It doesn’t make sense to do anything in social media if you don’t have a good Web site.

Your Web site is your welcome mat. It’s your most important selling tool. The ultimate goal of social media marketing is to drive traffic and potential customers to your Web site and then convert those leads into phone calls, meetings and sales (or in our case, memberships, support, signatures, action). And yet, if you are great at social media but have a lousy Web site [or none at all], your social media efforts will just allow you to annoy more people faster. 

If your Web site needs work, do not put it off. 

If you don't have one, get a place of your own online instead of renting from social media. Facebook pages are no substitute. That's what free Google sites, Wikis and blogging platforms are for. More about that and harnessing social media in future posts.

There will be more to come... a series of posts rather like tutorials or a silent, asynchronous webinar in installments to read rather than listen to. For the obligatory something to listen to and look at, I'll look for podcast and video links.

Now go read the rest of The Problem Social Media Cannot Solve (NYT)

#MOOC my day ~ the next chapter

…another round of #highered disaster (and/or hysteria) blogging…but that's the way it breaks today. For today's post, I added selected links and a few amusing images to an existing Storify about MOOCs ~ or, as recently renamed by David Wiley,“Massively Obfuscated Opportunities for Cash.” 

convergences: coming together

"spiral" from convergences series by tom cartmill

…this month has been a time of convergence for #adjuncts, precarious & #academiclabor issues. The adjunctiverse is buzzing; the flow, unrelenting.

The myriad issues and concerns related to and unforeseen consequences of the Affordable Care Act and preparing for the IRS contributed to the deluge (and still are) but are not its entirety. No doubt these have influenced, even initiated, other actions, and certainly contributed to increased coverage and thus public awareness.

movie break

…now showing…last of the profs aka the great train wreck…still on topic…#academiclabor featuring the #adjunct as Gunga Din, post inspired by the Academe (the AAUP blog) series, Reviews of Recent Books Concerning Current Issues in Higher Education. The most recent entry, #6, reviews The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities by Frank Donoghue, Fordham UP, 2008.

Donoghue thinks (2008) it's too late to turn back and that we've already passed the tipping point. Asked at the beginning of the interview above to describe last profs in ten words or less, he replies, "a train wreck with no survivors."

while #adjuncts were sleeping

A typical May 1 in NYC

…#MayDay started in the rest of the world. I leave the radio turned on and to NPR so awoke to news of Philippines (demonstrating for the right to organize), Bangladesh (working conditions), Turkey, Greece, Egypt. I had hoped to get this global notice out with coffee and well before the East Coast and Ohio actions got underway. With a few hours before scheduled late morning and midday start times,  I may make that last...if I type fast and don't get too distracted.

In DC and NY, SEIU and New Paltz  UUP are getting ready for their busy day. If the Steelworkers are on parade in Pittsburgh, their Adjunct Faculty chapter will be with them. OPTFA is already up and tweeting, telling every one to wear red and pin on / display their big red A's, set them as social media avatars and so on. Yesterday, I created A Gallery of A's for Adjuncts on the NFM Facebook page. Go pick one to print out or use as an avatar

Sources to start your personal #MayDay4adjuncts