20210906.0430

Beside you now, I lift my fist
And even if my wrist is weak
It is stronger not alone
As is the case with yours
As we remember on this day
As we ought on other days
Because we've seen what happens when we do
And when we don't
And one is clearly better

20200907.0430

At this point in my life, I am management. I direct a treatment facility; I do not provide treatment, myself (which is good, because I am in no way qualified to do so). But I have still been a worker for more of my life than I have been a manager, and I remain appreciative of what organized labor has done for me, both directly in the days when I was a union man and indirectly in the social changes it has effected.

The work, of course, is far from done. There are still massive inequities that need to be addressed and that are not being addressed by as many of my peers--and I suppose it's a loose use of the term; I'm not exactly a luminary in directing the small non-profit I direct--as needs to be. Even if there were more managers and administrators working to improve things in the ways they need to be improved, making lasting changes of the kind that are needed has to have a broad buy-in--and that kind of buy-in has come from the labor to which some small lip-service is paid today.

I am well aware of the ideological onus under which organized labor operates anymore in much of the country. I can hardly live in the Texas Hill Country and be out among people and not be; it is decried and bemoaned in grocery store and gas station, and not only by those who would have to pay their employees more in a union system. But, unlike many who make the complaint, I have worked a union job--and while there were problems (as there are in any job; I've yet to meet anyone who didn't gripe about work), they were a damned lot easier to handle than many others I've faced, and I don't know that performance was any worse with them.

No, I think it was better.

20190902.0430

On this day that labor won
It might be thought the fight is done
Since the work week is set by law--
But such thought is beset by flaw
For no law in itself is good
And often evil in law's stood
And that a thing has a marked day
Means not that its foe's gone away
Indeed, more often past its end
Does observance a thing defend
Despite what others may pretend
And what labor unions may oppose
Still fights on, no in death throes
But once again does dire threat pose

20190425.0430

Another of the many pieces LinkedIn has recommended to me is DeVry University's re-release of John Hanc's "Building a Career, One Academic Step at a Time." (I suppose I should note here that I am, as of this writing, contingent faculty at DeVry.) The piece describes "stackable credentials" as an interlocking system of two-year, four-year, and graduate degrees and of various certifications and continuing education units. Hanc focuses on extolling articulation agreements--that is, agreements that allow straight-across transfers of course credits--between community colleges and senior colleges and universities. A couple of student examples bracket the article, and a number of educational administrators are quoted as being in support of the idea, as well, helping the article to make its case.
There are some solid, salient points in the piece. Community colleges can offer students who have previously been academically underserved or who have been away from formal education for some time to re/acclimate themselves to general academic environments. They are also usually substantially less expensive than senior colleges and universities (though this is often at the price of having fewer facilities and less access to research apparatus), making them more accessible to socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. And it is the case that baccalaureate and higher education is not the best fit for many people--and no shame should accrue to that, although it does in too many cases.
At the same time, there are some issues with the piece. Perhaps the most glaring is that it appears to call for an extension of credentialing-mania; part of the problem that attaches itself to higher education in the United States at present is that it is seen as providing necessary credentials instead of a broader education. (I am aware of how fraught the term is. The discussion goes on in many places, carried out by people far more eloquent than I; it can be found easily.) Incorporating more sites of education more explicitly into such systems is likely to have the same effect on them as it has on prevailing educational standards, prompting the same kinds of things currently decried. And it will also likely drive up what are currently more manageable costs, so that access to educational opportunities currently in place will become more restricted yet.
There are other issues, as well. For one, part of the value in staying with an institution across a longer term is the opportunity for continuity. Even for non-traditional students, there is value in seeing familiar faces week to week and session to session. The longer engagement allows for the development of relationships that can help students transition out of the classroom successfully. Fragmenting curricula through "stackable credentials" disrupts that, serving to isolate students-turned-workers further from one another, and individuals are not as able to align for common goals and good as are already-existing groups. And, for another, the move to fragment curricula reads as another avenue of attack on humanistic study. While "writing" instruction--narrowly tailored to workplace genres such as resumes and HR reports--will doubtlessly remain in place, the broader liberal arts will likely fall away even more than they already are.
I do not need to speak here to the threat such poses.

20190108.0430

After yesterday's lapse, I wanted to be sure I got something out where others could see it. I do not like that I flagged in my attention, even if it was for good reason and was addressed as soon as could be done; I do not like to be reminded that I am, in fact, human and subject to failure, or that it might be the case that I will not meet all of the commitments I have made. I work hard to be a man of my word, to do what I say I will do, and I have said that I will be continuing this blog for a while, so it behooves me to get things set up such that it will continue. Finding myself having failed to do so sits ill; indeed, I was out of sorts for most of the rest of the day yesterday, having had the shock of screwing up so soon after I stumbled out of sleep. There are other ways I would much rather wake up than with such reminders.
I was able to get my feet under me, though, and to get through the day with relative aplomb. I have been taking on more job duties as I prepare to step into a higher leadership role--which overstates matters, in truth; the agency where I work for my day job has a whopping four people employed. I will be taking overall leadership soon enough; the current head is retiring soon, and I will be succeeding to the position despite being the most junior of the current employees. But the other two are counselors and do not want to handle the administrivia that has been and increasingly is my lot, while I have no problem handling it and do not think I would do well in the position of having to absorb as much from the clients as they seem to do on a daily basis. So there is not really any strife involved in my taking on the higher role, at least not from my fellow employees.
It will be a bit strange to be in a management role, though. I've spent so long as a worker--longer than not, at this point--that it is hard for me to think about being the boss. Similarly, I come from a family of working folks, and if my mother currently manages a tax preparation office, that's been a  relatively recent thing, and she still has her own higher-ups to whom she must report. So being in charge, being ultimately responsible, is a new thing for me--and, like many new things, it is not entirely comfortable yet. I know I will grow or shrink into it, and that, in time, my mind will shape itself to the role. It would not be the first time such has happened, of course, and I managed, in time, to accommodate myself to most of the reconfigurations. (I am still having trouble thinking myself out of academe, for reasons I've noted extensively in other venues, but that is my own fault; masochist that I am, I keep going back for more.) And, in truth, I largely look forward to the challenge. I expect it will be a rewarding experience.

20181126.0430

Today will see me return to work and some semblance of normalcy from the last of the fall holidays and the first of the "winter." (It is not as if the season has changed here; indeed, in the Texas Hill Country, it was more like fall after Thanksgiving than before, but Thanksgiving is reckoned a fall holiday and the shopping sprees that begin after the leftovers are portioned out are assigned to the Christmas season.) Objectionable as I may find things to be reckoned as they are, I know that they are so regarded. I know also that I will be glad to get back into something like a routine again; I do not do well with too much time left to my own devices.
I've noted with some bitterness my obligation to leave academe. I recall noting, too, that no small part of that has been my own fault. While I was enrolled in graduate school, pursuing my degrees, I had definite end-goals in mind--and clear paths toward them. Take the classes that needed taking, sit for the exams that needed taking, write the thesis or the dissertation and submit it for committee review, and the thing would be done. With the master's done, I had the doctorate to begin in earnest. With the doctorate done, though, I did not have a clear path to follow; I thought at the time that the job I had--which was a good teaching job, if a remarkably busy one, until it wasn't anymore--would be the job in which I'd remain for quite some time. I did not look forward, therefore, to getting a book written from the beginnings of it in my dissertation (and I still need to do that bit, though I am far removed from the work I once did). I did not look then at getting pieces into print, for the school at which I worked honored seniority over the traditional concerns of tenure. I did not look at finding other work, for I thought I had work that would sustain me.
In short, I trusted that things would be well, that matters would fall out as I expected them to do. I did not take care to have a backup plan to sustain me in the event of things failing and faltering, as they ended up doing. And, when I was given some semblance of a tether to academic work, I did not attend to the research that I ought to have been doing to secure a spot as a tenure-line professor, making what I now recognize were feeble attempts to teach decently. (It is only now, after I have resigned myself to not having a full-time teaching career, that I feel like I am doing decently at that work; there is still a part of me that hopes some outside force will see it and open a door to me as is done in some of the works I study, but I know that part of me is a damned fool.) I did not do what I ought to have been doing if I was going to call myself a contributing scholar. Now, I will not be one.
If I let myself wander away from the path I ought to have been treading, based upon the training I undertook to sally forth, I did so because I did not look ahead as I ought to have done. I did not think of what goal I should pursue next, what steps I would need to take to reach that goal. I have no intention of making that mistake again; I know what goal I am pursuing at this point (eliminating my debt-load), and I know what steps I have to take to make that happen (work more, earn money, pay down debts, save what remains). I do not always succeed at following those steps, at adhering to the disciplined routine I know I ought to heed, but I do a damned sight better at it with an idea in mind than I do without one.

20160905.0710

I would raise my fist today
In solidarity
For it is the day for it
And I have been a union man
But
Here
It will do me no good
And I need that hand to
Write with
Anyway

20160330.0601

I may have mentioned that the Mrs. and I are packing in anticipation of departing from Sherwood Cottage. As was the case some three years ago, my employment status is changing, but I do not expect the kind of reversal I had at that point to happen to me again here; I am not nearly so well protected in the workplace as I was, among others. I do, however, find myself once again in mind of what home means; I reflected on it to some extent in the lead-up to moving out of The City, and it seems to matter again as I make ready to move with my family once again--and although we know where we are going, at least in the short term after my visit here ends, the longer term is far less clear. (The ultimate end, of course, is certain, but leading off the day with the reaffirmation that we're all going to die seems a bit dark, even for my often dour persona.)

In earlier reflections on home, I noted the idea that home is, for me, a place where my interiority begins to be externalized. That is, the home reflects the inner selves of those who dwell in it. The more such indwellers there are, of course, the more mixture of reflections that occurs in the home--but living together tends to result in people influencing one another's inner selves to no small degree. The examples my wife, my daughter, and I provide attest thereto, if only anecdotally. I was changed greatly by the love the Mrs. and I share, and I continue to be changed by it; I believe she was and is, as well. Ms. 8 emerges from that love and from the common experience of her parents, as well as our genetic legacies (both the overt and the cultural, since there seems to be some indication of inherited memories, after a fashion). Both my wife and I continue to adjust to the ways in which Ms. 8 grows and develops, and she grows and develops at least partly in response to the circumstances the Mrs. and I create for her. Each of us alters who the others are, and Sherwood Cottage has reflected that reciprocal influence, as has emerged during the process of packing things up.

Just how much it had done so becomes clearer with every box packed and stacked and made ready to load for a long drive away. Each one limits my ability to do things at the house; in a way, each packed box limits my ability to express and enact who and what I am, effectively limiting who and what I am. That it does so suggests how much of myself I have allowed to seep out of me and into the place--and I had not meant to allow it to happen. I had thought that the visit soon to end would not have lasted as long as it has, that I would find some more stable situation in short order and move on with my family years before now. I was wrong, of course, and I still do not have a stable situation set up (despite my work to that end). I have grown into this place, and leaving it as I will is far from a comfortable process because of it.

20150501.0659

This day
Is May Day
And I call out
"Mayday"
Because we are in
Distress

Is it not obvious?

Workers united
Once
Are now divided
Blaming as corrupt
Systems that
Though corrupt
Are at least corrupt in ways
That benefit them

I have been in
Right to work
Places and
Closed-shop
Places and
I did far better in the latter
Than in the former
And I am not the only one

We hear complaints
That things were better
Back in the day
They are wrong
In many regards
Because things were not better
They have sucked the same amount
But in different directions
But even so
Those who complain
Complain also of things that
Were
Better
Back in the day
And when things were as they were
Labor practice was different
And workers stood better together

Now
Not so much

An isolated target
Is easier to hit

20140901.0817

So it is Labor Day again in the United States, and I think I will be spending it better this time than I did last year. I doubt that I will be much on the grill or the smoker today--particularly the latter, as I would need to be already setting up for it--but I am with the two most important women in my life, and that is better than any cooking I can do. (That it allows me to continue to rest instead of having to work in the heat to cook meat and then to entertain until all hours of the night has its attractions also. I enjoy having people over, but I have not the endurance for parties that I used to have. Such is life.)

I will not go into the history of the holiday today. I do not need to, as there are many such histories already about that are better researched than my passing interest of a day will allow. (That of the US Department of Labor is one.) What I will go into instead is some discussion of my experience in the community that Labor Day ostensibly celebrates, a community that seems very much to be on the wane, so that the holiday may soon be more a day of mourning and regret than a day of celebration and hope.

For I was for several years a member of UAW Local 2110, and I did benefit from my membership. It was only because of the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement the union had executed with the school where I taught that I was able to make a living as an adjunct for my first few terms working there. It was only because of those provisions that I was able to put back what I could put back and pay down what I could pay down once I was promoted to full-time status. And while it was provisions of that agreement that led to my being on the short list for layoff, it was also sticklers for those provisions working on my behalf who ensured that I was recalled and so was able to support myself and my family through the summer until I left The City for Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Plain.

During that time, I saw the kinds of people against whom anti-union pundits rant. They are correct that there are people who exploit the entrenched seniority systems found in many union contracts to essentially collect pay for no work. They are correct that there are those who act as reflexively against management as they themselves do against unions. But I also saw a great many hardworking people who were able to make decent livings for themselves and their families through the sweat of their brows and the work of their hands and minds--solely and specifically because of the union to which they belonged. And, in an institution that was rife with problems I will not explicate here, the common bond of union membership was a source of morale and community, welcome however thin. It had its own problems, certainly, but it did far more good than harm for me and for others like me.

But such things are becoming rarer. Union membership continues to fall, and law and legal precedent continue to vitiate against the power possessed by what membership remains. Popular perception continues also to align against the union, shaped by mainstream media that can hardly be called liberal in their statements overt and tacit against organizing workers and their concerns. Unions are not yet dead, but they are hardly in good health, and the day may well be coming when they can do no more good in the world. Perhaps it is fitting on this day to consider what they still do for the workers who compose them and thus for the communities in which those workers live, to consider what will be lost on the day when they function no more, to consider what we will then have to mourn.

20140501.0854

On May Day
I do not know
Whether to shout
And celebrate solidarity
Or send a signal of distress

For I have seen the power of workers
Standing together
Supporting each other
Acting in one another's interest
And I have seen them succeed

But I have also seen
Protectionist policies
Seniority prized above skill
Laziness creep in with tenure
And the truth in complaints

I have also seen
At-will employment
Work workers to fatigue
And for no reward to the worker
Who is soon replaced

The last happens more and more
We are made to be cogs
Used until broken
Used to be broken
Easily interchanged

20140422.0800

It was at around this time last year that I found out I was going to be out of work for the summer and began the frantic hunt for a job. As it happened, I was recalled to the school from which I had been laid off improperly, and I think that the union of which I was part forced the institution not only to bring me back (at least for a term) but to offer me a sabbatical for which I had applied not long before getting word that I would be laid off. But the experience was still markedly unpleasant for me, not the kind of thing that I care to repeat, and in the time since, I have continued to scramble to secure what I hope will be continuing employment--still without success. (I do have a comfortable spot at present, with better benefits than many contingent faculty can claim and the assurance that I have another year of paychecks upcoming, and I do not complain, but I do not forget that I can be not renewed.)

I have been trying to work to view things in a better light, to be more optimistic. (This is largely on behalf of Ms. 8, who does not need a depressed daddy.) I am not always successful, as those who know me know, and I imagine I have given evidence of that from time to time in this webspace. But I was considering the issue as I wrote in my journal last night; I sometimes look back over the older volumes of my journals to see what record I have left of who I was and what I was thinking in years past. Knowing that I have not always been good about keeping up with the journal-writing is hardly flattering, and as I looked back over the volumes I have penned, I confronted that knowledge again.

I also saw that, as I had worked to address my then-pending joblessness, I had stumbled into unexpected benefit. If nothing else, the experience has pushed me to do a lot more writing. Work in this webspace got much more frequent and much more extensive beginning at the end of April 2013. My journal-writing has been more regular and fuller, as well. Too, I have been much more productive as a scholar, churning out paper after paper for conferences and book chapters, and more such things are on the way. Further, I have gotten a great deal of practice in letter-writing, having sent out at least two hundred cover letters for jobs within academe and outside of it in the solid year I have been really on the job market. (While some of the text has been copied over from letter to letter, much of it has not, and as I have done more things, even the copied stuff has needed adjustment.) Each has helped my writing to get better, and since my livelihood depends largely upon my ability as a writer, any improvement my writing is an improvement in my ability to support Ms. 8 and my Mrs. I regard this as a good thing, indeed.

20131124.0839

During my morning readings, I came across Ben Christopher's 21 November 2013 submission to the online California Magazine, "Cal Lecturer's Email to Students Goes Viral: 'Why I am not canceling class tomorrow.'"  In it, Christopher offers comments about the unusualness of an email from mathematics lecturer Alexander Coward spreading across the breadth of the internet amidst the other things that populate webspace before presenting some of the professor's remarks about the email and the text of the email itself.

I find myself somewhat...conflicted about the text of the email.  Coward makes some good points regarding higher education and the unique opportunities offered by top-tier schools such as UC Berkeley (although he does not write with as much grace as could be hoped, and his tone comes off as sometimes condescendingly sing-song).  He is correct to point out that "class hours are valuable," for they are; it is during them that direct interaction with the instructor is most possible (although how much can be had from among 800 students is an open question; having TAs--or GSIs, in the email--makes a difference).  He is correct also in his comments about his teaching decisions, that each pedagogical choice he makes will help some and fail to help others.  Many people fail to recognize this, thinking that one method will be able to be universally effective, and there is not a teaching practice that will reach all students.  If nothing else, this is because the teaching environment is one of reciprocity; it relies upon the interchange between teacher and pupil to be effective, and it is the case that students are sometimes simply unwilling to engage.  Coward is correct in noting the complexity of the world, something my own experiences have taught me students are often unwilling to recognize; things are not simple.  And I, who have devoted most of my years to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, can hardly argue with his assertion that education is among the noblest of pursuits.  Self-serving as it may seem for an educator to say so, it is only through learning (in many modes, admittedly, not all of which can happen in a classroom) that matters are improved.

At the same time, I am a believer in the power of collective bargaining, having benefited from it once or twice, myself.  As a matter of principle, I do not cross picket lines, and I do not encourage others to do so; rather the opposite is true.  While I can sympathize with Coward's position (something in his comment that "the choice not to strike is quite easy" coupled with his title of "Lecturer" tells me that he knows his participating in the strike will lead to his dismissal, and the loss of the paycheck is a frightening thing, as I well know), I know also that his employment is in some senses complicit in structures of exploitation (the striking GSIs he mentions are underpaid, under-rewarded, and undertaking significant debt that they will try to pay off for decades so that their institution will be able to inflate its performance numbers without hiring/paying people who are willing and happy to work--for a decent wage).  Worse, while his position at UC Berkeley may be contingent, he has a concurrent appointment, evidently on the tenure track, at another institution entirely; he is in a position of privilege therefore, and for him to avoid what is for him a relatively minor risk in such a way...I have to wonder how appropriate the man's name is.

Ad hominem aside, there is another point to consider, and it is one which Coward addresses in his email.  The university as an institution has a number of missions.  I have repeatedly written about the dual scholarly mission: to develop knowledge and to disseminate it.  Both are done in the pursuit of the ultimate understanding of what is.  Both speak to the improvement of the human condition, so that another mission of the university (maugre Fish and those who parrot him far less intelligently) is the betterment of people.  Coward acknowledges this, noting that "Society is investing in you [the students,] so that you can help solve the many challenges we are going to face in the coming decades, from profound technological challenges to helping people with the age old search for human happiness and meaning"; he tells his students that they, and the rest of us, are and ought to be working to make things better for people.  The strike, while inconvenient for students (as was one in which I participated), is aimed at making things better for those who are set to help others prepare to make things better.  Participating in it would have been in keeping with one of the purposes of the university as a whole, even as not kept with another.

It is...complicated, indeed.

20130729.0719

The upcoming move is fast approaching, and packing for it is going decently.  Yesterday, in fact, my beloved wife and I managed to get our main bookshelf packed away and broken down.  Thirteen boxes of books are waiting for loading, now, ready to go when it is actually time to go, and the apartment that she and I have shared looks remarkably barren.

There is a sense of finality creeping upon me these past days, one intensifying in strength as I get closer to flying to Oklahoma to take up my new work.  The sensation of things drawing to a close has settled on me a few times in the past when I have known that it is time to move on.  Coming up to the end of my undergraduate study was one such.  As I completed my cycle of student teaching and faced moving on to graduate school, I could feel my institution reorienting to have me outside of it.  I had spent much of my time as an undergraduate at the school and involved in its activities, so to feel myself being shunted away was unsettling--and a bit depressing.

Similarly, when I made the adjustment that brought me from being on-site at my graduate program, I had a decisive feeling of change and reorientation.  Something was ending for me, something that, despite its problems, had become comfortable and familiar.  I knew what I was supposed to do, when, and with whom, and making the arrangements to leave that and for it to leave me was...uncomfortable.  That I handled it badly did not improve matters.

I am similarly...uncomfortable now.  Over the past four years or so, I have grown accustomed to The City and its ways.  I have adapted to the incessant sounds of slow-moving traffic and screaming train brakes.  I have grown used to the inanity of city services and the hassle of trains running as they ought to just often enough that people meaningfully hope for them.  I have come to understand how unions function for the benefit of their working members--and how that sometimes screws over other working members.  The crowding and clutter no longer faze me as they once did; indeed, I negotiate both with some ease (and more annoyance) now than before.  And I have very much taken to the many things that are offered to my benefit here, things like the New York Public Library and the New York Aikikai, both of which have been useful and helpful for me these past years and which I appreciate very much.  I understand how things work here, and I know how to work with and around them.  I have made a place here, and I fill it well.

But I am leaving that place for what many here regard as uncivilized hinterlands.  I know that they are in large measure wrong; there is much of value in "flyover country" and I am not unhappy to avail myself of it.  Still, I do not entirely relish the idea of having to re-learn how to live, and I know that I am going to have to do so.  The City works differently from other places (and I will, at some point, be writing about how), and I have adapted to it.  I was comfortable, and I have disrupted that comfort to pursue other opportunities, opportunities that The City does not offer me.  My time here is ending, and I know it in the fibers of my being as much as in the recesses of my mind and whatever descriptor can apply to my soul.  And I cannot say that I am at ease, not honestly.

However I feel about it, though, the move is happening.  It remains, then, only for me to try to face it better than I have such endings in the past.

20130515.0806

It would seem that I have been recalled to work, thanks to actions by the union to which I belong.  I taught two classes yesterday, one of which I had not taught since my work as a graduate teaching assistant, and I have another such class (one I have not taught in a *long* while) coming up in the next couple of days.

I had not at all expected to have classes, or to have as nice a schedule of them as I have ended up having.  Consequently, I have had to scramble a bit to get things put together--and I am not done with setup yet.  I still need to assemble my course calendars, and I have at least one more syllabus to write.  I am obliged to report in to work today (student advising and faculty meetings happen whether I am assigned to teach or not), and I expect to do much of the work then.

It was nice to have the time to sit and write as I did during the time between jobs.  But I am better served by knowing that I have a paycheck coming in for the next few months.  If nothing else, my bad habits can remain funded for a bit longer--and I am very much a creature of habit.

Among my many habits is the preparation of teaching materials.  I had not expected to need to do so for the summer, so I have not got a great many things ready, but I find that I will have to go to my other blog and the website I maintain in support of my teaching to update them for the unexpected new term.  I have already adjusted other parts of my online presence to suit the changed circumstances; now it will be time to work on others.

It is surprisingly easy to forget how much work work is.  I was remarkably tired at the end of the day yesterday, and I have a fair bit to do today (although most of that will be quiet work done in my cubicle rather than the work of performing in front of the classroom).  Tomorrow, Friday, and Monday, I will have to do accelerated work with the classes I missed.  I was informed of the recall while I was away at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, and I had already booked my flight back to The City.  I think that things will be well--many students do not attend on the first day of classes, and I already have ideas for what I am going to require of them.  But it is going to be quite a bit of work to get things started back up.

How fortunate it is, then, that I am able to do the work of teaching swiftly and well!  And how fortunate it is that I have such work to do!  For the summer, at least...

20130501.1039

Happy May Day!  There are a number of things going on today, both for the traditional spring holiday and for organized labor, and I probably ought to get involved in some of them.  Whether or not I will remains to be seen; I do have other things to do.

Among them is addressing the point I had meant to before I remembered that today is a holiday and a union action day.

I have not made a secret of the recent changes to my employment status.  It has not been easy for me; I am accustomed to working (despite the protestations of many that those who teach do not actually work), and like many people, I have formed much of my identity around the work I do.  But even as I look for a new job (and I am looking, with several dozen job applications out at the moment and more to fill out each day), and even as I worry about meeting my financial obligations, I recognize some benefits to my current circumstances.

One of them is that I have time to write.  This has shown up, I think, in the series of blog entries that I have churned out over the past few days, particularly in comparison to the relative dearth of them in the past few months.  I am also working on a few other projects, such as the conference paper I wrapped up (with too much difficulty) yesterday and some grant applications that will not help in the short term but may well bear out for me in the next few years.  While working, I had not the energy to attend to them well; preparing for classes, teaching them, and grading the student submissions that came from them demanded most of my waking hours and more energy, really, than I had available for it.  Now, I have more of each, and I am trying to fill my non-job-applying time with the tasks I had let slip and which I can do for relatively little cost.

(It is one of the oddities of academic life that planning has to happen one to three years in advance to be effective.  And I still view myself as an academic despite my current lack of institutional affiliation; I spent long enough earning my degrees to justify it.)

Another benefit of the current circumstance is that I have a bit of time to slow down, look around me, and take in the glory of the world.  There are problems, sure, and those problems need to be fixed.  Indeed, I have commented (here, here, here, and here) that much of my teaching work at for-profit institutions, which take in many of those students who otherwise would have no opportunity to attend college, is in an effort to address some of those problems.  But that does not mean there is not much in the world that is good and should be celebrated; if nothing else, we are capable of changing things to be better, to help one another.

I have not always, or even often, been good about recognizing the good in what is around me, as those who know me know.  I am thankful to have the opportunity to be made aware of the blessings that are showered upon me even now, and I hope to be able to continue to recognize them.

20101012.1530

It has been some time since I last made a blog entry. Of note has been only this:

Contract negotiations between my union and my employer stalled out, forcing a shut-down this morning. Fortunately, the shut-down was short-lived, as a contract emerged quickly from the closed-down school. As it turns out, the union is getting pieces of almost everything it asked, though management has retained the possibility of layoffs in the future, depending on enrollment and potential federal regulations.

I get to keep getting a paycheck for the work I do, which is good. I have little seniority, which is less good, but I have also made sure that my bets are amply hedged.

And so I'll be teaching tonight.

20101002.0907

I mentioned earlier that I work for one of the proprietary colleges in New York City. As should not be a surprise, I am part of the union at that college; aside from my personal belief in the power of collective action (and its Constitutional justification in the First Amendment), it is more or less one of the terms of employment that I be enrolled in that union.

The union contract with the school expires on October 9, and so the union and the management of the school are currently in the process of negotiating the next contract. Right now, though, the management is arguing that because there is a chance that regulations being debated might in the future hurt the school, the management (which reports that enrollment and incoming monies are up right now) needs to be able to do, among other things, the following:

Cut the wages of all union employees (which includes all teaching faculty as well as the whole of the clerical and maintenance staffs) by 4%,

Cut employer matching contributions to the 401k by 1.5%,

Exclude newly-hired part-time faculty from participation in the 401k,

Extend the probation period (during which an employee may be fired without cause and without access to grievance procedures and protections) to seven semesters for teaching faculty and five for staff,

Install cameras in every classroom to use for "Lecture Capture," which can be used as a surveillance tool (inhibiting the academic freedom on which intellectual inquiry depends) and as a means to rebroadcast lectures as a moneymaking tool,

And reduce total teaching hours (including hours taught at other institutions, so that it messes with people caught in the traditional plight of the adjunct--bouncing between institutions in an attempt to cobble together enough hours to make enough money to live on).

These management demands are not acceptable to the union membership, obviously. And it is not simply because of the financial impact they have on the members, but because they will negatively impact the ability of the teachers to teach.

That impact will come from the reduction of employee connection to the institution. By giving the employees less reason to partake in the community of the school--particularly the part-time employees who, here as in most other colleges and universities across the country,* comprise the bulk of the teachers students encounter in their pivotal first year of classes--the school gives them less incentive to do the myriad outside tasks that result in good teaching. Limiting teachers' hours forces them to seek outside employment, thereby reducing the amount of time they may spend with students outside of class in office hours and consultations and the like, which in turn sharply limits the ability of students who might do well with a little extra help to get that help. And denying employees access to benefits reduces their connection to the school. So, too, does putting them under minute surveillance, for while observation from time to time is a boon to teaching, constant watching speaks of distrust, and who among us responds well to being told we are not worth trusting?

Because of these things, the union membership voted on Thursday to authorize a strike. The motion carried overwhelmingly; some eight members voted against it, while those in favor numbered in the hundreds. We do not look forward to this; we hope instead that the management of the school will come to its senses and not attempt to set up, in the interest of making money in the short-term, policies that will exert a long-term negative effect on the institution and the students it serves.

But we will not let these things pass.

*This according to information taken from Profession, College English, and CCC in their last few issues.