NLRB issues another complaint against @EWUChicago

…we call for a letter writing campaign & your support for United Adjunct Association at EWU and Curtis Keyes, our Chicago board member, chapter organizer and determined organizer... blogged about here for his determined struggle, first to organize EWU adjunct faculty and since then to gain EWU's acceptance of the union. Yet again, EWU is trying to get NRLB rulings to recognize the union and not place continual obstacles in their way. Here's the latest, NRLB complaint (attached below). Curtis writes, 

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

You'll find the latest NLRB complaint against East-West University in the attachment. We go back to Labor Board court on Feb 4. The East-West struggle is truly a battle for contingent faculty rights. I'm doing my best to hold on and keep fighting. Happy 2013 to all!

Bro. Curtis

#HigherEd news roundup: IHE, CHE dailies & more

Higher Ed news ~ old style

…when there are a lot of adjunct (or NOTTSPASMS) relevant stories in one day, I blog an entire higher ed newsletter or share one with web address directly on the NewFac FB page. I don't every day though, but you can subscribe to IHE's Daily Updates by email or on rss. The Chronicle's version, Academe Today, is by email subscription only. 

Both cover pretty much same ground but it's useful to check both because they won't necessarily cover the same stories with the same perspective or depth. The fair and balanced way to cover both will be to alternate adapting email forward of one while highlighting stories of interest in the other, So that is what I am doing: selected Academe Today stories followed by the Daily Updates news letter. One leads, the other get more space: flipped the next time.

...at least until I work out something less time consuming that includes other sources. Posts of particular interest are highlighted (but not be the same as what you would pick). I'm on Mountain time: don't look for early editions.

What if the Adjuncts Shrugged?

…it was by all accounts, a glorious convention & weekend across the #adjunct/iverse. William Pannapacker's "dispatches from the MLA" captures the glow and puts events into a broader context…a welcome antidote to a "bad fairy at the christening" rash of "least stressful job" clones that sprung up on the intertubes like cyber toadstools, stressing out proffies & adjuncts alike…but that's another story. This one belongs to us, from all the relevant sessions, a knockout Presidential Forum, MLA President Michel Bérubé’s address, the Adjunct Project/ Chronicle collaboration, site makeover and relaunch,and finally, icing on the cake, the Delegate Assembly passing the Adjunct Motion (against de-professionalization and exploitation) 115-1. 

Michael Bérubé’s address at this year’s Modern Language Association convention was one of a handful of times that I felt some real solidarity in the profession against the exploitation of the majority of our students and colleagues.

Obamacare, hours, strange math & unintended consequences

…as Bill Lipkin reflects on them, writing,

 

I would never have dreamed that the Affordable Healthcare Act (Obama care) would cause a hardship on adjuncts and other contingent faculty. This is supposed to help those who cannot afford health care get some basic coverage. But the 'unintended consequences' of this Act can be very detrimental to us. Yes, adjuncts stand to suffer from this Act. Why? Because when it goes into effect in January, 2014 it carries with it a stipulation that if an employer does not supply health care to employees working 30 hours or more a week they have to pay a penalty.

#MLA13 #S112

…a significant event & busy day for #adjunct/ency today, and not just MLA & AHA...As for the other stories, you'll just have to wait for them. Tomorrow has another major, don't miss adjunct relevant session too. Meanwhile, catch up with general higher ed news with the Inside HigherEd Daily Newsletter.

For now, it's all about, #S112 The Presidential Forum: Avenues of Access: Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Members and American Higher Education, Thursday, 3 January, 5:15–7:00 p.m., Constitution Ballroom, Sheraton.

Session Description: 

This session will discuss and review recent efforts to address the working conditions of faculty members off the tenure track and will ask what those working conditions mean for the future of American higher education. If, as the New Faculty Majority slogan has it, faculty working conditions are student learning conditions, then how should we seek to improve those conditions without devaluing the work that non-tenure-track faculty members do?

Here's an #S112 Storify (long but could have been longer). Special thanks to virtuoso tweeps, Brian Croxall, Roger Whitsun and Lee Bessette for making this Storify possible and packed with  tweetalicious goodness.

Happy New Year from New Faculty Majority!

2012 was an important transitional year for us, and 2013 promises even more progress. (Watch your email inbox for the launch of our new e-newsletter, and stay connected daily through our blog and extensive social media.)

Our January 2012 Summit firmly established NFM on the national stage, identifying us as the leading organization working to secure academic excellence through faculty equity and launching new national leaders and projects, like Josh Boldt and The Adjunct Project. Our work this year has concentrated on educating the public and policymakers within and outside of higher education on the state of faculty working conditions in higher education and the need for reform.

Right Leaders of Wrong & other ed-revs

…as told in tweets by @Jessifer (Hybrid Pedagogy) on Storify. Jesse Stommel (IRL) writes...

A short conversation on Twitter about the oncoming revolution in Higher Education. 

It started innocently enough with a few sentences I threw out to the Twitterverse in the weekly hours on a Thursday. Had been thinking about friends and colleagues that are brilliant teachers and wondering why they keep getting pushed out of academia. And why some of them have come to the conclusion that academia is not hospitable to them. It's a weird contradiction -- that in many institutions of higher learning, the folks most passionate about teaching and learning often get overlooked or even aggressively pushed out. 

Read the rest at Right Leaders of Wrong (with tweets) by Jessifer on Storify. Want more, related?