Power and Action

When I cornered Richard Leakey to ask him about the elephant that had once chased me but had let me go, he responded, “The elephant wasn’t interested in you.” Though clearly anxious to get away after his talk at the National Geographic Society in Washington, DC, he had heard out my tale of how it…

Why “Media and the Faculty”?

The theme for the current issue of Academe, “Media and the Faculty,” was selected to encourage us to get more involved in the public debates surrounding higher education. As I write in my “From the Editor” column: we have to become our own advocates. Joining the AAUP, of course, is a first step, but each of…

Regarding the Artist

Years ago, before I even thought about teaching as a full-time and permanent career, I spent a few semesters working for an online “university.” I won’t call what I did “teaching.” After all, the institution didn’t. I was a “facilitator” responsible for a section or two of the required Composition course. It had been designed…

Barbara Bowen, president, Professional Staff Congress, the union of 25,000 CUNY faculty and staff, on Governor Cuomo’s 2016-17 Executive Budget

“We welcome and hope to build on the Governor’s acknowledgement of the need to provide funding for retroactive raises for CUNY’s 25,000 faculty and staff—who have not had a raise in six years—but are alarmed at what appears to be a massive funding cut. “A preliminary reading of the Executive Budget shows a proposal for…

Hello to All That

An academic career never seemed a possibility for me until I was in my fifties. Unlike most who end up teaching in colleges and universities, I was never a star student. Nor did I show signs of creative genius. I had little direction in my life, drifting in and out of jobs over the years…