screenshot showing events planned for Coalition for Action in Higher Ed April 17 Day of Action events

Everything Is Political Now

BY JONATHAN REES My chapter is planning its National Day of Action for Higher Education event on April 17. Up to this point in time, we’ve been tightly focused on organizing to improve faculty salaries, but looking around at the world today the need to broaden our scope seemed clear. It is time to get…

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Light blue neon sign over dark background shows the word UNION on top with the word YES and a check mark inside a red box below it.

We Are All Workers

BY JONATHAN REES Back in December, I was listening to Adam Conover’s podcast, and his guests were the directors of Union: A Documentary Film, which is about the successful organizing effort by the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island. In the discussion, I learned that the film has been unable…

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Light blue neon sign over dark background shows the word UNION on top with the word YES and a check mark inside a red box below it.

Faculty Unions in Colorado Are Already Here

BY JONATHAN REES Back in the 1990s, I studied labor history at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Naturally, I belonged to the Teaching Assistants’ Association, the first graduate student union in the country. When I arrived in Colorado as a tenure-track academic, I naturally wanted to know if I could somehow duplicate my positive…

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AAUP senior program officer Mike CeCesare points to a slide presentation with a quote about the role of faculty in higher education governance.

The Shared Governance Crisis in Colorado

BY JONATHAN REES The Colorado Conference of the AAUP held its annual meeting in Denver last Saturday. Our special guest was Mike DeCesare from the national AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance. He gave us a primer on shared governance. I have a feeling that most of you reading this know what shared…

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A tablet shows a finger selecting a purple and white sad-face emoji that appears as an option next to a green and white happy-face emoji and a blue and white neutral-face emoji

Online Classes That Are Close to the Bottom

BY JONATHAN REES Did your online social life survive the Great Twitter Exodus of 2022? Although I’ve found Mastodon to be somewhat useful in this regard, I lost track of far too many online “friends” to count. That has only just now started to change. For example, Audrey Watters made her well-earned reputation during the…

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hammer with dark wooden handle and steel head lying on lighter wood surface

The Hammer by Hamilton Nolan

BY JONATHAN REES I spent a couple of days over spring break in New Orleans checking out museums. As is my tendency, I also walked a few blocks away from the French Quarter to visit an independent book store. Baldwin & Co. is great, but that’s a post for another blog. What I want to…

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Gradebook show a table listing letter grades, including an A-, a B, and an A.

Your Gradebook Is Not Your Friend

BY JONATHAN REES I am old enough to have used a physical gradebook when I started teaching. It looked like it was filled with graph paper, but there was definitely an extra-large space on the left for the students’ names and room to do some calculating all the way on the other side. I abandoned…

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