The following is an op-ed piece by Susan Gubernat, Professor of English at California State University, East Bay and a member of the CSU Academic Senate. It was published in the Sacramento Bee on September 7. Tuition dollars have overtaken state funding in supporting public higher education in California, as is true throughout the country.…
We often talk about teaching our students critical-thinking skills, but the fear of provoking controversy causes many of us to steer away from many, if not most, of the controversial issues of the day. So our students are left to absorb the almost always very selective and superficial talking points disseminated by public figures and…
I am not sure if this image is from The Great Gatsby or The Wolf of Wall Street, but the combination of image and message seems, to me at least, more puzzling, if not disconcerting, than very clearly ironic. I suppose that it could be worse—if, for instance, the image were of Michael Douglas as…
Both of these two things were actually said by a non-candidate who was speculating about her future roles if a particular Republican candidate should will the 2016 presidential election. While being interviewed on CNN about what cabinet positions she would prefer to hold within a Trump administration, Sarah Palin responded that she would like to…
Work Gangs Carl Sandburg, 1878 – 1967 Box cars run by a mile long. And I wonder what they say to each other When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack. Maybe their chatter goes: I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line. I came from Omaha with a load…
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, acceptance of the “free market” neoliberal corporatist model of top-down management has become so pervasive that its vacuous language is being extended backwards to cover events of almost a thousand years ago. Someone posted this comment on a post of mine yesterday: When have the faculty ever been…
This is the Labor Day message sent out by Muskovitz and Lemmerbrock, the law firm which has advised our chapter at Wright State ever since it was formed almost two decades ago: “Labor Day is a day to celebrate working men and women and their efforts to secure workplace rights and better working conditions, and is a steadfast symbol…
Three years ago, a blogger who signs his or her posts “TheNewDeal00” posted the following list to the progressive blog The Daily Kos. The post went viral, and on each subsequent Labor Day weekend, he or she has reposted the list framed with a fresh commentary. The list is titled “36 Reasons Why You Should…
The more upbeat view is provided by Harold Meyerson in a piece written for American Prospect and re-posted to the labor blog Talking Union. Although Meyerson starts with some grim statistics on the disconnect between increasing productivity and stagnant, if not declining, wages and on the decline is vacation time available to and taken by…
In the comments to one of the posts on this blog, someone wrote: in my opinion, faculty absolutely should not be governing a university. We need broadly trained academic professionals who understand the business of higher education making decisions, not narrowly-focused/educated faculty members who are likely privileged, entitled, and completely out of touch with the…