Addendum to Aaron Barlow’s Post on Contingent and Adjunct Faculty

Another element of the broader issues addressed in Aaron’s post is the disparity in the nature of adjuncting–of teaching part-time–in different disciplines and in covering different levels of courses. The adjunct faculty in professional schools very likely have full-time employment outside of the university. The same is true for the great majority of adjunct faculty…

Is Something Understood Metaphorically Always Preferable to and More Palatable than Its Literal Alternative? (Or, Could the King of America Abolish Teachers’ Lounges?)

Earlier today, I did a post on very clever political messaging from the Kasich presidential campaign. I closed that post with this observation: “Whatever limitations he may have as a speaker or as a campaigner, he has managed to offset them with a great deal of political experience and political savvy.” In this post, I…

Scholar Activism As Practice

All learning at all levels starts within the student. It ends there, too, but the start is what concerns those of us who teach. When the learning doesn’t start with the student, the student never becomes fully engaged; what results is a smorgasbord of sampled bits without cohesion. The fundamentals aren’t mastered for that primary…

A Lesson in Political Messaging from the Kasich Presidential Campaign

Yesterday I received the following e-mail from the Governor Kasich’s presidential campaign: “Martin, Governor Kasich has a strong pro-life record and now anti-life groups are attacking him. Can you chip in and help John fight back? “No Governor in Ohio history has signed more pro-life legislation than Governor Kasich. The governor signed a ban on late-term abortions; began…

AAUP/AAUP-CBC Summer Institute in Pictures

Nearly three hundred academic activists convened at the University of Denver July 23–26 for the 2015 AAUP/AAUP-CBC Summer Institute. An intensive series of workshops and seminars prepared participants to organize their colleagues, stand up for academic freedom, and advocate for research and teaching as the core priorities of higher education. This was one of the…

You Make the Culture

With the permission of the author, Amy King, I am re-posting this wonderful (not in the trite sense, but in the sense of provoking genuine wonder), challenging, and very thought-provoking poem that was distributed by Poets.org in their Poem-a-Day daily e-mail. _________________________ You Make the Culture Amy King   The words became librarians, custodians of…

Remembering Julian Bond

The following article was disseminated by the Campaign for America’s Future in its Progressive Breakfast daily newsletter. A link to a companion article is provided at the end of this post. The article is reprinted here with the permission of Roger Hickey who, with Robert Borsage, co-directs this progressive center and effort. Its website is…