Where The Blog Has No Name

The Editors of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor are pleased to announce the release of Workplace #16—”Academic Knowledge, Labor, and Neoliberalism.”

Check it out at: http://www.workplace-gsc.com

Table of Contents

Articles
Knowledge Production and the Superexploitation of Contingent Academic Labor
Bruno Gulli

The Education Agenda is a War Agenda: Connecting Reason to Power and Power to Resistance
Rich Gibson, E. Wayne Ross

The Rise of Venture Philanthropy and the Ongoing Neoliberal Assault on Public Education: The Eli and Edith Broad Foundation
Kenneth Saltman

Feature Articles
Theses on College and University Administration: A Critical Perspective
John F. Welsh

The Status Degradation Ceremony: The Phenomenology of Social Control in Higher Education
John F. Welsh

Book Reviews
Review of The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities
Desi Bradley

Authentic Bona fide Democrats Must Go Beyond Liberalism, Capitalism, and Imperialism: A Review of Dewey’s Dream: Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform
Richard A. Brosio

Review of Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools
Prentice Chandler

Review of Pedagogy and Praxis in the Age of Empire: Towards a New Humanism
Abraham P. Deleon

Review of Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University: Poetry, Politics, and the Profession
Leah Schweitzer

Review of Rhetoric and Resistance in the Corporate Academy
Lisa Tremain

Read the Workplace Blog: http://blogs.ubc.ca/workplace/
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On October 24 more than 800 students, teachers, and other workers met to plan how to advance the struggle to defend and transform public education in California and beyond.

The 10/24 conference endorsed the U of California and California State U strike and mobilization on Nov. 17th– 20th and decided to call for statewide solidarity actions on these days.

In addition, Conference participants also called for a “Strike and Day of Action that is inclusive of all different tactics, including: walkouts, rallies, march to Sacramento, teach ins, occupations, and all other forms of protests chosen by schools and organizations.”

CALL: March 4 Strike and Day of Action To Defend Public Education

On October 24, 2009 more than 800 students, workers, and teachers converged at UC Berkeley at the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education. This massive meeting brought together representatives from over 100 different schools, unions, and organizations from all across California and from all sectors of public education – Pre K-12, Adult Education, CC, CSU and UC – to “decide on a statewide action plan capable of winning this struggle, which will define the future of public education in this state, particularly for the working class and communities of color.”

After hours of open collective discussion, the conference democratically voted, as its principal decision, to call for a statewide Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010. The conference decided that all schools, unions and organizations are free to choose their specific demands and tactics – such as strikes, walkouts, march to Sacramento, rallies, occupations, sit-ins, teach-ins, etc. – for March 4, as well as the duration of such actions.
We refuse to let those in power continue to pit us against each other. If we unite, we have the power to shut down business-as-usual and to force those in power to grant our demands. Building a powerful movement to defend public education will, in turn, advance the struggle in defense of all public-sector workers and services.

We call on all students, workers, teachers, parents, and their organizations across the state to endorse this call and massively mobilize and organize for the Strike and Day of Action on March 4.

Let’s make this an historic turning point in the struggle against the cuts, layoffs, fee hikes, and educational segregation in California.

To endorse this call and to receive more information, please contact march4strikeanddayofaction@gmail.com and consult www.savecapubliceducation.org

In Solidarity with the occupations in Vienna [Austria] for Free Education

Since Oct.22nd thousands of students at the University of Vienna are occupying various lecture halls to protest against the increasing commercialisation [against the Bologna process] and for free and emancipatory public education.

Details at Emancipating-Education-for-All.org

Facebook group: In Solidarity with the occupations in Vienna [Austria] for Free Education

UC Faculty Walkout 9/24
Update: AAUP Endorses Walkout

To support this action, please send your name and affiliation to this addresss: ucfacultywalkout@gmail.com

Hundreds of UC professors, from all divisions and campuses, wrote in support of the 9/24 walkout during the first two days of the call. With that support, and more that is now pouring in, the letter posted below will be recirculated to faculty throughout the UC system shortly. Student organizations throughout the UC system have begun mobilizing in solidarity.

• The AAUP (American Association of University Professors) has endorsed this call for collective action: http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/newsroom/2009PRS/ucwalkout.htm
• UPTE, representing over 10,000 University Professional and Technical Employees, will strike on 9/24 in solidarity with faculty: http://www.upte.org/publication-mm/2009-08-31.html
• SAVE, a faculty organization at UC Berkeley, has called for a “Day of Education” on 9/24 in solidarity with the walkout:
  http://ucfacultywalkout.wordpress.com/
• Article in the Daily Californian:http://www.dailycal.org/article/106486/uc_faculty_plan_walkout_to_protest_recent_budget_c
• STUDENTS: Berkeley Professor Catherine Cole’s open letter to UC students has been posted with the call for a faculty walkout here: http://berkeleycuts.org/

For more on the budget cuts at the University of California and California State University see the Workplace Blog

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor

The Editorial Team of Workplace is proud to announce the journal’s new home, new outlook, and new publishing system!

We encourage you to browse the Workplace open journal system, submit a manuscript, or volunteer to review http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/workplace/index. We also welcome proposals for Special Issues; if you have an idea or have assembled a group of scholars writing on higher education workplace activism and issues of academic labor, send us a proposal.

Current preprints include:

John Welsh’s “Theses on College and University Administration” and “The Status Degradation Ceremony.” As a whole, both feature articles challenge scholars to rethink the administration of higher education and how we frame research into this process http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/workplace/issue/current.

“The Education Agenda is a War Agenda: Connecting Reason to Power and Power to Resistance” by Rich Gibson & E. Wayne Ross

Reviews by Richard Brosio and Prentice Chandler

Thank you and please forward this invitation to colleagues and networks.
–
Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross, Co-Editors

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy
University of British Columbia
http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/workplace/index

Well March Madness has just begun, but it’s been pretty good to me so far with both my alma maters (North Carolina and Ohio State) and two of my former employers’ teams in the field (Louisville and Binghamton).

The UNC Tar Heels sailed through the first round with a rout of Radford U (101-58) and Inside Higher Ed declared the Heels champions of their “Academic Performance Tournament.”

And while the Fight Hasidim, uhm, Bearcats of Binghamton University, lost to Dook in their first ever NCAA tournament game, the SUNY school can now hold their heads high as the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org) has declared the Bearcats winners of the “K Street Classic”, for their tremendous success in spending money on Washington lobbyists.

The Bearcats won the tournament by spending more money on lobbyists than any other school in the 64 team NCAA basketball tournament. In fairness, it should be noted that Bingo’s success in the K Street Classic is not entirely the result of its own efforts because CRP used data on lobbying expenditures for the entire SUNY system to catapult the Bearcats to the championship (Binghamton is the only SUNY school to make the tournament). But that’s okay because Binghamton University doesn’t really take responsibility for the academic or athletic performance of its own basketball team either.

So, now the Bingo Bearcats have made history, despite their loss to Dook, they’re the only team to take the K Street Classic in their first appearance in the tournament!

Track whether the teams spending the most money to influence the government are also scoring the most points on the court by following Open Secret’s lobbying bracket.

While Americans waste their time discussing what position they’ll be in as they continued to get screwed by the bank bailouts and/or tweaking the reactionary education reform mess of No Child Left Behind students in Italy are saying “NO” to the Berlusconi government’s plan to impose business models on public services such as schools and universities that will see the disappearance of nearly 100,000 teaching positions in the next three years:

This “euthanasia of the universities”, as Gaetano Azzariti, professor of constitutional law at Rome university, calls it, was a political decision, sacrificing teaching and research to sectors of the economy. It means that for a university to hire a new lecturer now, two others have to leave its payroll. And it means more private sector funding in universities and higher tuition fees, leading to increased levels of debt for the poorest students. And on August 28, education minister Mariastella Gelmini presented another executive order, setting out budget cuts and plans to return to single teachers in primary schools (each class is normally taught by several different teachers), meaning a shorter school day for children (and reducing parents’ ability to go out to work). Other measures aimed to revive old practices, such as marks for behavior up to secondary level.

Since the start of the school year in September 2008, a national movement of parents, teachers and students resisting the neoliberal reforms of the Berlusconi government formed under the banner of “Non rubateci il futuro” (Don’t steal our future) and have spawned huge demonstrations and university occupations and general strikes.

“What’s developing is the self-organization of university students and casual workers,” explained Aliocha, a literature student at La Sapienza university who is also a casual in a bank. “Some people combine being casual workers and students or researchers, others are just casual workers. Together with the rank and file unions, we started the October 17 strike, and organized it in workplaces where job insecurity is an everyday reality.”

See Serge Quadruppani’s article at CounterPunch.

Marc Bousquet thinks the biggest turkey in higher ed is U of Tennessee’s Charlie Manning and he makes a good case for him. Bousquet understands what it’s like to work at the U of Louisville, but he never had to work in the same building with Robert Felner, the former UofL education dean now under federal indictment…

In my book Felner’s the biggest turkey in higher ed…ever.

HowTheUniversityWorks.com: Tennessee Takes First Annual ‘Turkey at the Top’ Award

Turkey at the top is always intensely competitive. This year’s contenders included first runner-up Robert Felner, the U of Louisville dean indicted for conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion in what the feds allege are repeated acts of embezzlement of grant monies amounting to over $2 million. Not content with these escapades, Felner racked up 31 grievances and complaints in his 5 years at the “U of L” but was consistently backed against the faculty by upper administration, especially Provost Shirley Willihnganz and President James Ramsey, who spent extravagantly on lawyers and consultants to prop up his administration despite what numerous accounts (including this one and others that I’ve privately confirmed) termed an “onslaught” of complaints from faculty, staff and students alleging “unsavory behavior, ranging from sexual harassment to workplace intimidation.” This pair continued the authoritarian regime of wall-to-wall administrative solidarity and secrecy established by their high-living predecessors, former provost Carol Garrison and former president John Shumaker—later found sharing lavish hotel rooms and limousines at public expense, while jetting to trysts in the University of Tennessee’s private plane.

But every year only one can win. This year’s award goes to the chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents, Charlie Manning, for his new business model for higher ed in his Appalachian state. Over the past couple of decades, the great state of Tennessee has burned millions of education dollars on executive compensation, sports facilities, and miles of orange carpet—while leading the country in squeezing its faculty.

The New York Times: Increased Compensation Puts More College Presidents in the Million-Dollar Club

Soaring compensation of university presidents, once limited to a few wealthy institutions, is becoming increasingly common, with the number of million-dollar pay packages at private institutions nearly doubling last year, and compensation at many public universities not far behind.

Inside Higher Ed: A Worldwide Test for Higher Education?

For much of the last year or two, debate has raged among American higher education officials and state and federal policy makers about the wisdom and practicality of creating a system that would allow for public comparison of how successfully individual colleges and/or programs are educating their students. Many college leaders have rejected the push, which has emanated primarily from the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education and the U.S. Education Department, on the grounds that the nation’s colleges and universities — two-year and four-year, public and private, exclusive and open enrollment — and their students are far too varied to be responsibly and intelligently measured by any single, standardized measure (or even a suite of them).

But the thirst among politicians and others seeking to hold colleges and universities more accountable for their performance is powerful, and it is not merely an American phenomenon. Proof of that can be found in the fact that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has convened a small group of testing experts and higher education policy makers who have met quietly in recent months to discuss the possibility of creating a common international system to measure the learning outcomes of individual colleges and university systems, along the lines of the well-regarded test that OECD countries now administer to 15-year-olds, the Program for International Student Assessment.