Category Archives: The Corporate University

New issue of Critical Education: Accreditation and the struggle for critical teacher education

Critical Education 4(3), March 15, 2013
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/article/view/182433

The Struggle for Critical Teacher Education: How Accreditation Practices Privilege Efficiency Over Criticality and Compliance over Negotiation
By: Jean Ann Foley

Abstract: In this article, the author uses a case study approach to explore and analyze a conflict within the Professional Education Unit (PEU) at her university. While the controversy seemed to focus on differing epistemologies concerning critical and traditional pedagogy for teacher preparation, the intensity of the clash suggested there were additional forces at work. The author argues that in this particular case, the undertow of a technical rational perspective, generated by an educational accrediting agency, privileged efficiency over criticality and compliance over negotiation. In addition, she suggests that the power structures embedded in the processes of accreditation interfered with unity supported by a common conceptual framework. The article concludes with recommendations on how an institution might use the educational ideals within their conceptual framework, required for accreditation, to liberate its authors from constrained communication that is bounded by a technical discourse.

“In/stability, In/security & In/visibility: Tensions at Work for Tenured & Tenure Stream Faculty in the Neoliberal Academy” — Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor

We are extremely pleased to announce the launch of Workplace Issue #21, “In/stability, In/security & In/visibility: Tensions at Work for Tenured & Tenure Stream Faculty in the Neoliberal Academy” at http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/issue/view/182389

This Special Issue was Guest Edited by Kaela Jubas and Colleen Kawalilak and features a rich array of articles by Kaela and Colleen along with Michelle K. McGinn, Sarah A. Robert, Dawn Johnston, Lisa Stowe, and Sean Murray.

In/stability, In/security & In/visibility provides invaluable insights into the challenges and struggles of intellectuals coping with everyday demands
that at times feel relentless. As the co-Editors describe the Issue:

A tapestry of themes emerged… There were expressions of frustration, confusion, self-doubt, and disenchantment at having to work with competing agendas and priorities, both personal and institutional. Authors also spoke to how, even in challenging times and places, it is possible to find and create opportunities to survive and thrive, individually and collectively.

Narratives and findings therein will resonate with most if not all of us. We encourage you to review the Table of Contents and articles of interest.

Workplace and Critical Education are hosted by the Institute for Critical Education Studies (https://blogs.ubc.ca/ices/), and we invite you to submit manuscripts or propose special issues. We also remind you to follow our Workplace blog (https://blogs.ubc.ca/workplace/) and Twitter @icesubc for breaking news and updates.

Thanks for the continuing interest in Workplace,

Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross, co-Editors
Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
Institute for Critical Education Studies
https://blogs.ubc.ca/ices/
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
No 21 (2012): In/stability, In/security, In/visibility: Tensions at Work for Tenured & Tenure Stream Faculty in the Neoliberal Academy
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/issue/view/182389

Articles
——–
In/stability, In/security & In/visibility: Tensions at Work for Tenured &
Tenure Stream Faculty in the Neoliberal Academy
Kaela Jubas, Colleen Kawalilak

Navigating the Neoliberal Terrain: Elder Faculty Speak Out
Colleen Kawalilak

Being Academic Researchers: Navigating Pleasures and Pains in the Current
Canadian Context
Michelle K. McGinn

On Being a New Academic in the New Academy: Impacts of Neoliberalism on
Work and Life of a Junior Faculty Member
Kaela Jubas

“You Must Say Good-Bye At The School Door:” Reflections On The Tense
And Contentious Practices Of An Educational Researcher-Mother In A
Neoliberal Moment
Sarah A. Robert

If It’s Day 15, This Must Be San Sebastian: Reflections on the Academic
Labour of Short Term Travel Study Programs
Dawn Johnston, Lisa Stowe

Teaching and Tenure in the Vocationalized University
Sean Murray

________________________________________________________________________
Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace

Inaugural issue revisited: Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor

ICES is returning to the archive and rolling out back issues in OJS format! We begin with the inaugural issue and its core theme, “Organizing Our Asses Off.” Issue #2 will soon follow. We encourage readers and supporters of Workplace and Critical Education to revisit these now classic back issues for a sense of accomplishment and frustration over the past 15 years of academic labor. Please keep the ideas and manuscripts rolling in!

Thanks for the continuing interest in Workplace and Critical Education,

Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross, co-Editors
Institute for Critical Education Studies (ICES)
University of British Columbia

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
No 1 (1998): Organizing Our Asses Off
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/issue/view/182236

Articles
——–
Foreword: The Institution as False Horizon
Marc Bousquet

What Hath English Wrought: The Corporate University’s Fast Food
Discipline
Cary Nelson

Unionizing Against Cutbacks
Paul Lauter

What is an “Organization like the MLA”? From Gentleman’s Club to
Professional Association
Stephen Watt

The Future of an Illusion
Christian Gregory

Resistance is Fruitful: Coalition-Building in Ontario
Vicky Smallman

This Old House: Renovating the House of Labor at City University of New
York
Barbara Bowen

Jobless Higher Ed: An Interview with Stanley Aronowitz
Stanley Aronowitz, Andrew Long

Life of Labor: Personal Criticism
——–
Looking Forward in Anger
Barbara White

Performing Shakespeare: Writing and Literacy on the Job
Leo Parascondola

The Good Professors of Szechuan
Gregory Meyerson

Forum: Organizing Our Asses Off
——–
Cannibals, Star Trek, and Egg Timers: Ten Years of Student Employee
Organizing at the University of California
Kate Burns, Anthony M. Navarrete

Critical Year
Edward Fox, Curtis Anderson

What’s Next? Organizing After the COGS Union Affiliation Vote
Julie Marie Schmid

7,500 Down, 200,000 To Go: Organizing the City University of New York
Eric Marshall

Unions, Universities, and the State of Texas
Ray Watkins, Kirsten Christensen

Organizing Democracy: A Response
Karen Thompson

Beyond the Campus Gates: The Personal Is Still Political
Vincent Tirelli

Institutional Memory and Changing Membership: How Can We Learn from What We
Don’t Recall?
Alan Kalish

Field Reports
——–
Report on the 1997 MLA Convention
Mark Kelley

Report on the “Changing Graduate Education” Conference
Alan Kalish

Book Reviews
——–
Review of Michael Denning’s The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American
Culture in the Twentieth Century
Derek Nystrom

Review of Staughton Lynd’s Living Inside Our Hope
Paul Murphy

“Against Obedience” by Susan Ohanian (New issue of Critical Education)

Critical Education has just published its latest issue at http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled. We invite you to review the Table of Contents here and then visit our web site to review articles and items of interest.

Thanks for the continuing interest in our work,

Stephen Petrina
Sandra Mathison
E. Wayne Ross
Co-Editors, Critical Education
Institute for Critical Education Studies
University of British Columbia

Critical Education
Vol 3, No 9 (2012)
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/182380

Articles
——–
Against Obedience
Susan Ohanian

Abstract

This article was originally delivered as the Second Annual Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Lecture at the Rouge Forum’s Occupy Educaton! Class Conscious Pedagogies and Social Change Conference held at Miami University in Oxford, OH, June 22-24, 2012. Starting with a personal journey in learning that political activism isn’t as scary as many teachers believe, the article highlights the highly political nature of press coverage of Race to the Top and the Common Core State Standards initiative, zeroing in on the quisling nature of teacher union and professional organization antics to keep a seat at the political table. Questioning the silence on critical issues of higher education providers of educational products to consumers—aka professors—the author insists that whining isn’t the same as doing. The article concludes with several points on how educators can take action.

The Cost of Knowledge: Researchers taking a stand against Elsevier

Academics have protested against Elsevier’s business practices for years with little effect. The main objections are these:

They charge exorbitantly high prices for their journals.
They sell journals in very large “bundles,” so libraries must buy a large set with many unwanted journals, or none at all. Elsevier thus makes huge profits by exploiting their essential titles, at the expense of other journals.
They support measures such as SOPA, PIPA and the Research Works Act, that aim to restrict the free exchange of information.

Sign the petition here.

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor: CFP—Academic Mobbing

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor

www.workplace-gsc.com

CFP: Academic Mobbing

Special Issue of Workplace 2012
Editors: Stephen Petrina & Wayne Ross

Editors of Workplace are accepting manuscripts for a theme issue on Academic Mobbing. Academic mobbing is defined by the Chronicle of Higher Education (11 June 2009) as: “a form of bullying in which members of a department gang up to isolate or humiliate a colleague.” The Chronicle continues:

If rumors are circulating about the target’s supposed misdeeds, if the target is excluded from meetings or not named to committees, or if people are saying the target needs to be punished formally “to be taught a lesson,” it’s likely that mobbing is under way.

As Joan Friedenberg eloquently notes in The Anatomy of an Academic Mobbing, the toll taken is excessive. Building on a long history of both analysis and neglect in academia, Workplace is interested in a range of scholarship on this practice, including theoretical frameworks, legal analyses, resistance narratives, reports from the trenches, and labor policy reviews. We invite manuscripts that address, among other foci:

Effects of academic mobbing
History of academic mobbing
Sociology and ethnography of the practices of an academic mob
Social psychology of the academic mob leader or boss
Academic mobbing factions (fact + fiction) or short stories
Legal defense for academic mob victims and threats (e.g., Protectable
political affiliation, race, religion)
Gender norms of an academic mob
Neo-McCarthyism and academic mobbing
Your story…

Contributions for Workplace should be 4000-6000 words in length and should conform to APA or MLA style.

If interested in co-editing or authoring, please contact Stephen Petrina (Stephen.petrina@ubc.ca) or Wayne Ross (wayne.ross@ubc.ca). This issue will ideally launch in September 2012.

To Know is Not Enough: Activist Scholarship, Social Change & The Corporate University

The Rouge Forum @ AERA 2012

Free Interactive Conference Open to All

To Know is Not Enough:

Activist Scholarship, Social Change & The Corporate University

www.RougeForumConference.org

Friday April 13, 2012

University of British Columbia,

Robson Square Campus

HSBC Hall

Vancouver, BC

The theme for the 2012 annual meeting of the American Education Research Association is “Non Satis Scire: To Know Is Not Enough.” It is laudable that AERA is promoting “the use of research to improve education and serve the public good” rather than the mere accumulation of research knowledge, but The Rouge Forum is interested in exploring what it means for scholars, and educators in general, to move beyond “knowing” to the pursuit of activist agendas for social change.

What happens when teachers and other academics connect reason to power and power to resistance?
How can academic work (in universities and other learning environments) support local and global resistance to global neoliberal capitalism?
How do we respond to the obstacles and threats faced as activist scholars?

The Rouge Forum @ AERA will bring together world-renowned scholars, teachers, community organizers, and other activists to discuss these questions and others related to activist scholarship, social change, academic freedom, and work in the corporate university as part of a one-day interactive conference at the Robson Square Campus of University of British Columbia in downtown Vancouver.

What is the Rouge Forum?

The Rouge Forum is a group of educators, students, and parents seeking a democratic society. We are both research and action oriented. We want to learn about equality, democracy and social justice as we simultaneously struggle to bring into practice our present understanding of what that is. We seek to build a caring inclusive community that understands that an injury to one is an injury to all. At the same time, our caring community is going to need to deal decisively with an opposition that is sometimes ruthless. RougeForum.com