Category Archives: Solidarity

Divest #ubc from fossil fuel #globalwarming #faubc #bced #bcpoli

Posted on February 8, 2015 by | Comments Off on Divest #ubc from fossil fuel #globalwarming #faubc #bced #bcpoli

UBC faculty members, one hour left to vote on the Referendum for

 Fossil Fuel Divestment at the University of British Columbia: 

A Responsible Investment Proposal 

Go to UBC Faculty Vote (poll closes at 12:30 today, 8 February 2015)

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Posted in Environment, Faculty, Solidarity

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#Dalhousie profs complaint on misogynistic dentistry students’ #Facebook posts #highered #dalhousiehateswomen

Posted on January 6, 2015 by | Comments Off on #Dalhousie profs complaint on misogynistic dentistry students’ #Facebook posts #highered #dalhousiehateswomen

CTV, January 5, 2015–Four Dalhousie professors have gone public with a formal complaint they submitted to the university last month, which called for male dentistry students linked to a sexually explicit Facebook discussion to be suspended before classes resume on Monday.

One of the professors, Francoise Baylis, said they decided to go public because they haven’t yet been assured that the complaint has been properly submitted and whether it will be addressed.

“Students have to go back to school tomorrow morning, and in our view, the university has an obligation to provide all students with a safe and supportive learning environment,” Baylis, who teaches at Dalhousie’s medical school, told CTV Atlantic.

“Our view is that it’s important to have at least addressed the complaint prior to the students coming back.”

The formal complaint from Dec. 21 calls for the university to hand out suspensions to all fourth-year students who were allegedly involved in offensive posts discussing female students in the Faculty of Dentistry. The complaint is co-signed by Baylis and fellow Dalhousie professors Jocelyn Downie, Brian Noble and Jacqueline Warwick.

“The purpose of the Complaint was to trigger an interim suspension prior to the start of classes on Monday, January 5, 2015,” the professors said in a statement emailed to CTVNews.ca on Sunday.

The complaint cites a number of posts allegedly made by fourth-year students in the Facebook group called “Class of DDS 2015 Gentlemen.”

One poster reportedly joked about using chloroform to render a woman unconscious. Another asked members which female students they would like to have “hate sex” with. A third post showed a photo of a woman in a bikini with the caption: “bang until stress is relieved or unconscious (girl).”

The formal complaint matches these allegations up to violations under the school’s Code of Student Conduct. It says offending students should be suspended because they “pose a threat of disruption or interference with the operations of the University and the activities of its members.”

Baylis said the formal process was engaged because some of the affected female students either did not consent to, or were not approached about the informal “restorative justice” approach the university decided to take.

On Dec. 17, university president Richard Florizone said administrators were looking into informal complaints by women who were subjects of the offensive posts. He also left the door open to a formal complaint process if the affected women chose to pursue it.

“I ask for our communities to give our students and university administrators the time to complete their work through the restorative justice process and forge meaningful, responsible outcomes,” Florizone said in a statement.

“Our overall response must also address cultures of sexism, misogyny and sexualized violence,” he added.

Baylis said the offensive Facebook posts require both an individual and a “systemic” response.

“All of us believe that we’re at a very unique cultural moment in time where we’re actually able to name the problem publicly, to call this misogyny, to talk about gendered violence,” she said.

Read more: CTV

Read the Complaint: 

Statement from faculty members who brought a complaint under Dalhousie University’s Code of

Student Conduct re: the “Class of DDS 2015 Gentlemen”

We are at a distinct cultural moment in which real change with respect to misogyny and gendered violence is possible.

Events involving the “Class of DDS 2015 Gentlemen” create a complex situation demanding thoughtful, sensitive responses from a variety of perspectives using a variety of procedural tools.

We ground our engagement with this situation in commitments to:

  • acknowledging that the problem of misogyny and gendered violence exists on Dalhousie campuses and campuses across the country;
  • doing the work required to make our campuses safe and supportive learning environments for all members of our community and with particular concern for women and members of other vulnerable groups;
  • ensuring due process;
  • pursuing an integrated approach involving both systemic and specific responses.

President Florizone has committed to responding to the specific incident within the Faculty of Dentistry and to seeking strategies for meaningful long-term change. Our formal Complaint is an effort to contribute constructively to the comprehensive response required.

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Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Administration, Advocacy, Campus Life, Ethics, Events, Protests, Solidarity, Student Movement, Students, Working conditions

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Lilia D. Monzó & Peter McLaren on Red Love: Toward Racial, Economic and Social Justice #handsup #highered #criticaled #race

Posted on December 18, 2014 by | Comments Off on Lilia D. Monzó & Peter McLaren on Red Love: Toward Racial, Economic and Social Justice #handsup #highered #criticaled #race

Lilia D. Monzó & Peter McLaren, Truthout, December 18, 2014– Racism is exacerbated by a capitalist production process that teaches us that some people have a God-given right to pursue their economic and social interests without regard for other people’s right to thrive, free of fear for their own survival. The antidote is red love.

The Slaughter-Bench of Race

It seems that it is an everlasting open hunting season in the United States and the kills are Black men. The senseless killing of unarmed Black young man Michael Brown by a White police officer and the grand jury’s decision to allow the officer to walk without facing a trial through a faltering prosecutorial process (that aims to defend when the target of indictment is a police officer) has brought Ferguson, Missouri, and other communities across the country to their feet in loud and incendiary protest.

Approximately 50 protesters on a 120-mile march from Ferguson to Jefferson City decrying the shooting death of Brown were met with counter-protesters all along the route. Especially stomach-churning was the reception given to the protesters in the sleepy hollow of Rosebud, where the caterwauling and public scouring was most intense as 200 residents screeched at the protesters to “go home and get jobs” along a route littered with 40-ounce beer bottles, watermelons, Confederate flags and fried chicken, and where at least one concerned citizen was wearing a makeshift white hood, redolent of the vile knights of the “Invisible Empire.”

While the corporate media has suggested that the violent response by some protesters – property damage and looting in some instances – diminishes the authentic call for “change” – i.e., a demilitarization of the police, improved police-community relations, urban job creation, increased sensitivity training regarding race among police force recruits – it is hard to ignore the storied observation by Frantz Fanon that violence is oftentimes the only possible response by communities that have lived through centuries of violence – slavery, joblessness, poverty, police profiling, the school-to-prison pipeline and a military-industrial complex that thrives upon the deaths and killing of Black and Brown young men.

In the wake of this blow to the Black community, we have seen a string of similar White police killings of unarmed Black men and an unwillingness to indict them. These include the killing of Eric Garner who was caught on video repeating the words, “I can’t breathe,” 11 times as a New York Police Department officer had him in a chokehold that has been banned by the NYPD for years; the killing of Rumain Brisbon in Phoenix, Arizona; the killing of a 12-year-old boy, Tamir Rice, who was holding a toy gun in a park and shot within two seconds of police arriving on the scene; and the killing of Akai Gurley, a young man who was fatally shot by a rookie NYPD officer in a dark public housing stairwell in Brooklyn. With the growing confidence among White police officers that Black men are fair game for killing without consequences, how many more of our Black children’s lives will we lose?

In the cases of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and Akai Gurley, the police did not make any effort to assist their dying victims. In the case of Gurley, the officers who shot him – in true “cover your ass fashion” – decided to text their union representative while ignoring calls from the police and medics. Six and a half minutes went by before they finally radioed for assistance. It wasn’t until a detective and FBI agent arrived at the scene of the Tamir Rice slaying that the victim received any first aid. In Eric Garner’s case, numerous police officers stared at his unconscious handcuffed body for seven crucial minutes instead of performing urgent CPR or frantically seeking professional medical assistance. In the case of Michael Brown, we know that his body lay lifeless on a Ferguson street for four hours before it was carted off to the local morgue. While some have attempted to justify police killings of Black men as a function of the job demand for quick decisions and their own survival instincts, this unconscionable and merciless failure to attempt to save these men’s lives, points to something much deeper.

Astonishingly, we are now hearing backlash against protesters that Black men must be suicidal since they are acting in ways that are surely to get them killed. It seems no matter what the circumstance, the narratives shift in order to maintain the sanctity of the White cop. The institutionalized and pretentious discourse of conservative talk show hosts now includes remarks to the effect of: “If Garner can say ‘I can’t breathe’ 11 times, then he can breathe” (obviously these self-proclaimed “critics” don’t realize that being pinned down by police may prevent lungs from re-expanding, forcing out the functional reserve capacity of air while the expiratory reserve volume – which is not oxygenated and basically exists as carbon dioxide gas – still permits vocalization). This vicious insensitivity from the frenetic ranks of these racist prodigies have ripped away any cosmetic prostheses hiding the seething subterranean animus of the White population who have inherited a historical proclivity to blame Blacks for their own suffering and who continue to do so with an increasingly smug impunity.

Given the rancid history of racial violence in the United States, should we be aghast at the audacity of White police officers who continue to shoot first and show little restraint prior or remorse after, and at the imperviousness of prosecutors and grand juries that see only through the dominant lens, justifying the growing epidemic of Black killings by White cops as a “natural” reaction to fearing for their lives? Protesters are demanded to show restraint in a country that has shown no restraint in killing Black communities and other communities of color – physically, psychologically and economically. While we do not advocate for violence, we understand how centuries of pain and humiliation can result in a pent-up rage that eventually explodes.

More recently, African-Americans face the grim new reality of moving from the super-exploited sector of the working class to being even more marginalized as capitalists switched from drawing on Black labor in favor of Latino/a immigrant labor as a super-exploited workforce. As a result of increased structural marginalization, African-Americans are subject to what William Robinson describesas “heightened disenfranchisement, criminalization, a bogus ‘war on drugs,’ mass incarceration and police and state terror, seen by the system as necessary to control a superfluous and potentially rebellious population.”

Racism is not a natural phenomenon, but one that has been produced within each and every institution of our society. Racism is exacerbated through a capitalist production process that teaches us that some people have a God-given right to pursue their own economic and social interests with little regard for the right of every human being and other living organism to thrive in the world free of fear for their own survival and with dignity and freedom. Racism stems from a world that has lost its ability to recognize its social nature and absolute need to love one another. While we must work to make people safe today, we must also consider the long-term goal of anti-racist struggle, which in our view is one and the same as class struggle, such that a new world order, one free from class and founded on love, interdependence, social responsibility, equality and freedom can thrive.

Read More: Truthout

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Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Corruption, Equity, Ethics, Government, Human Rights, Politics, Protests, Race, Solidarity, Student Movement

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Symposium: Public Engagement and the Politics of Evidence in an Age of Neoliberalism and Audit Culture #highered #criticaled #caut #aaup

Posted on December 2, 2014 by | Comments Off on Symposium: Public Engagement and the Politics of Evidence in an Age of Neoliberalism and Audit Culture #highered #criticaled #caut #aaup

Public Engagement and the Politics of Evidence in an Age of Neoliberalism and Audit Culture

July 23-25, 2015

Faculty of Education, University of Regina

This symposium will examine accelerating trends in higher education: neoliberalism, the politics of evidence, and the audit culture. In an age in which value is often equated with accountancy, we will examine the place in the academy for public intellectualism, community-engagement, Indigenous epistemologies, and how the impact of our scholarship is, and ought to be, justly assessed. Invited presenters will provoke lively discussion, but going beyond discussion, and blurring the lines between presenter and audience member, participants will be invited to engage actively with other presenter/participants in attendance for the purpose of effecting changes at their home institutions. Opportunities will be available for reconsidering and strategizing academic issues such as faculty criteria documents, measurement rankings, traditional impact factors, and other academic matters affected by the politics of austerity, neoliberalism, and new management technologies. Action will also be encouraged through submissions to a special issue of in education (the University of Regina Faculty of Education’s journal), potentially collaborating on an edited book, TED-style dissemination videos, producing a list of recommendations, developing examples of inclusive faculty criteria documents, possibly developing a community impact factor as an alternative to journal impact factor metrics, and further actions as collectively discussed at the symposium.

Questions to be explored include:

  • What counts as scholarship and why?
  • How do we achieve accountability in an age of accountancy?
  • How do we measure research impact, (i.e., journal impact factor vs community and policy impact)?
  • Impact for whom?
  • Who and how do we determine whose evidence and what research is legitimate?
  • What can be done? How do we effect change to university practices?
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Posted in Academic freedom, Academic Labor, Critical University Studies, Institute for Critical Education Studies, Politics, Solidarity, Students, Tenure & Promotion, Working conditions

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CFP: Marx, Engels and the Critique of Academic Labor #highered #edstudies #criticaled

Posted on November 30, 2014 by | Comments Off on CFP: Marx, Engels and the Critique of Academic Labor #highered #edstudies #criticaled

Call for Papers
Marx, Engels and the Critique of Academic Labor

Special Issue of Workplace
Guest Editors: Karen Gregory & Joss Winn

Articles in Workplace have repeatedly called for increased collective organisation in opposition to a disturbing trajectory: individual autonomy is decreasing, contractual conditions are worsening, individual mental health issues are rising, and academic work is being intensified. Despite our theoretical advances and concerted practical efforts to resist these conditions, the gains of the 20th century labor movement are diminishing and the history of the university appears to be on a determinate course. To date, this course is often spoken of in the language of “crisis.”

While crisis may indeed point us toward the contemporary social experience of work and study within the university, we suggest that there is one response to the transformation of the university that has yet to be adequately explored: A thoroughgoing and reflexive critique of academic labor and its ensuing forms of value. By this, we mean a negative critique of academic labor and its role in the political economy of capitalism; one which focuses on understanding the basic character of ‘labor’ in capitalism as a historically specific social form. Beyond the framework of crisis, what productive, definite social relations are actively resituating the university and its labor within the demands, proliferations, and contradictions of capital?

We aim to produce a negative critique of academic labor that not only makes transparent these social relations, but repositions academic labor within a new conversation of possibility.

We are calling for papers that acknowledge the foundational work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for labor theory and engage closely and critically with the critique of political economy. Marx regarded his discovery of the dual character of labor in capitalism (i.e. concrete and abstract) as one of his most important achievements and “the pivot on which a clear comprehension of political economy turns.” With this in mind, we seek contributions that employ Marx’s and Engels’ critical categories of labor, value, the commodity, capital, etc. in reflexive ways which illuminate the role and character of academic labor today and how its existing form might be, according to Marx, abolished, transcended and overcome (aufheben).

Contributions:

  1. A variety of forms and approaches, demonstrating a close engagement with Marx’s theory and method: Theoretical critiques, case studies, historical analyses, (auto-)ethnographies, essays, and narratives are all welcome. Contributors from all academic disciplines are encouraged.
  2. Any reasonable length will be considered. Where appropriate they should adopt a consistent style (e.g. Chicago, Harvard, MLA, APA).
  3. Will be Refereed.
  4. Contributions and questions should be sent to:

Joss Winn (jwinn@lincoln.ac.uk) and Karen Gregory (kgregory@ccny.cuny.edu)

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Posted in Academic freedom, Academic Labor, CFPs, Critical University Studies, Faculty, Institute for Critical Education Studies, Organizing, Solidarity, Unions, Working conditions

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#IdleNoMore social movements #ubc #occupyed

Posted on November 8, 2014 by | Comments Off on #IdleNoMore social movements #ubc #occupyed

CBC News, October 24, 2014– Idle No More was one of the largest Indigenous mass movements in recent history, sparking hundreds of teach-ins, rallies and protests across the country. On Friday night in Saskatoon, a group of educators and grad students learned about how it all came together.

People involved in the movement addressed members of the Canadian History of Education Association. Lynn Lemisko with the Association says there’s a history of teach-ins, like Idle No More, being used as a resistance movement.

“It’s a powerful example in the way in which resistance can be done in a peaceful way through dancing and just gathering together and demonstrating,” Lemisko said.

Lemisko says mass social movements can be successful even if they don’t result in clear, measurable outcomes, such as legislative changes. She says they heighten awareness and help develop critical thinking. And she says educators are interested in how the Idle No More Movement changed the social and political landscape in Canada.

“Is this something that we can borrow and use in our own lives in our own ways that we want to support social justice resist and reconcile?” Lemisko asked. Lemisko says a similar effort could be hard to duplicate. She says some mass movements just happen because there are forces that come together at a particular moment in time for whatever reason.

Read More: CBC News

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Posted in Advocacy, Culture, Equity, Ethics, Government, Idle No More, Organizing, Politics, Protests, Solidarity, Student Movement, Teach-ins

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#HongKongStudents protestors resolute against attacks

Posted on October 3, 2014 by | Comments Off on #HongKongStudents protestors resolute against attacks

CBC, October 4, 2014–Hong Kong police said Saturday that they have arrested 19 people, some of whom are believed to have organized crime ties, after mobs tried to drive pro-democracy protesters from the streets where they have held a weeklong, largely peaceful demonstration.

At least 12 people and six officers were injured during the clashes, district commander Kwok Pak-chung said at a pre-dawn press briefing. Protest leaders called off planned talks with the government on political reforms after the battles kicked off Friday afternoon in gritty, blue-collar Mong Kok, across Victoria Harbour from the activists’ main protest camp.

Police struggled for hours to control the battles as attackers pushed, shoved and jeered the protesters. Those arrested face charges of unlawful assembly, fighting in public and assault, Kwok said, adding that eight men are believed to have backgrounds involving triads, or organized crime gangs.

The protesters urged residents to join their cause and demanded that the police protect their encampments. The Hong Kong Federation of Students, one of the groups leading the demonstrations that drew tens of thousands of people earlier this week, said they saw no choice but to cancel the dialogue.

“The government is demanding the streets be cleared. We call upon all Hong Kong people to immediately come to protect our positions and fight to the end,” the group said in a statement.

They demanded the government hold someone responsible for the scuffles Friday, the worst disturbances since police used tear gas and pepper spray on protesters last weekend to try to disperse them.

Hundreds of people remained in the streets early Saturday in Mong Kok, one of Hong Kong’s busiest shopping areas, after the clashes.

“Of course I’m scared, but we have to stay and support everyone,” said Michael Yipu, 28, who works in a bank.

Well after midnight, the crowds stood peacefully, occasionally chanting and shouting, while police looked on.

The standoff is the biggest challenge to Beijing’s authority since it took over the former British colony in 1997. Earlier Friday, the students had agreed to talks with the government proposed by Hong Kong’s leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. But his attempt to defuse tensions fell flat as many protesters were unhappy with his refusal to yield their demands for his resignation.

Unclear if scuffles were organized

The cancellation of the talks — prompted by clashes with men who tried to tear down the makeshift barricades and tents set up by the demonstrators — left the next steps in the crisis uncertain.

It was unclear if those scuffles were spontaneous or had been organized, although some of the attackers wore blue ribbons signalling support for the mainland Chinese government, while the protesters have yellow ribbons. At least some of them were residents fed up with the inconvenience of blocked streets and closed shops, and were perhaps encouraged to take matters into their own hands by police calls for protesters to clear the streets.

Read More: CBC

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Posted in Free speech, Government, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes, Student Movement, Students

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Censorship of #HongKongStudents

Posted on October 2, 2014 by | Comments Off on Censorship of #HongKongStudents

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The Economist, October 3, 2014– Streets in Hong Kong have been filled with protesters calling for democratic reform and tweeting their experiences furiously. But in mainland China, people are struggling to discuss the unrest online. Censors have been poring over Weibo, China’s closely controlled version of Twitter, to scrub out even oblique references to it.

The chart above shows the number of deleted posts every day since April among a sample of between 50,000 and 60,000 users in mainland China. On September 28th, the most tumultuous day of the protests, deletions hit a record: 15 of every 1,000 posts, more than five times normal levels. Mentions of “Hong Kong police” and any posts with a #HongKong hashtag fell afoul of the censors. The data were compiled by Weiboscope, a censorship-monitoring programme at the University of Hong Kong. FreeWeibo, a website developed by GreatFire.org, another Chinese censorship watchdog, captured many of the deleted posts. Most were written by ordinary users: people with a few thousand followers whose non-censored messages revealed otherwise unexceptional lives, of dinners with family and frustrations with traffic jams.

Many clearly crossed the line of tolerated discussion in China. “Whoever obstructs Hong Kong’s decision will be branded a villain of history,” read one deleted post. Some were subtler: “Hong Kong’s streets are really clean,” read one post attached to a photo of protesters lying on the ground to sleep. It was reposted 12 times before being deleted. Others managed to get around the censors by being even more indirect, such as by posting old photos of Xi Jinping, China’s leader, carrying an umbrella (a nod to Hong Kong’s “umbrella revolution”).

The lid was lifted a little on September 29th when an article in the People’s Daily labelled the Hong Kong protesters as “extremists”. Bloggers then had licence to repost the article and publish their views on it. But these too were censored. The vast majority of comments that were allowed to remain online were critical of the protests. One post by Ren Chengwei, a television actor with more than 200,000 followers on Weibo, was typical: “Hong Kong compatriots, don’t make such a fuss. You’re going too far.”

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Posted in Censorship, Free speech, Government, Solidarity, Student Movement, Students

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Critical mass of labour activists build around #HongKongStudents #scholarism

Posted on October 1, 2014 by | Comments Off on Critical mass of labour activists build around #HongKongStudents #scholarism

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Lily Kuo, Quartz, September 30, 2014– While tens of thousands of students continue to paralyze Hong Kong’s financial and commercial districts for a third day to demand free elections, across Victoria harbor in Kowloon the pro-democracy movement is starting to look a little different. In Mong Kok, a dense working class neighborhood, demonstrators are older, quieter, and in some ways, a little more cynical.

“The politics here are so bad. That’s why we have to fight for democracy,” 78-year old Li Kon-wah tells Quartz. Li says Hong Kong’s top official, the chief executive CY Leung answers only to Beijing, a government that he remembers most for having ordered a violent crackdown on nonviolent democracy protesters in 1989. “I was so angry. I cried,” he says, after carefully taping a sign onto a nearby bus that reads, “Blood bath Tiananmen Massacre.”

What started as a pro-democracy movement mainly among the city youth—sparked by student activists as well as another pro-democracy group, Occupy Hong Kong—is starting to capture a broad cross-section of the city’s population of seven million. The majority of these residents initially opposed Occupy’s strategy—to disrupt the city’s economy and force the government to withdraw electoral reforms that give Hong Kongers direct elections in 2017 but allows Beijing the ability to vet candidates for the city’s top office.

Now, news reports and footage of police clashing with students, as well as tear gassing or pepper spraying them, have brought more people into the streets. In Mong Kok, thousands of demonstrators, including students, retired local residents, and workers have overtaken Nathan Road, a main thoroughfare. They are decorating streets with chalk drawings of umbrellas—the latest symbol for the demonstrations—and plastering signs on a row of buses that had to be abandoned when drivers couldn’t move in crowds that descended on the street late Sunday.

 Elderly demonstrators like Li mill around the area listening to speeches, handing out yellow ribbons and leaflets. Another retiree, Chan Kin-hoi, 76, wears a hat with a sign that reads, “Oppose the communist party, save Hong Kong.” Chan says: “I’m here because I support universal suffrage.” Local workers, like delivery drivers have volunteered to bring goods to demonstrators.
Young and middle-aged professionals are also joining the protests during work breaks or after work. Grace Fu, 22, who works at an office nearby, is under no illusion that the protesters’ demands will be met. Chief executive Leung said again today the government will not change its stance on how Hong Kong elections will be run, despite the spread of “illegal” protests.
 But, says Fu, “Even if this movement doesn’t change anything, it’s good that people can now know what’s going on in Hong Kong. That would still be worth it.”
Read More: Quartz
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Posted in Free speech, Government, Human Rights, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes, Student Movement, Students

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#HongKongStudents second week of university strike #scholarism #occupyallstreet

Posted on October 1, 2014 by | Comments Off on #HongKongStudents second week of university strike #scholarism #occupyallstreet

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Yojana Sharma, University World News, September 30, 2014– Hong Kong university students – part of a huge, often spontaneous pro-democracy movement that has occupied the streets of central Hong Kong in recent days – said on Monday that they would extend their week-long boycott of classes to an indefinite one. 

“We urge students to boycott classes indefinitely and teachers to boycott teaching,” said the statement by Hong Kong University Students’ Union and Scholarism and other groups.

The week-long university strike that started on 22 September with rallies around the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, or CUHK, before spreading to central Hong Kong was to have ended on Friday 26 September with school-age students led by the campaign group Scholarism joining the strike for its final day. 

Instead, huge crowds surged onto the streets at the weekend and into Monday, blocking major roads. The students and public were angry about police tactics and dozens of arrests made outside Hong Kong government headquarters, where students broke through the police cordon to occupy the area late on Friday night.

The one-week class boycott has been extended because of “violence by the police force”, said the Hong Kong Federation of Students, or HKFS, which has 60,000 members and is one of the student boycott’s largest organisers.

The boycott had been called after China last month insisted that candidates for a promised Hong Kong leadership election in 2017 would be pre-selected by representatives of China, angering pro-democracy groups. Young people are demanding genuine democracy. 

HKFS and Scholarism warned that civil disobedience would spread unless Hong Kong Chief Executive CY Leung responds to protesters’ demands by 1 October. Possible action includes a general strike, and more class boycotts, they said. 

Occupy Central co-founder Chan Kin-man said that if Leung announced his resignation, the occupation of the key areas in Hong Kong would stop for a short period of time before they decide on their next move.

But Leung said in a press conference on Tuesday that he would not give in to demands for his resignation. Any such action before ‘universal suffrage’ was implemented would mean Hong Kong picking a new leader under the existing system.

Arrests

The protests escalated after pro-democracy legislators, professors and student leaders were arrested during the police action at the government offices on Saturday morning, among them Alex Chow and Lester Shum, leaders of HKFS, three Hong Kong legislators and the convener of the Alliance for True Democracy, Joseph Cheng, a political science professor at Hong Kong’s City University. 

Thousands poured onto Hong Kong’s main arteries demanding their release – in particular the release of Joshua Wong, 17, leader of Scholarism, a group of high-school students. Yvonne Leung, president of the Hong Kong University’s student union told media that Wong had been dragged away by police on Saturday morning. 

Michael Davis, a professor of law at Hong Kong University, or HKU, said: “The legitimacy of the Hong Kong government is at stake and they certainly undermined their position by [tear] gassing students on the streets.

“That kind of aggressive behaviour, I think, stimulated almost half the protesters to come out,” he told local radio, describing it as a critical moment for the Hong Kong government. “They really need to be trying to do something to represent Hong Kong concerns and not just Beijing concerns.”

While Wong was held for 40 hours – the maximum allowed under Hong Kong law without charges being laid – the crowds on the streets mushroomed to over 80,000, according to HKFS estimates, with police unsuccessfully attempting to disperse them with pepper spray and teargas. 

“I don’t think they [Beijing] will listen to our demands, but I am angry that the Hong Kong police treat us in this way, that is why I am here,” said a HKU law student who gave her name only as Grace. She said she had not taken part in the initial student boycotts though she had joined pro-democracy rallies through the streets of Hong Kong in early July.  

While police refused to answer many questions at a press conference, they said teargas was used 87 times at nine different locations on Saturday and Sunday. 

While many protesters had come prepared with goggles and face masks, most had only their umbrellas to protect them, leading to the protests being dubbed the ‘umbrella revolution’.

More than 70 people were arrested during clashes with police outside the government headquarters over the weekend, with CUHK offering legal advice to students who were arrested. HKU estimated that least 10 of its students were arrested and said it would provide legal advice and other support to the students. 

In a statement, HKU’s Vice-chancellor Peter Mathieson said: “We will be flexible and reasonable in understanding the actions of students and staff who wish to express their strongly-held views.”

He added a plea for all parties to express their views peacefully and constructively. “We will also be flexible in understanding practical difficulties that staff and students may face in reaching the campus during periods of transport disruption,” the statement said. 

Refusal to back down

Despite a major escalation in the protests, Chief Executive Leung – who had refused to meet with students to consider their demands – said at a press conference on Sunday that the Hong Kong government was “resolute in opposing the unlawful occupation of government buildings”. He reiterated that the Hong Kong government would uphold Beijing’s decision on elections. 

A Hong Kong government statement on Sunday said the decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, or China’s one-party parliament on Hong Kong’s elections, was “legally binding”. 

Consultations on the Hong Kong election system had been scheduled to take place but the administration announced that these would now be held at a “better time” – a move that Occupy Central slammed as a delaying tactic. The administration was “just hoping people’s desire for genuine universal suffrage to fade over time”.

Leung issued a video-statement addressing Hong Kong citizens. He called on people to leave the protests, and dismissed rumours that police had opened fire or that the government was ready to call on China’s People’s Liberation Army to maintain order.

Commentary in the online edition of China’s communist party newspaper the People’s Daily blamed the unrest in Hong Kong on “extremists” backed by “foreign anti-China forces”. Pictures and reports of the Hong Kong unrest has been censored in China.

Read More: University World News

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#scholarism #youth in #HongKongStudents protest #occupyallstreet

Posted on September 30, 2014 by | Comments Off on #scholarism #youth in #HongKongStudents protest #occupyallstreet
Photo by Lam Yik Fei/Getty

Photo by Lam Yik Fei/Getty

Wilfred Chan & Yuli Yang, CNNHong Kong (CNN), September 28, 2014— He’s one of the fieriest political activists in Hong Kong — he’s been called an “extremist” by China’s state-run media — and he’s not even old enough to drive.

Meet 17-year-old Joshua Wong, a skinny, bespectacled teen whose meager physical frame belies the ferocity of his politics. Over the last two years, the student has built a pro-democracy youth movement in Hong Kong that one veteran Chinese dissident says is just as significant as the student protests at Tiananmen, 25 years ago.

Echoing the young campaigners who flooded Beijing’s central square in 1989, the teen activist wants to ignite a wave of civil disobedience among Hong Kong’s students. His goal? To pressure China into giving Hong Kong full universal suffrage.

Wong’s movement builds on years of pent-up frustration in Hong Kong.

When the former colony of the United Kingdom was returned to Chinese rule in 1997, the two countries struck an agreement promising Hong Kong a “high degree of autonomy,” including the democratic election of its own leader. But 17 years later, little resembling genuine democracy has materialized. China’s latest proposal suggests Hong Kongers may vote for their next leader, but only if the candidates are approved by Beijing.

Hong Kong is a seed of fire… the Communist Party is very scared of this tiny bit of land.

Wong is bent on fighting the proposal — and impatient to win.

“I don’t think our battle is going to be very long,” he tells CNN. “If you have the mentality that striving for democracy is a long, drawn-out war and you take it slowly, you will never achieve it.

“You have to see every battle as possibly the final battle — only then will you have the determination to fight.”

Youth awakening

Doubt him if you like, but the young activist already has a successful track record of opposition.

In 2011, Wong, then 15, became disgusted with a proposal to introduce patriotic, pro-Communist “National and Moral Education” into Hong Kong’s public schools.

With the help of a few friends, Wong started a student protest group called Scholarism. The movement swelled beyond his wildest dreams: In September 2012, Scholarism successfully rallied 120,000 protesters — including 13 young hunger strikers — to occupy the Hong Kong government headquarters, forcing the city’s beleaguered leaders to withdraw the proposed curriculum.

That was when Wong realized that Hong Kong’s youth held significant power.

“Five years ago, it was inconceivable that Hong Kong students would care about politics at all,” he says. “But there was an awakening when the national education issue happened. We all started to care about politics.”

Asked what he considers to be the biggest threats to the city, he rattles them off: From declining press freedom as news outlets change their reporting to reflect a pro-Beijing slant, to “nepotism” as Beijing-friendly politicians win top posts, the 17-year-old student says Hong Kong is quickly becoming “no different than any other Chinese city under central administration.”

That’s why Wong has set his eyes on achieving universal suffrage. His group, which now has around 300 student members, has become one of the city’s most vocal voices for democracy. And the kids are being taken seriously.

In June, Scholarism drafted a plan to reform Hong Kong’s election system, which won the support of nearly one-third of voters in an unofficial citywide referendum.

Joshua Wong could be arrested, or jailed. I hope he understands this will be a battle of resilience.
Hu Jia, Chinese dissident

In July, the group staged a mass sit-in which drew a warning from China’s vice president not to disrupt the “stability” of the city. In the end, 511 people were briefly arrested.

This week, the group is mobilizing students to walk out of classes — a significant move in a city that reveres education — to send a pro-democracy message to Beijing.

The student strike has received widespread support. College administrators and faculty have pledged leniency on students who skip classes, and Hong Kong’s largest teacher union has circulated a petition declaring “Don’t let striking students stand alone.”

China’s reaction has been the opposite: Scholarism has been named a group of “extremists” in the mainland’s state-run media. Wong also says he is mentioned by name in China’s Blue Paper on National Security, which identifies internal threats to the stability of Communist Party rule.

But the teenage activist won’t back down. “People should not be afraid of their government,” he says, quoting the movie “V for Vendetta,” “The government should be afraid of their people.”

Compared to activists in Hong Kong, activists in mainland China face a situation far more grim.

Few understand this better than veteran human rights activist Hu Jia, 41. A teenage participant in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, he remembers witnessing the carnage in the aftermath of Chinese government’s crackdown.

“At the age of 15, it made me understand my responsibility and my mission in life,” he tells CNN in a phone call from Beijing. “The crackdown made a clear cut between myself and the system.”

Tiananmen protester: I was willing to die

Read More: CNN

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Chinese students stockpile supplies, fear #police #hongkongstudents #occupyallstreet #umbrellarevolution

Posted on September 30, 2014 by | Comments Off on Chinese students stockpile supplies, fear #police #hongkongstudents #occupyallstreet #umbrellarevolution

hong-kong-democracy-protest

Donny Kwok and Yimou Lee, Reuters, Reader Supported News, September 30, 2014– Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters extended a blockade of Hong Kong streets on Tuesday, stockpiling supplies and erecting makeshift barricades ahead of what some fear may be a push by police to clear the roads before Chinese National Day.

Riot police shot pepper spray and tear gas at protesters at the weekend, but by Tuesday evening they had almost completely withdrawn from the downtown Admiralty district except for an area around the government headquarters.

On the eve of Wednesday’s anniversary of the Communist Party’s foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, crowds poured into central districts of the Asian financial hub, near where National Day festivities are scheduled to take place.

Rumours have rippled through crowds of protesters that police could be preparing to move in again, as the government has vowed to go ahead with celebrations.

“Many powerful people from the mainland will come to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government won’t want them to see this, so the police must do something,” Sui-ying Cheng, 18, a freshman at Hong Kong University’s School of Professional and Continuing Education, said of the National Day holiday.

“We are not scared. We will stay here tonight. Tonight is the most important,” she said.

Student leaders have given Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying an ultimatum to come out and address the protesters before midnight on Tuesday, threatening to escalate action in the next few days to occupy more government facilities, buildings and public roads if he fails to do so.

The protesters, mostly students, are demanding full democracy and have called on Leung to step down after Beijing ruled a month ago that it would vet candidates wishing to run for Hong Kong’s leadership in 2017.

While Leung has said Beijing would not back down in the face of protests it has branded illegal, he also said Hong Kong police would be able to maintain security without help from People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops from the mainland.

“When a problem arises in Hong Kong, our police force should be able to solve it. We don’t need to ask to deploy the PLA,” Beijing-backed Leung told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday.

DEMONSTRATIONS COULD ESCALATE

The protests are widely expected to escalate on Wednesday to coincide with National Day celebrations.

“I don’t know what the police or government will do to me, but I am 100 percent sure I need to come out (tonight),” said Ken To, the 35-year-old manager of a restaurant in the densely packed Mong Kok residential district.

“We (Hong Kongers) don’t only want money. We want our kids, our future, our education,” he said.

China rules Hong Kong under a “one country, two systems” formula that accords the former British colony a degree of autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China, with universal suffrage set as an eventual goal.

Protesters massed in at least four of Hong Kong’s busiest areas, including Admiralty, the Central business district, the bustling shopping district of Causeway Bay and Mong Kok in Kowloon.

“We hope all the people can hold the three main occupation points; Admiralty, Causeway Bay and Mong Kok. We will call these places ‘Democracy Square,” said Chan Kin-man, a co-founder of protest movement Occupy Central.

Organisers said as many as 80,000 people thronged the streets after demonstrations flared on Friday night, and many have slept out for the past four nights blocking usually busy roads. No independent estimate of crowd numbers was available.

STOCKPILING SUPPLIES

Alex Chow, leader of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, said the protests, which began as a gathering of students and the “Occupy Central” movement, had become much broader and attracted Hong Kongers of all walks of life.

“It has evolved into a civil movement,” he said.

“We can see the Beijing and Hong Kong governments already feel pressure, so the ‘Occupy’ movement must continue,” Chow told protesters in Admiralty.

People set up supply stations with water bottles, fruit, crackers, disposable raincoats, towels, goggles, face masks and tents, indicating they were in for the long haul.

Some lugged metal road barricades into positions on the edge of crowds, presumably to slow a police advance. In at least one location, several minivans and a truck were parked in rows in an apparent effort to block a road.

At one Mong Kok intersection, six abandoned double-decker buses have been turned into makeshift noticeboards, their windows papered with messages of support such as “Please don’t give up” and “CY Leung step down”. Some protesters nearby clapped and cheered while others played the guitar and drums.

“Even though I may get arrested, I will stay until the last minute,” said 16-year-old protester John Choi.

“We are fighting for our futures.”

Protest organisers urged citizens to donate more yellow ribbons, another symbol of the protests, and goggles to protect against tear gas and pepper spray.

Communist Party leaders in Beijing worry that calls for democracy could spread to the mainland, and have been aggressively censoring news and social media comments about the Hong Kong demonstrations.

The protests are the worst in Hong Kong since China resumed its rule in 1997. They also represent one of the biggest political challenges for Beijing since it violently crushed pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The movement presents Beijing’s Communist Party with a difficult challenge. Cracking down too hard could shake confidence in market-driven Hong Kong, which has a separate legal system from the rest of China. Not reacting firmly enough, however, could embolden dissidents on the mainland.

The deputy director of China’s National People’s Congress Internal and Judicial Affairs Committee, Li Shenming, wrote in the People’s Daily: “In today’s China, engaging in an election system of one-man-one-vote is bound to quickly lead to turmoil, unrest and even a situation of civil war.”

FINANCIAL FALLOUT

Financial fallout from the turmoil has been limited so far as investors gauge how severe Beijing’s response might be.

Still, Hong Kong shares .HSI fell to a three-month low on Tuesday, registering their biggest monthly fall since May 2012.

The city’s benchmark index has plunged 7.3 percent this month. Chinese shares were less troubled, perhaps because news of the protests in Hong Kong was hard to come by on the mainland.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the de facto central bank, said 37 branches or offices of 21 different banks had been temporarily closed because of the protests.

Some businesses have been directly affected, including luxury retailers in the Causeway Bay shopping mecca where protesters hunkered down.

The outside world has looked on warily, concerned that the clashes could spread and trigger a much harsher crackdown.

Washington has urged the Hong Kong authorities “to exercise restraint and for protesters to express their views peacefully”.

The protests have also been watched closely in Taiwan, which has full democracy but is considered by Beijing as a renegade province that must one day be reunited with the mainland.

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said Beijing needed “to listen carefully to the demands of the Hong Kong people”.

British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed concern about the clashes between protesters and police.

The United States, Australia and Singapore have issued travel alerts.

Read More: RSN

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U Illinois urged to reinstate prof Salaita, critic of Israeli war in Gaza

Posted on September 10, 2014 by | Comments Off on U Illinois urged to reinstate prof Salaita, critic of Israeli war in Gaza

Democracy Now!, September 9, 2014– As the fall school term begins, an Illinois college campus is embroiled in one of the nation’s biggest academic freedom controversies in recent memory. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has sparked an outcry over its withdrawal of a job offer to a professor critical of the Israeli government. Steven Salaita was due to start work at the university as a tenured professor in the American Indian Studies Program. But after posting a series of tweets harshly critical of this summer’s Israeli assault on Gaza, Salaita was told the offer was withdrawn. The school had come under pressure from donors, students, parents and alumni critical of Salaita’s views, with some threatening to withdraw financial support. Thousands of academics have signed petitions calling for Salaita’s reinstatement, and several lecturers have canceled appearances in protest. The American Association of University Professors has called the school’s actions “inimical to academic freedom and due process.” A number of Urbana-Champaign departments have passed votes of no-confidence in the chancellor, Phyllis Wise. And today, Urbana-Champaign students will be holding a campus walkout and day of silence in support of Salaita. We are joined by two guests: Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke, who has canceled a lecture series at Urbana-Champaign in protest of Salaita’s unhiring; and Kristofer Petersen-Overton, a scholar who went through a similar incident in 2011 when Brooklyn College reversed a job offer after complaints about his Middle East views, only to reinstate it following a public outcry.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AARON MATÉ: As the fall school term begins, an Illinois college campus is embroiled in one of the nation’s biggest academic freedom controversies in recent memory. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has sparked an outcry over its withdrawal of a job offer to a professor critical of the Israeli government. Steven Salaita was due to start work at Urbana-Champaign as a tenured professor in the American Indian Studies Program. But after posting a series of tweets harshly critical of the summer’s assault on Gaza, Salaita was told the offer was withdrawn. Urbana-Champaign has come under pressure from donors, students, parents and alumni critical of Salaita’s views, with some threatening to withdraw financial support.

The move has been criticized both in and outside of the school, with administrators accused of political censorship. Thousands of academics have signed petitions calling for Salaita’s reinstatement, and several lecturers have canceled appearances in protest. The American Association of University Professors has called the school’s actions “inimical to academic freedom and due process.” A number of school departments have passed votes of no-confidence in the chancellor, Phyllis Wise. And today, students will be holding a campus walkout and a day of silence in support of Salaita. A news conference is being held, where Salaita is expected to make his first public comments since his unhiring last month.

AMY GOODMAN: In a public statement, Chancellor Phyllis Wise said her decision to unhire Salaita “was not influenced in any way by his positions on the conflict in the Middle East nor his criticism of Israel.” She goes on to write, quote, “What we cannot and will not tolerate at the University of Illinois are personal and disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves or those who express them,” unquote. The school has now reportedly offered Salaita a financial settlement for his troubles. The school’s Board of Trustees is expected to take up the controversy at a meeting on Thursday.

For more, we’re joined by two guests. Kristofer Petersen-Overton is an adjunct lecturer of political science at Lehman College. In 2011, Brooklyn College initially decided not to hire Petersen-Overton as an adjunct professor for a seminar on Middle East politics. But the school reversed its decision after criticism that the decision was politically motivated. And Katherine Franke joins us. She’s a professor of law at Columbia University and the director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. She recently canceled a lecture series at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in protest of Steven Salaita’s unhiring.

Professor Franke, let’s begin with you. Talk about the facts of this case and how you got involved.

KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, Professor Salaita was previously a professor at Virginia Tech University, and he had a well-known dossier of books and articles thinking critically about the relationship between indigeneity, meaning native people, and the political environments in which they live—hard questions about dispossession, belonging, state violence and identity. And because of that important scholarly record, the University of Illinois went after him—in a friendly way, unlike what they’re doing now. And he was hired by an overwhelming vote by the American Indian Studies Program there in the normal way that we hire faculty in universities. An offer letter was issued to him. He accepted it. They paid for his moving expenses. He quit his job, a tenured position in Virginia. And he has a small child and a family and a wife, and was ready to move. His course books had been ordered. He had been invited by the university to the faculty welcome luncheon.

And then, on August 1st, he got a letter from the chancellor saying, “We’re sorry, we’re not going to be able to employ you here, because I haven’t taken the last step, which I had not informed you about before, of taking your candidacy to the Board of Trustees.” He had assumed he had an accepted job offer. He had relied on that offer—and at his peril. He now doesn’t have a home, doesn’t have a job and doesn’t have an income.

So what we now have learned, through a FOIA request and the disclosure of emails at the university, is that there was enormous pressure put on the chancellor and the Board of Trustees by large donors of the university, who said, “I’ll take my six-figure donations away if you hire this guy.” And this is as a result of some tweets that Professor Salaita made over the summer during the heat of the Gaza—the Israeli assault on Gaza. He was very upset about it. He himself is Palestinian. He was watching children die and the destruction of Gazan villages that we all watched. And like many of us, he was quite impassioned and used colorful language on Twitter to express his views, and that those tweets somehow made their way to donors at the University of Illinois. And so, the job, as been described even here in the setup, is either withdrawn or somehow not—well, what has happened is he’s just been fired. And so he’s now organizing, along with the rest of us, a response to what is a deliberate campaign by a number of political operatives who put pressure on universities like the University of Illinois to censor critical scholarship, critical comments, critical research about Israeli state policy.

Read More: Democracy Now!

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Canadian Universities increasing exploitation of sessional, contract academic staff #highered #cocal #caut #bced

Posted on September 7, 2014 by | Comments Off on Canadian Universities increasing exploitation of sessional, contract academic staff #highered #cocal #caut #bced
COCAL X Conference (Photo by David Milroy)

COCAL X Conference (Photo by David Milroy)

Listen to Class Struggle, Ira Basen’s documentary of the plight of part-time faculty in Canadian universities.

Ira Basen, CBC, September 7, 2014– Kimberley Ellis Hale has been an instructor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., for 16 years. This summer, while teaching an introductory course in sociology, she presented her students with a role-playing game to help them understand how precarious economic security is for millions of Canadian workers.

In her scenario, students were told they had lost their jobs, their marriage had broken up, and they needed to find someplace to live.  And they had to figure out a way to live on just $1,000 a month.

What those students didn’t know was the life they were being asked to imagine was not very different than the life of their instructor.

According to figures provided by the Laurier Faculty Association, 52 per cent of Laurier students were taught by CAS in 2012, up from 38 per cent in 2008. (Brian St-Denis (CBC News))

Hale is 51 years old, and a single mother with two kids.  She is what her university calls a CAS (contract academic staff). Other schools use titles such as sessional lecturers and adjunct faculty.

That means that despite her 16 years of service, she has no job security.  She still needs to apply to teach her courses every semester. She gets none of the perks that a full time professor gets; generous benefits and pension, sabbaticals, money for travel and research, and job security in the form of tenure that most workers can only dream about.

And then there’s the money.

A full course load for professors teaching at most Canadian universities is four courses a year.  Depending on the faculty, their salary will range between $80,000 and $150,000 a year.  A contract faculty person teaching those same four courses will earn about $28,000.

Full time faculty are also required to research, publish, and serve on committees, but many contract staff do that as well in the hope of one day moving up the academic ladder.  The difference is they have to do it on their own time and on their own dime.

Precariat

The reality of Kimberley’s life would be hard for most students to grasp.

‘I never imagined myself in this position, where every four months I worry about how I’m going to put food on the table.’– Kimberley Ellis Hale, instructor

For them, a professor is a professor. How could someone with graduate degrees who teaches at a prestigious university belong to what sociologists now call the “precariat, ” a social class whose working lives lack predictability or financial security?

It’s a question that Kimberley often asks herself.

“I never imagined myself in this position,” she says in an interview at her home later that day, “where every four months I worry about how I’m going to put food on the table. So what I did with them this morning is try to get them to think, ‘Well what if you were in this position?’”

Contract faculty

In Canada today, it’s estimated that more than half of all undergraduates are taught by contract faculty.

 Not all of those people live on the margins. In specialized fields like law, business and journalism, people are hired for the special expertise they bring to the field. They have other sources of income. And retired professors on a pension sometimes welcome the opportunity to teach a course or two.

But there are many thousands of people trying to cobble together a full-time salary with part-time work.

They often teach the large introductory courses that tenured faculty like to avoid.  They put in 60- to 70-hour weeks grading hundreds of essays and exams, for wages that sometimes barely break the poverty line.

It’s what Kimberley Ellis Hale calls the university’s “dirty little secret.”

Our universities are rightly celebrated for their great achievements in research. That’s what attracts the money, the prestige and the distinguished scholars. But the core of the teaching is being done by the most precarious of academic labourers.

And without them, the business model of the university would collapse.

Enrollment at Canadian universities is soaring (up 23 per cent at Laurierover the past decade, for example). And while most universities are still hiring tenure-track faculty, they aren’t hiring enough to match the growing student population.  So classes are getting bigger, and more “sessional” instructors are being hired.

“It helps financially,” concedes Pat Rogers, Laurier’s vice-president of teaching.  “If you can’t afford to hire a faculty member who will only teach four courses, you can hire many more sessional faculty for that money.

“Universities are really strapped now. I think it’s regrettable, and I think there are legitimate concerns about having such a large part-time workforce, but it’s an unfortunate consequence of underfunding of the university.”

Read More: CBC, “Most University undergrads now taught by poorly paid part-timers”

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Posted in Academics, Adjuncts & Sessionals, BC Education, Campus Life, Employment rights, Equity, Solidarity, Working conditions

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Thank you Jim Turk! leader of #CAUT reflects on struggles #ubc #criticaled #aaup

Posted on June 11, 2014 by | Comments Off on Thank you Jim Turk! leader of #CAUT reflects on struggles #ubc #criticaled #aaup

JimTurkMarch2014

Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2014–James L. Turk is retiring from his post as executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the national union representing almost all of Canada’s faculty and academic staff members, on June 30. In an interview with Karen Birchard, a Canadian correspondent for The Chronicle, he looked back on his 16 years at the helm of the organization. What follows is an edited version of their conversation.

Q. Why are you retiring now?

A. I feel very strongly that organizations need new blood and new leadership. I probably pushed the envelope by staying 16 years. I love what I’m doing and look forward to it every morning, but it’s good for the organization to have someone else do the job.

Q. Did you achieve what you wanted to at CAUT?

A. The organization has grown and moved forward. But there’s always so much more that can be done.

Q. Like what?

A. A lot of union members treat membership like their insurance company—”We pay our dues, and if there’s trouble, there’s the union to support us.” But the reality is, our biggest obligation is to defend and protect those things that are the core of what makes good university and college education possible. There are powerful forces trying to change those things, and we have to engage our members more actively in that struggle.

Q. What issue stands out?

A. One of our biggest problems, like in the United States, has been the casualization of the profession. This means a significant proportion of the people teaching at our universities are exploited, are paid a miserable amount of money, don’t have basic rights to be paid to do scholarly work or to do service, and are often excluded from participation in development of curriculum. We’ve made huge progress in unionizing them and creating the possibility for advances, but a large part of that work is undone.

Q. What’s the future for unionism for academic faculty and staff members in Canada and the United States?

A. In Canada, university and college teachers have the highest degree of unionization of any employee group in the country, and that has been vital in protecting the integrity of our universities and colleges, as well as academic freedom and the quality of education.

The situation is dramatically different in the United States, where the majority of universities don’t even have faculty unions. More than a third of the states have laws that effectively undermine unionization, so faculty in the United States don’t have the tools available to us in Canada.

Q. Is academic freedom in Canada stronger or weaker than when you started?

A. I would say stronger, in part because now almost everybody is unionized. We have such a strong expectation of academic freedom in Canada that any university administration that violates it becomes a pariah.

Q. What are you going to do next?

A. I’ve been offered a position as a distinguished visiting professor at Ryerson University, in Toronto. I’m going to be working toward creating a center for the promotion of freedom of expression. I will also be doing some work with CAUT and with some individual faculty associations and a fair amount of media work around higher education.

Read More: Chronicle of Higher Ed

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Posted in Academic freedom, Advocacy, Faculty, Organizing, Solidarity, Unions, Working conditions

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#CapilanoUniversity faculty want answers: Day 13 of art censorship #bced #bcpoli #caut #GeorgeRammell

Posted on May 20, 2014 by | Comments Off on #CapilanoUniversity faculty want answers: Day 13 of art censorship #bced #bcpoli #caut #GeorgeRammell

puppettotem

George Rammell, Day 13, May 20, 2014–  Day 13 of the art seizure of Blathering On in Krisendom at Capilano University and I want answers. What does the vice-president Cindy Turner mean when she says my piece has been dismantled? Cindy, you were responsible for the destruction of our protest banners last Spring, (as if we were not allowed to voice our concerns about Bulcroft’s illegal cuts),we never received an apology or compensation. Is this a repeat of last year?

It’s becoming apparent that the Board at Capilano University is now realizing they do not have the authority to seize or damage my art. Why have the RCMP been told this is just an internal matter, as if I’m guilty of insubordination. This is theft and I’ve lost valuable Professional Development studio time, I have every right to complete that work in the Studio Art studios. I have other exhibition plans for that work.

The wrongful firing of a single professor at the University of Sask. is pale compared to the illegal gutting of entire programs at Cap. that cannot be restored in this economic climate.

There are a few dedicated faculty on the Capilano U Board who are attempting to save our institution, but they can only do so much when the rest are asleep at the wheel.

Is Bulcroft going to waste more of Cap’s dwindling financial resources to appeal the BC Supreme Courts ruling that she violated the University Act by planning cuts without due process? Shall we buy her a ticket to Blaine?

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Posted in Academic freedom, Administration, Advocacy, Budgets & Funding, Censorship, Culture, Employment rights, Free speech, Intellectual property, Protests, Solidarity, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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Sandra Mathison on the academic freedom chill in Canada #cdnpse #caut #aaup @usask #ubc #bced

Posted on May 17, 2014 by | Comments Off on Sandra Mathison on the academic freedom chill in Canada #cdnpse #caut #aaup @usask #ubc #bced

“What [recent cases] share is an unbelievable authoritarianism on the part of the upper administration, a willingness to trample on academic freedom and the absolute intolerance of resistance or disagreement about program cuts and restructuring.”

Sandra Mathison, May 14, 2014– I’ll admit to a quaint hope that universities are still places where dialogue and dissent are both possible and desirable, but two incidents in the last week leave me scratching my head. The first is the theft of professor George Rammell’s sculpture by the Capilano University administration, and the second is the firing of Robert Buckingham, Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Saskatchewan. The issues in the two cases are not the same, but what both share is an unbelievable authoritarianism on the part of the upper administration, a willingness to trample on academic freedom and the absolute intolerance of resistance or disagreement about program cuts and restructuring. The point is not whether each of these universities plans for budget cutting and trimming are appropriate (that would be a different post), but the response to faculty and middle management who DARE to disagree with the upper administration. If this doesn’t have a chilling effect on everyone in Canadian higher education, well we are all being just too polite.

THE CASE OF THE MISSING SCULPTURE

At Capilano University there have been severe program cuts. One program area in which cuts are deep is the arts. George Rammell, sculpture instructor, used his scholarly form of expression to comment on those cuts ~ he created Blathering on in Krisendom, a work in progress  depicting Capilano University president Kris Bulcroft wrapped in a U.S. flag with a poodle. The sculpture went missing last week:

“I immediately called security and the guard told me that orders were given by the top level of the Administration to seize it. I could hardly believe my ears. The Administration had ordered my piece removed off campus to an undisclosed location, without any consultation or prior discussion. I was shocked and not sure if this was Canada,” Rammell stated (as reported in the Georgia Straight).

Jane Shackell, chair of the Board of Governors, released a statement saying that Capilano was “committed to the open and vigorous discourse that is essential in an academic community.” But she had the sculpture removed because it was “workplace harassment of an individual employee, intended to belittle and humiliate the president.” A post for another time, but this might well be the most egregious, inappropriate use of respectful workplace rhetoric to create a workplace where dialogue, dissent, and discourse are not allowed.

Of course, Rammell’s work is easy for the University to steal, but the parallel for some of us might be an administration that comes to your office and wipes all of the files for that critical analysis of higher education book you are working on from your computer. After being AWOL for a week, Capilano University has agreed to return Rammell’s work, but has banned the sculpture from campus and Rammell calls that censorship. It is and it isn’t harassment either. So much for academic freedom.

THE SILENCE OF THE DEANS

Then comes the news, Robert Buckingham, Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Saskatchewan was fired, relieved of his professorial appointment and tenure, and escorted of the campus ~ for disagreeing publicly with the administration’s restructuring and budget cutting plan, TransformUS.

In discussions of TransformUS, middle managers were ordered to get in line and on board with the plan, and threatened if they spoke publicly against it.

Here’s the email from the provost:

That a University would want deans who are lackeys and submissive to the upper administration’s “messaging” says a great deal about that administration. Unlike the CapU incident, this is less about academic freedom and all about the importance of maintaining an openness to dialogue and disagreement within the University. Such a heavy handed administrative approach assaults our sensibilities about how even the modern, corporatized U operates. On top of all that, the termination of Buckingham comes a mere five weeks from his retirement and is amazingly mean-spirited.

CAUT director, Jim Turk said:

What the president of the University of Saskatchewan has done is an embarrassment to the traditions and history of the University of Saskatchewan and it’s an embarrassment to post-secondary education across Canada. It’s inexcusable.

He’s right about that!

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Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Administration, BC Education, Faculty, Free speech, Organizing, Protests, Solidarity, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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#UVIC and today #SFU faculty & librarians vote to form union from association #UBC is next #caut #cufabc #bced #bcpoli

Posted on May 15, 2014 by | Comments Off on #UVIC and today #SFU faculty & librarians vote to form union from association #UBC is next #caut #cufabc #bced #bcpoli

The 83% vote by UVIC faculty members and librarians and near 75% vote by SFU’s to form a union out of existing faculty associations is extremely good news for academic labour in British Columbia. The difference between faculty association and union in BC is this:

The basic legal difference is that our current status is a grant of the University itself, which has agreed to bargain certain matters with faculty and librarians; certification means that those rights are granted by the Labour Board and recognized in law. Rather than a bargaining relationship in which SFU agrees to allow us to negotiate certain items, our bargaining relationship would be protected by law, and would extend to any employment matter that we would choose to negotiate.

Please UBC faculty association Executive, bring this vote for a strike clause to the membership to act as a union with full rights. The last five rounds of bargaining have been so tremendously frustrating for the membership and ground hard won is quickly eroding. Wages, piecemeal for many, of our PT members are as pitiful as they get— well below minimum wages once hours in are factored.

* * * * *

SFU Faculty Association, May 15, 2014

SFU Faculty and Librarians Approve Certification as a Union

Members of the Faculty Association of Simon Fraser University have voted to become a certified union under the BC Labour Relations Code.

The results of the certification vote are as follows (the results are unofficial until confirmed by the Labour Relations Board):

Eligible voters: 1091
Votes cast: 800
Percentage turnout: 73%

The question voted upon was: “Do you want the Faculty Association of Simon Fraser University (SFUFA) to be recognized as a certified union, under the Labour Relations Code, to represent you in collective bargaining with your employer, the University?”

Total ballots: 800
Spoiled ballots: 0
Valid ballots: 800
In favour: 590
Opposed: 210

As a result of the vote, the Administration and Faculty Association must now begin negotiation of the first collective agreement.

The University Administration and Faculty Association respect the choice made by faculty members and librarians regarding their preferred form of representation. Both the Administration and the Association are committed to maintaining the positive working relationship we have enjoyed.

Jonathan Driver
Vice-President, Academic, Simon Fraser University

Neil Abramson
President, Faculty Association of SFU

* * * * *

UVIC Faculty Association, January 24, 2014

On January 24, 2014 the results of the certification vote for faculty and librarians at the University of Victoria were announced.  The results are as follows:

  • Eligible voters: 860
  • Votes cast: 711
  • Percentage turnout: 82.67 per cent

The question voted upon was: “Do you want the University of Victoria Faculty Association to become a certified union that will represent you in collective bargaining with your employer?”

  • Total ballots: 711
  • Spoiled ballots: 0
  • Valid ballots: 711
  • In favour: 448
  • Opposed: 263

The next step in the certification process is the issuance of a formal certification order by the Labour Relations Board of British Columbia.  The Faculty Association and the University Administration are then required to commence collective bargaining in good faith with the objective of achieving a collective agreement that will replace the current Framework Agreement between the parties.

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Posted in Academic freedom, BC Education, Employment rights, Faculty, Organizing, Solidarity, Unions

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Clampdown on academic freedom and speech in Canada #bced #caut #capilanouniversity #GeorgeRammell

Posted on May 15, 2014 by | 3 comments

You do not have to tolerate caricature, criticism, critique, irony, parody. When you make $230k+ as a University President, when you have the power to run an academic institution, when you have a Respectful Learning and Working Environment Statement and critiquette shoring up this power, there are many things you do not have to tolerate.

You do not have to tolerate criticism or critique. You don’t have to tolerate parody narrative or music. No edgy ironic video. No mockumentaries. No way do you have to tolerate political puppetry or theatre, especially in a tradition of Bread and Puppet Theater. And you surely do not have to tolerate critical sculpture. If in your interest and honour, then yes by all means let them sculpt, chisel mountains.

Let them name suspension bridges and valleys after you. Anything less than honorific, you do not have to tolerate.

You do not have to put up with puns. You definitely do not under any circumstance have to tolerate sarcasm in blogs. No frowny faces in tweets of 30 characters. You need not tolerate caricatures. Oh, and absolutely no low poetry.  So at your University in Canada, none of this. No limerick day on 12 May, and none like this one:

There once was a president from Capilano
who cut programs and furloughed faculty mano a mano
But when the statue would tease her
she blathered ‘thumbs down’ ’cause ‘I’m caesar!’
Then said next ‘I will ban the piano.’

Just say no Capilano, No. Faculty and students you cannot write, perform, think or say this. When you are a University President you do not have to tolerate this. When you are the head chef in the big kitchen you do not have to take the heat.

 

Read More: Capilano University censors sculpture of president with poodle and view the puppet performance.

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Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Administration, BC Education, Censorship, Critical University Studies, Employment rights, Faculty, Free speech, Organizing, Politics, Protests, Solidarity, Students, Working conditions

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CFP: Academic Mobbing (Special Issue of Workplace) #edstudies #criticaled #occupyed #bced #yteubc

Posted on May 5, 2014 by | Comments Off on CFP: Academic Mobbing (Special Issue of Workplace) #edstudies #criticaled #occupyed #bced #yteubc

LAST Call for Papers

Academic Mobbing
Special Issue
Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor

Editors: Stephen Petrina & E. 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 (facts & fictions) 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, Chicago, or MLA style.

FINAL Date for Papers: May 30, 2014

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Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Administration, Advocacy, Campus Life, CFPs, Critical University Studies, Diversity, Employment rights, Environment, Equity, Ethics, Free speech, Government, Human Rights, Legal issues, Organizing, Politics, Publications, Research, Solidarity, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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