We just signed the petition “Bank of Canada: Add women from Canadian history to Canadian bank notes” on Change.org. Will you please sign it too? Here’s the link:
Thank-you.
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Will McDonald, The Ubyssey, October 30, 2013– UBC president Stephen Toope addressed the recent sexual assaults at a press conference today.
Toope said UBC is doing all they can to keep students safe in the face of the environment of insecurity currently felt on campus.
“I have kids who live on campus and I am every bit as concerned about their safety as any parent. I can reassure parents across the world that we are doing everything in our power to ensure the safety of their children.”
Toope said the university has already increased both lighting and security patrols on campus, but questioned adding security cameras due to privacy concerns.
“That’s going to be a longer term discussion,” he said. “I certainly am reluctant to make a commitment at this point that the entire campus would be subject to surveillance.”
He said a working group has been formed to discuss issues such as the merits of adding cameras and the possibility of adding more lighting on campus.
“What I can tell you is that we are putting [in] the resources that are necessary to keep this campus as safe as we can. Frankly, we are not counting pennies right now.”
Toope also commended students who have banded together in organizations like Safewalk in the wake of the sexual assaults.
“This is a moment for community building. This is a moment to resist fear, to push back at a person who is making our community feel vulnerable,” he said.
Toope emphasized that the new security measures are a temporary response to the recent sexual assaults. He said the working group would look at longer-term security plans.
“This is one of the safest campuses in North America. There is not normally a climate of fear of or insecurity on the campus.”
Read More: The Ubyssey
October 29, 2013
Dear members of UBC’s Vancouver campus community:
Today UBC joined the RCMP for a press conference that revealed new, disturbing information about the spate of sexual assaults on our Vancouver campus.
This is a time of stress for everyone in our community and I, like you, am extremely concerned by these developments. I am grateful to the RCMP who have made this a top priority. Their investigation is critical to restoring the safety of our campus and UBC is working closely with them to solve this crime. If you have information that could help the RCMP in their investigation, I urge you to contact them (1-800-222-TIPS).
We are working with our campus leaders – staff, faculty and students – to continue enhanced campus security and increase support for our campus community. This is now our number one priority, and we are mobilizing all necessary resources to this end.
This latest news will no doubt be frightening to many of you, so if you feel you need to talk, please do not hesitate to make use of the UBC, AMS and RCMP counselling services listed on our new safety web site:http://www.ubc.ca/staysafe.
This new central web site will provide you with the latest information, safety tips and campus resources all in one hub.
In the days to come, until the alleged perpetrator is apprehended, I ask you to be extra vigilant. Make sure you have the information you need to stay safe. The ultimate choice is yours, but the RCMP is advising you not to walk alone after dark. Please look out for each other.
But above all, I believe this is not a time to give in to anxiety. This is a time to rally in support of one another, stand up against violence, and live out our commitment to a dynamic learning community free from fear.
Tell us what we can do better. Voice your concerns and take steps to make others feel safe during your daily activities.
We will get through this, together.
Charles Hamilton, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, October 13, 2013– Supporters of Idle No More say the movement is stronger than ever, even though it has largely disappeared from the media spotlight.
“Idle No More is not dead. It never was,” said Max FineDay, president of the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union.
“Just because you don’t see flash mobs in the middle of the street or in malls doesn’t mean the First Nations community isn’t working toward nation building, revitalizing language and culture, and all these things Idle No More stands for.”
FineDay was one of about 200 supporters who showed up Oct. 7 for a round dance on the university campus, which was organized via social media. The Idle No More movement spread to communities across Canada last winter, as aboriginal groups protested the federal government’s omnibus Bill C-45, which they say infringed on their sovereignty and relaxed important environmental protections. It passed, but organizers at the round dance said the movement is bigger than any one bill.
There are still bills going through Parliament that affect indigenous sovereignty and affect the lands and the water and that will affect all of us
“There are still bills going through Parliament that affect indigenous sovereignty and affect the lands and the water and that will affect all of us,” Sylvia McAdam, one of the four women who founded Idle No More, told the crowd after the dance.
The 1763 proclamation set rules for European settlement in North America, recognized First Nations’ land rights and laid the groundwork for the treaty process. Even though the Royal Proclamation was of special significance for aboriginal peoples living on the land that would become Canada, supporters and organizers say Idle No More now has global reach.
“Over the summer, the movement gained momentum on a global level,” said Alex Wilson, an Idle No More organizer and professor at the University of Saskatchewan.
“I think one of the strengths of the movement is that each community can look at those global issues and can take action in their own way.”
Read More: Saskatoon StarPhoenix
TAKE BACK THE NIGHT
UBC RALLY AND MARCH SPEAK OUT
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 30, 2013
5 PM
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Unceded Coast Salish Territories
We will march to specific locations on campus, briefly state how the location relates to persisting rape culture on campus (with reference to its colonial history), and have an ongoing open mic for people to speak about their experiences. We march to heal, resist, and speak out (side note: if you have knowledge about the histories of these locations or would want to speak to them please contact us, we need your help here).
If you are unsure of speaking at the march/rally about your experiences with rape culture at UBC, PLEASE understand that you will be supported and heard. You will not be standing alone at any point, this march/rally is for those of you who are constantly silenced and harmed at this school. Take Back the Night is for you to reclaim voice in spaces that keep trying to suppress it, spaces keeping you unsafe.
If you want to speak at the march/
This TBTN event places great emphasis on history—both personal and societal. The march/rally will be a highly emotional and potentially triggering event; we will have crisis relief support for those who need it.
*very* rough schedule based on suggested locations (still working on security and accessibility):
5:00 Museum of Anthropology, Opening
5:40 Place Vanier Residence
6:10 Henry Angus Building (Sauder)
6:50 Fraternity Village
7:15 RCMP Campus Headquarters
7:40 Thunderbird Sports Centre
8:00 Engineering
8:25 Allard Hall (Law Building), Closing
8:30 Debriefing Space and Discussion, SUB 212, for female and woman identified people
UBC, CAMPUS SECURITY, AND THE RCMP: STOP BLAMING THE VICTIMS AND SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT!
Read More: Take Back the Night Rally at UBC in Protest of Six Recent Sexual Assaults on Vancouver Campus
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The Institute for Critical Education Studies (ICES) is extremely pleased to announce the launch of Workplace Issue #22, “The New Academic Labor Market and Graduate Students” (Guest Editors Bradley J. Porfilio, Julie A. Gorlewski & Shelley Pineo-Jensen).
The New Academic Labor Market and Graduate Students
Articles:
- The New Academic Labor Market and Graduate Students: Introduction to the Special Issue (Brad Porfilio, Julie Gorlewski, Shelley Pineo-Jensen)
- Dismissing Academic Surplus: How Discursive Support for the Neoliberal Self Silences New Faculty (Julie Gorlewski)
- Academia and the American Worker: Right to Work in an Era of Disaster Capitalism? (Paul Thomas)
- Survival Guide Advice and the Spirit of Academic Entrepreneurship: Why Graduate Students Will Never Just Take Your Word for It (Paul Cook)
- Standing Against Future Contingency: Activist Mentoring in Composition Studies (Casie Fedukovich)
- From the New Deal to the Raw Deal: 21st Century Poetics and Academic Labor (Virginia Konchan)
- How to Survive a Graduate Career (Roger Whitson)
- In Every Way I’m Hustlin’: The Post-Graduate School Intersectional Experiences of Activist-Oriented Adjunct and Independent Scholars (Naomi Reed, Amy Brown)
- Ivory Tower Graduates in the Red: The Role of Debt in Higher Education (Nicholas Hartlep, Lucille T. Eckrich)
- Lines of Flight: the New Ph.D. as Migrant (Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim)
The scope and depth of scholarship within this Special Issue has direct and immediate relevance for graduate students and new and senior scholars alike. We encourage you to review the Table of Contents and articles of interest.
Our blogs and links to our Facebook timelines and Twitter stream can be found at https://blogs.ubc.ca/workplace/ and https://blogs.ubc.ca/ices/
Thank you for your ongoing support of Workplace,
Sandra Mathison, Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross, co-Directors
Institute for Critical Education Studies
Critical Education
Office of the President, September 16, 2013
Update on UBC Action in Response to the C.U.S. FROSH Events
Our university has been in the news since Friday September 6th, and for all the wrong reasons. Most of you are rightly concerned not only by the disturbing reports of chants endorsing rape and sexual violence, but you have been waiting for a university response to these reports.
Some facts have now been established and publicly acknowledged. Earlier this month, UBC Sauder School of Business first year students were led in this appalling chant during FROSH events organized by the Commerce Undergraduate Society. The C.U.S. is an independent student organization representing students of the UBC Sauder School of Business, and it has publicly admitted the chant was used during their FROSH events. Four of their leaders have now resigned.
Last week, UBC Sauder School of Business Dean Robert Helsley emphasized that these events are completely inconsistent with the values of the school and of UBC, and announced the faculty was withdrawing any support for C.U.S. FROSH. Dean Helsley went on to acknowledge the steps taken by the C.U.S., including the leadership resignations and their own cancellation of FROSH.
A fact-finding panel was appointed last week and submitted its report to our VP Students and to the Dean of the Sauder School of Business today. The university will quickly determine what actions are appropriate, and this will be made public on Wednesday September 18.
Read More: Office of the President
LETTER FROM US section of the Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education
Asking us to support Mexican teachers – send to Mexican officials
We stand in solidarity with the teachers of CNTE in Mexico who are calling upon the government for a genuine dialogue, that their demands be acknowledged and that violent repression not be used against the nationwide movement in defense of public education as it was today in Mexico City. The rights to assemble and express legitimate concerns are rights that are inalienable rights that are part of the civil and democratic freedoms for which humanity has fought and died for during the last two centuries. WHEREVER POSSIBLE, ORGANIZE DEMONSTRATIONS IN FRONT OF MEXICAN CONSULATES AND TAKE PHOTOS TO BE SENT TO THE SAME ADDRESSES AS THE COPIES OF PROTEST LETTERS. Even a photo of 5 people in front of a consulate is a tremendous morale booster for our brothers and sisters fighting against the destruction of teacher unions & public education!
Police end teachers protest in Mexico City
Police attack striking Mexico teachers
LETTERS TO THE GOVERNMENT CAN BE SENT TO:
LIC. ENRIQUE PEÑA NIETO
Presidente Constitucional de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
enrique.penanieto@presidencia.gob.mx
LIC. OSORIO CHONG MIGUEL ANGEL
Secretario de Estado
secretario@segob.mx
LIC. CHUAYFFET CHEMOR EMILIO
Secretaria de Educación Pública
emilio.chuayffet@sep.gob.mxrasagas@live.com
Prof. Eligio Hernández de Oaxaca XXII: eligiogonzalez@hotmail.com
Below is a copy of the letter that the US section of the Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education sent to the protesting teachers in Mexico. Use it as a template and send copies to:
seccionmexicana.coali@gmail.com
Maestra Graciela Rangel de Michoacán sección XVIII: rasagas@live.com
Prof. Eligio Hernández de Oaxaca XXII: eligiogonzalez@hotmail.com
MEXICO D.F., MEXICO September 13, 2013
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education-USA extends our support for your valiant and militant struggle to defend not just your rights as teachers and trade unionists, but the Mexican people’s right to a public education that is guaranteed in your federal constitution. We applaud your courageous resistance against implementation of the present changes in the constitution which would use standardized tests for teachers to be hired and to keep their jobs, standardized tests for students that will limit their future opportunities in life as well as reducing federal funding to state and local schools. These changes will have the worst impact on the poorest states and communities, especially those whose population mainly speak languages other than Spanish.
We face similar attacks in the United States of America under the guise of “reform”. Your struggle for educational and union justice is an inspiration to us about how teachers and communities can unite to defend public education. You have clarified for the world that the forces behind these so-called reforms are powerful corporate interest that intend to privatize public education.
YOUR STRUGGLE IS OUR STRUGGLE!
In solidarity,
Rosemary Lee, for Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education-section USA
Kyara Tobias, August 2013– Un-hired Ed: the growing adjunct crisis. How our best and brightest can work tirelessly for 8 years only to receive food stamps, debt, and no career. Click on the image for an extremely eye-opening, informative infographic.
“Expensive Education” Image from CBC News
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, September 11, 2013– The average cost of tuition and compulsory fees for Canadian undergraduate students will rise by almost 13% over the next four years, from $6,610 this fall to an estimated $7,437 in 2016-17, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The study looks at trends in tuition and compulsory fees in Canada since 1990, projects fees for each province for the next four years, and ranks the provinces on affordability for median- and low-income families using a Cost of Learning Index.
“Average tuition and compulsory fees in Canada have tripled since 1990, even after inflation is taken into account,” says Erika Shaker, co-author of the study and director of the CCPA’s education project. “No wonder there is growing public concern over student debt loads, economic and employment uncertainty, and the long-term ramifications being felt by students and their families.”
According to the study, Ontario is the province with the highest fees and will see its tuition and other fees climb from $8,403 this fall to an estimated $9,517 in 2016-17. Newfoundland and Labrador remains the province with the lowest compulsory fees of $2,872 this fall, rising to an estimated $2,886 in 2016-17.
The study’s Cost of Learning Index clearly demonstrates that provincial governments play a significant role in ensuring university education is more—or less—affordable for median and low-income families, particularly when household debt is at an all-time high and incomes have been stagnant for over two decades.
“Newfoundland and Labrador is the most affordable province for university education for both median- and low-income families, while New Brunswick is the least affordable for median-income families and Alberta is the least affordable for low-income families,” says David Macdonald, CCPA senior economist and co-author of the study.
Some provincial governments are responding to concerns about affordability with piecemeal, targeted, and non-universal directed assistance measures for in-province students such as tax credits, debt caps, and grants or bursaries. While these measures do impact in-province affordability, it creates a situation where the only students who leave the province to pursue a degree are the ones who can afford to.
“The increasing number of exceptions and qualifiers for financial assistance makes the system far more difficult for students and families to navigate, and makes it harder to compare province-to-province,” says Shaker. “If provinces directed their funds to across-the-board fee reductions instead, it would make the system fairer, more predictable, and easier to navigate.”
Degrees of Uncertainty: Navigating the changing terrain of university finance is available on the CCPA website: http://policyalternatives.ca
CTV Montreal, September 6, 2013– A group of 91 Quebec thinkers – mostly francophone academics – have signed a letter denouncing the PQ’s charter of values that is expected to be debated at the National Assembly as soon as next week.
Although the exact details of the soon-to-be proposed legislation remain unknown, the group is clear in its rejection of the project, as evidenced in its 1,000 word manifesto entitled “Our values exclude exclusion.”
The letter begins emphatically: “We are against any proposed Charter of Quebec Values. We share values such as equality between men and women and the secular nature of the state and public institutions.
The signatories include McGill academics Abby Lippman and Ethel Groffier, writer Norman Nawrocki and activist Will Prosper.
The letter defends what it calls “the rejection of racism,” and calls the bill a “repressive and divisive project.”
Read more: CTV Montreal
Arno Rosenfeld, Ubyssey, September 7, 2013– [University of British Columbia] UBC announced Saturday that they will investigate whether Commerce Undergraduate Society (CUS) leaders told volunteers to keep an offensive chant within their orientation groups.
In a statement released by Robert Helsley, dean of UBC’s Sauder School of Business, and UBC’s VP Students Louise Cowin, the university pledged to investigate the chant.
“The Sauder School of Business and the Office of the Vice-President, Students will jointly conduct a thorough investigation of these reports. Any disciplinary measures will follow the university’s policy on discipline for non-academic misconduct,” the statement read.
The Ubyssey reported on Friday that group leaders at FROSH, the CUS-organized orientation for Sauder first-years, led their “froshees” in a variation of the Y-O-U-N-G cheer.
Read More: Ubyssey
Brian Haman, Counterpunch, August 30, 2013 — It has become a truism in American higher education: seventy-five percent of undergraduate courses at U.S. colleges and universities are taught by contingent faculty1, most of whom lack health insurance,2carry onerous student debt,3 receive poverty-level compensation, and often rely on public assistance such as food stamps in order to make ends meet.4 This percentage translates into more than 1.3 million highly-educated, qualified, and competent, but poorly-paid, undervalued, and underappreciated American workers. Conversely, administrative costs at colleges have soared in recent years. The academic managerial class (provosts, vice and associate vice provosts, deans, presidents, vice presidents, etc.) routinely earn six-figure salaries, often with generous perks including vacation homes.5
According to U.S. Education Department data, “U.S. universities employed more than 230,000 administrators in 2009, up 60 percent from 1993, or 10 times the rate of growth of the tenured faculty, those with permanent positions and job security”.6 Most new hires on American campuses never even set foot in the classroom simply because they are not teachers but administrators.7 Furthermore, the cost of a college degree in the U.S. has increased by 1,120 percent since 1978.8 The overwhelming majority of the academic labor force (to say nothing of students, who voluntarily submit to indentured servitude in the form of student debt) suffers disproportionately due to enormous concentrations of wealth in the hands of a small and privileged elite.
We find a similar dynamic in other segments of the American labor force, especially in the fast-food industry. Fast-food workers endure low wages (and indeed wage stagnation), few if any benefits, and a scarcity of full-time contracts.9 The marginalized and contingent workforce at places such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and KFC share similar concerns and face similar challenges such as starvation wages, reliance on government assistance, and job insecurity that academic workers endure at some of our nation’s leading universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Michigan.10 However, unlike the academy, the difference between CEO compensation and fast-food workers’ pay is truly breathtaking. David C. Novak, CEO of Yum Brands, which includes chains such as KFC and Pizza Hut, received a total annual compensation of $29.67 million in 2012.11
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Last year, McDonald’s gave [Dan] Thompson a compensation package worth $13.8 million, or more than 558 times what McDonald’s expects employees to make — from two jobs”.12 The national minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.25 per hour and the top five largest employers (McDonald’s is among them) pay its workers at or near the minimum wage. We may reiterate the conclusion of the previous paragraph with one minor revision: The overwhelming majority of the fast-food labor force suffers disproportionately due to enormous concentrations of wealth in the hands of a small and privileged elite.
When faced with such systemic and structural inequalities, how have fast-food workers responded? The answer is quite instructive. They have staged local protests and walkouts in cities across the country and are planning a national walkout in order to fight for a higher minimum wage. As Professor Anne Kalleberg has noted, however, the protests are not union-sponsored but socially organized.13 Fast-food workers, just like their academic counterparts, often struggle to unionize due, at times, to explicit efforts by their employers to prevent them from doing so. Nevertheless, despite such grim circumstances, fast-food workers have pushed their plight quite successfully into the national consciousness just as Occupy movements have done.
Their campaign, entitled “Fast Food Forward”, articulates their purpose with self-assured clarity: “Fast Food Forward joins the momentum of the Black Friday strikes and other low-wage worker struggles to build community engagement, hold corporations and their CEOs accountable, and to raise wages so that all Americans can prosper”.14 Despite its origins in New York City, the movement is gaining momentum; many are now calling for a nationwide strike to take place on 29 August and even President Obama has addressed the issue.
How is all of this relevant for the contingent academic workforce? Well, for one thing, there is strength in numbers. Collective action is an especially effective instrument both to challenge and redress structural inequalities. If, as the aforementioned statistics indicate, seventy-five percent of undergraduate courses at U.S. colleges and universities are taught by adjuncts, then a walkout would bring the academy to a grinding halt. If fast-food workers with fewer career opportunities, less educational attainment, more grueling working conditions (e.g. fast-paced environments, high-temperature workplaces, etc.), and far more to lose can risk their only source of income for themselves and their families for the sake of the collective good, then what is preventing adjuncts from doing the same? The short answer is simple: nothing.
Alas, many adjuncts enable and perpetuate the “system” through their deferential subservience simply by participating in it (recent unionization efforts at Georgetown and elsewhere duly noted). As universities and departments downsize and the numbers of Ph.D. graduates outpace available jobs, many adjuncts accept grossly underpaid positions with long working hours and virtually no benefits with the expectation that a foot in the door will somehow lead to the promised land of a tenure-track position. Supply and demand dictates otherwise and the vast battalions of well-paid academic administrators are more than happy to continue to exploit such naïve and misguided expectations in the name of efficiency.
Surely, too, graduate programs inculcate (and indeed indoctrinate) students in the ways of the academy: publish or perish and do not rock the proverbial boat. On the one hand, academics are expected to challenge scholarly orthodoxies in their respective fields through creative, innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship. And yet in other aspects of their lives, namely those that deal with the contractual conditions under which they labor, they must conform and remain obedient in order to secure employment. It becomes an insidious and corrosive form of selection in which independent thought is filtered out of a system that was designed to protect it. Contradictions become self-evident: the imposition of an authorial canon in the humanities is anathema, whereas wage slavery becomes institutionalized.
Read more: Counterpunch
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(AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The walkout by service workers in the US on August 29 marked a number of efforts over the past year to organize and make a statement on cost of living ground lost amidst inflation and a tanking economy. Economic reports in Canada and the US for August merely indicate the long trend toward part-time McJobs as youth are more and more often finding that their competition is their grandmothers or seniors unable to make it without additional income. Requests by the workers is an increase in the federal minimum wage from the current $7.25/hr to $15/hr and the right to unionize without interference from employers. Obama democrats are proposing a modest increase to $9/hr.
Like the McJob trend, the large balance of college and university jobs are now part-time and low wage. Many with the McAdemic job, defined by low pay and limited prospects, work just above minimum wage when it’s all said and done. Although among the most exploited of part-time workers given their expertise and education debt-load, adjunct, contingent, or sessional faculty members in Canada and the US retain an element of autonomy for their job. Whether with a modicum of a wage per course or a piecemeal per student wage for online instructors, many by and large take home a pay that hovers just above minimum wage after hours in are calculated. Unlike the basic McJob, which has a definitive beginning and end to the workday, the academic job has no limits to the amount of time expended to prepare, teach, counsel, and assess. And given that, like for most with a McJob, there is a dignity to a McAdemic job and most put in long hours (e.g., 10x contact hours required) that knowingly reduce their wages to something just above the minimum.
In BC, the minimum wage is merely $10.25, which today after exchange and purchasing power parity is about $7.25/hr USD. At UBC, the step 1 salary for contingent or sessional faculty is $5,970 per 3 credit course (about $4,305 USD after exchange and PPP). Comparisons of McAdemic job with McJob and of stratification within the two sectors are not exaggerated, as Postdoctoral Fellow Brian Haman wrote in “What Contingent Faculty Can Learn From Fast-Food Workers:”
As universities and departments downsize and the numbers of Ph.D. graduates outpace available jobs, many adjuncts accept grossly underpaid positions with long working hours and virtually no benefits with the expectation that a foot in the door will somehow lead to the promised land of a tenure-track position. Supply and demand dictates otherwise and the vast battalions of well-paid academic administrators are more than happy to continue to exploit such naïve and misguided expectations in the name of efficiency…. Clearly, something must change. It seems, therefore, sensible, entirely feasible, and just to stand in solidarity with fast-food workers, many of whom earn as much as adjuncts. Their struggles are our struggles. Moreover, their lessons can be our lessons. The efficacy and consequences of collective action are unambiguous.
All characters and actions in the story linked below are purely fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or activities experienced in any supposed “respectful environment” of an academic workplace is purely coincidental.
From McSweeney’s:
“Everyone Did Such a Great Job in the Leadership Workshop Today Except Spencer”
Even in the face of 14,000 activists urging Sallie Mae to break up with ALEC, more news articles exposing their relationship, and my personal phone call this week to Sallie Mae executive Martha Holler asking the company directly to end ties with the powerful “Stand Your Ground,” anti-democratic, pay-to-play front group for right-wing corporate interests… Sallie Mae just won’t quit ALEC.
But that membership has its price. By not formally disclosing its role in ALEC to the Department of Education, Sallie Mae is in breach of its contract with the government.
Since 2009 Sallie Mae has had a contract with the Department of Education to administer federal student loans. Sallie Mae has netted over $300 million in taxpayer money through this lucrative contract while simultaneously lobbying against affordable higher education.1
Join us in demanding that the Department of Education enforce the “conflict of interest” disclosure clause in the contract. Tell U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to drop Sallie Mae!
Beyond its membership in ALEC, Sallie Mae is also likely in breach of its Department of Education contract because of two major legal violations. This month, public disclosure reports revealed that Sallie Mae has been accused of overcharging active duty service members on their student loan interest rates.2 News reports confirm that federal regulators will file a formal complaint against Sallie Mae for these violations within weeks, and a Department of Justice investigation of Sallie Mae is underway. As if that weren’t enough, Sallie Mae has already faced numerous class action lawsuits alleging predatory and racially discriminatory lending and was issued a cease-and-desist letter from the FDIC for redlining.3
We think the government shouldn’t be in business with a company whose lending practices are shameful and illegal. And even the Secretary of Education agrees. During a meeting earlier this year where students were raising concerns about Sallie Mae, Secretary Duncan personally told us, “We don’t want to do business with people who violate the law.”4
Tell Arne Duncan to live up to his words and terminate the department’s contract with Sallie Mae NOW!
Our urgency is real. In two weeks, students around the country will be arriving on campuses, and soon after they’ll receive information on who will be managing their loans. That means the Department of Education has a narrow window to end its contract with Sallie Mae and reallocate loan administration and collection duties to another bank before the school year begins.
Sallie Mae is supposed to be in the business of making education a reality. Instead the company profiteers off its student borrowers by granting risky loans with high interest rates. Last year, U.S. student debt hit $1 trillion – meanwhile, Sallie Mae cleared $1 billion in profits. So to recap: Sallie Mae is taking advantage of taxpayers, students, members of the military, and people of color.
The government shouldn’t be outsourcing loan administration jobs to a big bank in the first place, and it definitely shouldn’t be awarding contracts worth hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to a shady company like Sallie Mae.
Even though its own policies dictate that it should drop Sallie Mae, the Department of Education won’t end this contract without public pressure. So we’re pulling out all the stops. We’re mobilizing a coalition of consumer watchdogs, military and veterans’ advocates, student activists, and labor groups to join us. We’re reaching out to Members of Congress and have put even more journalists on their trail. Can we count on you to encourage the Department of Education to do the right thing and stop doing business with Sallie Mae?
Send your message today to ensure Sallie Mae will be held accountable.
Sophia Zaman
USSA President
1 http://www.usaspending.gov
2 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/10/us/sallie-mae-to-be-accused-of-overcharging-military-personnel-on-loans.html?_r=0
3 http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/enforcement/2008-08-10.pdf
4 http://www.aft.org/newspubs/news/2013/051413studentdebt.cfm
Michael A. Peters, TruthOut, August 17, 2013– The New York Times dubbed 2012 the year of the MOOCs – massive open online courses. Suddenly the discourse of MOOCs and the future of the university hit the headlines with influential reports using the language of “the revolution to come.” Most of these reports hailed the changes and predicted a transformation of the delivery of teaching and higher education competition from private venture for-profit and not-for-profit partnerships. Rarely did the media focus on questions of pedagogy or academic labor. This article suggests that MOOCs should be seen within the framework of postindustrial education and cognitive capitalism where social media has become the dominant culture.
Ernst & Young’s Universities of the Future carries the line, “A thousand year old industry on the cusp of profound change.” The report suggests that the current Australian university model “will prove unviable in all but a few cases.” It identifies five major “drivers of change”: democratization of knowledge and access, contestability of markets and funding, digital technologies, global mobility and integration with industry.
With the driver “digital technologies,” the report mentions MOOCs specifically as transformative of the way education is delivered and accessed and how “value” is created by higher-education providers. Clearly, this feature also is systematically related to the other features. I do not have the space here to evaluate this report except to say that it is self-serving in that it favors the privatization of education.
In An Avalanche is Coming: Higher Education and the Revolution Ahead, Michael Barber, Katelyn Donnelly and Saad Rizv, like the Ernst and Young, report, use the language of “revolution” to describe the changes about to transform higher education. Lawrence Summers, president emeritus of Harvard University who writes the foreword, suggests that An Avalanche is Coming correctly predicts the impending transformation:
Just as we’ve seen the forces of technology and globalisation transform sectors such as media and communications or banking and finance over the last two decades, these forces may now transform higher education. The solid classical buildings of great universities may look permanent but the storms of change now threaten them.
Michael Barber, one-time education adviser to Tony Blair and now consultant for the giant education publisher Pearson, signals that the functions of the traditional university are being “unbundled” – which means that some universities will need to specialize solely in teaching. Barber and his colleagues mention emergent forms of the university: the elite university, the mass university, the niche university, the local university, the lifelong learning mechanism. For Barber and his colleagues, MOOCs are symbolic of an avalanche: “Just as an avalanche shapes the mountain, so the changes ahead will fundamentally alter the landscape for universities.” With the student consumer as king, the growth of MOOCs and a more global system that makes up a leading part of the growth of the knowledge economy, “the new world the learner” will choose an education in a global marketplace with an “eye trained on value.”
The New York Times “Schools for Tomorrow” Conference to be held September 17, 2013, focuses on “Virtual U: The Coming of Age of Online Education.” The opening plenary asks “Is Online Education The Great Equalizer?” and provides the following primer:
There is no doubt that we are in the middle of an online education revolution, which offers huge potential to broaden access to education and therefore, in theory, level the playing field for students from lower-income, lower-privileged backgrounds. But evidence to date shows that the increasing number of poorly designed courses could actually have the reverse effect and put vulnerable students at an even bigger disadvantage.
This is to be followed with the debate: “Has The University As An Institution Had Its Day?” for which this description is added:
Higher education has always been an array of autonomous institutions, each with their own courses, their own faculty, and their own requirements for their own degrees. But online education is starting to break down those lines, in ways that are likely to lead to a lot more shared courses, consortia and credit transfers. In addition, there are a growing number of companies (not schools) providing higher education courses outside the traditional higher education institutions. As we move towards the possibility of a multi-institution, multi-credit qualification, is the traditional higher education institution in danger of losing applicants, income and identity?
The next agenda is devoted to “new era business models” including “an increasing assortment of new ventures offering for-profit schools, for-profit online courses, tests, curricula, interactive whiteboard, learning management systems, paid-for verified certificates of achievement, e-books, e-tutoring, e-study groups and more.” And finally, the conference is to address “Gamechangers: How Will Online Education Revolutionalize [sic] What We Know And Understand About Learning?” with this orientation:
Traditionally, pedagogical research has been done in tiny groups; but new-generation classes of 60,000 students make it possible to do large scale testing and provide potentially game-changing research on how students learn best. Using the big data from online courses, we have access to new information about what pedagogical approaches work best. MOOCs, and many more traditional online classes, can track every keystroke, every homework assignment and every test answer a student provides. This can produce a huge amount of data on how long students pay attention to a lecture, where they get stuck in a problem set, what they do to get unstuck, what format and pacing of lectures, demonstrations, labs and quizzes lead to the best outcomes, and so on. How can we use Big Data for the good of the education profession, and not for “Big Brother”?
In “MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education” – a self-described “white paper” – Li Yuan and Stephen Powell embrace a balanced analysis that sees MOOCs as an extension of existing online learning approach, but one that has generated “significant interest from higher-education institutions and venture capitalists that see a business opportunity to be exploited” that offer scalability and new business models of open education, enabling the disaggregation “of teaching from assessment and accreditation for differential pricing and pursuit of marketing activities.” They embrace the theory of disruptive innovation (Bower & Christensen, 1995) to explain why some innovations can disrupt existing markets at the expense of incumbent players and suggest that current UK policy through a radical agenda allows “new, for-profit providers to enter the higher education market.”
Read More: TruthOut
I thought I only had to come out once! In 1996, at 22 years of age, I came out of the closet – the most liberating thing I’ve ever done. Now, I’m coming out again: My name is Robert Applebaum and I have $88,000 worth of student debt!
We’ve recently partnered with over a dozen organizations to launch what we’re calling the #OutWithStudentDebt video project. The goal of this project is to collect as many of your 1-2 minute videos that will be featured on our websites, with the goal of shedding the stigma of shame and embarrassment that comes along with being buried under mounds of student loan debt.
Please click on the graphic above to view StudentDebtCrisis.org’s Artistic Director, Aaron Calafato’s sample/instructional video and then learn how to go about submitting your own #OutWithStudentDebt video!
Over the course of the next 3 weeks, we will be collecting these #OutWithStudentDebt stories and featuring them on our website, after which, we’ll be asking the general public to vote for their favorites.
Please be sure to follow the instructions for uploading your video so that it can be properly entered into the #OutWithStudentDebt Video Project.
Be honest. Be concise. Be brave! You are NOT alone! You are in the company of nearly 40 million Americans who are similarly struggling under the weight of their own student loans. Please join us by creating your own video and telling your personal story. Let’s put human faces on the ever-growing crisis of over $1.2 Trillion in outstanding student loan debt.
You can also help out by spreading the word – simply click here to tweet about the #OutWithStudentDebt Project, or click here to post it to Facebook.
Thank you, as always, for your continued support. Now, let’s all come #OutWithStudentDebt!
Sincerely,
Rob, Natalia, Kyle, Aaron & The StudentDebtCrisis Team.
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P.S. We’d like to give a special thanks to Contest.is for providing the platform for the #OutWithStudentDebt Video Project!
AP/ Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., waves to supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial 28 August, 1963, on The Mall in Washington, DC, upon giving the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.
The King Center, July 16, 2013– The King Center and the 50th Anniversary Coalition are calling on people and organizations across America to help culminate the 50th anniversary of The March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech with “Let Freedom Ring” bell-ringing events at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on August 28th, a half-century to the minute after Dr. King delivered his historic address. In other nations, there will be bell-ringing ceremonies at 3:00 p.m. in their respective time zones.
“We are calling on people across America and throughout the world to join with us as we pause to mark the 50th anniversary of my father’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech with ‘Let Freedom Ring’ bell-ringing events and programs that affirm the unity of people of all races, religions and nations,” said King Center C.E.O. Bernice A. King. “My father concluded his great speech with a call to ‘Let freedom ring,’ and that is a challenge we will meet with a magnificent display of brotherhood and sisterhood in symbolic bell-ringing at places of worship, schools and other venues where bells are available from coast to coast and continent to continent.”
Local groups are encouraged to present diverse commemorative programs, which bring people together across cultural and political lines to celebrate the common humanity in creative and uplifting ways in the spirit of the dream. Ms. King especially urges that all of the programs involve children and young people, since children are mentioned in several passages of her father’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
There will be a “Let Freedom Ring” Commemoration & Call to Action” on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on August 28th. The program begins with an interfaith service from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the Tidal Basin, followed by the “Let Freedom Ring” Commemoration and Call to Action at the nearby Lincoln Memorial from 1:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. that includes the bell-ringing ceremony at 3:00 p.m.
Groups are already planning bell-ringing events in places as diverse as Concord, New Hampshire, Allentown PA, Lutry Switzerland and Tokyo Japan. Governors of the 50 states have been asked to support the bell-ringing, and many have already responded enthusiastically, with more expected to join the effort. The King Center requests that all groups planning programs submit a brief description of your 50th anniversary ‘Let Freedom Ring’ bell-ringing event to website@thekingcenter.org.
“Let Freedom Ring” will conclude seven-days of events commemorating the March on Washington and Dr. King’s Dream speech. For the millions who can’t come to Washington, D.C. for the seven-day program, the local ‘Let Freedom Ring’ programs will provide a unique opportunity to get involved in a poignant nation-wide and global day of unity in their respective home towns.
“Our World, His Dream: Freedom – Make it Happen” is the theme for the “Let Freedom Ring” commemoration and call to action. This theme is undergirded by the three sub-themes: “Freedom to Prosper in Life;” “Freedom to Peacefully Co-Exist;” and “Freedom to Participate in Government.”
For more information about the 50th Anniversary of the I Have A Dream speech, please contact The King Center (Atlanta, GA) at 404-526-8944, sklein@thekingcenter.org or visit the websitewww.mlkdream50.com. To stay in touch with updated details, participate with the following: Twitter twitter.com/DCMARCHMLK50; Facebook www.facebook.com/Mlkdream50; Pinterest pinterest.com/mlkdream50/; and Intstagram mlkdream50. The Hashtag is #mlkdream50.
Holly Hobbs, Fairfax Times, July 18, 2013– As the nation reflects on the verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, a college course this fall will offer an academic look at the case’s impact outside of the courtroom.
George Mason University Professor Rutledge Dennis, a professor of sociology and anthropology, will teach “From Homer Plessy to Trayvon Martin: Issues in Race, Culture, and Politics,” which he said would look at historic cases involving race and their impacts on society. The course title has been abbreviated on Mason’s website: Plessy to Martin: Race and Politics.
“I hope our students will get out of it a sense of how racial, political and cultural issues impact how we interact,” Dennis said.
While the course aims to introduce students to historic themes through a contemporary example, Dennis and the university garnered much criticism online, mostly from conservative bloggers and media outlets like The Daily Caller, The National Review and Red Alert Politics.
“I have received a lot of nasty, hateful emails about this course because people assume it’s a course [only] about Trayvon Martin,” Dennis said. “Trayvon Martin is just one case.”
The course begins with coverage of the landmark 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case, which upheld “separate but equal” racial segregation of public facilities. Students also will study other historic cases, such as the 1931 arrests of the “Scottsboro Boys,” a group of nine black teenagers who were accused of raping two white women in Alabama. The course includes a number of contemporary high-profile trials like the 1992 trials of Los Angeles police officers accused of beating construction worker Rodney King and the murder trial of former NFL running back O.J. Simpson, which ended in 1995.
Many of the trials included in the course syllabus occurred before most current undergraduate students were born. The Trayvon Martin case offers a current example and context for undergrads, Dennis said.
“The Trayvon Martin case is important academically because race and issues around race are academic issues,” Dennis said, adding that the humanities often study gender and class; so why not race? “While this case did not begin as a racial case, it ended as one.”
Mason Provost Peter Stearns says criticism of curriculum is not a common occurrence for the university, but it is also not unheard of.
“Regularly, university faculty deal with topics that have different viewpoints. [Previously] George Mason University has been accused of being too liberal and too conservative,” he said. “One of the challenges in teaching is you want to make sure students understand the historical context and themes. But we also want to make sure they can apply this knowledge to current issues.”
Dennis said he hopes his course will offer students the opportunity to debate why Martin’s death and Zimmerman’s trial sparked intense media coverage and debate.
“I think it got attention for many people because we have an unarmed teenager who was shot by someone of another ethnic group,” Dennis said. “Young black men have been taken advantage of by the system. … And this becomes, for many, another example of a young black man being taken advantage of by the system.”
As of Wednesday, 16 students had registered for Dennis’ class (AFAM 390), which is cross-listed as both an African and African American Studies and Sociology/Anthropology course.
