Today’s adventure was inspired by the current debate about “civility” and academic freedom, including but not limited to

• the decision by Chancellor Phyllis Wise at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to revoke a written job offer of a tenured professorship made to Steven G. Salaita, whose comments on Twitter regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza she judged insufficiently civil (the job offer later moved forward to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, where it was rejected by a vote of 8-1)
• the e-mail by Chancellor Nicholas Dirks at the University of California at Berkeley to faculty, staff and students to mark the 50th anniversary of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement noting that civility is a prerequisite for free speech

For a little historical perspective on the matter, I also recommend Matthew Bunn’s article “Civility and Speech in the Modern University, 200 Years Ago in Germany”

Like the Academic…

By publishing a cookbook like no other, instructors at Front Range Community College (FRCC) are teaching peers, students, parents, and others in the community about a situation that has reached a boiling point. Interspersed amid dozens of what the authors call “food bank-friendly concoctions,” the text is a primer in how the Colorado Community College System (CCCS) is slicing, dicing and shredding collegiate-level teaching. Many pages of research, audit charts and budget breakdowns document what the authors say is a recipe for catastrophe for the 163,000 Colorado students looking to those colleges for learning. FRCC has campuses in Longmont, Westminster, Ft. Collins and Brighton.

Included are recipe categories such as “The Frappes of Wrath” and “Nobucks Coffee Drinks.” Recipes calling for beef scraps, bruised tomatoes, orange peelings and chicken bones point to a workforce living on the edge. “Cracked Windshield” is a mint drink based on cracked Lifesaver candies. “If…

Another week, another guest post about living the reality of the new college campus—one complete with more and more (and more) highly paid senior administrators who….well, surely some of them must do something.

Ladies and gentlemen, Kareme D’Wheat wants to share her recent conversation with the department chair. Like what you read? Felt it echoed your own experiences? Let us know in the comments.

A Rainy Day Conversation with the New Boss; or, “Relax, God’s in Control”

By Kareme D’Wheat

Warning: This piece contains profanity. [Fan-fucking-tastic. –JF]

An overcast Wednesday afternoon during the first week of classes is as good a day as any for an awkward interaction with those who could ruin your precarious “career” with one flick of a finger.

As an adjunct at a small liberal arts school, I am only slightly more annoying to most tenured faculty than a student. Because talking to me is a waste of…

By Joe Berry and Helena Worthen

Over 200 people attended the eleventh conference of COCAL (Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor) which took place August 4-6 at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York (CUNY) in New York City. The focus was on contingency–the damage it does to faculty, students, and the systems of higher education­–in the three participating countries: the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The goal: To abolish contingency itself.

The “Outside” Part of an “Inside-outside” Organizing Strategy

Although most of the people who come to the biannual COCAL conferences are academics and union members, these are not typical academic or union conferences. Instead, they are the “outside” part of an “inside-outside” organizing strategy. Contingent faculty activists come “outside” their own workplaces to learn from each other as contingent activists and go home to organize “inside” their own workplaces, or unions. Planned…