[Alumni-chat] "Earning" opportunities
Robert Devine
bdevine at antioch-college.edu
Tue Jun 26 22:21:29 EDT 2007
Thank you Christine! Life is too short for anonymous and thoughtless
disrespect.
Bob
Alumni Chat List <alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu> on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 at
6:25 PM -0500 wrote:
>First, one of the protections our staff has is that they are unionized,
>something we cannot do. Mty father was a steelworker and he had more
>protection than I did/do because he had a union to back him up. Second, a
>number of faculty here and at many schools do not have PhDs, depending on
>the requirements and demands of their disciplines.
>
>I would certainly never claim that my job is more important than others.
>I simply think it is important. Hell, if you ask my family, they think
>that since I don't do physical labor I don't really do anything important.
>
>
>The bigger issue here is that retention of a tenure system is one of the
>major demands (if not THE major demand) of faculty at Antioch College.
>You can choose to think we are a bunch of lazy privileged do-nothings who
>think we are better than everyone else, that's your choice (if you do
>think that, I don't know). But if you are supporting Antioch and keeping
>it open,I would think that means supporting the faculty. The faculty feel
>that it would not be Antioch College without tenure. It would be Antioch
>University, with fearful faculty who can lose their jobs at will. Right
>now we know what that feels like.
>
>I think it is fucking amazing that I am even having this conversation. We
>are all losing our jobs, and I have to justify my right to have some
>semblance of job security, and get accused of being privileged and wanting
>a free pass to sit around and eat bonbons or something. I watched my
>colleagues bust their asses to exhaustion trying to implement a curriculum
>that most didn't not want and few voted on, with the hopes it would save
>the college they love. Today I watched 20 people lose their jobs, and see
>the panic on the faces of my colleagues who don't know how long they have,
>even after devoting 30+ years of their life to this institution. I don't
>need this and I am not going to continue with this conversation.
>
>christine
>
>
>>So Academic freedom and tenure is only worthy of those with PhDs? I find
>>it ironic that so many people demanding community government can also
>>argue for an apartheid based system of job security.
>>
>> As someone that is tenure-track, I recognize (and freely admit) that
>>tenure is nothing more than a free-pass to do
>>
>> Is being a professor more noble and/or important than serving as an
>>administrative assistant? Food worker?
>>
>> Do people arguing for tenure actually feel that they contribute more to
>>society than others who did not have the opportunity to pursue advanced
>>studies in their specific field of interest?
>>
>> Why should the administrative assistants and physical plant workers
>>have the same protections that tenured PhDs have? I believe all workers
>>should have the same protections.
>>
>> What's next? Requiring people to have "earned" the ability to own
>>property before they can vote?
>>
>>
>>
>>Peter Bradley <pbradley at mcdaniel.edu> wrote:
>> At the risk of continuing a discussion that is probably a red herring
>>anyway...
>>This is all true, but there is another reason that is often overlooked.
>>Tenure-track faculty are not just responsible for teaching, advising and
>>mentoring students - they are responsible for the curriculum as well (at
>>least, they are supposed to be). Non-tenure track faculty teach the
>>classes they are given. Tenure-track faculty create new classes,
>>programs, etc. They are entrusted to know what skills and content is
>>required for a student to be considered a representative of that college
>>in their future endeavors. Without tenure, the curriculum would be in
>>the hands of the administration, and the faculty would be forced to
>>teach the courses and programs that brought in the most money.
>>Innovative programs like gender studies and queer studies, and even my
>>own discipline - philosophy - would be axed as not efficient. It is not
>>a surprise that the colleges without tenure are also primarily
>>professional programs or polytechniques - those are programs in which
>>the curriculum can be set by the administration without faculty input.
>>Peter Bradley '96
>>McDaniel College
>>
>>Mark David Higbee wrote:
>>> Michael posed a question, a good one, asking why faculty members should
>>be able to have
>>> Tenure, when
>>> virtually no other category of employee in our society has such job
>>security.
>>>
>>> The reason is simple, but often overlooked. Without tenure, there is no
>>possibility of
>>> academic freedom. Any
>>> faculty member could be fired by management for refusing to teach
>>objectionable ideas (say,
>>> that the earth was
>>> created in 6 days) that some administrator favors, or for persisting in
>>research projects that
>>> are unpopular with,
>>> say, the major funders of a university. Tobacco money has been known to
>>dictate the
>>> conclusions of research,
>>> and recently there was a case over lumber industry money allegedly
>>being used for the same
>>> purposes; without
>>> academic freedom, scholars would have essentially no possibility of
>>resisting orders to
>>> manufacture
>>> conclusions that suit the paymasters of a university.
>>>
>>> These threats are not as hypothetical and distant as one may imagine.
>>The protections
>>> against such threats
>>> provided by are the bulwark of academic freedom in the United States.
>>The practice of
>>> tenure goes back only to
>>> about World War I. Antioch College, under Pres. McGregor in the 1950s,
>>fired faculty
>>> members for their
>>> political beliefs, which shows that even tenure is less of a protection
>>than it is sometimes
>>> imagined to be.
>>>
>>> A secondary but still important justification for tenure is that
>>professors' salaries, relative to
>>> that of other
>>> professions requiring comparable levels of education and expertise
>>developed over years and
>>> years, are very
>>> low. This is not a complaint, just a fact. Without some reasonable
>>assurance that faculty
>>> members who are
>>> successful, who meet the standards of their profession and thus "earn
>>tenure" - which is not
>>> automatic and is
>>> denied in many instances - it is unlikely that talented people would
>>devote themselves to
>>> pursuing lots of
>>> education that will result in poorly paid jobs (relative not to
>>janitors, but say doctors and
>>> accountants) that have
>>> little or no job security.
>>>
>>> And, back to academic freedom - this includes the duty of faculty to
>>speak up professionally
>>> to advocate for the
>>> best interests of their students and colleges, without undue fear of
>>retaliation.
>>>
>>> An Antioch College without a tenure track faculty? That would mean a
>>corporate university
>>> modeled on the
>>> University of Phoenix, IMHO.
>>>
>>> --Mark Higbee, Antioch 1983
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: alumni-chat-request at w3.antioch.edu
>>> Date: Monday, June 25, 2007 9:13 pm
>>> Subject: Alumni-chat Digest, Vol 4, Issue 89
>>>
>>>
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>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Today's Topics:
>>>>
>>>> 1. The 501(c)3 thing (Hope Anne Nathan)
>>>> 2. Re: The numbers don't add up (Christine Smith)
>>>> 3. Forty million? (Rowan Kaiser)
>>>> 4. Re: Forty million? (Matthew Arnold)
>>>> 5. New Alumni Board? (Thaddeus Russell)
>>>> 6. Re: Forty million? (Matthew Arnold)
>>>> 7. Re: The numbers don't add up (Laura F.)
>>>> 8. Re: Faculty Tenure (Stephanie Scott)
>>>> 9. Re: The numbers don't add up (Patrick Cates)
>>>> 10. Re: Faculty Tenure (Christine Smith)
>>>> 11. Re: 501 c3 status and sponsorship information
>>>> (Sistersara at aol.com)
>>>> 12. Re: Re: [Alumni-chat] Faculty Tenure (Peter Bradley)
>>>> 13. Re: 501 c3 status and sponsorship information (Sistersara at aol.com)
>>>> 14. Re: The numbers don't add up (Robert Devine)
>>>> 15. AIF (Robert Abrams)
>>>> 16. Tenure = Haves, Non privledged People = Non Tenure
>>>> (TheBangaloreBlue)
>>>> 17. RE: 501 c3 status and sponsorship information (Thelma Seto)
>>>> 18. RE: Tenure = Haves, Non privledged People = Non Tenure
>>>> (Michael Olenick)
>>>> 19. RE: The Land? (Thelma Seto)
>>>> 20. Re: The numbers don't add up (Robert Devine)
>>>>
>>>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
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>>
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>>
>>---------------------------------
>>Luggage? GPS? Comic books?
>>Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search.
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>
>
>
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Robert H. Devine
College Professor
Antioch College
Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387
Our lives begin to end
the day we become silent
about things that matter"
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
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