PLEASE support St. Louis Adjunct Action here at Washington University in St. Louis and everywhere because there is no group that needs collective bargaining rights more than adjunct lectures, the pariah caste of academia, and I should know. This has very much been my project since my days in graduate student government at the University of Pennsylvania, and especially here at Wash U since 2003. However, let this not be done at the expense of full time Lecturers or tenure track Assistant Professors, who may be strung along and then gratuitously denied tenure, and ultimately phased out. Please lets not have a two caste system: the Adjunct 99%, and the 1% of Tenured Prima Donna Trophy Professors, with academic middle class. The University may be a microcosm of the rest of our society but it should be a microcosm for the change that we mean to effect, not the status quo. 99% + 1% = 100%. Do the Math. We Are One People I wrote on a blank signboard, on 11/11/11, the Day of Decampment, Occupy St Louis. A reporter took my photo, my name and bio data, and perhaps I made the news. Whatever the case, Federal agents all dressed up as Hollywood hippies trashed our encampment and threw our library and our sign pool in the dumpster. Some of it was rescued, including my sign. During our 11/17/11 joint Occupy/AFL-CIO march to the MLK bridge, I observed a father and his young son rifling through our pile of signs. Do the math the youngster read aloud, and picked out my sign to carry as he rode on his fathers back. I am still proud. Theres a lot of middle ground to reclaim and a LOT of mistrust to overcome before we can get there from here, but its worth a try. We canNOT reform our university, or our nation, without some common basis of experience, and a sincere attempt to communicate, between the classes. This may take a generation or so, but its worth the effort and the wait.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 20:36:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015