[This past week,
after many
years of planning and many
posts in this space, I helped host the 2016 Northeast MLA
convention in Hartford. It was an amazing four days, and I could write much
more than a week of recap posts—so here I’ll focus specifically on the new
initiatives I brought to the convention. If you were part of NeMLA 2016 in any
way, please share your own recaps and responses in comments!]
On three
distinct but interconnected issues that came up in Saturday’s series of
President-sponsored sessions on current issues facing higher ed.
1)
Adjunct faculty unionization: Many of the
sessions focused specifically on adjunt and contingent faculty, thanks in large
part to the efforts of both our CAITY
Caucus President Emily
Lauer and the amazing Charli Valdez of
UNH. Those sessions covered a range of topics, but consistently came back to
one focus, also the subject of the CAITY Caucus Special Event: the goals,
challenges, and strategies for unionizing adjunct faculty. I was particularly
interested to learn at the Special Event, from both Charli and from Stony Brook
Community College’s Katelynn
DeLuca, about two distinct kinds of such unions: those that include only
contingent faculty (as is the case with Charli’s) and those that link them to
tenure-track faculty (as does Katelynn’s). There seem to be pros and cons to
both approaches, but I have to admit that as someone who believes we are all
faculty, full stop, my instinct is to support the communal type. Please share
your takes, though!
2)
The defunding of public higher ed: Along with
academic labor, the state of higher ed funding and support was another prominent
topic, particularly in a roundtable featuring Emily, the University of
Connecticut’s Chris Vials,
and the amazing Marc Oullette. There’s
no way I can do justice to the layers of the issue as that roundtable presented
and engaged with it, but I will note that Chris did a particularly clear job
highlighting one of the most frustrating factors linked to it: that as corporate
profits have continued to rise, corporate (and upper-bracket income) taxes have
gone way down, leaving most states in a serious financial hole (Connecticut has
a more than $200 million budget shortfall) that makes it very difficult to fund
(much less increasing funding for) public higher education. Only one factor,
but one that’s far too often left out of the discussion, and I was really happy
to hear Chris raise it so convincingly.
3)
What we can do: All the sessions and presenters
considered this topic, and of course the prior two points relate to it: both unionizing
and other labor activism and analyzing, raising, and making public budget
problems and priorities are vital steps we can and should take (as organizations
like NeMLA as well as institutions and individuals). But on the session “Rethinking
Humanities Pedagogy,” all three presenters—David
Sloane, Kerry Driscoll,
and most especially Jocelyn
Chadwick—engaged even more fully with the question of what we can do in our
classes, departments and programs, and educational institutions in response to
these contemporary crises. Their presentations touched on many steps and
solutions, from rethinking reading in David’s talk to bridging the gaps between
higher ed, secondary schools, and the public in Kerry’s; but it was Jocelyn’s
call for us to break down the silos of specialization, think in fully interdisciplinary
ways, and make the case for what we do to all of our students and communities
that I found especially inspiring. As we move forward in navigating all these
and many related issues, her talk and ideas, like all those on this great day,
can help light the way.
Last recap
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Thoughts on
this post? Other NeMLA follow ups you’d share? I’d really love to hear them
(and feel free to email them to me
if you prefer)!
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