yes, let us do these things! they are really within our reach (just like
the Elsevier case!), but some more than others, given differing
institutional contexts.
i would also like to add another two strategies:
1. build alliances with other faculty in other departments to achieve
these aims.
2. fight to get part-time or otherwise precarious education workers in
the university to have voting rights in university "governance" and same
level of benefits, if there is such a thing at your respective
universities; part-time/adjunct faculty may not wish to be employed
full-time for very legitimate reasons (e.g., it frees them up for more
activism, they are parenting, etc.)
saed
Christopher Niedt wrote:
> I think we've gotten somewhat off-track. I think the point of the
> original post was to encourage "big tent" brainstorming, to generate a
> repository of forms of resistance that we can draw from, wherever we plant
> our flag in terms of practice (broadly construed). To the extent that
> we're trying to come up with our own Top 10 or differentiate between more
> and less promising/worthwhile types of action, etc., we should also
> critique one another's suggestions. But can we do so constructively,
> succinctly, and with a modicum of respect?
>
> Here's what I have down for the conversation so far, and from the
> forwarded anthro posts. The following could be elaborated in the
> abstract, or better yet, illustrated with accounts of how folks have
> attempted to put each into practice, and what did or did not work:
>
> 1) use critical pedagogy - encouraging critical thinking, moving beyond
> lecture-exam format to group discussions, more participatory/empowering
> approaches, etc. (e.g. Cook et al paper in latest Geoforum)
>
> 2) link with activist, community groups, etc. beyond the academy
>
> 3) carry out critical (including participatory) research
>
> 4) make research findings and publications freely and publicly accessible
> on the web (vis a vis recent discussions on this list!)
>
> 5) expose and oppose corporate control of academia
>
> 6) use the growing 'sustainability consensus' to push for a
> democratisation of academia - as sustainability centrally implies
> participation. And encourage awareness of the wider implications of
> academia e.g. climate change and campus energy use/academic travel
>
> 7) build and maintain strong, militant and rank-n-file controlled unions
> in higher education
>
> 8) collectively write a practical manifesto of/for critical geographies
>
>
> And from the anthro list:
>
> 1) avoid using free student labor
>
> 2) require less teaching from PhD canditates and research fellows than is
> suggested in the instructions of their fellowships. So the University has
> to
> employ more professors, and the quality of eucation is (supposed to be)
> higher.
>
> 3) pressure university managers to hire as many professors under contract
> as possible, and improve their working conditions
>
> 4) Resist homogenization/marketing:
> *Now it is taking place a process of homogeneization of university studies
> all over Europe. In Spain universities are negotiating with government the
> new catalogue of studies. Antropology, in order to survive, has to
> demonstrate that it has a demand from the job market. And courses must be
> oriented towards market demands. It's hard, but we are trying to preserve
> the critical perspective and independence of our discipline, while
> surviving.
>
> 4) Invite adjunct and part-time faculty to departmental meetings. *
>
> 5) Do not require standardized testing for student admissions.
>
> 6) Use course packets or next-to-last edition textbooks, which students
> may purchase for $10 (rather than $120).
>
>
--
Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro
Department of Geography, SUNY New Paltz
1 Hawk Drive, New Paltz, NY 12561
tel: 1/845/2572991, fax: 1/845/2572992
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Senior Editor
Capitalism Nature Socialism: A Journal of Ecosocialism
Editor
ACME: An international e-journal for critical geographies
http://www.acme-journal.org/
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