The 6th Annual SEIU Local 500 Coalition of Academic Labor Forum on Part-time Faculty Unions will be held April 24 – 26, 2015 at SEIU headquarters in DC.
Rich Moser has written that the current “multi-tiered” academic labor system “constitutes a threat to the teaching profession that, if left unchecked, will undermine the university’s status as an institution of higher learning because the overuse of adjuncts and their lowly status and compensation institutionalize disincentives to quality education, threaten academic freedom and shared governance, and disqualify the campus as an exemplar of democratic values. These developments in academic labor are the most troubling expressions of the so-called corporatization of higher education.”
Join contingent faculty, students and allies from SEIU Local 500 and across the region and the nation for an action-oriented forum on how we are educating, agitating and organizing against the multi-tiered academic labor system and reclaiming academic citizenship.
Program highlights include:
Call for Participation
Submissions due by March 31:
We invite proposals for panels, presentations, workshops, discussion groups, performances, spoken-word, film, art, music or other non-traditional means of participation.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
The stratification of the academic labor market - the fragmentation of the higher ed teaching profession - what are the “costs of education?” - redistribution of revenues in universities and colleges – the politics of knowledge production – making college affordable and accessible – the role and future of HBCUs - reducing soaring tuition – student debt and how to fight it – students and contingents sharing economic precariousness - organizing at community colleges –community colleges as democracy’s colleges - tuition free education– race and class in the contingent faculty movement - education as a public good - precariousness and academic freedom – the myth of academic meritocracy - teaching critical consciousness and dissent - student activism - finding allies – alliances and solidarity with tenured faculty - art and performance in the contingent faculty movement - organizing at religious schools – legal battles - minority unionism - the high cost of adjunct living – fight not plight - contingent faculty inclusion in the academic community – the role of professional associations in the contingent faculty movement - metro-strategy organizing -
This event is free and open to everyone.
