Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Cleric acquitted in Ferguson protest case : News
Cleric acquitted in Ferguson protest case : News: Jury in St. Louis County deliberated for only about a half hour.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
On the sad state of higher ed in Missouri: Former University of Missouri system president lashes out at current leaders : News
On the sad state of higher education in Missouri, thanks to the retrograde ways of administration, legislators, board members, the whole lot of them …. working together to destroy public higher education, one embarrassing revelation at a time.
STORY HERE: Former University of Missouri system president lashes out at current leaders : News: Much of his ire is directed at former Mizzou Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin
STORY HERE: Former University of Missouri system president lashes out at current leaders : News: Much of his ire is directed at former Mizzou Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin
Monday, January 25, 2016
Once-lagging neighborhood schools now drive improvement at St. Louis Public Schools : News
Once-lagging neighborhood schools now drive improvement at St. Louis Public Schools : News: Schools still trail the district's more elite magnet schools, but an infusion of support and greater oversight appear to be yielding results.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Ferguson Commission and St. Louis Public Schools share common reform goals : News
Ferguson Commission and St. Louis Public Schools share common reform goals : News: Superintendent Kelvin Adams and Ferguson Commission Co-Chairman Rich McClure discuss areas where their work has intersected, and is beginning to work.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Lessons for new generations of would-be political activists in St Louis: Kshama Sawant's strategies in Seattle: via Alternet: Socialist Win in Seattle: Anomaly or Harbinger?
Socialist Win in Seattle: Anomaly or Harbinger?
"It was November 2013. Sawant had just been elected to the Seattle City Council as a member of the Socialist Alternative party. And Boeing was threatening to cut thousands of jobs if its machinists didn’t give up their pensions and Washington State didn’t hand the company $8.7 billion in tax breaks.
"It was November 2013. Sawant had just been elected to the Seattle City Council as a member of the Socialist Alternative party. And Boeing was threatening to cut thousands of jobs if its machinists didn’t give up their pensions and Washington State didn’t hand the company $8.7 billion in tax breaks.
Patricelli, a public hospital nurse active in her union, had joined a downtown Seattle rally for the Boeing machinists with labor leaders and allies. When Sawant took the microphone, she declared her solidarity with Boeing employees, adding that if the aerospace giant wanted to engage in “economic terrorism,” the workers should take over the factories and place them under democratic control.
“I come from a conservative background,” Patricelli told me later. “It was like, I’m with you, I’m with you… but workers running factories? Oh my god, she’s crazy-pants!”
Yet two years later, on election night 2015, Patricelli was celebrating Sawant’s reelection along with hundreds of union members, students, housing rights advocates, LGBTQ activists, and radicals of various stripes at the campaign’s party.
Patricelli’s journey from Sawant skeptic to Sawant enthusiast offers an important glimpse into how political action can radicalize. It also counters the myth that in order to be viable, progressive political candidates have to tack to the center.
In winning over people like Patricelli and securing reelection, Sawant hasn’t just demonstrated that ordinary people are receptive to unapologetic left politics — she’s fostered a citywide discussion about capitalism and socialism.
However, socialists in Seattle now face a mayor and City Council majority more united than ever in their desire to marginalize Sawant and the movement around her. Can Seattle socialists expand their base and advance progressive reforms like rent control and a tax on the richest residents? And what can left activists elsewhere take from Seattle to launch their own progressive candidacies?"
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Monday, January 11, 2016
Friday, December 18, 2015
On the Police Officer who aimed his weapon at media and protestors – the saga continues
Ferguson Revelations and Sequiturs...
More on the officer who activists refer to as "Officer Go Fuck Yourself"
More on the officer who activists refer to as "Officer Go Fuck Yourself"
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Friday, December 11, 2015
Monday, December 7, 2015
Letter on the current status of negotiations between WUSTL and the Adjunct Professors' Union
Note from
BG (Bret Gustafson). The following is an
update I received on the status of negotiations between Washington University
and the new adjunct union (formed by SEIU).
I share it with the interest of making the process more transparent, in
the interests of improving the working situation of adjuncts, the quality of
instruction, and the quality of life for everyone on campus.
I reserve assessment – both of the administration and of the union
– until later. In other words, the fact
that I am sharing this is neither an indictment of the administration (yet),
nor a critique or embrace of the union’s position, strategy, and achievements (yet).
I received this letter via email on December 2, 2015 and am sharing it with permission.
I received this letter via email on December 2, 2015 and am sharing it with permission.
Dear Colleagues,
You are receiving this message because you signed the petition
to Chancellor Mark Wrighton and Provost Holden Thorp requesting that they
become as involved as their schedules permit in the negotiations between
Washington University in St. Louis and the adjunct faculty bargaining
committee. If you do not wish to receive updates about our bargaining, please
say so in a reply to this message and we will remove you from the list.
We delivered the petition that you signed to the Chancellor’s
and Provost’s offices today, and Student Life may run a copy of the
letter this week. We would like to thank you again for your support for this
important issue.
We’re writing because our bargaining has reached a critical
juncture and we could use help from our allies. For the past eight weeks,
during five full days of bargaining, we have been negotiating for appointments
longer than one (1) semester for adjunct faculty who have been teaching stable
course loads for many years. Our priorities are representative of the national
conversation around adjunct working conditions, in that surveys of our
bargaining unit provided us with a mandate to prioritize this issue of stable
appointments above all else, save higher compensation.
We initially proposed a multi-tiered system of course
appointment, where longer terms of service with a stable pattern of teaching
resulted in longer appointments of the same course load, beginning at one year
and topping out at three years. The University responded with a proposal that
essentially codifies the status quo. In the University’s proposal, an adjunct
faculty member who taught exactly the same courses every semester for seven
years can expect a “good faith” commitment to re-appointment on a
per-semester basis, where “good faith” is limited by an itemized list of
nine exceptions. Taken together, these exceptions essentially give
administration the right to unilaterally deny the re-appointment for any reason
that it sees fit.
Since we are in a negotiation process, our bargaining
committee’s assumption was that the final agreement would fall somewhere
between these two proposals. In the past eight weeks, we have submitted three
separate proposals for a path to longer appointments, all of which incorporated
language from University counter-proposals, with our final proposal seeking
yearlong appointments for faculty who show consistent patterns of instruction
over three or more years. The University has responded to our counterproposals
by offering back their original appointment language verbatim, with only minor
addendums surrounding the issue of teaching evaluation, which does not touch
the substantive issues.
In the past five sessions, we have asked for reasons that longer
appointments are problematic, to which we have received no response beyond the
fact that the University is uninterested, and that they see no tangible benefit
to student learning. In our meeting yesterday, we offered several reasons for
how contingent appointments harm student learning, including: 1) we are often
asked by students to write recommendation letters or participate in
extra-curricular mentorship programs but are in the awkward position of being
unsure whether we will be faculty at the time in question, 2) when we are
offered courses a few weeks in advance, our ability to prep courses and order
texts is severely hindered, and 3) a lack of timely appointments forces us to
cast our nets as broadly as possible for course assignments, which can result
in over-commitment the next semester, drastically reducing our availability for
instruction outside the classroom. The University provided no rebuttal to these
points while continuing to insist that they saw no need for longer appointments
because it works now---they see no problem with the current system.
It became clear to us at this meeting that the University is
refusing to negotiate anything other than superficialities over the issue of
semester-long appointments, and that they are uninterested in having a dialogue
about how to dovetail our interests. So far, we have tried to achieve a fair
contract by using the bargaining table alone, but it appears that we can no
longer rely solely on negotiations.
This is why we could use any help you might be able to offer. We
have already partnered with the Student-Worker Alliance on a series of direct
actions to promote the cause among the student body.
Here are some of the activities for which we are looking for
additional support:
1. Wear stickers on December 9th and 10th
supporting the Adjunct campaign
2. Attend a candlelight vigil
around 4:45pm on December 9th at the
Arch in Brookings/Quad
If you have any additional ideas about how we can raise
awareness among our tenure-track colleagues, we would greatly appreciate
hearing them. If you would be willing and able to discuss these issues with
more of your tenure-track co-workers, particularly members of any
faculty-governance organizations or faculty who also hold college or
university-level administrative positions, we feel this could be productive.
Once again, we very much appreciate the support you have offered
by signing the petition, and thank you for your help on this important issue
facing higher education.
Yours in solidarity,
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