The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on Today at 11:00:08 AMFor whatever it is worth, got this in my email this morning:

QuoteWe regularly address these issues in Academe, the AAUP's magazine. These are just some of the resources you get as an AAUP member—and now, thanks to our affiliation with the American Federation of Teachers, all AAUP members also have access to all of AFT's member benefits.

What's your role in all of this? Become a member to help support efforts to protect free inquiry in higher ed and ensure that higher ed can serve the common good. We'd love to have you as part of the one of the strongest organizations fighting for the future of higher ed.

In solidarity,
Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer

Sounds like more about marketing than discussing the issues involved.
"BUT WAIT; THERE'S MORE!"

If you're old enough to remember, picture it being read in the voice of a K-Tel commercial.

 For whatever it is worth, got this in my email this morning:

QuoteDear Wahoo,

"I've been teaching for 34 years and I've never seen anything remotely like this, the willingness to hurt people, the willingness to hurt me, the willingness to stick a police club in the ribs of an 82 year old, the willingness to beat students. I saw one student from UCLA, wiping the blood off his face in an interview. We are in scary times and I'm really grateful to be part of AAUP. I hope that we can as a national organization make a concerted effort to work on these issues and respond to them."

That's Annelise Orleck, whose arrest at a May 1 protest at Dartmouth College garnered significant press coverage. She's a professor of history and co-president of the Dartmouth AAUP chapter.

Annelise is just one of many AAUP members who've been fighting to ensure that academic freedom, free speech, and the right to protest are protected on campuses across the country, in the face of increasing crackdowns and violent repression.

Join the fight. Rejoin or join the AAUP today.

As we said in a recent statement,

The AAUP and its chapters defend the right to free speech and peaceful protest on university campuses, condemn the militarized response by institutional leaders to these activities, and vehemently oppose the politically motivated assault on higher education.
Our colleges and universities are places of free and open expression, inquiry, and debate. Even in sharp disagreement, our goal is communication in service of learning and understanding. The critical evaluation of different points of view and the questioning of even the most deeply held beliefs are essential to learning. So too is our students' right to protest and to express their political convictions.
It's not just words. You can find many resources on our website about campus speech rights. We've been talking to faculty about their experiences in the protests on our podcast AAUP Presents, as well as examining the history and people behind the current wave of political interference and crackdowns. We regularly address these issues in Academe, the AAUP's magazine. These are just some of the resources you get as an AAUP member—and now, thanks to our affiliation with the American Federation of Teachers, all AAUP members also have access to all of AFT's member benefits.

What's your role in all of this? Become a member to help support efforts to protect free inquiry in higher ed and ensure that higher ed can serve the common good. We'd love to have you as part of the one of the strongest organizations fighting for the future of higher ed.

In solidarity,
Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer

My response:

QuoteI don't think these protests are doing Palestine, our colleges, our students, or our police any favors.  We should not demonize the police for enforcing the law.  We need to be more mature than this and to move past the protest milieu of the '70s, which is what this is. 

Thank you, Wahoo Redux

I think I posted this somewhere else, but the buyout at my wife's uni was targeted at specific departments in two successive waves.  First year 100% of 1 year's salary.  Second year, when everyone was good and scared, was 80%. I think almost everyone took the buyout because the threat, never put in writing, was that it was buyouts or retrenchment because of enrollment declines.

Spork speaks wisdom!

Our phased retirement plan is basically just a delayed buyout at 1 yrs. salary. Honestly, if I am ready to teach for 10 years, I'd start by asking for 10 years salary. I'd be laughed out of the office for that, but that's my initial bargaining position.

Quote from: Langue_doc on Today at 06:47:10 AM[. . .]

These protests have had no impact

[. . . ]

They have succeeded in doing what Americans do best -- putting all the attention on themselves, rather than whatever cause du jour they espouse.

One of the most informative videos on the subject that I've seen.

Good morning!

Past genius with all the pangrams, but still a ways to go.  Yesterday we almost had team QB but needed bee buddy for pfft again.

Totally agree on LB! I would never have thought they'd accept omigosh (even if it had occurred to me).  I did get a quick 2fer today.

Happy solving!

Quote from: AmLitHist on Today at 06:10:31 AM[. . .]

The running joke among long-time faculty here is to reminisce about the truly wonderful food we used to get at every event--even things like academic council meetings:  in-house gourmet cookies, taco bars and salad bars, gourmet sandwiches etc.  Nowadays we're lucky if we get warm tap water and a package of stale saltines. (We usually don't get anything.)

Spork Snack Index: University quality is indicated by its snacks.

I knew my employer was headed for eventual extinction when post-event snacks consisted of some store-bought cookies set on a table at the end of a hallway -- which had been designated the reception venue on very short notice.

cathwen, I remembered pfft and a couple of other words from previous puzzles.

Most of the students in the city, unlike their rich counterparts in institutions such as Columbia or NYU do not have the luxury of protesting or setting up tent encampments on campus as they are juggling jobs and their course work. Protests are seen as disruptive to their education as they interfere with the students' access to classrooms, libraries, and also dorms and dining rooms in some instances, but also prevent them from benefiting from the expensive tuition that they or their parents have paid the school. Many of the students I know don't have the income or the time to buy tents, get their food delivered, or spend days and nights living in tents or buildings on campus. Most of the protesters arrested at City College were outsiders.

QuoteNew York Police Department leaders and Mayor Eric Adams have blamed much of the disturbance at protests on "outside agitators," people with no connection to the colleges at which they are held. Mr. Boudreau also agreed with this sentiment. Protesters countered that many are students, alumni and members of the staff or the faculty of the City University of New York system, where City College is the flagship institution.

Among those taken to jail was Achmat Akkad, who lives in Harlem and is a graduate student at John Jay College, another CUNY institution. He learned about the demonstrations at City College from a post on the social media app X at 9:46 p.m. by the activist group Within Our Lifetime, which read in part: "Brave protesters are digging in and surrounded by NYPD. WE NEED BODIES AND NUMBERS AT CCNY RIGHT NOW."

"I literally just finished dinner and walked across the street," Mr. Akkad said. "Calling people 'outside agitators' makes it sound like Palestinians from Gaza came here to start an uprising." Mr. Akkad said he had been standing outside the campus when he was tackled and handcuffed. He was given a summons for disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.

Most of the campus is open to the surrounding neighborhood, and demonstrators were free to wander among its buildings for days. But by Tuesday afternoon, with most student protesters camped in the heart of campus, City College security officers had erected barriers at nearby intersections and sidewalks, Mr. Boudreau said, sealing off the quad. Anyone who wished to leave was escorted out, he added.
The encampment was mostly quiet until Tuesday evening, when about 300 other pro-Palestinian demonstrators arrived from outside the campus, followed by dozens of police officers. The two groups of protesters, separated by temporary barriers with a line of police officers between them, fed off each other. At one point in the evening, some protesters lit road flares, their red sparks and flames licking the underside of a City College archway.

"If these were our students, they never would have done that," Mr. Boudreau said of the flares. "We have a tradition of managing protests in a way that allows protesters to have full freedom to express themselves and exert pressure on us, the administration."

Also on Tuesday evening, protesters inside the campus sprinted away from the barricades and broke into an administration building, where they smashed computers in the student financial aid office, Mr. Boudreau said. The protesters tried to barricade themselves inside the building but were removed by campus security officers after about 10 minutes.

Of the 31 people arrested inside the administration building, one was a faculty member at the college, and another was a student, Mr. Boudreau said. The rest had no known connection to the college. (Prosecutors charged only 22 people in connection with the break-in, but it was not clear from court records how many were affiliated with the college; the reason for the discrepancy was not clear.)

"I'm very glad that they were not students at City, because that means they won't be suspended, thrown out or put in jail," said Ms. Wallace, the emeritus English professor. "That's the best news I've heard all day."

The protestors appear to be a small fraction of the enrolled students. During the graduation ceremonies at NYU, only a dozen or so were disruptive as opposed to the majority who just wanted to be a part of the commencement.

These protests have had no impact on the situation in Gaza. Protesting in front of the offices of the governor, who rushed to Israel to show her support, or the senator, also a staunch supporter of Israel would have been much more effective.