please sign Open Letter to NC Supreme Court re: Ginsberg vs. NCSU

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

At North Carolina State University (NCSU), shortly after Dr. Terri Ginsberg made supportive political comments at a screening of a Palestinian film in 2007, she went from being the favored candidate for a tenure-track position to being denied even an interview. Her efforts at redress were summarily rejected by NCSU and two courts. A jury should be permitted to decide whether NCSU's real reason for firing Dr. Ginsberg was its hostility to her political views, but this legal right has been denied. We urge the Supreme Court of North Carolina to review Dr. Ginsberg's case and to reverse the lower courts' decisions to dismiss it. On this basis, faculty at NCSU and elsewhere may finally exercise their legal right to academic speech on the topic of Palestine/Israel and, as such, to their full human rights as scholars, teachers, and intellectuals in the academic community.

To support this request to the NC Supreme Court, we invite academic faculty and students worldwide to sign our Open Letter as an e-petition at this URL:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/open-letter-to-nc-supreme-court-ginsberg-vs-ncsu.html

We expect to submit the Open Letter with all signatures received by February 7, though signatures received later would still be helpful.

You are also encouraged to send your own letter to:

Supreme Court of North Carolina
Clerk's Office
P.O. Box 2170
Raleigh, NC 27602-2170 USA

Thank you for your support,

British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) http://www.bricup.org.uk/
U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) http://www.usacbi.org
Center for Constitutional Rights http://ccrjustice.org
Jewish Voice for Peace-Westchester http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jewish-Voice-for-Peace-Westchester-Chapter/201574026528540?v=info
WESPAC Foundation http://wespac.org/
Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism (CODZ) http://www.codz.org

Science-Policy conference

Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology conference on

Science-Policy Interactions and Social Values

at the University of Texas at Dallas

April 13-14th, 2012

Keynote Speaker: Kevin Elliott, University of South Carolina

The Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology seeks proposals for papers and symposia for a conference to wrap up our 2011-2012 public lecture series on "Funded and Forbidden Knowledge: Science, Politics, and Cultural Values." The conference will be interdisciplinary, engaging the areas of science and technology studies, history and philosophy of science, science and technology policy studies, ethics and political philosophy, and science policy in exploring the interactions between science and policy-making, with special attention to the role of values in those interactions.

In these areas of scholarship, several categories of discussion concerning science and policy have emerged. Some focus on the role of science in the policy process, while others look at the inverse relationship of how politics influence scientific research. Some approach the topic in a very empirically grounded and particularistic fashion, while others take a normative approach and aim for general accounts. While there have been important interdisciplinary conferences in this area, the scholarship remains somewhat disjointed and piecemeal, whereas tackling the major issues in this area requires thinking across such boundaries. This conference will emphasize that the relationship between science and politics is mutually influential rather than unidirectional; it will emphasize the importance of normative or critical approaches that are also empirically grounded in the practice of science and realities of political institutions. We seek submissions that bring to the forefront issues of values in science-policy interactions.

Suggested topics (not an exhaustive list):

* Democratization of science
* Evidence-based policy
* Policy and the value-free ideal of science
* Forms of scientific and political representation
* Theories of scientific expertise
* Models of science advising
* History of science policy
* Lessons from environmental policy-making
* Scientific expertise and political advocacy
* Commercialization of science and the public good
* The aims of science and choice of research priorities
* Science and justice in political institutions
* Science, non-scientific views, and public reason
* Expertise and elitism in democratic deliberation
* Science and democracy in comparative and international contexts
* The influence of science on ethical values, and political ideals
* Obstacles to socially or politically responsible science

We're especially interested in proposals that cross the boundaries between already-established research programs.

Submissions
You should submit your proposal to http://tinyurl.com/ScienceValues2012

We welcome submissions of both individual paper proposals and proposals for symposia and other multi-participant panel formats. For contributed papers, please submit a 250-500 word abstract. For symposia and other multi-participant panels, submit an abstract up to 250 words describing the panel and descriptions of up to 100 words describing each participant's contribution.
Submissions are due January 5, and decisions will be announced by early February.
Send any questions to centerforvaluesutdallas [at] gmail.com

Organizing Committee
Matthew J. Brown, UT Dallas - Philosophy of Science
Richard Scotch, UT Dallas - Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences
Magdalena Grohman, UT-Dallas - Psychology
Sabrina Starnaman, UT-Dallas - Literary Studies

Program Committee
Heather Douglas, University of Waterloo - Philosophy of Science, Science Policy
Kevin Elliott, University of South Carolina - Philosophy of Science, Applied Ethics
Mark B. Brown, CSU Sacremento - Political Science
Jeremy Farris, Harvard Law School - Political Philosophy

To Know is Not Enough: Activist Scholarship, Social Change & The Corporate University

The Rouge Forum @ AERA 2012
To Know is Not Enough: Activist Scholarship, Social Change & The Corporate University

www.RougeForumConference.org

Free Interactive Conference Open to All

Friday April 13, 2012
University of British Columbia,
Robson Square Campus
HSBC Hall
Vancouver, BC, Canada

The theme for the 2012 annual meeting of the American Education Research Association is “Non Satis Scire: To Know Is Not Enough.” It is laudable that AERA is promoting “the use of research to improve education and serve the public good” rather than the mere accumulation of research knowledge, but The Rouge Forum is interested in exploring what it means for scholars, and educators in general, to move beyond “knowing” to the pursuit of activist agendas for social change.

• What happens when teachers and other academics connect reason to power and power to resistance?
• How can academic work (in universities and other learning environments) support local and global resistance to global neoliberal capitalism?
• How do we respond to the obstacles and threats faced as activist scholars?

The Rouge Forum @ AERA will bring together world-renowned scholars, teachers, community organizers, and other activists to discuss these questions and others related to activist scholarship, social change, academic freedom, and work in the corporate university as part of a one-day interactive conference at the Robson Square Campus of University of British Columbia in downtown Vancouver.

What is the Rouge Forum?

The Rouge Forum is a group of educators, students, and parents seeking a democratic society. We are both research and action oriented. We want to learn about equality, democracy and social justice as we simultaneously struggle to bring into practice our present understanding of what that is. We seek to build a caring inclusive community that understands that an injury to one is an injury to all. At the same time, our caring community is going to need to deal decisively with an opposition that is sometimes ruthless. RougeForum.com

Gigi Roggero on university factories and academia

New book shows how universities in Europe and North American are run like factories and how this affects academic workers

New from Temple University Press:

The Production of Living Knowledge

The Crisis of the University and the Transformation of Labor in Europe and North America

Gigi Roggero

Translated and with a Foreword by Enda Brophy

Publication Date: September 20, 2011

214 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 "

Cloth 978-1-4399-0573-9 $69.50

How universities in Europe and North American are run like factories and how this affects academic workers

Evaluating higher education institutions—particularly the rise of the "global university"—and their rapidly changing role in the global era, Gigi Roggero finds the system in crisis. In his groundbreaking book, The Production of Living Knowledge: The Crisis of the University and the Transformation of Labor in Europe and North America (Publication Date: September 20, 2011), Roggero examines the university system as a key site of conflict and transformation within "cognitive capitalism"—a regime in which knowledge has become increasingly central to the production process at large. Based on extensive fieldwork carried out through the activist method of conricerca, or "co-research," wherein researchers are also subjects, Roggero's book situates the crisis of the university and the changing composition of its labor force against the backdrop of the global economic crisis.

Combining a discussion of radical experiments in education, new student movements, and autonomist Marxian (or post-operaista) social theory, Roggero produces a distinctly transnational and methodologically innovative critique of the global university from the perspective of what he calls "living knowledge."

In light of new student struggles in the United States and across the world, this first English-language edition is particularly timely.

Gigi Roggero is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Politics, Institutions, and History at the University of Bologna. He is a member of the editorial board of WorkingUSA, and the collectives Edu-factory and Uninomade and a regular contributor to Il Manifesto. He is the author of Intelligenze fuggitive: Movimenti contro l'università-azienda, and co-author (with Guido Borio and Francesca Pozzi) of Futuro anteriore: Dai "Quaderni Rossi" ai movimenti globali: Ricchezze e limiti dell'operaismo italiano.

For a Review Copy, please contact:

Temple University Press

Phone: 215-926-2154

Fax: 215-926-2141

Email: Gary Kramer

www.temple.edu/tempress

GREEK PUBLIC UNIVERSITY IS IN DANGER! PLEASE SIGN AND FORWARD PETITION

[forwarded]:

Dear Colleagues,

As detailed below, Greek public universities are in danger of being demolished by the new higher education bill the government will propose to Parliament for voting within the next couple of weeks. Please help us stop the voting of the bill by signing the petition.

If you agree with the call that follows, please sign the petition and forward it to as many colleages as possible.

Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek and Noam Chomsky have signed it, among others.

with many thanks and best wishes

[...]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To the international academic community

PUBLIC Greek Universities in Danger

In the last few years, a wave of ‘reforms’ within the European Union and throughout the world has subjected Higher Education to the logic of the market. Higher Education has increasingly been transformed from a public good and a civil right to a commodity for the wealthy. The self-government of Universities and the autonomy of academic processes are also being eroded. The processes of knowledge production and acquisition, as well as the working conditions of the academic community, are now governed by the principles of the private sector, from which Universities are obliged to seek funds.
Greece is possibly the only European Union country where attempts to implement these ‘reforms’ have so far failed. Important factors in this failure are the intense opposition of Greek society as well as the Greek Constitution, according to which Higher Education is provided exclusively by public, fully self-governed and state-funded institutions.
According to the existing institutional framework for the functioning of Universities, itself the result of academic and student struggles before and after the military dictatorship (1967-1974), universities govern themselves through bodies elected by the academic community. Although this institutional framework has contributed enormously to the development of Higher Education in Greece, insufficient funding and suffocating state control, as well as certain unlawful and unprofessional practices by the academic community, have rendered Higher Education reform necessary.
The current government has now hastily attempted a radical reform of Higher Education. On the pretext of the improvement of the ‘quality of education’ and its harmonization with ‘international academic standards’, the government is promoting the principles of ‘reciprocity’ in Higher Education. At the same time, it is drastically decreasing public funding for education (up to 50% decrease) which is already amongst the lowest in the European Union. New appointments of teaching staff will follow a ratio 1:10 to the retirement of existing staff members. This will have devastating results in the academic teaching process as well as in the progress of scientific knowledge.
The government proposals seek to bypass the constitutional obligations of the state towards public Universities and abolish their academic character.

• The self-government of Universities will be circumvented, with the current elected governing bodies replaced by appointed ‘Councils’ who will not be accountable to the academic community.
• The future of Universities located on the periphery, as well as of University departments dedicated to ‘non-commercial’ scientific fields, looks gloomy.
• Academic staff will no longer be regarded as public functionaries. The existing national payscale is to be abolished and replaced by individualized, ‘productivity’ related payscales, while insecure employment is to become the norm for lower rank employees.
• Higher Education will be transformed into ‘training’ and, along with research, gradually submitted to market forces.

The government proposals have been rejected by the Greek academic community. The Council of Vice-Chancellors and the Senates of almost all Universities have publicly called the government to withdraw the proposals and have suggested alternative proposals which can more effectively deal with the problems of Greek Universities. Despite this, the government proceeds with promoting its proposals, in confrontation with the entire academic community.
We appeal to our colleagues from the international academic community, who have experienced the consequences of similar reforms, to support us in our struggle to defend education as a public good. We fight, together with our British, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and other colleagues, for the respect of the academic tradition of the European universitas in current conditions.

We ask you to send electronically the appeal below, signed with your name and indicating your academic status and institutional affiliation, to the Initiative of Greek Academics (europeanuniversitas1@gmail.com) or sign online at http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?GRUNIV

The support of the international academic community will prove invaluable for the upcoming developments not only in Greek Universities but in respect to public European Higher Education as a whole.

Initiative of Greek academics

No confidence in the policies of the UK Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts

The following is from the ‘Campaign for the Public University’:

1) Both the Oxford and Cambridge campaigns for higher education have been in the news over the last week for their proposals for a vote of no confidence in the policies of the Minister for Higher Education, David Willetts. Oxford has also asked for national support for this campaign. You can join the campaign by following the link below and going to the 'Join Us' page. Their vote will take place on Tuesday 7th June and it would be helpful to get as many people signing up in support before then as possible.

http://www.noconfidence.org.uk/

2) Online petitions have also started at the Universities of Warwick and Goldsmiths. If there are any other petitions happening at other institutions, please get in touch with the Oxford campaign.

3) News emerged today of a new private institution established by the philosopher A. C. Grayling together with, what seem to be, a number of venture capitalists. This is the New College of the Humanities which will offer a predominantly humanities curriculum and will start admitting students in 2012-13. It is planning to charge £18,000 per year.

4) For a number of critical weblogs on this news, see the following articles:

http://publicuniversity.org.uk/2011/06/05/widening-access-for-the-rich-part-2-%e2%80%a6/

http://publicuniversity.org.uk/2011/06/05/the-new-school-for-privatised-inquiry/

http://infinitethought.cinestatic.com/

Ginsberg vs. NCSU. Support for Ginsberg sorely needed

We have mentioned this case before (here). This time, we decided to reproduce the full letter from Terri Ginsberg and her Legal Team, as they urgently need support.

UP webmaster.

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

As you know, I have been involved over the past three years in waging a lawsuit against North Carolina State University (NCSU). The lawsuit contests the University's decision to dismiss me from my teaching position after it suppressed my speech and retaliated against me for my teaching and scholarship critical of Zionism and Israeli policy and supportive of the Palestinian liberation struggle. Since my dismissal from NCSU, I have sought redress from the University, first by exhausting all on-campus and local remedies, then by filing a constitutional lawsuit against NCSU and the larger University of North Carolina system of which it is a part.

I am writing you today, with great appreciation for your prior support, to ask you once again to help me continue my struggle. My case has been long and arduous. As of this writing, its combined Record runs more than 500 pages. As outlined on my case blog (http://ginsbergvsncsu.wordpress.com), the lawsuit entered litigation in December 2009. In May 2010, the parties underwent a mediation hearing mandated by the State of North Carolina; the University offered me a ridiculously small sum and no reinstatement, whereupon no settlement was reached. A week of depositions followed. When the discovery period ended, the case underwent a Summary Judgment hearing on October 25, 2010, for which the case was dismissed summarily, perfunctorily, without reason; the judge, Shannon Joseph, simply issued a boilerplate "decision" that basically "just says no."

In fact, NCSU admitted during deposition hearings that it suppressed my speech critical of Zionism and supportive of the Palestinian liberation struggle while I was under its employ as a visiting professor, and that it chose not to interview or hire me for a tenure-track position because of my scholarship focusing on Palestine/Israel, the Middle East, and the „Jewish.‰ Amazingly, the University claims that it has the right to suppress, refuse and reject on the basis of these considerations! Notwithstanding this admission and the fact that my attorneys presented a mountain of circumstantial evidence and were able to rebut NCSU's stated reasons for its actions against me, the judge ignored it all without explanation. By thus dismissing the case, Judge Joseph essentially decided that academic speech critical of Zionism and supportive of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim perspectives is not protected by the free speech provision (Article I, section 14) of the North Carolina Constitution.

In a few short weeks, my legal team, headed by Rima Najjar Kapitan (http://www.kapitanlaw.net/), will file an Appellate Brief with the North Carolina Court of Appeals, and an Appeal Hearing will be held subsequently, most likely in late August or early September. This appeal process is extremely important, for here is our opportunity to expose and contest Judge Joseph's irrational refusal to allow my case to be properly heard by a jury of my peers. We aim to ensure that I be given the fair hearing I deserve and that is my rightful due.

However, I cannot move forward without your continued support. While my legal team has been more than generous with their time, and firm in their commitment, litigation fees are unfortunately non-negotiable. Furthermore, since leaving NCSU, I have been un(der)employed and continue to seek gainful employment in the field of higher education. Under the circumstances, and recognizing the many other pressing issues which face our communities and require urgent support at this time, I must now ask once again for your help as we approach this crucial moment of our struggle.

If you are able to give, please kindly make your check payable to Kapitan Law Office, with "Ginsberg vs. NCSU" written on the comment line. The funds will be held in a client trust account until they are needed for litigation costs. All unused funds will be donated to a worthy Palestinian organization. Checks should be mailed to:

Rima Najjar Kapitan, Esq.

Kapitan Law Office, Ltd.

300 South Wacker Drive

Suite 1700A

Chicago, IL 60606 USA

Thank you in advance for your efforts, generosity, and continued support.

In appreciation and solidarity,

Terri Ginsberg and her Legal Team

Necessity, Choice and the Future of Universities

by Tim May*

Conflicting strategies that internalise ambiguities are being perpetuated in universities. Academics receive communications from central management concerning the importance of engagement and knowledge transfer activities, whilst also being urged to target a narrow list of journals in ever more rapid timeframes in order to meet the next round of evaluation exercises.

Communications become disjointed. Tensions dominate in the translation of strategic direction through faculty and institutional structures to individual academics; all ably assisted by universities collecting enormous amounts of information that has no bearing upon the capacity for creating intelligence.

Wholehearted embrace of the current crisis as an opportunity is a familiar route. Along with a new modus operandi come disparaging backward glances at those who do not understand the apparent self-evidence of the new realities, as if history had no bearing upon the present. Within the context of the university as a whole, the effect is to further uncertainty concerning its social, economic and cultural purpose.

The potential to identify the distinctiveness of the university as an institution then diminishes and along with that goes its long-term viability. Paradoxically, in these seats of learning, there is little active engagement that challenges pre-conceptions and limited hierarchies of knowledge are perpetuated. Given the important role of universities in society as a challenge to short-termism, learning is the casualty.

The contemporary climate surrounding universities, defined by the idea of the free market and its penetration into knowledge-based institutions, has led to a significant shift in values. These have been exemplified in corporate re-branding, institutional restructuring and strategic orientation, as well as attribution of high value to particular forms of knowledge.

These shifts have re-cast what has been traditionally recognized as the university. However, just as there is no single history of the university, there is no single present. A variety of strategic responses exist that refract and mediate external values and lead to particular effects for the work that is performed within them.

University managers construct views of the position of their institutions and then mobilize differential resources to secure their reproduction. That, in turn, leads to an embrace of particular conceptions of what is required for ‘moving forward’. The apparent choice that comes with occupying such positions then evaporates in the face of necessity.

In wholesale translation of current conditions, we see higher education institutions subject to centralisation. The result is to sever, even more, the connection between purpose and process through a growing pre-occupation with organisational control for its own sake.

These external necessities are increasingly judged in terms of ‘business performance’ through extended regulatory systems, performance indicators and so forth, but not by reference to a public service ethic or set of well articulated and defensible professional values. Overall, institutions then move away from accountability based on common understandings of purpose, to narrow indicators of process-based performance.

The consequence is a separation between the production and dissemination of knowledge in its context through a whole series of attempts to determine the ‘how’ of practice through modes of surveillance that include workload balancing models. The overall result is that the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of knowledge is subsumed within the narrow confines of the measurability of ‘what’: external income generation, citation indexes, staff-student ratios; league tables and types of publication.

With full-scale translation we see universities increasingly modelling themselves in the images of businesses and operating as significant economic actors in their own right. Estates are then managed with profit and optimisation in mind, rather than the provision of places to furnish and support the institution’s cognitive requirements. New buildings are celebrated through allusion to ‘iconic’ status, but the reasons for their existence and the distinctive nature of the practices that will take place within them becomes of secondary consideration.

The external generation of finance is a tool to supplement reduction in the balance sheet, replacing any notion of civic responsibility, whilst economic output is translated into intellectual property and commodified through new organisational units that are designed to undertake activities called ‘knowledge transfer’ and ‘engagement’.

Practices are created which represent only highly selected facets of what an institution actually does on a daily basis. In terms of divisions of labour from the core functions of teaching, research and third mission activities, the efforts of making connections become an afterthought displaced within the organisation as a whole.

An analysis of different forms of values in these processes would require a degree of institutional reflexivity that is rare. Why? Because that would require a confidence among university managers in their capacity to engage in debate that is actually aimed at meaningful change based on recognition of constituent groups. Managerial prerogatives would then be open to contestation. Instead, we typically see ‘external’ individuals, usually consultants, brought in to advise on appropriate models for success, even though the knowledge they produce is actually based on learning from individuals within the organisation itself.

In the absence of a developed understanding - requiring recognition that the direct relation between position and control is a fantasy - the link between positioning and representation of the institution lies in a relationship between recognition, reward and promotion criteria as judged by those who do not have direct acquaintance with practice and its consequences.

Strategic managers – everyone is now ‘strategic’ - seek to represent universities in terms of economic relevance, but their internal dictates miss their mark without a clear understanding of occupational cultures, why they exists and how they operate. Yet to embark upon a sustained examination of this type means recognising that the object of control might just be the subject of institutional distinction.

Demands for flexibility then sit alongside those of standardization. Engagement between disciplines and between disciplines and institutions and the outside world is directly informed by structural and bureaucratic lines of accountability and management. Vertical (managerial control) and horizontal deadlock (professional cultures) emerge that limits the capacity for innovations to emerge out or across institutions, whilst preserving their sense of purpose and confidence in an otherwise fluid world.

Whilst there is no doubt that universities are facing profound changes, alternatives do exist to the narrowness of current thinking. The weight of effort is towards silencing these as if they were ‘idealistic’. The fear and anxiety that saturates these institutions is not well served by this myopia. An enlarged body of civic interests need to be involved in their futures and these are voices which have historically been excluded. Without this in place, we will return to a narrow elitism based on nothing more than a retreat to the past.

*) Tim May is Professor and Director at Centre for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures (SURF), University of Salford, Manchester.

Rouge Forum 2011 (Chicago): Call for Proposals

The Rouge Forum 2011: Call for Papers

Education and the State: A Critical Antidote to the Commercialized, Racist, and Militaristic Social Order

The Rouge Forum 2011 will be held at Lewis University. The University’s main campus is located in Romeoville, IL, which is 30 minutes southwest of Chicago, IL. The conference will be held May 19-22.

Proposals for papers, panels, performances, workshops, and other multimedia presentations should include title(s) and names and contact information for presenter(s). The deadline for sending proposals is March 22. The Steering Committee will email acceptance or rejection notices by April 1. The proposal formats available to the presenters are as follows:

Bringing together academic presentations and performances (from some of the most prominent voices for democratic, critical, and/or revolutionary pedagogy), panel discussions, community-building, and cultural events, this action-oriented conference will center on questions such as:

• Transforming the notion of “saving public education” to one of creating education in the public interest, what does teaching and learning for a democratic society look like?


• How do we educate the public and our youth to understand the implications of “saving public education” through corporate and militaristic practices, such as standardized examinations, zero-tolerance policies, charter schools, and corporate donations?


• How will educational initiatives supported by the Obama Administration and many other politicians impact teachers, students, and communities across the US?


• What does education for liberation look like compared to the more socially reproductive/dominating education we see in many of our nation’s schools?


• What debts will future generations, including the students we may teach, carry because our financial, governmental, and military endeavors have not been concerned with public goods?

SUBMISSIONS
Proposal Formats

Individual Proposal: (45 minutes)
The Rouge Forum welcomes individual paper proposals, with the understanding that those accepted will be grouped together around common or overlapping themes, Presenters will have approximately 45 minutes to present or summarize their individual papers. Individual paper submissions will be considered for panels with the same topic/theme. If you would prefer to present your paper/research individually you should consider the alternative format proposal. A 300-500 word abstract of the paper will be peer reviewed for acceptance to the conference.


Symposium Proposal: (90 minutes)
Presenters are also welcomed to submit proposals for a symposium. A symposium is typically composed of a chair and discussant and three to five participants who present or summarize their papers. Each symposium is organized around a common theme. Each participant will have between 15 and 45 minutes to present their papers, depending upon the number of participants involved in the symposium. A 300-500 word abstract of the symposium will be peer reviewed for acceptance to the conference.


Panel Proposal: (90 minutes)
A panel discussion is another venue available presenters. A panel discussion is typically composed of three to six participants who discuss their scholarly work within the context of a dialogue or conversation on a topic or theme related to the conference theme. Typically, each panelist is given 10-15 minutes to discuss the topic, present theoretical ideas, and/or point to relevant research. A chair should be identified who introduces the panel and frames the issues and questions being addressed. In addition to the chair, we encourage (but do not require) organizers of panels to include a discussant who responds to the comments of the panelists. Individual proposal submissions will be combined into panels with the same theme/topic. A 300-500 word abstract of the panel discussion will be peer reviewed for acceptance to the conference.


Alternative Format and Special Interest Groups (90 minutes)
Alternative proposals that do not fit into the above categories, such as workshops, performances, video and multimedia presentations, and round-table dialogues, are encouraged. We also welcome proposals for the organization of special interest groups. A 150-250 word abstract of the panel discussion will be peer reviewed for acceptance to the conference.

Email proposals to conference coordinator Brad Porfilio porfilio16@aol.com, by March 22, 2011.

Additional information on Rouge Forum 2011 is available at rougeforumconference.org

Ginsberg vs. NCSU on academic freedom

"Film studies professor Terri Ginsberg, similarly fired in 2008 by North Carolina State University (NCSU) in what she says was a punishment for her outspoken criticism of "Zionism, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and US Middle East policy," believes that institutionalized censorship on the Palestine-Israel issue in the academic realm is eerily reminiscent of the McCarthy era of the 1950s and '60s. "So many of the dynamics and methods of discrimination perpetrated against today's scholarly critics of Israel and US Middle East policy derive from and continue, in updated fashion, practices initiated and implemented during that shameful period," she says." (quote from this article: "Uphill battle for academic freedom in US universities", 11 January 2010])

See also "Terri Ginsberg, Former North Carolina State Adjunct Professor, Files Complaint" (Tuesday, October 20th, 2009), and for recent updates and more information about the ongoing legal case, Ginsberg vs. NCSU:

ginsbergvsncsu.wordpress.com

Workplace No 17 (2010): Working In, and Against, the Neo-Liberal State: Global Perspectives on K-12 Teacher Unions

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor No 17 (2010):
Working In, and Against, the Neo-Liberal State: Global Perspectives on K-12 Teacher Unions

Table of Contents
http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/workplace/issue/view/8

Articles
--------
Working In, and Against, the Neo-Liberal State: Global Perspectives on K-12 Teacher Unions: Special Issue Introduction
Howard Stevenson

Terminating the Teaching Profession: Neoliberal Reform, Resistance and the Assault on Teachers in Chile
Jill Pinkney Pastrana

Social Justice Teacher Unionism in a Canadian Context: Linking Local and Global efforts
Cindy Rottmann

Australian Education Unionism in the Age of Neoliberalism: Education as a Public Good, Not a Private Benefit
Jeff Garsed, John Williamson

“What’s Best for Kids” vs. Teacher Unions: How Teach For America Blames Teacher Unions for the Problems of Urban Schools
Heidi Katherine Pitzer

Gramsci, Embryonic Organic Intellectuals, and Scottish Teacher Learning Representatives: Alternatives to Neoliberal Approaches to Professional Development in the K-12 Sector
Alex Alexandrou

Pedagogy of Liminality? The Case of Turkish Teachers’ Union Egitim-Sen
Duygun Gokturk


Book Reviews
--------
Review of Industrial Relations in Education: Transforming the School Workforce
Merryn Hutchings

A Portrait of Authenticity: A Review of Carl Mirra’s (2010) The AdmirableRadical: Staughton Lynd and Cold War Dissent, 1945-1970. Kent, OH: Kent University Press
Adam Renner

Review of Union Learning Representatives: Challenges and Opportunities
Becky Wright

Review of How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation
Marisa Huerta

Review of Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic-Industrial Complex
Leah Schweitzer

The Sociopathology of Everyday Business: A Review of The University Against Itself: The NYU Strike and the Future of the Academic Workplace
Jim Rovira

Review of The Rich World and the Impoverishment of Education: Diminishing Democracy, Equity and Workers’ Rights
Paul Orlowski

Technology and (Human) Rights: A Review of Human Rights in the Global Information Society
Stephen Petrina

Review of The Developing World and State Education: Neoliberal Depredation and Egalitarian Alternatives
Steven L. Strauss


Miscellany
--------
Connecting Teacher Unions and Teacher Union Research
AERA Teachers' Work/Teacher Unions SIG

Critical Education launches new series: A Return to Educational Apartheid? Critical Examinations of Race, Schools, and Segregation

Critical Education has just published its latest issue at http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/criticaled. We invite you to review the Table of Contents here and then visit our web site to review articles and items of interest.

This issue launches the Critical Education article series "A Return to Educational Apartheid? Critical Examinations of Race, Schools, and Segregation", edited by Adam Renner and Doug Selwyn.

Thanks for the continuing interest in our work,

Sandra Mathison, Co-Editor
E. Wayne Ross, Co-Editor
Critical Education

Critical Education
Vol 1, No 7 (2010)
Table of Contents
http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/18

Articles
--------
A Return to Educational Apartheid?
Adam Renner, Doug Selwyn

Abstract: Series co-editors Renner and Selwyn introduce a special series of articles focusing on the articulation of race, schools, and segregation. Each of the articles in this series will analyze the extent to which schooling may or may not be returning to a state of educational apartheid.

A Separate Education: The Segregation of American Students and Teachers
Erica Frankenberg, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley

Abstract: Despite the obvious connection between the two, student and teacher segregation are rarely examined together. To help fill that gap, this essay explores what is known about the extent of interracial exposure for students and teachers in U.S. public schools. This article reviews evidence underscoring the paramount importance of school integration. A description of the legal landscape governing desegregation follows, as well as a discussion of why current patterns of racial isolation persist. The essay next describes the demographics and segregation of today's students and teachers. In particular, the essay focuses on the growing segregation of students of color, the lingering isolation of white students, and the ways in which the overwhelmingly white teaching force reinforces patterns of student segregation. We close with a discussion of the implications of these trends.

A video about the University Reform in Finland (and elsewhere)

hello everybody! Here's a message from the edu factory list - it's at once sad and yet encouraging to see the determination to continue the struggle for universities for the common good. A story from Finland. Best wishes, Claus
- - -

Greetings all,

A little late to the party, but wish to acknowledge all about a video we made to a good, ambitious seminar held in United States in April, "Beneath the University". The video, and a presentation given by Juuso Tervo, describe the finnish university reform process, what we can learn from it and possible paths forward. E-mail me ( antti . jauhiainen AT gmail . com ) with any comments or ideas for co-operation and follow-up, would be glad to hear comments and ideas for the future.

The video is available here: http://vimeo.com/10778562

**
Speech for the Beneath the University -seminar in Minneapolis, April 9th 2010.

University reform in Finland, it's background, progress and current situation. We discuss what can be collectively done to overturn the disastrous effects that market driven, managerial reforms continuously impose on us and our communities. We end by collecting the themes we've discussed, and summarize some central issues we've learned through our struggle in Finland.

Full text available here: bit.ly/university_reform_in_finland

Our presentation was done to compliment a talk given by Juuso Tervo from Aalto University (former University of Art and Design).

Text from his talk available here: bit.ly/tervo_presentation_text

And his presentation slides: bit.ly/tervo_presentation_slides
**

In solidarity,
Antti Jauhiainen
Finland

Academic freedom lost - and found?

There was a short article on academic freedom in the Times Higher Education on Thursday the 6th of May 2010. The article would have perpetuated some misconceptions on academic freedom (e.g., that it cannot be defined, or that it should not "give scholars the right to criticise the running of their own institutions"), had it not been for the detailed intervention of Terence Karran who made an extensive commentary just below the article, a comment I think is a must reading. Karran states that

"There are international differences in the interpretation of the concept, but most scholars of academic freedom agree it has four elements: two are substantive, and two are supportive. The first substantive element is research freedom (the right to choose the subject for research and the methodology used, and to publish and disseminate research findings). The second substantive element is the teaching freedom (including the right to determine the curriculum, the mode of teaching, the method of assessment, etc). The supportive elements are academic tenure and the right to participate in academic governance."

See Karran's commentary on the Times Higher Education site here (or a pdf copy here). In many countries, such as Denmark, there is an urgent need to promote a higher awareness of all the dimensions of academic freedom.

The other really useful knowledge: revalorising critique in the university

The other really useful knowledge: revalorising critique in the university
by Sarah Amsler

After UK universities were subsumed into the newly formed Department of Business, Industry and Skills in June of last year, it seemed that few changes in academic life could be any further surprising. Until the Times Higher Education featured a hot-pink guide on ‘20 steps to increase your ranking – ways to rise in the league tables without breaking the bank’. Neither the wisdom of the rankings nor the belt-tightening rhetoric was out of the ordinary: performance indicators, league tables and the spectre of radical budget cuts have become the grit of academic life. The banks, of course, have already been broken. But the framing of this consequential and contested political agenda as a playful popularity contest again pushed the boundaries of belief.

The guidance seemed simple, almost commonsense: hire good researchers, give them autonomy and power, and keep them happy. They bring prestige, money and networks. And if they can be transformed into managers, they can shape institutional culture and extract high levels of productivity from others.

But there was a more troubling message is in this guidance, in Tip No. 6: ‘no pain, no gain’. You must cut losses and losers to win. While elite researchers, institutional managers and ambitious young scholars are poised to accept this agenda as common sense, it is argued, ‘it is unlikely that everyone else will’. The reason? ‘We all tend to prefer the status quo.’ Within this logic, alternative positions are impossible. You can play hard and win or lose fairly, or you can win at all costs and take out whoever is standing in the way. But you cannot stop to question the rules of the game and still be included, or seriously suggest that we might all play another.

The problem is that this is not an idiosyncratic narrative. It is part of the wider and increasingly hegemonic discourse that diminishes democratic processes, marginalises opposition to the transformation of universities into fully integrated economic and political enterprises, and legitimises the withdrawal of public funds from higher education. It goes to the top. After releasing a controversial blueprint for education reforms in late 2009 and threatening what now appear confirmed as radical incisions into many university budgets, Peter Mandelson has caricatured critics as ‘people who don’t like change’, who ‘don’t want reform’ and who embody a ‘desire to maintain the status quo’.

You can be either in or out now; either for a prefigured, market-oriented vision of ‘progress’, or charged with advocating anti-values of stagnation and mediocrity. To criticise present trends in higher education policy – the institutionalisation of political-economic ‘impact agendas’ for research, the rapprochement of industry and academe, the hypocrisy of ‘raising student expectations’ while simultaneous slashing their financial support, not to mention other problems of campus surveillance and academic freedom – means to take up a position of either mediocrity or ridicule that exists beyond legitimate recognition.

Speaking when you anticipate criticism is possible, if hard. But speaking into a conversation where your positions are already discredited is absurd. This is why the pre-empting of critique and diminishing of public debate are such effective forms of disciplinary power within UK universities today. Here, academics are increasingly beholden to external validation, as skills of self-valorization give way to endless rankings by public opinion surveys and performance indicators. The prohibitions on critique are also strategically disorienting, for many academics have been tooled to expect – however so naively – that it can be recognised as a value within the university itself.

But this power throws sticks and stones as well as names. It is political; anchored outside the discursive realm in the new performative regimes of legitimacy and economic regimes of value now being embedded across the sector. Fixed prerequisites of professional participation are being defined, imposed and monitored for compliance (or in the softer language of power, for performances of ‘cooperation’ and ‘commitment’). But the particular politics of these terms remain unsaid, and can thus be performed as democratic and in the interests of the imagined common good. For what self-respecting scholar could possibly oppose change, progress, flexibility or public and social engagement? The problem is framed as the solution to the ‘other’ problems created by an (imagined) autonomous and democratic educational system. It might be called Orwellian, if the concept was much less oldthink.

From any alternatively reasonable perspective, the question is not about whether one supports a generic process of social ‘change’, but rather how the articulation of alternatives becomes framed as a generalised objection to progress itself, and as a danger to the general will. The problem is the suppression of political spaces in which this framing might itself be contested. Despite the proliferation of localised conversations and committees, genuinely public spaces for dialogue, critique and opposition are negated by pre-emptive threats of misrecognition and marginalisation. And on a more material level, critique is quietened by internalised fears that in the competitive ‘race’ for rankings and institutional survival, with jobs and reputations on the line, now is ‘not the time’ for asking such questions.

Fortunately, this logic exposes its own ironic contradictions. By legitimising technologies of control that foreclose debate, plurality and democratic process from the bottom up, the fear of the alternatives is revealed, and the stakes of the game made clear. By working so visibly to justify the restoration of elite education and research, to integrate these fully into business and industrial productivity, and to minimise or eliminate opposition to the agenda, the programme is exposed as the political struggle it is rather than the meritocratic movement it claims to be. It is known that the ‘reforms’ now being imposed on universities are divisive, disreputable and unjust. For if the proposals are so obviously progressive, why would they be impeded by public debate? And if this re-visioning of the university is so widely compelling, why is there so urgent a need to reshape academics’ perceptions and behaviour? What and whose is this pain that must be suffered in order for whom to gain what? And although it is assumed to be self-evident, it must be asked – why?

This is a time for questioning and for critique. However, provided that people can muster the will to speak into the absurdity of a discourse of foreclosure, concern and resistance must develop into acts of reclamation. We need to reclaim the commons within the university, to establish it where it has never been, to clarify in which intellectual and professional values we should defend and which should be transformed, to articulate and build alternative relationships between universities and other social institutions, and subject all of this to ongoing public and professional scrutiny. These things must be asserted collectively, despite whatever sort of name-calling and marginalisation might ensue. It is probably not a task well-suited to anyone whose self-respect, professional identity or intellectual relevance imbricate with the ratings game, and it is not the sort of programme that can be summarised, as recommended in ‘Raise your game’, in a ‘simple list of key priorities’. But that’s okay. It could be really useful knowledge.

Links

BIS (2009) ‘New Department for Business, Innovation & Skills to lead fight against recession and build now for future prosperity’, online at: http://www.bis.gov.uk/bis-announcement. The department was created by combining the departments of Universities, Innovation and Skills, and Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

Goodall, A. (2009) ‘Raise your game’, Times Higher Education, 18-24 February, pp. 32-37 and online at: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=410392.

Thirft, N. (2010) ‘It’s now or never’, Times Higher Education, 4 March, p. 41.

BIS, Higher Ambitions: The Future of Universities in a Knowledge Economy, online at: http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/higher-ambitions.

Morgan, J. (2009) ‘Defenders of the academy? More like the status quo, says Lord Mandelson’, Times Higher Education, 18-24 February, p. 8 and online at: http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/higher-ambitions.


Dr Sarah Amsler
Lecturer in Sociology
Aston University
s . s . amsler [at] aston . ac . uk

Sign the petition Trust Researchers

Dear friends and colleagues,
many of us feel that we spend too much time on proposal writing, project management, evaluation, and reporting.
As we have more important things to do, I have decided to sign the following declaration, which made a serious impression on me.

"The funding of European research should be based on trust and responsible partnering. Today researchers in Europe face a lot of red tape and cumbersome financial regulations. We are not against rules.
But we need to simplify.
Those who have signed this declaration ask the European Council of Ministers and the Parliament to simplify the administrative procedures and the financial provisions of European research funding."

If you would like to support this declaration as well, you can sign it at
http://www.trust-researchers.eu/ , which just takes 2 minutes of your valuable time. I hope this can move things ahead towards a science funding system that supports more science and less administration.

Thank you for considering this and best wishes,
...

Network of Struggles and Resistance

from the edu-factory list:
To Build Up a Transnational edu-factory Network of Struggles and Resistance
Since its beginning, edu-factory has tried to be a place of political discussion and communication, a site of the free circulation of knowledge and networking at the global level. In the “double crisis” (i.e., the global economic crisis and the crisis of the university in ruins), the edu-factory list and web site have been enriched by communiqués from different collectives, news of university occupations and demonstrations, as well as proposals for political organization. In fact, on March 4th there will be a day of mobilization in universities across the United States (www.defendeducation.org); on the 11th and 12th of March there will be a European mobilization against the Bologna Process (bolognaburns.org) in Vienna; and, in general, many struggles are challenging the corporatization of the university all over the world.

Please find attached a flyer to read, improve, share, print, and diffuse. It is a text that is an open proposal: the construction of a transnational network of struggles. Please comment and add, in order to build up a common process of transnational discussion and organization. And please use and distribute the flyer, the 4th of March in US, the week after in Vienna, and everywhere there are struggles and conflicts.
edu-factory is not a logo: edu-factory is a common name for the resistance within and against the corporate global university.
_______________________________________________
edufactory mailing list
edufactory@listcultures.org
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/edufactory_listcultures.org

Elements of British Press cause pressure upon academic freedom

A strange story indeed. At 31 December 2009 you could read this in a Times Higher Education report by Professor Malcolm Grant:
"Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was arrested on Christmas Day for the attempted bombing of an aircraft on a flight to Detroit from Amsterdam. Had he succeeded in his mission, it would have been an act of terrorism causing mass murder on an appalling scale."
"What induced this behaviour remains a mystery. He has not emerged from a background of deprivation and poverty. He came from one of Nigeria’s wealthiest families. He was privately educated, and to a high level. He gained admission to University College London, where he studied mechanical engineering with business finance between 2005 and 2008, and was president of the UCL student Islamic Society in 2006-07."
"Elements of the British press have taken a different line. Mr Abdulmutallab studied at UCL, therefore he must have been “radicalised” at UCL; after all, according to The Daily Telegraph, “[e]ven though Abdulmutallab is not even a British citizen, he was still allowed to be elected president of the Islamic Society at [UCL]”. And more: “It is easy to imagine that the authorities at UCL took quiet pride in the fact that they had a radical Nigerian Muslim running their Islamic Society. You can’t get more politically correct than that. They would therefore have had little interest in monitoring whether he was using a British university campus as a recruiting ground for al-Qaida terrorists such as himself.”"
"This is quite spectacular insinuation. And without so much as a shred of evidence in substantiation. The Telegraph blog that follows the publication of this piece displays quite disturbing Islamophobia, anti-immigration rants and even postings calling for the bombing of UCL itself." (Link to Grant's whole article).

See the media release "UUK to establish working group following arrest of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab" of 06/01/2010 here.
And see the "Update on Universities UK academic freedom working group" of 26/02/2010 here.

Establishing academic standards

A report from University World News by Gavin Moodie:
The privatisation of higher education in many countries has increased the financial incentive for institutions to compromise standards to maintain their viability. It has also led to the increased influence of institutions and their managers over lecturers and their academic decisions which were previously more strongly influenced by disciplinary norms and the expectations of the ‘invisible college’.
Full report on the University World News site

The erosion of academic freedom

Have you seen this cover feature about academic freedom from Times Higher Education:

Leader: Rise up, freedom fighters
11 February 2010
By Ann Mroz
The cornerstone of the academy is the liberty to pursue ideas and knowledge without constraint. It needs vigilant defending (Read the story here)

"It's a rocky road ahead, and many predict that 2010 will be a "crunch year" for academic freedom. Lose it, and you have not just lost a freedom, you have lost the university."

A clear and present danger
11 February 2010
Many scholars feel that their freedom to question is in danger of being eroded or even lost. Zoe Corbyn examines the threat in the UK, while Christoph Bode and David Gunkel consider the state of affairs in Europe and America. (Read more here)

"Karran ... makes the point that two bulwarks of academic freedom are largely absent from the UK. Tenure (which basically ensured that an academic could not be sacked) was abolished in 1988, and the right of academics to engage in the governance of their institutions is all but non-existent."