Yes, I’ve been a very bad blogger. But I so want to be good. Just not quite yet. Ya know what I mean?
We got a slow (and then hectic) start to the semester when our union decided to str…errr…have a “job action.” The kind of “job action” we had was not going to classes & spending hours and hours on the picket lines & in rallies. The majority of our students stood with us on the lines. This is Michigan, after all. And these are the children of auto workers we’re teaching, so…they get unions.
Wasn’t about raises, of course. You’d have to be a moron to str…err…”job action” in Michigan for more money right now. It was about intellectual property rights for faculty, faculty governance, future tenure-line hires, and preventing punitive cuts to our health care…not improvements in any of these areas, just keeping what we had in the last contract. With the exception of healthcare (which we compromised on &, I think, lost ground on), all this is stuff that would’ve seriously affected the quality of education at my university…which is probably why our students stood with us on this one.
Now it’s over (only lasted a week, but it felt like years) & I’m playing catch up and looking at a busy couple of months teaching, traveling to conferences, traveling for research, and writing. I NEED to see my way toward exercise and clean living in those months. Okay, that’s a goal. That & getting back to blogging as soon as I get back from this insane mid-week research trip to Illinois I have planned.
Hope your summer is winding down well (northern hemisphere chicks). Back in a bit…