Discussions

I am a long-time member of H-Net and new H-Adjunct member. I am in the adjunct pool at a local private liberal arts college, a media teaching artist (as an independent contractor) in K-12 schools, and an independent scholar. I am also currently receiving medical disability, and I am looking for resources/community for contingent workers on disability.

In general, contingent work is not well understood or supported (as adjunct instructors already know), and I'm struggling to find information to navigate this confusing and doubly-precarious health and financial terrain. I'm actually grateful

From The Chronicle:

Last week, Paul Crenshaw got a phone call that faculty everywhere have nightmares about.

“‘Where were you?’” asked the voice on the other end. It was an official from a college in Kansas. Crenshaw never showed up to teach his first class of the term, and the college, not unreasonably, wanted to know why.

But Crenshaw had no idea he was supposed to be teaching a class. And apparently, it wasn’t the only one he was supposed to lead.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-college-gave-this-adjunct-3-classes-to-teach-then-it-forgot-to-tell-him?utm_source=Iterable&utm

“Critical Conversations: Teaching and Creating Community in Difficult Times” 

  H-Net’s theme for this year’s conference, “Critical Conversations: Teaching and Creating Community in Difficult Times,” will resonate with teachers at all levels of the educational system and especially those in the humanities and social sciences. In an era when educators are under assault for teaching Critical Race Theory, implementing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, and subjected to various external forces regarding curriculum development, book bans, and course redesigns, this conference will be a

2023 Call for Proposals

Annual Conference of the Peace and Justice Studies Association

The Art and Science of Peace: Building Positive Peace in the Twenty-first Century

[To view this CFP as a PDF for easy downloading]

September 15-17, 2023 | Iowa State University (Ames, IA)

Informed global citizens understand that we are in crisis. The interlocking challenges posed by environmental destruction, gaping social and economic inequalities, global mental health crises, rampant consumerism, and a politics of power which stymies meaningful debate have led humanity to the precipice. What we desperately need

from The Chronicle of Higher Education ... (Article is behind a paywall.)

They’ve Been Scheming to Cut Tenure for Years. It’s Happening. We’re in the execution phase of the profession’s demise.

Tenure-line, NTLFT, adjuncts: These are the three estates of modern academe. They have been skillfully positioned by their overlords to check, balance, and often immiserate one another. Though as we shall see, external pressures alone don’t explain why we are divided and conquered.

As we enter the Execution Phase (2020-50) of the American professoriate’s reconfiguration, I hazard a few predictions. First

Hi all,

I know a lot of folks are trying to figure out where AI generative tools (ChatGPT, MidJourney, Dall-E, etc) fit in their courses (or don't) and I know many schools haven't provided any guidance as we start another semester.

So I thought I'd start to collect syllabi policy/guidelines that folks are using this semester around AI-Generative tools.  If you have one that you've created for your courses, please feel free to submit it here.  I'll then add it to this document so we can all see the different policies and learn from one another or get ideas to build upon. 

Good tidings,
Lance

Lance

Make no mistake about this, Dr. Lopez Prater lost her position because she was an adjunct, without job protection. The administration claims she wasn't fired. She simply wasn't re-hired for the next semester. Does one need a better example of "the Precarity"? She wasn't afforded the luxury of the necessary and thorough-going discussion of academic freedom that the incident that led to her dismissal requires -- within the academic community. She was on the outside looking in.

"Erika López Prater, an adjunct professor at Hamline University, said she knew many Muslims have deeply held religious

Don't get mad; get creative. An AI can only produce content if it has information in its dataset. The answer is to create assignments that specifically reference course content, put unique information together in new and interesting ways, and make use of third-party (hopefully free and accessible) tech tools to make creative projects. An AI can turn out a passable essay on Moby-Dick since there are many examples to choose from. However, it might be stymied by asking it to compare motifs of nature in Melville to the Hudson Valley School of painting vis-a-vis the aesthetics of Romanticism as

This comes from Delanceyplace.com, which publishes excerpts from recent and not-so-recent books

College as unAmerican ...

Today's selection -- from After The Ivory Tower Falls by Will Bunch. Belief in the value of a university education has been eroding, especially among conservative voters, a change that accelerated starting in 2015: "Wisconsin, more than any other state, captured the zeit­geist of the 2010s in red America, as the simmering discontents of vot­ers from rural areas and small towns that had started with talk radio gripes about 'political correctness' run amok finally boiled over