Category: EMU

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Stupid meetings…

From MSNBC (and via Dan’s blog) comes this story, “Meetings make us dumber, study shows.” It’s kind of an interesting story, I guess. Dan makes a point about meetings and writing peer review groups, but my first thought was about the meetings I go to in my life as a happy academic type. Three quick thoughts on all that:

  • One of the things that really surprised me when I first started down the tenure-track was how much of my job didn’t really have much to do with teaching or scholarship. Lots and lots and lots of meetings, and an hour here and an hour there really starts to add up fast.
  • In my role as the Interim WPA and the coordinator of our writing program, I go to even more meetings this year. And if I’ve learned anything about my year in this duel administrative role (and I have certainly learned a lot) it is that I do not want to become a full-time administrator and spend even more time attending meetings.
  • Having said all that, most of the meetings that I go to aren’t really “brain storming” sessions. Mostly, I think most of my meetings are about following procedures and policies, about “governance” of the faculty role in the department, etc., etc. I mean, sure, there is some brainstorming about things, but at most of those meetings, people throw around some ideas and then they go off and think about those ideas for a while, and then they come back to vote on them.
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Winter Break 2007 "To Do" List

It’s winter break season here– what everyone else in the universe refers to as “spring break.” Given that it’s February and it’s a slushy/icy mess outside right now, winter break seems a lot more accurate to me.

This year, we’re not visiting relatives in Florida nor are we off to Mexico (the destination of several of my colleagues with their families). We’re hanging out here, where my wife and I both hope to catch up on work while our son is in school and in various after-school activities. As long as there aren’t any snow days.

Here’s some of what’s on my “to do” list this week:

Make listAlways the first item I put on every list I make.
Go through email
Register for Computers and Writing Don’t worry, Jeff– I’m coming, but I just don’t want to spend the big bucks any earlier than I have to.
Clean House
Clean Garage
Clean Dog
Clean computer labs at EMU. Actually, this one got done on Friday. Long-story short: we have had always had problems getting our computer labs cleaned, in part because the janitors can’t get in their for security issues, and in part because no faculty person is in charge of these labs right now. Anyway, after a series of complaints, I said I’d help clean it ourselves, and I persuaded a “crew” that consisted of Steve B., my colleague Christine Tracy, a long-time journalism lecturer (thanks, Arnie!) and even our department head, Laura George. Laura generously invested in a variety of cleaning supplies, including a cheap shop-vac (btw, one of the best tools ever for sucking the dirt and dust out of computers, IMO). Besides dusting, washing, and mopping up the general filth, we also threw away four giant construction-grade plastic bags of junk: software at least six years old still in the box and the shrink-wrap, stacks of manuals for some mystery product (also still in the shrink-wrap), journals and articles a decade old, cables and plus and adapters for mystery bits of equipment, old course packs and student projects, papers folders and posters, and, inexplicably, one pinata.
Work on The Process of Research Writing web site. When my textbook project went belly-up last year, I started to put it up on the web. As happens in life, I got distracted with other things. But now I’m feeling like it’s time for me to put this thing up to bring some closure to this project.
Clean my school office.
Work on the Department Conference coming up the first week in March.
Get English 516 stuff up to date.
Get English 328 stuff up to date.
Sign up English 516 folks for class blog.
Get busy (again) with BAWS project. I really would like to get the survey/Human Subjects Review stuff going before the end of this week.
Go to the gym more.
Wait patiently for delivery people. I ordered a new home computer the other day, a 20 inch iMac along with a second 19 inch monitor. I know, it’s overkill, but it’ll be my overkill. Stay tuned for details.

Hmm, seems ambitious. I guess if I finish half of this, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something….

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EMU in the CHE for all the wrong reasons

From the January 5 Chronicle of Higher Education comes this article, “Cashing In on Virtual Courses: At Eastern Michigan U., professors can double their pay by teaching online, but some of their leaders find that unfair.” For the most part, it’s a recap of the problems with the grading stipend loophole for online teaching at EMU that I’ve discussed here in the past and also on EMUtalk.org. But there are a few differences.

First off, this has now become national news, and (I assume, at least) that one of the reasons why this is in the Chronicle at all is because this deal of paying teachers $150 extra per head for classes of more than 25 students is so out of whack with the normal practices at other institutions. I mean, this is a pretty sizable article, and there isn’t one other school mentioned in it. Shouldn’t this give the people in the leadership at EMU pause?

Second, my department and my department head are both specifically mentioned in it. Go figure! Here’s a lengthy quote with a few editorial comments along the way:

Mr. Eiss [note– This is Harry Eiss, the “poster boy” for this practice of enormous overrides and a guy who has an office just down the hall from me] used to teach more courses online, but his department has capped the number a professor may teach online each semester at two courses. [note– This happened a couple years ago, before the rise of online classes, when Eiss was scheduled to teach five or more overload CE classes, some of which appeared to be meeting at the same time.] And it has decided to cancel the online version of his advanced course on critical approaches to children’s literature, which he taught in the fall. [note– This was because Eiss was letting in so many students into his advanced online writing class that the other versions of the class that other faculty were teaching were canceled because they didn’t fill.]

According to Laura J. George, head of the English department, the children’s literature committee decided it was important to have face-to-face interaction in every writing class that is offered, which includes Mr. Eiss’s advanced course. She says the department introduced the cap because it became clear a few years ago that Mr. Eiss was teaching an “exorbitant” number of classes online.

“There were some concerns about quality and service to students,” she says.

[note– Not surprising, all this is more complicated than is suggested here. I think it’s fair to say that the department (and this is a discussion at the department level now, not just at the Children’s Literature committee) is okay with online classes, but it believes that these classes shouldn’t be overloaded.]

Mr. Eiss says his fellow professors are wrong about the quality’s being lower. He thinks they are simply jealous.

According to the grading-stipend policies at Eastern, for every student Mr. Eiss takes over an established limit of 25 he earns $150. So for this winter’s course, in which he may enroll up to 100 students, or more than 70 extra, he could make as much as $10,000. A salary report released recently by the university reported that Mr. Eiss was the second-highest wage earner among the university’s 680 faculty members last year. His nine-month base salary was about $68,000, and he made an extra $95,000 by teaching overload courses.

I wouldn’t want to speak directly about Eiss, but let me just say something in general terms here about the charge of faculty being “jealous,” about the “hard work” of these faculty teaching these huge overloads in online classes. If one decided that they wanted to completely divorce themselves from the workings of the department– that is, hypothetically, if faculty member decided they no longer were going to come to department meetings or volunteer to serve on the various committees that do the work of the department, then one could probably teach extra classes. Also, if one decided and/or convinced themselves that it was okay to lower the standards of what counts as teaching in these overloaded online classes in order to “cash in,” then it seems to me that a faculty member could indeed manage to teach online classes like this.

But for me, this isn’t something to be jealous about. It is a practice of a fellow faculty member that I for one find unethical.

Two more “behind the scenes” aspect of this story I thought I’d mention: first off, this is a “discussion” that is still going on in the department in terms of policies that we will be adopting to govern online teaching. That’s all I’ll say about that for now.

Second, the writing faculty started talking about this a while ago, and I think it’s fair to say that we’re all on the same page when it comes to these class caps. Simply put, online writing classes don’t have any more students than face to face classes. My online version of English 328 has 20 students in it and my online version of English 516 has 15 students in it, the same caps as I would have in a normal classroom.

Besides the obvious pedagogical benefits of these lower numbers, we decided as a committee that we didn’t want to undercut or cannibalize each others’ teaching. I mean, if I let in 80 people into my online section of English 328 just because I want to make more money oh, excuse me, work harder, then I would end up causing some of my colleagues’ versions of English 328 to not make. Thus the term cannibalize.

And third, this is (as you can imagine) a topic of discussion on EMUtalk.org right here.

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A Little More about our WPA Search

We’re hiring this year for a Writing Program Administrator-type person. And if you’re interested in this job, please do me a favor and read past the “bad” part that follows the ad. I promise, I will get to the good stuff!

Here’s the ad itself from the MLA JIL:

English, 612 Pray-Harrold, Ypsilanti, MI 48197
http://www.emich.edu/english
Assistant Professor Composition/Rhetoric [1638]
Tenure track position in composition and rhetoric starting Fall 2007. We are looking for a faculty member who values teaching, research, and service to join a dynamic department and an active group of composition/rhetoric faculty in a nationally recognized writing program. We seek expertise in some combination of the following: writing program administration, first year writing, and writing and technology. Responsibilities will include administration or co-administration of the First Year Writing Program (with commensurate reassigned time), and some teaching in FYC and/or upper-level or graduate courses in Written Communication. Teaching excellence, scholarly publication, and service are required for academic advancement. Candidate must have Ph.D. in hand by Fall 2007. Phone interviews will be held before MLA. Please send letter of application and a dossier containing letters of recommendation, teaching/administrative philosophy, and evidence of exemplary teaching and scholarship to: Position F0715, 202 Bowen, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI 48197. Screening will begin 11/27 and continue until position is filled. We encourage applications from women and members of minority groups. For more information contact Linda Adler-Kassner (ladlerka@emich.edu).

Now, for some more info– the “inside story,” if you will.

First off, I’d be lying through not only my teeth but the dozens of entries I’ve made here recently about the not yet resolved faculty strike if I said that everything was just hunky-dory and happy on campus. It’s not. (Oh, and the short version fo where we’re at right now: faculty are working under the conditions of the old contract and the process of “fact finding” has begun. If we go all the way through with the “fact finding” stuff, it will probably be another six months before we have a contract. There’s a good chance though that the parties will reach some sort of agreement sooner; fingers crossed on that one).

Beyond this immediate issue, there are of course other longer-term concerns. EMU has been traditionally under-funded by the state and that situation isn’t improving in a state where the economy is in the dumper. The building where the English department is housed, Pray-Harrold, is something of a hole. It’s not easy to get resources like new(ish) computers, decent furniture, and so forth. The parking situation on campus is horrible. Etc., etc., etc.

Okay, with that out of the way: even with all of this crap, even with the situation we’ve got with the board of regents and the upper administration, even with all of these other problems, I still think EMU is a pretty good place to work, and I still think this WPA position is going to be a pretty good job. Here’s why, in no particular order:

  • Within the writing program, I’ve got great colleagues. Sure, a couple of folks are less active than they should perhaps be, but for the most part, my fellow colleagues are super invested in their teaching, in their service to the department, and to their scholarship. And basically, they’re nice people, too.
  • I have A LOT of fellow writing colleagues. In terms of “quantity,” we are a program with a lot of folks invested in the writing program: eight faculty who are squarely in “composition and rhetoric” and/or “tech writing,” another five faculty in journalism and/or public relations, four faculty in English Education (and they work closely with our program, especially in teaching some of the graduate courses in the “teaching of writing” MA program), and another four faculty in creative writing. That, as they say, is a lot of people, and the value of having that many folks in writing within an English department cannot be over-emphasized. At my first job at Southern Oregon University, I had one other colleague who did comp/rhet stuff, and 10 or 11 other colleagues who did “straight-up” literature stuff who didn’t always “get” the scholarship and teaching I did. That’s never been a problem here.
  • Beyond the writing programs, I’ve got a lot of other great colleagues. Hey, some of my best friends are literature specialists! Seriously though: while there are some political tensions in the department between different programs and personalities, we are a department that prides itself on being a friendly and collegial place. I really do think that our English department is unusual in our ability to work together and even kind of like each other.
  • The process for tenure and promotion at EMU is transparent. The faculty union is bad for all sorts of different reasons. However, one of the ways in which the union is very very good is that it has essentially codified the process for tenure and promotion. There’s none of this five old guys getting together and deciding with no input from anyone who gets tenure and who doesn’t. At EMU, it’s all laid out in the “Department Evaluation Document,” pronounced “DEaD.”
  • EMU is the kind of place where you have the flexibility to be the kind of academic you want to be. One of the problems with Ph.D. studies (IMO) is that the programs that train future college professors tend to have a skewed and extreme version of what it means to be an academic. Because Ph.D. programs tend to be tier one research schools, there’s a lot of “publish or perish” vibe going on, a lot of pressure/stress/anxiety about, well, everything. I don’t think that’s the system here. I mean, you can be a “hard core publishing machine” type of professor at EMU, and those people are certainly respected by my colleagues and the institution. But you can also be someone who publishes an article once in a while and then puts a lot of energy into your teaching, or even into your service work. That flexibility is a very very good thing.
  • The Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area is a great place to live. We’re close enough to Detroit to have access to “big city living” things (major sports teams, great art museum, international airport, shows and concerts, every shopping and dining experience under the sun, etc.), and yet far enough away to have a bit of a “big town/small city” feel. Ypsilanti has its charms and many of my colleagues have a lot of pride and attachment to this town. But personally, I like the things that Ann Arbor offers. In the nutshell, because of the quaint liberal arts school there, Ann Arbor is the quintessential “college town,” with all of the book stores, coffee shops, funky stores, groovy people, and other assorted hangers about that you can imagine.

I could go on, but you get the idea. So if you’re “on the market” this year and you’re interested in this gig, think about applying. And if you want to email me and talk more about this thing a bit more privately (skrause at emich dot edu), feel free.

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New iMac/Distraction…

iMac w/monitor

EMU sometimes does smart things, and one of the smarter things they’ve done in recent years (IMO) is agressively “refresh” older computers in faculty and staff offices. Generally, folks get a new desktop computer around here every three or so years. There are some problems with that system still, but it is better than it used to be for sure.

Anyway, I was due and and got a new iMac on Wednesday. I also managed to waste piddle away spend too much time getting this machine set up and to get my old computer for someone else in the department who really needs a new machine. Oh well; I guess it means I’ll spend tomorrow working instead of reading the newspapers.

I had an extra monitor in my office left behind by the thieves who took the Mac Mini server that we used to have in here (we now, at least for the time being, are using an iLamp configuration Mac for that). So I decided to hook it up to this new desktop. I did it mainly because I could, and yeah, I know it has a bit of a “these amps go up to 11” quality to it, but I couldn’t resist. And I am enjoying the screen real estate this gets me, too.

Click the link on the picture there to get the flickr with notes tour.

Also, if you’re really curious, you can take a look at this little movie I shot with the iSight camera on the iMac— as much to see if I could do it as anything else. It’s 5 MB. Yes, I have a lot of stupid junk in my office.

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EMUtalk.org is up and running!

I think I’ve got a good start with the EMUtalk.org site. Go there right now, check it out, start commenting, let me know if you want to contribute, start posting, etc., etc.

Let’s build off of the energy this stupid strike generated there to make something for the whole EMU community!

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emutalk.org: Who's interested in this experiment?

First off, I have no real strike news. I’ve heard a few interesting stories/pieces of gossip in the hallway that I might share once we have a deal, but not before then. All I really know is what Howard has sent around, that offers and counter-offers have been made and talks continue. It is too early to tell, but it is worth noting that the latest email from Bunsis tells people to be ready to picket tomorrow morning.

But while I still have the attention of a lot of you EMU folks (I assume most of you won’t keep reading this blog after I return to my usual posts on computers and writing stuff), I want to run an idea by everyone:

One of the things that has become very clear to me is that people have been coming to this site because they’re seeking information about the strike from a first person perspective, something not edited, something that can be commented on, etc. I suppose you could argue that this has come about because of the lack of press coverage and the challenges of some of the other resources, but I like to think there’s something more to it. I like to think that this was a place where people could “talk” too.

That’s been really cool. It’s helped keep me semi-sane during this stupid strike, and I think it’s helped others too. So that got me to thinking: what if we were to take this energy to launch a blog that was dedicated to this sort of “talk” about EMU issues, matters that are about news, personal observations, cheers, jeers, rumors, gossip, sports, classes, security, the union, the New Union (the building, that is), whatever.

So here’s what I am suggesting:

  • Let’s start a blog– I’m suggesting emutalk.org, but I’m open to other ideas.
  • I am willing to administer it, but I don’t want to be the main writer of it. Rather, I’m looking for at least a handful of different people to be, at least initially, the main posters/writers. Ideally, these folks would come from a lot of different parts of EMU– faculty, students, maybe even some administrators, PTs, clerical, whatever.
  • I am thinking that folks who want to be a writer– that is, someone who would have access to create posts of their own– would need to let me know who they were, but they could remain anonymous on the blog if they wanted.
  • This space would obviously have no affiliation with EMU– at least not officially. Rather, I’d suggest that we use a commercial provider, and the one I use (and have been very happy with) is ICDSoft.
  • This wouldn’t cost much– $72 for a year. But here’s the thing: I’m not willing to bankroll this myself for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is I’m still not sure how this strike thing is going to turn out. But I will chip in $10 or $15. So that means I need to find six or so more people to kick in $10 each.
  • And then we’ll see what happens. I am certain that there would be a TON of problems that would have to be worked out along the way. But hey, that’d be part of the fun.

So, who’s interested? Leave a coment or send me an email to let me know.

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The Strike of 2006: Day 5

Part One
I say “part one” because I am sure there will be a “part two” in a couple of hours– I’m going to walk up to the union meeting that’s scheduled for 2 pm. But just a few thoughts for now:

First off, the strike has made this blog quite a bit more popular than it usually is, which is why I changed the header picture– at least for the time-being. How much more popular? Well, I typically get around 25-35 hits a day on this site. Yesterday I had well over 100, and so for today (just shy of 1 pm as I type this), I’ve had 60.

Second, I want to say thanks to the students (or at least folks identifying themselves as students) for the support here, on the picket line, and beyond. While a lot of folks aren’t leaving comments about all this (feel free to do so, btw), so far, I have one “get back to work” sort of comment and the rest have been positive. While picketing today in front of Welch Hall and Boone Hall (apparently negotiations are going on in Boone), lots of people honked their horns long and hard as they drove by. My wife got an email from a student who was very concerned about having to cross a picket line tomorrow on the first day of classes and expressing support. I talked for a while with a guy who is an air traffic controller and a returning student and he expressed his support, and he also told me about the bad situation between the FAA and the air traffic control union/workers, which strikes me as scary.

And on and on. So again, thanks.

We (meaning myself, Annette, and our son– a family of strikers!) picketed briefly this morning, though it bothered Annette’s injured leg and you can imagine how quickly our nine-year old got bored with the whole thing. One of the picket organizers told folks that we had been having an effect on some campus construction projects. The workers in the pipefitters and the electrician unions walked off the site, and the other unionized labor who don’t have a “will not cross a picket line” clause in their contracts have been working slowly. So the mood has been positive, the weather good, etc. Everyone wants to be back in class of course, and I had to miss an orientation for new lecturers today because of all this junk, but the morale seems strong to me. Maybe the administration thought that their “10 pm Tuesday or else” approach might scare some people back to work, but it seems to have had the opposite effect so far.

Anyway, a few numbers that I have heard from either the EMU-AAUP or the newspaper which bring some of this into perspective:

  • Apparently, the administration has come up from its 2% raise the first year all the way up to a whopping 2.25% that first year. They’re still offering 2% for all the other years.
  • There are some telling numbers in an an op-ed piece in yesterday’s Ann Arbor News (written by EMU professor Gregg Barak). According to Barak, “we (EMU) have the fourth highest student-faculty ratio, the fourth highest tuition and the fourth highest spending on administration. But in the Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC), we are 11th out of 12 faculty salaries, averaging only $68,000 annually, $7,000 less than the average Ann Arbor Public Schools teacher.” Two additions to the “average salary” thing. To be fair, the entering salaries at EMU– at least in English studies– are pretty competitive. The problem is that salary compression sets in here really fast. And second, I don’t make $68,000 a year, and I have been here for eight years now.
  • According to a flyer the EMU-AAUP is passing out, EMU salaries for faculty are near the bottom when compared to other state schools– 11th out of the 15 public universities. On the other hand, administrator salaries are near the top– 4th out of the 15 public universities. That’s a pretty telling number to me, especially when you consider what I am sure are the top three paying schools for both faculty and administrators, the University of Michigan, Michigan State, and Wayne State. All of those schools have some pretty fancy programs where some administrators and faculty are making serious money. For EMU administrators to be fourth on that list, well, that’s a crime.

In any event, I’m off now for the meeting. Stay tuned for part 2 later today….

Part Two
And, before I go to bed tonight, I bet there is going to be a part three! More on that in a bit. For now, let me just give a sort of impressionistic/no particular order sort of review of today’s meeting:

  • I would describe the meeting as more of a “pep rally” more than any sort of opportunity to get information. It reminded me a bit of a “State of the Union” address in that there was lots of applause, even one (two if you count the last one) standing ovation for the bargaining team.
  • To the extent that there was information: apparently, there has been some movement in different ways, but the administration still has only come up with a 2.25% raise with .25% going to TIAA-CREF so that after four or five years, we’d be getting another percentage point there. Not a lot of money for sure. I thought where we were at with insurance was a little murky; my sense– and it’s only a sense– is that it’s a forgone conclusion that we’re going to be paying something for insurance. The question is how much and how it will be arranged.
  • Tangent #1: This is just my opinion (one of the great powers of having your own blog), and I really don’t know how many people share this opinion, but I’ll offer it anyway. As I’ve said here before, I don’t really buy the slippery slope/escalator argument that if we start paying for insurance now, then it’s the beginning of the end, that they’ll keep sticking it to us, etc., etc. Or maybe a better way of saying it is this: when you look at national trends, it makes a certain amount of sense for us to pay for some of our insurance. I don’t have a problem with that. And I really don’t know exactly how much the new insurance plan is going to cost me and my wife; the best I can figure is around 2.5%. And while I appreciate and respect the arguments about cost of living and inflation and all of that, I don’t really care about that stuff either. So my goals out of this contract are very modest. All I really care about is I am not willing to take a net paycut. Period. The thing is though there seem to be a lot of faculty who are wanting and expecting a lot more than this. So it’ll be interesting to see where this goes.
  • One of the meeting/rally’s speakers was the lawyer the union hires for labor law issues. He was there to talk about some stuff like picketing, about what the administration could do to us, etc., etc. The short version: apparently, there were some security disputes about where faculty could picket where some security folks were telling faculty picketers that they couldn’t be there with a sign in front of a classroom building. But because these are public spaces where they let groups pretty much practice any act of “free speech” (Lyndon LaRouche people routinely set up where I plan to picket tomorrow, assuming it comes to that), the administration just doesn’t have a leg to stand on. It is possible that we might get docked pay or have benefits cut off or whatever, but the administrative hassles of that would be so great that it seems unlikely. The administration could fire all of us, but that too seems like it’d be an administrative/legal nightmare, not to mention super-duper bad PR. And the administration could go to court, but generally, judges don’t like issuing orders forcing folks back to work, especially if the talks are still going on.
  • Once again, it would appear that the real “bad guy” at the bargaining table is the attorney, Jim Greene. He apparently is the one really running the administration’s side of the table.
  • Fun fact #1: someone on the adminstration’s side of the table supposedly suggested that they could maybe get laid off and/or striking Detroit teachers to cover classes for the faculty. I have to believe that this was actually an administrator’s idea of a joke. Ha-ha.
  • Fun fact #2: the negotiations are taking place in Boone Hall, which is on the corner of Cross (which turns into Washtenaw, the main drag through Ypsi/Arbor) and College Place. This is a very busy intersection, one where the EMU-AAUP have been picketing all day with signs that say something like “honk if you support EMU Faculty.” We were getting LOTS of honking horns, and the negotiators in the room told us at this meeting/rally that they could indeed be heard inside. Nice.
  • There were a couple of people from the National AAUP there, along with some folks from Oakland University’s AAUP chapter, which just wrapped up a contract deal. Basically, these speakers said that this negotiation was important beyond EMU for faculty rights with contracts around the country, that these folks thought we were doing a great job, and that the administration here seemed quite a bit more, uh, “jerk-ish” than at a lot of other schools. The National AAUP is giving us a bunch of money to (potentially) cover expenses, is trying to help us out on a national scale. One of the guys from the national office also commented on the extent to which the union has turned around since the “dark days” of a few years ago, which did indeed bring back some memories for me.
  • Tangent #2: One of the things that kind of concerns me about all of this– and I guess it started to concern me more after this meeting– is this is in some ways kind of a “perfect storm” between the two parties at the negotiating table. The administration, as indicated by their bone-headed ultimatum about walking away from the table at 10 pm tonight, apparently sees it as important to not give in a whole lot more and/or to try to erode the union. The union, on the other hand, has a lot riding on this too. If the EMU-AAUP doesn’t get a good deal this time around, I have to think that some people are going to start wondering what the point of the union is in the first place.
  • And then there was the whole “10 pm or else” thing from the administration. The bargaining team put together a pretty good letter on this, by the way, which is available here. It seemed pretty widely agreed that a) this was a pretty stupid thing for the administration to do, b) it certainly pissed faculty-types off, and c) they are apparently serious. So I for one am heading up to Boone Hall at about 9:30 or so. I think there will be a somewhat informal rally, but I’m also hoping that the local media has been alerted. Man, talk about a photo-op: the union negotiation team sitting at one side of the table, the administration’s empty chairs on the other side. I’m planning on being there tonight, so expect a “part 3” to this post. Stay tuned….
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The Strike of 2006: Day Four (or, things get threatening)

Last night, things during the negotiations took a decidedly “hard ball” turn: the administration gave the negotiating team a letter and published a press release (both on their web site here). In what I read as being written in a rather patronizing tone, the letter sort of summarizes the negotiations from the administration’s point of view (the AAUP is not negotiating, the university has made all these great offers, etc., etc.). There’s a nice line on the second page which says a lot to me about the perspective of the institution on all this:

To maintain the viability and competitiveness of EMU in the postsecondary education market, the University must maintain a delicate balance between the needs of our faculty and other employees, and the need to keep tuition and fees at levels that do not unduly burden our students and families. We hope you can respect the fiscal limitations and breadth of responsibility that weigh so heavily upon the University. (Emphasis mine).

Just to pause here for a moment: first off, I was under the impression that we were a state-supported and non-profit institution. So this phrase about “viability” and “competitiveness” in the “postsecondary education market” is a pretty weird one to me. Second, it’s telling about who we’re dealing with here. Whenever the administration feels like its employees are costing too much, we always hear that universities like EMU need to behave more like a business. But whenever employees and faculty point out things that they need to get “the business” done– reasonable building facilities, technical support, fair pay, etc.–the administration basically says “well, we’re just a poor university, doncha know.” I believe there’s a line here about having cake and eating it too.

Anyway, the letter goes on and throws down the gauntlet in these couple of sentences:

If we have not reached a resolution by 10:00 p.m. on September 5, 2006, or if the strike has not been officially ended by that time, regretfully the University will have no recourse but to immediately suspend all further negotiations with the EMU-AAUP until the strike has ended and all faculty have resumed the performance of their full professional responsibilities to the University and our students. In addition, the University will pursue such other actions it deems appropriate under the provisions of the Michigan Public Employment Relations Act, or other applicable law.

Whoa! Dudes! This is so wrong in so many different ways:

  • Obviously, this is a threat, and I think it’s an unprecedented one at that. Not to mention an incredibly unproductive threat.
  • I think that the folks in the administration ought to have taken a page from the Bush administration’s failures at foreign policy and recognized that whenever you make a threat like this (do “x” or else), the natural reaction of the “threatee” is “oh YEAH?!” I mean, I wanted to settle this thing before it even started. I, like I think most of my colleagues, am reluctantly on strike. But after this letter, I kind of don’t want to settle so that the union can “save face” and make sure that no one can possibly interpret our efforts to settle earlier than this as “caving in.”
  • If the administration is going to make a threat like this, they sure as hell better be ready to follow through on it. That’s “How to Make a Threat 101.” Anyone who has been on either side of the “Quit that right now or I’ll turn this car around and go home!” conversation knows that.
  • I’m obviously biased, but I kind of think the administration has sort of painted themselves into a corner on this one. If we get to 10 pm on Tuesday night, close to a deal but not quite there, and the administration gets up and walks away from the table because of the need to “follow through,” then the union will have the “high ground.” They’ll just say “hey, we were willing to keep working this out and we were just a couple of hours away– they’re the ones that left the table.” And if the administration does keep talking after 10 pm on Tuesday (and I frankly think this is the most likely scenerio), then their original threat will look pretty idle (again, see “How to Make a Threat 101”).
  • I just see this strategically as a lose-lose for them, and I don’t really see how this makes the union look bad. I mean, we’re already on strike; people who don’t like unions already think we look bad. If anything, the union almost has to stay out now to “save face” with the faculty in the union.
  • Oh yeah, about the illegal strike thing: technically, I guess it is illegal; but like so many things that have always struck me as odd in Michigan, it is apparently “standard practice.” The EMU-AAUP has been on strike at least five times in the last 30-odd years– three times in the last contracts, by the way– and no one has gotten into trouble yet. I don’t see the university firing 600-plus faculty members, and the best thing that the adminstration could do to bring attention to the union’s cause is to start arresting folks. Imagine the TV coverage. No, I think the worst-case scenario is the administration seeks some sort of court order to force us back to work, and what that would mean is a) the EMU-AAUP would say we should comply with the order, and b) faculty would be able to both work (which we love to do) and to strike. Talk about having your cake and eating it!
  • There’s been a lot of wondering about “who are the bad guys here?”– that is, who in the administration is calling these sort of hardline shots. I think we need look no further than the folks who signed this letter, President John Fallon and Board of Regents Chair Karen Valvo. I somehow think that a lot of the “warm and fuzzy feeling” of Fallon’s first year in this job has just permanently left the building. So much for his “respect and value” for the faculty, huh?

I still hope that cooler heads will prevail. They’ve had a fair amount of coverage about all this this morning on WEMU, though it’s not available via their web site yet. Dennis Beagen, who was sent by the administration to talk about this stuff, said once again this morning that he thought (the administration thought?) enough faculty would cross the lines to make the university run fine on the first day of classes. Beagen is either lying and knowing it (because he was sent to the radio station to lie), has not been paying attention, or is just wishing that what he sees happening is not actually happening. Like I said in my previous post, there will be some faculty who cross lines and there are plenty of faculty who won’t picket. But I’d be very surprised if the number of faculty who actually taught on Wednesday without a deal was more than 100 out of close to 700.

And again, to give Howard Bunsis credit, he didn’t take the bait of the administration’s threat and was speaking positive about the chances to settle before classes start, the willingness of the union to work all night to make it happen, etc., etc. Again, I’m biased, but in a weird way, he sounded like the reasonable one here.

Which makes me wonder: who are the grown-ups in this car ride?