http://www.progressiveteachers.org/ Linking Literacy to Social Justice Copyright 2008 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:46:58 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss What is our community? Labor for writing instruction Changing scholarship –what authorial voice will be read by whom? Tenure “popular” Who gets to sit around the table Methodology Course work Genres—CW, journalism, personal, pleasure Shared texts Motivations for people in this area Political activism Change—building relationship What produces the push? How do motivations become subverted or coopted? History of the motivation... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2008/04/what_is_our_com.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2008/04/what_is_our_com.html Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:46:58 -0500 What IS community literacy? What is “community”? What is “literacy”? What is success & how would you measure it? Beginner writer is not a beginning thinker People denied the access to speak How to bring non-standard speakers/writers into prestige discourses Avoiding labels that shut down speech Status quo knowledge—deficit model... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2008/04/what_is_communi.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2008/04/what_is_communi.html Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:46:18 -0500 Writers outside the academy dealing with prestige languages—mutuality Of what & For whom? Troubling the “academy”—recruiting students who have not traditionally been a part Tension bringing academics & community members together (or separately) What do people already know—the thought-space of everyday people talk back to the canonical literacy—bring everyday knowledge into wider listening—privileging knowledge who gets to make knowledge? Are we adding to or replacing the knowledge that has already been sustained in the communities? How are we changing, exploiting? Oral culture got killed Urban education—training people as outsiders to go inside a space Place as it involves all of this Virtual Rural Urban Traditional ways of “community literacy”... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2008/04/writers_outside.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2008/04/writers_outside.html Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:45:43 -0500 Ethical issues Funding Models Who’s the audience & how are you going to reach them How do people continue publishing for themselves—accessibility, sustainability Hybrid texts—combinations of academic & community Bringing people into public dialogue & public knowledge What is a digital literacy center & who cares?... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2008/04/community_publi.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2008/04/community_publi.html Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:44:05 -0500 At the 2008 Conference on College Composition and Communication, the Progressive SIG and Caucus Coalition will be considering draft language of a new mission statement. Prior to that meeting, the suggested revisions are being posted to encourage comment and debate among PSCC members and progressive teachers. Among the proposed revisions is a new name, The Social Justice SIG, and an expanded set of activities. No final decisions will be made prior to the 2008 Conference in April, so please let us know your thoughts and insights. Proposed Mission Statement Social and Political Justice SIG Mission Statement We are a coalition of individuals, interest groups, and caucuses, based in the fields of rhetoric and composition, who are committed to promoting social and political fairness, equity, and justice. We seek to create collaborative partnerships between university-based activists and the larger network of activists and organizations taking on this important work. Within the profession, we work to develop curricula that are actively anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic and that teach voices not easily heard or too easily ignored in standard or mainstream definitions of literacy in the United States; to create classrooms that develop critical literacy for informed citizenship, and to promote courses that... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2008/02/revising_our_mi.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2008/02/revising_our_mi.html Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:46:34 -0500 The picket line is getting crowded around the perimeter of Youngstown State University. All 390 full-time faculty members went on strike Tuesday after rejecting the university’s most recent contract proposal. With classes set to begin August 29, they joined the 400 secretaries, computer programmers, landscapers and other employees who walked off the job last week. The major hangups in negotiations for the faculty contract are salary and health care premiums, the same issues as for the employees who struck last Tuesday. Youngstown State offered faculty members a 3 percent raise for each of the next three years, and asked faculty members to pay 1.5 percent of their salary for a family health care plan, or 0.75 percent for an individual plan. Previously, university officials said, Youngstown State was the only public university in Ohio that had not asked employees to contribute from their salaries for health insurance. Officials at the Ohio Education Association, the local affiliate of the National Education Association that represents the professors, said the 9 percent raise over three years is not as fat as it seems. “With the 1.5 percent coming out, it’s really a 1.5 percent raise each year,�? said Julia Gergits, a Youngstown State... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/08/youngstown_univ.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/08/youngstown_univ.html Wed, 24 Aug 2005 14:25:51 -0500 New York University is moving to close down its graduate student union at the end of the summer, the labor movement's only toehold among graduate students at private universities. Union officials quickly attacked N.Y.U.'s plan and vowed to fight the university in any way it could. In a memo circulated yesterday, N.Y.U.'s provost David McLaughlin, and its excutive vice president, Jacob J. Lew, said that they had proposed that the university stop recognizing the five year old union when its contract expires Aug. 31st. They said the collective bargaining process had produced benefits for student teaching and research assistants, like better compensation and clearer work rules, but that union grievance had threatened academic freedom. .... "This is pretty disgusting," said Phillip A. Wheeler, director of United Automobile Workers region that includes New York. "They saw a way to get out of having the union, and they took it. They are disgusting as Wal-Marl." He said the union, which will continue to operate on campus representing a different group of teachers -- adjuncts, or part-time instructors -- would look for as many was as it could to create problems for the univeisty. "They will have a fight they regret," Mr. Wheeler... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/06/nyu_plans_to_en.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/06/nyu_plans_to_en.html Fri, 17 Jun 2005 12:23:39 -0500 Dear Union Sisters & Brothers, Colleagues & Friends, Ruth Needleman, Professor of Labor Studies (rneedle@iun.edu) Just this week, six employees of the Indiana University Division of Labor Studies were terminated: three faculty among them. The reason given was a budgetary crunch resulting from legislative cuts in our funding and university demands for increasing income annually. As you may know, a Republican governor and Republican control of both houses of the state legislature have made Indiana a very union unfriendly state. Public sector unions were thrown out of government agencies, a right to work law threatens on the horizon, and now the labor studies program has come under the knife. Even though a faculty budgetary committee developed an alternative budget that would require no faculty layoffs, the Director went ahead and implemented his budgetary proposal, closing down the South Bend office,laying off two tenure track faculty, Paul Mishler and Cathy Mulder, and faculty member Rae Sovereign, who has just completed her Master’s Degree as required by her contract. Indiana University is a public university with a clear mission to serve constituencies in the state, especially under-served constituencies like adult working people. Increasingly public universities are functioning like private ones, forcing every... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/05/indiana_univers.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/05/indiana_univers.html Institutional Outrages Fri, 27 May 2005 10:00:34 -0500 New Brunswick, NJ April 19, 2005 On Monday April 18, 2005, at the University of California-Santa Cruz, the city police engaged in a brutal suppression of students' right to assemble, their freedom of speech, and their basic human rights. University of California-Santa Cruz students had organized Tent University Santa Cruz, a week long encampment in coordination with the Tent State Universities at University of Missouri-Kansas City and Rutgers University-New Brunswick, to support the full funding of higher education and oppose the Iraq War. As UCSC students peacefully set up tents on their own campus for the night police rioted, violently dispersing several hundred campers, arresting near twenty, and injuring dozens. These injuries included but were not limited to bruises, dislocated shoulders and one student who had been attacked so severely he was rendered unconscious. Tent State University of New Brunswick, NJ, condemns the barbaric and authoritarian disregard for the health, safety, and well-being of UCSC students and calls for the immediate recognition of the rights of UCSC students as well as a halt to any and all oppressive actions of the University and city administrators and police. We stand in coast-to-coast solidarity with our brothers and sisters at Tent University-Santa... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/04/police_crackdow.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/04/police_crackdow.html Institutional Outrages Thu, 21 Apr 2005 08:55:37 -0500 The University of Colorado has released a preliminary review of its internal Ward Churchill Investigation While it argues Churchhill's essay is protected by "academic freedom," the report suggests further investigation into questions of plagarism continue.... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/03/ward_churchill_1.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/03/ward_churchill_1.html Emergent Issues Thu, 31 Mar 2005 09:05:09 -0500 The attacks on academic freedom continues as Rep. Gibson C. Armstrong (R-Lancaster) has released the following statement urging Pennsylvanina to adopt Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights: With mid-term and final exams just around the corner, institutes of higher earning across America continue to earn straight A's when it comes to cultivating diversity of race, skin color, ethnicity and gender. However, according to recent studies by both the New York Times and the Washington Times, most of them deserve an F- when it comes to promoting thought diversity or providing for students' academic freedom. Survey after survey confirms that campus faculties are increasingly polarized politically. One study of voter registrations for 1,000 professors found that professors registered in one party outnumber professors in the other major party seven to one. Another study found a ratio of nine to one. At one university in Pennsylvania, the ratio was an unbelievable 27 to one. If the Washington Post or New York Times were to look at the faculty of Pennsylvania's state-owned and state-related schools, how much diversity of thought would they find? Based on the following testimony from students at Penn State and elsewhere, one might begin to wonder: * * "My professor... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/03/pa_representati.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/03/pa_representati.html Thu, 31 Mar 2005 08:58:09 -0500 A Roundtable by Progressive SIG/Caucus Coalition and CCCC Diversity Committee Wednesday, March 16, 2005 5:00:00 PM to 7:00:00 PM Session: PSIG.1 Moscone Center For the past five years, the PSCC has worked to form a common space where different SIG and Caucus groups can meet to discuss how their different concerns can be wedded into a common agenda. In doing so, the goal has been to foster a sense of communal activism that crosses any particular interest group. The re-election of George Bush and the ascendancy of the Conservative Right has presented a clear challenge for academics committed to progressive coalition politics. “Affirming Action�? provides an opportunity for CCCC participants to begin framing an activist agenda for the next four years. AGENDA Introduction: Chair: Jonathan Alexander, University of Cincinnati Presentation of Rachel Corrie Award Recepient: Matthew Abrahams What now? Progressive Academics and Diversity Politics Scott Lyons, Syracuse University Akua Duku Anokye, Arizona State University Respondents/Facilitators Jonathan Alexander, University of Cincinnati Damian Baca, Michigan State University Luisa Rodriguez Connal, Detroit Mercy College Harriet Malinowitz, Long Island University James McDonald, Louisiana State University PSCC Members: Asian/Asian American SIG, Latino SIG, Labor SIG, Lesbian and Gay Professionals Caucus, Native American SIG, Non-Tenure Track... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/03/affirming_actio_1.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/03/affirming_actio_1.html Sun, 13 Mar 2005 15:59:28 -0500 John Lovas To visit John Lovas' website, click here. Yesterday's Palo Alto Weekly published a Guest Opinion column by Professor Daniel Klein and student Andrew Western of Santa Clara University, focused on the political registrations of professors at Stanford University and UC Berkeley, a piece I'll call Cardinal blue. Klein is affiliated with the National Association of Scholars, a group of right-wing and libertarian professors and graduate students whose mission is to promote rational discourse in higher education. Ah, language! I happen to believe very strongly in rational discourse in higher education, especially in my own little corner of it here at De Anza. But looking around the NAS site and Klein's web page, one discovers that "rational discourse" has certain expected outcomes, including reading Shakespeare and Dickens, resisting affirmative action based on race, ethnicity and gender (but apparently not in regard to political affiliation), and generally claiming victim status for those who espouse conservative and libertarian views in the academy. The Klein and Western opinion piece does not meet my standards of rational discourse, but then I'm just a lowly community college professor. No one cares what my colleagues' political affilations might be. The claim that having large percentages... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/03/more_conservati.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/03/more_conservati.html Thu, 03 Mar 2005 09:34:19 -0500 The Maryland House is introducing Maryland’s own version of the "so-called" Academic Bill of Rights. For a point by point commentary, click here.... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/03/maryland_moves.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/03/maryland_moves.html Thu, 03 Mar 2005 09:26:46 -0500 As reported by Brock Read, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, "The New York City Department of Education will prohibit a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University from appearing in an occasional training program for secondary-school teachers, citing the professor's criticism of Israel. Rashid Khalidi, director of Columbia's Middle East Institute, had spoken this month at one of a series of teacher-development workshops, paid for by the university, about Middle Eastern culture and politics. But last week, after The New York Sun published an article assailing Mr. Khalidi's involvement in the program, Joel I. Klein, the city's schools chancellor, announced that the professor would no longer be allowed to participate. "Considering his past statements, Rashid Khalidi should not have been included in a program that provided professional development for DOE teachers, and he won't be participating in the future," Jerry Russo, Mr. Klein's press secretary, wrote in an e-mail message to the Sun.... Mr. Khalidi, in an interview on Monday, criticized Mr. Wiener and the Sun for attacking his institute and the field of Arab studies in general. "I think there's a broad attack on professors of the Middle East, and it's based on calumnies, innuendo, and taking situations... http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/02/banned_from_tea.html http://www.progressiveteachers.org/archives/2005/02/banned_from_tea.html Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:08:21 -0500