On new campus novels. . .

Cyrus Duffleman's preoccupations in Fight for Your Long Day are prominently featured in a new article on academic novels in The Chronicle of Education. Check out Kristina Quynn's "The Disgusting New Campus Novel."

vivid, moving, shocking

In her annual blog on the academic novel at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ms. Mentor called Auggie's Revenge: "vivid, moving, and sometimes shocking."

Interview in The Chronicle's Vitae

Cyrus Duffleman makes another guest appearance at The Chronicle of Higher Education, this time in its Vitae section, branded as "the first online career hub just for higher education."

Rob Balla

Here's a six-minute Chronicle video featuring Rob Balla's take on the adjunct situation. He's raising a family of four without health benefits, driving a ten-year-old car, and teaching up to eight classes a semester. Sound familiar?

Here and here are some fresh frontpage stories from the major pubs about the adversities his, and our, students can face. You put the whole thing together, and it's not too difficult to recognize the viability of the case that much of contemporary college isn't about education as opportunity and lifting young folks above their socio-economic origins. And here's another one that suggests more STEM majors aren't the answer either. The current president of Penn State seems to be doing okay, though, and I can't help but note that his $85,000 raise is just a bit more than what NPR reported it would cost to implement the NRA's plan for the federal government to bring an armed guard to every school, and just over twice the 40K that Balla says he earns in a good year (presumably one that included seven or eight classes each semester).

In slightly related news, it came to my attention that someone loaded the first five minutes of Fight for Your Long Day onto youtube. That's part of the first chapter already audible at Iambik, but it appears they retrieved it from this itunes store.

But what, you ask, have we been watching and listening to this holiday season?

Charlie Brown holiday specials of course.

sympathy for the devil

I was caught deep in the dungeon of The Chronicle of Higher Educations's comments section on the latest "abolish all tenure" op-ed (to sell books) and realized I could in fact publish my findings as an http://kudera.blogspot.com/ entry. Alas, we strive here at USK to publish only first-time originals but forgive me for making an exception here or there. (Note: this piece may be slightly edited from its original found here as comment 47: http://chronicle.com/article/Are-Colleges-Worth-the-Price/66234/.)

Please pardon any honesty, complexity, complicity with, or sympathy for the d----, or in this case, the tenured.

Well, here goes:

This is conjecture, not the almighty proof that only a billion-dollar research grant could provide me the time to provide, but I suspect that most anyone who is on the "anti-tenure" side in some sense probably:


a) feels very vulnerable at work, does not have tenure or union protection, and resents people with such security

or

b) does have tenure, hustles her ass off despite this, publishes new books every year, but in a free moment or two notices the tenured colleague next door is rarely in his office and when present can occasionally be seen surfing online for golf clubs and lingerie

or

c) is a parent who with kids in college or high school and has been reading that over half of America's undergraduate courses are taught by people with no job security or benefits

or

d) is tenured but affluent enough to survive this hypothetical move to FREE UNIVERSAL CONTRACT LABOR (or as Karl Rove would describe it, "Jobs and Growth")

or

e) believes that all research should pay for itself, presumably in the short term (which yes, now that you point that out, seems counter to the principles of research)

or

f) is also for moving more undergraduate tuition dollars into the classroom--perhaps where the sad sap adjunct faculty member engaged in his "regurgitation" could interupt his upchucking of the data and leap upon the students fighting for those dollars

or

g) is part of the demographic described in comment 44 but remains uncertain of his or her stance on tenure despite a sort of negative emotion associated with his tenured neighbor's rather nice car

or

h) is also irked by the contracts of athletic superstars although he can hardly imagine Stanley Fish's basketball exploits (as described in the NYTimes, no doubt a benificence brought to you by the makers of fine wine and tenure) comparing to the great feats of the Lebrons and Carmelos.

In conclusion, I suspect that choice (a) is the main reason. Folks feel vulnerable and resent others who seem less so (despite all of their incognito chronicle comment postings that seemingly suggest similar fears). Feel free to find me for (i) through (z). And in the mean time, fight for your long day!

Yours for all contigency appointments,

Alex Kudera
 
Well, that's what I posted over there. I'm feeling a bit guilty for having betrayed my caste, and I certainly have not yet been forwarded my raise. I suppose I better stoop lower and get back to grading papers.