Re: Is my CS instructor nuts?

Because Professor Giles belonged to a recognized collective bargaining
unit which had agreed that Roosevelt would go through proper procedures
in disciplining adjuncts, he had a grievance based on Roosevelt's
letter of intent not to rehire and based on the fact that in place of
counsel and advice as to how Roosevelt's administration wanted a World
Religion class conducted, his first encounter with his chair on this
matter consisted, not of advice and counsel but of abuse.

The bargaining unit had already sat down and agreed with Roosevelt that
adjuncts weren't day and contract and that a relationship existed over
and above the specific class. Roosevelt needed the labor pool because
in order to stay accredited it has to offer large survey classes which
its tenured faculty simply refuse to teach, and Roosevelt has an
interest that the tried and tested adjuncts teach the class multiple
times.

The adjuncts for their part rely upon contract renewal to plan their
lives.

For this reason, the adjuncts thought they had a deal in which an
adjunct would not receive a letter saying "we will not rehire" UNLESS
Roosevelt followed procedures including mentoring and written warnings.
Instead of this, the chair phoned Giles and verbally ordered him not to
teach Zionism as a term: he refused the order: the letter was sent.

In that session Giles was informed that Palestinians, who use the word
"Zionism" to describe Israel's policies, are "animals" in a way that
clearly communicated that in place of collegiality, Roosevelt's goal is
to offer pseudo-classes conducted like corporate training sessions by
instructors who will mechanically obey unwritten and written rules,
including a rule not to criticise Israel in any way.

[Sure, I'd disapprove of an instructor who taught AS FACT that "the
Holocaust never occured". The difference is substantive and it is
factual. Israel's conduct hasn't been above reproach and the Holocaust
occured. These aren't hypotheses but propositions a jury would accept
as common sense once it was presented, respectively, with the Allied
documentation of 1945 and a factual recount of Israel's conduct.]

If a supervisor tells me that an entire people are "animals", such as
Huda Ghalia, whose screams on a beach were on ABC News last week
because Israeli artillery killed her family, then I am indeed employed,
and recognized as a human being worthy of recognition and respect,
at-will. The Palestinian's problem as a marginalized folk is my
problem.

Giles had the moral high ground. He wanted the relatively logically
weak ability to open one door in discussion, the door labeled
"Zionism". Whereas the chair wanted to lock that door.

If a university education has any meaning beyond pre-wealth business
studies, then Giles should be hired and the chair fired. This sounds
like and is not "rhetoric" because once you deny it, there's no reason
to go to university at all; all you need to do his train
spear-chuckers, water carriers and dancing girls for service to an
elite.

You expect Giles to willingly accede instead to the employment-at-will
regime under which computer "consultants" work, a regime which has
changed the very meaning of the word "consultant" from "valued adviser"
to "terrified dweeb".

This is because unlike adjuncts at universities from Roosevelt to
Harvard, you've willingly subordinated yourself to corporations, and
probably betrayed coworkers, in the name of an individualism which, you
were promised during the Reagan years, would make you rich.

Let me ask you a question: how's that working out?

Gerry Quinn wrote:
In article <dk1kg.25921$0v4.14736@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, lshaw-
usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
Gerry Quinn wrote:
In article <1150207525.592639.256340@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx says..

"Zionism" is a World Religion issue: this
is obvious, indeed as obvious as the proposition that in order to teach
applications programming, you have to have an application to program.

It appears, however, that the person charged with deciding the latter
on behalf of Roosevelt University felt that it was not so. Perhaps he
wishes to employ an adjunct who will debate the merits of jihad;

... in which case they'd pretty much need to cover Zionism anyway, since
the current jihad seems *fairly* closely related to Zionism.

Clearly you have no understanding of the concept of jihad. To what
'current jihad' do you refer?

it
seems more likely, though, that he feels a more anodyne curriculum will
better serve the university's interests.

Now you start getting into two issues. The first is who is supposed to
decide the question of what will be taught. The second is whether the
person who does have this authority makes a stupid decision that. I'm
not familiar with the details of this situation, but there is something
to be said for the idea of objecting when the administration gets too
restrictive about what can and can't be discussed; it sort of goes against
the spirit of having a university for the administration to exercise too
much authority in these areas, even if it is their authority to exercise.

That is tautologically correct but largely content-free, as it includes
the words "too restrictive" - which imply that the difficult question
of what degree of restriction is optimal has been resolved.

- Gerry Quinn

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Is my CS instructor nuts?
    ... adjuncts weren't day and contract and that a relationship existed over ... Roosevelt needed the labor pool because ... the chair phoned Giles and verbally ordered him not to ... employment relationship without compassion or recognition is decent. ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: Is my CS instructor nuts?
    ... adjuncts weren't day and contract and that a relationship existed over ... Roosevelt needed the labor pool because ... weak ability to open one door in discussion, ... regime under which computer "consultants" work, ...
    (comp.programming)