Re: Is my CS instructor nuts?

In article <1150435795.134565.5960@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx says...

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.

Your post, as far as I can see, is a wordy rewrite of what is claimed
on that website by an interested party, but with assertions of fact
replacing things that were only implied. Have you independently
checked any assumptios you have made regarding the specific terms and
legal status of agreements etc?

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.

What has Roosevelt's need to hire adjuncts got to do with anything? I
think they best know their own needs.

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

As restauranteurs rely on customers who like their food. But they
can't force them to choose their establishment.

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.

The site ( www.rafo.com )describes the sequence differently.

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.

Here you are quite explicitly putting your own spin on what is already
a one-sided account.

[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.]

What's this got to do with anything? And the question is not about
whether you would approve or disapprove, but whether if you disapproved
you had the right not to re-hire him when he came looking for another
job.

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.

The site does not quote the supervisor. What it says is "As they
talked the passion escalated until the supervisor discredited the
Palestinian claims to the land and characterized them, especially
suicide bombers, as less than human." That suggests rather that he
corrected a collective criticism made in the heat of the moment. But
in any case, the supervisor's opinions are not the issue.

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.

Then he should get his own 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.

Garbage. No conclusion of such a nature can be drawn from a trivial
spat over the issue of whether a particular politically-charged subject
should form part of a particular course. Would you feel the same if
Giles had attempted to introduce an exploration of racial and gender
differences in physical and intellectual capacities into a course on
human biology?

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".

I presume Giles willingly acceded to whatever regime he was emplyed
under, which in the case of this particular contract appears to be
that. There is a lot to be said for the notion of applying such
contracts more widely in academia.

Do you expect the university willingly to acceed to some regime where
when you hire someone to teach one course, you're stuck with him as
long as he wants to remain?

- Gerry Quinn










.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Is my CS instructor nuts?
    ... unit which had agreed that Roosevelt would go through proper procedures ... adjuncts weren't day and contract and that a relationship existed over ... the chair phoned Giles and verbally ordered him not to ... and recognized as a human being worthy of recognition and respect, ...
    (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 ... the chair phoned Giles and verbally ordered him not to ... employment relationship without compassion or recognition is decent. ...
    (comp.programming)