Ithaca College

Seems like a personal ad, not a news item. Quite inappropriate for this publication, I would think.

The insinuation that an academic is above the working class
collective bargaining tactic of a strike is elitist and
unnecessarily insulting.

Well said.

I appreciate your candor and the courage it required to share this post. I think its
important that we hear all viewpoints.

Part-time faculty who are actively working for a livable wage are no less
passionate about student learning and trust. Learning happens on campus, it
is not all in classrooms. Classrooms must be responsive to issues that directly
effect members of this community to remain relevant. I do not believe that
any of our students would be robbed or deprived of their education if there
were an organized labor action on campus, in fact it would become a unique
and vital of their education. Earning a livable wage is an issue that many very
educated people are facing, and many of our students will face. Being an
example of a teacher that speaks and acts on behalf of themselves and their
colleagues is a gift to students. It does not mean that faculty will not continue
to find ways to support student learning, it does provide some necessary
leverage for negotiating. We will continue to loose talented faculty who can
no longer afford to teach at IC, unless we offer a fair wage, and working
conditions. Nobody wants this, and there is hope that a agreement can be
reached, but make no mistake, I will stand shoulder to shoulder with our
part-time faculty who are paid far less than many on the docks!

"old union hardball tactics" is is a cliched phrase right of the management handbook. Are there no management tactics for you to critique?

Also, this reeks of elitism, with its snide condescension to dockworkers and other blue collar laborers.

I would like an explanation of how the current status quo - where instructors are stretched teaching at two or three campuses at once, where they're stressed by not making a livable wage or having healthcare, where they often don't have time, support, or motivation to keep their course materials fresh and new, where they shuffle in and out semester to semester and can't be long-term mentors or guides, where they don't have offices to meet with students in or mailboxes to correspond with, where they aren't offered any education about the basic resources and programs on IC campus, where they are denied professional development opportunities and funding, I would like an explanation of how those conditions are serving our students. Our teaching conditions are our students' learning conditions. And decades of all this, and more, have been far more detrimental to students than missing a few classes could ever be. Moreover, if you ask students, in my experience, they all have the common human decency to recognize that being mildly inconvenienced is a small sacrifice to support someone else's struggle against exploitation. You do not speak for students, at least not any students I know.

No, you're not a dock worker, you teach social dance in PALS. I think any honest
work is good work and I was raised by a father who dropped out of high school
during the depression to help support his family and a mother who was an RN
from a small mining town in Michigan, so I'm no snob about such things, and I
appreciate the work of all who make IC succeed (if it does--hard to say at the
moment). But be aware that there are many on the IC faculty who would look
down with the same degree of condescension and classism you demonstrate.
Just sayin'