Monthly Archives: December 2009

“EMU’s part-time lecturers campaign for union”

Posted on December 8, 2009 by | 5 Comments

From annabor.com, “Eastern Michigan University’s part-time lecturers campaign for union.” From the opening paragraphs:

A campaign is underway at Eastern Michigan University to unionize 450 part-time lecturers, who are asking for better pay and benefits.

The administration will negotiate a contract in a timely manner if the employees vote to unionize, but students could end up paying for any increased costs through their tuition bills, school officials warned.

I guess we’ll see how this works, out, but I have two thoughts on this, at least initially:

  • I have a very VERY difficult time believing that the administration will simply shrug their collective shoulders and say “sure, that’s okay.” Rather, I just assume that the administration will do everything it can to resist this, and if it does happen, I predict that the suits will offer only a very bare-bones contract that is practically not a contract at all.
  • I personally have mixed feelings about all this. On the one hand, I’m all for unionization and we have in my department some great part-timers. In fact, we have a number of folks who are “part-time” in name only: that is, they are teaching a full-time load but they are being paid considerably less (especially if you factor in insurance and other benefits) than full-time lecturers. I think that’s wrong, and if the part-timer union is able to stop this practice, it will be worth it.

    On the other hand, one of the reasons why every college and university in this country has some sort of category of part-timer is to deal with the ebb and flow of enrollment, of faculty and lecturer lines, and so forth. In that sense, EMU is like any other business that hires both full-time and part-time employees: grocery stores don’t hire everyone full-time because a) they can’t afford to, and b) they don’t need to. My concern would be that a part-time union might cause some problems that would ultimately hurt both faculty and lecturers, not to mention students who probably would indeed end up paying at least part of the bill.

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Posted in Administrator Life, Faculty Life, In the media..., Student Life

I’m guessing there will be no Halle rave anytime soon

Posted on December 8, 2009 by | 1 Comment

Apparently, there was a “rave party” at the library at James Madison University on December 6. Here’s a link to a story about it on the blog OnwardState (which is actually a student run blog about stuff going on at Penn State), and here’s a link to some YouTube video of the event:

I have a good friend who teaches at JMU, so naturally, I will be sending her an email to ask for more details, if there are any.

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Posted in Uncategorized

So, seriously– what’s the deal with the government relations position?

Posted on December 8, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Okay, just to recap a bit:

I don’t know. On the one hand, I don’t feel like I have a huge stake in this process for all sorts of different reasons, but mostly because it is kind of above my pay grade. Freeman Hendrix wasn’t hired based on a search, right? On the other hand, if the BoR, President’s office, and this hypothetical government relations officer wants to create “buy in” from the EMU community, wouldn’t it make sense to have a legitimate search process?

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Posted in Administrator Life, Board of Regents, EMU President, State Government

Check out the Shadow Art Fair Saturday

Posted on December 4, 2009 by | 2 Comments

Who says there’s nothing to do in Ypsi? This Saturday it’s the “winter edition” of the Shadow Art Fair. Check out http://www.shadowartfair.com/ to learn all about it, but basically, it’s a sort of cool/hip/punk version of an art fair held twice a year for the last couple (2? 3?) years now at the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti. Wanna see what it looks like? Check out Flickr and pictures tagged shadowartfair.

As part of this Saturday’s fair, Dreamland theater is having puppet shows from 2 pm to 1 am down at their theater at 26 North Washington. I’m hoping to catch “The History of Ypsilanti” told as a puppet show.

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Posted in Blogosphere, College Fun, Ypsilanti

“Pittsburgh may tax college tuition”

Posted on December 3, 2009 by | 2 Comments

An alert EMUTalk.org reader pointed out this story to me, my initial reaction to which was whaa??? As reported on the public radio show “Marketplace,” “Pittsburgh may tax college tuition.” Why, you may ask?

Mayor Ravenstahl calls it the “fair-share tax” saying the students are using millions of dollars in city services every time they go out drinking and are not adding enough to the city coffers.

Perhaps the mayor is unaware of this thing called the “sales tax” that is being charged to all the stuff that those students are eating and drinking.

Anyway, the vote on the tax has been delayed, which suggests to me that it probably won’t go into effect– which is good.

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Posted in Budgets, In the media..., Student Life

Come check out the Celebration of Student Writing on Thursday!

Posted on December 2, 2009 by | Leave a comment

A somewhat self-serving plug: tomorrow is the bi-annual (or is it semi-annual? well, twice a year) Celebration of Student Writing in the EMU Student Center, between 4 and 5:30 pm. It’s a sort of writing “fair/festival” for students in English 121, which is the required first year writing class, and it really is a lot of fun.

In the world of first year writing, it’s kind of a “deal:” lots of other universities have imitated what we started here. For example, as this article suggests, California University of Pennsylvania has their own first year celebration based on the EMU model a week from tomorrow.

And as a special bonus: come on by my section of 121 tomorrow and mention EMUTalk!

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Posted in Board of Regents, Buildings and Grounds, EMU Events, EMU Fund Raising, EMU President Search

“High court hears student loan bankruptcy case”

Posted on December 1, 2009 by | 1 Comment

I heard an interesting story on NPR’s “Morning Edition” this morning: “High court hears student loan bankruptcy case.” Read/listen to the whole thing, but here are the opening paragraphs:

Student loans are a way of life in America, and the federal government guarantees most of those loans. The question now before the Supreme Court is what the obligations of the lender and the borrower are when a student can’t pay.

More than a third of students enrolled in post-high school classes borrow money to advance their education. The federal government guarantees most student loans to the tune of $618 billion. To prevent people from just walking away from their obligation, federal law makes it hard to discharge a student loan debt (that is, not pay for it). The bankruptcy code allows discharge only in cases of undue hardship, but the code does permit restructuring of a debt to make it repayable.

The case in question involves someone who declared bankruptcy and, as part of his settlement, did get part of his student loan discharged. Years later, the lender (United Student Aid Funds Inc.) basically sued him and said “hey, give us our money back.” And now it’s at the Supreme Court.

I’m not really that into bankruptcy law, but what is interesting here is that this could have a big impact on the ways the student loan business works, which in turn would obviously have an impact on a lot of EMU students.

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Posted in Administrator Life, In the media..., Student Life

We’ll miss you, Citino

Posted on December 1, 2009 by | 11 Comments

I stumbled across this article in my feed: “No. 1 military history professor comes to UNT,” from the University of North Texas North Texas Daily. Basically, it’s about now former EMU professor Robert Citino going to the University of North Texas. Here’s a quote that stuck out to me:

His conversational teaching style was a hit with students, as he was voted the number one professor in the nation in 2007 on Ratemyprofessors.com.

“Now, because Ratemyprofessors.com is owned by MTV, I got a call from MTV saying we want to come to your house and film you,” he said.

MTV filmed his reactions to students’ online comments.

Wait, MTV owns Ratemyprofessors.com? Huh.

Anyway, good luck, Citino, and thanks for your time at EMU.

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Posted in Academics, Faculty Life, In the media...