As Dissident Prof gets ready to head to Washington for C-PAC, she learns from a dilligent reader about Big Labor's plans to "occupy" C-PAC. The D.C. AFL-CIO calls C-PAC an "elite conservative gathering," presumably of the 1%.
Really? Dissident Prof has been wanting to go for a couple years, but after getting an offer to share a room, decided to pay for the registration and travel herself. By her estimation the food service workers at her university get paid more than she does for the four classes she teaches (considered full-time for the tenured); plus they get health insurance. She's not complaining, recognizing the limitations on the funding and the fact that many of her dissident colleagues make less ($1,500 to $3,000 per class, and usually with more students). But do the math; dissident profs who are relegated to adjunct status (most of us) earn barely more than poverty level wages. So will the "occupiers," supported by big union wages, be screaming at us? Will they be pushing old ladies down stairs again as they did a few months ago at another conference for conservatives? Will they get in her face and scream because she only wants to connect with other conservatives? The thugs always need a cause to justify the confiscation of union dues.
Indeed, the "Occupy Movement" is becoming an industry in itself, making work for overpaid, radical professors, like Jeff Edwards who studies "social movements" at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Thirty-two student are enrolled in his "Occupy Everywhere" class.
"Occupy" is providing work for playwrights and actors, as well. In Los Angeles it has inspired a series of short "Occupy the Heart" plays.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
"The production is inspired by media criticism that the Occupy movement lacked clear demands and solutions, according to the show's promotional material."
Well, isn't that what artistic license if for?
The plays may be called "Occupy the Heart," but campuses don't have hearts and flowers in mind for the month of Valentine's Day. You guessed it: the liberated now go through the February ritual of putting on the play the Vagina Monologues on campuses across the land. A colleague (somewhere, U.S.A., can't say more) forwards on a humorous exchange between two professors over a call for auditions. The defender of this play that promotes lesbian child molestation claims even his religious granny supports the play. (Really, I am going to get that academic novel published because professors say the darndest things. It will be a hoot.)
To segue from the romance on campus, Dissident Prof learned that Central Oregon Community College began the month with a "Day of Zinn" celebration that featured readings of Zinn, movie watching, and a "social justice teach-in."
She wonders how much money was spent on that communist indoctrination event that also featured dinners for some participants.
She wonders how much money went into the making of a presumably scholarly book called Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America by Jo Paoletti, who teaches American Studies at the University of Maryland and is described by the website as
"an Associate Professor whose training is in apparel design and the history of textile and clothing. She has spent over thirty years researching and writing about children’s clothing in America, particularly the development of gender differences."
Thirty years! Thirty years to research children's clothing.
And to think that the bad, old sexist patriarchs said that women should not be hired because they focus on domestic trivialities.
Yet, liberals like Frank Donoghue at the Chronicle of Higher Education worry about Mitt Romney's education policies, claiming in part that Republican politicians just don't know enough about education. They hate the idea of not being able to use tax dollars for radicalizing students or having nice sabbaticals to write about baby clothes in the service of gender-neutering the American populace.
Donoghue cites, "an extensively researched article by the Chronicle’s Karin Fischer" that looks at Romney’s record on higher education as Governor of Massachusetts. While the following may be intended to give all the more ammunition to colleagues who love their research grants for their pet projects, it might be employed more in Romney's favor as a conservative.
“In March 2003, just two months after taking office, Governor Romney introduced an audacious higher-education overhaul, proposing to privatize three public colleges, merge several others, and spin off the flagship Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts as an independent institution. He also called for eliminating the job of one of the state’s most powerful and well-connected figures, William M. Bulger, president of the university system. The plan, Mr. Romney said, would save taxpayers $150-million at a time the state faced a $3-billion budget shortfall.”
Then we get into that bogeyman that will be heard about during the entire campaign (you betcha)--Bain Capital:
“As she looks for deeper, methodological reasons why Romney’s bold plan failed, Fischer concludes that Romney relied too heavily on consultants from his old firm, Bain & Company. These consultants failed to understand 'the peculiarities of higher education budgeting,' treating universities as if they were the private sector companies like the ones that Bain regularly bought and radically restructured."
Donoghue concludes, "the real question for this candidate is will he understand the nuances and complexity of American higher education and the difficulties it faces?”
Ah, yes, "nuances and complexities."
Romney may not hold a Ph.D., but I bet he can understand that it is a waste of money to send professors to "Shakesqueer" conferences or pay them to spend thirty years researching children's clothes.
We need to starve that beast.
Dissident Prof directs you to a new posting by Scott Herring of UC-Davis. He provides a commentary on sustainability chic among the nuanced defenders of Planet Earth who wouldn't know how to put a worm on a fish hook or which end of a spade to use.
Dissident Prof too sees on her campus faces of professors and students beaming with smugness from banners affixed to lampposts. Their sanctification as recyclers, bicyclers, and light switcher offers is intended, she guesses, to chastise her as she trudges home laden with papers.
But onward to C-PAC! Let's spread the word. It all begins with education.
