Transformed

It has happened.

Sometime during the weekend, the change crept over me, like dusk sidling up to day. It was never supposed to be like this.

Students often produce their creative projects for me in Mac format, so after at least 25 years of resisting it, I purchased a Macbook on Friday. It was for convenience, so I could read their work, and I could also dabble in the kind of creative process they were using and thus better understand their journey.

It was cute; a little white block and I must admit, I was impressed -- take it out of the box and thwwwzzziipppppppp! it worked. Found the wireless network, was fully charged, needed no multi-disk setup. It worked. And the aesthetics of its design were rather pleasing, from the charger plug with its fold-out cable coiler to the clever little battery button on the bottom. Hmmm, I allowed, well-designed, well thought-out.

Saturday night, I found myself cradling that little Macbook as I fell asleep.

It has happened.

I love my Mac.

Who am I NOW???

A "New" St. Thomas University

The faculty at St. Thomas fight on in their battle with their employer, for a battle it has been declared.

It demands solidarity and determination to walk picket lines in freezing rain and at times, in -18 C. weather.

The faculty are still locked out by the employer. Even if they abandoned the strike that was initiated a week after the lockout, they still could not return to their classrooms, and students would still be unable to resume their second term.

The St. Thomas administration has locked them out.

This is the communication each faculty member received at 4:30 on December 26:

Effective 6:00 p.m. on December 27, 2007, all Full- and Part-time members of FAUST employed by St. Thomas University will be locked-out from employment. No such employees will be permitted on the premises of St. Thomas University without the express written authorization of the University.

Locks were changed on all doors of the university. Faculty are prohibited by law from entering the university.

If I were a St. Thomas student, I would be demanding a tuition refund from the administration that is withholding access to my greatest resource, the professoriate.

A New Year - 2008 -- and We're Back!

So was hätt einmal fast die Welt regiert!
Die Völker wurden seiner Herr, jedoch
Daß keiner uns zu früh da triumphiert --
Der Schoß ist fruchtbar noch, aus dem das kroch!

Bert Brecht, Arturo Ui

"Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again ..."


A new year was ushered in last night, an event which gives us pause to reflect on the year past and to look ahead with optimism and hope into the promise of 2008.

Not so in Fredericton, where our colleagues of St. Thomas University have been locked out since December 27! On this New Year's Day, when the rest of the country celebrates with municipal levées or merely nurses a slightly throbbing head, St. Thomas colleagues are opening their LOCK OUT HEADQUARTERS.

Make no mistake -- the Faculty Association of St. Thomas (FAUST) has not yet even called for a strike vote from its membership! They were bargaining in good faith against this administration when they were served with a notice of lockout on Boxing Day!

This is a first in Canadian university history, faculty locked out before they have even considered a strike. It is a sad and sorry precedent set by STU's President and Board of Governors. Imagine the message it is sending to its students -- "We have no interest in your term nor in your educational welfare. We intend to crush this union and train this faculty once and for all to obey their administration, and unfortunately you students merely got in the way."

A New Year ... and a new bully on the block.

St. Thomas students return to campus on January 9, but they return to classrooms that are empty because the President of St. Thomas and its Board of Governors have taken the utterly irresponsible action of locking out its professors. Make no mistake -- the Board of Governors has taken the tuition of these students and is now denying them what they have paid for in good faith.

Shame, President Higgins!
Shame, Governors!

The Final Post

 

 

Well, it has been one hell of a roller coaster ride, hasn't it? From October 18 until today, December 7, we have shared this space emotionally, viscerally: 7 weeks, 35 posts. Today it ends. I am going to pick up the unraveled threads of my work and finish my marking before grades are due. I can now turn my thoughts to a more deliberate celebration of the Christmas Feast than I had thought would be possible. And I will spend many, many moments over the holidays, lost in my thoughts over a mug of coffee or a pot of tea, trying to ascertain what I take with me from this experience. Some things are already clear to me:

• I have learned that I am first and foremost a teacher, for whom the thought of leaving my students for the picket line is the source of tremendous emotional distress.

• I have learned that open and honest communication with my students, with all students is vital for my university.

• I have learned how to better interpret the lexicon of negotiating. It is a language hitherto outlandish to most of us at Brock, but we are now ruefully more fluent in its Byzantine twists.

• I have watched my Faculty Association come of age. BUFA has been tempered in the crucible of robust challenge and has emerged the stronger for the tempering.

To the students who left comments, both laudatory and critical, I congratulate you on taking the time to express your views and to make a difference. To all those students who participated by sitting in, by writing letters and e-mails, by stopping to discuss the issues at the information pickets, by asking tough questions at the BUFA Info Session, by drawing editorial cartoons, by wearing a BUFA button (or a BUFA button that had been crossed out!) and also by discussing the strike issues with your friends and professors, I applaud your engagement. Time for me to take my dog for a walk. Good night and good bye.

Entspannen = literally "de-tense" or "de-tighten"

 

I have been home for a while now, and the news of no strike is just starting to register with me. At last, I may unclench all that I have been clenching! I sit in the recliner with a mug of hot, sweet tea, and as I mentally decompress, my body reacts with surprising swiftness. My biceps ache and when I reach to rub the decrepit muscle, it is alarmingly sore. Didn't realize that I externalized my tension to that degree. Just before I left the office, I took down three volumes from my bookshelf to bring home with me. 

 

The first, by Gerhart Hauptmann, is Die Weber, a social drama of Naturalism that chronicles the Silesian weavers' bitter uprising against exploitative bosses in 1848.

 The second is Germinal, Emile Zola's Naturalist novel of 1885 that is a fictional account of French miners whose need for social justice overcomes their personal fears and leads them to strike against the oppressive capitalist mine owners. 

 The last book is The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life by Parker Palmer, an "educational activist" who captured my heart in his introduction:

"This book is for teachers who have good days and bad—and whose bad days bring the suffering that comes only from something one loves. It is for teachers who refuse to harden their hearts, because they love learners, learning, and the teaching life."

Background reading for the next Collective Agreement in two years ...

Tentative Agreement!!

Yes, I am a bit late with this -- had an e-mail from my friend Roger Moore in New Brunswick telling me that he had already heard a tentative agreement had been reached. And students have been sending comments to report the same .

What a wonderful wonderful piece of news. Students will still find it hard to go back to studying after all the anxiety, but what a relief for all of us in the trenches, students and faculty alike!

Still, there is a dark corner of my mind that keeps nagging at me: "Could we not have settled this two weeks ago without putting the most important stakeholders, our students, through this night of hell?"

Oh, shut up Barry!! Push those dark thoughts aside, it's time to celebrate!

Students

Look at the comments from the Waiting post. I am so sick at heart I could hurl. I am terribly embarrassed that students thank me for maintaining this blog, when I am poised to take a step that will impede thelearning of my students, of every student at Brock. 

 

It is an act that is contrary in every way to my credo as a teacher and learner. It is an act into which I have been forced by an administration that seems to be imposing a corporate, top-down labour matrix on the university. And it is an act that I must (not gladly) see through. Through it all, students -- the ones so deeply affected, yet the least consulted -- are keeping this vigil with me. And I am humbled by their faith and their courage in this ordeal. During this ennervating strike process, I have been encouraged and inspired by students and their reactions.

• I recall the week-long sit in at the Tower elevators, the petition, the declaration of intent to return to bargaining signed by the BUFA negotiating team.
• I think of the letters to the Brock Press that I read. And I think of the many letters to the administration that went unanswered.
• I think of the editorial cartoons in the Press yesterday.
• I remember the e-mails from my current and former students, offering strength and moral reinforcement. And the e-mails from students I have never met have just stunned me!

If I may appropriate Shakespeare for this circumstance:

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee,--and then my state (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate

Thank you. You deserve so much more than this. But thank you. As this day indeed breaks, and there is still no news, the students of Brock nevertheless raise my spirit.

As always.

Waiting ...

I wear my anxiety like a cold shroud, wrapped around my body, pulled tightly into the corners of my mouth and knotted hard in the small of my back.

This is the day of mediation between BUFA and the administration, the day on which so much hinges --for students, first of all. I hope they get to finish their semester without interruption. How will they enjoy a much deserved holiday if they have to continue to study?

Then for BUFA and me ... will I be on a picket line? Can I go 3 hours in sub-zero temperature without my back seizing up?

I draw my anxiety more tightly to my body, trying not to let it flap wildly for all to notice. I must attempt to get through the rest of the day.

When I get home, I get a phone call from my friend and colleague, Roger Moore (007) at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. Roger was in my 3M Teaching Fellowship cohort and we met at the Montebello Retreat in 2000.

He has been such a support, phoning regularly to boost my spirits, to lend me his ear so I can vent and to offer the wisdom of his experience with the CAUT Defence Fund. Roger was a flying picket at UPEI last year and has volunteered to come to Brock. His health will not permit him to join us this week, should we go out, but perhaps next week. He has been prescribed happy pills, as he calls them, for his back. I ask him to save me some.

Roger makes me laugh, which rends some of the anxiety that envelopes me.

As always, Roger's phone call has been therapeutic and I barely notice that my anxiety has almost slipped from my shoulders.

I grab it by the corner and drag it up the stairs behind me, tossing it in the corner of my study as I prepare to wait out the long night for news of the mediation.

No sleep tonight, old man.

Technology and the over 50's

I am 57 years old, hurtling towards 58. I ache a lot and I am beginning to forget things. I repeat myself constantly, without realizing it. I now laugh at the same silly things my parents used to find amusing. I repeat myself constantly, without realizing it. This is not a pretty transformation. I should have young people monitor me whenever I use digital technologies. Yes, I need surveillance at all times, something like an "Avoid Stupidity Panopticon." I had been wondering why no one had left comments, save for a few early on. I assumed that no one was really reading, so I continued on my merry way, posting and reflecting. Last night, I switched to the new version of Blogger and when I did, a screen popped up that read: You have twenty unpublished comments: Do you want to migrate them to Beta Blogger? 

 

 

 

 Imagine, if you will, the ease with which "Oooops!" slid from my lips! I had made this a moderated blog and expected to be e-mailed whenever a comment was posted -- but I had inserted my e-mail in the wrong box, the Comment Notification Address box. Meanwhile, the box for my e-mail under the Moderate Posts radio button was left blank. Hence, all these comments sat unseen and therefore unpublished. And I continued to post and reflect, oblivious to what must have been glaringly obvious to young users of this technology. I apologize to all who commented but never saw their remarks appear. It must have seemed odd indeed that there were no comments at all. So, to those who assumed that I was not publishing comments in order to suppress views not congruent with my own, sorry --I was not being devious, just dumb. All comments, brickbats and otherwise, are now published. One more time, for the record, this caveat:

• The posts to this blog represent my personal journal of the events leading up to the strike.
• I acknowledge the innate subjectivity publicly. That is why I chose to blog.
• That is why I have talked about my own anguish, my own frustrations, my own anxieties.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa This blog IS NOT the "Brock Faculty Strike" Wikipedia entry.

And one more time, I encourage you:

• Re-read the November 23 post
• Seek out dissenting opinions
• Read the blogs of those BUFA members who do not agree with strike action
• Make up your own mind after weighing up the evidence
• Do not rely on my views as the sole source of commentary on the strike

No Update for Students?

What is going on??

Why hasn't the Brock webpage been changed all weekend?

Why haven't students been informed of the postponement of mediation and hence postponement of the strike?

I am sure this is an unfortunate oversight that has not been corrected because it happened just before the weekend.

However, I do hope that the students I contacted, and those who read this blog have spread the word to as many as they can.

STRIKE POSTPONED

My stomach is still doing flip flops! I got the e-mail from BUFA President Barry Grant last night at 8:15 to announce that the strike date has been pushed back.

Unfortunately, there has been a death in the immediate family of the mediator and as a result, he cannot attend for the planned full day of mediation on Sunday December 3rd. Instead, the full 24 hours of mediation will now take place on Tuesday December 5, the Negotiating Team will report back to the BUFA Executive on Wednesday December 6, and any strike action necessary will take place on Thursday December 7 at the earliest.

Check out the details on the BUFA website at: http://bufaweb.com

This means, of course, that all exams scheduled for December 5th, and 6th will now go ahead as scheduled, as well as those that were already running on the 4th.

What a relief for those students who were on pins and needles, wondering whether they would sit their exam or not on those days!

Walking the Dog

I finally get a chance to smile, in the midst of the anxiety and stomach churning.

>

In an earlier post, I mentioned taking my dog for a walk in the wee hours of the morning. As the GMM was breaking up yesterday, Carol Sales asked me what kind of dog I had.

The therapeutic effect of writing this blog all at once took a back seat to my having opened the door to my personal life just the tiniest bit. My readings of Habermas and the public and private sphere had suddenly been reified in a very intimate way.

Let me introduce Zeus, a 9-year old Bichon Frisé.

Lately, as we two walk the empty sidewalks in the early morning silence, I find myself smiling and my stomach doesn't ache for a little while. It's a nice change.

Gathering in Solidarity

I took picket captain training yesterday at BUFA Strike HQ. It was a long afternoon of instruction in how to apply common sense to a sometimes difficult, potentially volatile situation. The repeated mantra of "Safety, safety, safety!" drove home the reality of the course upon which we may have to embark. This will be an unpleasant, uncomfortable, by necessity adversarial exercise.

I often do a mental run-through of the chronology of the negotiations that have taken place in the last 8 months and I always reach a point where it seems logical to me that this job action could have been averted. BUFA offered to consider arbitration on monetary issues if the non-monetary items could be settled through negotiation. This was BUFA's olive branch, our way of saying that WE WANT AN AGREEMENT, NOT A STRIKE.

The administration refused arbitration, even though the decision on salaries could have been to their advantage.

For some reason, I can't shake the feeling that faculty members have been forced deliberately and cynically onto the road to a strike, with all the tension, frustration, despair, and plummeting morale that comes with a strike.

And I can't help feeling that this behaviour is intended to influence not only the agreement that is on the table now, but also to set the tone for the next agreement to be negotiated 2-3 years from now.

If this is the case, I think the administration has badly misread the membership.

At the General Membership Meeting following the training for picket captains, the turnout was heavy and the mood was grim.

Each of us there knew only too well that the veil of change had fallen over Brock. With this pall hanging over the gathering, the new president's calls to collegiality, as late as the e-mail of November 29, seemed sterile and empty to most seated in the Brock Ballroom of the Four Points Sheraton .

As I circulated the room with my coffee, colleague after colleague volunteered comments on the distinct change and observed that the administration's behaviour towards negotiations was anything but collegial. This was an emergent leitmotif so strong that it was like reading Thomas Mann.

The meeting got underway and the cohesive spirit in the room was palpable. The membership had closed ranks and it was remarkable. Dignified determination fueled by the hurt of betrayal is the best way that I can verbalize what I felt coursing through the meeting.

We have fine, fine leadership in Barry Grant and the Executive.
Thank you.

We have a determined, patient, and dedicated Negotiating Team in Terry Carroll, Chief Negotiator, Don Dworet, Tom Jenkyns, Linda Lowry, Carol Sales, and Kimberly Benoit.
Thank you.

We have an active, organized Strike Action Committee chaired by Miriam Richards.
Thank you.

We have a united, committed Membership.
I am happy to be counted among your ranks.

As a young man, I was taught by my Chinese-Canadian father to avoid fighting at school, to use words as my defence.

"If they call you Chink, ask them if being born in Canada means you are not Canadian like them"

"If they call you egghead, ask them if that is worse than being ignorant."

But my father also warned me that sometimes talking just doesn't work.

Sometimes you just have to stand your ground and fight.

Proud

The student sit-in was picked up by the press and the students made it into The Standard. It was a balanced piece that reported on the non-partisan demand of the students that both sides return to the bargaining table instead of wasting the days until a mediator arrives.

I would have flavoured this post with a graphic, but how does one depict visually the deep pride and immense admiration that I feel for those students who just got an A+ in this final examination in personal and social responsibility?

These students and their supporters have been respectful, visible, and very effective reminders of lapsed administrative conscience past which the senior university officers must walk at least twice a day. It should be very difficult for them to look those students in the eyes.

Now that the students have been named publicly in the paper, let me offer my own congratulations to them.

To Rob Lanteigne, Katie Gellatly, who were the organizers, and Andy Saunders who seemed to be there every single day: I hope you are as proud of yourselves as I am of you. There are many, many more who stopped by to offer support and encouragement.

You maintained a non-partisan demand, that both sides return to the bargaining table.

• When someone claimed that both BUFA and the administration had mutually agreed to abandon negotiations until December 3rd, you tested the hypothesis as any scholar might. You drafted a declaration of intent to return immediately to the bargaining table, tracked down the BUFA negotiating team and got the entire team to sign the declaration. You then presented the signed document to senior administration. That was inspired applied research!
• You were persistent when you had the opportunity to question senior administrators who stopped long enough to talk to you.
• You were pro-active in starting a petition and having your fellow students sign it.

I frequently hear colleagues talk about students who "aren't what they used to be," that students today "just can't think critically anymore!" One hears it so often that one begins to wonder if it might be true.

And then I discover a rich lode of integrity, intelligent reflection and social responsibility in a group of students like Katie, Rob, and Andy, and I know that my faith in students is in no way misplaced.

Don't Talk/Don't Tell

Just learned that colleagues currently on sabbatical or just about to go on sabbatical in January are officially considered by the university to be "combattants" in the labour dispute. In other words, they are considered to be on strike and the university will suspend all pay to them, already reduced because of sabbatical. Imagine working in the archives in Germany. You have been there since September. You are just finishing up your research and about to come home for Christmas -- only to find that you have no money in your bank account. Fröhliche Weihnachten to you! Of course, the rumour that this was the case had been circulating for a while. One colleague about to go on sabbatical in January wrote to the VPA to ask directly about his status. His inquiry was met with silence. Not even his Dean could give him any information because the senior administration had evidently not yet informed the Deans of the policy. This policy of "Don't Talk/Don't Tell" seems to be the inspired strategy behind which the administration has barricaded itself on the 13th floor. Several of my students (in German, IASC, and in COMM Studies) have told me that they have written to the President and to the Vice-President, Academic to ask specific questions about their concerns in the event of a strike -- and not one of these students has received a reply.

I want to assure you of our commitment to the academic interests of our students and faculty and their ongoing success.

--Vice-President Academic Terry Boak

The administration refuses to negotiate with BUFA unless in the presence of a mediator and not until 24 hours before a strike.

It is important that we maintain that collegiality as we work as a community in the best interests of the institution and its mission. I am concerned about, and would like to avoid, both parties being caught in a spiraling dynamic of 'brinksmanship'

--President Jack Lightstone

"Don't Talk/Don't Tell"

I wonder when the administration will declare our colleagues on maternity leave, on sick leave, and on long-term disability also to be "combattants?"

The mood begins to change

Just before noon today, I came through the Tower lobby on my way back from a Strike Action Committee meeting and there in front of the Tower elevators were two students sitting on the floor with large signs that read, All I want for Christmas is to write my exams and Silence Solves Nothing

Nostalgia mixed with excitement-- a sit-in, just like the Sixties!

These two courageous students had decided to act rather than sit passively and wait for the administration's silence to cost them their exams.

They organized the event using Facebook (so somewhere in all this, COMM students, there should be a paper about the political uses of social networking sites!).

In their organizing blurb, they make it very clear that this is NOT a partisan protest; they support neither the administration nor BUFA. In fact, they go out of their way to clarify:

NOTE: This is not a pro-BUFA rally, this is an attempt to get both sides talking before December 3rd.

I was struck by the wording proposed for signs for the sit-in event:

Suggested signs:

You have 8 days left, not just one
Keep talking, We're listening
Silence solves nothing
Negotiate now, not later
You have to TALK to be at Brock
We'd rather be in class
All I want for Christmas is to write my exams

I went past again to check out the Tower Cafeteria menu and then came back, stopping to encourage these two brave students who have decided to be pro-active in demanding their right to an education. Evidently, the plea to the administration will continue until Friday of this week.

If students are frustrated enough to stage a demonstration like this, to plead that the administration come back to the bargaining table, I hope the administration does not simply ignore their plea.

I hope that the administration will keep faith with those students and address the issues that students have raised.

Ouch! Student Sarcasm is Vicious ...

Just saw a student "Letter to the Editor," on the Charlatan website, Carleton's student newspaper.

Check out the link to this letter from Robert Lanteigne.

For the record, here is the text of the letter:

Brock Undergraduates For Atkinson would really like their former president back

Written by Robert Lanteigne

Thursday, 23 November 2006

Dear Carleton University,
You and us aren’t very different. Sure you’re a little bigger and a little older, but we both have amazing basketball teams, no football team, a slogan that other schools mock daily, and we both get our asses kicked by the Maclean’s rankings every year.
We recently gave you our president, and now you don’t want him anymore? At least he helped stop your faculty from going on strike.

I propose a trade.

We’ll take Atkinson back if you can take Jack Lightstone. He got his degree there, I think he knows his way around. If not, can you at least show us how to turn our canal into a big long skating rink? We’ll need something to do during the strike.

Post script: The Brock University Faculty Association is about to strike.

— Robert Lanteigne, Brock student and member of Brock Undergraduates For Atkinson

The Charlatan, Thursday November 23?, viewed Monday November 27, 2006 at
http://www.charlatan.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18064&Itemid=26

Ouch!

An Omen?

Took the dog for his walk early this morning. As I was going out the gate onto the street, a picket fell off the gate onto the walkway.

"Oh No!" I muttered.

A sign from above.

Happy Holidays, Students and Faculty!

Did you get your annual holiday card from the Brock administration? Just got mine:

Not Ready to Make Nice

Forgive, sounds good. Forget, I'm not sure I could. They say time heals everything, But I'm still waiting I'm through, with doubt, There's nothing left for me to figure out, I've paid a price, and I'll keep paying I'm not ready to make nice, I'm not ready to back down, I'm still mad as hell And I don't have time To go round and round and round It's too late to make it right

 

Barry and Pop Culture? That old fella with the grey hair, wears the dark suits and white shirts? He is making references to ... country music?? The Dixie Chicks just blow me away. I enjoy some of their music, but I admire their immense courage. They have suffered vicious attacks from the right wing of the American fan base for an anti-Bush comment and yet have remained resolutely, even defiantly committed to their political stand in the face of career reversal, significant financial loss, and threats of violence. And they have incorporated the self-doubt, the fear and the anger back into their work with their song Not ready to make nice.

*********************************

I was talking to a contemporary of mine today, the usual hallway conference in late afternoon. As our conversation moved to the strike, he volunteered that he felt that this administration has done itself a terrible, almost insurmountable disservice in allowing labour relations to deteriorate to this point. It was, in his considered and seasoned opinion, far too late to go back to the collegial relationship faculty used to have with administration. A deliberate act of disrespect towards faculty and towards students was how he angrily characterized the administration's walking away from the bargaining table with almost two weeks left in which the strike could be averted. And still other faculty members with whom I discuss the strike have told me they knew the gloves were off and that we were in for a street fight when the administration suspended talks. As another colleague joined us today in the hall, the sentiment was expressed that no amount of post-strike goodwill will heal this rift. Over the past week, at least three other colleagues, senior and respected, have voiced the same feeling. I guess I was naïve when I assumed that a notoriously short institutional memory would help Brock get over the damage that has already been caused by this strike. I assumed that that the alienation I am feeling was merely personal, the result of having been exposed to Schopenhauer at far too tender an age. Was I wrong! The depth, the intensity of this feeling and how it seems to be spreading amongst my colleagues, especially those of my generation, has taken me by surprise. They feel betrayed. Too late to make it right.