Title this one “UMass Lowell Problems.”
(via Campus-themed Internet memes go viral | Inside Higher Ed)
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From my course blog.
The new semester starts on Monday at both places I’m teaching this semester: the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Endicott College. As such, I’ve had to update my syllabi. Among other things, I’ve adopted the newest (second) editions of both the textbook and reader I use in my Introductory Sociology classes. It’s funny that one of my friends recently asked “How do you keep it fresh?” Well, that’s one way. It wasn’t exactly a “rototill,” but the updates were substantial enough to give me pause. I’ll leave rototilling to my upper level course. I’ve just become aware of a textbook I may want to adopt for that, replacing the current aging entries. They’re not bad books, it’s just that a lot has happened since they were published, and they haven’t been updated.
But this is but one of the biannual rituals of teaching. Others include closing out incomplete grades from the previous semester, and I have had a few of those. So no, I haven’t really been “off” this week. While it’s been a slower pace than when I’m teaching four or more courses, I have had a single-pointed focus that has not been leisure.
I can think of no better way to observe this ritual than with an internet meme, courtesy of the free meme generator app I got from the Mac App Store.
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There was some nice coverage of the UML Adjunct Union protest today.
LOWELL (CBS) – Adjunct Professors at UMass Lowell are spreading their message with a protest today: They feel the UMass Board of Trustees are operating with a Wall Street frame of mind.
The adjunct professors are now in contract negotiations, and are seizing on frustrations felt by many about recent reports of the salary for outgoing UMass President Jack Wilson’s sabbatical. The Trustees approved a $425,000 sabbatical salary for this year, and then afterward at $261,000 salary for his work teaching and working as a top academic administrator at UMass Lowell.
The average full time professor salary at UMass Lowell is $130,000.
Tess George, an adjunct professor in business communication, says, “We’d like taxpayers students and parents to take a look at where the university’s financial priorities are.” She says, “I question the priorities. That’s an exorbitant salary being paid to an ex-president while we have an acting president and adjunct faculty are paid $3,500 per course with no benefits, no security.”
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![LOWELL — A group of UMass Lowell professors who are upset with the financial package of former President Jack Wilson will protest the deal at a rally at the UMass Inn & Conference Center tomorrow.
The protest is being organized by adjunct professors at the university, who say Wilson’s deal is out of whack with their salaries, which they say have not been increased in a decade.
Wilson is receiving his $425,000 annual presidential salary during a year’s sabbatical, and will be paid $261,000, nearly triple the senior faculty average, when he begins teaching at UMass Lowell later this year.
Nural Aman, an adjunct economics professor at UMass Lowell, called Wilson’s deal “an insult to the parents, student and faculty” at the university.
“Parents are struggling to send their children to college,” wrote Aman, in a letter to The Sun. “Students are working longer hours than ever to pay for ever-increasing tuition and fees.”
Aman, who is also a full-time professor at UMass Boston, said the university’s adjunct professors make $3,500 to $4,500 per course, with no benefits or job security. He said the university’s administration should not be “permitted to run the university like a third-world sweat shop” by denying raises to adjunct faculty, while doling out “excessive bonus paychecks” to Wilson.
“(UMass Lowell) is our university, a state institution paid for with our taxes and established to serve us, the citizens of the commonwealth,” wrote Aman. “It is time to call the administration to task.”
Aman expects about 15 to 20 people to show up at the rally, which was scheduled to coincide with the university’s Online and Continuing Education open house. He said the demonstrators will pass out leaflets between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., detailing their gripes to students and their parents.
A UMass Lowell spokesperson did not return a call seeking comment.
[…]
(via UMass salary spurs Lowell protest - Lowell Sun Online)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxyeo6yz841qaoramo1_400.jpg)
LOWELL — A group of UMass Lowell professors who are upset with the financial package of former President Jack Wilson will protest the deal at a rally at the UMass Inn & Conference Center tomorrow.
The protest is being organized by adjunct professors at the university, who say Wilson’s deal is out of whack with their salaries, which they say have not been increased in a decade.
Wilson is receiving his $425,000 annual presidential salary during a year’s sabbatical, and will be paid $261,000, nearly triple the senior faculty average, when he begins teaching at UMass Lowell later this year.
Nural Aman, an adjunct economics professor at UMass Lowell, called Wilson’s deal “an insult to the parents, student and faculty” at the university.
“Parents are struggling to send their children to college,” wrote Aman, in a letter to The Sun. “Students are working longer hours than ever to pay for ever-increasing tuition and fees.”
Aman, who is also a full-time professor at UMass Boston, said the university’s adjunct professors make $3,500 to $4,500 per course, with no benefits or job security. He said the university’s administration should not be “permitted to run the university like a third-world sweat shop” by denying raises to adjunct faculty, while doling out “excessive bonus paychecks” to Wilson.
“(UMass Lowell) is our university, a state institution paid for with our taxes and established to serve us, the citizens of the commonwealth,” wrote Aman. “It is time to call the administration to task.”
Aman expects about 15 to 20 people to show up at the rally, which was scheduled to coincide with the university’s Online and Continuing Education open house. He said the demonstrators will pass out leaflets between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., detailing their gripes to students and their parents.
A UMass Lowell spokesperson did not return a call seeking comment.
[…]
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Two of my former students are in this group, and they give me hope. While the DRC was a case in the Sociology of War and Peace this past Spring, it was Leymah Gbowee’s visit that inspired them to do something.
UMass Lowell (UML) students, including Billerica resident Bianca DiPersio, are dedicated to raising awareness about the worldwide epidemic of sexual violence, especially toward women of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). DiPersio and her student group have organized an informational engagement and fundraiser to benefit the Congolese women who have been victimized.
“There are so many human rights violations in the DRC, and because women are discriminated against, they are voiceless, so we wanted to give them a voice and let people know what’s going on there,” DiPersio explained. “We also wanted to show solidarity between us and them (the Congolese women) and show that we support their recovery.”
The UML Students Against Sexual Violence in the DRC also includes Matt Sweeney of Billerica, Caitlyn Farren of Medford, Sheila Kane of Chelmsford, Kayla Walking of Wilmington, and Ruben Munoz of Lawrence. The students hope to not only spread awareness but also to raise at least $1,000 to provide supplies for abused women to enable them to craft items that can be sold on the market and begin to lead stable lives. The event and fundraising efforts have stemmed from a group project for the students’ International Politics of Human Rights class.
(via Four things about UML raising awareness against sexual violence - Billerica, MA - Billerica Minuteman)
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Liberian women demonstrate at the American Embassy in Monrovia during the height of the civil war in July 2003. (Pewee Flomoku) (via Forcing an end to war in Liberia - The Boston Globe)
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It is the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s hope that the prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman will help to bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries, and to realise the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent.
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Along with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (the first woman president in Africa), and journalist Tawakkul Karman, she is this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. I met her in a luncheon reception just before her address which you can see in this link.
Leymah Roberta Gbowee UMass Lowell Greeley Scholar for Peace Studies “Days Without Violence” featured speaker
Gbowee helped bring an end to Liberia’s bloody civil war. I wrote about her last year.
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And they’re off!
I’ve just completed my first two classes of the Fall 2011 semester at UMass Lowell. There’s always a breathtaking sense of the new, the freshly scrubbed and of new possibility. I’ve forgotten how much I treasure the inquisitiveness of students at this juncture in the semester, and what a toll projecting to a large group can take on one’s voice. But despite a few technical glitches, we are most certainly off to a good start.
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