Campus Equity Week and activist turnover

At COCAL IV in San Jose, CA, in January of 2001, Mary Ellen Goodwin conducted a vote to launch Campus Equity Week. The idea was that it would be held during the last week of October of the odd years to alternate with COCAL conferences during the even years. In those early years, Chris Storer ran an outstanding website that served as a clearinghouse for information about CEW and general contingent faculty advocacy. In addition to reports and news stories about activities from around the country, there were also resources intended to build the movement's identity, including logos and buttons. I still have the small green "CAMPUS EQUITY" button with slanted, 3D letters of "CEW" which sort of looks like "C=W."

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates of 8 October includes a letter/press release from Maria Maisto of NFM that explains NFM function as clearinghouse of information about CEW and is promoting a Campus Equity Now! button. NFM has assembled the remains of partial archives of past CEW records (including some of Chris Storer's).

Campus Equity Week, like NAWD, is valuable in calling attention to the lack of equity and equality that exists in higher education. But it is striking to sense the recycling and duplication of effort given the lack of visible progress. I suspect that part of this recycling and duplication is attributable to the fact that different people are involved.

What happened to talented and brilliant advocates like Chris Storer from San Jose, Gary Zabel from Boston, Joan Grosse from Madison? We would be a much stronger movement if we had their experience and guidance.

At my college, a few colleagues in advocacy have gone on to become tenured faculty and are no longer involved in advocacy for NTT, at least one has passed away (about six months after he was featured on the front cover of a 2004 Chronicle of Higher Education story about his denied summer unemployment), and others are just not around, I think given up on adjunct instruction.

I suspect that one of two things have tends to happen to activists: (1) they realize the potential for retaliation from their activism and decide to retreat, or (2) they realize that the contingent faculty movement such as it is (COCAL conferences, observances of CEW/FEW and NAWD, stories about contingent faculty on welfare, petitions, buttons, etc.) is futile or at least so unlikely to produce real progress that they decide to spend their time and energy elsewhere.

What could be done to entice those who are opposed to the exploitation of NTT faculty to remain active in the movement?

Best wishes, Jack

(originally posted to the adj-l listserv, 10/10/2105 at 11:44 am MT by Jack Longmate)