After my post in response to Tony Scott’s article I decided to go back and take a look at Kathleen Blake Yancey’s article, “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key.” To be honest, I don’t think I read her article when it came out in CCCs in 2004 in part because I saw most of her Keynote Address at CCCCs in San Antonio–and that was what was published in CCCs. So, I made the mistake of not reading her article back then…but I am glad I did now.

Before I get ahead of myself, I want to say that I fully agree with Scott’s concern that Yancey’s proposal for “Composition in a New Key,”

doesn’t mention the circumstances under which first-year composition is typically taught: it doesn’t mention contingent teaching labor, or the fact that professional scholars with Ph.D.s in rhetoric and composition don’t actually teach the overwhelming majority of first-year composition classes. If professionals in rhetoric and composition who are in a position to do so “carry forward” from first-year composition, will it be as managers and theorizers of a project that further expands the de-professionalization of teaching in academia? (83).

I think Scott is dead on when he insists that any re-imagining of composition cannot be divorced from discussions of material resources. I would hope that compositionists–especially compositionists–take to heart the long and problematic history of staffing composition classes with adjuncts and temporary faculty members and the the work of compositionists such as Eileen Schell, Patricia Lambert Stock, Bruce Horner, Jim Zebroski, and Nancy Mack who have brought the struggle for equitable working conditions and labor organizing into the mainstream discussion of our field. However, in my mind Scott is right to continue to insist because in the absence of pressure, I’d put my money on a convenient “forgetting” of labor issues.

Having said that, however, I’ve got to say that Scott’s response underscores what I see as a persistent problem “we” on comp/rhet left (and the left in general, I think) have in terms of how we engage in critique. In particular, how begin re-thinking proposals/possibilities through a lens that refuses a separations between the curricular/scholarly proposals and the material conditions of labor. Let me see if I can tease this one out.

In Scott’s response to Yancey’s proposal he reads her proposal as “avoiding” institutional factors, in particular, the resources that would be necessary to staff her proposed curriculum. Scott is rightly concerned that without addressing the issue directly, the fall-back position will be to (re)create and reinforce a two-tiered labor system–where the first-year course is staffed by adjuncts. It’s the next step that bothers me.

Yes, Scott looks to getting rid of the first-year course as a possibility (I addressed my objections to this in my previous post). But that is only part of the issue. The issue is that there is a qualitative shift in Scott’s approach to “problem”–one that only reproduces the split between a “scholarly perspective” and a “labor perspective.” To overstate and simplify the issue, we could say that Scott uses “material conditions” as a way to eliminate the possibility of Yancey’s proposal. Further, Yancey is positioned as and “elite,” divorced from the “real” conditions of labor. She is in her ivory tower in, well, the ivory tower. Scott, thus, contributes to a gap–a dissonance-filled communication gap–that makes any synthesis of Scott’s argument and Yancey’s proposal all the more difficult. In that gap qualifications sound like corporate PR; attention to working conditions sounds like entrenched self-interest. In short, positing material working conditions against scholarship and curriculum reinforces the mental/manual, scholarship/teaching binary that defines our mental maps of academic (and all) work.

What I want to suggest is that there are other ways of responding that speak to other possibilities–not only in terms of responding to concrete proposals, but in terms of how we discursively and materially (re)construct political communities. Put another way, the way Scott responds to Yancey is also a text that we need to read unless we are fine with the way things are. Which brings me back to my recent reading of Yancey’s article.

Frankly, I think much of what she argues is right on the money–in particular, her framing of the proliferation of digital communication as the technological companion of an emerging (or an already emerged) writing public calling to mind the emergence of a reading public in the 19th Century. It’s worth remembering that Habermas’s careful study of the emergence of this public sphere was a study of the emergence of a bourgeois public sphere. Likewise, we need to keep in mind that the writing public that Yancey identifies might be better positioned as a new bourgeois writing public…or some such formulation…given that there is a high access bar when it comes to affording and becoming fluent in digital literacies. Nonetheless, I do think the attention Yancey is drawing to a fundamental shift in literacy practices is critical to engage as composition and rhetoric folks.

What I find critical is the fact that Yancey wants us to pay attention to (calling to mind Cindy Selfe and Gail Hawisher) the fact that emerging literacies and emerging writing publics did not need our ask for our (compositionists) advice. Like Habermas’s publics, they did not ask for permission (which reminds me once again how right Harry Cleaver is in his re-reading of Marx’s understanding of capital as a social relation). As Yancey argues,

like the members of the newly developed reading public, the members of the writing public have learned–in this case, to write, to think together, to organize, and to act withing these forums–largely without instruction and, more to the point here, largely without our instruction (301).

Yancey argues that if we are to recognize and take seriously the kind of seismic shift the emergence of these writing publics represent and the kind of composing they are doing, not only do we need to think differently about the kind of writing we do in the classroom, we also have to rethink what we mean by writing and composition. As as of this writing, for what it’s worth, I think she’s right.

Then the question: What is to be done?

And here is where we return to Scott’s concern with labor. Our current two-tiered (or three-tiered once you start making a distinction between “adjuncts” and “term appointment” faculty) system, after all, is the industrial model of literacy instruction, or better, how the previous “print revolution” was institutionalized. If we don’t listen to Scott, we will, for sure, repeat the pattern for our post-industrial institutionalization of these emerging writing publics. However, Scott’s response to Yancey could be read as a defense of the current system–or, worse, a desire to hold on to a nostalgic vision of the past. Anyone who works in the labor movement is all to familiar with this charge.

What I want to suggest is that the question we need to be asking–proactively–is how to construct a curriculum that articulates curricular change with equitable labor conditions? Or better, how can we “see” through a lens that does not pit labor against curriculum, scholarship, and ideas? In my mind, Yancey poses a problem for us–in the Freirian sense. If we are to accept our creative capacities (again, Cleaver’s summary of the development of an autonomous marxist tradition in the introduction to Reading Capital Politically is floating through my brain), then it becomes important to enact those creative capacities in our critiques as a discursive practice of solidarity. That is, if I am compelled by Yancey’s argument enough to entertain the implications of her argument (and I believe Scott is), then I can join with her in generating possible ways of organizing our response. Instead of only drawing attention to the gaps and silences, I could be compelled to deepen the discussion.

Now, you might object that Scott does this through his suggestion that we consider dropping the first-year course. However, in my mind that suggestion only reproduces the labor problem that he draws attention to, as I argued earlier, by effectively outsourcing the labor of first-year composition to high schools or, more likely, private companies.

It would be more productive to say, “hey, I like what you have to say, but I have some concerns about reproducing a tiered labor system. Let’s see if we can strategies about how to both respond to these new developments and rectify labor inequities all at once. Not “both/and,” but rather “as one,” that is, as they actually exist–interconnected, inseparable, organically linked. That’s interesting.

So, that’s got me thinking about concrete, programmatic approaches to Yancey’s article. At some point I hope to share some of these ideas here…even as I know that my current idea buds will look very different as I work through this more. But, realizing that I am writing too much again, I’ll stop for the moment :-). I need to go and check out InkWork.

If you haven’t checked out InkWork, well, you should. Even if it’s only to understand the references I am about to make in this post. You see, Seth, Amy, and I have been writing about contingent faculty issues of late.

Over the past couple of days a conversation I had with my friends Pegeen and Doug a couple of years ago is coming back to me in pieces. My memory seems to work that way. I’ve never been good with quick recall. It seems many of my memories go into a kind of deep sleep and are slow to wake. They come back slowly, emerge–overlapping conversations; images places and contexts, fragments of words, feelings, and ideas. With focus I can call these spirits back–but they need to know they are welcome and are being called for a reason.

The conversation in question had to do with hospitality. To be honest, I can’t remember (yet) what got us on the topic. I think that Pegeen was writing on hospitality…or thinking about it as a critical category. I think that, but that part of the memory is not, yet, awake. I remember that we talked about the role of hospitality in our families. About how hospitality carries with it a whole web of reciprocal relationships…reminding me of anthropological and theoretical discussions of gift economies and the possibilities of giving.

Anyway, I think that conversation came back because of some of the InkWork discussion of contingent faculty. I don’t know how to think about this issue without thinking about the importance of the very terms of our discussion–the language we use to talk about “contingent” faculty. It seems there are no “good” words here. “Contingent,” “adjunct,” “temporary,” “part-time.” Each terms carries baggage–or, better, frames our ways of thinking about “contingent” faculty. Consider this discussion of “contingency” posted on Wikipedia:

In philosophy and logic, contingency is the status of facts that are not logically necessarily true or false. Contingency is opposed to necessity: a contingent act is an act which could have not been, an act which is not necessary (could not have not been). Contingency differs from possibility, in a formal sense, as the latter includes statements which are necessarily true as well as not necessarily false, while a statement cannot be said to be contingent if it is true necessarily.

In colloquial English, a contingency is something that can happen, but that generally is not anticipated. Planning for contingencies often requires a more imaginative approach, because contingencies are inherently not obvious. Large organizations, such as governments, are often criticized for not planning for contingencies because the construction of plans to deal with contingencies often involves thinking outside the box. Beforehand, contingencies are hard to predict; this failure to appreciate contingencies ahead of time has led to the formulation of Murphy’s law.

“Contingent” faculty…faculty that “could not have been” or may not be? Contingent upon…what? Necessity? My point here is not simply to play with words. Rather, it is to suggest, along with all those folks interested in “framing,” that language carries ideas without any work on our part (Lakoff 4). I wouldn’t say that language determines the practices…but I would say that without thinking through the work that language does, we reinforce and reinscribe the practices and ideas carried by the language we use.

For example, the contractual language to describe contingent faculty here is “temporary faculty.” Temporary. Not permanent. Fleeting. Here today, gone tomorrow. But “temporary” and the more often used term “temp” connects us to the likes of ManPower, Kelly Services, or even The Office. “Temporary” reinforces the contingent nature of the position and constantly underscores one’s lack of job security. It also undercuts the professional character of being a faculty member. Ryan understood this.

I think this is one of the main reasons why Janice, the chair of our department, insists upon using the term “visiting faculty” instead of “temps.” It’s that term “visiting” that got me thinking about hospitality and my conversation with Pegeen and Doug. What kind of hospitality does one show visitors? I think that the connection between our social codes on hospitality and visitors might be suggestive of how we might re-articulate how we interact with “temporary” faculty. Don’t get me wrong, hospitality does not and should not take the place of a struggle to end universities (and most neoliberal industries) reliance upon contingent labor and the accompanying de-professionalization of academic work. However, given the fact that hospitality makes demands upon the “hosts” as well as the visitors, it might be interesting to explore that frame.

For example, “good hosts” does not put up their visitors in dirty basements. You don’t invite people over for dinner and feed them yesterday’s left-overs while you eat a hot, freshly made meal.  There are problems with this concept, of course.  Visitors are not supposed to overstay their welcome.  Very often there is a premium placed on “nice” conversation–avoiding “hot” topics in order to keep the conversation pleasant.  But what is interesting to me is the fact that hospitality foregrounds people not positions.

Who knows…tomorrow I might find the concept too problematic…or deeply flawed…but I am chewing on it now, so I thought I’d share.

That’s right…breaking news from the blogosphere: Seth Kahn’s got a blog!  So, do yourself a favor and check out Here Comes Trouble for a window into Seth’s world!

I just read Tony Scott’s, “The Cart, the Horse, and the Road They are Driving Down: Thinking Ecologically about a New Writing Major,” from the Spring 2007 issue of Composition Studies. On the forth page in, I actually wrote, “hmmm…you interest me, sir.” Whatever. I do that.

Anyway, my point of logging back on tonight and writing is because I found myself with Scott, then arguing with him (OK, with his article). Back and forth the whole way. Scott’s article takes issue with Kathleen Blake Yancey’s 2004 CCCCs chairs address–in particular the lack of a consideration of labor when thinking about developing new undergraduate writing majors. Scott recounts Yancey’s proposal for “new writing majors” as follows:

Yancey proposed a major that emphasizes the ability to adapt to new trends in technology, and rhetoric as situated action. Yancey’s proposal realizes that emerging digital technologies are dramatically changing literacy and that academic writing is increasingly disconnected from the shape that writing is taking virtually everywhere other than classrooms. Postmodern in content and form, the proposal blends visual rhetoric with a creative style of explication, and resists framing the major itself in terms of what one might call traditional disciplinary content (83).

Scott calls attention to Yancey’s focus on circulation–in particular, her desire to have a range of “approaches” to composition “all oriented to the circulation of texts, to genre, to media, and to ways that writing gets made, both individually and culturally” (Yancey, qtd in Scott, 83).

While Scott is sympathetic to Yancey’s interest in grounding a writing major around the concept of circulation (he raises questions–good ones–about how we should theorize circulation), he points out a serious gap in Yancey’s proposal: Labor.

While I certainly find aspects of Yancey’s proposal very engaging and reflective of current scholarly concerns, her avoidance of institutional factors–of the material terms of labor that frame everyday writing pedagogy and the production of students’ texts–is crucial. This avoidance becomes especially salient when Yancy asserts that “First-year composition is a place to begin carrying this [major] forward…” (315). The proposal doesn’t mention the circumstances under which first-year composition is typically taught: it doesn’t mention contingent teaching labor, or the fact that professional scholars with Ph.D.s in rhetoric and composition don’t actually teach the overwhelming majority of first-year composition classes. If professionals in rhetoric and composition who are in a position to do so “carry forward” from first-year composition, will it be as managers and theorizers of a project that further expands the de-professionalization of teaching in academia? (83).

Bread and roses, brother. Seriously. I got my union up. This is exactly the kind of critique that needs to be made of any proposal for a new writing major. As a matter of fact, that is the critique I made of the proposal for a new General Education curriculum not to long ago here. The idea of a new General Education curriculum like a new writing major is great in the abstract. But what happens when you consider issues of labor? The question I raised to then-provost Rinker was “how will we staff an additional 95 sections of a new General Education course?” No answer. In fact, as it turns out, several key articles in the General Education Restructuring Team’s toolbox argued that any attempts to reform General Education curriculum should avoid discussing any issues of resources. Why? Well, you know, that would lead to “turf wars.” My question was aimed at dealing with the question of content and resources as inextricably linked. But I digress (and will do so again later). [note: this is the importance of “having the fight.” That is, not of “giving up” FYC, but staking a claim around issues of labor]

After a very useful discussion of activity theory and marxist theories of circulation, Scott returns to his focus on labor: composition programs–even those programs that have become well established, Ph.D. granting departments–still rely heavily upon contingent labor. Despite the fact that comp/rhet argues furiously for the importance of writing, we still staff the majority of our first-year courses with contingent faculty.

So, the $64,000 question: what is to be done?

And here is where I end up arguing out-loud with the pages in my hands. Here’s where Scott leads us:

Institutional transformation is necessarily local and varied, so eroding the numbers of courses taught by people who don’t hold full professional status will involve a number of measures, perhaps including abandoning the first-year requirement. The issues of “abolition” and situated administrative pragmatism are well-covered and beyond the scope of this essay, but with the development of a variety of classes staffed by fully-vested professional teachers, we might see letting go of first-year composition programs in their present incarnations as liberating. Rhetoric and composition might be able to move into a post-writing program era. Professionals in rhetoric and composition can then get out of the business of teacher management, and postsecondary writing pedagogy can be less constrained by technocratic mechanisms, such as mandatory syllabi and textbooks, and coercive assessments of teachers and student texts. More writing classes can be taught under conditions that enable professionally informed divergence and experimentation in pedagogy (90).

What’s my beef? Well, it’s what’s bypassed by giving up on first-year composition. First, there’s the issue about the purpose of the course and the reason why it is supposed to exist–”supposed to” in the pedagogically sound version, not as the “gatekeeper.” But, more to the point of Scott’s argument, the issue of labor does not go away. Instead of an organizing campaign to unionize contingent faculty, we get downsizing and lay-offs. And, I would argue, we get further de-professionalization insofar as the needs of our students do not go away with the “abolition” of the first-year course. More likely than not the work of tutoring–both through colleges and universities and new on-line writing labs–will be contracted out. When Nike rose as one of the “super brands” it hired the best and the brightest to “build the brand” and engage in “quasi-spiritual marketing,” to use Naomi Klein’s term. But those folks did not make the shoes. Production was contracted out. Out of sight, out of mind.

I get concerned about these kind of moves insofar as the alternative of organizing contingent faculty and/or organizing to take back higher education from the logic of the market fades away. Perhaps I will see this differently in the morning when I am not so tired and my fingers and wrists are not burning with carpal tunnel. I just didn’t want to lose these thoughts in my sleep.

OK, this is a quick one…a little discursive bit harvested from a facebook site “Kutztown University Needs to Change.” This site was created by a couple of students who decided it was better to organize than just sit around and complain.  A noble idea, no?  One might even call it active citizenship.  As of this post, that facebook group has 1,118 members.  Not bad for a week old…ahh, digital activism.

Anyway, a couple of days ago a Kutztown University administrator joined the group and has been responding pretty regularly to the students…mostly in the form of “you need to understand how the university works.”  One of his posts from earlier today is my nugget for today:

Just some suggestions. Before you go asking for changes on your main points, you need to make sure that you understand where the University is now, that you are being reasonable and rational in your approach, and that you aren’t asking for wants and desires rather than just needs. Wants and desires are the things you’d like to have if possible, needs are those things that are required out of necessity. For example, I want and desire a new Harley, but I don’t need it to get to work (and my wife won’t let me have one anyway). So, if I base my whole outlook on getting that Harley, I will be disappointed, even though I can still get to work. It is similar with this University. We aren’t Harvard or Yale. We don’t have a gigantic endowment. Our tuition and fees are low compared to Penn Sate and surrounding State public schools. Therefore, sometimes we are only going to be able to give what is needed, not what is wanted or desired.

“We are only going to be able to give what is needed, not what is wanted or desired.”  Nice move.  Notice the movement in this argument…the movement suggests that the space of needs is narrow.   And, I would argue, the administration is best positioned to determine what are needs and what are desires.  KU is positioned next to Harvard and Yale to frame “endowments” and to Penn State and “surrounding state public schools” to frame “tuition.”  Interesting.  One could wonder, justly I think, what can actually be changed?  That is, we are both NOT privileged ivy league schools.  And, “we” are GENEROUS with our tuition.

I am too tired at the moment to really work this though…but this is another piece to the argument that is being worked out locally.  One of the little pieces I am working on right now is called “Shut up and Teach!”  Perhaps, the nugget above is a piece of reasonable neoliberal discipline?  Echoes of the World Bank at moments.  More, so much more to write.

It’s true. About a week ago I laid out my little plan for conferences and publications for the next several months. Next month I am supposed to present my paper, “Save Our School: Multimodal Activism and the Struggle to Save the Early Learning Center at Kutztown University,” at the CCCCs in New Orleans. Alas, it does not look like it’s going to happen.

As much as I want to go to the conference and present that paper, I’ve had to come to terms with one pretty sobering fact: I do not have enough institutional funding to cover my expenses for two conferences this spring. Conferences are not cheap. For example, the registration fee for RSA in May was $210. Just the fee ate up all of my department funding. Given that the conference is in Seattle, my plane fare and hotel will more than eat up my university funding. In other words, I will be paying for a portion of that conference anyway. If I want to go to both conferences, one will have to come entirely out of my pocket. Given that I’ve been busting my butt for the past several years to live within my means, I’ve had to accept the fact that I simply cannot afford to go to both conferences.

That’s not easy to accept. The teaching and service load here has already taken a toll on my research and scholarship. And despite the fact that Kutztown is supposed to be a teaching intensive/focused university, there are increasing expectations to publish. The problem is that the material support for research and scholarship has not risen even close to the rate of expectations. Don’t get me wrong…no one takes a job at a teaching intensive university expecting to keep a full research agenda going. As the saying goes, something’s gotta give.

Anyway, I’m just frustrated. If we were getting strong support for teaching here, I might not be so bitter right now. But the increasing class sizes, a lack of adequate office space, and a finance-driven approach to curriculum by our current administration and State System just wears me down sometimes.

I guess I’ll just concentrate on getting that conference paper turned into an article for publication. I’ll miss the intellectual engagement of the CCCCs.

At the very least I guess I should be happy to learn that I’ve been more productive. Funny. I don’t feel more productive. I just feel tired.

Sometimes, on my 30 minute commute to work I replay words and arguments over in my head to try and get a better grasp of their contours and what they seek to do, the affects they have, etc. In my co-authored book with Rachel Riedner, one of our chapters takes a look at the role of despair in neoliberal rhetoric. We describe the role of despair in neoliberal rhetorics as follows:

What we see in the everyday working of despair, is the work of hegemony at the level of habitus—“a system of lasting, transposable dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at every moment as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations, and actions” (Bourdieu 82-3). That is, despair is not limited to one specific kind of experience within neoliberalism. Rather, it is a transposable disposition, flexible enough to contain expressions of resistance. As part of a hegemonic discourse, despair sneaks into everyday arguments about current conditions and possible alternatives (79).

This “transposable disposition,” in my mind, is part and parcel of a kind of “neoliberal commonplace”–a persistent pattern of cultural argumentation.

I first started working on questions of despair when I was first getting involved with our local union chapter and teaching an Advanced Composition course called “Global Literacies.” In both my union work and in my class I noticed a recurring pattern of moral outrage followed by some version of the statement: “there is nothing we can do.” On the one hand, this frustrated the hell out of me–especially in the union context–but, the persistence of the argument made me think that I should be thinking about what it means and what it does [see excerpt for a brief intro into how Rachel and I situated this issue].

Anyway, that set me on my current path of taking an interest in the “micronegotiations” of hegemony, so to speak. That is, the everyday arguments made in everyday contexts that rise to the level of “commonplace arguments.” You could say, I am working on a “commonplace book” that focuses on neoliberal rhetoric [if you are interested in what a commonplace book is, check out this power point presentation floating out there on the web].

As you may or may not know, one of the hot conversations on our campus right now is a vote of no confidence in our university president. At this point, the issue is part of a public discussion and we do not know whether or not such a vote will be taken. But the issue has certainly sparked a spirited discussion among faculty and in the community at large. Some of the emails that have made it into my “commonplace book.” More accurately, they have occupied my mind during my drives to campus each morning and evening.

Here’s a brief list of some of the issues I have been thinking about:

• how do individuals identify with institutions, in this case with our university
• what is considered “proper” and how codes of civility and manners overlap in discussions of “process” or “the way” an issue was handled
• public image of an institution. In particular, public images as constructed in images and PR material (reputation) and/or public images based upon actual practices
• shades of progressive–”liberal” ways of seeing
• The role of institutional authority in argumentation (thinking Robin Lakoff’s arguments in The Language War here).

Oooops…look at the time. Gotta run to a meeting!

I’m reposting this from my blogger site as well…it is close to how I am thinking lately and is something that I want to work more on. I can see this making it’s way into on of my conference papers this year…

<o:p>**********************************
Email to faculty, 1/23/2008
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</o:p>

The Value of the Word

I have been thinking about some recent concerns about the way the issue of no confidence was raised at the beginning of the semester. In particular, I am thinking about the issue of Rep Council members not having any idea about the possibility of a vote of no confidence—or the public discussion of the possibility of a vote of no confidence. I’ve looked back over my own notes and have found reference to several members who raised the issue. I can also recall several occasions in which the issue of no confidence was raised and discussed. I can’t square the two positions. That does not mean that I think anyone is lying about what they remember. Nor do I think that anyone who has raised questions about this process has ill intentions. I am beginning to think that perhaps the “way things have always been done” has had a deeper impact on our discussions at Rep Council than I expected. I’ll return to that in a moment, but first I want to share what I recall from Rep Council.
<o:p> </o:p>

• Back in April/late March, as part of the announcements portion of a Rep Council meeting, APSCUF-KU President Mike Gambone told the entire Rep Council that he was approached by the Board of Trustees with concerns they had about developments on our campus. In particular, he shared that they asked him to come to a special meeting and provide them with an evaluation of President Cevallos’s job performance. While we were not given copies of the document Gambone gave to the Board of Trustees (in part because he did not want to raise this issue publicly if there was an opportunity for positive change by working through the Trustees). Gambone did say, however, that one of the key things he stated explicitly in the document was that several issues need to be resolved or there would be an increasing push toward a vote of no confidence.
• I do remember, as some of the previous emails on this subject contend, that the issue of no confidence was brought up as part of other discussions during Rep Council.
• During strike preparations (and in our General Membership meeting over the summer) some members raised the issue of no confidence again and Gambone explicitly said that that will be an issue we may have to consider if we do not see progress.
• Over the summer, when the administration failed to call meetings of the ELC Task Force to generate solutions regarding the long-term stability of the ELC, we ran into the same pattern of inaction. Again, the issue of no confidence was raised.
• Finally (and this is by no means a complete list) Rep Council passed (with, if I remember correctly, one “no” vote) on October 11, 2007 a resolution on the ELC that explicitly called for accountability on the part of President Cevallos. You can see the full resolution here.

<o:p></o:p>So, when I say I can’t square the different “rememberings” about whether or not Rep Council members were informed about the question of no confidence in the president, I am not simply playing games. But, nonetheless, I do believe some members of Rep Council when they say do not see the above list as meaning the same thing as I do. So, what does one do with this? Well, again, it would be easy to dismiss different “rememberings” and engage in finger pointing. But, c’mon, who really has any interest in that. So, I want to share what I think may have contributed to these differences.

<o:p></o:p>There was a time when the word did not matter—
or at least, was not of serious consequence

<o:p></o:p>One of the things that I noticed early in my career here is that many faculty did not put a whole lot of stock in the words of APSCUF-KU leadership or the Administration. I remember listening to the protestations of previous members of APSCUF-KU Exec and hearing colleagues say “they always say that and still nothing happens.” Or, the administration would say it was invested in program A or policy B and colleagues would say “I’ll believe it when I see it.” In other words, I heard a lot of distrust or dismissal of people’s words—ironic for an academic institution in which words are supposed to mean. And if people do not believe in what other people say—if they cannot trust their words—then it makes sense that claims, statements, and arguments would be dismissed or not seen as worthy of notice. It’s actually almost a cliché representation of academics and academic discourse—that words have no connection to actual practices, that words are only used for posturing or making idle threats. Have you ever read the book Straight Man, by Richard Russo? A colleague of mine gave it to me my first year here and told me it should be “required reading” for all new faculty members at Kutztown. As each year passes, I am more and more aware of how true that book rings.

In any case, I am beginning to think that the culture of words-without-meaning may have had a part in some members of Rep Council not reading our words as amounting to very much. That is, I can imagine that if I had been at Kutztown for 20 years and I had gotten used to not believing words, on what grounds would I believe Gambone, or me, or APSCUF-KU Exec? It’s not as if the culture of words-without-meaning is gone after all. I remember in the Fall of 2006 when Dean Hanna came to our department meeting and told us all that once the Academic Forum went on-line in the Spring 2007, one of the larger classrooms in Lytle would be taken off line and converted into office space. Now, no one in our department was thrilled with the Academic Forum, but there was hope that at least we would have offices for new faculty. In August 2007, just a couple of weeks before the beginning of the semester, the Forum was on-line, but we did not have any converted office space. Instead, I came to campus to find that our copy room was being dismantled and half of the History department’s seminar room was being taken over in a last ditch effort to provide faculty with offices. And it was faculty and staff members who were doing that work. Again, none of this is new. At the LAS College opening day meeting, I raised this very issue to Hanna. I asked, in effect, “what happened?” He said that it would have been irresponsible for him as a manager to invest money in converting office space when Lytle will be torn down. “When will it be torn down, I asked?” Seven years.

I remember feeling kind of stupid at that point. I asked myself, “why did I actually believe his words in the fall of 2006?” Colleagues chimed in: “it’s par for the course.” In effect, it was a pedagogical moment. That is, I was being taught not to believe words. I was being instructed in the literacy of a culture of words-without-meaning. I can imagine that after a while, I would get worn down. I would accept despair. I would come to the conclusion, “that’s just the way things are.” But that would have significant, additional consequences. I would stop believing what people say. I would have to determine that what other faculty members and administrators said had no significance in real life. That’s a dangerous path—especially for someone like me who teaches writing and how to do things with words.

Having words

Something that I think all of us on the current APSCUF-KU Exec have tried to do is to make good on our words. I can remember in the past, sitting though Rep Council meetings when the former president would report on Meet and Discuss. He would tell us that APSCUF-KU demanded a resolution to X or additional information on Y. The administration would consistently reply “we’ll get back to you.” But they never did. The next Meet and Discuss report was like watching a re-run of the previous report. “We’ll get back to you.” But no one seemed to really expect that we would actually get an answer. And there was no consequence. It was like a ritual dance that the actors performed for the sake of ceremony. When Gambone became president and Ken Ehrensal took over Meet and Discuss, they had to contend with this ritual. Gambone’s answer was to give the administration time lines. Instead of “we’ll get back to you” meeting with a nod, it was met with a deadline: If you do not get back to us by next Meet and Discuss, we will file a policy grievance. Management called what it thought was a bluff. The grievance was filed. In other words, words meant something again. For over a year the pattern repeated, until finally (maybe) it started to become clear that words would continue to mean something in that context. And when words have meaning, we can actually start talking about trust again.

So, to bring this back to the point, I think I can understand why the arguments, information, warnings, suggestions about no confidence that I’ve listed above may not have meant the same thing to some people as they meant to me. I can also understand why Rep Council members would not lend credence to other members call for a no confidence vote. After all, in a context where words were divorced from practice and action, there would be no reason to care or connect the dots between statement A and statement B.

Perhaps we have an opportunity here to reclaim the word. To trust that we say what we mean and mean what we say. And, further, that we will follow up on our words with practice. Frankly, that’s what I saw us doing on APSCUF-KU Exec. But we were cautious as well. We did not recommend to Rep Council that a vote of no confidence be taken. We raised the issue publicly as a point of discussion. Faculty members need ample time to consider this issue. Faculty members need time to consider the supporting documents on our local website http://www.apscuf.org/kutztown and on the blog http://cevallosnoconfidence.blogspot.com. Department Representatives need to have time to talk to members of their department to get their input. When Department Reps come to Rep Council on February 14^th, they will have had the benefit of all this discussion and can represent their departments well. Then Rep Council will decide what to do. Is a vote of no confidence in President Cevallos a possibility? Yes. But that is only one possibility. This discussion has to happen in the open—not just in hallways and closed offices—but openly. We are, after all, thinking through the future of our university.

An Election Year

<o:p></o:p>I also know that there are some faculty members who are not happy with the current APSCUF-KU Exec leadership. I take that as a given. It seems to me that cultural and structural change is not easy. Not everyone will be happy with the direction of change. But I want to remind everyone one of this: APSCUF-KU elections will be held this spring. Up for election are President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer. In addition, three Delegate seats are up for election: my seat, Paul Quinn’s seat, and Kristin Bremer’s seat. If you are not happy with the current leadership, run for a position. Put together a slate of candidates for that matter. I think that would be incredibly healthy for the future of this union. I would further suggest that we could have a public debate leading up to elections. That kind of involvement in our local would be incredible.

When election time comes around, I will make my case. I will respond to any questions people have. I will offer my services to the union and the university once again. Unless something unforeseen happens, I will run again. You have my word.