In my March 29th post, “On Group Think and Catastrophe,” I reproduced a very pointed argument made at our local APSCUF-KU Meet and Discuss table made by former APSCUF-KU Vice President, Ken Ehrensal.  His argument called out KU Administration budget officials’ problematic use of “worst-case-scenario” logic, in particular, the logic of a budget catastrophe.  Here is an exert from that post:

Second, Ehrensal argued that the budget presentations given by Ken Long, Assistant VP of Administration and Finance, assume every catastrophic scenario.  For example, KU’s budget projections assume a 2.5% annual increase in tuition.  However, the Chancellor has been talking about a 4% increase.  If the Chancellor’s numbers hold, our “budget crisis” will be cut in half.  Long also built-in a 3.5% increase in salary for all union employees (including faculty).  However, all contracts are up for negotiation this year.  New contracts for all university unions will be in place starting July 2011.  If the salary increases are lower than 3.5%, the “budget crisis” could be cut in half (I didn’t write down the percentage that Ehrensal was working with).  Further, Long built-in to h

is analysis that the PA Legislature will not fix the problem with PSERS (PA State Employee Retirement System).  Failure to fix the problem, while possible, is not likely.  In short, the budget presentations represent a catastrophic scenario…not a likely scenario.

Despite our best efforts at the table, the administration continued to use these “catastrophic” budget projections in its presentation to faculty, staff, KU’s Board of Trustees, the Chancellor of PASSHE, and, of course, the media.  Just about every local news story about Kutztown administration’s move to retrench faculty and staff was willing to print the administration’s story of a dire budget crisis without question.  I personally reached out to a few reporters, pointed them to this blog, emailed them, and spoke to them on the phone about the problems with the Kutztown administration’s argument.  But, frankly, the adminstration’s narrative was compelling, especially since it seemed to echo that of the broader “economic crisis” narrative in the U.S. today.  In some ways, I can understand why our arguments, Ehrensal’s arguments in particular, did not gain traction.  It’s not easy to swim against the current of a dominant cultural narrative, especially when that narrative takes the form of a torrential downpour.

But just because a cultural narrative is compelling doesn’t mean that it’s accurate or true.  As a scholar and teacher of rhetoric you are taught to be very critical of cultural narratives that seem to “sweep people up” into them.  Such narratives are the ones that allow governments, businesses, con-men, and cult leaders get masses of people to do things that in “normal” times they would never do.

Well, that’s where we are folks.  KU’s administration has used the “catastrophe” narrative to cut jobs, removed fired administrators and staff from their offices with police escorts, reorganize programs, eliminate majors, all under the cover of media reports that reaffirmed what many people feared: “there’s nothing we can do.”  Well, the narrative hasn’t held.  As a matter of fact, in turned out that Ehrensal underestimated the degree to which KU’s administration was padding its numbers in order to create the appearance of crisis.  Here’s and article from yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer:

Pa. system approves 4.5% hike in college tuition

Undergraduate tuition at Pennsylvania’s state-owned colleges will increase $250, or 4.5 percent, under a $1.5 billion budget approved Thursday by the system’s board of governors.

Annual tuition for full-time resident undergraduates beginning this fall will be $5,804, which the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education said was the lowest among all four-year colleges and universities in the state. The system said it would receive $503.4 million in state and federal funding to support the current-year operating budget.

Resident graduate school tuition in 2010-11 will be $6,966, an increase of $300. Nonresident graduate tuition will increase $480, to $11,146. - Inquirer staff

You with me here?  Recall Ehrensal’s argument:

For example, KU’s budget projections assume a 2.5% annual increase in tuition.  However, the Chancellor has been talking about a 4% increase.  If the Chancellor’s numbers hold, our “budget crisis” will be cut in half.

Put simply, KU’s “budget crisis” has just been trimmed over 50% without a single faculty member losing her or his job, no program consolidation, no outsourcing of vehicles (yes, KU is now outsourcing to Enterprise Rent-a-Car at a cost of $41 a day.  I have heard, but haven’t yet confirmed that this is a PASSHE initiative).  So, there’s half your budget crisis.  It also looks like the PA Legislature is going to resolve the “crisis” in PSERS.  That “crisis” was supposedly going to put KU back by around $6 million.  Assuming that crisis have been averted, as predicted by Ehrensal, that cuts the “crisis” back even further.  You still following?

What this basically means is that KU’s administration and the administration at other PASSHE universities are not simply carrying out German-style austerity measures.  They are restructuring the State University system under the cover of the “budget crisis.”  As if citizens of the Commonwealth haven’t already experienced more than their share of “belt-tightening.”  Now, KU’s administration is given us all a spooky story right before bed in order to decrease citizens access to higher eduction–the very thing we’re told that is required to lift us out of this downturn.  Unjust desserts for the majority once again.

Get your minds out of the gutter folks…The “Dirty” here is as in “getting your hands dirty.”  I’ve been a little lax keeping up with Cooking with Dionysus.  Much of my virtual presence has been spent working on a blog for our local union’s delegates to the APSCUF Legislative Assembly, a non-official local union blog called APSCUF-KU XChange (of which I’m thinking of changing to just the KU XChange), and building a wiki for our composition and rhetoric program at KU.  I’ve also been writing quite a bit on private writing blog.  For a host of reasons, I write more and more often in that blog than I do when I plop myself down in front of a blank Word document.

I began my private blog as a way to finish up a chapter for Seth and JongHwa’s forthcoming  collection, Activism and Rhetoric: Theory and Contexts for Political Engagement.  In short, I liked writing and thinking in a blog space a lot more than I did in a Word context.  From there I began writing class notes and ideas for my course, “Rhetoric, Democracy, Advocacy” (which I am currently teaching), and seemingly random notes about issues I’m interested in and want to research.  The more I wrote, the more I wanted to write (a pretty consistent theme in my academic career).

Like everything else at a teaching university, my desire to write more and more often had to confront very real time constraints.  So, I scheduled myself a three-hour bloc once a week to write.

One of the first things I did was re-read all of the conference papers I’ve written over the past few years to see which ones (if any) I could work on and turn into an article.  As I read, it started to see the shape of a bigger project.  I shouldn’t have been surprised, actually, since I made a conscious decision a while back that I would only propose conference papers that chipped away at a bigger project.  After a few days of toying around with organization and, more importantly, the title I had the outlines of a book proposal together: Gettin’ Dirty: Rhetoric, Democracy, and Sustainable Dissent.  Yup.  So, that’s what I’m working on!

So…why this breaking out of my private blog into Cooking with Dionysus?  I refuse to admit this to myself, but I am sure it has something to with watching Julie and Julia the other night.  I’ve gone back and forth on bringing my works-in-progress to CwD (or any other blog for that matter) for a range of reasons…that I’d be happy to talk about.  What convinced me to move Gettin’ Dirty (the draft proposal at least) onto CwD?  Two things: 1) I need to give myself smaller deadlines and a consistent space to write in order to put this book together in a relatively short period of time (self-imposed urgency); and, 2) to open up the possibility of not feeling like I’m working in isolation.  Even if no one bothers to comment to what I post, it feels less isolating.  To me.  No general principles about the nature of blogging and it’s impact on writer identity here.  Just a fact that it seems easier to write.

As my first little nugget, I thought I’d post my very, very drafty table of contents.  This is what I am working with:

Gettin’ Dirty:
Rhetoric, Democracy, and Sustainable Dissent
by Kevin Mahoney

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: “Rhetoric of Advocacy: Curricular Labor and Democratic Futures” (from CCCC 2009 conference paper) [Potentially retitled as “Curricular Labor and Democratic Futures.”]
2. Radical Teaching and Social Movements: Historical Legacies (from chapter 3 of my dissertation)
3. “Space: Mapping Democratic Openings in Empire” (From CCCC 2004 conference paper)
4. “Advancing Composition: Public Rhetorics and the Struggle for Democratic Futures” (From CCCC 2007 conference paper)
5. “Viral Advocacy” (from CCCC 2010 conference paper)
6. “Literacies for the Long Haul: Traditions of Radical Literacy Education for Access, Autonomy, and Democracy” (from CCCC 2005 conference paper)
7. “The Day After: Grieving and Sustainable Dissent” (new)

So, there ya have it…my little entry into public, academic writing.  Oh, if you’re wondering about the picture at the top of this post, I found it online.  I love it.  I want to ask permission to use that as the cover.

I’ve got some ideas already about where to submit my proposal…but if you’ve got any ideas, I’m all ears.

2010.  Wow.

I can’t think of a decade that went by faster than this past one.  I’ve spent 7 1/2 years of the ’00′s in Pennsylvania.  That means that I have lived here longer than DC (3years), Oxford, OH (4 years), and almost as long as I lived in Syracuse (8 years).  Pretty wild.  And…what’s really got me thinking…of my 7 1/2 years at Kutztown University, I’ve been the coordinator of composition for all but two of those years.  That’s right…I’m one of those people who took on the reigns of writing program administration well before I was tenured.  I’ve been a tenured coordinator of composition for only a year and half.   Believe me, I was told all during grad school that taking on WPA duties before tenure was a bad idea.  Practitioners in our field also recommend strongly against it.  But, at the time it didn’t feel like there was too much choice if I was going to be able to help build our composition program–one of the key reasons I came to KU.

At the end of my second year, ten faculty in our department retired; one tenure-track faculty member got married and joined her husband on the West Coast; and, our then Chair decided to tell us during finals week that he had accepted a new job and would not be with us the following fall.  He even passed around pictures of his new house in Michigan.  I remember that moment as both daunting and exciting.  Daunting in that our faculty was gutted by almost a third and we had to scramble to elect and new chair and figure out how to staff all of our courses by the fall semester.  Exciting because many of those people who were retiring were the very faculty members who seemed committed to internal factionalism and personal conflict.  In one fell swoop, that dysfunctional departmental dynamic would be gone for the most part.  We had the opportunity to build a new, collaborative department.

Our coordinator of composition at the time decided to run for department chair.  She and I had talked about me taking over the coordinator position, but this would mean I would do so a year ahead of time.  I didn’t see any real alternatives, no matter how conflicted I was about my premature entry into the world of writing program administration. I can’t pretend that my first couple of years at the coordinator were easy.  It was a huge adjustment that was marked by my own, at times, ambivalent relationship to administrative work.  But, in looking back on these 5 1/2 years, I think I can say that I’ve been able to do some pretty good things here.

I think my biggest contribution has been to privilege growing the program.  This has meant: 1) prioritizing building a core faculty in composition and rhetoric; 2) cultivate intellectual spaces to support that core faculty and all faculty teaching composition; and 3) build an undergraduate (and eventually graduate) concentration in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies (the name came later, actually). Since I took over in 2004, we’ve hired three new faculty in composition and rhetoric and we are in the middle of hiring our fourth.  We’ve also converted a temporary faculty member–who is completing her PhD in composition and rhetoric–to a tenure-track position.  So, by fall 2010 we will have increased the number of comp/rhet faculty from three to eight.  Not bad.

In terms of creating an intellectual space, I started a reading group in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies that meets monthly to discuss current scholarship in the field.  Thanks to the great work of Amy Lynch-Biniek and the Composition Conference Committee, we’ve expanded our annual undergraduate composition conference to include students taking composition and rhetoric courses at all levels.  We’ve also brought in keynote speakers such at Keith Gilyard, Rosa Eberly, and Steve Parks–and this spring Susan Wells will be joining us.

We have also revised and added several new courses to the department’s offerings.  In my first year as coordinator, we added ENG 430 “Rhetorical Traditions/Contemporary Renditions.”  Last year, we added my course ENG 316 “Rhetoric, Democracy, Advocacy.”  And this past semester, we added ENG 260 “Issues in Composition and Rhetoric” (Lynch-Biniek) and ENG 274 “Women, Writing, and Rhetoric” (Cullum).  Linda Cullum also worked with Lisa Weckerle from Speech/Communications to update ENG/SPE 335 “Rhetoric of Literature.”  Thanks in large part to our Chair (and fellow compositionist) Janice Chernekoff, ENU 405 “Teaching of Writing” runs every semester and is a required course for all Secondary Education/English majors.  All of these new courses are part of our proposed concentration in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies, which I expect to have cleared all the curricular hurdles by the end of spring 2010 semester.  It’s really been quite an amazing run so far.

Like anything else, I could also list the many things I wish I had done, done better, or didn’t do.  But, I’m pretty good at beating myself up about those things on a daily basis.  In the spirit of the New Year, I thought I’d cut myself a little slack, look back at some accomplishments, and remind myself that the work is worth it.  Now I can actually begin planning for the next step!

Hmmmmm….where can we go from here?

From: Cavanaugh, John

To: Quinn, Paul

Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 11:14 AM

Subject: RE: AACSB

Paul,

Thanks for your note. See specific replies below.

John

From: Paul Quinn [mailto:quinn@kutztown.edu]
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 10:53 AM
To: Cavanaugh, John
Subject: Re: AACSB

Dr. Cavanaugh,

Thanks you for your email message this morning.  This is the first time we have had real clarity from PASSHE on this issue.  We are still trying to digest the impact of your words here on campus based on where we were in the accreditation process before your statements on Wednesday.

I have a few questions for you in regards to this matter.

1) So when you say that Kutztown needs to determine locally whether or not it wants to pursue AACSB accreditation, do you mean that the Kutztown Administration should determine it, or do you mean that the decision should be discussed through shared governance with the faculty and various governing bodies on campus?  I would say it needs to be discussed in a shared governance fashion, with very thorough discussion of the pros/cons. With AACSB, as I indicated in my remarks, there are real downsides for not doing it that should be considered. Some faculty indicated to me they came to Kutztown specifically because AACSB accreditation was a goal. Student recruitment also becomes an issue, as I discussed.

2) You refer to the shift in mandate that has happend these past few months in your email.  Has this shift been made known to the University Presidents prior to your statements on our campus? There has been general discussion only (i.e., that there would no longer be a mandate) recently. As a result, there have been no policy or procedure documents created yet.

3)Was State APSCUF made aware of this shift in mandate or the process that led to the shift in mandate via some sort of memo or the State Meet and Discuss meetings?  Because this change is very recent, I do not believe it has made it yet to the M&D at the state level (though I could be mistaken). That’s a result of the recency of the issue, nothing more. The actual process and details are still evolving, but in fairness to the campus I thought it would be an advance notice to make you aware of the upcoming changes. The performance funding task force will no doubt be recommending more when their work is completed; those will also be brought forward for discussion in appropriate venues (e.g., M&D). But because it had become clear that the accreditation mandate was not going to be one of them, I did not see a reason to withhold that information so decided to pass it along.

I apologize for the directness of my questions, but since your visit to our university, our College of Business has been thrown into a bit of chaos since WE were under the assumption that AACSB accreditation WAS a mandate until your statements on Wednesday.  I am just trying to construct a timeline to discern what happened and how to move forward.  Thanks for your time.  Your assumption was correct—it WAS a mandate until very recently.

Paul

I will try to provide additional updates later today or tomorrow.

Hey all.  I went through my book order today and now can tell you that we will be reading Susan Kates, Activist Rhetorics and American Higher Education, 1885-1937.  That’s in addition to the book list I posted last week.

I got a little bit concerned looking at amazon.com because it looks like the book might be out of print.  However, on the Southern Illinois University Press site, it shows the book in-print.  Very cool!

So, any KU students who are last minute register-ers and might dig this class…REGISTER SOON!  I want to make sure this class runs.  It looks pretty good now, but I stress over this kind of stuff.

I am very excited that I will be offering ENG 316 Rhetoric, Democracy, Advocacy for the first time.  I designed this course about a year and a half ago and now it’s finally on the books and in the schedule.  Interested?  Well, here’s the official course description:

I. Course Description: ENG 316: Rhetoric, Democracy, Advocacy

The connection between rhetoric and democracy is an old one dating back to the origins of both concepts in Western traditions. Simply put rhetoric—the skilled use of argument and persuasive discourse—and democracy were seen as ways to replace violence as the primary means of governing and resolving conflict. This course argues that the intimate connections between rhetoric and democracy are critical to retain and reclaim for the health of democratic society and culture. American democracy has been defined not only by its institutions and Constitutional frameworks, but also by vibrant traditions of citizenship advocacy that have relentlessly stretched the boundaries of democratic freedoms, identities, and protections. A healthy democracy requires citizen advocates who are skilled in the analysis of public discourse and the rhetoric of advocacy. This course will be a sustained study of the theory and practice of advocacy rhetoric, primarily in the American context. In addition, this course will raise practical questions about what citizenship advocacy means in a context of increasing globalization and new media. 3 s.h. 3 c.h.

II. Course Rationale

Despite the historic connection between the rise of democracy and the rise of rhetoric in Western traditions, rarely do we study rhetoric as a “citizen discipline.” That is, while it is common to find courses training students in the “expert rhetorics” of corporations (public relations) and political campaigns, there is a general lack of courses that focus on the role of citizen advocacy as integral to the health of democratic cultures. As one of the missions of higher education is to train critical citizens capable of meeting the challenges and responsibilities of an ever changing world, this course seeks to make such training an explicit part of the English department’s curriculum.

I’ll post the book  list for the class in a little  bit.  If you have any questions about the class, drop me a line.

APSCUF-KU held a joint Conference on Labor in Higher Education in Harrisburg on October 15-17th.  Here’s some stuff that came out of the conference:

• Here’s me being interviewed by Marc Bousquet for AAUP Online.  The interview focused on Article 11 of our contract–conversion of temporary faculty members/lines to tenure-track.
• Bousquet’s full post for AAUP Online, “Stabilizing Persons, Creating New Lines,” also includes a link to an article by Bill Hendricks of California U of PA, “Negotiated Conversions: Living with Uncertainty.”
• On Sunday, October 25th I was interviewed on the Harrisburg-based “The Rick Smith Show.” I was asked to come on the show to discuss last week’s labor conference, issues facing state faculty members, and, what the recent surge in student enrollment means for schools, students, and staff.”
• An excellent piece called “Is Your Fiscal Crisis Real?” posted by Marc Bousquet on his “Brainstorm” blog for the Chronicle of Higher Ed.
• Bousquet’s “Is Your Fiscal Crisis Real” post includes the PowerPoint presentation at the APSCUF/PSEA conference by Howard Bunsis, AAUP.  The presentation shows data that raises serious questions as to the reality of PA’s fiscal crisis.  You can check out the presentation right here.
• Also check out Marc Bousquet’s site How the University Works for lots of info on current higher education labor issues.

There are just three days left in the semester and we’re wrapping things up. Like most of my colleagues, I am deep in grading mode. However, I thought I would take a few minutes this morning (before I head into campus and while my son is sleeping) to post.

This past academic year has been pretty incredible for our little composition program.  We have one new class on the books, ENG 316 Rhetoric,  Democracy, Advocacy, which will be offered in spring 2010 for the first time.  We also have two classes heading for college and university curriculum committees after passing our department unanimously: Women, Writing, Rhetoric and Issues in Composition and Rhetoric Studies.  A very productive year for course development and another step toward rounding out a solid concentration in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies at KU. 

This past year we also completed two successful tenure-track faculty searches.  In the fall, we will welcome Mysti Rudd from Lamar State College-Port Arthur (IUP PhD candidate) in Texas and Moe Folk from Michigan Tech.   Over the summer I am going to ask Mysti and Moe to introduces themselves to you, but for now let me just say that both of these folks promise to contribute to our program in exciting ways.  As I have suggested before on this blog, our program has at its core an ethic of “conversation.”  That is, we are interested in a diversity of approaches at our composition table that can contibute to a lively conversation over the teaching of writing, literacy in the 21st Century, and all things composition and rhetoric.  Many of us got into this field because of its lively discussion over the purpose and nature of writing, rhetoric, and literacy…so, it only makes sense that we would want to use that energy, that commitment to discussion as the model of our program.  I am sure that Mysti and Moe will both expand and deepen our conversations. 

This past spring saw another successful Composition Conference for student writers.  This 5th annual conference was expanded to include student writers from all levels of composition courses, which exceeded our expectations.  Despite a very miserable weather day, attendance at this year’s conference was the best yet.  Our keynote speaker, Steve Parks from Syracuse University, gave an engaging talk entitled “Once I was a Washing Machine: Worker/Writer Alliances at the Edge of the Economic Abyss” (see the pics below).  His talk was both well attended and sparked conversations that echoed through our conversations for weeks. 

Over the course of this summer we will be planning for what promises to be an exciting new academic year.  We will be hiring an additional tenure-track faculty member in Multicultural/Multiethnic Rhetorics; formally submitting our concentration for department approval; expanding our course offerings; deepening our use of new media; and continuing conversations in our weekly meetings and reading groups.  Toward the end of this semester, we began some interesting and exciting conversations with our fellow rhetoricians in the Speech Department (soon to be Communications Studies).  Frankly, the promise of reuniting rhetoric just gets me all happy (yes, I am a rhetoric geek). In short, I think we are in great shape…or, given that today is Obama’s 100th day in office, maybe I should say: “the state of our program is strong!”  :-)

Hey all…welcome to another experiment in podcasting. This podcast comes to you from the 5th Annual Kutztown University Composition Conference for Student Writers. Three brave souls, Tim Crane, Katrina Albert, and Renee Franklin agreed to have their panel recorded for this little experiment. (btw…check out our vlogging from KUCC posts on the KU Comp/Rhet blog).

As you may know, I am now the proud owner of a “Snowball” by Blue Microphones. I went for this mic because it every review I read/watched pointed to this USB mic as THE mic to have for professional quality podcasting and digital recording. The big bonus with the Snowball is that is has the capability of 360 degrees recording…so, you can plop it down in the middle of a table, plug it into your laptop, and you’re good to go. And that’s what we did. I’ve gotta say, I’m quite pleased with the quality.

A Little Context:

This panel grew out of my ENG 230 Advanced Composition class this spring.  The first text for the class is Rhetoric: A User’s Guide by John D. Ramage.  Let me just say that the text is not a “user’s guide” in the “how-to” genre.  More of a “user of rhetoric” introducing the uninitiated to rhetoric through the lens of rhetoric.  Students learn in the first couple of pages that Ramage will not tell them what rhetoric “is,” but he will tell them quite abit about what it is like in terms of other things.  He suggests that rhetoric is a Western version of Tao or Dine.  In short, it’s a non-traditional introduction to rhetoric. 

To complicate things that are already complicated, the paper I assign focusing on Ramage is not a traditional paper.  It asks students to write a travel narrative recounting their journey through “Ramageland” (you can check out the paper assignment here).  The papers are generally very creative and quite engaging.  The three papers you will hear here are three such creative and engaging responses to my first assignment.  

I’d love to hear your responses to this podcast…in terms of the quality of the sound, thoughts on the papers, questions about the assignment, ideas about the conference, or…well…you tell me.  I’ll get out of the way now…you can click on the radio (top) or the play button below to hear the podcast.

 Journeys with Ramage panel at 2009 KU Composition Conference [47:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (89)

Yes, indeed Cooking with Dionysus iTunes podcast is LIVE!  Woo Hoo. 

No, really, I do know that I am just about the only person that is excited about this.  Really, I do.