APSCUF-WCU

Yesterday afternoon, I’m cruising through my work Inbox, trying to pare down the 450 messages to something I can manage, when I notice the invitation below from our Human Resources department.  I can’t even begin to describe how richly ironic the timing of this invitation is.  Within a week of our Governor threatening to slash our universities’ budgets to pieces, prompting all kinds of fears about job loss, increased class sizes, crashed working conditions for those of us who stay, and so on… 

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Subject: Upcoming Faculty/Staff Survey for The Chronicle’s Great Colleges to Work For Program 2011

Our institution is participating in The Chronicle’s Great Colleges to Work For Program 2011, a study designed to recognize institutions that have built great workplaces.

Part of the program involves an employee survey distributed to a random sample of each institution’s full-time Faculty, Administrators and Exempt Professional Staff.  This survey was designed specifically for Higher Education. On March 21, 2011, this survey will be distributed to a random selection of our professional employees. If you are included in this random sample of employees, you will receive an email invitation encouraging you to take part in this survey.

If you receive the invitation, please take a moment to complete the survey.  The results of the survey will be factored into the overall scoring process that will ultimately determine the institutions recognized. After The Chronicle publishes the findings this summer, our institution will receive a report that summarizes responses to the survey questions.

This is a confidential survey that measures the strength of certain organizational competencies and relationships which most directly impact and influence an institution’s culture. Your participation and honest feedback are critical to the assessment process.

To ensure the confidentiality of your responses, your survey will be processed by ModernThink LLC, a research and consulting firm focusing on workplace excellence.  Survey Results provided back to the universities will only be numerical in nature and will not include employee names.

We encourage everyone’s participation! A high response rate helps ensure accurate results and demonstrates the commitment of our workforce.

Thank you in advance for your time.  Please contact the Office of Human Resources at x5653, or visit www.ChronicleGreatColleges.com, if you have any questions.

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Really?  Are you sure this is the time to be asking those questions?  Really?

Folks: Sending out today’s links a little early.  Eric Hawrelak, the statewide APSCUF mobilization/strike committee chair, just posted this first one on Facebook, and it’s too good not to send now.  The others are primarily information, news, and coverage from around the state. 

Anything you want posted, send to Seth. 

Without further ado… 

“Does Your Alma Mater Matter?  It Doesn’t to Governor Corbett”

Click here to send messages to Governor Corbett and your local legislators via the PA House Democratic Caucus.  Another easy, convenient way to let your representatives know that you want them to FIGHT this. 

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Union Estimates 19,000 Teacher Layoff Slips So Far in California

A story about the massive layoffs in CA due to the Republican-led
legislature’s refusal to consider tax increases.  Once again, teachers
suffer for the tax breaks for the wealthy.

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National Institute on Money in State Politics

Click here to research contributions to state and local candidates; you can search by race, by position, by district.  You can also find out what professions/fields contributors come from and how much they gave.

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[Corbett’s Budget Secretary] Zogby Talks Budget

Clip of a radio spot on WITF.  The lead on their website says, “Governor Corbett’s budget has been public for a week now. The spending plan cuts more than a billion dollars out of education spending. WITF’s Scott Detrow sat down with Budget Secretary Charles Zogby at the Capitol. He began the interview by asking Zogby to respond to criticism Corbett could have kept spending in place, if he had raised corporate taxes.”

Our colleague Ken Ehrensal (KU) adds this:  On the topic of the cuts to higher education, he justified the cuts by concerns with the effectiveness of the institutions and the “results” that we generate as measured by FOUR (4) year graduation rates.  He also made negative comments about higher education’s attempt to “rationalize a 5-6 year graduation rate as the norm.”  While he was willing to put some of the blame on the students for not working hard enough and focusing on their studies, he also seemed to lay some blame on the institutions for not making courses available.

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Students, Faculty Express Concerns about Gov’s Proposed Budget

Allentown TV station’s coverage of the open forum at KU yesterday (3/15).

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A Video Introduction to Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine

If you’re not familiar with Klein’s book, she lays bare the political strategy of “shock doctrine” (hence the name).  If you’re shocked that Gov. Corbett would propose such a drastic cut to the PASSHE budget, watch this video for a good introduction/summary of the strategy behind it.

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[Via a current WCU student who’s student-teaching, and because this will get broadcast on Facebook, I’m protecting his/her identity]

The Lancaster Journal is hosting a Call-In Poll. Here’s the student’s Facebook post–

“ATTENTION PA TEACHERS, PARENTS, AND FRIENDS:
Please call 1-866-346-7655 to vote on Gov. Corbett’s Budget. Support education and press 4 then # to strongly disapprove of this budget. Your child’s future and quality of education may depend on it! It takes 30 seconds!! I just did it!”

I just did it too; it’s legit. Maybe not the most powerful statement, but a quick and easy one nonetheless.

–Seth

Folks:

A few of you have already begun sending me links (click to mail me directly) to sites and articles you’d like posted here.

That’s fine, and I encourage you to do so. Here’s how I’d prefer to handle this–

If you send me a link, please make sure it works before sending it. I won’t have the energy to track down and correct them; if I click it and it’s not live, I’ll just skip it.

I’ll post them as headlines so readers can click on titles they think look interesting, rather than simply posting url’s.

If you want to increase the likelihood that people will read what you send me, it’s not a bad idea if you include a quick capsule/summary of it. I’ll post them if you send them, but I won’t generally write them for you. Again, a time management issue.

I’ll post one page per day of links; I’m sure there will be some that I’d post every day anyway, so there should be a “Links [date]” post each day. If you have an item that you REALLY believe needs to get out quicker than that, you can say so, and I’ll be as responsive as I can.

Looking forward to seeing what you send.

–Seth