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Higher EducationVOL. 29, NO. 1 JANUARY 2012

Become a Better Teacher+Your Assignment for 2012: Fight for Your Rights!

Why You Should Care about the Occupy Movement

How Rich Corporations = Poor Public Colleges

Faculty Strikes for Fairness

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NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE2

WHAT’S AHEAD IN 2012? 3This is the year that the middleclass stands up for its rights.

THRIVING IN ACADEME 6Everybody wants to be a betterteacher. Learn how from the best.

ON THE ROAD 10

WHY I AM A MEMBER 10Meet the leader of NEA’s newestlocal of support professionals.

BY THE NUMBERS 11

THOUGHT & ACTION 12

THE STATE OF HIGHER ED 13Illinois and California facultyunions walk the picket line.

DIALOGUE 14

CASE STUDIES 15The nation’s health care programheads to the Supreme Court.

OP-ED 16

Advocate (ISSN: 1522-3183) is published five times a year, in September,November, January, March, and Juneby the National Education Associa-tion, 1201 16th St., N.W., Washington,D.C. 20036. Periodicals postage paid atWashington, D.C., and additional mail-ing offices. The Advocate is mailed toNEA Higher Education members as abenefit of membership. Postmaster:Send change of address to Advocate,1201 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C.20036. Copyright © 2012 by theNational Education Assoc.

Mary Ellen FlanneryEDITOR

Marsha BlackburnPRODUCTION COORDINATOR

Groff Creative GRAPHIC DESIGN

Prepared withthe NEA Officeof Higher Ed

Daniel R. RiveraDIRECTOR

Frances BeardASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

Rachelle EstesGina Lewis-Carmon

Mark Smith

Bryant Warren Valerie WilkPhadra

Williams-Tuitt OFFICE OF HIGHEREDUCATION STAFF

National Education Association

Dennis Van RoekelNEA PRESIDENT

Lily EskelsenVICE PRESIDENT

Rebecca S.PringleSECRETARY-TREASURER

John C. StocksEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Help NEA to help higher education.We need your voices on Capitol Hill.

HOW ARE BUDGET CUTS affecting yourcampus? Have valuable programs or ma-jors been slashed? Are class sizes out ofcontrol? Tell us, so that we can tell Con-gress! The federal Fix America’s SchoolsToday (FAST) bill would provide $5 bil-lion to modernize community colleges,but NEA needs your help to lobby effec-

tively for its passage. Is your instructional technology obso-lete? Do your job-training facilities date to the 1970s? AtNorthland Community College in Minnesota, faculty say theirout-dated science laboratories can’t be used to adequatelyprepare the next generation of scientists and health workers.“We frequently have to modify, or even reject new and inter-esting lab activities because we lack the facilities or equip-ment to run such labs,” said chemistry instructor Erin Almlie.Plus, the facilities just aren’t so safe anymore. (Water drippingacross live electrical outlets?!) What story do you have? Visitwww.educationvotes.com and click on “share your story:budget cuts” at the top. Also, be sure to watch Jim Rice, presi-dent of NEA’s National Council for Higher Education, explainthe importance of F.A.S.T. at www.nea.org/he.

Sweet Home Chicago! Don’t missthis learning opportunity.

NEA’S 30TH HIGHER EDUCATION CONFER-

ENCE will be held March 2-4 at thePalmer House hotel in Chicago. Thetheme, “Defining our Values, Affirm-ing Our Ideas,” will provide for inter-active sessions on organizing andbargaining, as well as higher educa-tion policy and professional develop-ment. Learn more about what goes

into a winning campaign and how to use online organizingtools. Get the lowdown on trends in salaries and benefits.Find out how to create a truly inclusive classroom environ-ment—and more! Sessions will be inclusive of full-time andpart-time faculty, staff, and support personnel. To register,visit www.nea.org/he.

Want to be a better leader?NEA’S EMERGING LEADERS ACADEMY (ELA), a nine-month train-ing program for select NEA Higher Education members, istaking applications for its 2013 class. During three trainingsessions (in June, November, and March), ELA participantswill learn skills around issue organizing, member recruitmentand reorganization, communications, and other traits of lead-ership. For more information, visit www.nea.org/he.

MISSED SOMETHING?READ PREVIOUS ARTICLES ONOUR WEBSITE

SAVE THE MIDDLE President Obama callsfor an end to “you’re onyour own” economicsand those state and fed-eral policies that havehurt the middle class foryears.www.educationvotes.nea.org/2011/12/07/

NEED HELP F.A.S.T.?The Fix America’sSchools Act includes $5billion for communitycolleges. Learn how tosupport it.www.educationvotes.nea.org/2011/12/05/

TEACHER QUALITYNEA has unveiled a planfor teacher quality,which includes raisingthe standards forwww.educationvotes.nea.org/2011/12/08/

EMERGING LEADERSThe 2012 EmergingLeaders Academy in-jects a bolt of energyinto a California twoyear college organizingcampaign.www.educationvotes.nea.org/2011/11/29/

PROTECTING PELLThe proposed Housebudget would cut off500,000 low-income PellGrant recipients. Learnhow to defend their ac-cess to college and ca-reer training.www.educationvotes.nea.org/2011/11/10/

Headline News


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THE WIDENING INCOME GAP IN AMERICA.

“This is a make or break moment forthe middle class, and all those fight-ing to get into the middle class,” saidPresident Obama in a speech lastmonth. “At stake is whether this willbe a country where working peoplecan earn enough to raise a family,build a modest savings, own a homeand secure their retirement.”

Taking aim at “breathtaking greed,”Obama called on Congress to extendthe payroll tax cut, a measure thatprovides tax relief to middle-classtaxpayers but expires this spring,after a last-minute stopgap extensionapproved in December. (You canurge your Representative or Senatorto extend the cut by visiting NEA’sLegislative Action Center atwww.nea.org/lac.) In a deal offeredby Democrats, the cuts would befunded by a modest tax increase tothose earning more than a milliondollars a year.

That’s not likely you. But it may beyour college president. In 2009, atleast 36 college presidents earned a million dollars, the

reported last

month. And administrators keep getting substantial raises, even during these times of belt-tightening.Between 1997 and 2007, presidentialpay grew by 35 percent, compared to5 percent for college faculty.

Certainly that’s the case in California,where members of the CaliforniaFaculty Association walked thepicket line for one day in November.Claiming a rightful alliance with the“99 percent,” faculty said they’d hadenough with the administration’s“management first” priorities.

Earlier this year, on the same dayeven, California State University ad-ministrators approved a $100,000raise for one campus president andhiked student tuition by 12 percent.“This strike, for me, is a response toinjustice,” said California State Uni-versity East Bay professor JenniferEagan.

RECORD-SETTING STUDENT LOAN DEBT.

U.S. Secretary of Education ArneDuncan recently suggested that PellGrant and other federal tuition-assis-tance programs be linked to “reform” efforts by colleges and uni-

versities. Under his scenario, govern-ment support would depend onwhether those institutions can accel-erate the amount of time it takes toearn a degree or close achievementgaps.

But a better idea would be to fullyfund those college affordability pro-grams, something Congress seemsunlikely to do without pressure fromconcerned faculty and staff. Late last year, the House AppropriationsCommittee put a bull’s-eye on theback of the Pell Grant program witha proposed 2012 spending bill thatwould slash more than 500,000 stu-dents and $4.3 billion from the pro-gram. As of the ’s presstime, a compromise bill was takingaim at 100,000 enrollees, a still sub-stantial cut.

But cuts to college accessibility pro-grams are exactly what you don’twant to do during an economic re-cession. In 2011, Pell Grants pro-vided a ticket to the AmericanDream for 9.4 million college stu-dents. At some schools, like Califor-nia State University Fresno, morethan 50 percent of students rely onPell to pay their tuition and helpthem prepare for much-needed ca-reers in health care, education, lawenforcement, and more.

“This is America’s future,” said Sen.Ben Cardin, D-MD, at a Pell Grantpress conference this past summer.“President Obama was right (whenhe said) we need to ‘out-educate’ tomeet the challenges of the future.”

housands of volunteers knocked on doors in Ohio—andone out of four was a member of NEA. You, the makers ofthe middle class, moved insistently to defend the rights ofregular people to raise a unified voice. And, thanks to yourefforts, the rights of faculty—as well as nurses, firefighters,police officers, and teachers—to collectively bargain wereaffirmed by a significant majority of Ohio voters.

So what’s next for 2012? Don’t imagine that the far-rightwing and its billionaire backers will give up now. They’ll be

back. But so will you, stronger than ever. Here are just a few issues to consider.

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What’s aheadIN2012?

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Getting Better as Teachers

How can we get better in our teaching?” It is a question that perpetu-ally challenges us. One powerful option is to learn from the out-standing teachers around us: What do they do that makes them soeffective? Can we learn from them to become better teachers?

Improving Our Teaching: Learning from the BestIn 2004, Ken Bain published the influential book, ,which offered an in-depth study of more than 60 outstanding teachers from quite varied in-stitutions. His book contains numerous wonderful lessons, but the central theme was thatthese teachers created “natural critical learning environments.” They challenged studentswith authentic problems and questions and then supported their efforts to grapple with re-lated ideas, rethink their assumptions, and re-examine their mental models of reality.

In the belief that it is possible to look at exceptionally good teachers and learn more thanone valuable lesson, I offer this additional analysis.

The four circled items represent the fundamental tasks of teaching. The way we do thosetasks is influenced by the our own views of knowledge, learning, teaching, ourselves asteachers, and our students as learners. In my essay, I identify some lessons from Bain’sbook on three of these factors: perspectives, course design, and interactions with students.

inREFLECTIONS ON HELPING STUDENTS LEARN

BY:

L. DEE FINKUniversity of

Oklahoma, Retired

Thriving in Academe is a joint project of NEA and the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education(www.podnetwork.org). For more information, contact the editor, Douglas Robertson ([email protected]) at

Florida International University or Mary Ellen Flannery ([email protected]) at NEA.

Knowledge of InteractionsSubject Matter with Students

Perspectives

Course Design Course Management

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NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATEIllustration: Steve McCracken 7

“What the Best College Teachers Do”: An Additional AnalysisKen Bain’s description of the best collegeteachers (2004) is a rich resource of infor-mation from which we can all learn. As along-time faculty developer with my ownperspective on college teaching, I offer thisadditional analysis of what accounts for theunusual impact of these teachers on thelearning of their students. This analysis fo-cuses on the perspectives they brought totheir work, their course design decisions,and the special way they interacted withtheir students.

ATTITUDES AND PERSPECTIVES

Apart from their actions in relation to spe-cific courses, these teachers had a specialset of attitudes or perspectives about teach-ing and learning that was foundational to

the way they taught.

Notonly did these teachers do the usual workof keeping abreast of changes in their disci-pline, they spent substantial amounts oftime continuously learning new ideas aboutteaching and the nature of human learning.

Intheir own thinking and in their communica-tion with others, they never engaged in the all-too-common practice of blaming

I TALES FROM REAL LIFE > LEARNING ABOUT TEACHING AND LEARNING

THEIR CONVERSATIONS REVEALED A MINDSET

THAT TRUSTED STUDENTSTO BE GOOD STUDENTS.

Meet L. Dee Fink

Like most of uswho teach inhigher educa-

tion, Kristin Scott, anassistant professor ofMarketing, had nopreparation for teach-ing. At her first univer-sity, she was givensome old syllabi a weekbefore classes and told:“Just try to stay oneweek ahead of the stu-dents.” Result? “I had

no understanding ofwhat to do or of howstudents learn. Idreaded going to class.I thought the studentshated me.”

Fortunately her seconduniversity, MinnesotaState—Mankato, had aTeaching CertificateProgram to help juniorfaculty learn aboutteaching. Result? “It

was a complete para-digm shift for me. Ilearned some reallyfundamental concepts,like ‘active learning andmetacognition; I learnedhow to engage students,and the importance ofidentifying what I wantstudents to learn.”

An increasing propor-tion of college teachersare discovering there

are some “break-through” ideas aboutteaching and learning“out there.” Fink main-tains an annotated bib-liography of books withmajor new ideas on col-lege teaching publishedin the last 20 years; it isavailable online at:www.finkconsulting.info/majornewideas.doc

As Professor Scott said,

“Participating in thisTeaching CertificateProgram made my jobmore enjoyable. I stillhave a lot to learn, butmy courses alreadyhave a lot more focusto them; my studentsare more engaged witheach other and withme. That makes mycourses much more ex-citing—both for my stu-dents and for me.”

L. Dee Fink servedas founding directorof the InstructionalDevelopment Program at the University of Okla-homa from 1979

until his retirement in 2005. In2004-2005, he served as presidentof the POD Network in Higher Edu-cation, the primary professional association for facultydevelopers in the US. He currentlyworks as a national and internationalconsultant in higher education,helping universities identify ways toimprove their educational program.His professional website is:www.finkconsulting.info.


NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE Illustration: Steve McCracken8

students. They never made comments like“Today’s students just don’t [fill in your favorite problem] like they did in my daysas a student,” or “You just have to force students today to work hard.” Rather, theirconversations revealed a mindset thattrusted students to be good students.

They did not just glance at their end-of-course evaluations and ask: “How’d I dothis time?” They examined the evaluationsclosely to see what students liked and disliked, then they used this information toget even better in their teaching. When stu-dents were not learning well, they exam-ined the course, before automaticallyblaming the students.

They did not view their teachingas their private domain—and no one else’sbusiness. Rather, they saw their own teach-ing as an integral part of what their institution or their discipline was trying todo. That is, they saw themselves as part ofa collective effort to provide students witha high-quality educational experience. Thismeant they tried to contribute in some wayto the goals of that larger effort.

DECISIONS ABOUT COURSE DESIGN

Before the course even began, these teach-ers undertook a number of specific actionsand decisions, which I would describe ascourse design decisions.

Many of them identified big questions or

big stories that gave meaning to the wholecourse. One calculus teacher drew an irreg-ular shape and then asked students: “Howwould you calculate the area under thatcurve?” A sociology professor posed thequestion: “How does society influence indi-vidual human behavior, and is that influence

greater than the personal and biologicalforces within each person?”

They did not dismiss class early, and tellstudents to “go buy your textbooks.” Theyused the first day to get the course startedin a powerful way. Many used this to get toknow their students better, both individu-ally and collectively. Others used it to posetheir big question and start the process ofengaging students.

Theseteachers clearly had moved into learning-centered teaching. They recognized theneed to build their course around a set ofhigh-quality learning goals, rather than justmarch their students through a set of topicsabout the subject. Many of these goals

focused on “thinking” as well as “knowing.”But many also wanted learning that, interms of Fink’s

(2003), went well beyond the cat-egories of cognitive learning. One medical-school professor wanted her students tolearn: how to handle their own emotions,how to treat a person in a hospital bed as ahuman being, and how to care both forhealing and for helping people and theirfamilies.

Theseteachers had moved well beyond primaryreliance on the traditional staples of lec-tures, homework, and whole-class discus-sions. They had students engaging inauthentic tasks, small group work, findingsources of information, answering thosebig questions themselves, and reflecting ontheir own learning.

Bypaying attention to several characteristicsof their students over the years and cur-rently, they were able to make adjustmentsin their courses to deal appropriately with:students’ prior knowledge of the subject,their dominant learning patterns, their ex-pectations of the course, etc.

Theirassessment activities were used to do morethan grade students; they were used to en-hance learning. They accomplished this by(a) periodically having students assess their own learning, (b) providing fre-quent feedback on student work, and (c)using well-developed rubrics to evaluate

H ere are threepieces of adviceto get anyone on

a growth curve in terms oftheir competencies and ca-pabilities for helping otherpeople learn.

First, spend time learningabout teaching. This mightmean participating in on-campus or national work-shops, reading books,gathering feedback from

students, and if your univer-sity has a faculty develop-ment program, using theirconsultation services.

How much time should onespend? Most sizeable organ-izations spend 5% of a per-son’s time on professionaldevelopment. For facultymembers, that would meanspending 8 hours a monthor 8 days a year.

Second, apply what you

learn.. It is not enough tolearn new ideas; you have touse them and make somekind of change in yourteaching.

Third, assess your teachingcarefully. When you trysomething new [whichshould be every time youteach], askyour students ifthey learned somethingvaluable. Which activitieshelped them learn well and

which did not?

If you can regularly learnand apply new ideas to yourteaching, and also assessthe impact of these changes,you will see yourself gettingbetter and better as ateacher — every year, everyyear!

THESE TEACHERS HADMOVED WELL BEYOND

PRIMARY RELIANCE ON THETRADITIONAL STAPLES OFLECTURES, HOMEWORK,

AND WHOLE-CLASS DISCUSSIONS.

I BEST PRACTICES > STRATEGIES FOR GETTING BETTER AS A TEACHER


NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE

complex projects.

One level of integration wasachieved by making sure their learningand assessment activities fit their learninggoals. In addition, they frequently found away to connect out-of-class learning within-class learning. This way, the course of-fered a sequence of activities that built oneach other, frequently leading to a culmi-nating activity or project.

THEIR INTERACTIONS WITH STUDENTS

Once the course was underway, theseteachers communicated and interactedwith students in a way that motivated andempowered students to effective learning.How did they do this?

Theydidn’t just “say” they cared; they didcare—about many things. They were con-cerned about students as human beings;they deeply wanted students to learn; thewhole teaching-learning process excitedthem; and they truly believed their subjectwas the most important and exciting inthe world. These passions were made visi-ble to students, not hidden or kept secret.

Bain mentioned three specific actions byteachers that motivated students to workhard on learning: (a) they gave praise in aspecial way, e.g., using “task” praise ratherthan “person” praise, (b) they listenedcarefully to students, and (c) they figuredout what motivated different students,and then responded in special ways toeach student.

Part of this involved using a senseof drama and rhythm in their dialogue.They also used the language of “promises”[“This is what you will be able to do as aresult of this course…”] rather than “de-mands” [“This is what you must do in thiscourse…”]. In addition, they:

• Invited students into a community oflearners about the subject at hand, bothpast and present.

• Repeatedly expressed their belief thateach and every student in the course re-ally could learn this material.

• Celebrated the achievements of students.

• Used the “warm” language of good storytelling.

They were sensi-tive to how they handled the power-trustissue inherent in any hierarchical relation-ship. They did not use the classroom todemonstrate their power or brilliance, butinstead to invest in students, displaying atrust that students were ready to learn.When possible, they gave students powerto make decisions about their own learn-ing. And finally, they were fair, i.e., theyequally applied the same policies for all.

REFERENCES AND RESOURCESHere are seven books with ideas that canhelp anyone make their teaching more ef-fective.

Ambrose, S., et al. 2010. How Learning Works:7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bain, K. 2004. What the Best College TeachersDo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Barkley, E. 2010. Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fink, L.D. 2003. Creating Significant LearningExperiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

Related website: www.designlearning.org

Michaelsen, L., Knight, A., & Fink, L.D. 2004.Team-Based Learning: A Transformative Use ofSmall Groups. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Related website: www.teambasedlearning.org

Weimer, M. 2002. Learner-Centered Teaching:Five Key Changes to Practice. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

Wiggins, G. 1998. Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

I ISSUES TO CONSIDER

Illustration: Steve McCracken 9

GETTING BETTERAS TEACHERS:SOME A PRIORIQUESTIONS

Before we even make theeffort to get better asteachers, there are somequestions that we needto ask and answer. Hereare three questions thatmany teachers have.

IF I WORK REALLYHARD, CAN I BECOMEONE OF THE BESTTEACHERS AT MY UNIVERSITY? Maybe yes, maybe no.But that is not the rightquestion to ask. The rightquestion is: “Can I getmyself on a growth curveand stay there? That is,can I continue to get better, every year, everyyear?” That will requirespending time bothlearning new ideas fromwherever you can, andthen finding a way to usethese ideas in your ownteaching. We can’t all be“the best” but we can allget better — and we oweit to our institution, our-selves and our students

to work hard at achievingthat goal.

CAN I REALLY MAKEBIG CHANGES IN MYEFFECTIVENESS AS ATEACHER? Aren’t we all born withour particular level of talent as a teacher? Theanswer to this question is quite clear. Everydaythere are people learninghow to make major improvements in their effectiveness as teachers.I worked as a faculty de-veloper for more than 25years at a university withapproximately 1,000teachers. Over and over, Isaw ordinary teacherswith typical problemstake an idea from aworkshop, from a con-sulting session or a book,and apply that idea intheir courses with amaz-ing results. The teachersfelt much better abouttheir teaching and so didtheir students.

IS THERE A SINGLE,BEST WAY TO TEACH? Is this not “one size fitsall” thinking? It is correct,that there is not a singlebest way to teach. But

there are some universalprinciples that we can allapply in unique and spe-cific ways. The teachersdescribed in Bain’s bookwere clearly quite variedin their specific practices.But what Bain did in hisbook and what I am try-ing to do here, is identifysome common principlesand patterns we seewithin that variation.An analogy to this iswhat happens with air-planes. Some planes aremade in Europe, some inthe U.S. Some are built tobe agile fighter planes;some are designed tocarry cargo or passengers.Some are big, some aresmall. But no matter whatthe size and purpose,when that plane takes offand lands, there are someuniversal laws of aerody-namics that must be usedin the design and opera-tion of that plane. Thesame is true of teaching.



ON THE ROAD

Walking the line,CFA and NEA join forces

On Nov. 17, three members of the 2011Emerging Leaders Academy gotsome real-life experience as they

walked the picket line of the California Fac-ulty Association (CFA) strike on the Califor-nia State University, Dominguez Hillscampus, near Los Angeles. Cheryl Riley(MO), Andre Richburg (NJ), and Jason Gar-von (MI) started the day in the dark, havingarrived at 5:30 a.m. in order to help CFA getready. Cheryl and I worked the sign-uptable, while Bryant Warren, NEA organiza-tional specialist, and Andre and Jasonworked with picket captains to cover theeight campus gates. The other unions in thearea, including the California Teachers Asso-ciation and California’s Community CollegeAssociation, provided people for the picketlines.

The faculty union had called a strike ontwo campuses—the second was CSU EastBay, near San Francisco— after trusteesawarded whopping pay raises to top admin-istrators, even as they denied pay raises tofaculty and forced them to take twelve fur-lough days. Impartial mediators twiceagreed with the faculty, but administratorsstill refused to honor their previous agree-ments. The day before the strike there was aviolent confrontation between students andcampus police at the trustees meeting inLong Beach as they voted to increase tuitionanother 9 percent, on top of a 12 percent in-crease earlier in the year.

The strike was a great success! LillianTaiz, CFA President and David Bradfield, DHchapter president, lead the faculty, students,and staff in a rousing day of chanting, whis-tles, and music.

That chant that rang in our ears all daywas: “We are, we teach the 99 percent!”

Paul NevesMAINTENANCE TECHNICAN

LAKE TAHOE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

For too many years, em-ployees of Lake Tahoe Com-munity College relied on a

handshake and the goodwill of administrators to get afair deal around pay, benefits, and job security.

Now, they’ve got a union—and the strong, well-orga-nized voice that comes with it, said Paul Neves, thenewly elected president of the newly formed union ofLake Tahoe education support professionals (ESPs). “Weneeded backing,” he said. “We haven’t had a cost-of-liv-ing raise in four years—and the discrepancies just keepgetting bigger, and bigger, and bigger.”

Especially during these economically troubled times,as jobs are lost and budgets slashed on campuses acrossthe country, a union and a collectively bargained con-tract can be a very good thing for employees. “We’regoing to have the support of professional negotiators,who know the laws and have done this kind of work foryears and years. We have really high hopes,” said Neves,who has been a maintenance technician at the small col-lege for 11 years.

(And after all that time, he still earns less than less-experienced colleagues who work for the local K-12 dis-trict or city government. In fact, Lake Tahoe CommunityCollege’s employees earn bottom-level wages comparedto other community colleges in California, even as theaverage house price in their community is $937,501!)

About 15 percent of NEA’s Higher Education membersare support professionals, so Neves and his colleagueswill be joining a robust union that offers them supportin winning professional pay and working conditions, aswell as professional development and leadership train-ing.

This particular unit at Lake Tahoe, which consists ofESPs in various roles, including maintenance workers,child development teachers, academic librarians, fiscalservice and information technology workers, admissionsofficers and others, represents about 62 employees.They hope to sign their first contract in the spring of2012.

“It was time!” said Neves, of the decision to join NEA.BY CHRISTINE MAITLANDOrganizational specialist,NEA’s Pacific Region

WHY I’M AMEMBER

Photo: Pat Leonard-Heffner.


NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE 11

The Cost of CorporateTax Loopholes

BY THE NUMBERS

“CORPORATE TAX POLICIES in the U.S. provide significant benefits to shareholders,at considerable cost to everyone else,”wrote UMass Amherst economics professorNancy Folbre, an NEA member, in The NewYork Times recently. Why? Because corpora-tions often employ fleets of well-paid, well-connected lobbyists to win those loopholesin Congress. Unless you belong to a union,the typical middle-class worker doesn’t havea voice in Washington D.C.— and that’swhy their effective tax rate can be nearly300 times higher than some industries.

Effective tax rates for different industries

Aerospace and defense 1.6%

Telecommunications 7.5%

Petroleum and pipline 13.1%

Utilities, gas and electric 14.4%

An educator earning 17.2% $50,000 a year

BILLIONAIRE WARREN BUFFETT famously announced to Congress last year that, afterpersonally earning more than $62 million, he paid a lower tax rate than his office sec-retary. He doesn’t think that’s right—and neither does NEA. The federal tax code hasmore loopholes than a ratty Christmas sweater and it costs this country billions of dol-lars in revenue each year. That’s money that could be used to support the instructionalprograms at public colleges and universities, and to help millions of low-income stu-dents attain a degree.

Lost Federal Dollars for Pell Grants

LOST GRANT STUDENTS IN STATES LOST GRANT STUDENTS INDOLLARS NEED THAT DOLLARS NEED THAT

(IN MILLIONS) WOULD HAVE (IN MILLIONS) WOULD HAVEBENEFITED BENEFITED

$194.0 143,480 AL MO 183.8 146,5678.4 7,267 AK MT 24.5 18,938

566.8 477,539 AZ NE 42.2 35,54497.6 73,756 AR NV 36.5 30,177

1,072.8 832,916 CA NH 21.2 17,578

150.1 123,644 CO NJ 191.4 148,14467.9 58,850 CT NM 64.5 53,68616.4 13,880 DE NY 655.1 447,55748.5 38,947 DC NC 261.5 206,998

619.9 482,251 FL ND 18.5 14,461

312.8 259,629 GA OH 366.2 294,76520.1 15,952 HI OK 107.3 84,68552.7 39,899 ID OR 116.4 93,766

407.0 322,646 IL PA 309.4 250,436210.9 175,521 IN RI 34.6 28,008

221.5 178,700 IA SC 132.5 103,00776.5 61,768 KA SD 26.3 21,540

137.2 108,297 KT TN 190.9 148,462134.3 100,993 LA TX 690.9 540,76131.1 24,937 ME UT 105.8 83,620

116.3 98,614 MD VT 13.0 10,707138.1 110,887 MA VA 193.4 151,982342.0 279,431 MI WA 140.5 113,977149.4 128,070 MN WV 67.2 50,446135.9 93,580 MS WI 121.2 99,902

WY 13.0 10,385

THE AMOUNT OF FEDERAL REVENUE

LOST THROUGH CORPORATE TAX

REVENUE EACH YEAR.

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The University Besieged

The American university today is a battered figure on the public domain, half-relic of thepast, half-orphan of the present, celebrated on the dais while denigrated in the board-room and starved by state legislatures. Administrators say our campuses can’t survive

if they are constantly challenged from within. Many students and faculty believe they won’t survive if they’re not.

The university is in crisis. The future hangs in the balance. This is where I came in. It’s where I came in in my own collegecareer and how things also looked from within the Free Speech Movement (FSM) and educational reform movements atthe University of California, Berkeley in the early 1960s, as the nation’s former land grant universities morphed into cor-

letins from above and pronunciamentos frombelow. “ ,” in WilliamWordworth’s lyric; “

.”

I received my degrees from Berkeley in thoseyears, my B.A., my M.A., and my Ph.D. Andthree other distinctions too: my arrests in theFSM, the Third World Strike, and People’sPark. Acquiring each of those honors taughtme a lot. And now looking back—havinggone from being a Young Turk into being anOld Fart—I see what a special education itwas, and how much it was a product of thetwo realms: the classroom and the plaza. I re-alize now how much I am indebted to bothrealms and to the American university itself,in all its contradictions, for what I study andcare about, and who I am today...

What is a university? It’s been a lot of thingsover the centuries. But three of its aspects orroles have struck me as particularly impor-tant over the last few years: (1) its role withthe liberal arts, (2) its political role, and (3)its character as a community...

Today, we know, the university defined bythese characteristics is besieged—not justfrom without, but by theories and organiza-tional redesigns promoted within. These the-ories and models are taken over largely fromthe world of business, specifically the asset-stripping, CEO-enriching stage of business in

which we find ourselves. In post-War Amer-ica, capital began to seek its profits by com-modifying activities in worlds that hadpreviously lain outside the marketplace: hos-pitals and medical care, the arts, politicalcampaigns. And we too have become objectsof its affection. While parts of the universitydo have to be run like a business, the univer-sity as a whole is not a business, and what isexchanged in its classes and seminar roomsare not commodities. Confusion on thesescores threatens the fulfillment of all threeobjectives mentioned above...

We hear the sounds of the attempted shift asnew economic terms displace the older edu-cational vocabulary. But students are not cus-tomers. And claiming that they are proposesa drastic narrowing of the existing obliga-tions between teachers and them. The newterm make strangers of people who formerlyrequired mutual trust...

We faculty have also found ourselves misla-beled by this effort, as when we receive “cus-tomer surveys” about campus services. Ihave filed these surveys in the circular file,and hope you will too. Because they are mis-addressed. I am not and never have been acustomer on this campus. I’ve been a mem-ber of a community, a co-worker in a grandand difficult effort...

But who will bell the cat? Not the administra-tors. Hopefully the students, while they arehere, and the staff. But, I want to suggest,centrally this is a job for the faculty.

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL

EDITOR’S NOTE:For his contributions to

expanding the demo-cratic culture of higher

education, Jeff Lustig, aprofessor emeritus at

California State Univer-sity Sacramento, has

won the 2011 Democ-racy in Higher Education

Prize from ’s review panel.

This is an excerpt of hisprize-winning article. To

read the article in itsentirety, visit

www.nea.org/thoughtandaction.

porate grant universities, and UC President Clark Kerr celebrated theconvergence of the university and industry. Those were years of conflict,of charge and counter-charge, committees and counter-committees, bul-



CaliforniaIn a stand for the rights of faculty and theirability to teach effectively, hundreds of fac-ulty held a one-day strike in November attwo California State University campuses.Aligning themselves with the 99 percent, fac-ulty called on trustees to readjust their priori-ties. Since 1998, CSU system-wide studentfees have skyrocketed from $1,890 a year to$6,422, not including campus-specific feesthat also have gone up. Meanwhile, class of-ferings have been slashed, faculty membershave been let go, enrollment has beencapped, and class sizes have exploded. Formore, visit

FloridaFlorida’s Senate president recently urged col-lege presidents to “sit around a table and lit-erally start trading like baseball cards someof these majors.” This follows a pronounce-ment by Gov. Rick Scott that "tax dollars"should not "educate more people who can'tget jobs in anthropology." Is it any wonderthat NEA membership at the state’s largestuniversity affiliates has recently doubled?

IllinoisThe faculty union at Southern Illinois Univer-sity Carbondale walked the picket line fornine days this fall, after working without acontract for nearly 500. The strike ended suc-cessfully when administrators took seriouslythe faculty’s concerns around tenure and aca-demic freedom. Meanwhile, the other unitedunions that represent graduate students,staff, and adjunct faculty settled their owncontracts within hours of the strike deadline,but still stood faithfully with their colleagueson the line.

The East-West University Adjuncts finally willhave its union! In early December, the Na-tional Labor Relations Board denied an ap-peal by East-West administrators. Adjunctfaculty have fought for years for this kind offair representation. In 2010, the administra-tion went so far as to fire (and then rehire,upon NLRB orders) the union’s leaders.

MichiganA discriminatory bill, recently passed by

Michigan lawmakers, forbids all public em-ployers from offering medical benefits fordomestic partners. Earlier versions of the billhad exempted the state’s 15 public universi-ties, many of which already provide such cov-erage, because of the autonomy guaranteedto universities in the state Constitution. Vot-ers are encouraged to contact Michigan’sGovernor at andurge him to veto the bill, which will not cre-ate jobs or help Michigan’s economy.

WisconsinIn mid-December, “We Are Wisconsin,” acoalition leading the effort to recall Gov.Scott Walker, announced that they had col-lected half a million signatures in just fourweeks. Volunteers, including faculty and stafffrom public colleges and universities, foundwidespread support at shopping malls, inchurches, and everywhere. They need an ad-ditional 250,000 signatures by Jan. 17 to getthe measure on the ballot, and to endWalker’s anti-education and pro-corporationregime. For more information, visit

.

THE STATE OF HIGHER ED

I TWO-MINUTE INTERVIEW > HENRY GIROUX

What might faculty learn ifthey sat down and talkedwith an Occupy protester?Faculty might both learn andbe inspired about the cur-rent attempt by students tochange the conversationabout the meaning and pur-pose of higher education.They might be moved andeducated by the attempt toreclaim higher education asa democratic public sphere,one that not only provideswork skills, but also pre-

pares students to shape themyriad of economic, social,and political forces that gov-ern their lives…. In manyways, students are offeringfaculty the possibility of be-coming part of a larger con-versation, one addressingthe role of the university inrelation to public life in the21st century...

Young people need spaceson campuses to talk back,

talk to one another, engagein dialogue with faculty, andengage in coalition building.Faculty and administratorscan begin to open up suchspaces by inviting protestersto speak to their classes, bycreating autonomous cam-pus spaces where they mightmeet and dialogue, and evenby joining in fighting thoseeconomic and politicalforces that are destroyinghigher education as a socialgood and as a citadel of rig-orous intellectual engage-ment and civic debate.

Is it fair to connect thegrowth of Occupy withtrends in higher ed? In the U.S. and other coun-

tries, students are protestingagainst rising tuition fees,the increasing financial bur-dens they are forced to as-sume, and the primacy ofmarket models in shapinghigher education while em-phasizing private benefits toindividuals. They view thesepolicies and for-profit indus-tries as part of an assault onnot just the public characterof the university but also anattack on civic society andtheir future. For many youngpeople in the Occupy move-ment, higher education hasdefaulted on its promise of aquality education and theprospects of a dignified fu-ture.

HENRY GIROUX currently holds the Global TelevisionChair in English and Cultural Studies at McMasterUniversity in Ontario, Canada. His new book, Educa-tion and the Crisis of Public Values, discusses themany ways that “public education as a democraticpublic sphere” is under siege. To read the full text ofthis interview, go to www.nea.org/he.

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ATHENA: The study paints an

all-too familiar portrait. There

is certainly ongoing discon-

nections between faculty ex-

pectations, students’ needs,

and librarian teaching and

service models. And, of

course, I’m Googlized. You’re

Googlized. We are all Googl-

ized.

PAM: This study gives me

more impetus to meet stu-

dents where they are in their

intellectual development of

research strategies and

processes. In library sessions

for undergraduates I start

where they are. After all

when you turn on the light

switch do you care how the

electrons were generated? Or

do you care that the lights go

on? This is how students ap-

proach search: they throw the

switch and Google spits

something out.

ATHENA: We don’t grade stu-

dents, and so we’re not in a

position to assess student

learning the way some fac-

ulty can. When we have the

opportunity to work with

students, librarians are often

in the role of mediators and

translators; we help students

translate assignments into re-

search action, and mediate

their search processes.

PAM: Who am I to judge that

the effort a student is putting

into a piece of research is sec-

ond-class? As a librarian, I

know a Google search is inef-

ficient and often the students

end up spending more time

than if they had asked me

about our databases.

ATHENA: Yes, we can help

them complete their assign-

ments more efficiently. But

often the help we provide is

curriculum centered, geared

to specific assignments. Their

needs are usually based on a

model of academic scholar-

ship, in which scholarly aca-

demic journals are central.

Does this model teach under-

graduate students applicable

information literacy* skills,

appropriate to work lives out-

side the university? There is a

tension between what we

have to teach students to do

to complete their assign-

ments and the on-going skills

they’ll need in their chosen

professions.

PAM: For students, outcomes

are often grades only. And

while faculty members judge

the quality of students’ work,

librarians are interested in

the best research process and

resources for the problem.

The quality of the work gets

the grade, but does the best

set of resources and exten-

sive research process actually

earn it?

ATHENA: In our institution, li-

brarians are liaisons to de-

partments, collaborating with

faculty on assignments and

offering library instruction

and individual research con-

sultations. As budgets shrink,

fewer librarians are hired.

We’re lucky if we can hire a

part-time lecturer librarian to

replace a retiring full-time

tenured person. I suspect we

are not unique. At our Univer-

sity, 30,000 students are

taught by 1,500 faculty and

there are 19 tenure/tenure-

track and five non-tenure

track subject librarians avail-

able to work with faculty and

students. With such limited

human resources, it is essen-

tial for libraries and individ-

ual librarians to determine

sustainable priorities.

PAM: The AERAL study sug-

gests librarians should work

with faculty to influence the

relationship between grades

and work quality. Through

personal relationships, librari-

ans can build the bridges that

will educate faculty about the

value of our skills. But the

AERAL is advocating for more

work at a time when many li-

brarians are feeling the same

pressures as our colleagues—

do more with fewer bodies.

ATHENA: And while advo-

cacy would be ideal, it most

be done strategically, with

personnel limitations and

emerging technologies in

mind. Difficult choices must

be made in terms of library

services offered and on-going

librarian activities.

Students rarely ask librarians for help. Even when they need it. That is the sobering conclusion ofthe recent Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academies Libraries (AERAL) project, a two-year, five-

campus study that found,“The majority of students—of all levels—exhibited significant difficul-ties that ranged across nearly every aspect of the search process.” It seems even the “digital

natives” need professional assistance. They overused Google. They misused scholarly databases.And they never asked for help! We asked two experienced librarians to discuss the results.

PAM HOWARDAssociate Librarian,San Francisco State Univ.,California

ATHENA NAZARIOLibrary Education,Co-Coordinator,San Francisco State Univ.,California

Meet Your Librarians:And then ask them for some

help, please

* Information literacy skillsare needed to find, retrieve,analyze, and use informa-tion. To learn more abouthow classroom assign-ments can incorporate in-formation literacy, see theAssociation of Colleges &Research Libraries.

DIALOGUE



Healthy DecisionsThe Supreme Court takes on healthcareBY JASON WALTA

THE BATTLE LINES are now drawn. On November 14, theSupreme Court announced it would resolve a barrage ofconstitutional challenges to President Obama’s health-care reform legislation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA).And the array of questions before the Court will un-doubtedly make the case the most important test of thefederal government’s legislative authority since the NewDeal.

A little background: Congress enacted the ACA in 2010to tackle the enduring crisis in the nation’s healthcaresystem, which arises in part because millions of Ameri-cans lack access to health insurance and thus shift thecost of their care to others. In response, the ACA re-duces the amount of uncompensated medical care andmakes affordable health insurance more widely avail-able. Its most controversial piece, the so-called “individ-ual mandate,” will require virtually all Americans toobtain health insurance or pay a fine. An additional pro-vision makes more people eligible for Medicaid, the pro-gram that provides federal funding for state medicalservices to low-income Americans.

Before the ink from President Obama’s signature waseven dry, a slew of legal challenges to the ACA were filed,led by hard-charging conservative state attorneys generallike Virginia’s Ken Cuccinelli. Common to all of theselawsuits is the claim that the ACA’s individual mandate isunconstitutional because Congress’s authority under theConstitution’s “Commerce Clause” —that is, the power to“regulate Commerce . . . among the several States”—doesnot allow regulation of economic “inactivity” like refusingto purchase health insurance. In addition, some of thesuits have charged that the ACA’s Medicaid expansion un-constitutionally “coerces” states by making the expansiona condition of receiving federal Medicaid funding.

Despite some early successes before Republican trial

court judges, most of these challenges have been re-jected by federal courts of appeals as either procedurallydefective or lacking in merit.

One appellate court, however, has given the ACA’s chal-lengers a victory—albeit a limited one. The Atlanta-basedEleventh Circuit found that the individual mandate ex-ceeds Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause,but it rejected the claim that this finding should also in-validate the entire ACA. The court also rejected the claimthat the ACA’s Medicaid expansion unconstitutionally co-erced states.

The “coercion” challenge to the expansion of Medicaidought to fizzle, as well. Similar claims have been re-jected time and again in cases challenging Congress’s au-thority to place conditions on the receipt of federalfunding.

Yet, the Supreme Court is free to reject precedent andadopt the challenger’s radically narrowed interpretationof the Congress’s legislative authority. Such a move,however, would bring the legitimacy of many federallaws into question—including numerous civil rights laws.

Most commentators think there aren’t enough votes onthe current Court to take such a dramatic step. As Presi-dent Reagan’s Solicitor General, Charles Fried, has said,if the ACA’s challengers “succeed in gaining more thanone vote in the Supreme Court . . . it would be a depress-ing triumph of naked partisan politics over establishedlegal principles.”

But the Court will issue its decision while the 2012 presi-dential campaign is in full swing. As we already knowfrom Bush v. Gore, the temptation of “naked partisanpolitics” may be too strong for the Court’s conservativemajority to resist.

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CASE STUDY

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We need your helpand we need it now

THE VERY SMALL COMMUNITY COLLEGE atwhich I work is in dire financial straits.We have 39 full-time faculty, and fourteenof us face layoffs on March 23, 2012. Ourcollege president has sought help fromthe state and the community, but his lim-ited success will not save our jobs.

What are the effects? The business de-partment (four of us) has been "sus-pended" for spring term—we haven'tbeen told exactly what that means-—leav-ing teachers and students unsure whetherclasses will be available. Our criminal jus-tice program has been eliminated. Thesocial science department has been pareddown to one instructor. The brilliant, en-thusiastic woman who finds jobs for ourstudents has been reduced to half-time,and the Spanish instructor has had herteaching load reduced. The head of ourart department is a layoff victim. We'veencouraged students to stay with us inorder not to compound the school'sdeficit, but we owe it to students to be re-alistic.

I created an online petition (atChange.org) to provide emergency fund-ing for the college and have askedChange.org to email our state and nationalrepresentatives whenever someone signs.Can we get enough signatures to convincethose people in power to avert perma-nently crippling the college's ability to

provide essential services? Our budgetshortfall is just 1/100,000th of the annualbudget for the United States's war inAfghanistan, yet we cannot seem to getour politicians to listen.

One of my brave and eloquent col-leagues signed, saying: "If you wish to feelsmug in thinking that others have 'struckout' during their 'turn at bat,' and youwish to feel moral while ignoring theplight of your less financially successfulbrethren through a belief that they have'chosen not to play,' then you must ensurethat our society offers every individualthe opportunity to 'step up to the plate.'This is one of the many roles of a commu-nity college."

Please visit the link below to sign thepetition, which seeks to save one smallbulwark against despair in our hometown of Astoria, Oregon. Your signaturewould mean a great deal:

http://www.change.org/petitions/save-astorias-college

Thank you.

Perry Callas teaches in thebusiness department atOregon’s Clatsop Commu-nity College—for now.

LETTERS:

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