nea higher educationadvocate · 2020-05-22 · nea higher educationadvocate vol. 35, no. 1 january...

NEA Higher EducationAdvocateVOL. 35, NO. 1 JANUARY 2017

The Rules of Engagement+Report yourself! Render useless the “Professor Watch List.”

The “starving student” stereotype is not a joke.

A conversation about institutional racism with Ibram Kendi.

Have you registered for the NEA Higher Ed conference?

1701Advocate.indd 1 12/3/16 12:14 AM

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE2

REPORT YOURSELF! 3

Faculty urged to make useless

the “Professor Watch List.”

HUNGER ON CAMPUS 5

Welcome new unions!

THRIVING IN ACADEME 8

Motivation, active learning, and

more: how to use fi ve “terms of

engagement” to your benefi t.

STATE OF THE STATES 11

A new state law in California aims

to provide more job security to

adjunct faculty.

OPINION 16

The election’s aftermath: how do

we talk to our students about the

power of their voice?

Advocate (ISSN: 1522-3183) is published

four times a year, in September,

November, January, and May by the

National Education Association, 1201

16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.

Periodicals postage paid at Washington,

D.C., and additional mailing offi ces.

The Advocate is mailed to NEA Higher

Education members as a benefi t of

membership. Postmaster: Send change

of address to Advocate, 1201 16th St.,

N.W., Suite 710, Washington, D.C. 20036.

Copyright © 2017 by the National

Education Assoc.

To stop receiving print materials from

NEA, visit nea.org/home/30206.htm, or

call 202-822-7207.

National Education Association

Lily Eskelsen GarcíaNEA PRESIDENT

Rebecca S. PringleVICE PRESIDENT

Princess MossSECRETARY-

TREASURER

John C. StocksEXECUTIVE

DIRECTOR

NEA Center for Communications

Ramona OliverSENIOR DIRECTOR

Steven GrantASSOCIATE

DIRECTOR

Mary Ellen FlanneryEDITOR

Groff Creative GRAPHIC DESIGN

Prepared with the assistance of NEA staff:

Nilka JulioNancy O’BrienMark F. SmithValerie WilkPhadra Williams

Education Secretary nominee has corporate agenda, García says

PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP’S NOMINATION of

Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos to be

the next U.S. Secretary of Education is

“horrifying,” said NEA President Lily

Eskelsen García. DeVos is best known

for her anti-public school efforts to pro-

mote K-12 school vouchers and for-profi t

charter schools. What’s less known is what she thinks, or

cares, about public higher education. But regardless of the

educational level, privatization or for-profi t education is a

“phony answer” to the problems of underfunded public insti-

tutions, said Eskelsen García. “These schemes do nothing to

help our most-vulnerable students while they ignore or exac-

erbate glaring opportunity gaps. [Betsy DeVos] has consis-

tently pushed a corporate agenda to privatize,

de-professionalize and impose cookie-cutter solutions to

public education,” said Eskelsen García. Her nomination

shows little interest in “what works best for students, parents,

educators, and communities.” Join Eskelsen García in signing

an open letter from NEA and AFT members to the future edu-

cation secretary about the value of a public education: http://

bit.ly/2gUbR2P.

The NEA Higher Ed Conference: Register now for March in Dallas

REGISTRATION IS OPEN FOR THE NEA HIGHER ED CONFERENCE to

be held March 17-19 at the Renaissance Dallas Hotel in Dallas,

Texas. As always, the conference offers robust opportunities

to share information, learn new skills, and network with

higher-ed colleagues, with specifi c conference tracks around

policy issues, member organizing, bargaining and contract

enforcment, community outreach, safety, and contingent

faculty issues. Keynote speakers include NEA President Lily

Eskelsen García and Harvey Mudd College’s Talithia Williams,

the speaker of the popular TedTalk, “Own Your Body’s Data.”

Early-bird registration rates are available until February 1.

Register now at nea.org/he.

We Want You! Apply for the NEA Emerging Organizers Academy

PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS THE NEA EMERGING LEADERS ACADEMY,

the new, retooled NEA Higher Ed Emerging Organizers Acad-

emy (EOA), is looking for applicants for its next cohort of

faculty and staff members. The EOA is an intensive leader-

ship development program that focuses on organizing skills

and resources. Members meet three times over the course of

roughly nine months, including in a campus-based fi eld expe-

rience. Previous attendees have called it a life-changing expe-

rience. The deadline for applications is March 31. For more

information, visit nea.org/he.

MISSED SOMETHING?READ PREVIOUS ARTICLES ON

OUR WEBSITE

WHEN “YES MEANS

YES”—AFFIRMATIVE

CONSENT ON CAMPUS

Last year, New York

passed its “Enough is

Enough” law, requiring

incoming college fresh-

man to learn about affi r-

mative consent—the

idea that the decision to

participate in sexual

activity must be “know-

ing, voluntary, and mu-

tual.” It follows a similar

law in California, which

not only required affi r-

mative consent educa-

tion on campuses but

also in the state’s K12

schools. In this recent

article, SUNY Oneonta

health educator Rebecca

Harrington explains how

getting consent can be

like sharing a pizza.http://neatoday.org/

2016/11/17

DOES ISAIAS GO TO

COLLEGE?

Isaias Ramos’ parents

came to Tennessee from

Mexico in 2003, opened

a business, and settled

in. Their story, which is

not uncommon among

undocumented immi-

grants, is told in a recent

book, The Book of Isaias:

A Child of Hispanic

Immigrants Seeks His

Own America. Whether

Isaias will go to college

is the book’s big question.

Recently, the author

talked with NEA Today.http://neatoday.org/

2016/10/20

Headline News

1701Advocate.indd 2 12/7/16 10:32 PM

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE 3

Professor Watch List, a website launched shortly after the

presidential election by the right-wing organization Turn-

ing Point USA, asks college students to report and

“expose” faculty who “advance a radical agenda in lecture

halls.” Its founder wrote, “It’s no secret that some of America’s

professors are totally out of line.”

Hundreds of professors, including NEA Higher Ed members,

have been named to the site. Rodolfo Acuna, a CSU Northridge

professor of Chicano Studies, was reported for telling students

that Chicano people have been oppressed. Frank Barajas, of

CSU Channel Islands, was written up for suggesting to

students that they write to California state legislators about

how rising tuition affects their lives. Meanwhile, Des Moines

Area Community College instructor Darwin Pagnac made the

blacklist because he asked students to write about climate-

change deniers.

#WatchMeTeach

#StandUpforAcademicFreedom

#TakeActionNow!

Report yourself, says DeWayne Sheaffer,

president of NEA’s National Council for

Higher Education. “Let’s invalidate the

madness,” he says. “Let’s make this list

null and void by putting all of us on it.”

GO TO PROFESSORWATCHLIST.ORG, click on “submit

a tip,” and report yourself. Let them know that you, as a

higher educator, encourage students to think and speak, to

challenge their own assumptions, to investigate the world

around them, and to become curious, thoughtful, critical

citizens in their communities.

Stand up for academic freedom. Stand up for your colleagues.

How about you?

Have you promoted free speech in your classroom?

Encouraged debate and differing points of view? In other words, are you

teaching as if you’re a college professor, enabled by academic freedom to

foster critical thinking and the ruthless examination of ideas?

REPORT YOUR-SELF

1701Advocate.indd 3 12/7/16 6:25 PM


��

March 17ñ19, 2017 | Dallas, TX

PURPOSE: To share information, develop skills,

network with colleagues and organize around

the issues that affect higher education.

��

�� nea.org/he

1701Advocate.indd 4 12/3/16 12:01 AM


POVERTY ON CAMPUS

“I missed the apples, but I got a lot of other good, healthy stuff,”

says Flora, a Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) student who is cradling

a bag of oatmeal, caulifl ower, carrots, ground turkey, and enough yellow

onions to fuel her favorite sofrito recipe. “I’m Latina, so I have to have my sofrito!” she laughs. She’s also

human, so she has to eat, period. Unfortunately, as the costs of college in the U.S. have skyrocketed—not to

mention housing, healthcare, and transportation—the old “starving student” stereotype is a terrifying truth

for Flora and hundreds of thousands of her peers across the nation. Flora’s bag of free food, gathered during

the fi nal minutes of the Greater Boston Food Bank’s monthly visit to the BHCC campus, is what she’ll eat

this week.

A GrowingHUNGER

1701Advocate.indd 5 12/3/16 12:02 AM


Other studies have looked at specifi c

campuses or systems: 21 percent of

University of Hawai’i students were

found to be food insecure in 2009; 39

percent at the City Colleges of New

York (CUNY) in 2011; 42 percent on

University of California campuses in

2015; and a whopping 59 percent at

rural Western Oregon University,

also in 2015.

“Students on food stamps doesn’t

sound like something that should be

happening—but it does,” says BHCC

instructor Wick Sloane, a frequent

author on the topic of campus

hunger and a regular volunteer at

BHCC’s monthly food bank.

What else shouldn’t be happening—

but does—are faculty on food stamps.

When Cape Cod Community College

opened its food bank in 2016, the

fi rst visitors included the campus’

adjunct faculty, organizers told The

Cape Cod Times.

“It’s tough. It’s not a lot of pay,”

Cape Cod’s faculty union president

Claudine Barnes told a reporter. On

her campus, adjunct faculty make

between $3,100 and $3,717 for a

three-credit class. Even if they teach

three classes, over both the fall and

spring semesters, that’s $18,600 to

$22,296 a year—in a county where

the basic expenses of food, housing,

and transportation, according to

MIT’s living-wage calculator, add up

to about $54,000 a year for one adult

and one child.

And food stamps, now called SNAP,

aren’t what they used to be. Flora, a

single adult who lives in Boston, the

fourth most expensive city in the

U.S., according to popular lists, gets

a total of $70 a month through the

federal assistance program. “SNAP

usually lasts about two weeks, and

that’s if I buy smart—things that I ac-

tually have to cook,” she says. “If I

get myself a coffee in the morning,

that’s it for the day!”

And it’s only likely to get worse. U.S.

House Speaker Paul Ryan previously

has proposed spending cuts to SNAP

of $125 billion over 10 years. Put an-

other way, his budget plans would

strip 11 to 12 million Americans of

food assistance.

Add it up: Food, tuition, transportation…

The problems are particularly acute

at community colleges, where more

than a third of students live in house-

holds earning less than $20,000 a

year, even as the annual expense of

attending a community college is

estimated to be about $16,235 a year,

according to the College Board.

(Meanwhile, community colleges

also have the highest percentage of

typically low-paid, part-time and ad-

junct faculty.)

Not surprisingly, these are students

who struggle to stay in school, and

fi nish the degrees they need to get

good jobs. Last year, the College

Board reported that just 14 percent

of community college students from

families earning less than $30,000 a

year had completed their associate’s

degrees, six years after they started

them.

At BHCC, poverty is a “huge factor”

in its 10 percent graduation rate,

says adjunct professor David Dow, a

nearly 40-year veteran educator on

campus, and a regular volunteer at

BHCC’s food bank since it started in

2012.

And yet, earning a degree offers the

best chance to break out of poverty.

By 2020, 65 percent of all jobs in the

U.S. will require a degree, according

to Georgetown University’s Center

on Education and the Workforce.

This is a fact that did not escape

Hunger on college campuses doesn’t mean late-night

munchies. The issue is a growing number of students

who simply do not have enough nutrition, whose only

meal of the day may be donated, day-old bread. Last

year, Sara Goldrick-Rab, founder of the Wisconsin

HOPE lab and author of Paying the Price: College

Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American

Dream, surveyed 4,000 students at ten community

colleges, ranging from New Jersey’s Essex County

College to rural Western Wyoming Community College to several California

community colleges. More than half said they struggled with “food insecurity,”

or a lack of nutritional food. More than one in fi ve said they regularly go hungry

because they don’t have money to buy food. Thirteen percent also reported they

were homeless.

A GrowingHUNGER

1701Advocate.indd 6 12/3/16 12:02 AM


President Barack Obama, who in 2016

introduced “America’s College Promise,”

a plan for free community college that

has not been endorsed by President-

elect Donald Trump.

“Now, more than ever, a college degree

is the surest ticket to the middle class,”

said Obama at a speech in Tennessee.

“It is the key to getting a good job that

pays a good income—and to provide you

the security where…you have a skill set

and the capacity to learn new skills. And

that is the key not just for individual

Americans, that’s the key for this whole

country’s ability to compete in the global

economy.”

Students know this, too. That’s why they

skip meals to pay for books, or cover the

rent. In a desperate but hopeful calculus,

they opt to starve the student they are

now to invest in the nurse, or teacher, or

accountant that they someday hope to

be. But it leaves them extremely vulnera-

ble, and not very ready to learn, either.

“If you don’t feed yourself, you can’t think

clearly, you lack judgment, you can’t

build the neurons in your brain!” says

Maria Puente, chair of BHCC’s behav-

ioral science department and a regular

volunteer at the campus food bank. “I’ve

had students who have struggled in class,

and the fact is they are not eating well.”

It’s also likely students work more hours

to make more money to eat, making it

diffi cult for them to fi nd time to attend

class and study. “I’m struggling,” admits

Flora, who juggles a full-time job at a

local pizza restaurant with a full-time

load of nursing classes. But, she adds,

“I’m just a few credits from graduating.”

Building a Safety Net

At BHCC, faculty and staff do what they

can to help—it’s not enough, but it’s a

lot. At “Single Stop,” a small bustling

offi ce above a computer lab, students

can pick up a donated Panera Bread

baguette and a PB&J sandwich every

day. Meanwhile, the Boston food bank’s

“mobile market” arrives monthly, as it

does at two other eastern Massachusetts

community colleges, with about 30

pounds of fruits, vegetables, and pro-

teins per student.

Across the U.S., the number of campus-

based food banks has shot up from four

in 2008 to more than 120 in 2014, the

Michigan State University Food Bank

told the Washington Post.

“The fact that just beats us over the head

is that eligible students in K12 get free

breakfast and lunch, and then the same

students go on to higher education,

which society urges them to do, and they

lose breakfast and lunch,” Sloane points

out. In most cities, they also lose the free

bus and subway passes assigned to high

school students, a benefi t that costs $85

a month to replace in Boston.

At BHCC’s Single Stop, staff members

also help students re-certify SNAP eligi-

bility, and navigate the labyrinths of fed-

eral fi nancial aid forms and Boston’s

affordable housing, home heating assis-

tance, and public transportation sys-

tems. (Low-income Medicaid recipients,

like Flora, can get a half-price Boston

transit pass—but many don’t know it.)

The worst part of the job? Single Stop di-

rector Kathleen O’Neill says it’s the ad-

junct faculty who also, quietly, ask for

her help.

To reach Mary Ellen Flannery, author

and Advocate editor, contact

mfl [email protected].

Feeding the hungry

David Dow (pictured at right, above), an adjunct professor at Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC), has vol-unteered at the monthly on-campus food bank for years. He believes pov-

erty among students is a key factor in inhibiting BHCC’s graduation rate and students’ ability to succeed in classes. But hunger isn’t unique to Bunker Hill. Across the U.S., the number of cam-pus-based food banks has increased from four in 2008 to more than 120 in

2014. In a recent study of 10 commu-nity colleges across the U.S., more than half of students reported strug-gling with “food insecurity.” More than one in fi ve said they regularly go hungry.

1701Advocate.indd 7 12/7/16 10:32 PM

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE8 NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE8

Terms of Engagement

Teaching today is tough, and based on my conversations with faculty all over the country,

I know it is just getting tougher. How can we keep ourselves feeling positive about our

profession when we face such a dispiriting panoply of pressures?

Here are some of the challenges I see today that simply weren’t there when I started my

college teaching career almost four decades ago:

• Escalating pressure to retain students while still maintaining academic standards.

• Student obsession with grades, with seeming disregard for the learning the grades are

supposed to represent.

• The need to preserve academic integrity in a culture where what constitutes it is being

redefi ned, opportunities for it are clever and ubiquitous, and efforts to punish it seem

increasingly feeble.

• Institutional insistence that we provide assessment data in ways we worry reduce the

richness of what we want to teach.

• Recognition that open discussion in our classrooms is critical, while feeling we and stu-

dents are walking warily through a minefi eld of political correctness.

• Increased dependence on student evaluations despite low response rates, gender bias

and the seeming surge of mean-spirited, personal attacks.

If you aren’t experiencing at least one of the above, I can pretty much guarantee that one

of your colleagues is. College teaching can be a deeply rewarding career, but it can also

sometimes feel as though we’re caught in a crucible of confl icting pressures. How do we

prosper in our chosen career despite these stresses? Although I don’t have easy answers,

I do have some suggestions.

BY ELIZABETH F.

BARKLEY,

Foothill College

Thriving inAcademeREFLECTIONS ON HELPING STUDENTS LEARN

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 (drobert@fi u.edu) at

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

1701Advocate.indd 8 12/3/16 12:03 AM

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE 9NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE 9

The Five Terms of Engagement

Engagement is a funny word. It just as easily

references wars as weddings, and it is now

so widely paired with other words—say,

civic engagement, or client engagement—

that its meaning has become a bit muddled.

About a decade ago I participated in an

effort to clarify what student engagement

meant to college faculty. This led me to

develop a fi ve-component framework that

I now call the “Terms of Engagement.” I

share these in the hope they offer a struc-

ture with which to respond to today’s

academic environment.

CORE COMPONENT 1: MOTIVATION

Many of us have found that if students

are genuinely motivated to learn (not just

motivated to get a good grade or check off

an annoying requirement on the path to

graduation), we’re spared a host of poten-

tial problems. Students who are eager to

learn tend to do their work honestly, per-

sist to the end, and feel positively about

their learning experience. Understanding

the principles that underlie motivation can

guide us to set up conditions that enhance

it. There are many different models of moti-

vation, but Brophy—a specialist in student

motivation—suggests that much of what

researchers have found can be organized

within an expectancy x value model (2010).

Put simply, this means that for students to

want to expend the energy required to

learn in our course, they must expect to be

able to perform the learning tasks success-

fully (expectancy) as well as value the pro-

cess and the task itself (value). Examples

of strategies that support high expectancy

include scaffolding assignments and build-

I TALES FROM REAL LIFE > REDISCOVERING THE REWARDS OF TEACHING

Meet Elizabeth F. Barkley

Four decades ago,

when I began

teaching, things

were easy. I lectured,

students listened; stu-

dents studied, I tested

—and that was that.

Then I took a 10-year

hiatus from teaching,

and when I returned to

the classroom, things

had changed: the stu-

dents sitting in front of

me seemed mostly not

to want to be there.

I once assumed student

propensity toward dis-

engagement in my

classroom was because

I teach in an open ad-

missions college, but

conversations with col-

leagues from an array

of institutions have per-

suaded me that engag-

ing students today is a

shared occupational

challenge. Most of us

chose to be college pro-

fessors because we had

a passion for our aca-

demic discipline and

we desired to share our

enthusiasm. We want

students to want to

learn what we care so

much about. But how

do we accomplish that?

My experiences chal-

lenged me to examine

everything I was doing

as a teacher. Recogniz-

ing that the old ways

simply weren’t working

anymore, I strove to

transform my teaching.

This laid the ground-

work for my efforts to

better understand and

promote student en-

gagement, and along

the way, an unexpected

and delightful thing

happened – I became

more engaged myself

as I rediscovered the

rewards of teaching.

Elizabeth F. Barkley is professor of music history at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, Cali-fornia. With almost four decades as an

innovative and refl ective teacher, she has received numerous teaching honors and awards, including California Higher Education Profes-sor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and formal recognition by the California state legislature for her contributions to undergraduate education. A popular keynote speaker and workshop presenter, she and her co-authors, Claire H. Major and K. Patricia Cross, have written three bestselling handbooks for college faculty published by Wiley/Jossey-Bass as the College Teaching Techniques series.

1701Advocate.indd 9 12/3/16 12:03 AM

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE10 NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE10

Here are suggestions

for assignments

from our College

Teaching Techniques

books. On our website

(www.collegeteachingtech

niques.com) you can fi nd

supplementary materials.

MOTIVATION: In a LAT 24:

Contemporary Issues

Journal, students look for

real world events related to

their coursework, then

identify the connections in

journal entries (https://

vimeo.com/152166665).

ACTIVE LEARNING: Collabora-

tive learning is a good active

learning pedagogy. One of

the simplest activities is a

CoLT 1: Think-Pair-Share,

which can be used in large

and small classes (https://

vimeo.com/152202178).

CHALLENGING: LAT 2: Back-

ground Knowledge Probes

help you quickly take stock

of students’ existing under-

standing (Barkley and

Major, 2016, pp. 78-84).

COMMUNITY: Consider a LAT

36 Digital Story, which

involves students sharing

relevant life experiences as

they attempt to connect to

an audience. (https://vimeo.

com/152189432).

HOLISTIC LEARNING: In a LAT

50: Personal Learning

Environment, students

construct a visible network

of learning resources and

informal learning

processes (https://vimeo.

com/152160476).

I BEST PRACTICES > A FEW SUGGESTIONS FOR YOUR CLASSROOM

ing in safety-nets (such as opportunities to

resubmit assignments). To promote value,

try to help students see the relevance of

their coursework and provide them with

some level of personal choice.

CORE COMPONENT 2: ACTIVE

LEARNING

The terms teaching and learning are so

often paired that we can get lulled into

thinking one produces the other, and then

be disappointed to discover evidence to the

contrary. Research demonstrates that to

help students truly learn, we must design

activities in which they assume an active

role in the learning process. “Active learn-

ing” is an umbrella term for several peda-

gogical approaches, including problem-

based learning, experiential learning, and

cooperative and collaborative learning,

which all challenge learners to make con-

nections between what is new and what is

known. Active learners integrate new infor-

mation, ideas, and concepts into their per-

sonal knowledge, and also monitor both

the processes and the results of their learn-

ing. For example, in a LAT 11: Prediction

Guide (Barkley and Major, 2016, pp. 148-

152), students are presented with a series

of questions that ask them to make predic-

tions prior to a learning activity and then,

after the learning activity, revisit their pre-

dictions to evaluate accuracy and correct

potential misconceptions.

Motivation and active learning are like two

helices that work together synergistically.

The more students want to learn, the more

they tend to learn; the more students learn,

the more they tend to want to learn. I also

propose three conditions that function

somewhat like connecting rungs between

the two helices of motivation and active

learning because they integrate elements of

both. These conditions serve as my next

three components.

COMPONENT 3: ENSURE STUDENTS ARE

APPROPRIATELY CHALLENGED

Somewhere between “been there, done

that” and “lost and confused” are learning

tasks that offer students the optimal level

of challenge. Vygotsky (1978) invented the

term “zone of proximal development”

(ZPD) to suggest that learning is most

productive when learners are exposed to

concepts and ideas just slightly above their

current level of development. When students

are working on tasks in this zone, they are

more likely to be engaged. The challenge

most of us face is that we teach classes

with lots of students. Because individual

learners typically have different zones of

optimal challenge, how can we possibly

personalize the course suffi ciently to meet

each student’s unique needs?

One popular strategy is to help students

become more self-directing learners so

they can help ensure they are working in

their optimal challenge zone. Another is

organizing one’s course around differentia-

tion principles (Tomlinson, 2014), in which

teachers plan for and attend to student dif-

ferences. For example, consider allowing

students who already know a portion of the

material to move to more complex applica-

tions of the material, while focusing the

efforts of other students on building a solid

foundation.

COMPONENT 4: CREATE A SENSE OF

CLASSROOM COMMUNITY

The chasm that sometimes divides faculty

and students can seem deep and wide, and

when peering across the abyss, it is easy to

“otherize” and attribute all sorts of nefari-

ous attitudes, behaviors and values to each

other. The gap between faculty and students

is not the only one: many of our classrooms

are fi lled with learners refl ecting such a diz-

zying array of backgrounds that students

can feel as distant from each other as they

feel from us. This sense of separateness sets

up barriers of distrust and dislike, creating

a crucible of tensions that can erupt in

incivility. For us to teach the skills of dem-

ocratic discourse so essential for liberal

education, we and students must feel safe

MOTIVATION AND ACTIVE

LEARNING ARE LIKE

TWO HELICES THAT

WORK TOGETHER

SYNERGISTICALLY:

AS THEY INTERACT,

THEY CONTRIBUTE

INCREMENTALLY TO

INCREASE ENGAGEMENT.

1701Advocate.indd 10 12/7/16 6:26 PM


to speak up. It can be diffi cult to

establish the trust that creates a sense of

community, but try we must. Icebreakers

and effective collaborative assignments

are helpful, but also consider setting aside

time early in the term to meet with stu-

dents in small groups to encourage more

positive relationships and foster a sense

of connectedness and community.

COMPONENT 5: TEACH SO THAT

STUDENTS LEARN HOLISTICALLY

As college professors, we fl ourish in the

“thinking” world. When we consider college-

level learning, we readily understand and

value the acquisition, synthesis, and evalu-

ation of knowledge that characterizes

abstract thought. This is why Bloom’s

Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain has

served as a guide to faculty in all kinds of

institutions. But learning involves more

than rational thinking, and designing ac-

tivities that help students cross cognitive,

affective, psycho-motor, and where appro-

priate, moral domains helps students en-

gage in their learning on multiple levels.

Strategies that promote holistic learning

include teaching so that students use

multiple processing modes and offering

options for nonlinear learning.

In a nod to a quote attributed to W.B.

Yeats—“Education is not about fi lling

a bucket, but lighting a fi re” —I have

arranged the above fi ve components into

the acronym MATCH:

Motivation

Active Learning

Task is Optimally Challenging

Community

Holistic Learning

Attending to these components can help

us light the torch of learning for the next

generation. By creating conditions that

engage more students in the gratifying,

albeit hard work of learning, we are all more

likely to survive, even thrive, in today’s

college classroom. And when you feel dis-

couraged, consider this quote from Horace

Mann: “If ever there was a cause, if ever

there can be a cause worthy to be upheld

by all toil or sacrifi ce that the human heart

can endure, it is the cause of Education.”

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

Barkley, E.F. & Major, C.H. (2016). Learning assessment techniques: A handbook for col-lege teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Barkley, E.F. (2010). Student engagement techniques: A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Barkley, E.F., Cross, P.K., & Major, C.H. (2014). Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Brophy, J. (2004). Motivating students to learn (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Robertson, D. (2008) “Feeling Overloaded? You’re Not Alone.” National Education Asso-ciation Advocate, Vol. 25, No. 3 (February 2008), pp. 5-8.

Heneghan, E. (2012) Academic Dishonesty and the Internet in Higher Education (http://commons.trincoll.edu/edreform/2012/05/academic-dishonesty-and-the-internet-in-higher-education/)

Tomlinson, C.A (2014). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.

Vygotzky, L.S. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher psychological pro-cesses. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

THE CHASM THAT SOMETIMES DIVIDES

FACULTY AND STUDENTS CAN SEEM DEEP AND WIDE,

AND WHEN PEERING

ACROSS THE ABYSS, IT

IS EASY TO “OTHERIZE” AND ATTRIBUTE ALL SORTS OF NEFARIOUS ATTITUDES, BEHAVIORS AND VALUES

TO EACH OTHER.

I ISSUES TO CONSIDER

FOCUS ON US

How do we keep our-selves engaged? Flipping the MATCH lens to focus on ourselves, here are some suggestions.

MOTIVATION: To stay moti-vated to teach, we need to be confi dent we can teach successfully and we need to fi nd value in our work. High expectancy grows with being successful. The challenges you face most likely have been faced by others; reach out to fi nd solutions. In terms of value, remember you are doing work that can change lives.

ACTIVE LEARNING: Take advantage of the resources available to deepen your knowledge of pedagogy: colleagues, conferences, books, workshops, web-sites, and articles such as this one. Furthermore, con-sider strategies such as our Learning Assessment Tech-niques that can help you

analyze and paint a richer picture of learning in your courses. This information also can provide evidence to external stakeholders that may be more accurate and compelling than that generated by typical stu-dent evaluations.

TASK IS APPROPRIATELY

CHALLENGING: In an earlier edition of this journal, Rob-ertson (2008) offered strat-egies for managing the pressures of our profession. In addition to recommend-ing you read that article, I would like to add the fol-lowing: fi ght back. If you are legitimately constrained by campus policies that seem to be counterproduc-tive, work to change them.

COMMUNITY: You are most likely a dedicated teacher. Surround yourself with like-minded others who value teaching. Just as talking with colleagues who com-plain about their careers and belittle students can be

enervating, so can time with colleagues who cele-brate our successes and acknowledge our uniquely privileged professions can be energizing.

HOLISTIC LEARNING: Permit yourself to care. Taking the time to get to know students can be both humbling (some are quite experts in areas where we are novices) and inspiring (some have gone through quite a lot to get to the point where they can sit in our classes).

I would like to conclude with a quote from a col-league who is particularly inspirational to me: “Teaching is a life of service, and as everyone knows, a life of service is a life well lived.”

1701Advocate.indd 11 12/3/16 12:04 AM


This book upturns a common perception

about racism, specifi cally that racist ideas

propel racist policy. You say it’s the oppo-

site—racist policies have propelled racist

thinking. Can you explain that? That was

something I certainly believed going into the

book, that racist ideas drive policy, and I didn’t

think I was going to turn it on its head. That wasn’t

my intent… I wanted to write a history of racist

ideas, and show how historical context produced

these people who produced these ideas. I found,

over and again, that these producers were not

ignorant. Many were the most brilliant minds in

American history. And they typically were produc-

ing these ideas to defend existing racist policies.

The disparities were in place, their effects were

profound, and these ideas were an attempt to

normalize and justify those policies.

You describe three kinds of people: segre-

gationists, who are racists basically; anti-

racists, who actively reject any idea that

Black people are inferior in any way; and,

in the middle, the assimilationists. This

third group includes people like Lincoln and

Obama. Can you describe them better? The

reason I wrote a history of racist ideas, as op-

posed to a history of racists, was because I real-

ized very early on that there are people who hold

racist and antiracist ideas. These are the assimi-

lationists. You can simultaneously believe that

the racial groups are biologically equal, that they

were created equal, but that they have become

behaviorally unequal. Assimilationists will argue

that Black people are capable of development,

and they believe that this belief is progressive but

it also is racist.

What if you apply this fi lter to higher

education? How do we move higher ed

policies from assimilationist to antiracist?

At the higher ed level, you have historically White

institutions. You have disparities in student bod-

ies, and faculty bodies, and administrative bodies.

What the institutions typically say is that we can’t

get more Black students because Black students

are not qualifi ed. So, the blame is put on the stu-

dents. Those are racist ideas—racist ideas have

historically placed blame on Black people, as

opposed to the policies that lead to racist ideas.

Look at the resources allocated to recruiting the

best Black athletes, as opposed to the best Black

students or best Black faculty, and there’s no

comparison… We need to focus on that resource

gap.

How do anti-racists strike back? You describe

the act of protesting against someone or

some idea as a waste of time. Racist powers

will change policies when it serves their self-inter-

est, and when the protest threat disappears they’ll

change them back. It’s a short-term solution. The

long-term solution is for anti-racist people to get

into positions of power.

The book strikes a hopeful note in the end,

saying there will come a time when Ameri-

cans realize the only thing wrong with Black

people is that they think there is something

wrong with Black people, and maybe that

time is now. What makes you hopeful? What

has always made me hopeful is the resistance

to racist ideas and racist policies. Basically, the

continuing presence of anti-racists in American

society makes me hopeful. Clearly segregationists

and assimilationists have won, on many occa-

sions, but if you’re involved in the struggle, there

always remains the capacity to win. The only way

in which an antiracist America could never come

to be is if anti-racists themselves decide it’s im-

possible and they stop fi ghting for it.

In his recent National Book Award winner, Stamped from the Beginning: The

Defi nitive History of Racist Ideas in America, NEA Higher Ed member Ibram X.

Kendi challenges the popular folklore of racism. Abraham Lincoln? W.E.B.

Du Bois? Barack Obama? Well-meaning people with racist ideas, he suggests.

“My defi nition of racism is a simple one,” he writes, “it is any concept that regards

one racial group as inferior or superior…in any way.” Recently, Kendi, an assistant

professor at the University of Florida, talked with the NEA Advocate.

IBRAM X. KENDI

Stamped from the

Beginning: The Defi nitive

History of Racist Ideas

in America

A History of Racist Ideas

BOOK EXCERPT:

Anyone can express the idea

that Black people are inferior,

that something is wrong

with Black people. Anyone

can believe both racist and

antiracist ideas, that certain

things are wrong with Black

people and other things are

equal. Fooled by racist ideas,

I did not fully realize that the

only thing wrong with Black

people is that we think some-

thing is wrong with Black

people. I did not fully realize

that the only thing extraor-

dinary about White people is

that they think something is

extraordinary about White

people.

Q&A

“

“

1701Advocate.indd 12 12/8/16 4:42 PM


Huge effort by CA faculty and students pays off

Hundreds of California Faculty Association (CFA) members and their students contrib-uted more than 5,000 volunteer hours last year on behalf of Proposition 55 and CFA-supported candidates for political offi ce. It was time well-spent: Members’ advocacy helped secure the passage of Prop 55, a tax measure that will deliver between $4 billion and $9 billion to California public schools and community colleges through the maintenance of current tax rates on the state’s top 2 percent of income earners. Without the passage of Prop 55, students likely would have faced tuition hikes or loss of services. The California State Uni-versity system could have lost an estimated $250 million in state funding each year. “While the outcome of the presidential election has left many of us in the CSU shaken, the work CFA has been doing is improving California for us all, and CFA remains committed to organizing to ensure a better future for our students, colleagues, university and country,” said Jennifer Eagan, president of CFA.

Five years after union vote, the ballots are counted

In summer 2011, part-time, adjunct faculty at St. Xavier University, a private Catholic college in Chicago, cast their ballots on the question of forming a union, to be affi li-ated with the Illinois Education Assocation (IEA). From the start, St. Xavier administra-tors protested, claiming a union would infi nge on the free exercise of religion. But the NLRB Regional Offi ce cleared the way for the union eletion, ruling in 2011 that St. Xavier provided a secular educa-tion and that a union wouldn’t infringe on religious expression. Soon after the election, St. Xavier appealed to the NLRB National Offi ce in Washington, D.C., and the ballots were impounded. For fi ve years, through its continued legal maneuvers, St. Xavier was able to delay a vote tally. But this fall, the ballots fi nally were counted. By a vote of 29-25, the adjuncts had voted to form a union. A similar situation also occured in New York, with the NEA-AFT affi liated adjunct union at Manhattan College. There, administrators argued the same religious exception, also held up the vote tally for fi ve years, and ultimately lost to the collective voice of faculty.

Protests over faculty cuts in Boston

Last spring, UMass Boston faculty and stu-dents were outraged when the university sent notices to about 400 non-tenure-track faculty, saying they may not have jobs in the fall. Come fall, about 100 positions actually were cut, but many instructors already had left to fi nd other work and several course sections were eliminated. At the same time the university raised tuition and fees. So, when state Education Secretary James Peyser visited campus this fall, students, staff, and community lead-ers were on hand to protest the lack of support, chanting, “Whose schools? Our schools!” Meanwhile, Peyser refused to explain his opposition to the state’s Fair Share Amendment, a constitutional amendment that could appear on the bal-lot in 2018 and add 4 percent to the state income tax paid by those earning more than $1 million a year. The revenues, esti-mated at nearly $2 billion a year, would be directed to transportation and public education. “[Campus unions] are working together to fi ght these cuts and cost hikes as they undermine the mission of UMass Boston,” Faculty Staff Union President Marline Kim told the MTA Advocate.

THE STATE OF HIGHER ED

I JOB SECURITY FOR ADJUNCTS: A NEW CA LAW OFFERS NEW PROTECTIONS

Thanks to the hard work of members of California’s Community

College Association (CCA), part-time faculty members in California can expect a new degree of job security this year. A new law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown this fall, and originally sponsored by state Sen. Tony Mendoza in collaboration with CCA, requires community college administrators to sit down with faculty and set stan-dards for job security on every campus. “This historic measure en-compasses the values and beliefs we all share, that part-time faculty deserve to have minimum standards that will create greater job stability, which will not only

help those faculty members but will additionally benefi t the students they serve,” wrote CCA legislative advo-cate Jennifer Baker to Gov. Brown. Currently, 32 of the state’s 72 community college dis-tricts offer some sort of re-employment rights like seniority or due process, but these vary across the state, according to CCA. For exam-ple, at Butte College, part-time faculty can be moved to a “seniority list” after one semester. But at San Joaquin College, part-time faculty have been trying to bargain for seniority rights for 20 years. “The majority of faculty have no rights at all. They’re

like farm workers, or fast-food workers, who can be let go at any time,” said John Martin, an at-large director for CCA, and an adjunct faculty member at Shasta College.

In an effort to get the law passed, Martin personally visited every state legislator on the relevant committees. He asked all of them: “Why can’t faculty who have been teaching 10, 15, 20 years, have these basic rights?”

1701Advocate.indd 13 12/3/16 12:04 AM


Hola, ProfesoraYES, THERE ARE MORE WOMEN FACULTY THESE DAYS. Yes, there is a greater proportion of faculty of color, too. But a full picture of diversity on campuses shows that women are under-represented in STEM fi elds and over-represented among non-tenure track faculty, and that racial diversity in the academy has seen slow, uneven progress. Recently, NEA Research, with Coffey Consulting, took a look at the data.

Race & Ethnicity

White faculty remain the predominant group on campuses, while the proportion of faculty of color has grown slightly over the years. At public four-year institutions in particular, this growth has largely been driven by increases in Asian faculty, while the percentage of Black and Hispanic faculty has stagnated.

Please note: Shares less than 5 percent not noted.

Source: IPEDS, U.S. Department of Education

BY THE NUMBERS

Gender Equity

Over the last 20 years, representa-tion of women among faculty has grown steadily. They now represent 55 percent of 2-year faculty, in particular. But their numbers are not evenly spread throughout the academy—they currently occupy about one-fourth of full-time faculty positions in STEM fi elds, and they are over-represented among non-tenured faculty.

■ Asian ■ Black ■ Hispanic ■ Other ■ White

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Non-tenured

% by race/ethnicity

Tenured

% by race/ethnicity

2-year

4-year

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

6% 6% 6%7% 7% 7%

8% 8% 8% 8%

6% 7% 8%8% 7% 8%

9% 9% 10% 9%

5%5%

5%

8%

8%9%

11% 10% 10%

11%10%

11% 9%

89% 88% 88%86% 86% 85%

85% 84% 83% 83%

79% 78% 76%73% 75% 74%

73% 72% 71% 72%

85% 84% 83%81% 80% 79%

79% 78% 76% 77%

85% 84% 84%82% 80% 79%

77% 76% 74% 73%

6% 6%7% 6% 6%

6%6% 6% 7% 6%

5% 5%6%

6%7% 7% 7%

5%

5%

6% 6%7% 7% 8%

8%9% 10% 10% 11%

5%

5%

5% 5%5% 5%

5%6%

6%7%

‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11 ‘13 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11 ‘13

% Non-tenured of all

full-time faculty

■ Female■ Male

Public 2-year

Public 4-year

‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11 ‘13

40%

36%

38%

40%

39%

41% 42%

43% 44%

46%46%

41% 42%

41%

43% 44%

46% 46%

48%

47%

33%

19%

21%

23% 24%25%

25% 26%

26%27%

29%

35%

36%

39%

37%38%

38%

38%39%

40%

1701Advocate.indd 14 12/3/16 12:05 AM


What’s ahead? The “Trump Effect” on unions, educators BY JASON WALTA

THE WORLD IS BRACING ITSELF for the prospect of a Donald

Trump presidency. The success of his wildly polarizing

and unconventional election campaign took virtually

everyone by surprise. Now the hard business of govern-

ing begins, and few of us know quite what to expect.

One possibility is that Trump—a political chameleon who

has changed his party affi liation at least fi ve times over

the years—might just shrug off his fringe-right campaign

persona and tack to the center. Early indications, how-

ever, suggest that won’t be the case, as he surrounds him-

self with advisors and cabinet nominees with dubious

experience and extreme ideologies. And, with both

houses of Congress under Republican control until at

least 2018, very little stands in the way of what might be

the new administration’s excesses. Unions—particularly

those representing workers in the public sector and edu-

cation—are therefore approaching the Trump era with an

acute sense of foreboding.

One of the most signifi cant concerns is the Trump admin-

istration’s lasting legacy on the Supreme Court. Following

the death of Justice Antonin Scalia nearly a year ago, Sen-

ate Republicans stymied President Obama’s appointment

of the centrist jurist Judge Merrick Garland to the Court.

Now Trump has announced that one of the top items on

his agenda is fi lling that vacancy, and he has indicated his

nominee will be drawn from a list of candidates vetted by

the hard-right think tank, the Heritage Institute.

Already, many are speculating that once the Court is back

at full strength with a reliably conservative Trump appoin-

tee, a fi rst order of business will be to weaken public

sectors unions by declaring, in essence, that the First

Amendment operates as a national “right to work” law in

the public sector. The Court nearly reached that conclu-

sion last year, but Justice Scalia’s death resulted in a tie

decision that let stand the Court’s decades-old precedents

allowing public sector unions to collect fair share fees for

the services they provide as collective bargaining repre-

sentatives. But now, as dozens of cases percolate through

the lower courts, a new conservative majority on the Court

likely will get another shot at the issue.

Of course, that’s not the only issue likely to be on the

Court’s agenda. Over recent years, the Court has issued

signifi cant decisions on affi rmative action, marriage equal-

ity, and reproductive freedom that conservatives are eager

to see reversed. And on other issues — including gun

control and campaign fi nance reform — they are hoping to

solidify and expand on right-leaning precedents.

Particularly for unions in higher education, we likely will

see a turn for the worse. Under Obama, the National

Labor Relations Board (NLRB) steadily strengthened

organizing and bargaining rights, making it possible for

graduate assistants to unionize and easier for adjuncts

and faculty to gain representation. On these issues—and

many others —the pendulum will likely swing back as

Trump makes appointments to the board, resulting in

weakened organizing and bargaining. Or, Trump could

cripple the NLRB entirely by declining to appoint a quo-

rum of members. (This occurred for several long

stretches during the George W. Bush administration.)

If the Trump administration follows this rightward trajec-

tory, educators and their unions will have a fi ght on their

hands. They will have to dig deep, both in their commit-

ment to organizing in the workplace and in their pursuit

of mobilizing members and the public politically. It will

take a bold and unifi ed effort to show Trump—who lost

the popular vote by two million votes—that he doesn’t

have a mandate for the reactionary agenda that seems to

be taking shape for his administration.

Jason Walta is

an attorney in

the NEA Offi ce of

General Counsel

and an adjunct

faculty member

at American

University’s

Washington

College of Law.

CASE STUDY

1701Advocate.indd 15 12/3/16 12:05 AM


Nov. 9: The morning afterMY 8 A.M. COLLEGE LITERATURE CLASS began as

usual, with a brief discussion of the next assign-

ment. But what followed was not the lesson I

had planned.

Faces were somber, or perhaps it was my

own post-election sobriety refl ected in their

silence. I confronted the elephant in the room,

or the one I saw, and asked students for their

reactions to the election results.

Only a handful had registered to vote. Almost

none had voted. When I questioned why, they

responded: Why cast a vote against the lesser of

two evils? Shouldn’t a vote be cast for someone,

not simply against another? What difference

would my vote have made? Politicians are

corrupt. They don’t speak for us.

I acknowledged their cynicism. We spoke

about political discourse, facts and fi ction, and

the negativity of this way-too-long election sea-

son. We discussed how simply stating something

doesn’t make it true. That rhetorical statements

need evidence and corroboration. That ideas

need analysis and refl ection. That how we talk

to each other matters. That name-calling and

shouting close minds, not open them. That

Facebook and Twitter politics has led to more

polarization, not a greater understanding of the

complex and diverse worlds we inhabit. That

kindness and respect matter.

I emphasized that politicians, like the rest of

us, are imperfect people. That many work hard

to serve their constituents and do the right thing.

That it is the responsibility of the electorate to

educate elected offi cials about issues that matter.

I urged students, going forward, not to re-

main on the sidelines. Their future is at stake.

So much of immediate importance affects their

academic lives alone. But students also must

see the big picture. Take the issue of college

affordability. Students should advocate for

reduced college costs, but also recognize a key

factor for these high fees is inadequate state

investment. State funding for public higher edu-

cation in Massachusetts is down 11 percent

from 2002—despite increased student enroll-

ment. The dramatic rise in college fees over the

past decade is but one consequence of such

chronic institutional underfunding.

At community colleges, thousands of non-

benefi ted adjuncts are hired yearly to ensure

student access, but this creates faculty employ-

ment disparities. Plus, access does not ensure

success. Too often, academic support services

are inadequate to serve all students effectively.

Increased state investment in public colleges is

critical to address these inequities.

My closing plea to students: Get to know

your legislators. Email, call or visit their local

offi ces. Identify concerns. Partner with politi-

cians to get results. Then hold these offi cials ac-

countable at the ballot box.

Beyond diminishing the cynicism, educators

must engage students in the political process —

because their informed voices matter in this

democracy. But only if they use them.

Stay in touch with

current legislation,

developing trends in

higher education, and

more through the

NEA eAdvocate, a

monthly enewsletter.

To subscribe, visit

www.nea.org/he

1201 16th St., N.W.

Washington, DC 20036-3290

eADVOCATE

16 NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE

Diana (Donnie) McGee is a

professor of English at Bristol

Community College in Mass., and

also a member of the NEA Board

of Directors.

NEA Higher Ed is on Twitter! To keep up with current news and discuss

events with your colleagues, fi nd us at @NEAHigherEd.

1701Advocate.indd 16 12/3/16 12:05 AM

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