July 3, 2023 • 31 mins
Office Hours is taking the summer off! We've handed in our grades and logged out of our work emails until the fall! We'll be back in September with more episodes covering campus politics in the end times.
In this last episode, David and Laura give passing and failing grades to the best and worst of the last academic year. Spoiler: SCOTUS and college presidents are going to need to take the class again!
Some links based on our discussion:
https://facultyfirstresponders.com/
https://itsgoingdown.org/a-communique-from-the-liberated-dining-halls-of-so-called-santa-cruz/
https://civileats.com/2022/12/16/op-ed-amid-academic-strikes-uc-students-liberated-their-cafeterias/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:21):
Hello,
everyone and welcome to the last episode of the first season of Office Hours.
Yep.
That's right.
Uh,
this is your host,
Laura Martin.
Uh,
David is traveling right now,
so I'm doing this intro solo.
But,
uh,
I wanted to announce that we are taking the summer off.
(00:43):
Um,
we just turned our grades in.
We're not checking our emails anymore.
We've got the summer off and,
um,
we'll be back in the fall with more episodes.
So,
uh,
David and I have just this kind of short final wrap up episode where we look at the highlights and lowlights of the past year in,
(01:07):
uh,
higher Ed.
I hope you enjoy it and we'll see you all in the fall.
Bye.
(01:27):
Ok.
So,
um,
David and I decided to come up with a little,
little game to sort of wrap up here as a way to talk about basically the,
the highs and lows,
the hits and misses of this last year in terms of higher ed politics.
Um,
and since we both just finished handing in our grades for the spring quarter,
(01:50):
um,
we have grading on the brain even though actually we don't believe in grades.
So caveat,
we don't believe in grades at all.
We would ideally be writing narrative evaluations,
but instead we are doing passes and fails.
So who uh um among the last academic year here would we pass,
(02:12):
you know,
a plus great work?
Um Hit me up if you want a letter of recommendation and who are we saying,
you know,
you failed,
take the class again?
Um So David,
let's start with you.
Who would you like to pass with flying colors from this past year?
(02:34):
Yeah,
I kind of wanted to start us off with um just,
you know,
focusing on those labor issues that have been popping off across the US.
So for me passing and I said here with high honors are the grad student workers,
staff post docs and staff researchers and undergrad student workers who really,
(02:55):
you know,
brought it this year,
the year kicked off with staff at American University going on strike.
We had those big high profile graduate student strikes at UC and Temple even at the end of this year,
the Utah University,
Washington post docs and researchers went on strike.
And basically,
I feel like it's been those workers on campus,
(03:17):
those who have the least protections,
those who tend to make the least and are in often very hierarchical circumstances in the neoliberal education who have really uh done amazing organizing work.
So they get my passing grade with,
with uh you know,
high praise.
(03:39):
Yeah,
definitely they are the standout stars of the last year.
Um,
big year for higher ed,
uh,
and labor organizing.
Yeah.
How about you?
Do you have for passing her passing?
Well,
ok.
Uh,
I chose an individual here who I just wanted to highlight.
(04:01):
We haven't had a chance to talk about her.
Her name is Sheleen Rodriguez.
And,
um,
she gained some cover some news coverage,
some,
mostly,
you know,
um,
negative news coverage in the mainstream news.
She,
she is,
or as I,
as I,
I believe,
last,
uh,
since I last read,
(04:21):
she was a adjunct professor at Hunter College and also at the school for Visual Arts in New York.
And basically,
she,
um,
she stood up to activists,
anti choice activists who were tabling at Hunter College and basically went up to their table and confronted them,
(04:42):
you know,
um,
as I personally believe we,
we all should and especially in the wake of the attacks on our reproductive rights and then basically became the subject of a targeted right wing harassment campaign.
Um,
and for,
for weeks was receiving death threats and just,
(05:03):
um,
being followed around by reporters and then finally had some reporters from the New York Post come to her home,
um,
to her apartment building and,
um,
like a badass,
she,
you know,
kind of threatened them,
you know,
but as they were,
you know,
without uh permission,
kind of banging on her door and trying to get into her building.
(05:25):
So she was then,
of course,
um accused of,
of harassment and atta and attacking them.
And,
um,
I'm not sure where the legal situation is at this point,
but she was fired by Hunter College and School of Visual Arts.
Um,
and basically,
(05:47):
um became,
you know,
even,
even more targeted by the right.
And so I just,
I want to,
um,
first of all,
just hold her up as somebody who I feel like we should be celebrating somebody who was really kind of pushing back against this idea that um people can just come on to a campus and,
(06:10):
you know,
um basically create a,
an unsafe environment or a,
a hostile environment for um for students who,
you know,
are whose reproductive rights are under attack.
She expressed her opinions and she's basically been targeted for that.
Um There's been a campaign to support her and there's been a lot of faculty who've signed on.
(06:33):
Um And I also wanted to,
to like,
I guess this is a secondary pass.
Um a group that seems like they might have formed as a result or maybe they already existed called faculty First Responders,
which is specifically designed to monitor um right wing surveillance and,
and,
and attacks on faculty and to support faculty when they are um the subjects of these kinds of like harassment campaigns.
(07:01):
Um And also just to um publicize the way that these campaigns work.
And I think we need more of that.
So that's who I'll put for passing because I want to give her some attention.
Yeah,
I'm glad that you've,
you've brought that in.
I really appreciate that.
Um I had a passing with distinction again.
(07:22):
So I'm starting with my,
I'm starting with my highest students here.
The debt collector,
David.
Yes,
I'm very,
very invested in some people excelling and others,
not the debt collective.
Um You know,
I just feel personally,
I've seen this long trajectory of the debt collective from the early days of Occupy and you know,
(07:49):
just plodding along building a movement and having the strength and the the work to push the administration to do the debt cancellation,
which we,
we are learning today has been struck down by the Supreme Court.
But nonetheless,
the debt collective has sort of shown us the way in terms of the long haul work of organizing and building a movement around uh you know,
(08:17):
the indebtedness and the structural disempowerment that happens there,
not only in terms of higher ed,
but like,
you know,
health,
uh medical debt and all kinds of other forms of debt.
And I remember very distinctly when they started um you know,
their jubilee campaign and,
(08:37):
and buying people's medical debt and freeing them from it.
And um you know,
to where they are today.
So,
you know,
congrats on them and we should all be connected and working with,
with the debt collective.
Yeah,
I and you know,
obviously the flip side is Boo on Scotus for that decision,
(08:58):
which we are not surprised by.
But yeah,
has a big,
big hashtag fail energy to Skoda Sun,
sun energy is very,
very big these days.
OK,
cool.
So uh I have one other pass and I chose the dining hall liberators during the UC strike.
(09:25):
Um I don't know if,
if listeners are aware but you know,
just some of the unsung heroes of the strike,
um and these kinds of actions that I think kind of happen on the edges of strikes that are personally very inspiring to me.
So as the strike was going on,
student,
um organizers on multiple campuses began uh liberating dining halls,
(09:51):
basically,
meaning kind of like going into dining halls and announcing that the food was now free for everyone.
Um And I believe so,
you know,
in,
in coordination with some of the dining hall workers.
And I,
I love this action.
I,
I've seen it before when um when I was a graduate student and we had a student at strike,
(10:12):
they did the same thing and it was,
it was cool.
I love the,
this action because it's really kind of expanding the content of the strike and,
and um bringing some of the,
the same logic but showing how,
you know,
basically um the,
the priorities of the university,
the,
the profit motive of the university is impacting students,
(10:35):
you know,
and their access to food and to me,
it just,
it just,
this is the point where like you start to get just like a general critique of capitalism.
You know,
it's like,
let's kind of keep expanding the critique to where you're like,
why are we paying for food?
You know,
here we are,
we're students,
I mean,
(10:55):
it connects to the debt issue.
We're,
we're probably in debt.
Um and we're paying a lot,
I mean,
it's,
it's also a whole other issue of how expensive these meal plans are.
Um And um and just this idea of,
you know,
making the food available to everyone,
regardless of whether they can pay.
And so to me that is just kind of expanding this logic of solidarity and of um redistribution of wealth to,
(11:25):
to other arenas.
And I just,
I,
I love to see it and I,
I love to see that feeling of empowerment where,
you know,
it's building from um people already feeling empowered because they're holding a,
a picket line,
they're holding,
you know,
a strike line.
Um And then they start to feel like,
you know,
what if we actually just went into the dining hall and just gave out the food,
(11:48):
you know,
and I think that's a beautiful thing.
So I wanted to bring it up.
Yeah,
I'm,
I'm also super happy that you brought that one in because I think we both share this commitment to,
to like recognizing the like lesser uh maybe the lesser known or the undervalued parts of certain campaigns and particularly when it comes to labor actions,
(12:16):
there's,
there's always the like,
how do people eat when they're on the picket line and who's showing up with soup uh to feed people?
And how does redistribution happen when you know,
workplaces are shut down?
So the dining hall liberation movement was a combination of that and as you said,
sort of generalizing the critique,
(12:36):
which was amazing.
And on that topic,
I was going to give us a higher at office hours,
an incomplete,
we got homework to do over the summer.
Is that what you're telling me?
Well,
I think just because we both are,
you know,
very committed to covering the those lesser known things.
(12:59):
And we wanted to feature some,
some of that uh on,
on our podcast.
So I think we have to,
to just,
you know,
recommit for next season.
Maybe we can get some dining hall liberators on if you're listening and you liberated a dining hall or,
you know,
somebody who liberated dining hall or you worked on the,
(13:20):
you know,
strike kitchen during an action,
you know,
like reach out because we want to talk about that stuff.
We think it's,
it's an integral part of the process.
So,
yeah,
and it really gets also into just like the social reproduction of a strike too.
Right?
Yeah,
absolutely.
So I'm being a little soft on us incomplete.
Um How about fails?
(13:41):
Should we move into fails.
Yeah.
My favorite part.
OK,
David.
Is it your,
is your turn?
Who are you?
Who are,
who are you saying?
I,
I cannot in good faith,
you know,
pass you on from this class.
You need to repeat,
you need to try again.
You need to question yourself,
your,
(14:02):
your,
your values,
your,
you know,
your commitments.
I think I just,
I have to go with the fail um,
university president.
I mean,
it's,
I,
I feel like maybe I,
I was um kind of mailing this one in,
I used it,
(14:22):
I didn't do my best but it just was so obvious.
I think we have,
you wrote an essay that says since the beginning of time,
university president have been very,
very bad.
Yeah.
And in particular,
I think we have to highlight,
you know,
somebody like Jason Wingard uh now resigned president at temple.
(14:44):
You know,
when the temple grad workers were on strike,
he went so far as to,
you know,
remove student uh tuition remission and then a bunch of striking workers started to get tuition bills um and uh removing health insurance now that they made a move on that and then had to back off.
Um Right,
(15:04):
but basically approaching striking grad workers with that type of backlash is obviously gonna get you a fail from our podcast.
Um But you know,
it's,
this is,
this isn't just one,
you know,
university president.
You also have things like Duke uh their administration trying to undo the whole kind of legal labor framework that the NLRB has ruled that graduate students are workers.
(15:30):
So that's been a huge important part of this most recent wave and,
you know,
Duke is trying to litigate against that and of course,
you know,
probably looking for,
you know,
judges who are sympathetic and could,
could kinda undo that.
So,
uh,
fail all around to university presidents from me.
Mhm.
(15:50):
Mhm.
How about you?
Um,
well,
I,
I decided to,
you know,
make it personal and,
um,
bring in the administration at my community college because I just,
(16:10):
you know,
and there's lots of reasons why I could give them a failing grade but,
you know,
in the class that I'm gonna focus on that they're failing is student life 101.
Um,
because I just want to tell you about how sad my college campus is.
Um,
we do not have a dining hall.
(16:31):
There is really nowhere for students to eat on campus.
There is a little coffee shop stand that's open until 1 p.m. That's like a Barnes and Noble coffee shop stand that has some pastries.
Um,
and the administration refuses to reopen the dining hall.
(16:51):
They closed it during,
um,
during the pandemic and they say that,
you know,
it was operating at a loss before and they just simply can't,
you know,
afford to bring it back now.
Um,
and it's part of this kind of,
um,
situation that I think is happening on a lot of campuses since the pandemic where there's more of a move towards online courses.
(17:15):
Um and to some degree due to student demand,
but also really being reinforced by choices that the administration are making um where they feel like,
well,
you know,
we can't really,
there's not enough students on campus to justify having these things,
you know,
available.
Um which of course,
then creates this cycle where like who wants to be on a campus where there's no food.
(17:38):
Um And so basically,
there's no commitment to any type of student life.
Um And a sense of just the,
the,
the,
the,
the culture,
the community that exists when people are physically kind of in the same space together,
right?
Um There's no commitment to seeing that as part of what it means to be,
(18:01):
you know,
a community college or,
or a college.
So we have no place to eat on campus also last um fall or winter,
we close our bookstore.
This was also a Barnes and Noble.
We still,
we have this terrible contract with Barnes and Noble that,
you know,
everyone hates.
And hopefully we're trying to get out of,
although I'm sure it'll be replaced with something just as bad.
(18:23):
Um And Barnes and Noble decided to make it like a virtual bookstore.
So,
but that means that,
you know,
students order their books online,
there's no place to go to buy notebooks,
pens,
you know,
anything for test taking.
Um There's no physical space,
space that's open on campus,
um which again,
(18:44):
just makes the campus feel really dead and eerie.
Um And then the,
and then the last thing is that our administration about five years ago,
um took away most of the funding for student clubs.
Um And so we have almost no student clubs on our campus.
It's,
it's just such a dead campus.
(19:05):
There's a student government where the admin appoints the,
the,
the president and the vice president,
all of the student leadership is appointed by the administration.
Um So there's just no sense of like a vibrant culture.
There's,
there's really very little student activism to speak of.
And I just,
I,
to me,
you know,
this is just really sad and I feel like the administration gets a,
(19:28):
a failing grade because they're,
they're,
they're not viewing um these,
these things as important to fund,
like,
regardless of whether they cost money because it's sort of an investment in just the culture of a college and making it a place where people want to be.
So,
oh yeah,
that's so worrisome too,
(19:50):
right?
Because it just feels like we know on the curriculum side of things,
there's this big pressure to,
you know,
be very linear with regard to like students choosing a pathway to a job and like only really focus in on that pathway.
And on top of it,
(20:10):
if the campus is,
you know,
doesn't have a vibrant intellectual and healthy space like where people can eat and gather and be involved in clubs and all we're doing here is going from choosing a future career and getting the knowledge put in your brain so that you have that career,
(20:30):
it just,
you know,
the total picture can look pretty dystopian,
right?
Hence the,
hence the end the end times framework of this podcast,
right?
I'm just in my,
as I listen to you,
I'm just thinking,
I'm just imagining,
you know,
just like a wasteland,
you know,
and right,
obviously,
school needs to be a community,
(20:51):
uh a vibrant place,
a supportive space.
I mean,
all those things.
So,
yeah,
and it,
it makes me think of um our interview with Connor about New York Liberation School and just the vibrant culture around um the Qing system that kind of allowed um all of that radical student mobilization to take place.
(21:13):
And I think in a way,
I mean,
not to make this too long of a conversation,
but it starts to get into this question that we wrestle with often about higher ed as being,
you know,
both a place of oppression and kind of reproduction of the status quo,
you know,
um and,
and sort of reproduction of the working class and then also this potential for it to be this place of liberation and of working class people coming together,
(21:39):
connecting and developing their critiques and developing,
you know,
politics and it feels like these kinds of initiatives are a way to put,
push education more in the first direction and kind of um eliminate those more radical possibilities.
Because if you don't have spaces where people come together where they can connect and,
(22:01):
and critique,
then you don't have that opportunity for education to be this like oppositional force,
you know.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And,
and I mean,
I think that se segues into another fail that I had,
which was just the referencing the attack on kind of Black studies gender studies that's going on throughout our country.
(22:25):
And particularly in it's happening,
most of its focus is on K through 12 through Republican state legislatures and governors.
But it is also happening at the higher ed level.
And it's like those ethnic studies,
Puerto Rican studies,
going back to our interview with Connor.
But like those,
those programs were all demands that came from social movements and for a different kind of university and to see what we have the,
(22:55):
these these large scale national programs to like complete degrees that are,
you know,
put people right into jobs.
And you also attacking ethnic studies,
the combination of those two things.
Yeah,
there's,
there's some,
some overall big,
big fails going on in education policy,
(23:15):
uh for sure at that,
that level.
So yes,
well connected to my last fail is kind of connected to that,
which is the um there's a lot of Supreme Court um visibility here today,
but the Supreme Court decision,
which came yesterday on affirmative action,
(23:36):
I wanted to highlight that.
I don't have that much to say about it just,
you know,
I mean,
I think we saw it coming.
Um,
and I think that affirmative action has been kind of chipped away at,
but this was a really big blow and another,
you know,
I think it,
it is very much connected to what you were saying about the attacks on black studies,
(23:56):
ethnic studies.
You know,
we're really seeing this push to go back to this kind of color blind.
You know,
thinking this idea of race blindness,
if you,
you know,
the the the path forward the equality is to just simply like not talk about,
you know,
the elephant in the room.
And,
you know,
I'm,
I'm curious to see how this is going to impact college admissions.
(24:19):
So,
yeah,
do you,
do you have any immediate thoughts on this ruling?
I mean,
I,
I'm also frustrated with it.
I'm upset about it and I mean,
I,
you really haven't dug in uh the,
the materials that came out in discovery with,
with regard to Harvard.
And honestly,
I,
I mean,
(24:39):
I just often think of like the IVS as you know,
they're just,
they are just such engines of the status quo that a lot of times the discussions around them just II I disengage.
But,
but there was also a case here involving,
was it UN C so,
you know,
clearly this is gonna be influencing how admissions happens at public universities and so forth.
(25:05):
Um I,
I mean,
I guess my feeling on it is as far as I can tell the UC system has tried to develop a kind of workaround given that it's been banned in California since the mid nineties.
We're probably gonna see that workaround happening just as a,
as a model in states that have leadership that want to pursue diverse campuses.
(25:28):
Um But,
you know,
I I think that this is one of those moments where it's like,
hopefully it provides for more people,
the clarity around the role of the Supreme Court in our society.
Hopefully it sparks more on the ground grassroots organizing to create the universities that we want.
(25:50):
I mean,
on the faculty side of things,
I,
I am worried just in the sense that I really think that we need the ability to use race in making hiring decisions to create a campus faculty that meets our students needs.
And I think,
you know,
(26:10):
that's just been a bigger part of where,
um you know,
I've been working on my own campus to be a part of a movement that makes sure that we have teachers that reflect our students and provide spaces that they can thrive in and that the entire campus kind of is able to do that is,
(26:31):
you know,
we can't do that with under Washington State law,
but of course,
this ruling from the Supreme Court also is gonna lead to that being even more difficult as well.
So,
you know,
you throw in that there are the attacks on DE I spending at,
at the state level and you're starting to get,
you know.
Yeah,
it's,
(26:51):
it's gonna change the way that we can create an educational space.
So that's my worry.
Yeah,
thanks.
Thanks for that.
Well,
it looks like we ran through some,
some passes and fails.
Do you have anything else,
David?
Do you have any other fails?
(27:12):
I feel like I wanna just throw this out.
So I'm giving ad plus.
So this is for,
you know,
on my campus,
there's a lot of pressure to bring up student success rates.
So there's a lot of folks who,
you know,
maybe they need a little bit of flexibility to get through.
Maybe they need a,
you know,
a one on one meeting to go over some,
(27:34):
get some extra points.
And for me that D plus kind of with a little extra is going to union leadership.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
They're just barely scraping by really screaming,
but they,
they submitted a final paper,
but like they probably spent 10 minutes on it.
(27:55):
Yeah.
And maybe they had some difficulties throughout the quarter.
They got off to a rough start.
We're supportive faculty here,
we're supportive educators,
we're willing to work with them.
Obviously,
we have a,
you know,
we have a tension here with um when union leadership isn't uh working to build really dense,
(28:18):
you know,
rank and file strong organizing um on the ground,
especially in two tier labor contract environment like we have in higher ed with adjuncts,
you know,
going back to your first pass of She Rodriguez,
right,
being fired,
having no protections,
you know,
this is somewhat the fault of union leadership,
(28:42):
not kind of prioritizing adjunct's contingent workers,
not building fighting unions.
And of course,
we saw some of those tensions play out in the UC strike.
We we see them in our own workplaces.
So basically just saying union leadership gotta get uh you gotta get ready for the fall quarter.
(29:05):
Maybe you need to go to summer school.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Great,
great.
Um Final contribution.
OK,
David.
So are we ready for a summer break?
Yeah,
I'm actually teaching a class this summer.
So,
but it's,
it's still uh you know,
it still feels like summer break.
(29:26):
So,
yeah,
a break will be nice and uh we'll be back with a new season of episodes.
Very excited to take this uh office hours project to uh a new school year.
Yeah.
How are you,
how are you feeling about next year?
I'm feeling really excited.
I think um I had a great time collaborating with you,
(29:47):
David this last year and just all of our amazing uh interviewees and I just,
I feel like I'm really enjoying this project.
I have a lot of ideas for people that I wanna,
you know,
interview next season and I'm sure more um stuff is,
hopefully more stuff is gonna keep popping off and we're gonna have to keep responding to it.
(30:10):
So,
go ahead,
David.
Well,
I was gonna say,
yeah,
thanks to all of our guests and thanks to our listeners.
Um you know,
definitely check out our episodes.
We,
we covered some important topics.
You know,
we covered campus debt.
We covered adjunct to organizing uh the UC strike from a couple of different angles.
(30:30):
Um Faculty strike at Eastern Michigan,
we covered campus organizing against sexual harassment,
sexual assault.
I think we covered a lot of really important topics.
Yeah.
And,
and our goal is to keep kind of diversifying our content,
you know,
in the fall to try to do more,
(30:51):
cover more student organizing.
Um We have a lot of ideas so I won't give you too many spoilers.
But yeah,
thank you so much to our listeners.
And um you know,
we hope you enjoy summer too.
If you're,
if you're a teacher,
we hope you have the summer off and that you get the chance to like just really enjoy yourself and go swimming,
(31:14):
go do whatever you like to do.
If you're not an educator,
if you work through the summer,
I'm sorry.
And I hope that you still manage to have some fun too and we'll see you in the fall Our theme music is by Nigel Weiss.
Our artwork is by Arthur Kay.
(31:35):
You can find more of their artwork at rot radio dot tumblr dot com.
You'll love it if you subscribe to our podcast and tell your friends about us,
rate and review us on all the major platforms.
Thanks for listening.
Bye.
Hello,
everyone and welcome to the last episode of the first season of Office Hours.
Yep.
That's right.
Uh,
this is your host,
Laura Martin.
Uh,
David is traveling right now,
so I'm doing this intro solo.
But,
uh,
I wanted to announce that we are taking the summer off.
(00:43):
Um,
we just turned our grades in.
We're not checking our emails anymore.
We've got the summer off and,
um,
we'll be back in the fall with more episodes.
So,
uh,
David and I have just this kind of short final wrap up episode where we look at the highlights and lowlights of the past year in,
(01:07):
uh,
higher Ed.
I hope you enjoy it and we'll see you all in the fall.
Bye.
(01:27):
Ok.
So,
um,
David and I decided to come up with a little,
little game to sort of wrap up here as a way to talk about basically the,
the highs and lows,
the hits and misses of this last year in terms of higher ed politics.
Um,
and since we both just finished handing in our grades for the spring quarter,
(01:50):
um,
we have grading on the brain even though actually we don't believe in grades.
So caveat,
we don't believe in grades at all.
We would ideally be writing narrative evaluations,
but instead we are doing passes and fails.
So who uh um among the last academic year here would we pass,
(02:12):
you know,
a plus great work?
Um Hit me up if you want a letter of recommendation and who are we saying,
you know,
you failed,
take the class again?
Um So David,
let's start with you.
Who would you like to pass with flying colors from this past year?
(02:34):
Yeah,
I kind of wanted to start us off with um just,
you know,
focusing on those labor issues that have been popping off across the US.
So for me passing and I said here with high honors are the grad student workers,
staff post docs and staff researchers and undergrad student workers who really,
(02:55):
you know,
brought it this year,
the year kicked off with staff at American University going on strike.
We had those big high profile graduate student strikes at UC and Temple even at the end of this year,
the Utah University,
Washington post docs and researchers went on strike.
And basically,
I feel like it's been those workers on campus,
(03:17):
those who have the least protections,
those who tend to make the least and are in often very hierarchical circumstances in the neoliberal education who have really uh done amazing organizing work.
So they get my passing grade with,
with uh you know,
high praise.
(03:39):
Yeah,
definitely they are the standout stars of the last year.
Um,
big year for higher ed,
uh,
and labor organizing.
Yeah.
How about you?
Do you have for passing her passing?
Well,
ok.
Uh,
I chose an individual here who I just wanted to highlight.
(04:01):
We haven't had a chance to talk about her.
Her name is Sheleen Rodriguez.
And,
um,
she gained some cover some news coverage,
some,
mostly,
you know,
um,
negative news coverage in the mainstream news.
She,
she is,
or as I,
as I,
I believe,
last,
uh,
since I last read,
(04:21):
she was a adjunct professor at Hunter College and also at the school for Visual Arts in New York.
And basically,
she,
um,
she stood up to activists,
anti choice activists who were tabling at Hunter College and basically went up to their table and confronted them,
(04:42):
you know,
um,
as I personally believe we,
we all should and especially in the wake of the attacks on our reproductive rights and then basically became the subject of a targeted right wing harassment campaign.
Um,
and for,
for weeks was receiving death threats and just,
(05:03):
um,
being followed around by reporters and then finally had some reporters from the New York Post come to her home,
um,
to her apartment building and,
um,
like a badass,
she,
you know,
kind of threatened them,
you know,
but as they were,
you know,
without uh permission,
kind of banging on her door and trying to get into her building.
(05:25):
So she was then,
of course,
um accused of,
of harassment and atta and attacking them.
And,
um,
I'm not sure where the legal situation is at this point,
but she was fired by Hunter College and School of Visual Arts.
Um,
and basically,
(05:47):
um became,
you know,
even,
even more targeted by the right.
And so I just,
I want to,
um,
first of all,
just hold her up as somebody who I feel like we should be celebrating somebody who was really kind of pushing back against this idea that um people can just come on to a campus and,
(06:10):
you know,
um basically create a,
an unsafe environment or a,
a hostile environment for um for students who,
you know,
are whose reproductive rights are under attack.
She expressed her opinions and she's basically been targeted for that.
Um There's been a campaign to support her and there's been a lot of faculty who've signed on.
(06:33):
Um And I also wanted to,
to like,
I guess this is a secondary pass.
Um a group that seems like they might have formed as a result or maybe they already existed called faculty First Responders,
which is specifically designed to monitor um right wing surveillance and,
and,
and attacks on faculty and to support faculty when they are um the subjects of these kinds of like harassment campaigns.
(07:01):
Um And also just to um publicize the way that these campaigns work.
And I think we need more of that.
So that's who I'll put for passing because I want to give her some attention.
Yeah,
I'm glad that you've,
you've brought that in.
I really appreciate that.
Um I had a passing with distinction again.
(07:22):
So I'm starting with my,
I'm starting with my highest students here.
The debt collector,
David.
Yes,
I'm very,
very invested in some people excelling and others,
not the debt collective.
Um You know,
I just feel personally,
I've seen this long trajectory of the debt collective from the early days of Occupy and you know,
(07:49):
just plodding along building a movement and having the strength and the the work to push the administration to do the debt cancellation,
which we,
we are learning today has been struck down by the Supreme Court.
But nonetheless,
the debt collective has sort of shown us the way in terms of the long haul work of organizing and building a movement around uh you know,
(08:17):
the indebtedness and the structural disempowerment that happens there,
not only in terms of higher ed,
but like,
you know,
health,
uh medical debt and all kinds of other forms of debt.
And I remember very distinctly when they started um you know,
their jubilee campaign and,
(08:37):
and buying people's medical debt and freeing them from it.
And um you know,
to where they are today.
So,
you know,
congrats on them and we should all be connected and working with,
with the debt collective.
Yeah,
I and you know,
obviously the flip side is Boo on Scotus for that decision,
(08:58):
which we are not surprised by.
But yeah,
has a big,
big hashtag fail energy to Skoda Sun,
sun energy is very,
very big these days.
OK,
cool.
So uh I have one other pass and I chose the dining hall liberators during the UC strike.
(09:25):
Um I don't know if,
if listeners are aware but you know,
just some of the unsung heroes of the strike,
um and these kinds of actions that I think kind of happen on the edges of strikes that are personally very inspiring to me.
So as the strike was going on,
student,
um organizers on multiple campuses began uh liberating dining halls,
(09:51):
basically,
meaning kind of like going into dining halls and announcing that the food was now free for everyone.
Um And I believe so,
you know,
in,
in coordination with some of the dining hall workers.
And I,
I love this action.
I,
I've seen it before when um when I was a graduate student and we had a student at strike,
(10:12):
they did the same thing and it was,
it was cool.
I love the,
this action because it's really kind of expanding the content of the strike and,
and um bringing some of the,
the same logic but showing how,
you know,
basically um the,
the priorities of the university,
the,
the profit motive of the university is impacting students,
(10:35):
you know,
and their access to food and to me,
it just,
it just,
this is the point where like you start to get just like a general critique of capitalism.
You know,
it's like,
let's kind of keep expanding the critique to where you're like,
why are we paying for food?
You know,
here we are,
we're students,
I mean,
(10:55):
it connects to the debt issue.
We're,
we're probably in debt.
Um and we're paying a lot,
I mean,
it's,
it's also a whole other issue of how expensive these meal plans are.
Um And um and just this idea of,
you know,
making the food available to everyone,
regardless of whether they can pay.
And so to me that is just kind of expanding this logic of solidarity and of um redistribution of wealth to,
(11:25):
to other arenas.
And I just,
I,
I love to see it and I,
I love to see that feeling of empowerment where,
you know,
it's building from um people already feeling empowered because they're holding a,
a picket line,
they're holding,
you know,
a strike line.
Um And then they start to feel like,
you know,
what if we actually just went into the dining hall and just gave out the food,
(11:48):
you know,
and I think that's a beautiful thing.
So I wanted to bring it up.
Yeah,
I'm,
I'm also super happy that you brought that one in because I think we both share this commitment to,
to like recognizing the like lesser uh maybe the lesser known or the undervalued parts of certain campaigns and particularly when it comes to labor actions,
(12:16):
there's,
there's always the like,
how do people eat when they're on the picket line and who's showing up with soup uh to feed people?
And how does redistribution happen when you know,
workplaces are shut down?
So the dining hall liberation movement was a combination of that and as you said,
sort of generalizing the critique,
(12:36):
which was amazing.
And on that topic,
I was going to give us a higher at office hours,
an incomplete,
we got homework to do over the summer.
Is that what you're telling me?
Well,
I think just because we both are,
you know,
very committed to covering the those lesser known things.
(12:59):
And we wanted to feature some,
some of that uh on,
on our podcast.
So I think we have to,
to just,
you know,
recommit for next season.
Maybe we can get some dining hall liberators on if you're listening and you liberated a dining hall or,
you know,
somebody who liberated dining hall or you worked on the,
(13:20):
you know,
strike kitchen during an action,
you know,
like reach out because we want to talk about that stuff.
We think it's,
it's an integral part of the process.
So,
yeah,
and it really gets also into just like the social reproduction of a strike too.
Right?
Yeah,
absolutely.
So I'm being a little soft on us incomplete.
Um How about fails?
(13:41):
Should we move into fails.
Yeah.
My favorite part.
OK,
David.
Is it your,
is your turn?
Who are you?
Who are,
who are you saying?
I,
I cannot in good faith,
you know,
pass you on from this class.
You need to repeat,
you need to try again.
You need to question yourself,
your,
(14:02):
your,
your values,
your,
you know,
your commitments.
I think I just,
I have to go with the fail um,
university president.
I mean,
it's,
I,
I feel like maybe I,
I was um kind of mailing this one in,
I used it,
(14:22):
I didn't do my best but it just was so obvious.
I think we have,
you wrote an essay that says since the beginning of time,
university president have been very,
very bad.
Yeah.
And in particular,
I think we have to highlight,
you know,
somebody like Jason Wingard uh now resigned president at temple.
(14:44):
You know,
when the temple grad workers were on strike,
he went so far as to,
you know,
remove student uh tuition remission and then a bunch of striking workers started to get tuition bills um and uh removing health insurance now that they made a move on that and then had to back off.
Um Right,
(15:04):
but basically approaching striking grad workers with that type of backlash is obviously gonna get you a fail from our podcast.
Um But you know,
it's,
this is,
this isn't just one,
you know,
university president.
You also have things like Duke uh their administration trying to undo the whole kind of legal labor framework that the NLRB has ruled that graduate students are workers.
(15:30):
So that's been a huge important part of this most recent wave and,
you know,
Duke is trying to litigate against that and of course,
you know,
probably looking for,
you know,
judges who are sympathetic and could,
could kinda undo that.
So,
uh,
fail all around to university presidents from me.
Mhm.
(15:50):
Mhm.
How about you?
Um,
well,
I,
I decided to,
you know,
make it personal and,
um,
bring in the administration at my community college because I just,
(16:10):
you know,
and there's lots of reasons why I could give them a failing grade but,
you know,
in the class that I'm gonna focus on that they're failing is student life 101.
Um,
because I just want to tell you about how sad my college campus is.
Um,
we do not have a dining hall.
(16:31):
There is really nowhere for students to eat on campus.
There is a little coffee shop stand that's open until 1 p.m. That's like a Barnes and Noble coffee shop stand that has some pastries.
Um,
and the administration refuses to reopen the dining hall.
(16:51):
They closed it during,
um,
during the pandemic and they say that,
you know,
it was operating at a loss before and they just simply can't,
you know,
afford to bring it back now.
Um,
and it's part of this kind of,
um,
situation that I think is happening on a lot of campuses since the pandemic where there's more of a move towards online courses.
(17:15):
Um and to some degree due to student demand,
but also really being reinforced by choices that the administration are making um where they feel like,
well,
you know,
we can't really,
there's not enough students on campus to justify having these things,
you know,
available.
Um which of course,
then creates this cycle where like who wants to be on a campus where there's no food.
(17:38):
Um And so basically,
there's no commitment to any type of student life.
Um And a sense of just the,
the,
the,
the,
the culture,
the community that exists when people are physically kind of in the same space together,
right?
Um There's no commitment to seeing that as part of what it means to be,
(18:01):
you know,
a community college or,
or a college.
So we have no place to eat on campus also last um fall or winter,
we close our bookstore.
This was also a Barnes and Noble.
We still,
we have this terrible contract with Barnes and Noble that,
you know,
everyone hates.
And hopefully we're trying to get out of,
although I'm sure it'll be replaced with something just as bad.
(18:23):
Um And Barnes and Noble decided to make it like a virtual bookstore.
So,
but that means that,
you know,
students order their books online,
there's no place to go to buy notebooks,
pens,
you know,
anything for test taking.
Um There's no physical space,
space that's open on campus,
um which again,
(18:44):
just makes the campus feel really dead and eerie.
Um And then the,
and then the last thing is that our administration about five years ago,
um took away most of the funding for student clubs.
Um And so we have almost no student clubs on our campus.
It's,
it's just such a dead campus.
(19:05):
There's a student government where the admin appoints the,
the,
the president and the vice president,
all of the student leadership is appointed by the administration.
Um So there's just no sense of like a vibrant culture.
There's,
there's really very little student activism to speak of.
And I just,
I,
to me,
you know,
this is just really sad and I feel like the administration gets a,
(19:28):
a failing grade because they're,
they're,
they're not viewing um these,
these things as important to fund,
like,
regardless of whether they cost money because it's sort of an investment in just the culture of a college and making it a place where people want to be.
So,
oh yeah,
that's so worrisome too,
(19:50):
right?
Because it just feels like we know on the curriculum side of things,
there's this big pressure to,
you know,
be very linear with regard to like students choosing a pathway to a job and like only really focus in on that pathway.
And on top of it,
(20:10):
if the campus is,
you know,
doesn't have a vibrant intellectual and healthy space like where people can eat and gather and be involved in clubs and all we're doing here is going from choosing a future career and getting the knowledge put in your brain so that you have that career,
(20:30):
it just,
you know,
the total picture can look pretty dystopian,
right?
Hence the,
hence the end the end times framework of this podcast,
right?
I'm just in my,
as I listen to you,
I'm just thinking,
I'm just imagining,
you know,
just like a wasteland,
you know,
and right,
obviously,
school needs to be a community,
(20:51):
uh a vibrant place,
a supportive space.
I mean,
all those things.
So,
yeah,
and it,
it makes me think of um our interview with Connor about New York Liberation School and just the vibrant culture around um the Qing system that kind of allowed um all of that radical student mobilization to take place.
(21:13):
And I think in a way,
I mean,
not to make this too long of a conversation,
but it starts to get into this question that we wrestle with often about higher ed as being,
you know,
both a place of oppression and kind of reproduction of the status quo,
you know,
um and,
and sort of reproduction of the working class and then also this potential for it to be this place of liberation and of working class people coming together,
(21:39):
connecting and developing their critiques and developing,
you know,
politics and it feels like these kinds of initiatives are a way to put,
push education more in the first direction and kind of um eliminate those more radical possibilities.
Because if you don't have spaces where people come together where they can connect and,
(22:01):
and critique,
then you don't have that opportunity for education to be this like oppositional force,
you know.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And,
and I mean,
I think that se segues into another fail that I had,
which was just the referencing the attack on kind of Black studies gender studies that's going on throughout our country.
(22:25):
And particularly in it's happening,
most of its focus is on K through 12 through Republican state legislatures and governors.
But it is also happening at the higher ed level.
And it's like those ethnic studies,
Puerto Rican studies,
going back to our interview with Connor.
But like those,
those programs were all demands that came from social movements and for a different kind of university and to see what we have the,
(22:55):
these these large scale national programs to like complete degrees that are,
you know,
put people right into jobs.
And you also attacking ethnic studies,
the combination of those two things.
Yeah,
there's,
there's some,
some overall big,
big fails going on in education policy,
(23:15):
uh for sure at that,
that level.
So yes,
well connected to my last fail is kind of connected to that,
which is the um there's a lot of Supreme Court um visibility here today,
but the Supreme Court decision,
which came yesterday on affirmative action,
(23:36):
I wanted to highlight that.
I don't have that much to say about it just,
you know,
I mean,
I think we saw it coming.
Um,
and I think that affirmative action has been kind of chipped away at,
but this was a really big blow and another,
you know,
I think it,
it is very much connected to what you were saying about the attacks on black studies,
(23:56):
ethnic studies.
You know,
we're really seeing this push to go back to this kind of color blind.
You know,
thinking this idea of race blindness,
if you,
you know,
the the the path forward the equality is to just simply like not talk about,
you know,
the elephant in the room.
And,
you know,
I'm,
I'm curious to see how this is going to impact college admissions.
(24:19):
So,
yeah,
do you,
do you have any immediate thoughts on this ruling?
I mean,
I,
I'm also frustrated with it.
I'm upset about it and I mean,
I,
you really haven't dug in uh the,
the materials that came out in discovery with,
with regard to Harvard.
And honestly,
I,
I mean,
(24:39):
I just often think of like the IVS as you know,
they're just,
they are just such engines of the status quo that a lot of times the discussions around them just II I disengage.
But,
but there was also a case here involving,
was it UN C so,
you know,
clearly this is gonna be influencing how admissions happens at public universities and so forth.
(25:05):
Um I,
I mean,
I guess my feeling on it is as far as I can tell the UC system has tried to develop a kind of workaround given that it's been banned in California since the mid nineties.
We're probably gonna see that workaround happening just as a,
as a model in states that have leadership that want to pursue diverse campuses.
(25:28):
Um But,
you know,
I I think that this is one of those moments where it's like,
hopefully it provides for more people,
the clarity around the role of the Supreme Court in our society.
Hopefully it sparks more on the ground grassroots organizing to create the universities that we want.
(25:50):
I mean,
on the faculty side of things,
I,
I am worried just in the sense that I really think that we need the ability to use race in making hiring decisions to create a campus faculty that meets our students needs.
And I think,
you know,
(26:10):
that's just been a bigger part of where,
um you know,
I've been working on my own campus to be a part of a movement that makes sure that we have teachers that reflect our students and provide spaces that they can thrive in and that the entire campus kind of is able to do that is,
(26:31):
you know,
we can't do that with under Washington State law,
but of course,
this ruling from the Supreme Court also is gonna lead to that being even more difficult as well.
So,
you know,
you throw in that there are the attacks on DE I spending at,
at the state level and you're starting to get,
you know.
Yeah,
it's,
(26:51):
it's gonna change the way that we can create an educational space.
So that's my worry.
Yeah,
thanks.
Thanks for that.
Well,
it looks like we ran through some,
some passes and fails.
Do you have anything else,
David?
Do you have any other fails?
(27:12):
I feel like I wanna just throw this out.
So I'm giving ad plus.
So this is for,
you know,
on my campus,
there's a lot of pressure to bring up student success rates.
So there's a lot of folks who,
you know,
maybe they need a little bit of flexibility to get through.
Maybe they need a,
you know,
a one on one meeting to go over some,
(27:34):
get some extra points.
And for me that D plus kind of with a little extra is going to union leadership.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
They're just barely scraping by really screaming,
but they,
they submitted a final paper,
but like they probably spent 10 minutes on it.
(27:55):
Yeah.
And maybe they had some difficulties throughout the quarter.
They got off to a rough start.
We're supportive faculty here,
we're supportive educators,
we're willing to work with them.
Obviously,
we have a,
you know,
we have a tension here with um when union leadership isn't uh working to build really dense,
(28:18):
you know,
rank and file strong organizing um on the ground,
especially in two tier labor contract environment like we have in higher ed with adjuncts,
you know,
going back to your first pass of She Rodriguez,
right,
being fired,
having no protections,
you know,
this is somewhat the fault of union leadership,
(28:42):
not kind of prioritizing adjunct's contingent workers,
not building fighting unions.
And of course,
we saw some of those tensions play out in the UC strike.
We we see them in our own workplaces.
So basically just saying union leadership gotta get uh you gotta get ready for the fall quarter.
(29:05):
Maybe you need to go to summer school.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Great,
great.
Um Final contribution.
OK,
David.
So are we ready for a summer break?
Yeah,
I'm actually teaching a class this summer.
So,
but it's,
it's still uh you know,
it still feels like summer break.
(29:26):
So,
yeah,
a break will be nice and uh we'll be back with a new season of episodes.
Very excited to take this uh office hours project to uh a new school year.
Yeah.
How are you,
how are you feeling about next year?
I'm feeling really excited.
I think um I had a great time collaborating with you,
(29:47):
David this last year and just all of our amazing uh interviewees and I just,
I feel like I'm really enjoying this project.
I have a lot of ideas for people that I wanna,
you know,
interview next season and I'm sure more um stuff is,
hopefully more stuff is gonna keep popping off and we're gonna have to keep responding to it.
(30:10):
So,
go ahead,
David.
Well,
I was gonna say,
yeah,
thanks to all of our guests and thanks to our listeners.
Um you know,
definitely check out our episodes.
We,
we covered some important topics.
You know,
we covered campus debt.
We covered adjunct to organizing uh the UC strike from a couple of different angles.
(30:30):
Um Faculty strike at Eastern Michigan,
we covered campus organizing against sexual harassment,
sexual assault.
I think we covered a lot of really important topics.
Yeah.
And,
and our goal is to keep kind of diversifying our content,
you know,
in the fall to try to do more,
(30:51):
cover more student organizing.
Um We have a lot of ideas so I won't give you too many spoilers.
But yeah,
thank you so much to our listeners.
And um you know,
we hope you enjoy summer too.
If you're,
if you're a teacher,
we hope you have the summer off and that you get the chance to like just really enjoy yourself and go swimming,
(31:14):
go do whatever you like to do.
If you're not an educator,
if you work through the summer,
I'm sorry.
And I hope that you still manage to have some fun too and we'll see you in the fall Our theme music is by Nigel Weiss.
Our artwork is by Arthur Kay.
(31:35):
You can find more of their artwork at rot radio dot tumblr dot com.
You'll love it if you subscribe to our podcast and tell your friends about us,
rate and review us on all the major platforms.
Thanks for listening.
Bye.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com