Saw a random post for some reason about Miami Faculty warned NOT to take students outside to teach? That can’t be true can it? Anyone in the know about this? Must be more to this story than what was posted on Facebook. That just seems completely ridiculous.
If it’s posted on Facebook I think it’s safe to say you can simply ignore it.
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Bash has the right answer, but I was thinking about this before my class on Monday. As a practical matter, we’re all so tech driven in the classroom these days with slide presentations, videos, and students taking notes on their laptops that it probably wouldn’t be feasible to decide we were all going to go outside and sit under a tree like some of my Miami profs used to.
It was also 93F in the shade in Durham on Monday, so it wouldn’t have been all that nice anyway. I don’t need to monitor students for allergies or heat exhaustion.
Reading between the lines it sounds like the Faculty Alliance has an event planned for Thursday and possibly some professors were planning on bringing their students to it by “teaching outside”.
Miami University has forbidden faculty from participating in FAM’s planned Labor Day event tomorrow by handing down a new edict that we are not allowed to teach outside.
Seems like a big line to cross if indeed that was the intent. A quick scroll of their facebook page and I couldn’t find any information on this event they are hosting.
Yes:
I think disrupting classes and be coy about that being the intent isn’t a good negotiating tactic in terms of popular support personally. It’s surprising to me that this was approved by the union.
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Always an “agenda” isn’t there…
Is it really that surprising?
Miami’s reaction to this is the dumbest goddamn thing I’ve ever heard. Let the students have their outside classes. Who doesn’t love the outside class out of nowhere?
It was a high of 95 yesterday afternoon
Now that I understand the complete context,* this is unsurprising. The faculty union intended to sidestep SB1’s purported complete ban on work actions by teaching employees by framing their “teach out” as a “teach out,” but the administration decided to preemptively shut that down. When it comes to bargaining, faculty at Miami always have been somewhere between the Washington Generals and the NFLPA, particularly when compared to other, better universities. The wrinkle now is the chilling effect of SB1.
- I don’t have Facebook and have never read anything on it. In fact, a few years ago some of my HS classmates tracked me down another way and told me there was speculation that I had died because I wasn’t on Facebook. If that’s what it takes to disappear in America these days, sign me up.
Some professors may have also changed their class time to coordinate with the union event.
Today’s high is 97 with a feels like temp of 105. What a wonderful day to have outside class out of nowhere!
Anecdotally, that’s harder than it sounds. The place where I am adjunct this fall is closed for Labor Day and I fly in to teach only on Mondays. Rescheduling and finding a classroom once campus is in full swing is a Jenga exercise.
Only 97? Must be nice.
97 with a tropical dew point of 71.
Sounds like SoCal last week! I think we had 95 with a dew point of 74.