Bierfaristo Blog

In the last round of collective bargaining, I served on the non-tenure-track faculty team and, among our other accomplishments, we completed negotiations for implementing "continuing employment". Until now, I've been appointed on term contracts -- usually every three years. These were typically formulaic, but there was always an element of stress involved as the deadline approached: Would the reappointment process go smoothly? Had anything changed? The University was equally happy to get rid of the administrative load in managing all the paperwork that had be copied and passed around and stamped and signed and countersigned.

There was some question what to call these provisions. Originally, the term "continuous employment" was used but, at some point, the University representative decided that it should be called "continuing employment".

Under the new process, for new employees you have two one year contracts followed by a two year contract. You are then evaluated for "continuing employment" after the first year of the two year contract: if you don't pass, the last year is your terminal year but, otherwise, you are reappointed afterward with no fixed end term.

It's not tenure: they can still let people go if they decide that the work isn't going to continue. But they can't arbitrarily replace one person with another. And another provision of the new contract sets different levels of criteria based on faculty rank (Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Senior Lecturer II).

And today, I finally received my "Notice and Acceptance of Reappointment" letter And having signed the letter, I guess I am now "continuingly employed". Here's to many more years in the service of the University of Massachusetts Amherst -- one of the worlds greatest universities!

I took my boys to see Alexis Ohanian at UMass recently. They both read Reddit and were persuadable to go. He gave a good presentation: in equal parts funny, insightful, and inspiring. He also interviewed a UMass alumnus, Steve King, who has worked at a lot of internet startups. There was a lot I would agree with, but I was also left with a number of questions.

Are generation times decreasing? There's already a generation gap between Alexis and the students in the audience. Alexis talked about geocities websites and other early internet technologies that most of the people in the audience probably had never heard of. The world has already moved on.

How remixable really are newer mobile technologies? Reddit was created in a time when it was possible to inspect the protocols different layers of technology more easily than it is now. I worry that as the internet gets more complicated -- and subject to greater corporate control -- it raises barriers that previous entrepreneurs didn't face.

What role does luck play? The entrepreneurs talk of how you need to fail to succeed and you only need one to succeed and that's all well and good as a rationale for why you need to try. But what if none of your ideas succeed? In the end, it reminded me quite a bit of the advertising for the lottery: "You can't win if you don't play!" Like the demotivator says, "Quitters never win, winners never quit, but those who never win AND never quit are idiots."

Workload has been a contentious issue at UMass since I first got involved with the union. When I first arrived at UMass, the union did not much concern itself with non-tenure system faculty. There weren't very many and the Union was focused primarily on trying to make sure there wouldn't be very many more. When it became clear that we were becoming a substantial part of the faculty, the leadership had the vision to actually begin organizing us and advocating for our interests. That's how I got involved.

One of our first concerns was workload. There have always been disparities of workload among departments, but some departments were more unequal than others. In particular, some were hiring non-tenure system faculty to teach an excessive number of courses (as many as five -- or even more) and still calling them part time (less than 1.0 FTE). One of our first achievements was to establish a floor: We established that a 3-credit course would represent no less than 0.25 FTE. Some in the University saw this as license to begin routinely hiring non-tenure track faculty with a 4/4 load (four 3-credit courses each semester). And, with the recent switch to 4-credit Gen Ed classes, some in the administration would now like for non-tenure-system faculty to routinely teach four 4-credit classes per semester.

This all assumes that a faculty member does nothing but teach. If you're teaching four classes, that's your full-time job. If you're paid only for teaching full time, you don't have any opportunity to engage in either scholarship or service. Or faculty governance. I don't think that's a good idea either for the faculty member or for the University.

An engaged faculty must be involved in governance. For shared governance to have any meaning, all faculty ought to be able to serve on some committees, like the Personnel Committee, which oversees all of the personnel actions in the departments. Or the Faculty Senate, which has primary responsibility for academic affairs. Creating dis-empowered contingent faculty benefits no-one. It's not good for the faculty member to be so disconnected from the life of the University, but it's also not good for the University. We need engaged scholars that are invested in the life of the University -- not just freeway faculty.

In the last round of bargaining, I made this case to the administration and was unsuccessful in making any headway. Bargaining is about to start again and I'm hopeful that this time we might get some kind of agreement that as a 3-credit class is 0.25 FTE then a full-time faculty member must teach less than 4/4 in order to devote some part of their professional effort toward governance.

I'm going to be speaking on Saturday April 12 at the Science for the People Conference: Community Television, Free Software, and Maker/Hacker Communities: Aspirations of Freedom

Growing corporate control of media, software, and consumer products over the past 50 years has led to three largely separate movements to preserve the ability of ordinary people to access the means of production of mass media, computer software and, most recently, the technological hardware of modern culture. The movements share an aspiration that transparency and community participation are fundamental to democracy and an egalitarian society. Understanding their history and the reactions to these movements can provide insight into current and future efforts to secure freedom.

I wasn't a member of the original Science for the People organization. But the theme of science being coopted and misused is one that resonates with me and I'm looking forward to participating in the conference.

On Friday, we had the first drop-in session for the Amherst Media Maker community. Around 10 people came and we spent most of the time in a far-ranging discussion. Some of the people had come to the initial workshop, but several were new. It was a great conversation that I hope will be a model for how we move forward. There was a lot of excitement and positive energy.

Ostensibly, I went there to work on Node Red. Before the meeting, I had installed Node Red on my Raspberry Pi and could at least demo it. But we mostly talked about other stuff.

Christine Olson came because she's interested in studying the launch of Makerspaces. Stephanie Jo Kent came to talk about hacking community engagement to build resilient communities. A student from Hampshire came to talk about developing a curriculum for teaching electronics. It's great to see the Maker community becoming a home for so many interesting perspectives.

We talked about a vast array of interesting ideas: gamification, building environments to foster collaboration, providing space for self-directed activities, the distinction between Maker and Hacker, models for organizing the community, and future plans for the space.

We did look at some technical stuff. I briefly showed Node Red. I brought one of the Galileo development boards I got recently which we passed around and discussed. We worked, again, to try to get the servos working: the ones we received with our kits have been problematic and we've been working with the supplier to figure what's wrong. It was all good.

It looks like the time will work going forward. There was interest in meeting again next week. Several people said they could come every week. I'm not sure I can attend every week, but I'll come when I can.

One year, while attending the Massachusetts Society of Professors (MSP) General Membership luncheon, an elderly faculty member joked to me drily that he was there for his $700 lunch — implying that the luncheon was the only benefit he received for his annual dues. Of course, this year, a full-time faculty member will pay ~$900/year in union dues to belong to the MSP.

In point of fact, more than half of the membership fee ($486) is actually the dues for the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA). You might well wonder what you're spending all that money for and question its value. If so, I invite you attend the MTA Annual Meeting (May 10-11 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston) to find out what it buys.

The MTA fights for public education. They are opposed by well-funded and well-organized lobbying groups that have been working for a generation to defund state government; to undermine and destroy public education; and to roll back benefits to state workers -- your benefits. The MTA has been on the front lines trying to defend education: to stop ballot initiatives that would eliminate the state income tax or tie teacher evaluations to high-stakes testing. And this is a special year to attend…

This year, Barbara Madeloni, a UMass Amherst faculty member, is running for MTA President. She has been at the forefront resisting the privatization of public education. She is pushing for the MTA to shift from fighting a rearguard action to limit losses, and to articulate a vision of public education based on values of social justice and democracy -- a vision that respects the expertise and dignity of teachers.

Part of your MSP dues go to support a team of delegates to the MTA Annual Meeting. If you go, the MSP will pay for your hotel room and buy you a nice dinner out. And in return, you have an opportunity to see the budget of the MTA and to account for every nickel of your dues to them.

No-one who attends the MTA Annual Meeting is unmoved by the experience. If you believe in the mission of public education -- and the role of public higher education in that mission -- you owe it to yourself to see what you're a part of. And learn what you can do to help win the fight.

(Written for the MSP Chronicle)

I grew up listening to the Almanac Singers. My family had a record of their Talking Union album and as a kid I used to sing along with Union Maid and You've Gotta Go Down and Join the Union. Pete Seeger was a founding member in 1941, during the dramatic growth in unionism in the 1930s and 40's after the passage of the Wagner Act.

Pete Seeger was there for the wild ascent of workers as they leveraged a fair wage from the plutocrats who had wrecked the economy during the Great Depression. And then Taft-Hartley was passed and, little by little, the labor movement has been chipped away at until today it is a ghost -- a mere vapor -- of its former self. And we have a new crop of plutocrats and robber barons who've wrecked the economy. Pete Seeger watched it all from the beginning to the end.

I wonder how it must have felt.

Through it all, Pete never seemed to lose hope. He never gave up. And, in the words of the immortal Joe Hill, let us remember to not mourn but, instead, organize.

The closing event of the Mass Municipal Association annual meeting was a review of gubernatorial candidates. The moderator asked questions that had been derived from the audience. Each candidate was given the opportunity to make a brief opening statement and then asked a series of questions related to unfunded mandates, whether to tie unrestricted aid to increases in state revenues, the deficit in local transportation budgets, and contributions to retiree health care.

Joseph Avellone (D) is a former doctor and health-insurance executive. His primary focus was in controlling health-care costs and he leaned heavily on his previous experience as a Selectman. I would never have guessed he was a Democrat based on anything he said and kept thinking, "If it walks like a Republican and sounds like a Republican…"

Charlie Baker (R) is a Republican. He's another former health-insurance executive who served as a policy wonk in a previous Republican administration. He seemed comfortable and tried to project an air of competence: "I'm good at it! I have a track record with that". He, too, reminded the audience several times of his chops as a former Selectman. Some people thought he seemed arrogant, but I could see voters liking him.

Don Berwick (D) seemed both the most wonkish and most visionary to me. He is the former head of Medicare/Medicaid under Obama and similarly focused on the need to control health care. He advocated for single-payer and infrastructure renovation and increased revenues to pay for it. I liked him, so he'll probably get forced to drop out before the primary, perhaps due to some errant scream or something.

Martha Coakley (D) underwhelmed me again. She seems flat and unpersuasive. She was practically the only one who mentioned education, but she talked about it in platitudes: children need the best education we can provide for the state to be competitive. I'm pretty convinced that the way the Democrats lose the election is to put Martha up against Charlie Baker. Just like when she ran against Scott Brown, I don't see her building the necessary excitement or enthusiasm to win.

Evan Falchuk is running as an independent, having created his own party. He was more credible than I expected. He talked about making fundamental changes in how state government works, for example creating multi-year funding initiatives. That sounds like a wonksh, technical detail, but it is a fundamental limitation in how state government works. If you knew funding would be reliable, you could take out a loan and do a big project in 2 years, instead of spread out over 10 -- and gain huge efficiencies. Keep dreaming.

Mark Fisher (R) is an unabashed tea-party member. He started out sounding vaguely reasonable ("I want to bring common sense to Beacon Hill"), but then wandered off into crazy land. He talked very calmly about zero-funding communities that voted in favor of sanctuary laws for illegal immigrants. Or that wages should be entirely a function of the "free market", as if the government doesn't use monetary policy to influence the unemployment rate or something. Sheesh. I don't see him as a credible candidate, but he might shift Baker far enough to the right to do him some damage.

Steve Grossman is a former state treasurer and a classical politician, horse-trading one thing or another. I found his leaps of "logic" to be largely incomprehensible: Tax the internet to fund transportation! Aid, aid, aid, lottery! Perhaps to insiders, that kind of logic makes perfect sense, but I found it jarring and orthogonal to my plane of reality.

Juliette Kayyem has a background in homeland security. She's relatively young and this is her first shot at an executive position. She's been somewhat unconventional: she's been using twitter to reach Democratic activists and has some fresh ideas. I definitely want to know more about her. I'm not sure she's ready this time around, but I think she'll move the race in directions it needs to go.

I'm hopeful to see some interesting candidates. I've been disappointed that the Democrats in Massachusetts seem only too willing to give the nod to the candidate with the strongest ties to the Democratic machinery: they picked Shannon O'Brien rather than Robert Reich for example -- which is how we ended up with Mitt Romney as governor. Let me say that again: we had Mitt Romney as governor. I always hope that the Democrats will pick the most interesting, dynamic, exciting candidate with the best ideas. But it rarely happens. Still, there's always a chance.

A colleague on the Rules Committee recently shared a message that included the statement "we are all better off when education thrives". I wrote the brief reply that follows:

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment:

Universities were constructed in a time when you needed a place to contain the accumulated knowledge of humanity (educated people and their books, journals, etc). Now, the information mostly resides on the internet and it's easy for people to access it directly. A kid with a smartphone anywhere on earth already has access to more-and-better information than the most powerful, richest person on earth had 20 years ago.

This isn't to say that education has less value, but the nature of that education needs to change. Education used to be about "knowing things" and transmitting that knowledge. There are still a lot of university classes that are taught (and assessed) as though that's what education is. That kind of education now has little value. We need to demonstrate that we're providing a kind of education that does have value.

It also is much less clear that people should have different phases in their lives (ie, one where they "learn" and then a later one where they "do"). We need to start life-long learning much earlier and have people start "doing" in kindergarten, even as we have people continue to "learn" throughout their careers. It's not clear that our current educational system supports either effectively. But it's becoming clear that education is not our generation's key challenge.

It's becoming clear that our current economic system is simply breaking down. Robots and computers can already do many of the things that people do, only better. Soon that will be "most of the things that people do". We need a new economic model that will ensure that the fruits of such a system of production are equitably shared. No kind of university education will help you much in the kind of hellish kleptocracy our society will become without economic reform.

We need more than platitudes like "we are all better off when education thrives". We need to ask questions like "what kinds of education?" and "education for what?"

Someone Phil was tutoring at Lernu recently asked him who his brother was (after he'd mentioned consulting me about something). Phil crafted this nice biography of my Esperanto life, which I share here with his permission:

My brother, Steven Brewer, is also known as limako various places (at Lernu, for example; also @limako on twitter, etc.). He's been active in the Esperanto community for years. He was the webmaster at Esperanto-USA, and also a board member there. He's been published on paper in Literatura Forio and Beletra Almanako and on the web at Libera Folio. He's also been publishing a series of books of Esperanto haiku under the imprint Atlatl Studios. He's attended Esperantaj kongresoj all over the world. He's a fluent speaker, and a big hit at Esperanto parties. If you do twitter or read blogs you should follow him, and if you're at some Esperanto event that he attends, don't miss the chance to meet him—he's very easy to talk to in Esperanto.

Now I feel warm all over.