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•URGENT:
Support Job Security for College
Teachers
•UNIVERSITY
SAYS NO TO
STUDENTS
•MINIMUM
DEMANDS
•Response
to article on South Asia
search
•i
lend you my
name
•R-E-S-P-E-C-T
i
am not cancelling my summer courses to
move to florida state
4/24/07
[modified 5/8/07]
A
student enrolled in one of my summer
courses informed me of a rumor that I have
a new job at Florida State and will be
leaving soon and perhaps cancelling my
courses. This rumor is totally unfounded.
I have not sent a single application
outside the St Louis area, and I have no
other job offers. I don't know who starts
these rumors or why, but I can guess. This
could be an attempt to undermine my summer
enrollment and the Cervantes Free
University and Learning Cooperative
(CFU/LC) before it gets started. Or it
could perhaps be genuine well-wishing.
Because it is untrue, it could undermine
my efforts here, in st Louis, where I will
remain for the next year at least, looking
for an employer who will be as loyal to me
as I have been to Washington University.
This may include Washington University. I
love my job and I will not
quit.
I
find this rumor offensive because it
implies that I do not keep my promises,
and I am just like everybody else, playing
by the usual rules, a careerist. I find
this rumor offensive because it implies
that I am a hypocrite. I promised, on this
website, not to take a job outside the St
Louis area until certain labor issues were
satisfactorily resolved. They have not
been resolved, so I must stay, because I
promised. I know this is not the usual
"career path," but I am loyal to more than
my own career. Remaining here is a point
of honor, and my duty as a Washington
University faculty member, upholding our
own motto, "strength through truth." This
is not just a slogan, it is up to all of
us to make it real. I believe this, and I
act on this belief, and so should you.
Please, let's keep our
promises.
What
purpose has been served by gutting our
South Asia program just to get rid of me?
Apparently, I was to have left St Louis,
and the students were to have been told
"Dr. Bauer got a better job," thus
explaining the absence of my popular
courses, and me, from the course catalog.
After a year, the "tempest in the teapot"
would have been forgotten, Lecturer's
Policy reform would be a dead issue, and
the lesson would have been learned: one
cannot say "we need a union" or any such
thing without rather severe consequences,
at least for non-tenured transient labor.
But this (hypothetical) plan will not
work, because I remain here, and ALL my
popular courses are freely available, on
my own initiative, as I await a faitrer
deal for myself and others.
At
this time I have no health insurance or
employment of any kind at the end of the
summer. I request paid sabbatical in
autumn, so I may write up my lecture notes
as textbooks and get the CFU/LC
established. I request to be kept on the
ArtSci payroll as a Four Year Advisor. I
will become expert not only in the
[convoluted] ArtSci requirements,
but in those of all the professional
schools as well. I request health
insurance. I request reinstatement in
University College in Spring 2008,
teaching one or two courses, to meet
student demand. I request reassignment in
Spring 2008, as Lecturer in the Humanities
and/or Religious Studies. I don't care so
much about the pay, just a reasonable pay
raise.
All
faculty involve their students in
University politics. Some are more subtle,
some are more honest than others. I have
resisted this, even when I knew it was
being done at my expense. Some may thiink
I have crossed a line I should not have
crossed, but I say everything I have done
since Spring 2003 , and especially during
my medical emergency of Autumn 2006, has
been legitimate self-defense. Some
students seem to think I was on medical
leave, but if I had ever left my job, I
would have lost it. This is not right. I
had to work right through a medical
emergency, and I had to grade papers on
Christmas to make the December 26
deadline, most insensitive to anyone who
would practice Christianity. This is not
right. Please support Lecturer's Policy
reform, here and everywhere. Please
support workers' rights, here and
everywhere. I know organized labor not
popular on this campus, but something must
be done. Students should be concerned with
how ALL workers here are treated. We
deserve respect, and protection from abuse
and retaliation when we complain about
what is not right.
The
CFU/LC will be launched this summer.
Learning Cooperative courses and reading
groups will be totally free, with no money
changing hands, not even a "tip jar." This
is because we are all co-teachers. CFU
courses, on the other hand, are bona fide
3 credit, one semester college courses (my
entire catalog of nineteen courses will be
available, when I am not being paid to
teach them by an accredited University).
There will be a small non-refundable fee,
$25 for each five week "credit," first
lesson of each unit is free, for a total
minimum cost of $75. This will make our
courses affordable to the community, cover
costs, and give us some safeguard against
people taking advantage of us. Other
faculty will be free to set their own
fees. A "tip jar" will be available for
anonymous cash donations beyond this fee,
or for refundable check donations. Of
course records will be kept and taxes
paid. Suitable venues have been secured. I
will need a day job, however.
There
is a FaceBook group you can join to keep
up with these issues. I am not (yet) a
member, but I hear about it from my
students. Some students are selling
t-shirts for charity, with my name and
approval. I get none of the proceeds.
Lately I have been staying away from
Mallinckrodt and the Underpass, even when
I had legitimate business there, so as not
to be too closely connected with the "Save
Bauer: It's Good Karma" campaign. (lest it
be discredited). I thank all my student
and alumni supporters for your loyalty. I
will never stop trying to be worthy of
it.
Many
of you have asked to be kept on my email
list. Yes, I will keep you informed via
email and via this website, which will
soon be moving to a private host. Please,
everybody, get a gmail account. Using your
wustl account is not a good idea, the
University owns it, and your words become
their intellectual property, and may be
used against you, and against those with
whom you communicate. It is so
convenenient to pretend we don't know
this. It is so easy to forget that the
same technology which makes "google
search" possible makes it incredibly easy
to keep us all under automated
surveillance. If they can do so, they
probably are, even right here in the land
of the free and the home of the brave.
Yes,
"the worldwide campaign continues," as
someone is said to have said. As our
politicians are now fond of proclaiming,
following the Mahatma Gandhi, "first they
ignore you, then they laugh at you, then
they fight you, then you win." Some are
still laughing, some are now fighting, and
we have not won, none of us have. Not
yet.
In
the end, "satyam eva jayate," truth alone
prevails. This I believe.
Sincerely,
Jerome
Bauer
WE
NEED A UNION
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