Description: An experiment in researching in public
Please don’t misunderstand: I was far from the most active member of the faculty in my department or university throughout the recent UC System strike and I do not presume to speak from a position of any particular authority about it. Others – especially among our junior faculty – were much more involved, showing up at picket lines on a daily basis, actively organizing and strategizing with faculty from other campuses, taking food to strikers, canceling or moving classes to the picket lines, holding teach-i
• Collective action opens doors and builds bridges. The neoliberal university allows and encourages silos and barriers to persist between units and individuals who might otherwise find shared interests and common cause. Each time I attended strike support actions, I met people and had conversations that might never have happened otherwise. I now feel more connected to a network of faculty that spans multiple fields across my university and, to a certain extent, the UC system as a whole. I hope this awarenes
• The privilege of tenure is real and it needs to be exercised, but contradictions remain. I have long been ambivalent about the tenure system and the caste hierarchy it imposes on our profession – and I have rarely witnessed the historical justification that tenure enables individuals to speak truth to power. Ironically, in my immediate circles, those who were most willing to put themselves on the line most consistently and most visibly in support of strikers were precisely those without the protection of