Business as Usual Series: “A disgrace to Newton and Leibniz”

An open letter to top administrators, snipped from Deo Volente:

Several students have sent me descriptions of that class, and I quote one of them:

“Yesterday (Thursday), the first day of the strike, was very awkward. The Math 150 class was staffed by the Assistant Dean of the College of Science, [name deleted by D.B.]. She is an economist who has a background in Calculus. Yesterday’s class lasted only 20 minutes with her giving us a brief lecture of the fundamentals behind integration. She then got uncomfortable to the point where she was literally copying the book. She also took attendance, by the way. As I said, she stopped after 20 minutes, assigned no homework and dismissed the class.

Today (Friday), was basically a repeat of yesterday. The class lasted 10 minutes and we pretty much reviewed what we went over yesterday!”

Read the full letter.

Business as Usual Series: Meet Your “Qualified” Replacement Professor

From Deo Volente:

Professor of Endocrine Biochemistry becomes Professor of History for the week.

Read the full story.

“…their whole classes came by to support them, and stayed for hours”

From an ACsE member picketing in support of the FA near Anthony Hall on her break:

“…you should also mention the Dental Hygiene students – they were fantastic!! A couple of the faculty from that program were picketing in front of Anthony, and their whole classes came by to support them, and stayed for hours. They were chanting, “What do we want? Our teachers back! When do we want it? NOW!” They marched all around campus and around Anthony Hall several times, and kept it up until they were all hoarse. It was amazing! It was so obvious to all of us how dedicated the faculty in that program especially must be for them to all come do that on their own to support their teachers.”

Daily Egyptian: Social networking policy in the works after Facebook comment controversy

Administration, public still at impasse over what merits deletion, censorship

While stationed in Los Angeles for an internship, Brandon Allen commented on SIUC’s Facebook page with a question for the university about the labor negotiations.

Ten minutes later, his comment was gone.

Comments from Allen, a junior studying advertising, along with many from alumni, parents and students disappeared from the university’s Facebook page late Wednesday. The deletion of comments followed a posted letter from Chancellor Rita Cheng assuring students that university operations would continue as normal should any of the four unions go on strike.

Allen said his question, which got three "likes" and one comment before it was removed, simply asked, "If the teachers we pay to come to school aren’t in class, why are we paying tuition?"

Allen said he never received a response or explanation and instead was blocked from commenting on the page again.

"The bigger issue is that it was not handled professionally. There’s a certain element of professionalism expected with administrators," he said. "It’s interesting to me that we can have people trying to lead us but they don’t want to let us know what is happening with our education."

Allen said he is upset because students’ questions and opinions were shrugged off by the administration.

"My biggest frustration is the fact that we weren’t allowed to ask questions," he said.

Read more: http://dailyegyptian.com/2011/11/06/social-networking-policy-in-the-works-after-facebook-comment-controversy

Cause and Effect

View this new net.art piece…

Meanwhile in Little Egypt… episode 1.0

What Students Learn When the SIUC Faculty Strikes

Here is a piece of net.art recently submitted by email to the digital resistance headquarters, a.k.a. occupysiuc.wordpress.com

http://nicholenicholson.com/siucstrikecomic/

I really love this quote from the work:

To those in power: Expect Us. For too long, you have ruled from Anthony Hall, far away from the classrooms and the students you claim to care about. But no longer. We have discovered the strength of our voice, and we have remembered that this university belongs to us – to the students and the dedicated teachers and researchers out there on the line, fighting to make this a better place for all of us. Solidarity!

Once you follow the link above be sure to click on all the panels of the comic, they will lead you to some educational websites!

Students Plan Rally and Strike, Monday the 7th

As students we are trapped in the middle between going to classes and supporting our teachers. We may not all be able to join our professors on the picket line for a week, but we can definitely spare a day. If the strike continues until Monday show your solidarity with the FA by boycotting your classes.

Picket. Pray. Party. Just don’t go to class.
(but if you absolutely can’t miss classes, at least come to the rally)

The rally will be at 3:30pm at the Free Forum Area outside of Anthony Hall.

We are looking for volunteers to help round up the troops by chalking around campus, posting flyers, and some creative flash-mob-type in-class announcements. If interested in being on one of these teams, please send a message to one of the admins.

Before the rally come join us on the picket line! Students are welcome at any picketing location.

**Update: We’ll be meeting at Anthony Hall at 3:30 as before, then going around campus, picking up picketers as we go. We’ll end up at the Chatauqua and Oakland site at around 4pm.**

You can find more information on facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=173646486057946&id=157158097706785#!/event.php?eid=230710836991504

Email lockout correction

For those of you following a link in the Twitter feed about email censorship at SIUC and getting a 404 error, in the interest of accuracy and truth we have removed the original post while we continue to research the story.

Thank you for your patience and we will continue to update you as more information becomes available and is confirmed.

Thanks for the inspiration!

Snipped from Deo Volente:

On Friday, we received news that the Administration was very upset about non-FA members carrying signs that proclaimed they were “on strike.” Turns out the Administration doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on with this charge; you cannot legally charge someone with striking unless they actually don’t show up to work. Joining a picket line and choosing to carry a sign proclaiming yourself on strike when you are not is a matter of free speech, which yet again the Administration seems eager to suppress. But at my site, we cheerfully acquiesced to the Administration’s concerns and broke out the art supplies. Within minutes, we had plenty of new signs for all those eager to show their support. Better signs, really.

One of the new signs that appeared after the university admin announced opposition to non-FA members carrying signs saying they were on strike.