Day 8 (if you don't count the weekend)

Ok I felt like blogging for myself today, as the last few posts have been spent with others ideas, and some stuff is bubbling over in my gut today.

First, I have spent a lot of my picketing time in the last 3 days internally ruminating on why there are such huge differences between the way the various presidents of the colleges are communicating with the faculty, and in fact the huge differences in plans (it seems) to deal with how to "commit" to students that they will be able to sucessfully complete their year. (If readers are aware of the legislation they will clearly see the threat the council is making in this communique -- see section 56 (1) h.) This ties in clearly with the comment made to me the day before the strike by a top member of the administration here that we should not count on the goverment to "bail us out". (Just for the record .... I don't do bailing. Never have. I see things through.)

I was very pleased to see this article from the Hamilton Spectator. The Mohawk president's attitudes seem very reasoned, appropriate and "managerial". Then you get the blind and unthinking followership (versus leadership) at our college, which simply mouths the blather coming out of the CCAC (read "The Council") and which follows Rick Miner's line that management may teach and mark (based on what knowledge base?) to ensure the students can complete their term "successfully" (as in hand them over a diploma so that they'll all be happy).

Now I want to students to complete their term "successfully" too, but consider Rick Miner's statement in terms of these numbers and the suggestions as to how this might occur.

I came to no real answer as to why there are such huge differences, other than to assume there is a basic lack of respect for any of the work we do by some of the presidents (and vpa's and directors of h/r). Rick Miner's views (and those at other colleges who reflect his views) imply that these presidents see absolutely no value in what we know, or what we do, or the skills it takes to do it, so they proposed that a very small number of administrators could easily do our jobs. Gee ... I wonder why they didn't try this before, in order to reduce those horrific costs that they complain of? And, as I blogged long before Miner's statement, we have been asking for years around here to get administrators (I can't bring myself to call them managers) into the classroom for at least one course per term, and they won't do it. Gotta wonder why!

Whatever happens, whether we are out another week or two or another 5 or 6 months, the relationships at our college between faculty and top administration have been destroyed. It's a shame, because until recently (as in the last couple of years) we had what we THOUGHT there was a pretty good relationship between the faculty and the administration. There were relatively few grievances (can't quote the numbers, but have been told that it was one of the lowest grievance #s in the province.) What changed? Well ... for one thing, at our college the people in top management changed. And it would appear that administration attitudes changed at the same time. New president, new vpa, new h/r honcho. And also a change in the BoG (that's Board of Governors). We had been trying until this last couple of months to give the top administrators the benefit of the doubt. "Oh," we'd say, when someone told us they had heard one of these people say that faculty were "lazy" ... "you must have misheard them, or taken it out of context." Oh no my friends, we did not mishear. That was the changed attitudes we were hearing, shouted out loud and clear. But we wanted to think the best of them. So we blamed "this incident" or "that individual" as causing the reaction of the administration ... and said to ourselves that surely it could not reflect the overall view of the administration. Boy were we wrong!

On a different note ... I received an email (from the link on our website I think) today from someone who is clearly a member of our Sheridan faculty (the contents revealed a knowledge of our CCFD that would only be known to one of "ours"). It was very indicative of what I am hearing on the line ... hilariously and truthfully rude regarding how the moneys our college does have are currently being misspent, as well disparaging of the inane comments coming from The Council. And I thought I needed to vent -- My comments would be seen as compliments to our administration, compared to what was in this one! Thanks, "Sheridan Reporter". I am still debating whether to post your rant verbatim ... gonna ask around and see if I can be held responsible for what it says if I post it here. But for the record, "Reporter", you made my day and I hope that just writing this helped you to vent, too!

On a closing note ... one of the highlights of our picket day today was arriving and finding that the portapotty had not been blown down overnight! This is the first time in the last 3 picketing days that our guys did not have to set it upright. Thanks to J___ and N___, who uprighted it each day, and who got the 2x4s and braced it up yesterday. Hopefully it will still be upright tomorrow when we arrive. We had other highlights from today too, but I need some rest.

See you on the lines tomorrow!