Ode to Academic Labor: Bill Rawlins (music), Lisa M. Tillmann (lyrics), Andie Walla (video) скачать в хорошем качестве

Ode to Academic Labor: Bill Rawlins (music), Lisa M. Tillmann (lyrics), Andie Walla (video)

This video challenges the encroachment of corporate values into academic life. Contributors Bill Rawlins and Lisa Tillmann hold the rank of tenured full professors, which insulates them from the most acute and direct impacts of such encroachment. Bill and Lisa mobilize their privilege to offer this critique and to stand in solidarity with those laboring outside the academy, who fight for a living wage, as well as with colleagues in the academy—staff, graduate students, adjunct and other contingent faculty—who lack tenure’s protections. To enter Ode’s spirit, please consider: A person working full time at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks per year—without a day of sick or vacation time—brings home annual pay of $15,080. It would require more than half a full time minimum wage job to pay the average tuition ($9139) at a four-year public university; the average cost of room and board ($9804) puts a year of college beyond a full time minimum wage job (Supiano). From 2003-13, the cost of tuition and books rose more than 79% (Kurtzleben). The average college graduate has incurred $29,400 in student loan debt (Ellis). More than half of faculty hold part-time appointments (AAUP), and “contingent faculty…and instructors now teach a majority of undergraduate classes in our public colleges” (AFT). In 27 states, the highest paid public employee is not the president of the flagship university, not the dean of the top medical school, not even the governor, but a football coach; in 13 states, a basketball coach (Fischer-Baum). From 2005–12 (years that, for many, included mandatory furloughs and/or wage freezes) “median salaries and benefits for head coaches in NCAA Division I-A men’s football and basketball doubled after inflation”; even coaches in so-called “minor sports” saw compensation increases far beyond those faculty received (AAUP). According to the AAUP, senior administrator salaries also “have risen much faster than those of full-time faculty”; presidents have reaped “double-digit percentage increases in salary” while telling faculty and staff that no money existed for raises or continued benefits. When Lisa, author of Ode’s lyrics, accepted a position in 1999, tenured and tenure-track faculty in Arts and Sciences had egalitarian salaries. Across disciplines, faculty with the same years of experience who had been promoted to the same level earned the same amount: equal pay for equal work. In 2007, senior administrators and trustees wanted change. Instead of holding a dialogue or debate, the Board allocated $470,000 contingent on the faculty’s agreement to develop a merit pay system and to allow “market-based” disparities. The disparities would mean that the labor of, e.g., humanities faculty would subsidize larger salaries for economics and business faculty. On February 19, 2008, this “take it or leave it” proposal passed decisively, 77 to 23. But consider the fact that 23% voted to leave nearly half a million dollars on the table amid a tanking economy. Lisa wrote Ode in 2008 to protest ways institutions invite and coerce faculty to donate surplus labor and to advance others’ economic interests. That November, she performed Ode at the National Communication Association meetings, and in 2009, Norm Denzin published Ode in the International Review of Qualitative Research. In 2014, Lisa collaborated with Bill Rawlins, who wrote and arranged Ode’s music and chorus. Andie Walla shot footage during the recording session and produced the video posted here. Lisa and Bill encourage you to support living wage and worker rights movements; to speak and write against the corporatization of higher education; and to share and post this video anywhere you believe it may inspire someone to take action. Video Credits: Lisa Tillmann: lyrics, lead and chorus vocals Bill Rawlins: music arranger and producer, drums, chorus vocals, acoustic guitar Andie Walla: cinematographer, video producer Jeff Redefer: recording engineer and mixer, electric guitar Steve Schoen: cinematographer Scott Ewing: keyboard, chorus vocals Steve Phalen: bass guitar Sharell Arocho: chorus vocals For a list of sources pertaining to the data above, contact Lisa at: ltillmann@rollins.edu