2:30 – 4:00 PM
Session D - STUDIO 2
No Justice, No Service! (Adjuncts Unite)
Jessica Lawless and Cassie Thornton
(Interactive presentation and discussion)
Adjunct Professor, Visiting Lecturer, Visiting Professor, Part-Time Faculty, Non-Tenure Track Faculty, Non-Ranked Faculty, Contract Faculty,Term Adjunct Faculty, Acting Faculty, Contingent Faculty, Lecturer, Instructor, Just in Time Professor, Professor Staff, TBD,
Once academia’s dirty little secret, adjunct professors have become the new face of income inequality. Over the past two years the adjunct faculty movement has grown exponentially. “Part-time” professors are organizing unions across the country, including several art schools. In the Bay Area we are taking the lead in using art as an organizing tool to connect precarious workers and disenfranchised groups in innovative ways. Our organizing is allowing us all to learn from each other while uniting adjunct professors, fast food workers, artists, Black Lives Matter activists, students, and all those fighting to raise the minimum wage. Jessica and Cassie will facilitate an interactive presentation and discussion that gives an overview of how the adjunct movement expanded so rapidly, ways to organize if a union isn’t possible, how to build genuine coalitions with other precarious workers and local community organizers, and how art practices can be organizing tools. The goal of this workshop is to support adjunct organizing in Houston by connecting Houston area adjunct professors and activist artists with national networks that can help build your movement. The workshop is participatory and will give participants grounded organizing tools.
Jessica Lawless works for SEIU Local 1021 in Oakland, CA on the Adjunct Action/Faculty Forward campaign. She specifically works with the adjunct faculty at the California College of the Arts. Before this, Jessica was an adjunct professor for nearly a decade. During that time she acquired massive debt, went into bankruptcy, was regularly on unemployment, relied on state healthcare, and moved several times to chase work. Her partner, a cook in college dining halls would often provide health care for her. When they both were on unemployment during semester breaks, her partner received higher weekly benefits than she did, and not because he made a lot of money as a food service worker. Getting hired as an organizer at SEIU ended her cycle of adjuncting. In her non-paid work life, she is a writer and regular contributor to make/shift feminisms in motion.She is also an artist who has shown work in spaces as disparate as the Chicago Anarchist Film Festival, the Toronto Transgender Film Festival, REDCAT in Los Angeles, and PS 122 in New York. She and Cassie Thornton, along with a whole lot of other people organized No Justice No Service Bay Area Arts and Education Justice Festival in March 2014. In November 2015 she moderated the panel Adjuncts in Action|Poets in Action at the Howard Zinn Book Fair in San Francisco. Importantly, her co-worker from Houston told her Montrose was a super gay neighborhood and she would like someone to prove it to her while she is in town. More info on Jessica Lawless here
Cassie Thornton is an artist who is sometimes referred to as the Feminist Economics Department (the FED), and works in collusion with Strike Debt in Oakland, California. Her work investigates and reveals the impact of governmental and economic systems on public feeling, behavior, and unconscious, with a focus on debt and security. Cassie develops collaborative art works through non-traditional relationships with forward thinking organizations, galleries, art and activist groups, non-profits, universities, and museums internationally. In 2015, Cassie will complete projects with SEIU 1021 in the Bay Area, Evergreen State University in Olympia WA, Hastings Poverty Race and Law Journal in San Francisco, the SF LGBT Center, Storefront Lab in San Francisco, Recess Gallery in Portland OR, Portland State University, San Francisco State University, SOEX in San Francisco, Publication Studio in Oakland, CA and UC Berkeley. She has recently published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, ArtLeaks, and Temporary Art Magazine. Recent awards have come from Headlands Center for the Arts, Blade of Grass Foundation, CCA Social IMPACT Grant, Barclay Simpson Award and the Cannonball Miami Residency. http://cassiethornton.com/
Si no hay justicia, no hay servicio (Profesores asociados únanse)
Jessica Lawless y Cassie Thornton
(presentación interactiva y discusión)
Profesor asociado, Profesor no numerario en visita, Profesor visitante, Miembro de la facultad de medio tiempo, Miembro de la facultad sin carrera de permanencia, Miembro de la facultad sin clasificación, Miembro de la facultad a contrata, Profesor asociado a plazo, Profesor interino, Miembro de la facultad a tiempo parcial, Profesor no numerario, Instructor, Profesor justo a tiempo, Profesor empleado, Aún por ser determinado,
Lo que fuera el secreto sucio de la academia, los profesores asociados, se han transformado en la nueva cara de la desigualdad de salarios. El movimiento de profesores asociados ha crecido exponencialmente en los últimos dos años. Los profesores de “medio tiempo” están organizando uniones en todo el país, incluyendo varias escuelas de arte. En el Área de la Bahía de San Francisco estamos tomando el liderazgo en el uso del arte como una herramienta organizativa para conectar trabajadores precarios y grupos sin derechos de una manera innovadora. Nuestro trabajo de organización permite que todos aprendamos uno del otro mientras unimos a los profesores asociados, trabajadores de los restaurantes de comida rápida, artistas, activistas de Black Lives Matter, estudiantes y todos aquellos en la lucha para subir el salario mínimo. Jessica y Cassie liderarán una presentación y discusión interactiva que dará una visión en conjunto de cómo el movimiento de profesores asociados se expandió tan rápidamente, maneras de organizarse si una unión no es posible, cómo construir coaliciones genuinas con otros trabajadores en situación precaria y organizadores comunitarios locales y cómo las prácticas artísticas pueden convertirse en herramientas organizativas. La meta de este taller es apoyar la organización de profesores asociados en Houston conectando a profesores asociados del área de Houston y a artistas activistas con redes nacionales que puedan ayudar a construir su movimiento. El taller es participativo y proporcionará a los asistentes sólidas herramientas de organización.