Dear all,

First off - I think it's great that we're trying to put mentoring systems 
into place. Especially for grad students (and, dare I say, new faculty 
members!) in not-very-hospitable programs, it sounds really wonderful. I 
know that as a grad student I drew on systems of support far from my 
institutional home, and that my survival was significantly based on the 
goodwill and generosity of women who were already overloaded.

I just wanted to throw some other reflections about the institution of 
tenure, job security, and elitism into the mix because I think it's 
important that we not sink into a kind of ressentiment, a la Nietzsche. 
The best work I've seen recently about the move toward casualised labour 
in the academy (especially in the US) is Marc Bousquet's, available here: 
http://howtheuniversityworks.com/

He has the intro available as a pdf:
http://www.nyupress.org/webchapters/9780814799741_Bousquet_intro.pdf

Just because many of the most dynamic, wonderful, amazing scholars who are 
working with people underserved by the academic machine are working in 
unstable, badly-paid jobs doesn't mean that it's *good* to have a 
non-tenure stream job! I think M. Jacqui Alexander's reflections on the 
revolving-door policies she and others pointed out in the New School's 
approach to women of colour faculty are likewise useful. Those are 
available in the chapter "Anatomy of a Mobilization" in her recent book 
Pedagogies of Crossing. Sometimes people - like Nicole - make choices to 
avoid the tenure track and everything to do with it; more often 
working-class/disabled/queer/racialized intellectuals are pushed or 
tracked into "other" spaces of precarity and devaluation. Mentoring 
programs are sometimes a way to intervene in that process.

cheers,
Alexis

Alexis Shotwell
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
Laurentian University
935 Ramsey Lake Road
Sudbury, Ontario P3E 2C6
705-675-1151 ext. 3709
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On Fri, 30 May 2008, Nicole Garner wrote:

> Shay Thanks! Maybe it is my usual ignorance of the lives of ohter groups 
> but i still dont see anything that speaks to me of learning about 
> elitist structures like tenure.  It very well could and i am just 
> misunderstanding, ity sounds to me like you would learn about what you 
> want to and not have learning about tenure being a significant part of 
> it unless you would want to.  It sitll just looks like what i was 
> excited about to begin with. Thats why the exclusion of so many really 
> bothered me.  On the other hand this group may be made up of mostly the 
> included group, both with the grad students and with faculty. When i 
> think of it most of the other grad studetns i know who are like me, who 
> dont want a solid place in an academis structure arent on this list but 
> they are thinking more about teaching and i am thinking more about 
> writing so I like to see the ideas and to have resources for questions. 
> Best Nicole We cant find world peace when theres a war on the streets, 
> mos our teenagers murdered or growin up wit AIDS, that the life we livin 
> in our Ghetto 2pac Shakur, Ghetto Gospel
>