RE: [Marxism] Response from CU Chancellor's Office reChurchillWitchHunt

["Stephen Homick" <clio@xxxxxxxxx>]

El 3 Aug 2006 a las 12:33, Mark Lause <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> scripsit:

> Louis Godena (who seems to think that academics and people generally plan
> ahead no more than they have to) wrote, "From what little I know about
> academics and the current academic job market, I doubt whether CU or any
> similarly situated institution will have much trouble finding potential
> employees."
> And they will leave Colorado in a shot if a job comes up in a university
> system comes up that respects tenure.

Implausible apologetics of this sort, far from defending tenure,
furnish additional shot and ball to those striving to blow it to
smithereens. The academy's skewed, Byzantine organizational structure
lavishes on the slender, tenured ranks of those atop the pecking order
a sumptuous array of perqs, immunities and privileges, thanks in no
small way to the migratory mass of temp. hewers of wood and drawers of
water who do most of the heavy lifting for them.

Like the gambling addict who pins his hopes on next roll of the dice or
deal of the cards, many of these poor, toiling souls believe that they,
too, may some day earn an entrée into the privileged precinct of
tenure. So, some of them burn the midnight oil, putting the finishing
touches on their metastasized term papers or article-length segments
extracted from them, hoping against hope that one or more of the hogen
mogen on the search committee might actually take time to at skim over
a few pages. Others strive with dogged tenacity to bag the highest
scores on student satisfaction surveys and secure the greatest
enrollment in their classes, in the belief that superlative
"productivity" is the fast-track to tenure.

Of course, none of these strategies affords a sure-fire guarantee of
becoming a bona fide placeholder in the groves of academe. In fact,
woven into either of them is the imminent, palpable risk that the
engineer may well wind up hoist by his/her own petard. Those ultra-high
quality metastasized term papers that "break new ground" and advance
knowledge of a given field by "quantum leaps," rather than leading to
that coveted tenure-track [or "tenure-stream" or "tenurable" as it's
come to be known these days, for reasons way beyond my puny ken]
appointment, on more than isolated occasions have been known to egg on
boiler-plate rejection notices, especially when they threaten the
prestige and standing of tenured hogen mogen whose own metastasized
term papers may struggle to clear the bar of mere mediocrity, but which
have nonetheless been impressed with the imprimatur of one of those
former Presby or Congo seminaries that today are judged "best of the
best."

Likewise, the pupil-pleasing pedagogical puppies whose superior tail-
wagging and palm-licking have netted them exceptional and consistently
high enrollments, can just as easily be derailed while waiting for the
high-ball to switch to the tenure track. After all, would one of Ol'
Eli's sons or daughters want to risk being shown up by some hayseed
byproduct of a benighted cow school? Far safer to appoint an
underachieving Ivy-League slacker than a go-getting, state ag. school
superstar.

Indeed, it's been the Ivies who've designed and built up the tenure
system in the U.S., and it's they who tend to its care and feeding in
the present. They reign supreme; their power is supreme, and no one but
no one has--to my knowledge, at any rate-- ever succeeded in
challenging it. When the Boston Globe outed "G.I. Joe" Ellis for
intentionally and deliberately lying to class after class of his
students, over better than two decades of distinguished, superlative
"teaching" at that Ivy-League filly farm in Academic Valley which had
tenured him, his punishment amounted to a year's sabbatical leave
without pay--by anyone's measure, one of the most severe, Draconian
sentences ever meted out behind the ivied walls--n'est-ce pas?

Yet, consider the fate of one Michael Bellesiles, a first-magnitude,
tenured prof. at Emory U.--that Spanish-mossed Harvard of the Deep
South, according to some--who got caught cooking books and fudging
figures, in an effort to revise the history of gun-hugging in the Great
Republic. Sans Ivy-League clout, Bellesiles was shit-canned forthwith;
no mitigating circumstances, like "teaching effectiveness" or
"community service"; no clemency; and certainly no concerns over a
perceived adverse impact on the hallowed institution of tenure. Just a
jackboot swiftly planted where the sun don't shine, coupled with the
stern injunction not to "let the door hit [him] where the Good Lord
split [him]."

Now, in the case of Churchill, here's another bona fide member of the
exclusive tenure club who's fallen afoul of its bylaws and regulations.
The institution that tendered him his appointment, apparently did so at
least in part with an eye to securing a raging resident renegade for
its faculty. Till the tragic events of 9/11, Churchill evidently met
the school's expectations. Unlike "G.I. Joe" Ellis, no evidence that
he's lied to his students has ever been uncovered. Unlike Michael
Bellesiles, clear and convincing proof, let alone proof beyond
reasonable doubt, that he's fudged figures or cooked the books hasn't
come to light.

But Churchill has been caught red-handed attempting to slime the
unfortunate victims of the Twin Towers, by likening them to despicable
Nazi collaborators. Apropos of this stupid, dumb-assed stunt, my
question is: What was Churchill thinking when when he made such a
hurtful, insulting comparison? Was he trying out to be a contender in
one of those "Yo-mamma" contests on MTV? Did he believe that the
conferral of tenure constituted, in effect, some kind letter of marque,
whose authority granted him the liberty of trash-talking and sliming
whomever he might choose, whenever he might wish? Had he over-indulged
in smoking Dutch Cleanser prior to throwing his infantile, asinine,
name-calling tantrum?

Not only have Churchill's immature antics disgraced him personally,
both as a teacher and a scholar, they've smeared the reputation of the
school that tenured him, too. Just as Emory U. sacked Bellesiles in no
small way to defend its academic integrity, which he'd sullied, so
should Colorado shit-can Churchill, for the same reason. Tenure, after
all, isn't a personal bully-pulpit; but that's exactly how he used it.
His childish taunts and trash-talking surely must have played well to
an audience of late-adolescents, preoccupied if not obsessed by getting
blotto, getting laid or getting a cause over which to rebel. In doing
so, however, Churchill heaped shame on the institution of tenure, not
to mention the school that had appointed him to tenure; and that's
exactly what's at issue here.

Far from undermining tenure, handing Churchill his walking papers will
only help restore to it the respect and integrity his foolish prank has
besmirched and discredited.

One more thing: The plight of toiling teaching temps won't stand a
chance of improving, till collectively they begin to treat their short-
term appointments as simply that--under-paid, unbenefited, part-time
jobs--and govern themselves accordingly. Why hew more more wood or draw
more water than the bare-bones necessary minimum, for a claque of hogen-
mogen administrators and a cadre of fawning, duplicitous tenured
lackeys immediately beneath them, who've never given so much as a rat's
patoot about those who do the bulk of the grunt-work behind the ivied
walls?

S.Homick









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