Australia

Transference of Risk: The Increase in Casualization in the Workforce

by Priscilla Shorne

It is interesting in these days of corporate collapses and rising insurance premiums to consider the role of risk in our lives. We live in a country with a government which tries to make life safer through regulation of risks. For example, we are expected to vaccinate our chil- dren to avoid the risk of disease and sanctions are applied if we do not; we must wear our seat belts when driving or face a potential fine; we must wear bike helmets when cycling, public health campaigns are carried out to encourage safe sexual practice and yet at the same time, risk is becoming a greater part of our lives. Stories in the media suggest that we have become an increasingly litigious society, expecting the right to sue someone for any mishap; we have an expectation that we can and should be protected from all possible dangers.

Yet there is evidence that the protection of the welfare state in Australia is breaking down due to a number of factors such as globalization, and changes in political and economic ideology.

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A Little Raillery

A Room of One’s Own
Nationwide, office space at a premium for adjunct faculty

by Rob Schnelle

Stooping to clear the corrugated steel overhang of an 8-by-30-foot cargo container, Leo Hemridge exits his new office, shielding his eyes in wan October sunlight. He wears the haunted expression of a man who expects imminent eviction, perhaps because his quarters were formerly occupied by migrant asparagus pickers. Hemridge works as an instructor in psychology at Darwin State University in Darwin, Kansas, where administrators have found a novel solution to the school’s shortage of faculty office space.
“When the adjunct offices were converted to a student casino,” Hemridge explains, “they moved us out here.”

“Out here” is a strip of trash-blown cheatgrass hard up against Interstate 70 and bordered on two sides by a 300-acre soybean field. Forty-two rectangular cargo vessels, identically labeled “Fresh Oysters,” occupy the site. It is here on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays between 3:00 and 4:30 that students in Hemridge’s classes may consult with him. The interior of the structure contains office furniture, filing cabinets, and computers (their monitors darkened in the absence of electrical hook-up) but no sign of the colleagues or students who might presumably use them.

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Super Adjunct Blog

3 indispencible tips to surviving online teaching

Posted: August 21st, 2009

the above is a cartoon i got off the web. i know i am violating copyright laws since this is not an educational webpage, but a ‘for entertainment only’ blog. but cartoonists don’t mind, especially stinking rich guys like this matthew henry hall. plus, i imagine he’d love the exposure. check him out at www.matthewhenryhall.com

hey everybody, please forgive thhe lowercase and misspells. i am ritimg this with only one finger and thumb, which weren’t broken—unlike my other fingers and thumb along with both of my arms and one of my legs, my jaw, nose and several ribs—when i made a miscalculation in regards to my summer part-time job as a rodeo clown. i mean i miscalculated that the bull would go right when it and i went left and i tripped and was nearly trampled to deaTH IN FRONT OF—freaking all caps buutton—a capacity crowd of rodeo fans. I coukd not tell if the boos were for the fact the bull nearly killed me or that he wasn’t allowed to finish the job.i need to get this typed befopre the painkiller kicks in again. then i will need to grade some student work until i’m unconscious, which leads me to today’s topic—online teaching.

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