Teaching outside is now prohibited.
You’ve likely seen the message that went out to all faculty late yesterday from the Provost’s Office regarding FAM’s Labor Day Teach-Out. The gist of that email was: do not take your students outside. Stay in your classrooms. This Labor Day, whatever you do, do NOT make your labor visible.
Here’s the new plan for tomorrow: teach your classes inside as usual. Then, don your FAM red and meet us outside of Faculty Assembly at 4:00pm in Shriver 104 to ask pointed questions such as: wait, we’re not allowed to teach outside? Finally, come out to bargaining on September 8 and help us to pack the room and demand a Fair Contract already!
We will not be silenced and we will not back down. Given management’s new and baffling edict, FAM has no choice but to pursue legal action and hold management accountable to our rights under the collective bargaining agreement and Ohio labor law.
In the meantime, we wouldn’t want to violate any hastily-composed University mandate, especially one that contradicts decades of practice. We certainly wouldn’t want to engage in the kind of hands-on, experiential learning that Miami is clearly against, such as writing outside with your students, taking your Bio students outside to look at actual plants, or engaging in field research about campus-area businesses with your students.
We had envisioned peacefully teaching our classes outside tomorrow — but we admit we were wrong to envision Miami University as the kind of beautiful campus that would want its students to use the quad.
Teaching outside is now prohibited, despite what Miami’s website might lead you to think. (source)
Stay cool out there, FAM!
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