"In shadowy, silent distance grew the iceberg too": universities, technology, work and life
I don’t feel like I’ve been doing a lot of refusing lately. Lee Skallerup Bessette, ‘Refusal‘ 1. It’s 2019, I’m sitting at a thing, and a senior university leader is addressing us with a vision. My attention is drifting, I’m cold and I’ve had too much coffee. The vision seems familiar. And then there it is: “We think the casualisation problem will be solved by AI in about 15 years or so.” It’s like hearing a breaking plate in the…
Continue ReadingDo we or do we not live in a world in which we assist each other? Judith Butler, Examined Life (Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor 2010), You Tube 1. We’re in the last few weeks of the class in which students use narrative methods to explore their experiences of working, along with those of their families, friends, workmates, managers and strangers. We’re thinking together about the fact that “the future of work” has a cultural history, and a vivid, anxious…
Continue ReadingFrom the perspective of capital, what most of us see as tremendous ethical and even existential problems literally don’t count. Jason Hickel, ‘The Nobel Prize for Climate Catastrophe‘, foreignpolicy.com, December 2018 1. This year I’ve been reflecting on the many reasons that I find writing difficult, even when I’m apparently eager to write. I know from conversations I had at OER19 that others feel the same. This sense of being choked is spreading around a community of good writers I…
Continue ReadingIt isn’t like researching and writing so don’t think that I was physically working on it all that time, but thinking about it also occupied the sewing time. Also talking with fellow quilters to get problems solved quicker. Rebecca Albury, email to me 1. I’m steering an underinsured rental car around a parked truck in a back alley in Dublin, and Bon Stewart is peering at two different digital maps, offering advice. Driving in new country is always like this:…
Continue ReadingDisrupt your industries, if that is what you are in business to do, but do not disrupt the bonds that tie employees, however loose or unspoken they may be. Isabel Berwick, ‘Workplace communities matter–now more than ever“ 1. I’m standing in line, and someone sends me something to read. Distracted and unprepared I open an article about Annie Werner, who was in breast cancer treatment in 2014, like me. But there’s more. She’s an academic like me. Like me, she…
Continue ReadingThe questions weren’t interesting but I worked hard to find the interest in them Clem Bowles, Little Boxes I went dark because I didn’t know where I belonged or where I was going, and I had nowhere to direct the words. Bonnie Stewart, The long dark tea-time of the soul It’s been a week for noticing the stories that get told in higher education about satisfaction. How do students feel about the experience of being students, and how do they look…
Continue ReadingThat we have found the tendency to conformity in our society so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern. It raises questions about our ways of education and about the values that guide our conduct. Solomon Asch, Opinions & Social Pressure, 1955 1. It’s been a week of sitting and thinking as the presentations slide by. University strategic planning is a bit like a lava lamp: ideas rise…
Continue ReadingAll the routine jobs will eventually be replaced. Someone talking on the radio one morning 1 It’s the morning routine. I’m driving to work, and thinking about my job, and all around me are the people doing their jobs as I’m on my way to mine. Right there in the morning traffic, there are two men laying out bollards in a row, because something’s up and today’s the day. And beyond that the freeway and all its stuff that’s only there…
Continue ReadingIt happened because our corporate policies were put ahead of our shared values. Oscar Munoz, United Airlines CEO It happened: a passenger hauled by his arms from a plane to enable airline staff to get from airport to airport. His reaction to being grabbed out of his seat seemed to take everyone by surprise, and from the moment he refused to go along with things, every mistake was made. He was physically harmed, mentally harmed, and then further abused by media and social media investigations…
Continue ReadingA purpose built hospital can be an act of kindness. The politician spoke about a hospital she visited in Oslo that was built with the intention of making everyone there feel good to be a part of it. Lea McInerney, ‘Join the Gathering of Kindness in Creating a Better Healthcare System‘ A couple of months ago I was included in a two day event designed to create a better vision for Australian healthcare, that is safer for patients and offers a more…
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