A People’s Conference: 
Rethinking the University of Minnesota 
Within the Moment of Crisis
 
September 8th, 2007
1:00-7:00pm
Strike HQ (U Baptist Church)
13th and University Ave, Dinkytown

Panel I—1:00-2:30

Situating the Strike—the History and the Present of Struggle in Higher Education

“Opening Comments”

Eli Meyerhoff (Teaching Assistant in Political Science)

Isaac Kamola (Graduate Instructor in Political Science)

“Situating the Current Strike”

Current AFSCME member (TBA)

or, sections from Voices on the Line: 2003 U of M Clerical Strike (DVD)

“Speaking to the Importance of Organized Labor”

Ted Ludwig (President AMFA Local 33 and leader of 2005 Northwest Airlines strike)

“Academic Labor and the Revival of the American Labor Movement”

Peter Rachleff (Professor of History, Macalester College)

Break—2:30-3:00

Panel II—3:00-4:30

Strikes and Strategic Positioning: the Neoliberalization of the University

“Legalized Corruption: Strategic Positioning and Corporate Welfare at the U of M (and how students and workers pay the price)”

Ty Moore (Socialist Alternatives)

“A History of Neolibralization and Struggle at the University of Minnesota”

Jess Sundin (striking AFSCME member)

“Collective Bargaining for a Collective Citizen”

Ron Greene (Professor of Communication Studies, UofM)

4:30-5:00—Break

Panel III—5:00-6:30

Driven to Retaliate: Radically Re-envisioning the U’s Future

 “The Corporate State versus Society: Workers' Struggles and Capitalist Neoliberal Nihilism, or what does air war have to do with income concentration, falling bridges, sports stadia and plans for colonies on Mars?”
Tom Pepper (Professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, UofM)
 

“A Vision: The Idea of a University in the Present Age”

Harvey Sarles (Professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, UofM)

“Wages not Wars, Connecting the Strike to Larger Issues of War and Imperialism and the Role of Education”

Tracy Molm (Students for a Democratic Society)

“Some thoughts on Working at the U”

Nate Holdren (Graduate Instructor in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature)
 

6:30-7:00—Discussion on Future Plans