Monday, October 24, 2011   The Faculty-Staff Divide   It’s one
of those issues that waxes and wanes, but never really goes
away.  Professional staff can be characterized as people with
graduate degrees who do non-faculty work. They could be
counselors, financial aid staff, librarians, registrars,
disability-services providers, IT, instructional designers, or
any number of other positions, depending on the campus. Some of
them may have teaching backgrounds, and some may even teach on
an adjunct basis while working as staff. Their positions are
usually twelve month, five-day-a-week jobs. Some campuses have a
tenure system for staff, and some have tenure for some staff
(librarians) and not others.  Although friction between faculty
and administration gets most of the press, friction between
faculty and staff can be quite real, and sometimes toxic.  In my
observation, some of it comes from what Cathy Davidson calls
attention blindness. We don’t notice certain things, based on
our priorities at the time. If I’m fo