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Presenters: Eisman, Hershaft, Leahy, Matejkas
Click here for a formatted version of Alex's outline.
CAREER
CHOICES
Ingrid Newkirk, Alex Pacheco, Henry Spira, Alex Hershaft,
Jim Mason, Cleveland Amory, Bruce Friedrich, Laura Moretti,
Karen Davis, Howard Lyman, Paul Watson, Gretchen Wyler, – all
great animal rights leaders and members of the Animal Rights
Hall of Fame They all have one thing in common: never used
their graduate training, if any, to help animals.
Then there are young leaders, like Peter Gerard, who organized
the famed Marches for the Animals and ten national conferences,
HSUS vice president Mike Markarian, Farm Sanctuary founders
Gene & Lorri Bauston, Compassion Over Killing founder
Paul Shapiro, prominent activist Lawrence Carter, our own
Executive Director Dawn Moncrief, and others. They did
attend a special graduate training for animal rights activists.
It is called the FARM school of hard knocks. A school where
you are constantly trained and expected to do more than
you ever did before, for little financial remuneration
and even less recognition. A school that either breaks
you or makes you very strong.
I wasted five of the potentially most productive years
of my life getting a Ph.D. in chemistry – a subject
of relatively little interest and even less utility to
planetary survival. That qualified me for years of obscure,
largely irrelevant, though well-paid, research work, before
I became aware that I owed a real contribution to our planet
Earth before departing.
The training that qualified me most to become one of the
longest tenured leaders of our movement was on-the-job training
at Washington management consulting firms. There I was expected
to be available 90 hours a week and to operate by my wits
and whatever little information I could scrape up to help
run government agencies.
After that experience, launching and running FARM, the Great
American Meatout, World Farm Animals Day, Gentle Thanksgiving,
CHOICE, Letters From FARM, and 17 national conferences was
a breeze.
To be sure, getting those special letters after your name
does give you some largely undeserved credibility, but
they are just not worth the time and effort. Not while
millions of animals are suffering and dying every day.
Not while our organizations are starving for people who
are willing to work hard and get things done.
My advice is to forget about graduate school and go to
work, in whatever capacity, for an organization that kicks
ass for the animals like FARM, IDA, or PETA. You will do
a lot of good while there and you will qualify for more
when you leave. The animals don’t deserve any less
than the best from you.
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I will discuss the history of Animal Law and briefly go through the legal lanscape as it applies to farmed animals and the approach COK takes to address cruelty. I will then talk about the different paths lawyers can take to contribute to animal law from an activist perspective, and the growth and future of the field.
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Click here for a printable version of George's outline.
CHOOSING A CAREER: IN ACADEMICS
• Sometimes we are active agents literally choosing to do something in life
• At other times, we find ourselves “being chosen” by something that seizes our interest and doesn’t let go
• As a young man I found myself choosing an academic life, pursuing degrees in higher education to prepare myself to teach at the college level. I have now been a college teacher for 26 years.
• However, it was only later (AR2003) when I “was chosen” – i.e., coming to a session just like this one where I listened to a woman who was teaching a course on Animals and Ethics at her college in Minnesota. Her experience showed that it was possible. I left AR2003, went back to Ohio and began putting together my course on Animals and Ethics.
• The first section of the course was offered in Fall, 2004 and has been offered each semester. I began with a class of 17. Since then, all of the sections have had at least 20 students. Recently, the class reached the usual maximum of 25 and this Fall, due to some unforeseen issues, there will be 30 students taking the course. Including this Fall’s enrollment, there will have been over 200 students who have taken this course.
• This class is the most popular of all the Philosophy classes on campus. There is a “thirst” for this class, for the material, for ethical reflection about animals.
• Effects on student career choices:
-
education majors
are speaking of how to bring animal issues into their elementary
and high school classrooms
- we have many nursing majors; a few are considering
veterinary nursing
- one graduate became an animal welfare officer
in her city
• A school that focuses on women: educating mothers concerning the food choices that they will make for their children – as well as their husbands! Challenges abound here!
• New developments: this year, I received approval for AR2008 to be a part of a “hybrid” course on Animals and Ethics. Students from Ursuline could attend AR2008, write summaries of the sessions they attended, and then work online throughout the Fall to complete the reading and writing components of the course.
• Next year, I hope to receive approval for students from schools other than Ursuline who attend AR2009 to register online at Ursuline and be able to attend AR2009 as part of an online course for which they could receive college credit. There are still some things to work out on this, but it is a realistic goal that I believe we can achieve.
• Adjunct teachers: all colleges and universities
use them and literally need them
- suggesting a class in Animals and Ethics to the
department chair
- preparing a syllabus for the department chair
George S. Matejka, Ph.D.
Ursuline College
440-646-8393
gmatejka@ursuline.edu