A Big Assessment Question

Like a lot of people, I'm in a couple of facebook groups, including several aimed at academics.  There are a couple feminist groups, and pandemic response groups and so forth.  They're interesting, especially the one with most members in another country.  Today I was reading, and saw an acronym I didn't recognize, and asked.  And the person responded partially, which sort of helped, and then I asked for the rest, and I think they thought I am especially dense.

It was one of those assessment acronyms, the ones we all use at our different schools, some of which mean the same things even though we use different words, and others. . .  well, they don't.  And it really made me think about how thoroughly the language of assessment has taken over academics.  For me, it started right after grad school; I don't think I ever heard anything about assessment in grad school, but right after, BOOM!

A whole lot of academics (at all levels) have been working very hard on assessment stuff for a LONG time now.  And here's the question:

Have students gotten better educations as a result?

The one program around here that clearly points to a change is Introductory Underwater Basketweaving.  Where, before, we all used a hodgepodge of strategies and techniques to teach students the basics, the field has sort of redefined the basics to focus on a lot of terms to do with weave patterns and such.  And our entrance exams all focus on students recognizing weave patterns.  And, by golly, at the end of our course, when they're assessed, they all recognize and can name various weave patterns better than ever before.

But, you know, the baskets they weave don't look much different than they did 20 or so years ago when I first got here.  Some students learned good weaving strategies in high school, and they still use them with great success.  Some students need help preparing the reeds for weaving, and don't really get it, so they're baskets are a mess, but they can name the weave patterns. 

If the point really is that students can name weave patterns, then we've done a good job.  But if the point is that they can weave baskets underwater better, than we haven't.

That's how assessment feels: where we've defined something and focused on that, yes, students can often do that thing better.  But if what we really want students to learn is hard to measure, then are we actually doing a better job educating students?  Seriously, because every school I know of has poured tons of money and time and effort into doing massive assessment.  But by and large, students earning degrees seem no more or less educated than in previous years.  They learn different things, as they should, but overall, are they better critical thinkers?  Better able to understand the world?  Better able to communicate? 

Further: are they more humane?  better citizens? 

A Voice in the Hinterlands

Sharon O'Dair wrote "The Lies Graduate Programs Tell Themselves" recently over at the Chronicle of Higher Education.  I'm sure O'Dair is absolutely right in some of her analysis, especially in recognizing that graduate school acceptances for PhD programs are driven by the needs for cheap labor to teach introductory and writing courses.

And yet I can't help but feel my hackles rise when I read the following sentence:

The decades-long overproduction of Ph.D.s has spilled highly trained graduates of elite programs into assistant professorships in the hinterlands, "places like East Podunk University or West Jesus State College," as Jeffrey J. Williams memorably put it in 1995.

Does she not think that students at schools in rural areas or the Midwest (which is what I think she's after with her "hinterlands" comment) deserve to be taught by highly trained graduates?  Or is it graduates of elite programs?  (Surely she doesn't think only elite programs produce highly trained graduates.)

Who does she think should teach at our schools?  Unqualified people?  People who didn't go to elite schools?

Well, [expletive deleted] that.  My students deserve great scholar/teachers every bit as much as anyone from whatever elite university you can think of.


NWU also benefits from the abundance of stellar graduates from PhD programs.  We don't tend to get many applicants from Grand Old Ivy type places, but we get really superb applicants from public R1s.  And that means we have highly trained graduates coming to become highly trained assistant professors, and developing into associate professors and so forth.  Even our non-tenure track  colleagues tend to be pretty darned amazing.

If PhD programs all agreed to accept only 10% of the students they currently do, we'd have troubles down the line.  But at 50%, we'd probably still be in great shape.


I'm guessing economically, the only ways R1s could do that would be by increasing the teaching loads of faculty or by hiring even more non-tenure track faculty.  So, R1 folks, you can make that choice.  Everyone teach an extra class or two a semester, and cut your grad program acceptances in half.  (No worries for O'Dair, since she's retired.)

I'm in total agreement that PhD programs should produce fewer graduates.  And yet, I don't want that to happen at the expense of people such as myself or my students.  As it is now, I'd be willing to bet that 90% of the PhD students in English at Yale or Harvard come from pretty elite educational backgrounds.  They don't come from places such as NWU.  And if PhD programs reduce their graduate student acceptances by cutting off people from less elite undergraduate schools, then that seems totally wrong.

But whatever happens, don't think that just because we don't live on the coasts or live more rurally that we're somehow less worthy of educational opportunity than someone from a coastal or more urban (or, really, suburban) area.

Third Hand

On effbee, one of my colleagues posted a link to a student blog where a student at NWU says she was sexually harassed by a male prof at NWU, a prof who teaches in her major; she says she reported it a trusted professor who reported it to the department chair, who had a chat with said prof.  And said prof made it about his sad situation.

So this is, at best, third hand information.  What does one do?

Not my department?  Not my monkeys, not my circus?

Or is there still some responsibility?

I emailed the campus Title IX officer/legal eagle with the link and asked.  They've contacted me and are aware of the situation and reaching out to the student.  The fact that they're reaching out now makes me think they heard it from either effbee or someone who saw it on effbee or me...  and it seems like one of the campus publicity and marketing folks contacted them;   I'm guessing one of the people who's responsible for monitoring those web search things that aggregate anything and everything that mentions specific words you target.  Good on them!

And now the student has filed a more official report.  Good for her!

***

I think what I find frustrating at this point, separate from being pissed off at that stupid professor hanging out at a student bar bugging young women (bugging any women is inappropriate), is that the female faculty who are responding feel ineffectual and seem to actually BE ineffectual.

It reminds me of the sexual harasser who was grad program chair in my graduate department; reportedly, numerous women talked to a female professor (untenured), who supposedly told them that they needed to talk to the department chair.  But everyone was too afraid.  (Including me.)  It felt like it would be the end of any graduate funding, any support from any of the male faculty (who we all felt had to already be aware of the grad director's behavior, since he did it at every gathering where there were faculty and grad students).

And so, nothing happened.  For years.

The woman whose post I originally saw asked in general if other colleges have policies, seemingly unaware of ours.  Then someone posted ours (which I went and read), which covers the situation reasonably well.  Then someone posted more about the current policy, and how it didn't seem to actually work, given what had happened.

But none of them said, hey, I'm reaching out to our Title IX person.  (And I didn't post on the threads at all, just reached out to the Title IX person.)  And they all KNOW the Title IX person.

We Made the National News

Maybe if you're at a big name university, the idea of making the national news is heartening or exciting.  Maybe your Nobel laureate made a new discovery or got interviewed for something important.  Or maybe your sportsball team won some big game.  Or maybe a child genius finished their PhD at 12.

But if you're at a regional university, the chances of making the national news are low.  And the chances for making the national news for something good are much, much lower.  And so, it's no surprise that we didn't make the news for something good.

Every single day, students at regional universities do good stuff: they serve their communities, do mentored research, help people, learn stuff, act kindly towards others, write good papers.

But it's the few students who do something really obnoxious who make the news.  And so, they made the news, but the dignified, beautiful response of other students didn't.  Nor did the supportive faculty response. 

The problems don't get easier.  Not these days. 

There's a national tone these days that makes certain sorts of obnoxious behavior seem condoned, heck, modeled, by certain people in power.  And then students think that's a great way to behave.  And it's not. Because down here on earth, if you threaten people, it's harmful.  And students shouldn't feel scared to go to class or live in their dorm or apartment.  And they certainly shouldn't worry that classmates are plotting ways to kill them.

I felt almost sorry for our headmaster because he's dealing with the obnoxious behaviors which he certainly doesn't condone.  But he's also got to face the fact that nothing that's been done in the past 20+ years has taught students not to behave obnoxiously, and nothing he's tried to do in the past 5 or however many years has had that effect either. And now he needs to come up with ways to convince students not to behave in certain obnoxious ways, and he's got to do it on a super limited budget.

He proposed having students learn not to do obnoxious things from an on-line learning module.  And a number of faculty folks basically told him, "no" and pointed out that there's actually a number of faculty members with expertise in these areas, and we need more of us, and more support, rather than paying for some crappy module.  (It's good to know that I'm not the only one who hates the stupid modules we're "required" to do.)

And so, we have a few new things coming up, and a lot of decisions to be made, many of which will involve FERPA protections.

It was a disheartening, hard week here in the North Woods.

Adjunct Stuffs in the Chronicle

In The Chronicle of Higher Education on-line, I saw an article (in the advice area), "A Letter to Full-Time Faculty Members," by Jordan Schneider.  In the article, Schneider proposes:

So if adjuncts are so attractive because we’re so cheap, powerless, excluded, and replaceable, the solution seems to be to make adjuncts more expensive, more empowered, more included, and more secure in our positions. One idea: Create a new faculty tier of "super adjuncts" who would teach three classes a semester, and be paid around $20,000 to $25,000 for the term—more than what adjuncts now make, but still less than a full-timer. Give "super adjuncts" a vote in departmental and faculty matters, require them to be involved in some modest sway in the academic life of the department (through mentoring, scholarship, research, or faculty development), and make sure they have some measure of real, contractual job security.

The thing is, full-time faculty at NWU, a regional comprehensive public university teach mostly 12 credit hours/semester, so more than Schneider is imagining for "super adjuncts."  Our full time adjuncts (most of the adjuncts in my department have full time employment and benefits) teach 15 credit hours/semester, but aren't asked to do service or research (though, of course, those who are trying to get TT jobs are also trying to keep research alive).  (We have a pretty good track record in the past 15 years of encouraging adjuncts not to do service, and telling them up front that we can't legally consider service in evaluating their work.)

The salary Schneider mentions is about what our assistant professors make in poorer paid fields (literature, as opposed to, say, English Ed, much less business).

I think Schneider thinks tenured faculty have WAY more power in hiring decisions than I've ever seen.  And from the comments, I think even most mid-level administrators have relatively little power.

***

We're bleeding faculty here right now.  We've had retirements in my department, and two younger faculty (one tenured, one tenure-track) have left, neither for academic jobs, both for good personal reasons having to do with preferring to live with a partner or family.

And ours isn't the only department, from the rumors I hear.

We also have a couple colleagues expecting babies this month, which means other folks will be covering their classes.

I hear next year's going to be tough!

Week 46/66: Two Thirds Through

I've been absent from the blog for a while.  I doubt many folks are reading these days; heck, why would they?  I think the blog thing is mostly done, no?

Blogs were great for folks who were doing something new and challenging: grad school, new faculty, new jobs, new positions, new hobbies, and so on.  The day to day of most peoples' lives, once they've gotten pretty good at whatever they're doing, is less interesting to write about and read about, both.  There's less to process day to day, and often, more mundane stuff keeping one busier.

I think as I come off sabbatical, I'll be learning a lot about teaching again, so hopefully, I'll have something worth writing about.

In the meanwhile, I wrote my SAA paper and am looking forward to SAA.

I took a class at the local nature center on bird banding, and have gone to two sessions.  In order to be able to do the actual banding, you have to take the class, and then go to many sessions and gain skills.  So mostly at the sessions, I've been observing, and then acting as scribe, writing the coded notes about the birds we're banding (while someone else does measurements and the banding).  I've released a bird, and learned and practiced the two basic ways of holding small birds, the bander's grip (you put your fore and second finger on either side of the bird's neck and use the other fingers to hold and manipulate the body), and the photographer's grip (you put your fore and second finger in front of and behind both legs above the ankle at the calf.  Birds' legs are sort of like a dog's hind legs in that the long bone just up from the foot is actually part of what's foot bone for humans, and the joint is the ankle, while the actual knee is quite close to the body.)

I've really enjoyed doing the scribing and observing.

Spring has hit here in a big way; we've got major melt, and I've even taken my first bike ride of the season.  At that point, I realized that my bike's shifting was really sloppy, so I took it in to the shop for a long-overdue tuneup.  That was last week, and I haven't been out again yet, but maybe today.  I got a new cassette and chain, which makes sense, since the old one had about 5k miles on it.

I went to an Alexander Technique session, and learned some helpful stuff.  I'm thinking of signing up for a summer session that's a week long.  I took in a section I really have trouble with because I'm holding my left hand too tightly.  The first time through, I played it so horribly (I'm very nervous playing in front of people, even my teacher), I was really ashamed.  But the teacher was helpful and kind, and I played it better after that; she gave me some help that loosened my hand up by loosening my back up.

I think I've mentioned viola studio before.  Basically, at the university, the students studying a given instrument (or voice students generally) meet as a group with their lesson teacher and do something together for an hour.  Often, a student will play a piece they're working on and the group will give them feedback, telling them what they're doing well, and what needs work.  As I understand it (and it makes sense, given that they're all studying with the same teacher who has a given focus), usually the comments reinforce what the teacher's been saying.  So if the teacher really focuses on, say, bowing, the students will all have learned to focus on bowing, and that will come out in the comments.  For students preparing for a recital or auditions for grad programs, playing in front of a small group also works as a dry run and helps with nerves and such.

At the last couple of studio sessions, Strings had her students make videos of themselves practicing, and Strings also made a video of herself practicing.  HOLY COW, she's really amazingly disciplined!  She was starting to learn a really difficult piece, and started off with a few notes, like a set of triplets, and turned on a metronome and played them oh so slowly, several times, until she could play them well 5 times.  Then she clicked up the metronome 5 steps and did it again, and so on, until she was playing it fairly fast.  And then she put the metronome all the way down, and started with the second set of triplets.  When she got them at that speed and clicked up, she added the first set and played them together.  And as she clicked up, every other time, she'd add the first set again.

For the third set of triplets, she started with just them, clicked up and added the second ones, and on the third click up, she added the first ones, too.  She followed that pattern all the way up.  By the end of a few minutes, she was playing several sets of triplets at high speed.  (These were in a piece of very contemporary music, and so, as seems usual with contemporary music, very difficult, widely spaced with string crossings and shifts.)

In addition to Vivaldi's A Minor violin concerto in the Suzuki book, I'm still working through the Rieding concerto, which I blogged about back in January, when I was first starting it.  Strings checked me off on the second movement, so I've started on the third movement, and this week, I've been using Strings' practice method, since this movement is pretty hard, with some fast bits.

I haven't practiced enough (I really, really have to get my mojo back in several ways, and part of why I'm blogging again is hoping it will help with that).  But, what I've done, so far, seems to be very slow but effective.  What I mean is, it takes me FOREVER to get a bit so I can play it well 5 times in a row at each metronome setting, and there's a definite limit to my speed for some parts, but once I've worked through to that limit, I can pretty much play with pretty good accuracy consistently.  But, yeah, it takes me forever to slowly click up.

In other news, I joined a weight loss app thing on February 23rd.  I've lost about 4 pounds, but it's very slow, and I'm frustrated.  Still, I REALLY need to get to a healthier weight and be more active, so I'm trying this.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!

That's about all the new stuff.  I don't know what to say about the admissions scandal that hit last week about folks with money bribing to get their kids into elite schools.  Okay, I do have a few things to say.  Really rich people have been doing this totally legally since elite schools began.  The thing is, most of the people caught up in this scam weren't really rich, but rather pretty high earners.  They may have incomes that are pretty high, but they don't have the sort of money that buys new buildings or adds wings to hospitals.  Really rich and important people don't have to bribe anyone or even make actual donations.  If Malia Obama applies to school X, the admissions folks recognize her name and she's in.  Same thing happens with George Bush's kids (either George Bush, since the elder was the ambassador to the United Nations and then head of the CIA when the younger generation was heading into college and such.  Admissions folks at elite universities know those names.  If you're important enough, you don't have to tell anyone who you are because they know.

But these folks, these folks weren't that important or rich; they were well off enough to pay some bribes.  It sucks, and it's wrong and unethical and so forth.

I don't buy for a moment that the kids weren't aware.  If you're suddenly getting a diagnosis that means you get longer to take a test or someone's coaching you about the answers, and you're a minimally smart 17 year old, you know.  If your parents are pulling that sort of BS, you know, because they've done it before.  That doesn't mean that at 17 you'd feel like you have a way to stop it even if you wanted to, of course.

And the false diagnosis thing is the part I actually hate most.  They took a system that's really important for people who actually have a disability or problem and need to take tests in a quiet room or with more time, and made people trust the system a whole lot less.  And the people who actually need accommodations are working against difficulties and disadvantages, and now these semi-rich people have made their lives more difficult.

I'm also irritated that they've claimed the bribes as donations on their taxes because it means the rest of us are helping pay for their dishonesty.  Or were.  (And I'm sure what the feds found is just the tip of the iceberg.)  But then, really rich folks do that all the time, too.

So, that's where things are.  I'm going to try posting at least twice a week for a while.  Good to be back, I hope!

Level 3, Maybe Achieved

A couple of weeks ago I blogged a bit about our diversity training program.  Here's the way it looks.  At the first level, everyone is supposed to do a (really stupid and irritating) computer module thing on diversity.  I checked that off over the summer, I think, when we were supposed to.  (Some folks are still checking it off.)

The second level involves a variety of programs put on by various folks around campus, all of which are supposed to help us be more aware and helpful to students with what we might think of as diversity challenges.  (And to be clear, the challenges aren't the students, but rather that the systems impede or block some students, either because they're poorly designed, or because they're reflecting a history of racism, sexism, heteronormativity, elitism, ableism, and so forth.)

The success of these programs relies on folks actually wanting to learn something and wanting to make some changes, even small changes, to make things better for students (and colleagues, too!).

To be clear, once folks have done the computer Level 1 thingy, they can be done.  So the folks doing the Level 2 programs are all self-selected, and so perhaps a bit more sincerely interested.

There's also a Level 3.  Level 3 involves doing some project that relates what one's learned in the Level 2 programs to one's work here.  For a faculty member, it most logically involves either teaching or research.  And if you complete 10 Level 2 sessions and do a Level 3 project, then you get a certificate.  I'm not sure the certificate is really hugely meaningful, but hopefully the learning involved and the project actually are at least somewhat meaningful.

You're supposed to consult with one of the learning/teaching experts from that office when you've completed 4-5 Level 2 sessions, and then decide on and do a project.

So, in March, having completed enough sessions, I asked for a meeting, and met with one of the L/T experts.  She's a faculty member, and really good.  She said that some teachers change their curriculum to be more inclusive, so I said that I've changed my intro to lit a couple years ago to include all writers of color.  And I told her about using critical race theory in classes and my scholarly work.  So she said I was already pretty much ahead of the game.  And she suggested I look at some materials they had on increasing student engagement, and maybe make up a project based on something there.

So I looked, and I chatted with a smart friend who teaches high school.  And I came up with two things to try in my intro to lit course to increase student engagement.

The first involved using an app called "Padlet" which enables groups to put up a sort of virtual post-it note board.  We did that, and it was okay, until some students started putting up silly videos.  (I made the mistake of not making them add the app and so get a sign on, and thus, they were anonymous.)

But it was neat to try, and if people were really engaged and excited, it would work well, I think.

Then I tried having students in groups write a googledoc and then make it available to everyone.  And that worked really well, I thought.  One student suggested that if I made the google doc (and put the group work questions in), they could all edit at the same time and then would only have one big document to look at.  So that's what I'll do next time.

I actually really liked the way it worked, and that students who rarely talk in class contributed in the class discussion of their googledoc responses.

I have to get a bit more experience with googledocs to make one and invite folks to it (because I've never tried to do that before), but I suspect it's not too difficult to figure out the basics.

So I spent some time today writing that up, and filling out the form for the Level 3 project thing.  I still have some Level 2 programs to complete to finish 10, but I'm glad I did the project and learned something in the process.  (I sent it in today, and now am like an impatient student, waiting to hear if I "passed.")

A Spanner in the Works

I have two hour class periods with my first year writing course one day a week.  (It's a five hour a week course, so we have one two hour day, and one no class day, and three days of one hour.  It works pretty well.  There are other configurations to choose from, too.)

Yesterday, the students have peer edited their second paper (of four we do in the course, which is highly controlled around here), and it's due tomorrow.   So I'd made time today for the LGBTQ Center on campus to come do SafeSpace training with them.  I think SafeSpace training is really important for all students, and so I make time for it in the first year course when I can.  It ties in nicely with other things we do, like reading about the transition from HS to college and such.

Before the semester began, I emailed the head of the LGBTQ Center to set up a date/time for the training.  I didn't hear back.

So as the semester began, I emailed the Center itself, and got an email back from the graduate assistant, telling me that they'd reserved the date/time.  So I put it in the book.

And now, today, they didn't show up.  So I had students do another activity to prep for the next paper.  But really, I didn't have the assignment ready, and they don't need to start thinking too much about it now, since we'll be working on it after break and they still need to finish the current project.

I called the Center, no answer (they're never in).  I called both numbers on the grad assistant's email, no answer.  And finally, I left a message on the Center's machine.  And emailed the grad assistant (a return email from the one they sent confirming that I was on the calendar).

So now I have some extra time to do grading, which is good.  But my students will miss learning some really important stuff.

If I didn't have class scheduled today, I wouldn't have had to get up at 6am and come in.  (I have to be in my parking lot by about 8am to avoid parking on the far side, and I'm lazy.)  I could have graded at home in my PJs.  Or, you know, I would have planned a different useful activity for my students so they'd learn other good stuff.

Now, I'm just a bit cranky.  Thanks for letting me vent.

Red Lips?

The local college feminists are sponsoring something called a "Red Lips Project."

My initial reaction was to just wonder why.  I don't really want to criticize young feminists, but this seems so... heteronormative or something.  Traditionally, in western culture, red lips are about looking sexually appealing to men, no?

Then I figured, this must be a "thing" that I just don't know about.  And I found out that the idea comes from this tumblr called The Red Lips Project.

The idea, according to the about page on the tumblr:

Women are intrinsically powerful. But I realized that many of the women in my life don’t always have a space to express their power. I wanted to create a project to change this and give them that space. 

As a photographer, I have always been fascinated by the imagery of red lips. To me, red symbolizes power; it is a sign of strength and courage. This was corroborated further when rapper A$AP Rocky stated that dark skinned women shouldn’t wear red lipstick. He certainly wasn’t the first to say this and he certainly won’t be the last. This inspired a movement where women of color posted pictures of themselves wearing red lipstick. These pictures were just one way in which women were able to fight back the beauty norms and instead revel in their own ideals. 

When I saw these pictures, what stood out to me was how powerful each woman looked; they had all maintained their individual identities, but the underlying power behind each picture was the unifying element. 

I took inspiration from this movement to create The Red Lips Project. Each woman I photograph is asked the question, “What makes you feel powerful?” My only other request is that they wear red lipstick as it serves as both an aesthetic and symbolic unifier. Every other detail in the photograph is the subject’s decision. 

The Red Lips Project serves to remind women everywhere of their intrinsic power. I find this to be a therapeutic process for both myself and the women I photograph; we don’t always take time to pause and remind ourselves why we should feel powerful. I hope in exploring this blog you too can find ways to remind yourself of why you are powerful. 

So, I gather there's a critique in this project about a rapper who said that dark skinned women shouldn't wear red lipstick.  From reading what he said (here's [a version of?] the interview and an article about the interview that has the quote where he says dark skinned women shouldn't wear red lipstick, and also an article about how he responded to criticism about what he said from women of color) he's not making a feminist critique of makeup, but more saying that he doesn't like it much. 

This complicates things, doesn't it? 

My reaction is still that red lipstick doesn't feel empowering to me.  But having read some critiques and responses of the general idea (not specifically aimed at the rapper's comments) (here's one from Essence (2014), and here's one from Essence in 2016), I think there's a whole lot of thinking I haven't done about lipstick, especially for women of color. 

I don't know if my students have, either.  (The college feminists here tend to be pretty white, and overall, this isn't a campus where most white students are really thoughtfully critiquing racism.)

What are your thoughts?


(I don't wear make-up, and am unlikely to notice if someone else is, unless it's really sparkly or something; I'm also very bad at noticing what people are wearing unless it's a really strong color that appeals to me.  The bonus is that you can wear the same thing to see me every day and I won't be bored.  The downside is that I probably won't notice when you've put on an especially wonderful outfit and look especially wonderful in it.  I try to dress myself so that my clothes are reasonably clean, weather appropriate, and won't get me arrested.  So far, so good on the arrest part.)

One of Many

We had a couple hundred people marching in our small city.  It was good. 

But it wasn't much.

I would have been impressed if our headmaster had been there, or chairs, or deans.  (I saw one or two department chairs from around campus, but not many.)

I marched with some friends, and that made me happy.

To the Theater

I went to a play the other day, put on by a local amateur group, Shipwrecked!  An Entertainment.  (The play premiered in the US in 2007.)

It did some interesting things, choices the director made, and the theme of tale-telling.  But there were a couple of parts that were, well, problematic.  Or is it just me?

In short, a 19th century white European male goes off to see for adventure, ends up stranded on an island off Australia, where he eventually meets some Aboriginal people.  He saves the people, and then is basically offered his choice of brides, choosing a woman he met early on.  Later, homesick, he leaves his wife and family and returns to Europe where he writes and sells his story, to both acclaim and doubt.

The problematic, initially, for me, was the representation of the Aboriginal people.  They weren't played in blackface (thank dog) but were played in tattery looking clothes (think caveman pictures from the 50s more than not) and did more grunting than not.  Like those old caveman pictures, they were played stooped, mostly.  The crowd seemed to find the effect comic.

Now, I get that by the end the audience is supposed to question his tale, to wonder if he's ever seen Aboriginal people, or had these adventures.  But while the Aboriginal people are on stage, there was nothing to suggest that the performance was thinking about what it means to present Aboriginal people in this sort of way.

The lesser problematic part was during the choosing a wife scene, where one of the potential brides was played in broad drag.  Again, the audience laughed.

But, I wonder, how would it feel to sit with my African American or Native American students to see this play?  How would it feel to sit with a transgender student to see this play?

I don't think it would feel comfortable.  The fact is, of course, most African American or Native American students have seen far worse, experienced far worse.  But this would be like yet another paper cut in the skin of life.  I wouldn't want to participate in giving that paper cut.

To put it another way, it's not a good sign that I was grateful, ever so grateful that at least they weren't in blackface.

As tends to be the case here, the theater audience was very white.  So as the play was presenting the Aboriginal people, it felt like a bunch of white people secretly (or maybe not secretly, but imagining themselves as the only possible audience) enjoying the racism of the representation.

I haven't read the play, so maybe this performance wasn't at all what the text suggests, or not at all like the play that premiered in New York.

I did read a couple reviews (including in The New York Times), and they didn't seem to notice race issues.  But then, theater often seems like a bastion of white privilege, with white folks just not noticing racism because they imagine they're in an all white space.

Has anyone else seen the play?  Thoughts?

I saw a play last year by a Nigerian-American playwright, set in Africa, with all African characters, but played by white folks (in this Midwestern area), and it didn't feel racist in this way.  It felt like the African characters were represented with respect in a way that just didn't come across in Shipwrecked.  I think that other play was played as a sort of timeless story, a story set in a culture, but a story that they expected to speak to all humanity and represent all humanity, in the way that we imagine Shakespeare speaks to all humanity, if you know what I mean.

Is there a way this play can be performed that doesn't feel racist?

(I was thinking, if they played the European guy in shipwreck-ish clothing, and the Aboriginal characters in, say, modern business attire, could you get at the sense that the main character's storytelling is problematic?)

Diversity Statements

Around the interwebs, I've been reading about colleges/universities requiring "diversity statements" along with teaching philosophies (and perhaps other statements).  My school, to my knowledge, doesn't require separate statements.  But my department always puts something about diversity, social justice as a qualification in our ads.  I can't speak across the campus as a whole, but in my department, we think it's important.  And we want new colleagues who think it's important.

I've seen some complaints about such ads or statement requirements as BS.  So I thought I'd say a few words about why I don't think it's BS, and why I think it's important.

Some years back, I was in some diversity training on campus and we were discussing putting diversity into the qualifications for academic ads, and one of our deanlings, who taught in Social Work, complained that if contributing to diversity were a requirement, he wouldn't get a job now.  And all I could say was, then you wouldn't get a job, and how could anyone even think they could qualify for ANY job in Social Work if they couldn't contribute in some way to diversity efforts on our campus?  HOW?

The implication of his complaint was that as a white man, he couldn't contribute to diversity on campus, and that such ads would discriminate against white men.  I think that's exactly wrong. 

I know grad students and adjuncts are incredibly busy, and if you're a chemistry student, thinking about diversity may seem alien.  It shouldn't.  (I'm using chemistry as a field where it may seem diversity is unimportant.)

White folks can contribute to diversity efforts.  We can take advantage of diversity training on our campuses, especially training for TAs and newer faculty (since those folks are mostly on the market).  We can contact offices on campus that support students with disabilities, students of color, first generation college students, students who are vets or non-trads, and we can make sure that our syllabi include information about these offices for students, make sure that our materials are accessible, make sure that we think about these students and teach for them, and not just white students who are well-prepared 18 year olds.  (I don't remember ever having a conversation with a person of color that revealed that that person had never thought about diversity.  We may not have gotten to diversity, if, say, we were standing in line at the grocery chatting about the cold weather, of course.)

The thing is, we should be making these efforts as a standard thing, and should be able to talk about why they're important to us.

For those with a bit more time, think about student groups on campus you can support with a small investment of time.  Maybe you can offer students in a discussion a small bit of extra credit for attending a Pow-Wow or talk on campus, or just take 5 minutes every week or two to tell your discussion students about some of the things happening on campus that they aren't already hearing about.  (No need to tell students that there's a football game, but do they know there's a drum group?  a chemistry speaker?)

If you have more time, then you can do some other activities, perhaps volunteer, whatever.

For those of us who care about diversity, we're looking for colleagues who demonstrate that they've worked to gain some awareness, made some basic efforts.  In an English department, we're likely to hear about teaching authors of color, teaching race issues in earlier lit, and so on.  But if you're applying in a chemistry department, you might really stand out if you've thought about how to mentor students of color or women in your courses, folks traditionally underrepresented in your area.  I can tell you that I have colleagues in chemistry here who think diversity is important, and who'd give that application additional attention because that's a qualification for teaching chemistry for our students, and for the students we want to come study here.  Take diversity and social justice seriously; it's not a throw away for many people reading your applications.

If you're a person of color, or a person with a disability, then you've probably already got ways to talk about your experiences and your commitment to diversity.  You've probably already put in the time to work towards social justice in a variety of ways.  But doesn't mean that someone reading your application will know about your experiences and work unless you tell them.  So tell us, please!

Trans Folks and Privilege

I had a rather random conversation with a retired math prof today.  I don't quite remember how it came up, but the math prof started talking about how unfair she felt it is that a trans person could grow up as a boy, then identify as a woman, and be allowed to apply for, say, a women's scholarship in math (a field where women are historically underrepresented at the university level). 


She worried about her (hypothetical) 9-year old daughter, and what if she identified as male, what would she do.  (I suggested she be supportive and loving of a child whatever their gender identification.  She seemed surprised by that.)


Then she expanded her discussion, to talk about how unfair it would be if a bunch of men decided to identify as women and "take all [the women's] privileges."


I have to admit I was shocked.  I guess I'm pretty insulated, because in most of my conversations about trans-related issues, we're talking about how we can be more supportive and educate ourselves and our students to be caring, respectful, and supportive.


Once I caught my breath, I asked her what women's privileges she thought men would be standing in line to gain?  The wage gap?  lack of paid maternity leave?  and so forth.


I just don't think many men are going to give up their male privilege just for the fun of it.  And if they do, who cares?  Maybe if all men identified as women, the wage gap would actually disappear?  And married folks would share housekeeping and child care equally?


At the end of the conversation, she said she'd think about what I said because she'd never thought about these issues in that way before.

Going to a Talk in Town

I went to a talk yesterday evening sponsored by a social justice group, and given by a colleague I respect immensely.  The talk was held in a newish space, one attached to a small shop associated with a local arts magazine, and was standing room only, which, in this space, probably means 40-50 people showed up (I counted chairs one one side of the room and used that to start my estimate).

The talk was great, as I expected.

What I really noticed, though, were the folks who set things up, the board of the sponsoring group.  I recognized a few of them, and know one from a lot of interactions around.  The thing is, I wouldn't have guessed she'd be a leader in a social justice group.

Her name is Mildred, and she's an older woman, probably in her 70s, white, always well-dressed in a classy way, who comes to community talks on Shakespeare and such, and who is also friends with another friend of mine, also a retired woman.

The other board members of this group seem also to be mostly women of, shall we say, a certain age.

Of course, these white women have all been active in social justice work for a long time, before the arts magazine started, before my colleague and I were hired here, they've been working, often quietly in the background (as last night), but working nonetheless.

The local arts magazine gets a lot of attention around here, along with related projects.  And mostly, all that attention is about men.  And they make all the right sounds about social justice.

But in the background, those same women come and go, working as they have for years, with little attention and little credit.

I'm feeling humbled by Mildred and the other women who've been working in my community all this time without my really noticing.

Independent Studies and/vs Sexual Harassment

Last week, The Little Professor wrote in "In Which I Declare Independence" that she disagreed with Rebecca Schuman's Slate article suggesting that universities ban independent studies.

In her beautifully calm way, The Little Professor explains why independent studies are beneficial to students in her program, and not rife with sexual harassment problems, though she does note that most faculty aren't paid for the extra work involved.

Like The Little Professor, I also think independent studies have their place, especially for graduate students.  And like The Little Professor, I don't think independent studies are where most sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior are taking place.  That's not to say no one has been sexually harassed during an independent study, of course.  Rather, most independent studies are times when students can get extra help, delve more deeply into an area of interest, or have a chance to complete their degrees in a more timely way (especially in this era of budget constraints and cancelled courses).

Let me say this:  I probably wouldn't have made it through graduate school if it weren't for the kindness of a professor who was willing to do an independent study with me in my second term. 

During my first term, I'd taken a course on "The Renaissance" during which the instructor assigned an explication.  I'd never done an explication, never heard of one, even.  So, like a good little graduate student, I went to office hours.  Unfortunately, this one faculty member didn't think it was worth his time to explain what an explication was, and basically told me so.  He said, just explain how the verse is doing what it's doing, or something similar.

You should know, about this time in the story, that our program's qualifying exam included an explication which was reputed to be graded rather harshly.  And I was supposed to take this exam in the fall of my second year (I think that's the timing).

I asked other grad students, the ones from places where "explication" was a thing, including the one already deemed our crown prince by our Renaissance instructor.  But, of course, they were beginning grad students, and even if they could do an explication, they weren't inclined to teach me, or didn't know how.  So I muddled through, and didn't do very well on the assignment.

Before the next one was due, I went to another faculty member, one I'd felt comfortable with during my interviews the spring before, and talked to him.  And in an hour, he taught me the basics.  And on that one, I did much, much better.

And the next term, he agreed to do an independent study with me on reading poetry.  Each week, he'd set me a poem, and I'd work it up, and then we'd talk about it together. 

I credit that independent study with teaching me how to read poetry, how to explicate, and perhaps most important, how to teach others to read poetry.

So, while I now recognize how much of an imposition my request was on a junior faculty member, I remain eternally grateful for his help, his brilliant teaching, his kindness, and his willingness to take on a rather dim student.

But what about the other side, the sexual harassment?  The biggest sexual harassers in my graduate department didn't need independent studies.  One was the grad director of our program.  So he had power and the ability to call students into his office and wield that power or not (he didn't always, of course).

At mixed social events, the big sexual harassers would start drinking and park themselves at the drink table, and any woman who approached alone was pretty much assured that she'd be harassed.  The other male faculty who were hanging about didn't seem to think this was a problem.

Female students complained about both behaviors to other female students and to female faculty, but at the time, only two or three female faculty had tenure, and none was willing to stand up to the male faculty (for all the reasons you could imagine; the same reasons no female student went to the chair or beyond).  So the female students got the word out to other female students: no female grad student went to the drink table alone; we went in pairs.  And eventually he wasn't grad director any more.

I guess what I'm saying is that sexual harassers don't need independent studies to harass.  What they do tend to need is complicity from other faculty members, especially senior faculty folks.  I hope my old grad program has changed in that respect.  I know there are more senior female faculty.

But some students, people like me, perhaps, really do need some extra help to do well in grad school and beyond.

Now, even as I write this, I have to admit that I've said no to more requests for independent studies than not, especially in recent years.  That has to do with the increases in class size, in assessment paperwork, and so on that really force us to stretch our time in all sorts of ways.

If Only More Professors...

I was scrolling through my effbee feed this morning, holding off getting up for a few minutes, and saw a video link that said something like: she had to bring her baby to class and you'll never believe what the professor did...

And then of course, what the professor did was utterly believable; he was kind to the baby (and carried it around during his lecture, because he's apparently a baby whisperer).

There were numerous comments after the video, many of which gave little anecdotes about how the writer had needed to take a small child to a class and the professor was somehow especially nice to the child or about the situation, and sometimes that classmates were nice and helpful as well. 

And most of these ended with something along the lines of "if only more professors were this nice."

I saw one comment saying that a professor hadn't been nice/accommodating.

The thing is, the overwhelming majority of the anecdotes basically demonstrated that most professors in the situation were, in fact, pretty nice and accommodating.  But the "if only" statements would lead you to believe that professorial kindness and accommodation were markedly unusual.

I'm guessing students experience the small child in class situation relatively rarely, so they think that a professor who's nice about it and accommodates the child is, indeed, rare.

Parents of small children who are in college probably experience the situation more often, but perhaps usually with the same professor, so they still think of that professor as the exception?

Instructors experience the situation relatively rarely, mostly (though I imagine at schools with larger non-traditional student populations it happens more often), but still, over the course of several years, we're likely to experience it several times, enough to figure out that we can deal with a small child in the room so long as they're not super disruptive.  And perhaps we grow through life stages which lead us to be more accommodating to the difficulties of parenting small children.

***

Speaking of life stages, I recently saw an article (I'm not that motivated to find it again) about how we (middle aged and older female instructors) should eagerly embrace and encourage students to think of us as their grandparents (or grandmothers, more specifically) because students love their grandparents and will look on us with affection and trust and such.

Effing BS.  Most students don't need faculty to be grandparents to them.  Nor do they need me to be their mommy and wipe their noses.  They're ADULTS.  We need to treat them as adults, sure, young adults, but adults.  Don't infantalize students!

I don't love my students unconditionally.  Nope.  I respect them as human beings and adults.  And the more they demonstrate themselves worthy of respect in whatever ways they do, the more I recognize that they've earned my respect.

I love It When . . .

My senior seminar discussion today felt committed and caring and real.  I felt like it mattered to me, and it mattered to the students.

I'm so grateful for the work one of my colleagues does, both because I've learned from it and because one of the students who's taken more than one course with this colleague was able to articulate really difficult stuff well, and attributed it to my colleague.

(I need to thank him, too!)

A Conversation with a Friend

I was chatting with a friend about a mutual acquaintance, and had a bit of insight.  The mutual acquaintance, let's call him Flute (it's a Shakespeare name, right!), was on the university senate while I was on it.  I didn't know him socially at the time, and the senate's pretty big.


Imagine, issue X would come up, and there was a practical option, which wasn't actually ideal in terms of students or adjuncts or something, but was practical in terms of cheapness and actual workability.  So, maybe it's class size for intro basketweaving, which would ideally be 15, but in practice runs at 20.  We can't afford 15, and 20 is pushing it in terms of the budget.


So there's discussion and going to be a vote.  And Flute would raise his hand, and I'd know he was going to say that there's no way we can vote for 20, and he'd go on to talk about the ethics of the issue and such.  I eventually realized that I pretty much always agreed ethically with Flute, but that I didn't want to hear about that because I felt like the cause was long lost and we were all going to vote for the cheaper or more "practical" option.  That is, in a way, I resented someone speaking for what I knew was right because I'd already given up on what was right.  And Flute isn't the most eloquent speaker; he's rough around the speaking edges, and takes longer than he should sometimes, because he feels so strongly about stuff and is so unwaveringly certain about his stance.


I don't think I was alone if not wanting to hear about what we should do because I don't think I was alone in having already given up.


Now, I think of some of the times in my department when I've felt compelled to speak against an issue because I think it's ethically important, and I could see other people in my department roll their eyes, and I think I've turned into Flute in some ways.  (I try not to take very long or hold things up, but I do feel compelled to speak sometimes.)


There's so many things around here that are ethically shady: big class sizes, use of adjuncts, lowering requirements for majors and such.  But we vote for them because we feel like we're trying to survive.  I think it hurts our morale more than we acknowledge.


And in some cases, I think it's devastating for our students.  I'm thinking of the ways racism works here, the ways that administrators talk around problems with racism and systemically support racism, all while claiming not to.


I went to a training session last week on "bias" which was pretty much what you'd expect: we're all biased and we need to think about biases we aren't so much aware of and consciously work against them. 


But what we should be talking about is racism and systemic racism on campus.  Talking about bias is patting white liberal folks on the head and saying that they don't want to be racist, so if they just work a little more, then we'll make things better.  And that way, we don't have to challenge the systemic racism or even acknowledge it.


(That isn't to say that I as a white person don't need to think about my racism and work towards anti-racism in my own behavior and beliefs.  But that's not enough, and not the big issue.)

Mini-Disasters

It seems like this semester, more of my students are having mini-disasters disrupt their lives than is usual.  While I've labeled these "mini," I do recognize that for an individual student, they're not minimal at all, but can be incredibly serious.  But they're not widespread or shared with everyone in the area, either.

I think with the budget problems and the changes to the Federal Perkins loans, and so forth, everyone around here is under a fair bit of stress.  And that goes double for students who are most financially vulnerable.

Some of my students seem so move from one disastrous problem to another.  So, they'll run into a family disaster, and then they'll have a health problem or a car breakdown, and then they'll have further transportation problems (we don't have great public transportation in the area, though there is some in town).

I have one obviously middle-class student who had a mini-disaster to start the semester, but he has family resources to help him, and he or his family are savvy enough to get hooked into the services he needs, and so he seems to be not caught up in a cycle of one problem adding to another.  For him, the services are working as they're supposed to for everyone.

But then I have another student and even though he's hooked into the campus services and they seem to be trying, it's one problem adding to another and another.

***

In other news, the faculty and staff on nine month contracts around here are celebrating Octobercheck, the first paycheck since June.  Here again, social class seems to matter a lot.  Folks from the middle class (like me) mostly seem to adapt after a year or two, and are able to save enough during the school year to be fine over the summer.  For folks like me, Octobercheck is nice, but it's nice because it's good to see the checking account stabilize again, not because I wouldn't be able to pay my mortgage or rent, or wouldn't be able to get groceries. 

But I have friends and colleagues from more challenging economic backgrounds, and even though I know they're paid about what I'm paid (some more, some less, depending on field and rank and such), they can't seem to get ahead enough to make summer reasonably secure.  They'll be on their way, and then a family member will desperately need a loan, or their student loans are so immense that they're always almost crushed all the time.

***

One of my colleagues told me the other day that s/he has switched to multiple choice exams in most of his/her lit courses and has students do only minimal writing, most of which s/he doesn't respond to or grade.  I'm conflicted.  On the one hand, let's face it, a lot of people have harder teaching loads than we do and manage to assign and grade papers and writing, and to work with students on writing.  On the other hand, it's really hard.  This person way outranks me, in no small part because his/her research record is far stronger than my own.

And, on that other hand, I'm getting 35 short papers from my intro to lit class today, and 10 or so revisions from my writing class (a class this other colleague has creatively managed to avoid for 3 years).  Yep, I'm going to have a fun weekend.  (And they have to get done this weekend because next week is packed and then next Friday I get a set of projects from a class of 30.)

In the meantime, let's all celebrate Octobercheck!

Tenure for Sale?

The other day, a lot of faculty folks around here got a questionnaire from a professor at a pretty fancy university in a nearby state.  The information said it was for research, and had the usual IRB letter.

And then rumor went around here that the research was being funded by a political policy organization which has been advocating for getting rid of tenure in the Northwoods state system.  And even though the letter promised that the information would be confidential, it asked questions about where one had done one's last degree, and elsewhere said that information might be connected with information from public sources.  (And in our state, lots of information is public, so I'm not counting on the confidentiality at all.)

Much discussion ensued.  (That's how I take notes for heated discussions in committee meetings.)


Anyway, stupid me, I answered the questionnaire when I got it, thinking that it was for something real, and not wanting to be uncooperative with another college instructor somewhere.

There were a number of questions, but the most interesting ones basically tried to get at how much the respondent would sell tenure for.  The question asked to give a percentage number of how much additional salary you'd need before you'd willingly give up tenure.  There was not "I wouldn't" option, nor was there any place on the questionnaire for open-ended responses.

The question of the day, then:  How much is tenure worth?

Would you give it up for 25% more salary?  200% more?


The questionnaire also asked about the effects of post-tenure review.  I don't think it has much effect here because pretty much everyone post-tenure is working hard, and the potential for post-tenure review raises isn't anywhere near in line with how hard people work post-tenure.  But, of course, that wasn't part of the question, and there was no open-ended space for comments at all.


Conclusion:  bad questionnaire designed to make interpreting answers easy to come into line with the funding organization.

Conclusion 2: I'll probably never be willing to answer a research questionnaire again.  A big EFF U to the fancy pants faculty member who sent this out.  May the fleas of a thousand camels infest his armpits (and elsewhere).  May he grow like an onion with his head in hell.  (Feel free to add your own.)