I've Gotten Soft

When I was in the Peace Corps, to travel anywhere, I walked into the center of town and caught a bus. There were no bathrooms on the busses (of course), or any other amenities.

I lived in a small city on a big river, a river whose source was way up in the mountains near a resort town. To get up to the resort town or the medium sized city in a mountain valley not far from the resort town, they'd built a road along the river ravine. It was a dirt and gravel road, mostly just wide enough for one small bus. Being that the road was on the side of a ravine, and there were occasional accidents where busses fell off, I never relished being on the steep part of the road after dark.

And they were always working on it, so that our city had a special schedule. While the rest of the country worked Monday through Friday, and then had a weekend on Saturday and Sunday, we worked Tuesday through Saturday. That meant that the road was closed Tuesday through Saturday, and more or less open (depending on how construction was going amid the rains) from Saturday afternoon through Monday afternoon. Mail came to town Saturday, pretty much as soon as the road had opened, and went up the same afternoon, on the back of a motorcycle. (Packages didn't come. You had to go pick them up in the medium sized city in the mountain valley on a Monday, when the mail office there was open.)

If you wanted to go up when the road was closed, you had two choices. You could go to the next small city to the north, about two hours by dirt road, and then catch a bus up; that strategy added at least an hour to the trip (and more if the bus schedules didn't line up well). Or you could go transbordo. Transbordo meant you took a bus to the construction site, and then walked from that bus across whatever construction was happening to the other side of the construction, and then waited in hopes that the bus company had decided it was worthwhile to send another bus down from the medium city in the mountain valley. Sometimes transbordo meant you walked a hundred feet or so, over relatively dry stuff. Sometimes it meant you walked half a mile through serious mud and rain.

If everything went really well, it took six hours by bus from my small city to the big bus station at the southern end of the capital. If it didn't go well, it could take longer.

The Peace Corps office, of course, went on a regular schedule, so they were only open Monday through Friday. That meant, if you needed your gamma globulin shot, 5ccs of ice cold nastiness in your upper butt, you got on a bus on Saturday or Sunday for a six hour ride, half of it on the dirt road, spent the night in the capital (where you probably knew other volunteers, so it was good to visit), then went into the office early on Monday to get your shot, and then immediately scurried off to the bus station to get on the bus to ride back down the dirt road with your rear full of gamma globulin so that you could be back at work on Tuesday.

The thing is, I scheduled my shuttle service for tomorrow's trip to DC. I have to be on the shuttle at 2:45 am, to get to the airport in time for my flight at 7:10 am, to get to DC in time to make it to the hotel by the time for my session in the mid-afternoon.

And I was feeling particularly whiny about having to take the shuttle into the big city airport and sit around and change planes. I started writing a blog post about how much I hate living in the middle of nowhere.

And then I stopped...

because where I lived in the Peace Corps wasn't nearly as difficult to travel to and from as where a lot of other volunteers live. And we had a whole lot more resources and easier travel than a lot of people in those areas.

I've gotten really soft and I am disappointed.

SAA Meet-Up / DC Suggestions

So, let's plan a blogger meet up at 2pm at the Starbucks near the main lobby?

Question for everyone: I've been to DC a couple times, so I've seen the big monuments, visited congress, the White House (in the days when one could take a tour), a couple of the Smithsonians, Arlington, etc.

So, if you didn't need to see the usual stuff, but you have a day more or less to do something in DC other than SAA (I know, but my department isn't paying, so I get a day for myself!), what would you do?

What's the best thing to see/do in DC?

I'm game for a Smithsonian or other museum. And I'm very willing to bet they've changed enough that I'll enjoy any of them, even ones I've seen before. I'm also very happy to go see art, a park or whatever.

Is the WWII monument something I should put on the list?

NB. Shopping of any sort other than used books is OUT. It's hard to think of any incentive in the world that would make me want to go shopping.

Too Cruel?

Another potential entry in the great moments in literary history series. Except, it's beyond cruel and obscure. Perhaps it just goes to show that I really am a horrible person?



At any rate, who can tell us about this important moment in literary history?

*Edited to add: Okay, what he should be saying, sprawled on the ground, is

This beast has hurt my dignity and spine!
Alas! Alack! What should I do but whine?

SAA Blogger Meet-Up?

When I mentioned the idea before, a couple people were interested. I seem to remember thinking that a Saturday meeting would be best.

How about Saturday, say 10am?

I'm guessing the lobby. But I don't know the main hotel at all, is the lobby too big? Is there a better place?

Does anyone know if the hotel is within reasonably easy travel of the mall?

Grading: the I Hate Plagiarism Edition

How much do I hate plagiarism? Very, very much. I hate plagiarism a whole lot.

I hate inadvertent plagiarism, even.

I have a paper. The student cites a crappy web thing at the end (but nowhere in the body of the paper). So I look at the crappy web thing, and lo, the student has picked up phrases of crappiness. And, of course, the crappy web thing doesn't cite its sources. And the paper's basic argument pulls a lot from the crappy web thing.

The student cited the crappy web thing in the works cited, so I'm guessing s/he intended to use it appropriately.

I know I've talked about plagiarism in class. And in the assignment, I note that any source the student uses (the OED, for example) must be cited.

And yes, the student cites the OED in the text, appropriately.

Dog, I hate plagiarism.

Why do students use crappy web things? There are pretty decent web resources around, but for some reason, they usually use the crappy ones.

(Yes, I hate the sort of plagiarism that copies whole papers without citation of any sort even more, but at least I can reasonably take those to higher levels. This sort, well, it doesn't quite seem appropriate to try to get a student expelled for being stupid, does it?)

Go Iowa!

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously to strike down a ban on same sex marriage.

Iowa.

Here's a link to the legal opinion of the Iowa Supreme Court. Read!

I'm not very knowledgable about legal issues, but it's interesting to read through and see what the court considered in its opinion. I found the argument about immutability especially interesting in the way the court handled it.

What was the Question Again?

Sometimes, I feel pretty darned inadequate in the face of a piece of literature. How the heck do I even approach teaching this? I'm totally clueless myself.

I mean, I know the words. And I can put two and two together in a basic way.

But holy cow, I'm a total idiot, and I really don't think I'm understanding this poem in a very deep way at all. And yet, stupid me, I put it on the syllabus every single time I teach this course.

I usually start with the title.

More Hating Meetings

So, wanna-be administrator read-aloud guy didn't read aloud today, thank dog.

But, as he's talking along, he says something along the lines of "The fort has to approve it."

I looked at the colleague on my left, a super smart person from over in businessland and asked super quietly, "fort?" She shrugged.

I looked at the colleague on my right, librarian to the core, and asked again "fort?" He shrugged.

I looked across at the social sci type who knows the history of NWU better than almost anyone I've ever met, and mouthed "fort?" She shrugged.

Maybe "fort" is what the porch club boys call the main administrative building? It's sort of a fortlike structure, and certainly sometimes the administration seems to be more ready for a seige than for open communication.

A moment for questions opened up, so I asked, "what's fort?"

And administrator wannabe says, "Foundation for Opportunities for Responsive Technology."* And then in the most condescending voice possible, just dripping, told me not to worry because "that's how we learn."

I wonder if the creator(s) of the acronym have thought for even a moment that the name they've given this tiny group might just be pretty darned off-putting and unfriendly. (Guess who created the tiny organization name?)

But if you need educational clicker technology, now you know where to go, eh?


*The name has been changed to protect the stupid, namely, me, from someone on campus accidentally finding this because he does a google for the acronym. But the spirit of the name is very close.

I Hate Meetings: Reading Aloud Edition

I checked the meeting agenda to prepare for my meeting this afternoon. We're being revisited by one of those folks who really likes to hear his own voice. He likes his voice so much that he reads aloud the stuff he brings forward. And he reads aloud badly. (But, lest we forget, he hangs out on the porches of the powerful around here, drinking and bonding with the other men who have power.)

Imagine, if you will, a dramatic reading of a budget report. And not with Patrick Stewart or someone like that doing the reading.

I've heard at least three different versions of this material read aloud in various meetings so far.

Yes, I know he's reading it aloud so that people will pay what he feels is sufficient attention to the immense amount of labor he puts in. Seriously, I recognize that the stuff is important but also boring enough that we don't actually want to spend time reading it. And, he doesn't send it out ahead so that we can prepare it by reading it ourselves so we can just ask questions or whatever.

I'm at the point of thinking:

Crappy Meeting vs. Playing on the Freeway in Hopes of Being Killed, and playing on the freeway is looking not that bad.

Or maybe I should think:

Crappy Meeting vs. Unemployment because I've been fired for being mean to one of the good old boys.

One hour of really crappy meeting looks a little less bad, doesn't it?

I wonder if I can find a way to become incredibly, dangerously, contagiously ill for just about an hour this afternoon? Is it any wonder I turn to sugar?

Weirdly Satisfying

I just spent half an hour doing the planning and forms for special meetings and presentation and responder sign-ups for one of my classes. It's the sort of thing that either a student worker can't do (figure out my schedule to arrange extra times to meet with students) or that it would take longer to explain than it does to do myself, probably.

I find this sort of thing weirdly satisfying. I'm all set for this part of class tomorrow, and that's nice, but I also have little papers to show for my effort.

So much easier than grading!

Great Moments in Literary History, #1

Guess what poem I taught today...

Double points if you can name the poem I taught with it!

Grading Block

You've heard of writer's block, when a writer either just can't get started writing or gets stopped by something and can't go further.

I have lots of ways of helping students get beyond writer's block.

Unfortunately, I have grading block.

Sometimes, I look at this huge stack of papers that I need to grade, and I find it too overwhelming to start. So I put it off, and that's a problem.

The other side is that I'll start grading a stack, but then run into something in the stack that's really bad, really frustrating, or something similar. Then I put the stack down, and I have difficulty getting started again.

I need to find a way to get beyond the blockage because once I get behind in grading, things just get worse. And worse.

Of course, eventually, I force myself to just grade, and do get the work done, but life would be so much better if I just got over the blockage and graded.

I need better strategies. Help?

Meet the Deanling

I have a student who's missed class since about the second week of classes. Stu hasn't turned in much in the way of required work for the class (a couple quizzes from the first week, that sort of thing).

Stu, as you might have guessed, has a serious medical problem. We've been in touch by email, and I helped him get in touch with the proper campus folks early in the semester.

Yesterday, I got an email from a deanling in that office basically asking us (the collective instructors of this student's classes) to do what we could to help him catch up. So this morning, I emailed back for clarification, giving the deanling the numbers about work completed and work not completed, and suggesting that withdrawing was the best idea for this student.

This afternoon, I was coming out of a meeting in the big shots' building and saw the deanling. He waved me over and asked for a minute to clarify the email. Sounds good.

The deanling, let's call him "F the deanling," said that it wasn't a good idea for Stu to withdraw because he'd lose eligibility for [sport]. I clarified, asking if [sport] was happening this semester. Yes, F the deanling assured me, it is, and Stu has been doing well and is getting a lot of support from the coach.

Then F the deanling suggested that maybe Stu could catch up on the five weeks he's missed, if I could give him more help. I'm sorry, I said, but I just don't have the time to teach an extra five hours a week. F the deanling then suggested that Stu could work with the tutoring center, or the professor involved in directing the tutoring center, to catch up. I asked if F the deanling thought that teaching a class might require more than a tutor, and suggested that the professor directing the center might not have an extra five hours a week, either.

F the deanling then suggested that Stu could take an incomplete, and I could help him make it up over the summer. And here, having tenure, I told F the deanling that I wasn't working unpaid over the summer, and that it was unreasonable to ask. And to F the deanling's credit, he agreed that he shouldn't actually ask that.

Then F the deanling wondered if Stu couldn't just do the work left to do for the class and make up what he could in order to pass. Like pretty much every college class I can think of, this one builds skills so that students need to have practiced and learned the skills in the early assignments in order to succeed at the later assignments. Imagine saying, well, the student missed the first half of German 1, but hey, they'll just finish the rest of the class and that will be fine. So I said I didn't really think that would work. F the deanling frowned.

So I asked how he expected Stu to catch up in all his other classes. If a student has missed five weeks of a full class load, it's pretty nigh impossible to catch up over the rest of the semester. There just aren't that many hours in a week. That's when F the deanling told me that Stu had been going to the other classes, more or less, along with [sport]. (But then, Stu apparently told F the deanling that he had done a fair bit of work for my class, too.)

So, Stu is well enough to play [sport] and attend some classes, but not mine? Yeah, I'm afraid I'm less than fully sympathetic.

F the deanling emphasized how important it is to maintain Stu's eligibility to play the sport; it's one of those cases when being in the sport is all that is keeping Stu focused on college. (Stu must be really good at this sport, to be playing already as a first year, eh?)

I know I'm a bitch, but really if a student is well enough to play [sport], s/he is well enough to fail a class.

I'm really pissed at F the deanling, seriously irritated. It's not that the student was BSing with me; this was a deanling, someone who should actually be focused on helping students get an education not maintain eligibility.

Grading Question

I'm grading essays about the liberal arts and such for my writing class. Several of the students have written that, basically, they're lazy, so that's why we should have requirements. Alas, so far, each of these essays is underdeveloped with minimal thought to why someone should force them to get an education and what requirements they think are important.

It's difficult not to write in my little note that their laziness shows in the essay they've written.

I wonder if they even think about that when they write about how lazy they are?

Spoken too Soon

I appears I may have welcomed spring in just a tad too soon.

It snowed yesterday evening; I drove the last hour or so through it, and it was hard driving. But then, I'm a whuss about snow driving.

It wasn't much snow, and it's already melted from the driveway and road near my house (and I suspect other roads in the area). That melting really brings home what I've heard about the ways concrete and asphalt store heat way more than plants and soil do, because the snow's still on the lawn and soil a little (though it is melting).

There's a reason I keep posting pictures of the same crocus. There's only one. Yep. There are other crocus plants starting to come up, but this is the only flower starting so far. Keep your fingers crossed for more!

(One of the bonuses to taking out the ugly bushes in my front yard is that I'll be able to put in a bunch more crocuses and other bulbs for early spring hope next year.

Caption Contest

I went to a marsh today to see if I could see some birds. I know what you're thinking. This isn't a bird. It's a muskrat! (At least I think it's a muskrat. I don't know that I could tell a muskrat from a marmot without a better look at the tail.)

Mostly, I was too early for many migratory or nesting birds. I did see a few scattered pairs of Sandhill cranes. I saw my first Bufflehead. I saw a few Common Goldeneye.

I saw lots of Red-winged Blackbirds, LBJs, a couple raptors (Redtail, I think, and a Northern Harrier), and lots of these:



Write a caption, win an imaginary internet kudu!

Endurance Trial - Campus Visit

I wrote this a while back, when searches were on. But now that they're not, it might still be interesting in the future.


It occurs to me that it might be good to talk about what a campus visit for our department is likely to look like.

So here goes.

First, we're not easy to get to, so usually candidates get into town the day before formal stuff begins. Someone is assigned to put together a low key dinner at the hotel restaurant.

5:30-8:30pm - dinner (person in charge makes sure the candidate has a copy of the schedule, phone numbers, etc)

8am - breakfast, pick up at hotel, take to campus, to first meetings

9am - first meeting (dean, perhaps)

10am - second meeting (research support office, perhaps) (someone will guide the candidate, and that may mean waiting at the first meeting space because it's impossible to repark and that means that you have a 10-15 minute walk, and you don't want anyone getting lost without winter clothes! Make sure the candidate can get a snack, water, whatever along the way.)

11am - get to department (again, someone's guiding the candidate), intro around.

11:30 or so - a small group of faculty takes the candidate to lunch (at least one lunch is just "probationary" faculty)

1pm - teaching presentation (because we're a teaching school)

2:30pm - interview with chair, chair drives candidate around town, talks about housing, etc

4pm - candidate back to hotel, down time

6-8:30pm - dinner with small group of faculty


8am - breakfast, someone takes candidate to first meeting

9am - first meeting (provost, perhaps)

10am - second meeting (search committee, perhaps)

11am - down time, maybe campus tour with student

noon - lunch with faculty

1pm - down time

2pm - research presentation (because we also require research, and we can't decide what we're doing)

3pm - campus tour, time with students, whatever

5:30 - 7pm - dinner with faculty group

7:30 - 9pm - reception for candidate, back to hotel

next morning - candidate escapes, vows never to come to our frozen hell.


Typically, our candidates have sit down meetings with the college dean, someone from the provost's office, the head of research support, the chair, and the search committee. The big shot meetings are usually 20-30 minutes. Sometimes candidates do one presentation, sometimes also teach a class. Yes, we don't do that part well because we have a research requirement, and think that's important, but we also know we all teach a lot, and we want candidates to be good teachers from the get go.

Typically, the candidate walks around campus a bit, but... here's the thing, we have a really beautiful campus; it's a selling point. BUT, you don't want to freeze the candidate too much. You also don't want someone feeling lost when it's 5F with a bad wind chill, because that's just miserable. So someone guides the candidate, at least the first day (and yes, every office is spread out among weird buildings). Our typical candidate has been in five campus buildings by the end of the visit.

Typically, the chair takes the candidate around town a bit, talks about housing prices and stuff. Housing is fairly cheap, and that's good. But the cheap houses are generally not all that nice looking, or in charming neighborhoods. (Okay, even our pricy houses are cheap compared to most areas, but so are our salaries.)

The best thing we do, probably, is have the candidate eat with "probationary" faculty. That's the time for folks to talk candidly. You might be surprised that everyone in the department so far as I've seen (from all three angles now) considers that really private. No one asks and no one talks outside their lunch group about the questions or what's said.

We know that the job market sucks for candidates. But we also know that top candidates are likely to have other interviews and other campus visits, so we know we're also competing at this point.

And it's tough competition.

We're not a research I school, and it shows. It shows in the teaching schedules posted on doors, shows in the library, shows in the hallways of classroom areas, which are narrower than in R1s. Most candidates want the lower teaching load and high value research opportunities at an R1, and we can't offer those. In the English department, we all teach comp. Period. I know we don't get applications from lots of folks who don't want to do that. (And far better that they not apply, really, because it's a fact of life here.)

We're far from easy access or many city conveniences. Most people coming here have to take at least one connecting flight and a long shuttle drive. Same for leaving. We don't have some city amenities, even the ones you might not think twice about: Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Ikea, etc. Nope. Art museums, more than local history museums, museums of technology, science, etc. Nope. (We do have a children's museum celebrating the same mythic figure as every other small town in the upper midwest.) Other colleges/universities where spouses might teach? Nope. If you get slightly sick, we have decent health care, but if you get really sick, you go to another state. We have meth houses, areas of deep poverty, homeless folks, hungry folks.

Winter. It's effing cold, and lots of people don't want to live far from family in the cold.

We have budget problems. Those show in our salaries and in our infrastructure, not only on campus, but across town, when we negotiate ever-growing potholes on the main streets.

The area is pretty conservative. People have weaponry, not only in their cars but in their basements and gun lockers. Blaze orange is not just a fashion statement.

On the other hand, we have some positives.

First, we offer a low salary, but decent benefits.

We have a pretty good department. Yeah, I complain about the sexism, but I've been in far worse places, and I have friends in far worse places. If you get sick here, people will bring you hot soup and make sure your classes are covered.

We have pretty good students. Yeah, they're often first generation college students and don't "know the rules" the way more elite students do. But they don't pull some of the stunts and excuses I read about other students on the web. They're mostly pretty decent people who are scared about how they'll make a living and such. And mostly, they want to get an education. They're more likely to miss a day of class for a band tour or family hunting day than for a trip to the Bahamas.

And while our infrastructure sucks, when you look up, even in the middle of campus, you'll see trees, and you may see a bald eagle flying by. And we'll tell you about the trails (biking, walking, running, skiing). And just the beauty. Winter has it's own beauty, but when you see our campus in spring, summer, or fall, it really can take your breath away.

Our housing is cheap, and traffic jams are more likely to be momentarily caused by wild turkeys crossing the road than by too many cars.

The difficulty is in giving candidates a balanced view, making sure they realize we're not someplace where they'll teach six hours a week, have TAs to do the grading, and a research assistant, but that we are a place where people try to be humane and do a good job educating our students.

Hope and Despair

Spring really is coming. My crocus says so!

News about budget stuff just gets worse and worse. In a nearby state, there's talk about having state employees pay more towards their health insurance benefit. We're looking likely to do furloughs here. One of my colleagues says they should just admit they're making pay cuts. I'm wondering if calling it a pay cut means it never comes back, while calling it a furlough means we go back to the regular pay eventually?

I have a contract letter that says how much I'm supposed to be paid for the year. Can they force me to take a furlough and earn less? How does that work as a contract?

NWU has been doing a big budget study project; the project is supposed to help the administrators decide in a reasonable, informed way, what goes, because some things are going to go. I have no idea what those will be, however.

All the departments and such did comparison studies with data about campuses similar to ours, and by and large we found that we get paid less and teach more students AND produce more research than those schools. In my department, that means we teach way more students in comp classes than our similar campuses do. It doesn't mean we do as good a job teaching as they do, however.

So, with the budget crisis, we're looking at adding more students to each class. Add a couple students to each comp class over the semester, and drop a whole comp section (one taught by an adjuct, of course) and save money on that adjunct's salary. That sucks for the adjunct in major ways, and for instructors across the board, and for our students.

There's the rock.

Educational assessment is always aimed at saying that we're doing a good job; there's never any benefit to saying we aren't. So, we assess writing and say that yes, students are improving, though not as much as we'd like. We have no way to compare how well we're teaching with comparable campuses.

And that's the hard place.

We can't get at how much better we might do if we taught smaller classes, nor is there money to pay for instructors enough to teach smaller classes. Instead, we'll get more students, and then that new number will become the new standard, and that will never go down. Even if I could prove that teaching 16 students instead of 28 meant that each student learned 20% more, it wouldn't matter because no one with real power really cares about our students enough to vote to pay for it.

The dean and chairs are talking about ways to mitigate the added load of additional students in our classes. In some classes, profs will start using bubble tests, but it's hard to imagine how to teach writing without actually having to grade writing, and that goes not only for composition classes specifically, but for philosophy classes, history classes, and so forth, all of which are writing intensive fields.

I'm looking at the rest of my career and figuring things will never get better.

I used to think it might, but the more I hear people complain about paying taxes, the more certain I am that things won't change for the better in public education.

So as I look at the rest of my career, another 15-20 years, I'm wondering if it's worth it? Or what the alternatives are.

Grumpy

I woke up yesterday grumpy, and I woke up again this morning even grumpier. I'm not usually a grumpy person, either. Not that I'm the most cheery in the world, but I'm more on the cheery than the grumpy side, mostly.

Is it: hungry (need protein?), thirsty, hormones, nasty wind, carryover from worrying about budget stuff (personally and professionally), worrying about grading I still have to do, winter blues?

I took care of some stuff today, and then, because it was nasty windy, in that gusty ucky way, not quite the Santa Anas (because not dry), but still, too windy to make riding fun, I decided to garden. Mostly this involved cleaning away dead stuff from last year, trimming some things, and filling in where rabbits have been digging (at least, I think it's rabbits).

Look what I found under one area of dead stuff! Irises! These are some split offs from the German Iris plants I bought when I moved into my first house here, and some friends came to help me get my garden going. In June, they get a deep dark purply-blue flower for about ten days. And that's that. But the foliage is nice for several months, too. And the rabbits don't seem interested, so WIN!

I detest whomever put river rock "mulch" throughout the front yard. It's a pain to weed around (and no, the plastic sheeting underneath doesn't keep the weeds out for very long) and worse to try to plant through.

And here's another shot of the crocuses, growing a little bigger each day.

I feel a lot better after gardening for a couple hours, a lot less grumpy.

I got a ceramic wren house from a local potter yesterday, when I went out galavanting with a friend for a couple house. I'm trying to think where to hang it. The trees I planted when I moved in aren't strong enough for it yet, I don't think, but I want it on the south side of the house (because there's a bird house on the north side, and a house, feeder, bat house and suet feeder in various places in back (the west). I'm wondering if I can hang it from the gutter without causing problems?

Crocus!

Look!

I saw the first crocuses coming up today in my front yard, so I thought I'd share with you. Look closely; they're not very big yet, but there they are!

In the past couple days, I've also seen my first Robins of the season and the first Juncos of the season.

I even went without long johns today, for probably the first time since December.

My bike ride was short, slow, and glorious!

I love spring!

Classes before break

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm going to complain about how few students showed up for classes today.

Yeah, there were a few missing.

But the poetry students, most of whom were there (and turned in their papers) were just great today. Before class, we were waiting in the hall while the previous class finished a midterm, and some of my students were teasing me about letting them go early so that I'd have more time to start grading.

But when we got to work, talking about Hero and Leander, they were really good; lots of people contributed to small group discussions, and a good number reported back well to the class.

I think the absolute brilliance of the poem may have had something to do with it, but maybe I just got lucky! And yes, this is an afternoon class.

Mileage Memory

3385 miles on the odometer at the beginning of the year.

The goal is 2000 miles this year.

14 miles today; slow, but it felt SO good!

Just so I can look it up easily!

Break Planning

Here's the plan; let's see how much I actually accomplish:

1) Grading
--peer editing for all three classes (yeah, the timing is especially stupid)
--essay for writing class
--revisions for writing class
--poetry essay thing for poetry class
--midterms for poetry and drama classes
--quiz for writing class

2) Garden
--chop down overgrown, nasty bush BEFORE birds start nesting there again.
--clean out one nesting box (another is already clean)
--repair third nesting box.
--fantasize about how many bulbs I can put in where the overgrown bushes that I'm chopping down were, and about putting in a couple small trees (serviceberry, maybe)

3) Fun
--visit marsh
--visit river to see buffleheads that are supposed to be there
--visit crane or eagle place
--visit local history museum (I know what you're thinking, but we have a pretty darned good local museum, and they have a new exhibit!)
--read a book a friend lent me
--have lunch with a pal

4) Class Prep
--prep for library visit for writing class; meet with librarian, maybe?
--order book for next year's common text
--reread plays for the rest of the semester, at least two of them
--prep a week or two of poetry class

5) House
--hunt down and kill the nasty beetles that AREN'T ladybugs!
--clean
--vacuum
--call the repair place about getting my drier fixed (it's been a couple months, but who has time to take a day to wait around for a repairperson to get the drier fixed?)

6) Exercise
--bike! BIKE!!!! It's supposed to get above 40 this coming week!
--clean ski stuff out of the car and wax the skis. Figure out where they live during the summer (laundry room, I'm thinking)

7) Other
--feed and medicate friend's cats

Egad, I'm exhausted just looking at this!

Blah

I hate being female.

When I was, what, 12? I thought I was bleeding to death for a couple minutes when I first got my period. Then the realization kicked in, sort of. What I didn't quite realize was that the crappy way I felt--the feeling that my gut was being twisted to shreds with a pair of pliers--would last far into my adulthood without any real relief (though I did develop a taste for bourbon, which was way more effective than an aspirin). Yes, it's true, I was not one of the brighter or more sophisticated adolescents ever. In spite of having watched a couple years worth of film strips about the wonders of womanhood, I was mentally unprepared.

And now middle age.

I think I'm getting hot flashes. I'm not really sure, but then, I'm not a much more bright or sophisticated adult than I was an adolescent. Still, it's super cold here, and I'm all tucked in warm in my bed sleeping last night, and suddenly, I'm either dying of a fever or having a hot flash. So I throw off the covers, wait, and then I'm freezing. I couldn't find a reasonably comfortable medium for what seemed like forever (because even three seconds freezing is too long). In reality, it was long enough to really wake me up so I couldn't get back to sleep easily. And since I didn't die of whatever (though that seemed like a fine alternative at the time), I'm guessing hot flash. I'm still mentally unprepared.

What I want to know, why can't I get a hot flash when I'm walking across campus and it's minus 8 wind chill? Then it would be delightful. My face wouldn't hurt! I hate being cold!

Seriously, I figure one thing out and get on with my life, and blam, my body comes up with some other misery.

Off Stride

It's seventh week now, and I feel like I haven't found my rhythm for the semester. First there were multiple searches, complete with campus visits (I've participated in about 7 campus visits this semester, some for merely a meeting, some for hours at a time). Then there's the budget disaster, which our campus officials are increasingly characterizing as "calamaty" and "catastrophe."

And endless meetings. We're talking about ways to save money, including furloughs. While I'm grateful to have my job, I'm not looking forward to unpaid furloughs. Word is that the administrators are thinking about basically a half month unpaid. So I'm wondering if, since I'm paid on a 9 month contract, that means I will lose 1/18th of my pay rather than the 1/24th that someone on a full year contract would lose. That's a chunk out of my income that I'm a bit worried about. And yet, I also recognize that there's a level of pettiness to my worry. But that doesn't stop me from worrying.

The amount of money we could save by furloughing the whole campus for a half a month is substantial, but not compared to the budget cut the state is imposing. Basically, across the system, I'm told, the budget cut to the system could be balanced by completely cutting two NWU campuses the size of this one. That's a heck of a big budget cut, and our share is overwhelmingly large.

There's a point in budget discussions, here and nationally, that my brain just gets overwhelmed and befuddled, and I'm at that point pretty much all the time. I don't know how to solve the economic problems; I don't know how to even begin to address them. I only know that even doing all the things I was supposed to be doing (living within a budget, saving for emergencies, saving for retirement, getting a realistically affordable mortgage, minimizing credit card debt/use), I'm still scared. And I'm lucky to be only scared so far.

***

I was walking to a campus visit thing last week, and passed by a group of trees on campus with a bunch of Cedar Waxwings! I usually see Cedar Waxwings in the trees outside my office window (I know, you may be jealous on so many fronts: office, window, trees visible!) a bit later in spring, so I was surprised to see them already. I'm guessing the spring migration is ON!

We've got spring break from classes next week. There's a big marsh a couple hours south of us which is known as a great place for migration birding. So I'm thinking of taking a day out of the break and going to visit the marsh.

Yep, that's me: an exciting spring trip to southern parts in search of wild birds. Who knows, there may be feathering involved for some of the birds!

I've got my fingers crossed for an early spring, even though we're expecting snow this afternoon and tonight.

SAA Meetup?

Anyone else up for a meetup?

Advertising Snarl

Has anyone else noticed that if you click through to a different place using someone's blogrolling list, you get this redirect thing that adds in advertising (a bar across the top with moving stuffs) that slows my loading the heck down.

Ewww.

Go away, blogrolling ads!

Thoughts on Composition Teaching and the Job Market

My department had several searches this fall, though most of them have now been cut, alas. Although this year's a mess, and things aren't going to get better fast, I imagine that we'll be searching for English department literature positions at some point in the future.

Every time we do a lit faculty search, we put up front in our ad that composition is about 50% of our load. And when I am (and my colleagues are) reading 100+ applications for a lit position, we look for evidence that the job applicant can teach comp. Maybe that evidence comes through in the letter, or in the CV, or in the letters of recommendation, but in order to get past my first cut, an application has to give me a sense that the person can teach composition.

So I have this to say to job applicants:

1) If you can't bear the idea of teaching about 50% comp, please don't apply for our job.

2) If you want to be a strong candidate here, know how to teach comp well, and make sure that comes through in your letter, CV, and maybe even letters of recommendation.

3) If you sound enthusiastic about teaching comp and working with our students, that will make your application stronger. If you sound insane, we won't believe you anyway.

Now, the paragraph on teaching comp that will help get you past my first cut isn't going to help you getting an R1 job. Depending on the R1, being able to teach writing well may or may not be helpful at getting you to the next step. (It may be helpful if you get hired.)

I'm willing to bet that most English lit faculty at other regional comprehensives, at SLACs, technical universities, and community colleges teach a fair bit of composition. So if you're willing to apply for those jobs, it makes sense to prepare yourself to teach composition well.

That means, if you're applying to grad schools, you should think about what sorts of training and opportunities they offer in composition teaching. If they provide neither, then that's something to think about. Maybe you'd rather leave academics than teach composition, and so you're making a good choice.

If you're already in grad school, and your institution doesn't offer good training and opportunities, then you need to think about what you want. And then you either need to decide you don't care because you're going to teach at an R1, or you need to find a way to get some training and some experience. Maybe that means taking a class or two at another school. Maybe that means working for a tutoring center or trying to find other teaching opportunities.

If you're already in grad school and your institution does offer some training and opportunities, then I'd strongly recommend you take real advantage of them. Put aside the comments from folks who think teaching composition is a waste of time, and make connections with the people who do it well, whether they're other grad students or professionals who teach comp/rhet. Yes, I know that's a lot to learn, but you don't have to learn to do research in comp/rhet; you have to learn to read research and to take advantage of research in order to teach well.

Yes, it's a different field, but learning to teach writing well will help you teach writing in lit courses, too. And it will also probably help your own writing.

What if you're already finished with your phud and don't feel qualified to teach composition?

1) When your grad school/department does the alumni interviews for assessment, make sure you tell them they screwed up.

2) If you can't stand teaching comp, find something else that makes you happy.

3) Put the skills you learned in earning your phud--research and analysis skills, especially--to work and learn about teaching composition.


From the comments I've been reading, I get the sense that there are a number of folks out there teaching comp in programs where control of composition is pretty tightly held by administrators (or someone).

I'm of two minds about that. The first is that if you're not already confident and well-trained in teaching comp, having an imposed structure might actually help, even though it feels awful (and I'm sure it does). But if you're already confident and well-trained, then it probably just feels awful. I'm sorry.

I've never taught anywhere post-phud like that (and that's three jobs). I can only imagine how utterly frustrating such a program is. My experience has usually been that everyone was WAY too busy to try to control my work in the classroom (except to collect syllabus information, do observations and responses, check evaluations, and provide critical feedback).

I don't know how I'd manage within such a program. I like to think that I'd be able to find a way to teach well, but who knows?

And now, I'm off to grade, because grading truly is endless, even when it's not comp.

Thinking about Teaching Comp

Some of the responses to my last post got me thinking, especially one that asked for a book recommendation.

I understand the impulse, the desire to get one book with the answers, or at least a solid background. The thing is, composition studies is a huge field, and there's no book that's going to do that, any more than there's one book that will teach someone what they need to teach Shakespeare at the college level. And really, comp studies is a wider field than Shakespeare studies. I'm not even a comp specialist, just someone who tries to do my job, which includes about 50% comp teaching. (I did a certificate in teaching composition, way back when, which included 1 undergrad and 3 grad courses.)

But even if you asked a really great comp specialist, s/he'd have to know where you were starting.

Do you know about process research, for example? What do you know about brainstorming techniques, or responding effectively, or writing assignments, or any number of other things, because comp is just so huge.

That said, I do have a suggestion.

First, make yourself a list of things you think are important for teaching comp.

My list would include (with no attempt at parallel structures or anything, just brainstorming!):

What do I mean when I say "Writing well." What makes good writing?
What do my colleagues think counts as "good writing"?
Making effective assignments. (What do I mean by "effective" here?)
Making assignments that don't make me want to rip out my eyes.
Teaching writing processes for different learning styles.
Responding and grading effectively.
Organizing the flow of an assignment (readings, pre-writing, etc) over a period of time.
Organizing the flow of the course over the semester.
Helping students read effectively.
Helping students use outside information, ideas, materials ethically and effectively.
Making plagiarism so painfully difficult that students won't likely do it.
Figuring how much (if any) grammar stuff I need to teach my students (passive voice, dangling verbals, punctuating appositives, whatever)
How to help my students proofread.
Using short/informal writing effectively.
Figuring out how to use a textbook, if any, and choosing one (if I want).
Helping students read critically (especially other people's work).
Helping students revise.
Getting students to take revision seriously.

Second, use that list to make up a list of questions. For example, I might want to ask what the relationship is between reading students do in college and writing improvement.

Or maybe I want to ask how to organize a revision process into my syllabus.

Maybe I'm in a really practical mood and I want to learn how to respond more efficiently to student writing.

Once I have a good list, I'd prioritize. Figure out which answers are likely to help you most in your teaching.

Then, find someone on your campus, or from your old grad program, or at the R1 three hours drive away. On my campus, we have a writing person (well, there's a whole big fancy title) who's the only actual comp/rhet phud on campus, and she's friendly, so I chose her. At my former school, which was very tiny, I would have got together with a couple of the adjuncts who were friendly and great teachers. Now, I can also email a former student who's studying for a phud in comp/rhet. You should be able to find someone with more expertise than you have.

Then tell that person that you're working on teaching comp better, and that you'd really like to learn what's what about this question. What do they think? Can they recommend a resource (a book, an article or two, whatever) to help you learn more.

I've never had a comp person react negatively to my asking for help like this, or asking if what some specific thing I'd learned in my comp program was out of date now. BUT, I know that at some R1s, comp directors get abused a lot by TAs and others; they're treated really poorly. So, if you're at a place like that, make sure you approach the question with respect. On the other hand, if you're at a place like that, there are probably comp grad students, or grad students trying to teach comp, who are also trying to put things together, and you could try approaching them.

To my Colleague, on Composition

Or, what I want to say in the lunchroom when my colleague complains that s/he wasn't trained to teach composition and hates composition and teaching composition is beneath him/her and the students never learn anything and blah blah blah.

Remember when you applied for this job, how we listed on the JIL that the job was about 50% composition? And when you came for the interview and we told you that everyone in the department teaches composition for about half our load?

Your letter of application talked about how well-prepared you were to teach composition, how much you took time to think of interesting and challenging assignments, how innovative you were in your approaches. Remember that? I do.

So, what, you forgot? Seriously?

Yes, I know composition:literature or creative writing =/= basic math:advanced math. I know it's a totally different field.

But this is the job that we advertised, and you applied and accepted the offer. And there are 100+ candidates who'd apply for your job in an instant if you decided to leave.

And your being far too amazing and wonderful to be asked to do such demeaning work? You should have taken the R1 offers you had, the ones in better geographic locations with better pay and benefits.

What's that? You deserved an R1 job, but you didn't get even an interview nibble? Remind me again how you deserved an R1 job because you went to Old Ivy and and you're white and male but the world is mean to white men.

So here we are together. It must be dreadful for you to have to share the lunch room with the non-Ivy likes of me.

I wonder why your students don't learn anything? Want to talk about that?

***

Yes, teaching composition is hard work. It's the hardest work I do, consistently, every semester, the hardest work. It's harder than writing someone's tenure letter, by far.

But in the pantheon of difficult jobs, I bet it's not in the top 100.

And since I knew from grad school that I'd be likely teaching composition for the rest of my career, I took some classes to prepare, and I read some research to keep up, and I struggle with it. I talk to our comp person to get ideas; I get ideas from other instructors. I even share some ideas. And it's still a struggle.

If you don't want to do HALF your job and do it well, then leave. Just leave. Either go to that R1 that's begging for the privilege of hiring you, or leave academics and do something else.

If I were Robert Browning, this would have been in blank verse. Alas, I'm not.

Imagine, though, the kick-ass assignments Browning would have come up with: "Write an argumentative essay asserting the rectitude of killing your wife."

Poof

Every open job at NWU just got put on hold.

We have an assistant headmaster position search - on hold.

We have the search in Underwater Basketweaving - on hold.

All the other searches across campus - on hold.

All those candidates who really need and want a job? This is horrible news for them. Every search on campus is gone, and probably not going to be re-opened for a couple years. We're just later to do it than most campuses, which really means that we've given people false hope for longer than the other places. So we're crueler.

I figure I've spent 50+ hours on the UWB search between this semester and last. And poof, that work means nothing.

The way faculty time works, we're just asked to do search committee work on top of other stuff; I didn't drop any of my other committee responsibilities, nor my teaching responsibilities, nor advising, nor research. I just added an extra week's worth of work to evenings and weekends and the break. And that doesn't "cost" the university anything visible because we just add it on as part of our responsibilities.

The money we spent on advertising, interviews, campus visits, that is, the money that's way more visible than faculty time, gone. Also gone is the time our administrative staff spent organizing the search materials. (And if you've never seen an office staff organize a search with 100+ candidates, making sure that everything gets where it needs to be, you need to know that it takes a load of work.)

Canon to the Right of Me

Curricular discussion, yet again.

One of my colleagues laments. It's okay, s/he asserts (and I'm paraphrasing), that we teach [lit of people of color in whatever century/place], but really, we need to make sure students really know [lit of white men from that century] from that period. That's really central. The other stuff is okay, but only once students really know [lit of white men from that century]. The survey really needs to focus on [lit of white men from that century].

I teach mostly lit by white men. It's true. So far as we know, Shakespeare was white and male.

In conversations, I can tell that several of my colleagues assume that I must therefore agree that the white male canon is far superior to any other literature. I try to disabuse them of this notion pretty much every time, but it keeps coming back. I think they sort of don't hear me, because their assumptions are so strong.

What I'd like to say is that I don't think that white men have written anything interesting for the past 200 years, so we should, indeed, focus on writers of color or writers who are vaginally endowed.

It's not true, though. White men are still often fine writers who write interesting books. It would be fun to say it aloud, though, just to see the look of horror on their faces. But then they'd believe I really meant it, even if I said I was teasing, because they feel that white men are under siege, under attack (along with Christmas). It's one thing, I gather, to make sexist jokes about women, and quite another to make a joke about men. The one they take as funny because it's "just a joke," while the other they take as part of the war on all that makes life worth living.

But it is true that I don't value white male experience as central to what's important in literature.

It's going to be a long meeting, isn't it?

Another Poem Quiz

Here goes: What poem am I teaching today?

Thoughts on the Oscars

Let me admit right up front that I watched a program on Fats Domino rather than the Oscars last night, but I did look at the list of things that had already been awarded before I went to bed. And I had two questions.

I noticed that Slumdog Millionaire was nominated in all sorts of categories, though none of the acting categories. It won the best picture award (I learned this morning) without a single performance "worthy" of a nomination? I wonder how often that happens? (And I bet a movie buff could tell us within minutes.)

It makes me wonder if there wasn't a subtle (or not so subtle, but probably not really conscious) racism in play among the nominating voters. Racism doesn't always take a big systemic organization; sometimes it's the result of lots of little racist decisions, many of which aren't even consciously racist.

Then I noticed that among there was little overlap in the best picture and best actress/best supporting actress nomination fields. I think Kate Winslett/The Reader was the only overlap I saw.

I'm guessing there's not at all subtle sexism at work throughout the industry that makes fewer good roles for women because what "counts" as a good film is very masculinist and tells male stories. What sells isn't necessarily a great female actor, but male-centered films which often valorize violence and patriarchal values.

I wonder what sorts of roles Katherine Hepburn or Myrna Loy would find these days? I don't mean to be nostalgic, because it's not like Hollywood was ever a hotbed of feminism, but it seems ever more masculinist. We need more female producers, directors, and writers, don't we? (Though, to be honest, there would also have to be more women controlling disposable income spent on going to films, and I'm guessing most adult women have less time to go to films than most 13 year old boys. And do we really want to spend that much of our disposable income at films when there are bikes to be ridden, snow to be skied on, and books to be read?)

Terminally Cute

My weekend visitor. She's maybe 6 months old.

For a pup, pretty much everything has play value. Everything. I'd sort of forgotten this, after having an aging dog for many years.

I think my blood pressure has probably dropped by 20 points just from laughing at her antics, playing, and petting those soft ears. However, my work hasn't gotten done at all.


Edited to add: I tuckered the puppy out! We played stick "chase and chew" out in the yard for about 40 minutes, and she's been sleeping for the past hour or so, that hard puppy sleep: she's plopped in her kennel snoring. Want to bet that within the next hour, she'll wake up more mischievous than before?

A Night at the Movies: Milk

I went with some friends to see Milk last night. And as much as I get frustrated by the conservatism here, I must say that I was impressed to see how many people were seeing Milk last night. And they laughed at the jokes, and looked somber at the end.

The first thing I want to say about the movie is that I'm really glad it got made. And boy oh boy is Sean Penn superb.

Really, it's a good movie. It brings back some of the feel of the late 70s without being all in your face about doing techy stuff. The old images of folks like Carter and Jerry Brown worked well with the modern film stuff; they didn't clash like they do with some film because the colors feel really different or something.

So go see it.

I do have a couple of issues. The film momentarily noticed the sexism (especially against Lesbians) and racism of the gay movement in the 70s (at least as it played out in the Bay Area), but didn't critique those in a meaningful way. And they both deserve critique and examination. I get that doing lots with a critique would take away from the time devoted to something else, but I think it's important.

Tied to that was the representation of Jack. He was played in a really over-the-top way, and that representation fits all too tightly in with the ways white culture portrays Latino males as overly emotional, needy, and so forth. So that left my crowd wondering if the movie was just being orientalist, or if it was trying to make a point (was that supposed to be sort of how Jack looked to the "good boy" white males), or if a historical Jack really fit the stereotypes so bizarrely.

And where the heck was Diane Feinstein? Seriously. I mean, they showed her from afar once, and we heard her voice from offscreen, but you wouldn't know that she was coming up in party and as a supervisor.

Seeing Milk made me think about some "what ifs." I'm guessing, within the "what ifs" that Diane Feinstein wouldn't be a senator now if she hadn't become mayor after Moscone's assassination.

Seeing a representation of the gay male community in the late 70s made me think about HIV/AIDS. How much further would we be if we hadn't had to spend so much energy and time, and if we hadn't lost so many people to HIV/AIDS? It's rather horrifying to think, especially since California Prop 8 passed last November.

On the other hand, the lesbian reaction to HIV/AIDS had a lot to do with the gay male community's increasing acceptance. Without HIV/AIDS and Lesbians coming out to support and care for men, would we have found common ground? (If you think about it, there's no "natural" common ground, given that a lot of homophobia is scared of male penetration and that makes men a bigger target, while lesbians have less economic power, less political power, and face different challenges. We used to come together over fewer issues, with lesbians being secondary. Has that really changed that much?)

Within the film, there's one lesbian character, Milk's campaign manager, who is accepted grudgingly by Milk's close followers (at least at first).

It's as if lesbians can only be accepted so long as we're serving men and taking care of them, both in the film and historically. I don't think that's changed a whole lot in the past 30 years, but it needs to change, and we'd better not have to wait 30 more years.

Favorite Line

Some lines, when you read them, just speak to you, you know? At least that's how it feel. So, today, before a meeting, I was prepping for tomorrow's first class, and read,

This is hell, nor am I out of it.

And I thought, yes. It somehow seemed so appropriate for the meeting at hand. For pretty much every meeting, just in case.

I've racked up nearly three hours of meetings today, though two ran under, and one over. The long one was actually helpful and turned out well, I thought. It's good to work with adults. The others were fine as meetings go.

And now, I have hours of grading before I sleep.

Joy

I went for my first bike ride since Thanksgiving weekend today! It was pretty cold, and I didn't go very far, but boy oh boy is it way better than running!

It felt really awkward at first, clipping in, feeling the bike move under me (which it doesn't do on the trainer), and then there was the cold (supposedly it's 34F!).

There's a men's pro bike race in California this week; they were showing it on tv a bit yesterday, and it looked really rainy and nasty. So, biking today, I realized that I have two huge advantages for riding in the cold over those pro racers. Now, I know it sounds weird to say that I have advantages, but I'm serious.

First, they go way fast, so you know the wind chill thing has to just be horrid. There's a huge difference between the way a cold wind feels at 14 mph and the way it feels at 30. Advantage Bardiac!

Second, two words: body fat. They have none, and I have some. Advantage Bardiac!

I've also decided that I go just as fast on hills as they do. The difference is that it's their uphill speed matching my downhill speed.

I was so happy to go riding. It felt good! I'm so full of joy.

(And I'm also very pleased that I don't have to go when it's rainy and miserable out, like the pros do. Advantage Bardiac!)

Visitors

I'm, at best, a lazy birder. I don't get up at 5am to go out birding or anything. But sometimes I get lucky. I put out some seed starting last month, for the birds who overwinter, and for spring early arrivals.

I'm pretty sure this is a Common Redpoll. It looks like the pictures I found up at the Cornell site, and like the pictures from my book.

I had gotten my camera out earlier, when I first saw them, and then went out for a bit (after dropping a bit of seed on the deck which still has a layer of ice). And when I got back, these two were snacking on the deck. I was able to lie down just inside the sliding door window without bothering them much, and took a lot of pictures, trying to hold my hands steady enough to use the strongest lens setting.

The bird on top is the female (I think), and the one here, the male. But look at that weird thing beneath his beak. Some kind of tumor?

Grading Party

Sometimes it really helps to get together with some friends to sit and grade. It's hard, though, because you have to find folks who have reasonbly similar levels of interruptability and focus. It doesn't work if one person wants to talk the whole time and someone else is wanting total silence.

Today worked really well for me. We met at the local Frontier bookstore (and cafe), and I got four good solid hours of grading in, and lunch (we took a break and went down the street). But it barely made a dent in the grading. I did a lot, but couldn't bring myself to completion on most things. It's frustrating when you work hard for a chunk of Saturday and it barely shows.

The stacks and the scores:

Poetry papers - about 1/4 done
Drama papers - about 1/3 done
Comp papers - not even started
Comp journals - DONE!!!! (but this was a tiny stack)
Comp peer editing - 3/4 done

SAA thing - tomorrow!

And that doesn't count prepping for classes or committee responsibilities. The poetry and drama papers are near the shamefully late to return mark, but I just got the comp stack yesterday.

BUT, I finished a big chunk of my committee responsibilities for one committee this week, and it went well.

I need to either get back to work now or take a nap. One way or the other, the first two stacks need to get finished.

Happy Birthdays

The 200th anniversary of the births of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln.

Have you ever seen clips of those TV shows from the 50s where they'd have actors play the parts of famous folks from different eras, long past?

It would be cool to imagine Darwin and Lincoln conversing over dinner.

I guess statistically, it's likely that some very important folks will be born on the same day, but really, these are two giants in their century, and how cool is it that we can celebrate their work on this anniversary? Way cool.

Stepping Back

I met today with a student who is mentoring one of my introductory lit courses. S/he's a good, solid upper level student, with grad school aspirations, and a really good writer.

When we talked about the mentoring thing, we talked about the lit s/he really loves, and so I included some in the course design. So today we talked about teaching that lit, worked out passages, questions, a handout (for group work). And tomorrow, my student will take over the discussion.

It's sort of scary giving over a class to a student. It's not scary in that our students would be uncooperative. Indeed, our students tend to be very cooperative, especially with student mentors. But it's hard to step back and not talk, especially if something isn't working.

There's a lot of practice involved for most teachers (I think) in being able to "time" a class so that you get deep enough into the topic or issue, and also give some sense of how it fits within the class or discipline structure, so that you balance telling students something and helping them figure it out themselves. You can work out what you want to accomplish and how you want to get at that, but actually doing it isn't easy (at least it isn't for me).

And so, I'm a little hesitant about doing it. And it's hard not to step in if something isn't working, if the less experienced mentor hasn't practiced alternative ways of asking a question or something.

In my phud program, new grad students tended to get put into a comp classroom as teachers early on, and only later TA'ed for lit type courses. So most of us sank or swim on our own in a classroom for a couple years before we had an opportunity to do a "guest lecture" or anything. And when we had those opportunities, it was usually in a huge undergrad lecture class, so it really was a matter of lecturing. (As I was finishing up, the program sort of reversed so that new grad students got some experience leading discussion sections and grading before being responsible for organizing a whole course and such. It makes a LOT more sense that way.)

But I remember one prof I TA'ed for (and did a guest lecture for) who seemed to have difficulty letting grad students take over a lecture day. It's a huge thing, to take up an hour's time of 250 or more students, because if it's wasted, that's a LOT of time. But, of course, I didn't think of it quite that way then; I just wanted to get a chance to try out lecturing and all.

I had some good mentors in grad school, but I think they all figured we'd sink or swim giving a lecture, and I'm not as easy about that with my mentor. Of course, s/he isn't in grad school, and hasn't had time at the front of the classroom other than in the normal student presentation way, so maybe it's reasonable to be a little more controlling?

But it really does make me think about how controlling I tend to be in the classroom, because stepping back and letting someone else take control is really difficult for me!

Loud

I had a student in my office today whose voice was just incredibly loud and piercing. We were going over some stuff, and it got to the point that I didn't want to ask him/her a question because I didn't want the voice sounding.

I never know whether this is something I should mention to a student. I tend not to, because maybe I'm just over-sensitive right now for some reason, but then I wonder if other people will also find the voice problematic, and maybe it would be better if the student learned to modulate a little.

While I ponder that, I'm going to eat a couple Advil. My brain feels like it's been pierced through the ears. :(

Venting

Sometimes, I just want to vent. Sometimes, I want to yell.

Staple your papers.

Write your surname on your work before you turn it in.

Don't just stuff late work in my box or turn it in with the next day's pile of quizzes.

Take notes, and bring your notes to class.

I can't help the fact that you missed an in-class activity, nor can I think of a way for you to make up the work because it depends on other students working with you, and they've already done their part.

The list goes on. (And you should probably mentally add some expletives.)

The thing is, from a student's point of view, these are silly to get worked up about. Who cares is someone forgets to staple an essay. Really. What does it really matter?

And it's not like there are that many Jasons in the class, so why does the surname have to be there?

People forget stuff, and why should it really matter if something is turned in a day late? It's not like the prof has graded them all already.

I was sick, and had to miss class. Why can't I make it up.


And, of course, if there were one of these things at a time, it would be easier not to get worked up. If I only had one student who didn't staple work, I wouldn't care nearly as much. Sure, I could figure out if the pages got out of order, because really, how long does it take to read that one essay? What's fifteen minutes?

But I don't just have one student who hasn't stapled, or one Jason turning in work. I don't have just one student missing class to worry about, but 20-30 other people in the same class who didn't miss, and who want to go on with the next step. And it's a pain to try to keep track of 70+ peoples' work when it gets turned in at different times/places and gets into different piles.

And now I have to go off to an afternoon's schedule of meetings.

Deep breath, now, deep breath!

The Where Were You When Meme

I've been seeing this around, at Inside the Philosophy Factory, New Kid on the Hallway, and Anastasia's place.

1.) Challenger space shuttle exploded (1986): I was working at a mutual fund company, taking orders over the phone, and one of the other order clerks in the big room with me was on the phone with a broker who was watching out his window, so we heard third hand pretty darned quick. I remember later being amazed by Richard Feynman's argument about the o-ring problem as a cause.

2.) Berlin Wall falls down (1989): (November) I barely noticed. The world had pretty much crashed down (or tried) a month earlier, and I was still dealing. I was also doing a semester of observation in a composition classroom as part of my certificate program, so I had a lot on my mind.

3.) Oklahoma City federal building bombing (1995): I remember driving home, hoping that people in the US wouldn't jump to conclusions and start attacking Muslims (or presumed Muslims). I was also finishing up my dissertation, so I wasn't paying much attention other than that.

4.) OJ Verdict (1995): Did I mention that I was finishing my dissertation in 1995?

5.) Princess Diana dies (1997): I was pulling an all nighter grading, and CNN was on, so they started reporting it in the middle of the night and I was grading and watching. I never really got why she was so important to people who never even met her. I still don't.

6.) Columbine massacre (1999): I'm obviously totally self-centered. I was in the midst of finishing up at one job, moving (twice in two months), and getting ready to go to a new city and job. (And the word "massacre" seems so wrong for these murders. I think of "massacre" as more genocidal, I guess.)

7.) JFK Jr. Plane crash (1999): My dad died the next morning, so I don't think I even noticed the news in any real way. Some guy I never met died, and my Dad died. I know which had more of my attention.

8.) Bush/Gore crazy election (2000): Pure frustration.

9.) September 11, (2001): When I woke up in the morning, NPR was reporting that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, but it sounded like an accident. So I went to work, and was teaching. When I finished teaching my class, I went back to the department where someone had pulled an old TV into the break room, and people were gathered around. We watched the rest, pretty much in collective horror. Then when I went to teach my next class, everyone knew and we pretty much talked about our reactions.

10.) Space ship Columbia disintegrates (2003): This one didn't impact me hugely. I don't know what I was busy on.

11.) Hurricane Katrina hits (2005): This one was big. I know some people in the area, and I was really worried about them. I found out they were okay, so I was hugely relieved for them, but really stressed about the difficulties in getting people out, and then thinking about the levees and the wetlands and such.


Okay, so they should have started this with JFK's assassination. I actually don't remember that, but my first real memory is watching the funeral, specifically watching JFK, Jr. saluting, and my Mom explaining that his dad had been our president and had been killed, so he was sad. I was pretty little, but it made an impact on me. At the time, my Dad was vice-president of a small family business, and having no sense of scale, I worried for a while that my Dad would be shot, too.

The Native American occupation of Alcatraz should be there. Very important at the time, at least from my tiny point of view. Oddly, I don't remember any of the moon shots at all.

They should also have put the end of the Vietnam conflict in this. I remember that being so big and important. It was important to my family. Also Nixon's resignation. Oh, yeah, that was BIG!

The other public events that impacted me were the assassinations of John Lennon (1980), George Moscone, and Harvey Milk (November 1978). The assassination of Leo Ryan at the Jonestown massacre (900 plus people makes a massacre in my mind, I guess, November 1978) should be there. I can remember exactly where I was when I read about these in the morning papers. (That November of 1978 was pretty overwhelming and scary.)

Better or Worse

Imagine, for a moment, you're on a diet. Which is worse for the diet, bourbon or malt balls? (Does it depend on the type of diet?)


I like to think I'm a reasonably reasonable person. But about some things, I'm not. And, pathetically, I recognize that I'm not, but it doesn't help me be more reasonable, really. I can make up totally BS reasons, knowing they're BS, and really, knowing the real reasons, which aren't reasonable at all, and which are too stupid to admit to.

Sometimes, I feel like my body betrays me (or betrays itself, myself?). Lately, that's been mostly about the whole being middle-aged thing, which always ties in nicely with the unreasonable things. But not only.

A while back, I read about a program to help people get fit with push ups. They're good for core strength and upper body strength, and both would be good for my biking (and other things, too). So, finally, a couple weeks ago I started the program. I'm in such bad upper-body shape though, that I couldn't do a push up. I couldn't even do a push up from my knees. Nope, I had to start by using my futon frame (about four inches off the ground) and my knees. So double whuss push ups, you understand. And on the initial test, I could do three. Double whuss push ups and only three.

After the first week, I was able to switch to doing knee push ups, so that was an improvement.

So I did my end of the second week test, and in order to move up to the week three schedule, I'm supposed to be able to do at least 16 push ups at a time. I can't.

So I have to repeat week 2. I managed 11 knee push ups for the test, which is a big improvement over the pre-test, but, still, I'm disappointed in myself. And I still can't do a single regular push up.

Dramatic Despair

I haven't taught the drama course here in a good long time. I generally like teaching drama, but right now, I'm not enjoying the Greek stuff at all. It reads like closet drama to me. Nothing happens, and we spend endless speechifying recounting what happens offstage.

I'm not a lover of closet drama. Yeah, I tried teaching The Tragedy of Miriam, and I was lousy at it.

True confession: I passed my eyes over Samson Agonistes ONCE, and prayed that it wouldn't appear on my orals because I knew I'd fail if it did. Happily, it didn't. It is oddly tempting to wonder where I might be now, had it appeared and had I failed as a result. Somewhere warm, I hope. (This isn't a knock on Milton, either. As a grad student, I sat in on two undergrad classes to "fill in" for stuff I'd never taken classes in, and one of them was a Milton class, and let me tell you, it was chewy, yummy, fascinating stuff. Heck, I'd sit in on it again with the same prof if given the opportunity.)

I need something really smart and good to say about Greek stuff, because at the rate I'm going, a couple Quem Queritis tropes would seem lively and exciting.

On the Other Side of the Job Market Campus Visit

I think I've mentioned being involved in a search over in Underwater Basketweaving, right? So, campus visits coming up. As a member of the committee, even a fairly tangential member, I'm one of the "hosts" for things.

The visit is basically two days, and here's what my part of the schedule looks like, according to the email I got:

First 24 hours: 9+ hours in candidate's presence, or responsible for candidate getting from one place to another, etc.

Second 24 hours: 4+ hours of responsibility.

I'm exhausted just thinking about it. And I'm NOT the chair! I haven't been responsible for making the arrangements (other than one thing), for making sure everyone in whatever office or department is up on things. Nope, I'm the outsider.

I also feel sorry for the candidate, because the idea of being in MY presence for 9 hours in 24 pretty much makes me want to run out of the room. (Though actually, I counted in times when the candidate will be meeting with someone else and I've walked them over or will need to walk them back, because things are confusing on campus, and having a candidate get lost might not make them want to come work here.)

Of course, on campus visits are pretty much an endurance hell test, and we all know it, and I hope we all try to be kind about it. Remember, candidates must be fed regularly and given an opportunity to drink and use the restroom with reasonable frequency!

And underwater basketweaving, I must confess, is something that doesn't spark my interest to quite the extent that, say, Shakespeare does. Or poetry. Or a host of other good stuff. It's not bad or boring in and of itself, but my ability to really focus on a job talk about isn't going to be what it could be for Shakespeare. Still and all, there's a nice possibility that we'll hire an outstanding colleague for UB, and that will benefit us across campus!

We could take bets on how quickly I'll put my foot in my mouth and ask about something that reveals my total naivety about underwater basketweaving. You know, I'll ask if they can use tule or something, and the whole room will stop to gasp and stare. Or I'll say something I shouldn't about how much I hate the weather, and the candidate will decide that s/he can't bear the idea of such a whiny colleague. And the the basketweaver types will be mad at me, and wonder why they asked me of all the idiots available to be on their search.

***

It's 6:53pm according to my computer, and I'm wondering if I can be in bed and by 7:15, and if I do, is it even minimally possible that I'll wake up in time to finish grading some papers for tomorrow morning's class?

Quiz Time

What poem did I teach in class today?








(I showed this to a colleague, and he showed me his drawing of a Wordsworth poem. And a Blake poem. From our drawings, it's quite obvious why we're not teaching art.)

Meeting Matters

I went to an important meeting yesterday. We did some of our business, and then, because our first presenter wasn't yet there, saw a presentation from another group, and talked about their thing. Then the first presenter appeared, and finally gave his presentation.

He read his handout aloud to us. Seriously, he read his handout aloud. There's probably a hundred years worth of advanced degrees around the table, and he read his handout aloud.

And then we were asked to make suggestions. Someone suggested that point A might make more sense if it were revised as [revision suggestion that made sense]. Our presenter nodded seriously and said, "yes, that's been mentioned to me."

That was the basic pattern a few more times. It was clear, that although these things had been syggested to our presenter, he hadn't actually done the revisions. Nor was he willing to say, "Yes, that's been suggested, and here's why I haven't made the change."

Then the presenter wanted our endorsement for his thing so he could take it on to the next group.

And I said, no, I'd like to see the revisions come before us, first. Shocking, aren't I?

Because clearly, he wasn't actually interested in what we were saying, or in revising the work. He wasn't really even listening. He was just doing that administrative dance where someone pretends to get feedback from the staff and faculty, and then does whatever he'd already planned anyway, without including any of the staff or faculty ideas.

I'm tired.

Negotiating Spaces

Increasingly, our classrooms are set up with a white board across the front of the room, and in front of that, in, say, the position of an altar, is a large "teaching station" set up so that someone can stand and look at a computer monitor. The computer, a nearby document camera, or other media thingy can be projected onto a big screen. About half of the screens are fixed in place, and about half can be pulled down or rolled up.

Sounds great, but when you sit down in the room, you realize that from any seated position (much lower than the "station"), the "teaching station" effectively blocks about one third of the board. It blocks a different third for some students than others, making about 2/3rds of the board space pretty ineffective.

And, of course, the "teaching stations" are tethered in place at the bottom by an umbilical cord of electronic connection things, so they can't be moved much more than two feet in any direction.

Ugh. Bad planning.

I write on the board a lot. Mostly, what I write is prompted by student questions, so I'm trying to respond at a given moment to a question with an illustrative bit of verse, a drawing, words, whatever. If I could see into the future, I could probably prepare powerpoints, but since I really try to make class responsive to student questions and issues, I'd have to make a ton of powerpoints and then sift through them, and hope I'd pre-prepared for every possible student question about every possible thing. But I can't see into the future, so I don't.

I've taken to using the document cam, but now I have to remember to take un-lined paper in and a thicker pen, because otherwise it's pretty unreadable.

I don't know how else to solve things, but planning for a less obtrusive "teaching station" and more board space would make me happier, for sure.

Groundhog

I would celebrate the idea of having only six more weeks of winter. CELEBRATE! PARTEEE!

I think we upper midwest folks ought to get a second day, say on April 1, which would predict whether winter would go on for another six weeks, or seven. Unfortunately, I'm not joking.

As it is, I have no hope for six weeks from now being other than miserably cold.

I tried to go out skiing after work, because it looked sort of clear and the campus web thing said it was about 8F. What I missed what how nasty the wind is. When I got home after falling on the ice (on my tush, ouch!), and sort of sliding around out there for a few minutes, I checked and it's minus 10 wind chill. Okay, so there are supposedly some problems with the way they figure "wind chill." Let me say, it was windy enough that my fingers started hurting right away and didn't stop until I was in the grocery store for five minutes rubbing them. And that was after "skiing" for about 10 minutes.

And stupidly, I had on my thin rather than my thick long johns. Yes, I have multiple long johns.

I hate being cold. We had a really nice day on Saturday, above 40 and everything, and I had all the hope of the moment, and now it's crushed again.

Between my sore tush and my cold hands, I seriously thought about getting something I shouldn't at the grocery store. It was tempting.

Do you ever just feel like winter will never end, and you'll never be warm? That's how I feel today. It's amazing how the cold can suck the happiness right out. And I had a good day teaching, too, but I walked back into the cold and it sucked the joy away and left me wanting to run away south, very far south, equatorial south, rain forest south!

Okay, enough whining. One of the things that's fun about teaching is that you get challenged to think on your feet all the time. Today, in my writing class, I needed a "you could write your essay about this" sample topic, and someone chose those square cheese crackers whose name you all know, and cooking with them. So then we brainstormed about writing an essay about that, and bubble-mapped it on the board by way of example. And it was fun to laugh at all the ways we could think of to use those crackers in food.

But then I went outside, and the cold sucked the silliness away. Stupid groundhog.

Ding!

I used to play Everquest. Everquest is a role playing game, an on-line one, with lots of other people playing at the same time. There are lots of these sorts of games around, sort of a computer, on-line with lots of people reworkings of the old Dungeons & Dragons games.

Key to all these games that I've ever played (an embarrassingly large number) is leveling. The idea is that you start out at level one, with certain minimal abilities and a very low life expectancy, and then as you play and kill DM or computer-spawned "bad guys" or beasties or whatever, you gain experience and get better at your skills. As the experience builds, you gain levels, eventually becoming level whatever is the max, if you play long enough. And levels gives you a lot more abilities and a lot more survivability.

One of the satisfying (and addicting) things about leveling is that you have a real sense of accomplishing something, a sense that you've improved and have more capabilities. Sometimes there are special "privileges" for folks of different levels, a last name or a title for your avatar/character, for example.

In Everquest, when you gain a level, the game sends a big and unique "ding!" sound, and it's quite common in groups and such for someone to say "ding!" when they level, and then everyone around congratulates them.

There are few times as an adult that I really have a sense of "leveling" or getting significantly better at something. Yeah, I earned a phud, and that represents a boatload of hard work, and yes, part of that hard work included finishing a significant original research project. And I think I'm a way better instructor and scholar now than I was before I finished the phud. It's helpful for employment, for sure. Getting tenure is better than nice, but I don't think I'm a better teacher because I have tenure (though I have more other responsibilities). But other than that, feeling like I'm getting significantly better at something is a pretty rare thing.

I went skiing yesterday afternoon and this afternoon, and it felt a little different, like I dinged to level 2 in cross-country skiing. I can pick up my feet a little better, and feel a little less awkward. I can bend my legs a little better. I can ski a little longer without feeling like I want to stop and just stand there.

I'm really glad that I don't have to face any orcs on skis, though. Seriously glad. It would be CR time, and I don't know any 56 or clicky stick clerics IRL.