The Hard Part

So that's a lie, because it implies there's an easy part to writing, and I've never found that.

This writing workshop has been stellar, though.  No one else came today, but here I am, sitting in the library, spread over a desk, and it's been stellar.  Okay, so I know right now I'm not actually writing on my paper.  Still, it's been a real help.

Yesterday, my colleague (I should give him a name, Writing Guy it is!), Writing Guy peer edited my paper, just pretty much like we were at the writing center as usual.  I admit I'm really anxious, but I like him well enough, and he seems a decent, humane person, so I trusted that he wouldn't trash me or my work.  And no, he didn't.  But he gave me lots of great feedback and ideas for improving on what I've got.

I spent much of this morning working on revising the introductory section to really give strong context and make it work better for the journal I want to submit it to.  Now I'm taking a short break from that (after turning on my computer to type in what I'd written, and thus opening up all too many internet possibilities).  And then, well, I think I should do more, but really I want to go home and mow my overgrown lawn before it gets MORE overgrown or starts raining again.

Here are my big "discoveries": 
1)  I like to spread out when I write.  I need to come to the library more so I can spread out.
2)  I actually write new stuff better by hand, at least in initial drafting, and then revise slightly when I type it in.  That's how I wrote my dissertation and most papers, but I somehow forgot that and tried to just type and write at the same time.  That may work for the blog, but not for stuff where I'm trying to put together a larger argument.
3)  I found it helpful to feel like I'd said "I'll be here" to the writing workshop, because I actually am here, and each day I've gotten at least a decent chunk of work done.  At the same time, I really feel like I want to be outside when it's nice and garden and ride my bike.

So, I need to balance coming to the library and sitting just with my ms and a pad of paper and whatever text resources with playing outside.

And now, I'm off to play outside!

Our Part of the Structural Problem

I've been thinking about some of the post-academic blogs I've seen.

I'm supportive of people who choose to not go to grad school, leave grad school, leave academics after grad school, or leave academics at whatever time.  I think folks should pursue their happiness in whatever way they want (with the respect for other people, golden rule sort of caveat).

That said, these blogs and the responses sound pretty angry.  It makes sense that their angry.  I get that.  But I also feel like there's a lot of anger directed at folks like me: people who managed to get a tenure track job, and especially those who've gotten tenure (as I have).  And I'm not sure I get that.  Or maybe I'm just really uncomfortable with that.

I've been thinking, and I can see a lot of ways that people at PhD producing programs might be more helpful, especially by recognizing the value of non-academic work, by helping grad students prepare for a variety of potential jobs (or supporting a career center that will help with preparation), and by encouraging grad students and graduates to pursue what makes them happy.  I also think that they might work to reduce the number of students accepted to graduate programs, though this isn't totally unproblematic. (see Note 1)

What about those of us at regional universities and colleges, or less than elite SLACs?  What are people like me supposed to do to contribute to a solution or make things less abusive?

Yes, I think most of us advise students that grad school is no brass ring and so forth, and the students who really want to go to grad school want to go and do go, and I'm okay with that.  They should do what they want as long as they have basic information about the toughness of the job market and such.

Beyond that?

Someone might suggest that everyone in my department should take a pay cut and use the extra money to hire an adjunct to a tenure track position.  But that's not realistic.   (Note 2)

What about converting adjuncts to TT jobs?
We just don't have the money to fill the tenure lines we have open because no one would come for the money available, and the administration won't give us more because the legislature is making more cuts.  Again.

Hiring?
I think we do a pretty good job hiring.  We usually tenure folks we hire unless they take another job, which they sometimes do, since we're in flyover country, don't pay well, etc.  But when we get 100+ applicantions for a position, and 50 of them are pretty much qualified, then that's still 49 people who won't have our job.  (Though at least one candidate is likely to have turned us down in favor of another job, too.)


So I don't know what folks like me are supposed to do.  But I do know that there are a lot of folks like me at non-PhD granting universities.  And I think a lot of the anger is directed at everyone in a TT position, but it seems mis-aimed at those of us at non-PhD granting schools.



Note 1:  In my grad department, if they'd reduced my incoming class from 28 to 20--if I recall the number correctly--, for example, they'd have probably done it by eliminating the opportunities those of us from non-elite undergrad backgrounds.  There were maybe four of us from public universities, and I'm guessing only one would have been in.  The other three, probably not.  That includes me.  I think grad programs should accept more, not fewer, students from non-elite undergrad programs.  I'm clearly biased about this.

Note 2: My university has just done a couple levels of equity raises (this year) to try to staunch the bleed of faculty leaving for other jobs because it costs more to hire a brand new TT faculty member and convince them to come here than it does to keep an associate prof with tenure. (This is a place that hasn't had cost of living raises or any other raises apart from promotions for a long while, and that has had pay cuts already via benefit losses.) That is to say, my university can't always convince the candidates it wants to hire to come here for what we can offer.  (And often enough, if a faculty member leaves, that tenure-line is empty for more than a year, and sometimes lost altogether.)

Doesn't Feel Like Summer

It's been great, but it doesn't feel like summer.  I'm more relaxed than during the semester, but not feeling the summer yet.  I think it's a combination of things.

First, every morning and into early afternoon, I've been doing the writing workshop.  It's great, and I've made real progress on this paper.  (Seriously, this is huge for me.)  But it means I'm spending from 9:30 to 2:30 basically working on this paper or another that I'm fomenting.  (Well, except right now I've lost focus, so I'm blogging.  Actually, a fair bit of today has been a bust.)

Still, it reminds me more than anything of my grad time spent just going to a library (I worked extensively in three different library spaces writing my dissertation: a campus library, a local public library, and a special collections sort of library.  All three were GREAT!) and working. 

I should remember and do this even without a workshop.  for one thing, I'm spread all over a table.  You might be able to fit someone else's work on one corner, but otherwise, I've pretty much colonized this huge big library table.  (There are plenty of other tables, and not many people, so it's fine.)  I remember how much I like colonizing a table and working intensely for a couple of hours.  I need to remember and do that more regularly.  I'm much better at working this way than I am working at home or in my work office for some reason.

Second, there are all these other things I feel I need to do.  I'm taking on a departmental thingy next year, and it's a little scary because it's a big responsibility, but I think I'll do a good job.  Still, I feel like I want to get organized up front so I don't need to worry about that part of it.

My garden is nuts and I want to spend time, but I haven't been because of the other things. 

Among the other things, my young relative sent me a paper and editing instructions from hir teacher, so I spent several hours reading and responding to the paper.  I'm impressed by the teacher's instructions, which seem quite good, especially if they're intended for parents and such who aren't much practiced in reading school essays.  And I think my young relative's writing has improved in nice ways this year.  Still, it was several hours this morning reading and responding to the work.  (My young relative is, like most teens, not always quite as communicative as one might wish.  I'm not sure when the paper is due, so I wanted to not be the thing that would cause my young relative to be late or stressed about lateness.)

I'm leaving town for 10 days on Sunday.  That's good, but it's also stressful.  I'm going to get together with college pals one day, but will mostly spend time with my Mom doing a variety of things.  So it's great.  But it also comes in what will be my first real free week to do summer stuff here. 

I'd like a couple days where I just don't have to do anything.  But then I probably wouldn't get anything done of the many things I need/want to get done.

Now, back to work on this paper.

Edited to add:  You know what's, well, frustrating (among many other things)?  I can write intensely for a couple hours, and really feel like I've put in work and energy, and then I got to type what I've written into the revisions for the paper, and it takes all of 3 minutes to type in.  Seriously, I've spent a couple hours and gotten what, two or three paragraphs revised.  Sigh.

Workshop

Our new writing center guru rocks.  Zie made whatever arrangements, and then sent out an invitation to faculty to do a writing workshop.  Basically, anyone who wants to goes over all this week from morning til early afternoon to work on whatever they want to work on, with support from the writing center.

It's a great way to get a start on summer writing projects.  I made some decent progress on one today, so that's good.

I'm really happy that zie is trying to make the writing center work for faculty as well as students.  Very neat!

Missing

I've been a grading demon, and they're all done.

Except. 

Gah!

My final exams involve two bluebooks.  One is for the open book/open note essay section of the exam, the other for the no book or notes short ID and passages section. 

So I have a bluebook for one section from a student, but not for the other section of the exam.

Did the student not do it?  It's possible.  This student is pretty, well, not always totally on top of academic things.

Or did it fall out of the pile in my sunroom (where I was grading) or car?

So now I have to go home and double check those places before I can turn in grades for the class.

My victory lap around the department can't happen until I know, and then I won't be here.  So phooey!

Still, the grading is DONE for the semester!

Let the summer begin!  (More on exciting summer plans soon.)

Good luck to all of you still grading.  Congratulations to graduating students!  Congratulations to my colleagues who are graduating, too!  (That's what I call retiring, how about you?)

Now for a short office clean up so that I can find what I want to find for summer stuffs.

Next up:

Summer project #1
Planning class for our intro class and ordering books!
Reading lots!

Next semester, I'll be teaching two new classes and one I haven't taught since 2004.  So it might as well be new.

For now, summer begins!

Finals Week Revelation(s)

Our first year writing course has several required components these days.  One of them is a self-evaluation that each student writes about his or her progress towards the course goals.  These are pretty fun to read (and quick, since they turned them in during the final, and won't get them back unless they ask to at some point).

Naturally, everyone felt that they'd accomplished all the course goals. 

I found it really interesting that about a third of them mentioned freewriting, most to say that they hated it and found it valuable at the same time.  I totally understand that.  I know when I ask them to do it (and I have them do it a lot in classes) they tend not to like it.  But it's nice to see a number of them look back and write that it was actually useful.  They also tended to acknowledge that they'd never do it on their own.  I wonder if even one of them will use it to get started on a writing project at some point in the future?  Some also mentioned bubble mapping and other brainstorming practices, and some readings, even.

(I've probably blogged about this before, but when I was in grad school, teaching comp with the army of grad students, one of us down in our cubby filled basement was talking about hir difficulty with writing block.  And I asked, because I'm rude enough to ask, if zie had tried freewriting.  No, zie said, zie hadn't.  So I asked if zie didn't teach freewriting in hir comp class, and yes, of course zie did.  But zie had never figured out or become convinced that it might actually be useful to hirself.  I became a convert to freewriting within a couple weeks of learning about it, and it helps me write whatever I write, not enough, but it helps!)

Of course, there's always the chance that my students are just kissing up.  But if so, they shouldn't mention how much they hate it!

I now have left to grade: 
1 set of finals
1 set of finals (partially graded)
3 (I think) late papers

I figure at least five hours of work (including submitting grades). 

My dog, I hate late papers to grade.  You think you've made it through, and some student hands you yet another thing to grade.  I wonder how they'd feel if I said at the last minute, oh, here's another assignment you need to do before you can be done? 

They'd hate it. 

Of course, the late papers come from a handful of students, and often because someone got ill or something.

***

I have this fleece jacket that I love.  It's warmish, and fleecy, and loose enough to go over three or four layers, and it has outside AND inside pockets.  It's probably closer to 20 years than to 15 years old.  I wear it pretty much all the time, or did, until this fall and winter, the zipper stopped working.  So I wore another jacket, which was a bit less warm and didn't have inside pockets (I need inside pockets for my reading glasses, among other things).  But I somehow always felt just a little too busy to figure out where to get the zipper replaced.

Until, finals week.  It's the time to get stuff taken care of, especially if doing that means avoiding grading.

So I called and checked, and found an alterations place that replaces zippers, and they said I should bring in a zipper, since they might not have the right size/color in stock.  So I went to the sewing store and looked pathetic, and the nice saleswoman helped me find the right size/color of zipper.  Then I asked her about the best alterations place she could suggest (because she would know, right?) and she and another saleswoman suggested this other place.  So I went there.

And when I got there, the alteration woman took a look at my demonstration of what was wrong and said that I just needed a new pull thingy, and withing about five minutes, I had a perfectly working new pull thingy on a perfectly working new zipper! 

Now I'm feeling stupid that I waited so long.

***

And last week, my OLD laptop died.  Fortunately I'd been having problems with it for a while, so I'd pulled pretty much everything important off onto a flash drive and put it elsewhere.  So at least I'm not losing anything vital that way.  I took it into the shop today, in hopes they can fix it.  (I don't use it much for computing, but mostly for watching DVDs and playing an OLD computer game.  

***

My bike took me out for a ride yesterday, and it was glorious!  I only went on a local bike path (so pretty flat), but it felt just great.  But the shifting had felt sloppy (the rear shifting), so now it's in the shop getting a rusty cable replaced.  The bike ride totally changed my day for the better.  I mean, I was feeling pretty good, and finished giving my final.  I debated trying to grade through, take a nap, or go for a ride, and I chose a ride.  Then I went home and had the best nap.  So I went from feeling pretty good to feeling really, amazingly, wonderfully good.  I think that bike's about the best investment I ever made.

***

About seven or eight weeks ago, I decided to try the 100 pushups thing again.  I tried it a long time ago, and didn't really do it after a week.  So I tried again. 

I want to admit right up front that I'm an overweight, middle-aged woman who could barely do 2 knee pushups in the initial test thing.  I did "day 1" for a week, and day 2 for just as long.  But I progressed.  I'm now on "week 4" and have been on the first day of that for a couple days, just barely able to do the day's pushups.  But still, that means I've gone from barely being able to do 2 in a row (knees pushups) to being able to do 20 at a time (in the self-test) and now the day's set is 12, 14, 11, 10, 16 (you're supposed to do at least 16, and more if you can, but I can't).  And I can do it, if barely, and using the knee push up method.   I'll be doing this day at least another day or two.

I still can't do a proper toe push up, though I think I'm getting close.  I'm thinking of using a prop about six inches off the ground to see if I can do them that way, and restart the program once I can do a full bunch from the knees.  (Or maybe mix?  I just know that I want to try to keep going until I can do some actual push ups.)

The program adds push ups faster than my body seems able to, but since I seem to be slowly improving, I'm trying to keep my hopes up.

***

And now it's time to grade.  I have until early next week to turn in grades, but I'm hoping to finish by Saturday.  There's an exciting thing starting on Monday, so I'll be talking about that, too!

MOOCs and Power: Gender and Imperialism

Historiann has a really insightful guest post up today by Susan Amussen and Allyson Poska about MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses).  It's well worth your reading if you haven't already.

And here's a helpful contextual piece with a cogent critique suggested by Jonathan Rees of More or Less Bunk (who has blogged about taking a MOOC and blogged critically and well about MOOCs).


(In other news, I need to grade.  Of course, if I were teaching a MOOC, I could depend on my students to grade each others' papers and give appropriate and critical responses.  I've now handed back the papers with comments to each class, and now just have a couple of late papers and two sets of finals to grade.  If I were teaching a MOOC, I could just have them all take a multiple guess exam via computer and the grading would be automatic and already done.)

Need Focus

Some of the academic bloggers I read are now into their summer work, others, like me, are in grading slog.  I think some others are still in teaching mode.

I'm not doing well at the grading slog right now.  I'm finding it hard to stay focused and get things done as I need to.

As of last Friday, I had 63 papers and projects of various lengths to grade.   Of those, 31 had to be graded by today.  The rest need to be graded by tomorrow morning.  I now have 15, I think.  The ones for today are all done.

There's a point with any sort of paper that I'm just tired of reading them.  If they were all superb papers, I would still be tired of pushing through them, trying to grade and respond in some useful way.

It may seem to people who aren't grading that it shouldn't be that hard.  How hard is it, after all, to read a couple of hundred pages of a book, even a scholarly book?

If I don't have to prepare to teach it, I can cruise through a fiction text pretty quickly.  I suppose if I didn't have to think about how I was going to use it or take notes, I could cruise through scholarly texts reasonably quickly, too.  But it seems that I'm pretty much always thinking about how I can use them in classes or research, taking notes, trying to synthesize and put things together, and that slows me down a good bit.  It also means I can't just read when I'm tired because I won't retain enough.

Grading reading is more short term for me.  I have to be able to retain what I'm reading long enough to write a helpful comment, but not longer.  On the other hand, I also have to figure out how to formulate a helpful comment.  If something's brilliant, that's not too hard.  You talk about the best points and how good they are, maybe make a specific suggestion to help make something better.  For lousy stuff, it's harder.

You know how in pedagogy classes folks are always talking about leading with a positive comment?   Sometimes it's really difficult to say anything positive, especially if the writer hasn't really done the assignment or turned in something that gets anywhere near the assignment.

For middling papers, experience has taught me that if I give something a B and lead with a really positive statement, I have to be pretty careful to balance it with at least one specific suggestion for improvement.  Otherwise, I'll inevitably get a student coming up to me wanting to know where s/he "lost points."  I hate the "lost points" discussion.  You didn't lose points.   You didn't earn the points in the first place to have them to lose.

Break is over.  I have a final to give in an hour, and should be able to grade three or four essays in that time.  So I need to try to get a couple more graded before that, and then my evening will be manageable.

Please send focus.

Lacunae

We discussed Chaucer's retraction yesterday, and it got me thinking about the Book of the Lion it mentions, but which modern scholars, at least, don't know.  I wonder if it's a version of Ywain, the Knight of the Lion?  Or something?

And then I got to thinking about other famous unknown texts.  There's Cardenio and Love's Labours Found.

How about it?  What other famous unknown texts are there?


And then, of course, that brings us to the unfinished projects, like Spenser's last 6 books of The Faerie Queene.  I'm not sure I really regret that Spenser didn't finish the project (or the projected next 12 books, either). 

I'm not sure if The Canterbury Tales is finished or not.  I'd love a few more tales.  But I'm not sure that a whole trip's back worth of tales wouldn't be just too overwhelming.

So, finished or unfinished?  Other unfinised projects?

Look on my works, ye Mighty...

and despair.

Moving On

A colleague I like and respect a good deal is moving on to a better position.  It's not, perhaps, an ideal position, but it's a good move for my colleague.

I hope zie loves the new position and that the new employer treats hir like the gem zie is.

It's difficult, isn't it, seeing a great colleague move somewhere that's better for them.  I mean, I had my fingers crossed that this colleague would get a great job offer, was wishing for the very best for hir.  And yet at the same time, I'm sad to be losing the close proximity and collegiality.

I'm not in any of the decision making loops, but I sure wish those who were had seen fit to make a competing offer.  Alas, apparently not.

I'm both elated for my colleague and bummed for me.

Bartleby

I'm at that point in the semester when my preferred response to pretty much every thing would be "I prefer not."

Bardiac, you need to be at this really important meeting to discuss stuff for a committee you won't be on next year.  "I prefer not."

Bardiac, there's a special student event you need to go to.  "I prefer not."

And so on.

It's not that I don't go to my share of "special student events."  I do.  Last week, I spent maybe four hours at special student stuffs.  They were good hours, but they were hours when I wasn't prepping or grading or doing committee work or doing other work, none of which doesn't also need to get done.

All of these special student things are important to the students involved.  I know that.  But they also sometimes feel like I'm watching the clubhouse of mutual congratulations.  This goes doubly for a certain faculty person who will not stop talking or trying to run things despite being retired.


I noticed yesterday that I had a headlight out, so I went to the car mechanic to get it replaced.  He opened it up, pulled the bulb, and off he went.  A moment later he came back to tell me that they'd replaced a bulb in another car that didn't quite need replacing, and they didn't actually have a new bulb, but they'd put the used bulb in mine, and didn't charge me.  But he also noticed that the dye he'd put in the air conditioning system had indeed leaked, so that would need work at some point if I want to run the a/c.  And worst of all, he pointed out some areas where the insulation looked like mice had been at it, which isn't that horrible, except that if mice are after your car's insulation, they may also be heading for the wiring, and repairing wiring gets VERY expensive.  So he suggested I put a couple of moth balls in the compartment, and that might drive the mice away.

I stopped at the hardware store and bought a box of moth balls, and put five on each side of the compartment, closed the hood, and went in, closing the garage door.  And within a little while, the whole area began to smell of moth balls.  Bleargh.  So I went back, took all but four of the moth balls out, put the moth ball box in a plastic bag, and closed the hood again, this time leaving the garage door open.  I left it open til fairly late, but you could still smell the moth balls in the garage pretty well in the morning.  I hope the mice run away. 

I think I need to clean the garage and make sure that anything that could be food for mice is gone, and that anything that could be nesting material is also gone.  (The food, well, I did put some dead marigolds in there over the winter, so I moved them out.  Now I have to get rid of hiding places, too.)

It's always something.  Though I would prefer not.

Automatic F

For anyone who uses the word "bard" when they're not writing about really early texts.  Double F for anyone who uses the words "immortal" and "bard" in the same sentence.

For misuse of "irony."

What are the things that make you want to write the old one legged A?

Text o' the Day

I drew this in class today.  What was I teaching?

This post brought to you by the word "sweat."

Lesson from the Humanities

Literature provides myriad examples of people and cultures at war or in fights, often to the death.  It's pretty clear from most of these examples that people are capable of great hatred, cruelty, and violence.  In literature, those are pretty common and, for want of a better word, acceptable.  We don't think less of epic characters for thoroughly killing their enemies.

That changes the moment the enemy is dead, however.  At that point, we see a split.

There are characters in literature who, once the enemy is dead, stop and allow whatever funerary rites are culturally appropriate, either doing these rites themselves, or allowing the dead characters family or people to perform them.  Consider, for example, Hal in 1 Henry IV, treating Hotspur's dead body with respect.  It's one sign that Hal has what it takes to be a real king (in an age of violence).  Compare that to the ways people on stage react to the reported mutilation of the bodies of the English by the Welsh women at the beginning of the play.  Think then of how vile Falstaff becomes in the moment when he mutilates Hotspur's body by wounding him in the thigh.

Or think of the beginning of "The Knight's Tale," when the mourning widows stop Theseus mid-march and ask him to make Creon allow them to bury their dead properly.  Theseus immediately goes to war and defeats Creon.

These examples are from earlier English lit, of course, but world lit is full of examples: one of the basic lessons from the humanities is that you treat the dead, even of your greatest enemy, with care and respect.

So when I read about the resistance to burying the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, I think about how little we (as a culture) have learned one of the basic lessons of the humanities.  (Here's a link to the Washington Post article.  In contrast, the funeral director who's taking care of the body, and his uncle  who washed and wrapped the body, these people have somehow learned that lesson.

It's not just ancient history that teaches this lesson, either.  US people get rightly mad when our dead are dragged behind trucks or mutilated, too.

I wonder when we in the US became so out of touch with basic humanity?

Special Adjuncts?

Ariel Kaminer has an article in the New York Times, "The Last Refuge from Scandal?  Professorships," about high profile political and military men (at least I think they're all men) who get hired as adjuncts to teach one class (a year?  a semester?) for some colleges.

I knew some famous folks got hired to teach classes, but I guess I thought they'd be making a whole lot more money than this article suggests.  It says, for example,

for Mr. Spitzer’s weekly seminar, which he taught from fall 2009 to spring 2012, he was paid slightly less than $5,000 a semester, which he donated to the school after other professors said it was on the high side of what adjuncts earn. Mr. Spitzer, who said he sought to make his students “both enjoy and learn how to think about questions at several different levels,” described the experience as a “huge joy, every week.”

That's high for an adjunct, certainly, but a drop in the bucket compared to what he's used to earning or earns if he takes a high level law firm job, no?

I was interested in how students found the teaching.  Here's what one student had to say about Spitzer:

One of his students, Melissa Lynch, said he was one of her best teachers and he encouraged the class to call him on his cellphone if they had questions about readings. When it came to the mechanics of running a class, however, “he didn’t really seem to know what he was doing.” The class required one writing assignment, “but he didn’t know if it should be 2 pages or 30 pages,” she said, adding, “He kept asking us, ‘What do other professors do?’ ”

I think it's telling that he didn't have a clue about how to run a class.  It's one thing to talk or lead a discussion about something you know well (and I'm guessing all these folks know their old business well, even if they made stupid mistakes to cause whatever scandal).  It's amusing that he invited them to call him on his cellphone.  I'm guessing he's not doing a 200 person lecture, eh?  Or teaching four classes at a time.

The schools inviting these folks to teach make sense; they're mostly in or near New York or some other big city, which is where these folks are likely to be living anyway.  (Yeah, it would be fun to see the Compass Point State in the Upper Midwest convince one of them to come as an adjuct.)

David Petraeus will be teaching in both New York and LA.  I'm guessing that his adjuct salary wouldn't even cover the semester's airfare in economy, and I'm guessing he doesn't fly economy.  Special arrangements?

I'm sure students are pretty excited to be taught by famous instructors.  And I'm willing to bet in some cases they're getting a really great experience.  I'm not sure that's always the case, though, and I wonder how the grades these instructors assign compare with grades in similar classes at these schools?   I'm guessing even without terminal degrees (and some of them certainly seem to have terminal degrees), their experience makes them qualified to teach within their specific areas.

It would be weird beyond belief to be in a faculty meeting with someone like that, though, wouldn't it?  I mean, we have a few sleeze cases, but they aren't sleeze cases whose sleeze has been publicized widely.

Suddenly, Green

This last snow has melted quickly, and the revealed grass and such is suddenly much greener than before.

I'm told (well, one hears on the local news and such) that when the snow first melts in early spring, the ground is really frozen and so doesn't absorb much of the water, so it runs off.  But once the ground is mostly unfrozen, then new precipitation gets absorbed much more.  So maybe the ground is all getting a nice, slow, thorough watering?

I've had my first Red-breasted Grosbeaks (two males) at the feeders, and the regulars continue, though it looks like the Juncoes are mostly gone, and I haven't seen the Tufted Titmouse around, either.  (They may find other preferred food in the area, or migrate elsewhere for breeding?)  The Orioles are really going at the oranges.  That usually changes once more native fruits become available, it seems.  Or they leave my neighborhood for actual breeding.


I'm thinking of planting an apple tree.  One of my neighbors has a couple planted (across the street and on the back side of his house).  Another neighbor is thinking of putting one in, too (a bit nearer).

The question is, how close is close enough for pollination with another tree?


Perhaps the title should have been "Suddenly, Pink"?  The second stage of the Giro is today!  The first stage was a sprint stage, which means it's mostly exciting for the last few minutes.  Today is a team time trial, which means it's really not all that exciting to watch.  (I'm sure it's pretty cool if you're there, since anywhere you are, you'd get to see teams woosh through every few minutes for a long while.)

Oriole in the Snow

I got home this afternoon a bit late.  It had been snowing all day, and it showed.

I went to take a couple of pictures on the deck.  This is a half an orange that I'd put out that morning for the house finches.    You can tell that it's got a lot of snow piled on it, but where the snow isn't, the birds had eaten a bunch of the orange.  So I cleared the snow off it, and took a couple other pictures.

This is basically the same picture I took earlier today out the back of the deck, but as you can see, there's considerably more snow, and it's heavy, wet stuff that's sticking to branches.  (Trees are falling, I've heard, and power's out in some parts of town.  Ugh.)

Then I went back out the front of the house and dug the driveway out wide enough so that I can get my car in and out.  I'd gotten it into the garage, but figured if it snowed even two or three more inches, I'd have trouble in the morning.  So to avoid that possibility, I dug out, but it was heavy stuff, so I dug a bit wider than my car rather than trying to dig the whole driveway.  It's heavy, nasty, wet snow, but it went fairly quickly.

And when I went in, this is what I saw out my back sliding glass door!

It's an oriole!  In the snow!  I put out more suet, too, and before long, I was able to see two orioles in the yard (both male), a pair of cardinals, several tufted titmice, a chickadee, a brown thrasher (I saw one earlier in the week, too), and a couple of song sparrows.  Weirdly, I didn't see the usual house finches, goldfinches, or juncoes.  (It was getting late, though, so maybe they had already eaten their fill.)

I'm pretty jazzed to see the orioles up here already!  (I made a new orange holder this year.  It's a thin piece of wood with three nails through, sticking up, screwed to a big block of wood with some nails in there on the sides to tie it down.  It seems to be working pretty well.)

Now is the Sprinter of our Discontent...

Over at Historiann's place, it's "wring."  Here, folks are calling it "sprinter."

Here's what it looks like out my back this morning.

It wasn't a lot of snow when I took this, but more is falling, and we're due for a fair bit.  (And when I say "fair bit," remember that the upper midwest doesn't usually get anything like the snow mountainous areas do.)

Still, it's May.  May.  MAY!

I like "sprinter" more than "wring" for a couple of reasons.  First, it sounds more hopeful.  Instead of wringing my hands in frustrations, I'm sprinting towards summer.  Second, it fits rhythmically into all the "winter wonderland" and other winter verse stuff.  That's important!

There's even a bit of fun to the sprinter craziness around here. 

Someone has put up a poster of a beach scene in one of the elevators, and people keep adding bits to it.  So the original poster was just there, and then there was a "Nemo" type fish, and a beach blanket, ball, and so on.  My favorite is the blue-footed boobies.  Or maybe my favorite is Adam and Eve lying together.  If you embiggen the picture, be sure to look at the white bit on the island off in the distance.

I'm sure putting up big posters in the elevator is somehow against someone's rules.  But people just keep adding, and it's been there a while, so I think the powers that be are in sympathy.

Outside my office, though, there is snow, and it's at that beautiful sticky point.

If this were January, I'd be enchanted by the way it sticks to the trees and such.  It's really beautiful in a stark winter way.

In a spring way, though, it's something all together different.

Back to grading.

This post brought to you by the letters W, T, and F.

Rays of Hope

In preparation for the final exams in my literature classes, I have students work in a variety of ways to write essay questions for the exam (there's an essay portion).  

We start by doing some thematic brainstorming in class, and then students can write questions individually, and then they work in groups to take the feedback I've given to individual questions and write questions, and so on.

It's not just that I'm lazy and don't like to think of essay exam questions.  Rather, I do this because I think students learn a lot by thinking about questions that will allow them to demonstrate that they've learned a lot over the semester.  They start putting things together, and then put them together in small groups, and so on.  (At each stage there's sharing both of their ideas and my responses, especially in terms of whether I think I could write a really good essay about it.)  So once they're putting together things across the semester, they're actually learning stuff more fully.

Anyway, in my two lit classes this semester, we're at slightly different parts of the brainstorming process, and the potential essay questions I'm seeing are really good ones.  The questions give me hope that at least a good proportion of the students are putting things together and making connections between the texts and learning something in the process!

Words Fail Me

I'm so ready for the semester to end, and I'm not the only one.  I think the whole state is in a grand funk.

And we're expecting more snow. 


I'd put some seeds in small starter planters last week, including sunflower seeds.  They were doing that sprouting and growing with the seed covering still on the initial leaf things.  (I think there's a technical term for those, and it's not quite the same as leaf.  But I can't really remember now.  I'll be sure to call at 2am when I do remember.)  Anyway, yesterday while I was home, I thought that it would be a good idea to let the new seedlings be outside so that I could transplant them once we get out of snow season.

So I put them outside.

And about half an hour later, I glanced out, and they were all gone, with just the seed coverings left.  I'm pretty sure some bird came by and got a lovely snack.  [expletives deleted]


I handed back papers today in one class.  I was feeling a little bad because several students really bombed the paper.  I was less sad when those same students didn't bother showing up for class.  And less sad still when one of the bombers complained about hir grade.  I actually used the word "crappy" to describe the work.  I could easily have used a worse word, but I was trying to be gentle.


Several students, however, did absolutely beautiful pieces of work.  Some more did good, solid work that really showed they could do good, solid work.  Sometimes, that's as good as my day gets.


Did I mention I'm ready for spring?

One of my friends was complaining about the snow on effbee, and another friend consoled by offering that we'd had good news: Summer is supposed to fall on a Saturday this year.

Please, please let it be spring and let the semester end!

Dreamy!

Text o' the Day!

Not quite stick figures, but...

Light, Camera, Spring!

It's sunny out, and the first morning I've been here to really enjoy spring feeling like spring.  It wasn't quite warm enough for coffee on the deck (though, now that I think about it, with a blanket it probably would have been fine).

I have a small patch of front yard near my mailbox where I've put crocus bulbs in a couple of years ago.  And finally, they've totally taken off.  (I should probably dig them up this fall and move some around so they don't get over crowded.)

This spot gets morning light and light through most of the day, so it's early for my yard, once the snow starts melting.

Today, because I was out and about in midmorning, the sun was playing on the colors really beautifully. 

So I took a bunch of pictures in various ways trying to capture some of the ways the light was coming through and the shadows were working.

I was out there, lying on the ground, taking photos and a guy jogged by on the other side of the street (running against traffic, except it's a cul-de-sac, so there isn't much traffic).  I didn't even realize he was there until he'd gone by, so I didn't say anything.

And then he circled around, and came back on my side, and I said hello, and he practically jumped out of his skin.  I guess he'd been focusing on his running and hadn't noticed me lying there when he ran by on the other side, and then I was sort of behind a plant and the mailbox as he came on my side.

So these are my favorite of the morning pictures.  I like the first one because it captures a sort of glow look (it's a bit more in the shade), and you can also see some of the veins in the petals.

The second one is more because it's a beautiful flower, with lovely darker coloring coming up.

The third one I like for the way you can see shadows of the stamen in one flower, and the stamens of other flowers.

The fourth one (just above and to the left), I like because the pollen on the inside petals really appeals to me.  It's like delight in disarray, perhaps, except the flower version.

And this final one just seems like such a perfect flower, and a perfect show of threes and six in the flower.

So finally, it seems to be spring, and all I want to do is go play in the garden or (when it's a bit warmer) take a bike ride.  But what I really, really need to do is grade!

Grading by the Inch

I wasn't behind, but now I have two big stacks of papers to grade.

And a thesis prospectus to work on.

And another student asked me to read and give him some feedback on a project.

I don't know which way is up, but since time is linear, things will move along and end at some point.  Hopefully, by that point, I will have turned in all the grades for the semester. 

But for now, well, put me at overwhelmed.

And secretly laughing at someone here who's a bit of a jerk for being a jerk and creepy.  They're separate, jerk and creepy, but this person is managing both.

I heard another person in a meeting today say these improbable words, "I'm looking forward to assessment."

I was rude enough to actually comment on the uniqueness of the statement aloud during the meeting.  It's obvious that I'm not administrative material, I think.

I was in another meeting this week where an administrator actually acknowledged that our [campus group] had been forcing faculty to collect a huge bunch of data and had never used it and had no intention of ever using it.  The administrator didn't, however, acknowledge that the collection of all that data might have been a waste of faculty time.

SD

Let it Rain

We have a lot of activity around here for the next several weeks.  Everything pretty much happens at once.

On Tuesday, there was a really great poetry reading.  There was another poetry reading yesterday, and another after, and also a superb concert (which is what I attended), and then another concert and a play.  And that's only the things I know about.

There's another concert today, which promises to be great.  And then tomorrow, I have dinner and theater plans with some friends.

So if I go to the concert tonight, that will be four nights out this week.  That's fine for some folks, but I'm not sure I'm going tonight. 

Next week looks just as busy, with campus research day, and all sorts of other activities.

And naturally, for all of these activities, folks expect faculty to go be supportive (or to participate in other ways).  And they're all on top of all the other things, and end of the semester grading.

Can you tell I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed?

It's supposed to get warmer, significantly warmer, this weekend.  I'm hopeful. 

Last night, after the concert, I was walking to my car in a light rain, and it smelled like a spring rain, with the fresh dirt smell and all.  It's the first spring rain smell I've had so far this year, and it was very good. 

You know how dogs will dig into a roll with their shoulders?  I sort of wanted to do that, but I didn't want to be went and muddy, so I didn't.  But the smell was so appealing!

Looking for Brilliance, CT Edition

I'm teaching "Sir Thopas" for the first time in either a long time, or a really long time, I think.  Long enough, or poorly enough, that I can't find my usual folder of notes, so I've been spending time today prepping, reading up, and so on.

It seems like there's a lot to pack into 50 minutes from a very short text, no?

So, what would you absolutely want to include?  What should I just not dare forget?

How do I get across to my students who haven't read tons of romances how absolutely brilliant this is?

And soon, I'll be teaching the "Canon's Yeoman's Tale," and I'm in the same boat, except it's a lot longer.

Suggestions?

(I think I end up cutting stuff from the CT class for time; but I put these in this time, and especially the CYT seems really important to me, or at least it did when I made up the syllabus.  Not being a real medievalist, I sometimes wonder if I've made the best choices in what to teach over the semester; maybe I'll try to go faster over the KT next time?  It seems like I take a good long time trying to get them to read and get the language and such, and it seems necessary.  Would any real medievalist be up for sharing their CT calendar/syllabus, please?)

I'm at that point in the spring and the semester when it feels like I should be desperate, but somehow I'm not.  I'm reasonably caught up on grading, and while spring seems especially slow, I'm less cranky about it than a lot of folks I know.  But I'm sort of plugging away at work and life, and doing some birding more than most springs, but I don't have much to write about that's really exciting.

I did see my first ever Yellow-rumped Warbler in my yard (I've seen them elsewhere, just not in my yard), at my suet feeder.  I'm guessing it was hungry and that was better than nothing.  I saw it for a short bit the other day, long enough that using my binoculars (pretty much always at the ready next to this window) to identifying a relatively common, distinct bird was good, not long enough to dig out the camera and take a picture.  But I haven't seen it since.

I also saw the first Brown-headed Cowbird of the year in the yard this morning.  So I do think spring is on the way.

But there's not much else to say about it that isn't complaining about the cold.

Crocuses are Tough

It's the first crocus of the season, blooming in my yard!  You can see not far behind it, just out of the little bit of snow, the daffodils coming up.

There are other crocuses up, but they aren't blooming yet, just this extra tough one that came up through the snow.

I was out walking around after going to a pow wow and saw a couple of Yellow-rumped Warblers, the first I've seen this year.

My very cute houseguest is back for a short visit.  So cute!

Spring Hopes Eternal

Here's the greenspace behind my house, taken from inside, because I sure as heck didn't want to go outside yet.

I'm so ready for a bit of warmth.

(The good news is this will probably melt soon.  The bad news is this will probably melt soon, and a lot of rivers are already at or near flood stages.)

Life After Tenure

Dr. Crazy over at Reassigned Time 2.0 has a fine post up about life after tenure.  It's really smart (as usual) and also gives a strong sense of some of the things people should know and look forward to (with longing or dread).

I think her points about feeling pressure to contribute to the community (rather than trying to establish oneself) and about feeling pulled by different demands so that she has less time/energy to work with and teach her own ideas/research are especially useful.

Recently, too, Dr. Virago over at Quod She 2.0 had a post about the difficulties of feeling like she was in a "mid-career rut."

Both of these posts really resonated with me.

I'd add to Dr. Crazy's post about being pulled by different demands that one of the biggest demands I feel is the work on department and university personnel committees and such.  Those tasks seem to take up a huge amount of time, and while they can feel rewarding, they can also feel unrewarded, if that makes sense. 

Now, back to our regularly scheduled grading.

Disconnected

I've felt a bit disconnected of late.

The day of the Boston Marathon, I didn't hear about the bombings until late.  I was in the office, and no one mentioned them.  That either means that no one knew, because we were all busy at work and not watching TV or whatever, or no one told me for whatever reason.

That's sometimes how it feels here, not only here in my office, my little silo room, but here in the midwest, where the happenings on either coast sometimes seem very far away.  But then, happenings over in the Fort also seem far away.

It's like here in the middle of the country, we're actually on the margins of the places that really matter to most of the people in the country.


Anyway, a friend of mine recently showed me this poem by Tom Wayman called "Did I Miss Anything," and it's wonderful, and I want to put it on my syllabus for next year.  You should go read it immediately.


On a blog I read sometimes,  young person is complaining about looking at jobs and not feeling like any of them are totally inspiring and wonderful, and I feel impatient, beca

Cat Blogging

You know how some people post endless pictures of their cats and how there are endless memes and such devoted to this or that cat approach or whatever?

I thnk William Baldwin was probably several centuries before his time.  He'd totally have a best seller now with Beware the Cat. 

Birding on Saturday

Canvasbacks, Canada Goose, Ruddy Duck

I joined an effbee page for state bird stuff; most of the posts are from another area of the state, alas.  But the other day, there was one from right near, with some cool birds.  So I asked for directions, got them, and went out today with a friend.  (Yay for a friend who will go running around to look at birds!  Life is better with friends.)

Behind the big Canada Goose, there's a little Ruddy Duck with a white blotch on his face and a blueish beak.  How cool is that?  And Canvasbacks!  (There may also be Redheads around; I'm not sure.)

Horned Lark

We saw this little guy hanging out near a Killdeer (the picture of which is too blurry for even me to post).  So lovely!

Snow Bunting

The Snow Buntings were our main attraction, and we finally found them.  They're surprisingly tiny. 

And look, mostly white birds against mostly white snow and some muck.  Yep!












Lapland Longspur


And the Lapland Longspurs were our second main attraction!  What lovely birds.

It wasn't badly cold this morning when I was digging out the driveway.  It was warm enough that I took off my coat, even.  But out looking for the birds, holy cow!  That was COLD!

So then we went and had hot Thai curry for lunch.  And lived happily ever after.  Or at least until dinner, when I have to forage again.  (In the refrigerator, not outside!)

And Just in Time: It's Friday!

I don't greatly mind a student asking if s/he can turn something in late.  Some assignments I accept late (with a penalty), but some I don't.  Journals and such, where they have many opportunities over the semester to do the assignments, I don't accept late.  It says as much in the syllabus.

But still, I don't really mind a student asking, even if after the fact.  I point to the syllabus and say no.  And the second time, the same. 

I've got a student who has asked three times by email and twice in person, and now I'm getting to the point where I do mind.

Adding to the frustration, the student just doesn't seem to comprehend how deep into failing s/he is, even though I handed out a sheet for each student and went over in class how to do the math.  But oh, the student was absent that day, and when s/he finally reappeared and I gave him/her the sheet, s/he didn't bother to do the math. 

We did the math together today.  That one journal won't save the grade.  Unfortunately, the student still seems to think that getting partial credit on that one journal will bring things up from F-land to passing. 

So, yes, I'm very ready for Friday.

Memory?

You know how sometimes you respond to a post on someone else's blog, and then you want to go back and see what else other people have had to say in that thread, because it was lively and interesting?

But then it's been maybe a few days, maybe a week, and you remember about it, and think about going back.

But you can't remember whose blog it was on.

Like that.

First Semester, Second Semester

I teach a lot of first year students, pretty much every year, and in fall, I take a bit of time to talk to them about being students, to make my expectations extra clear, and so on.

I guess I'm not that extra clear in the spring semester.

I've had a number of students this spring who've revealed to me--in those meetings you have after they realize that they've missed impressive chunks of class and haven't turned in work and are failing--that this is their first semester of college and they were unprepared, not well counseled, and really didn't know what to expect.

I think I've got a lot more new mid-year starting students this year than I remember from before, perhaps?

But it's definitely a problem for these students.  There's been some real gap.

One part of the gap is that students who start mid-year may already be a step behind just starting.  If they aren't transfers, then something happened (or didn't happen) that meant they didn't start at the usual time.  My guess is that something is related to their unpreparedness or lack of cultural knowledge about college stuff.  Maybe they didn't really understand how admissions work in many colleges and so didn't get their stuff in on time.  Or maybe they didn't have the finances together to pay the fall deposit.  Or whatever.

My guess is that a lot of the stuff that may cause these students to be a step behind are first generation student issues?

My second guess is that our admissions folks were slightly under their enrollment goals for fall, and so admitted more new students in spring than they usually do.  Or they admitted the same number, but a lot ended up in my class somehow?

Another part of the gap seems to be with new student advising at mid-year.  In fall, there are loads of meetings and activities aimed at getting new students adjusted to being new students and informed about resources on campus.  But we don't seem to have many of those same meetings and activities in spring, and what we have might not seem important to students who are a step behind just starting off.

The third part of the gap seems to be that I didn't do (and probably haven't generally) as much to help students understand my expectations.  I think typically I've expected that students have learned from their first semester in college and they don't need so much to hear my underlying expectations.  I don't think I've changed or dropped a lot of this from one spring to another.  It's more that I haven't seen so many new spring students, I think.  I'm not sure.  (And by my expectations, I don't mean what I'm expecting for a given assignment, but that I expect students to do 2-3 hours or work outside of class for every hour in class, and that I expect students to be in class, on time, even though I don't "count" attendance as part of the grade, and that I expect students to do their work and keep track of it when I hand it back, and so on.)

I don't think there's an easy way for me to look up when students are starting at the university, and I haven't made a habit of looking for that information.  I also haven't asked students.  I suppose I might start asking in spring, though that seems a little odd, doesn't it?  (I might couch it as something like "How was your fall semester?")

I think a way larger percentage of my first year writing students will fail this class than usual, and I feel partly responsible because I didn't do as much as I usually do in fall to help them with expectations.

Have you folks ever noticed this sort of phenomenon?  What to do?

Spring Birds!

It's that time of year again, the time when I've seen Tundra Swans out in a wet area in a big field near a town near here.  (It looks like I first posted pictures of these swans at this area in March 2010, and then again in April 2011. 

It was raining all morning, but I had no classes and no meetings, and it's supposed to snow again soon, so I decided to live the wild life (get it?  HAH!) and go see if the swans were there.  And they were!

Tundra Swans!

I drove out, and they were mostly in the field itself, rather than in the water.  And it was rainy, and I didn't want to get my camera wet, and I put on my doubler, which means I have to auto-focus myself, which is both slow and inexact, especially if I'm trying not to get wet, so this isn't the greatest picture in the world.  The cool thing about this picture, I think, is that you can actually see the yellow above the beak on the nearer bird's face.  I don't think any of my other pictures ever captured that.


I didn't stay long because of the rain, but I found another place with more swans (which is actually where this picture's from), across the highway and on a mud road.  And then I saw an eagle, but it was uncooperative and took off as I stopped to take a picture.

Red Winged Blackbird

I also saw another sign that spring's on it's way, red winged blackbirds, all staking out their space, trying to look hot and sexy for the females.











Having had success with the swans, I decided to go have a look at some of the biking roads, just to check out how they look (potholes and also gravel being my concerns).

Hooded Mergansers

And there, in a pond I ride by and where I've never seen ducks before, I saw my first really clear Hooded Mergansers in breeding plumage!   (I've thought I've seen them before, but never this sure or well.)

They're eye stopping, for me.  (I guess wood ducks are even cooler, so maybe someday for them.)

Blue-winged Teal

I also saw my first Blue-winged Teal!  I really appreciate when ducks are cooperative and show clear markings, and these guys really do.  The big markers are that white stripe on the face (smaller, but still visible on the female), the white hip patch, the darkish head, and the beautiful brown sides. 

Aren't these beautiful?  I took about a dozen pictures in the rain, but this is the only one that came out close to decent.




Do you notice how these pictures seem to show two male ducks hanging out with one female?  I guess it's that time of year for ducks. 

The American Goldfinches in my yard are quite suddenly sporting almost full breeding plumage, only the bright yellow still looks a bit dingy in patches, but the black head patch is now looking very sharp.  And there are robins in my yard again.

So maybe it is spring after all?

I'm sometimes fascinated by trying to figure out spring.  Last year, I posted about full blown (literally!) crocuses in mid march.  In 2010, I showed daffodils in early April and Crocuses in late March.

In 2009, it looks like I had crocuses up by April 16, which seems likely this year, too.

High School Chaucer

My Chaucer students are doing stepping stone assignments for their research project, which is basically a lit review about some topic or question to do with Chaucer.  So I've been reading their reports on what they've been reading, and also reading some of the articles they've been finding.  It's pretty interesting, to be honest.  And it's certainly helping me catch up a bit on the Chaucer lit.

Several of the students are education students, and a few of them are interested in how Chaucer's being taught in secondary schools. 

I, too, am getting a sense from these articles of how people are teaching Chaucer, and it seems cointerintuitive to me.

Mostly, it seems from the articles I'm reading, high schools are doing projects on the various pilgrims, perhaps also reading the General Prologue. 

I think the General Prologue is a pretty amazing piece of writing, but the amazingness isn't readily apparent unless you've read a little estates satire and probably some historical contexts, especially about religious folks.

So I'm wondering what other folks have either experienced or done with Chaucer in high schools (I never read Chaucer in high school, not a word)?

***

I've never taught high school, but I think if I wanted to do a Chaucer unit in a high school class, I'd teach one of the tales, and then only teach the description in the general prologue of the pilgrim teller.  And the tale I'd teach?  Totally The Franklin's Tale.

And I have to admit, I'd teach Gawain and the Green Knight rather than most of the other tales.  Then, um, probably the Pardoner's Tale.  Or the Summoner's Tale, or the Friar's Tale.  (I guess I'm confessing that I'd try to avoid some of the more sexally disturbing tales.)

Begin Again

There's another new article on Slate about how one shouldn't go to grad school.  Despite what the author, Rebecca Schuman, says about the "boom" in jobs in the late 1990s, as a survivor of that time, I'd like to say that things were bad then.  They're worse now, with the recession and all, but they were plenty bad then.

It's like every year someone new realizes for the first time that the job market for humanities sucks, and they think because they've just noticed it that the suckage started recently.  It didn't.

Yes, grad school is hard, and the rewards uncertain and often not nearly enough to make up for the opportunity cost.  Don't go.

Schuman builds off a nice analogy with smoking when she notes "In 2005 when I began my own Ph.D., I should have known better, but I didn’t. Now that you know better, will you listen? Or will you think that somehow you can beat odds that would be ludicrous in any other context?"

Yes, she in effect says, we all know smoking is dangerous, and we should know better than to do it, yet people still smoke.  And people should know better than to go to grad school in the humanities, but people still do it.

I'm not actually sure most of my students have heard anything about the job market or grad school in the humanities, though.  Most of them don't come from academic backgrounds or have much experience with academics until they get here.  About 40-50 percent of our students are first generation college students.   They don't know about academic stuff until and unless someone teaches them, pretty much.   I don't push grad school, but when a student asks, I try to be honest about the difficulty and the potential rewards, and about their potential.  (Usually, the students who talk to me about it are excellent students and fine people, so I get to tell them that even as I warn them.)

Three things about Schuman's article stood out to me, one only tangentially.

The more important was the dig at "satellite campuses of Midwestern or Southern universities of which you have never heard."  Yes, here I am, at a regional midwestern school, right in the middle of the target of scorn.  I am indeed sometimes frustrated at living in the land of long winters and at the distance it takes to go pretty much anywhere.  But there's no need to diss us from the privileges of Vassar, NYU, or even Irvine (See Note).   If you've never heard of us, perhaps you need to get out more and take that responsibility yourself?  There are these whole parts of the country that aren't just for flying over.  (Maybe, though, that attitude accounts for her sense that she "should have known better," and my sense that my students don't just know, about the difficulties of the phud market in the humanities?) 

Which brings me to the digs at theory.   Yes, it's specialized language.  So is medical language, and the language of physics.  We use technical language to talk about sprezzatura and metonymy, why shouldn't we use technical language to talk about difficult concepts such as deconstruction or differance?  (And by the by, why would someone choose to go to a phud program at Irvine [or Duke, for that matter] if you don't find theory interesting and exciting?  Okay, I'm assuming that the strengths in Irvine's English and Comparative Literature area also strengths in other areas.  Maybe I shouldn't.  Still, there are some darned smart people there.  Cough *Julia Lupton* Cough)  

Now for the tangential amusement.  Schuman's article links to another recent Slate article, this one by Ron Rosenbaum (who writes, we learn, about Shakespeare).  Like Schuman, Rosenbaum, too, argues that folks shouldn't go to grad school, especially not in English.  Except he relates his decision to leave his grad program in English at Yale in 1969.

If you're (as I am) even the slightest bit aware of which Shakespeare folks studied where, then Yale in the late 1960s is one of those places you're aware of for the impressive scholars who came out of that program.  (I'm not saying they're all perfect, by any means, but I can name some pretty darned smart scholars who did phuds there in the late 1960s, and they're an impressive set.)

So, yes, the job market sucks.  There's a crisis in education.  In other news, war is hell.  Each of these seems to need rediscovery often, alas.


Note.  Schuman provides a link to her dissertation.  I didn't go searching.

Ride!

First (outdoors) ride of the year!

My rear got wet, so did my feet a bit (from the spray), but it was GREAT!

News from the Professing Front

I went to an awards thing yesterday because one of my students had one an award, and so I was sort of obligated to go.  And I was feeling sort of resentful about it because it's two hours out of the day after an otherwise already full day.

And then I got there, and sat with a colleague and an advisee of mine who also won a prize, and best of all, the advisee's family, dad, grandfather, sibling, and partner.  And it was just delightful how completely proud the dad was, and how the grandfather was close to tears when she accepted her award and spoke about how her project was inspired by her family.  It didn't take long with these folks to change my mood much for the better.

I was proud of my own student, too, and I think I did an okay job explaining her project and the award.  (It wasn't the easiest project from my end, but she really came through with it.)

***

Two of my other students got projects accepted to the student research day presentations.  I'm happy for them, but secretly also thinking about my responsibility to go to another activity.

***

I got several bits of good news the other day, of import mostly to myself, I think.  I had my eyes checked, and they are healthy.  But, I also asked about whether I would be a candidate for Lasik, and the optometrist almost laughed in my face.  She didn't, though, and kindly explained that Lasik is most effective when someone's eye prescription is no more than a minus five.  Mine are around minus ten.  So I guess that's a hard decision I won't have to make.  (I've hesitated totally about the idea of eye surgery, but I was beginning to think that it would be really amazing to go camping and not worry about dealing with contact lenses and also be able to see the stars without then taking my contacts or glasses off.)  Still, I'm stressy about my eyes, and having a positive report on eye health is really great news for me.

My bike is back from the shop where it got its spring tune up, but I haven't gotten out on a ride yet.  It's cold, and there's this job thing, and the awards thing, and so on.  But soon, I hope.

***

I can report that our department search(es) was/were successful, and that we'll have a/some fine new colleague(s) joining our department in the fall.

***

There's this person I know, not really well, but we have contact sometimes in various ways.  The thing is, I keep hearing/reading X complaining about this one sort of problem, and then three months later, I hear/read X complaining about this same sort of problem in a different context, and on and on, for a while now.  And I wonder, hmmm, could it be that X is somehow the source of this sort of problem? 

And then I immediately wonder if I do the same thing myself, complain again and again about a problem and not see that I pretty much bring it on myself?  (I know I've done it in the past, in a pretty serious way.  But I hope I've grown in awareness.)

(Okay, true confession here: I still procrastinate about grading more than I should.  I should have gotten over that by now, right?  Yeah.  Like that.)

Voting Strategy?

There are a couple of local elections that allow multiple votes because they're for seats on this or that committee or board. 

Let's imagine there are three open seats, and everyone gets to vote for three seats.

One of my colleagues suggested that it would be best to vote for just the one person you most wanted, and because there would be fewer votes cast, then that would mean the one vote would be more important.

On the other hand, I thought that I should vote for the three I want, since they're not so much in competition with each other (someone who votes for a candidate with known views is also likely to vote for a candidate with similar views, no?) as with other folks.  If enough of us vote for the same three like-minded candidates, then the committee is more likely to move in that direction over all.

And since I can only vote once for each person, the person I most want has my one vote and can't have a second one from me.

I guess the big thing is, I voted.  I was #15 in my voting area, and I went mid-morning, so I suspect my vote is important.

Good luck to my candidates!

Local Politics

We have an election coming up.  It's off-season for elections, with none of the biggest offices being contested, but there are important local offices being contested.

And since I'm registered with a party, and since I vote in pretty much all the elections, I'm on the target lists for my party.  Over the weekend, I had a visit from a door to door person (canvasser?), encouraging me to vote on Tuesday and offering me information about the party's candidates.  I was glad to see her, and we had a nice chat. 

This evening, one of the candidates was going door to door.  I was happy to meet him, and I have to say, it still blows me away that candidates walk door to door and talk to people in the community.  It's not something I can imagine from the larger cities and suburbs I've lived in.  (He also had voter information about some of the other candidates, all of whom, I gather, are mutually supportive.)

I guess in off-seasons elections, especially in a smaller community, getting out a few more voters can make a big difference.