Are There Any Sadder Words

...than I packed the stereo?

Okay, I know there are. But seriously, the stereo being unhooked is the moment at which I realize just how far things have gone.

Of course, there's lots happening here. The roommate is also moving, and this has caused a sort of apartment version of Risk. First, I took the living room for storage. Then he struck back. Now I have retreated to my bedroom, where I am marshaling my forces in the form of cardboard boxes. It's like when I built forts when I was a kid, only now, the walls are all my belongings - particularly books. We're in a holding pattern now, though this morning while he was away, I began to sift through the Tupperware drawer in the kitchen - one of the few places where our things have co-mingled.

I expect shots will be fired come dinner time.

The process has been harder than any other move, or so it seems to me from the midst of it. Having everything so packed around me at night has begun to give me odd dreams. It's tough to even be in my room because it reminds me of the clutter of my parents' house, and I'm finding myself claustrophobic in the room that used to be a sort of sanctuary. Lying on my bed to take a phone call is almost panic inducing, and I find that I'm having a hard time focusing on conversations or saying much of anything even when I am.

I narrowly headed off a visit from my parents, who claim to now - after four years of me living here - have an interest in seeing the Great Attraction of the Area.

And yesterday, I had coffee with one of my best students, who is thinking about graduate school but who is trying to work with my most absent minded of soon-to-be-former colleagues. While I probably don't have to be as delicate in suggesting that they, as an undergrad, are going to have to learn that most useful rule of graduate students - that committees are things to be managed and carefully fed information - it wasn't an easy thing to explain that what matters is a finished Senior thesis as much as the masterful work my colleague is threatening to make them conjure from thin air.

So it's back to packing and the odd little almost-panic attacks that come every time I step in my room. More to follow.

End of Term Follies

Yesterday, a minute before I was to leave my office, a student stopped in to ask if I could be the third member of her honors' thesis committee, who would be "meeting tomorrow for the defense."

It's a busy end of the term here, not just because of it being my last term, but also because of the workload. I've already served on two honors committees. I'm supervising 17 senior research projects. I've got portfolios from 21 students, and essay exams from 12 others. Also, I have an article to restructure. I've no business on last minute committees.

Naturally, I said yes.

The topic seemed interesting, and I've known the student through some of the causes happening on campus this year. It felt wrong to say no.

And now I've read the thesis, and I realize that there's a reason there was no third committee member. And worse, I don't think they could have been thinking about what my own research and interests are or they wouldn't have asked me to be on this because there's almost no way I can avoid shredding this.

What's frustrating, though, is that I tried to speak with the chair about this, and there seemed to be little recognition of the problems and even less interest in hearing out my difficulties so they might either prepare the student or their own defense of this. Because at the end of the day, a failed thesis defense - and that's what I think this might wind up being - is a failure of the committee.

Their graduation, mine.

It has been far too long since I've written, longer still since - maybe - since I wanted to write.

The days have been filled with writing, of course. There's a conference to be planned, and I am reminded that I am, however reluctantly, a Type A- personality: not quite type A, but a little too something to settle into Type B. I envy Type B's; I dread Type A's. But the conference begs for it. This is the problem with folks of a particular ideology (I wont say which: you can fill in your own blanks): they mistake organization for fascism. And, so, I find myself answering the e-mails for the conference: dull, banal little things in great numbers like gnats. To put any thought down became a chore, swatting at these things just a little more when I should be resting.

Tonight, I feel like writing.

---

Sometime back, I started writing a letter to our Seniors before they graduated. It was born out of a sort of necessity: herding cats in the graduation rodeo to a place where we could send them off into the sunset, though I have yet to attend a graduation that wasn't cold and rainy (at least for part of it). It became a tradition for me, a touchstone. And so, this year, it took on extra importance.

I'm leaving.

My advisees - many of them, anyway - are leaving with me. Well, not with me, but at the same time, to similar questions. In a strange way that no one ever told me, I walked the same path as those scared little Freshmen four years ago. Their steps were mine, and now, a tiny piece of their parting. The letter this year was much the same - congratulations and a little bit of a wish for them.

And a little bit of thanks.

---

The last two days have been awash in bureaucratic frustration. I find it's process that makes me lose my temper. And these last two days, I've found that a lot: everywhere I looked, there were problems: invitations sent to people who shouldn't have been; people who should have been who weren't. Names left out of programs. Programs out of order. I've found myself very protective of these students here at the end.

In recent weeks, we took a busload of them to a research conference. They rocked it. We took several to the school's research presentation. Most of them blew it away. Even my most problematic students - the ones who gravitate to me - have done well. Pick the student who you thought was the picture of unrepentant, unearned privilege. Remember how they walked into your office two years ago like royalty and made demands. Even that student got it, enough to make a couple of heads turn and faces pause at their moment of lucidity.

I am trying to focus on these things, amidst the chaos.

---

This evening I received a letter from a student that made me think of poetry. It was a letter that made me want to sit down and write. I want to share it, but that wouldn't be right. It was a private thing, but it reminded me of all the things we so rarely know as teachers, and that just because we don't know doesn't mean it isn't there or isn't happening.

It reminded me of the postcards friends used to send me, with haiku of their days on scrawled in thin, small writing. It was true, and tangentially I was a part of it.

Naomi Shihab Nye wrote "No one sees/the fuel that feeds you." Tonight, this term, these four years, I have been fed.

RBOC: More Catching Up

Attempts at blogging have largely failed. I'm still trying though. I promise.

In the meantime, things worth noting:

• April snow froze my car shut this morning
• for those wondering about when it would happen, word of my departure has reached the students. It happened largely by accident. The first reveal was intentional - a student asked if I could be the faculty moderator for a student atheist group. The second was my slip-up in discussing an event being planned. And more recently, a candidate was brought in for my position, and the department took them to a restaurant where a number of our students work.
• Surprisingly, the stack of boxes in my office has yet to draw a single question.
  
• I came in 7 out of 63 and 9 out of 33 in my March Madness pools. Good enough for a little bragging, but no actual financial gain.
• I've recently watched Synecdoche, New York and Gran Torino, and loved them both for very different reasons. I strongly recommend both, but each with a warning: the first is not an easy film intellectually, the second is not an easy film in terms of cultural sensitivity.
  

Hope you're all well.

Grappling with Post-Election Racism

One of the lurking undertones of the past several days has been the flurry - yes, a flurry - of racist activities that have played out on my campus and what to do about them. As I mentioned previously, there was at least one incident of racist graffiti here. I'd thought us fortunate that we'd avoided some of the more high profile problems that have happened at Lehigh. But there's certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that the problem is pretty wide.

As I mentioned in the most recent Job Tracking posting, the university's response has been a big focus of mine over the last week or so. And it has been a positive experience - maybe the most positive experience - of my dealings with the university. Let me explain, and maybe offer some food for thought about what I'm learning about dealing with this as we go (and, of course, I'd love to hear what others are doing).

Following the scrawling of the graffiti, I found myself more frustrated than ever about things here. And a few colleagues and I began to talk about that frustration. Thankfully, one of my colleagues wasn't content to wallow and began rattling chains of the powers that be. Very quickly, those powers responded. More quickly, in fact, than I've seen them respond to anything here ever before. A group of concerned faculty convened, many of whom had expressed similar concerns and all of whom had ideas about things that could be done and frustration that the university hadn't done enough (it's response was essentially to have the graffiti quickly removed and to send an e-mail condemning the act and promising an investigation to the university).

Let me pause here because the group demographics are interesting. This isn't meant as an indictment, but I did find the demographics interesting: the entire group consisted of untenured faculty and all from the Liberal Arts side of things. Make of it what you will.

Part of why this excited me is that it's the first time I feel like there's some sense of community among the faculty here - even if it is just the young faculty. But it was also the response of the administration which felt like a first to me: they admitted that they were caught flat-footed, that they weren't sure how to best deal with it, and that they'd not done a good job of integrating the faculty and student life responses to the problem. And then, the ideas were heard and the group of young faculty were given a blank check (at least from a policy standpoint).

Some of the ideas we're proposing:

• a signed statement from concerned faculty, making a stronger statement and discussing our ideas and asking for input
• a retreat with student leaders - particularly from varying political viewpoints
  
• workshops for RA's and other student life leaders
• a day where faculty would be asked, in unison, to take some time from class to tell a personal story related to these divisive tensions
• asking for some of those stories - and from any interested students - to be put in a series of campus media outlets to help personalize the consequences
• a similar set of mediated statements about why the election of an African American matters to a similar variety of people
• a rally in honor of MLK and the inauguration
  
• a series of brown bags and discussions over the next few months to continue this discussion

What I like about the range of ideas, in particular, is that it suggests the university realizes this is not a one-time problem and that one event isn't going to come close to dealing with it. And I like that it seeks ways to bring students into the discussion rather than relying on lecturing to them or the hopes that they'll all magically turn up at some amorphous campus event. I like that it invokes a sense of unity - among faculty, where it's lacking; among students; and among the campus as a whole.

Where I'm concerned, however, is that I and other colleagues have continued to talk with students while these things are taking shape, and we're hearing a number of student concerns. First, students are upset because events are still happening - these actions are more pervasive than any of us thought. But the other student concerns about what's been done are telling, and I think should be factored in anywhere that is dealing with this sort of problem. What students have told us so far boils down to the following:

• sending an e-mail was seen as a weak response, particularly as few students check the campus e-mail accounts. One student noted that there's an entire system in place for the discussion of parking problems and inclement weather, but the best we could muster was an e-mail for this
• little discussion of what an investigation entails or what the consequences could be has been problematic
• that discussion has been something quotes, at best. While these events have been talked about in class, most students feel like they've been talked to rather than with. They don't feel like they've been given a voice, and many of them are frustrated that they don't know how they should deal with problems like this on their own.
  
• timeliness is a factor. One frustration that they've expressed is that when it has been addressed, it has been days or even a week after, and that disappoints them
• there's a fear that the same racist fears might be shared by faculty. As one student put it, "I had a faculty member talk about 'you people' to me. And you expect me to take the university's commitment to stopping racist behavior?"
  

Hearing these things has been a lot of unpleasant food for thought for me. In the next meeting I'm attending, I'm going to push even more for some speedy interim actions to be taken, particularly actions that give students an entry into the discussion. We've forgotten, I think, that this generation of helicopter-parented kids.

They want input and direction. They're used to participation. Of course, they're going to require a different mechanism for dealing with crisis.

And so it is up to us to plan accordingly.

Or Maybe I Woke Up on the Right Side of the Same Old Bed

The drive to campus this morning was blissful.

Last night, watching election results with colleagues, we compared our estimates of how many of our students voted. I extolled the virtues of my students, confident that at least 60 percent of them voted. And when I polled my first class, I happily found my guess was low. I gave them some praise - I didn't care who they voted for, I said, but I was proud of them for voting. Blissfully, I walked back to my office and prepared for the next class of the day.

Coming down the stairs on the way to my second class, I ran into my Dean who was beaming and asked, "Are you elated? I'm elated. I cried this morning when I listened to that speech again. I want to write all my professors who ever taught me any Civil Rights history. Aren't you elated?"

My Dean is effusive normally, but this was an entirely other level. This was Dean enthusiasm turned up to 11. And I was right there with her. I told her about my students voting, and that I felt like this is this generation's Kennedy moment. That I finally had an answer for a moment of history that I'd always remember that wasn't negative.

Then the conversation turned serious.

"It's a shame about what happened," she said.

Confused, I asked.

"About the graffiti," she said, with a sigh.

I didn't know about any graffiti, but it turns out someone on campus scrawled some ugly racial comments around campus. At least one piece of it was in an indelible form and required sand blasting to be removed, letting us know that Obama equals a racial slur. And in my second class, a student mentioned that there was evidently a Facebook stats flame war between Democrat and Republican student supporters.

A colleague reported later that a student in one of his classes said, "I'm tired of watching black people crying on TV just because a black man was elected President."

And another said a student told him of the graffiti, "It's just people expressing an opinion. What's the big deal?"

I've got some perspective on all this now, though for most of the evening, I and many of my colleagues were at wit's end. Evidently, we felt, we've failed in some truly fundamental way, not because of votes but because of a failure of empathy. It took me awhile to gain the perspective that my Dean had, able to keep that elation in the harsh light of our own campus events. Certainly, this election signaled that we've come a lot of metaphorical miles. But the morning after served as a reminder that we've got miles to go.

Venting

I'm feeling a bit worn down today.

This term has, in a lot of ways, felt like a lot of extra effort has gone into it for little result. Because of the group of students my course puts me in touch most frequently in our department - freshmen and seniors - I've seen some interesting patterns and similarities in questions. And when freshmen and seniors are asking the same things, it could mean one of a couple of things. Maybe it means that the question is one of huge importance, regardless of age. Maybe it means that we've done a poor job answering it over four years.

In any case, I made it a bit of a mission to try and address the biggest of the questions that I hear from this mix: how to get jobs with this degree. I put together a lecture on it, and this year, I've started to bring in people from various fields who have the same degree they have or who are in the careers my students say they want. I've fought the battles for rooms and equipment. I've begged money. I've sent notices and reminders. And - I'm sure no one is surprised at this - none of the students who weren't somehow required to be there actually attend.

I know I'll be less irritated in an hour, but in this moment, I could scream.

Sometimes the Rewards Are Subtle

I've been fortunate in the last couple of weeks to have had some of my former students drop in. Today one of my best students ever, my honor's student mentioned back here, came by to catch up with me and one other member of his committee. And since that other member wasn't in on Monday, that meant I got all that quality time to myself.

After we chatted for an hour or so in my office about what he wants to do - travel overseas and maybe work there, maybe grad school - we decided to take off and grab a beer. And while we grabbed that beer, we caught up on music and books and all the things you hope your best students are thinking about. It was funny to see the mix of grownup and kid in him in that light - he's talking about great books and deep thoughts he's been having one moment and then lamenting the young crowd at the death metal show he came down for the next.

What was great though was when he said the following, "You know, I didn't like you at the start of the first class I had you for."

I could only laugh because I know that a lot of the students at that point didn't particularly like me. But what I love is that now I'm one of the people he comes back to see, one of the people he seeks out for advice, one of the people he asks for book recommendations and theoretical insights from, and one of the people he'd sit down for a beer with. He asked whether I'd recommend he go to the grad program I went to.

No matter what else I say, sometimes this really is a great job.

RBOC: Nothing to Get Hung About Edition

Second day of classes, first day of office hours. And as you may know, I don't even attempt to do anything productive in office hours. I do not regret this in the slightest. Other things I do not regret:

• telling Pandora that I don't, in fact, like "Strawberry Fields Forever." Pandora, by way of apology, followed up with James Brown and Ray Charles.
  
• my new "I Don't Care If Your Grandmother Died, I Only Care About Official Notices From the Dean" policy which has already (by the third hour of day 1, mind you) been put into play twice.
• that I am out of Sun-dried Tomato and Basil Wheat Thins, which are like crack, but also reminiscent of 1970s Taco Flavored Doritos.
  
• that my friend T. is going on a sailing vacation and I am not. I am, however, envious and insistent that at any given moment someone on that boat must wear an eye patch.
  

And with that bit of time wasted, I must away. Sail on, dear readers.

Surfacing...

Just a break from finals grading which is, thankfully, getting done. This is unusual for me, as my tendency is to put it off as late as I possibly can.

A bit of good news here and there: it looks like my summer course is going to take. There might even be more people than the bare minimum needed. So now I need to revisit the syllabus next week and make sure it's doing what I want. The pay's a pittance, but every little bit helps. And since flights home are ridiculous - when I checked yesterday, they were over $800 which I hope was just some fluke of the days I tested.

There was a nice card from one of my students in my mailbox today, and another who stopped by to tell me how a year ago to tell me that a year ago they weren't sure they could continue here - or that they could make it. And now, it's time for them to graduate, and they wanted to say thanks for all the help. So I've got a little bit of swagger to help me through the grading, which is always nice.

Tomorrow, the plan is to grille - I've got a steak ready, and there'll be pico de gallo to spare. It feels like summer might actually be here.

But for now, back to the pile o' grading.

Suck it, Negativity

So it's the end of the term, I'm in the last long day of office hours for the next several months. It feels like someone is slowly, ever so gently driving a spike into my skull just above my left ear. But rather than succumb to the headache and the boredom of the last day, to the tendency to bust down the term with stark reflection, I'm going with the road less traveled: today's about what I've liked.

It's easy, actually, because I do enjoy this part of the term quite a bit - and not just because it's almost over. Maybe it's the grouping of students I get - students just starting and students finishing - but there is always a sense of change and excitement at this point of the year. I hope one thing that happens in this blog is that when I complain, it mostly isn't about the students. I like them. I like them here. I liked them at my last job. I liked them when I was teaching them in grad school. Yes, sometimes they're inconsiderate. Sometimes they're disinterested. Sometimes their work is so bad you feel like you're teaching writing at the University of Iowa (see this) . But I like them.

Last night, I got to help our seniors celebrate their passing a bit (as a side note, check out this band somehow when you get a chance), and it was a nice moment. It was good to see that they'd picked up some things. And it was good to see them before they'd accepted all the little rules and obsessions "grown up, working world" life is going to insist on.

Tomorrow, I get to congratulate our best and brightest and thank them and wish them well. I get to do it in a big public moment, and I'm excited for that. A lot of them are students I had my first year here. They're students I've been writing confidential reference letters for, busting out my best praise in prose for. I like that I get a chance to tell them in public what I've said about them to their future employers and teachers, to my colleagues and friends, for ages now: that I expect big things of them and that I wish them well.

I was teasing a student recently about how they make faces every time I give out the day's objectives. And they laughed and said yes, but they've not missed a class because they can see a change from one day to the next, and that - though sometimes a pain - makes it worth it.

So that's what I'm going to frame these last days with - if it's a pain but worth it for one of my students, it seems alright that it might be for me.

Karma, I hear you knocking...

So tomorrow I have an educational-by due to extreme religion. As mentioned in a previous post, my institution is headed by a priest and takes its religion seriously. Tomorrow, religion trumps education with a Mass taking place during one of the heavily-used class time options. There's no word on whether students will be refunded for that credit hour they're losing to Jesus.

Needless to say, I won't be attending. But more surprisingly, I won't be using this post to bitch about that. You may thank the higher power of your choice if you're so inclined. I don't care.

Instead, tomorrow is a big deal because it's the first day that my students - who I assume also won't be attending Mass - have to come talk to me about their proposed research questions. This moment of the term always feels a bit like the last segment of "The Dating Game" to me - everyone talked a good game so far (or more accurately, avoided speaking at all), and now we're going to have the big reveal to see whether all those clever moments were leading me to an evening of ugly reality. Trying to launch students on a year long research odyssey (and try selling that bill of goods to students - so much for clever marketing fooling the masses) is always a bit iffy.

Now, as the term goes, I've already had pretty good luck. Out of the students doing more advanced theses and projects, I've dodged some bullets and managed to poach the department's current wunderkind. And having managed that coup, I fear for what the kids in the research class are going to bring as even karma sometimes pays attention in class.

Teachers who make a difference

Fair warning: this post could also be titled "One More Reason I Should Get Out of Here" or, after reading my last post, "Nothing Goes Up That Does Not Come Down".

So yesterday, I was out hobnobbing with other faculty around a field throwing things to each other. And during a break, we did what faculty often do: we began to talk about students in classes, comparing notes, horror stories, and the all-too-rare success story. Somebody was telling us about a student who from day one of his very difficult class - and I say this with a twinge of envy: I want my class to be as difficult as his is reputed to be - just got it. The student could offer a good definition off the top of her head, could argue a point, and most importantly, felt not one iota of shame for being smart and liking it.

Incidentally, feminist friends, this is the next mission. Body image aside, let's start to deal with the fear of being seen as smart.

It was at this point that another faculty member chimed in.

"You've got to shut that down," he laughed. And we weren't - or at least I wasn't - quite sure what he meant.

"You've got to shut that down," he repeated. "I had a student once who had their hand up at every question. They answered them all, 10 for 10, perfectly correct. So I said to him 'Man, you've got to get a social life.'"

Awkward laughter and a bit of stunned silence.

"He got up and left the class, and never came back. Never saw him again." And he was beaming proudly. Proudly! He thought he'd done a good thing. Why is it that if a dog craps on my carpet, I can smack it, but when a colleague does it, we're forced to be polite? I can only hope he recognized the sarcasm and bitterness in my voice when I said "Yes, teachers who make a difference" and walked away to get some water.

Argh.

And now it's Miller time...

Today I got to dig in a bit more deeply with classes. Part of that was a sort of improptu manifesto on education and its merits to a group of mostly freshmen. I explained to them a bit about my own educational background - I was the first person in my family to get a degree. I'm the only one with a graduate degree. I did it on student loans and a whim. It was that sort of deal.

And part of what I told them - maybe I should have held over the "Heresy 101" title - was that I believe in Education the way some people feel about Religion. Now note - and I'm sure most of them didn't get this impression - I didn't pick out a particular religion. I didn't compare education to any savior, philosopher, or writer of a tome that attracts tons of Hollywood money. Instead, I told them something personal. Education, I told them, has brought me more than tons of debt, and even if that were it, then every dollar I'll be paying back till my 70s was worth it. That feeling, I said, is what I hope to help them come away with four years from now. I told them that what you get out of education is about what you're willing to risk. I said that they're only going to get out what they put into it. And that to get the most out of it, they have to confront things they don't like, things they fear, things nobody thought they'd ever possibly care about. You have to be okay with being wrong sometimes. I told them I'm not out to shock them or convert them. They don't have to agree with me because, among other things, I'm wrong almost as often as I'm right. I told them going to college to get a job is like going to the pool to only play in the shallow end. I told them I hoped they'd find some way to enjoy their education, and that I'd help them if I could.

It was, I think, the best lecture I've ever given, and I barely said a thing about the subject at hand. It was one of those moments where I felt like if they took even one thing I said out of the lecture, I'll have succeeded for the entire term.

Heresy 101?

Remember that faculty breakfast and dog and pony show? Well there was more to it. One other interesting point in the recent faculty breakfast and cattle show was the address by the university president Without giving too much away, the University president is among other things, a fairly good natured person, concerned with faculty ideas (or at least that's the sense I get based on his regular invitations to take faculty and students to lunch or dinner), and a Catholic priest. And in his address to the incoming and old faculty, he did something not so surprising, all things considered: he suggested that it wouldn't be a bad idea for faculty to begin classes with a moment of prayer.

Now this prompted all the usual responses:

• you can't make us pray, we take public money
• you don't have to pray, you can have a moment of silence
• we're at an institution with a religious bent - and with a priest as president - so you can't really be surprised at this
• etc, etc, etc.
  

Part of the president's point was that it wouldn't be strange to ask one part of a university to support another part of the university's mission. My thought, choked down as so many of them have to be considering my own views on religion, was "Great. I'll pray at the start of class when you spend 5 minutes at the beginning of each mass talking about proper grammar and punctuation."

But in the interest of charity, Christian or otherwise, I want to try and avoid the usual negative rant that this might inspire. After all, in some ways the sort of debate discussed in this New York Times article becomes so strangely polarizing as to be useless. So instead, let me set the stage with a bit of background.

Like many people I know, I've got a distrust of religion that's deep and glaring. I'm not comfortable saying it is because I'm liberal - I think it would be interesting to see what a liberal religious movement would be capable of politically. I've even debated tackling a book that would play with some of those ideas. And I don't think it's because I'm well-educated. I know plenty of well educated people who have some strong faith or other.

The roots of my distrust that I'm willing to point to come from direct experience with religion. I spent some time in a middle school affiliated and run by members of a particular religion, and the experiences there were more than enough to make me shudder at all manner of things. It's because of my time there that I don't trust big groups clapping at the same time. It's because of my time there that I feel a little nervous any time a large group of people does anything in unison. And there are later experiences that have only deepened this distrust. And I would be remiss to ignore that I do feel like I benefited from being dragged to church as a child when the choice was still my parents. There were moral lessons that I take from there that I think were quite valuable. And there were communal lessons as well.

But sniping aside, there's a big question that wouldn't hurt to play with. Let's assume for a moment religion isn't going away. Not here, not in the larger culture. If that's the case, sooner or later, those of us who are liberal, well-educated folks are going to have to offer some notion of how to integrate religion of all varieties into education (in the same way that I think the left must sooner or later claim some religious space as well).

Part of the difficulty seems to be the assumption that the only way to be sensitive to religious beliefs is to facilitate religious practice. Why is it that the notion of appropriateness of timing seems to fly out the window in the American context (perhaps it does this elsewhere, but I couldn't say)?

I suppose, as a colleague of mine noted, we could do simple things to bridge the gap. In his case, it was designing a syllabus that was so frightening even non-believers would hope for divine mercy. That's one solution.

Education on the clock...

I'd never thought about it before reading this article from the New York Times, but education in America serves, as much as anything, as a sort of calendar marking time. I didn't think about it when, as an undergrad, I mentioned to my interim advisor that I didn't have a plan for my electives - at least not a plan that he'd agree involved any forethought. Instead, I told him, I was going to take the courses that sounded interesting. This was clearly a foolish, wasteful idea in his eyes: the sign of a student set to drift along through college and probably not even make it out.

Why did I do it? In high school, I'd been assured by guidance counselors, by well-meaning teachers, even by friends with the same concerns that college was to be different from high school: we'd all get to do what we were interested in, not what the state or school board or our parents told us we needed. No more Calculus if I didn't want it, no more Government and Economics. College was about my desires. And though college wasn't the land of milk, honey and free academic choices I'd been promised it wasn't so far from it either. And so, I spent electives on things like World Literature courses, a First Amendment law course, a Jazz history course, even a feminist theory course (not because I thought I'd meet chicks there, either). When it was time to graduate, my school only allowed you to have one minor. But I'd jumped around enough without ever abandoning my major to have had five.

A lot of the same thought drives my views on education today. I'm happier because I got to explore. I even wound up taking more of those pesky Government and Economics courses than my high school career (largely spent drawing pictures of my Econ teacher in various embarrassing costumes) would have suggested. Along the way, I learned not just about cultural anthropology, not just about media history, or even about the practice of experimental psychology but also about smart decision making, about how differently people I thought I understood viewed the world, and even a bit about where I needed to be in the world. It was, as college is often assumed to be, my first real taste of freedom.

But it also took me five years and a summer session to graduate, and today I've got the student loan debt that reflects that particular desire. Even looking at that debt didn't spur me to this new thought: education is a form of Taylorism (if you're not sure what that means, see the definition offered here). What my first advisor had been trying to tell me was that taking longer than four years in college intentionally was a waste of time. It was unproductive.

What that article made me think about was a sort of cultural norm about when we become adults and what it means to be an adult in this society (look: a term from my cultural anthropology course!). At the end of high school, we assume people become adults: they're ready to make decisions, to serve their country, to pay taxes, etc, etc. But most importantly, they're ready to contribute in the most basic way: by getting a job. And if you're not ready to get a job, then the only excuse is to go to college. Why? So that when you're done, you can get a better job (huh - that course in sociological theory doesn't seem so crazy now...).

These are assumptions, of course (okay, so that logic course did pay some dividends). And perhaps unfortunately, we've normalized them - we've made rules based on those assumptions. And the modern academic system is built around them - it even penalizes "bad" decision making. A college education is assumed to take four years. If it takes more, you can find your access to financial aid diminished, you're guaranteed to have to answer in interviews why it took you so long to get out, and you may even take a hit to your reputation with friends and family ("Oh, you know he just drifted about awhile. I always thought he had more direction...").

But what if, as the New York Times article suggests about high school, a longer time spent in college might offer a different set of benefits than simple productivity?

Just a few days ago, I was in advising a student, and I found myself making the assumption for them that they need to be done in four years. And the student, not surprisingly for someone just entering college after years of having older authorities pass down unexplained proclamations, accepted it. Maybe I should have asked what she wanted to get out of her college career? Was she in it for a job? Or was their something more? And if she answered that she wanted something more than the quickest route to a slightly better job, how would the system have to work differently?

As I prepare for the first week of classes, I think I may have just hit on the first essay for my freshmen. I'll let you know how they answer.

Son of Shameless Self-Promotion

So this morning, I attended the annual welcome back faculty breakfast where we get to briefly gawk at new faculty who're made to pirouette while the higher-ups get attempt to use their vitas as part of a comedy routine. Meanwhile, while we - the entrenched, bored, on-our-best behavior old faculty - stuff our faces with free cafeteria food (I am increasingly convinced there is nothing more enticing to academics than the notion of a free lunch). Also this is where the University president traditionally exhorts us to some grand "moral" goal (the quotes are there because I don't necessarily equate the morals the president espouses with my own). And over the last two years, they've also started introducing us to the university's new marketing plan. That's right, kids, greasy bacon and academic commercials!

Oddly enough, most of us don't ever think about how universities market themselves. I'd imagine if you wanted to sell a university, you'd have to choose the best way to reach your ideal demographic. You'd probably edit your information to appeal to a 19 year old. Or maybe you'd even suggest, in addition to the official information, that someone try to figure a way to make the kids who're already at your university make their own commercials.

First, you target them, then you infect them. Viral marketing has come to the university.

Pause a moment and think about what that would look like. Would it say much about education, amidst all those fast edits and off-center camera angles? Would you even want to? Ever search for your university's name on YouTube? Could be worth looking at whatever turns up.

The Undying Art of Shameless Self-Promotion

It's around this time each year that U.S. News and World Report issues its annual college ratings. This is a bigger deal for colleges than for anyone, even the people who use them because it helps not only in recruiting students but in pushing for external funding.

What most people don't realize is just how tricky (read: near-crooked) the ratings are. For example, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal reported that when two colleges corrected information on their alumni-donation rate, their ratings slid. [Edit: they've since corrected this - only one of the two schools' ratings slid].

But what isn't so widely reported is that part of the rankings are based on the perceived status of the college or university by other colleges and universities. In other words, what other schools report they think of your school can determine your school's ranking. If just parsing that sentence takes a moment, you can be sure there's more fun in the works. Clearly, that sort of system seems like it shouldn't be a problem, right? In a world where education becomes more business than anything every day, we can count on truth over the bottom line, right? I mean, if we asked Coke executives to tell us what they thought of Pepsi, of course they'd be honest with us. The method is more than a little suspect, and it has resulted in some schools boycotting certain parts of the system (often leading to falls in their own rankings) and to ask for more information about the methodology itself, even claiming the system favors private schools.

It's amazing how often these things occur, though. Recently the school I'm at sent out messages to employees about a regional survey seeking to find the best places to work. There's no self-promotion there, I'm sure. What's interesting is that I've never heard anyone report on the ten worst places to work in a region though it seems like knowing that could be just as important.

No more teachers' dirty looks?

I'm thinking about quitting my job.

This morning one of my students confided in me. She said, fumbling for words, that she's wrestling with the things most of us wrestle with - family issues, big questions of life, how to balance desire and duty. Her monsters were, to be fair, bigger than most. On her arms are the scars of someone who's cut themselves or been cut in the distant past. She's witnessed things no one should, and she's coming out the other side. Facing the end of her time at a university must feel like - as it did for so many of us - looking down into a big blackness we never before imagined.

Like most of my students - honestly, like most students (myself included) - she isn't particularly brilliant. But she is amazingly talented, and it is her work ethic that sets her apart and that will push her on to brilliant things. And I do believe - and I told her so - that she will go on to those brilliant things. I told her that some selfishness is warranted - sometimes you have to do what's best for you so later you can do what's best for someone else. I told her that I'd juggled the same questions about whether to even get an advanced degree or to simply find some quiet middle management job so I could tend to the calamities of my own family. Maybe it helped.

This isn't why I'm thinking about quitting my job.

I tell you this story because it is moments like this that are the best part of my job: not when a student is struggling, not when I can tell them that they're going to be amazing. It is the moment where a connection is made that makes this job worthwhile. Teaching is a bit like standing at the crossroads and hoping a car will pass your way at just the right speed to see you waving. It isn't about making the car stop, though sometimes it does. It isn't about making the car change directions though that happens sometimes, too. Most days, teaching is just about helping someone to notice the things outside of their own car.

Seen from that perspective, which sounds pretty good I think, it might be hard to see why I'm thinking about quitting my job. So why then?

Here's the story. I'm 35 years old. I'm going into my fourth year of teaching at a small university somewhere in America. I get to discuss big ideas and controversial notions on an almost daily basis. I get to ask questions, and watch people go past that crossroads, stop, look around, check the map, change directions and change themselves on a regular if not daily basis. There are worse lives to lead.

But I'm 35 years old. I'm looking for a roommate because I can't afford my bills let alone the loans it took to get the education to get the job that allows me to do these things. The job pays, as many university teaching jobs do, just a little more than I might make as a middle manager at a call center or a small bank. Each Christmas as my students depart, I spend my first day of vacation balancing my checkbook to decide whether I can spare the few hundred dollars it would cost me to go see my own family. I've spent the last two holidays in my ramshackle bachelor apartment with my dog, re-reading old favorites and assuring my aging parents that I'll be home next year, I promise. Sometimes we open presents over the phone. Sometimes there aren't any because it doesn't seem right if I can't get them much that they should get me something.

Now I haven't said I'm a particularly good teacher. That a student confided in me at the beginning of this entry doesn't tell you much, really. But the thing is, I'm not alone. I know more than a few people in the same job with the same problem. And at least one of us is bound to be good in the classroom even if I'm not. And more than a few of them are having similar thoughts.

It makes me wonder if any one is thinking about whether the idea that you get what you pay for might apply to education.