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.

Flame on!

I knew the day had gotten bad when my roommate suggested to me that I might need too keyed up by the day's events.

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I don't generally think of myself as having a temper. If anything, I'm probably too slow to anger most times, owing to a family full of folks prone to flying off the handle. I've got an extremely long fuse.

And yet, sometimes, when I'm really frustrated, I find myself with a vision of myself catching fire. There I am, a picture in my own head: engulfed in flames, trying to make it through the world. In these visions, I'm a water person convinced I'm fire: I don't want to lash out, I simply want to go through things: walls, structures, limits. When I'm less angered, I find ways around them. But not today.

Today, I wanted to catch fire.

Since that wasn't possible, I thought about all sorts of other rash actions. I spent a fair amount of time pacing my living room floor and debating the straw that would break my camel's back. Wisely, no doubt, I passed on most of those options. Instead, I took a long walk, down by the river and through town. Music up loud. It didn't do much to take the edge off, but it was something at least.

---

There was a problem this summer, that resulted in classes being canceled that shouldn't have been. Ultimately, the University gave some funds to those profs whose courses were canceled in error. My class was canceled for this reason, though there were plenty of other snafus that happened along the way.

For whatever reason, though, there was no mysterious infusion of funds for me.

I'm not above saying I want my slice of the pie. And so part of the day was spent trying to get some explanation. The culmination of the day - the answer to the question - was, and I'll quote:

"[This solution] was only negotiated for undergraduate [courses] since I did not know about [graduate courses]. We will be developing a new procedure for next summer."

I felt well and truly dismissed.

Not surprisingly, that one line answer left me in more than a bit of a funk. Obviously a response is in order, unless I'm prepared to be dismissed by a negotiation I knew nothing about that obviously didn't have the full set of facts. And even though I've managed to avoid the truly angry e-mail I wanted to write, as far as I can tell there isn't a way to write a response that won't result in the administrative equivalent of "fighting words."

We'll see what a good night's sleep brings, but it seems like that's how it's going have to be: Curmudgeon on fire, going through things rather than working around them.

Talking About Politics with Students

So I've been stewing a bit about the implications of this story from Insider Higher Ed about the University of Illinois policy against faculty displaying any signs of political allegiance.

Last night, instead of live-blogging the debate with folks over at Organizing Grievances or posting something here, I spent the evening watching a colleague from Women's Studies talk about the role of gender and sexism in the election. And when that was done, I sat with a few colleagues and watched the debate with a group of students. I didn't wear my Obama button, and I didn't bust out my Kinky for governor memorabilia, but I don't imagine I'm quite so crafty as I'd like to be about my leanings. Students don't get the intensity of my "leftiness" but the do get the general direction right. So far, it hasn't seemed to be a problem, even though I'd describe most of our students as having a fairly conservative view.

The pervasiveness of views that would make that sort of policy isn't something that can be ignored, but so far in my case, it hasn't been much of a problem. Mostly it seems to be a matter of framing. I've started to tell my students - particularly the intro groups - that part of what I think college is about is confronting unfamiliar ideas and trying them on. And so I'm not going to hide my views from them because I respect them enough as adults (or soon-to-be-adults) that I assume they can handle hearing things they don't agree with. We just have to agree on some rules about how to handle those moments where we disagree.

With some discussion along those lines last night - that everyone involved would have to offer their evidence and let everyone talk without interrupting (a point the students all seemed to wish the debaters would take to heart) - we made it successfully through the debate. And I think the students enjoyed it for a few reasons. First, because it let them feel like they had equal ground with those of who were faculty - they could speak and have opinions. The biggest problem with the Illinois problem is that it turns college into one more version of the kid's table. And second, it allows for some humanization of the issues. One of the things a student said on the way out the door last night was that they'd essentially had their first moment of putting a human face to a policy they'd always heard - and so, believed - was ridiculous. And in thinking and talking about it, some of the rough edge of politics was smoothed out.

For me, it was a moment not just a refutation of the U. Illinois policy but also a brief moment of hope about the future of politics.

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.

Now if it were Jesus' social security number, that'd be a big deal...

One of the things that frustrates me about the my university - and incidentally, I've been working at coming up with a pseudonym for it, since applying pseudonyms to things seems like one of the pleasures of blogging that I've long been denying myself - is that organizationally, we exist with a very confused communications style.

For example, my syllabus this term would top nine pages if I followed the required guidelines that now demand a chart be put in explaining how my course goals link to the department goals, and how those goals link to the general education goals, and how those goals link to the university's mission. I hated that song about the old lady who swallowed a fly when I was four years old, and I certainly can't stand a bad remix of it now.

But today's affront was an entirely different affair. As I've eluded to previously, my university carries with it a religious tie. That's fine. I believe in science, scrambled eggs and Tabasco as the surest cure for a hangover, and The Clash; you can believe in God. Whatever; we can work our differences out. Or ignore them. In keeping with this, however, we're regularly treated to e-mails asking us to pray for the recently departed. For example, over the holidays, I received an e-mail notifying me that the brother of one of the University's board had passed. It wasn't a personal e-mail, mind you, or even the typical interoffice spam, but rather, it went out as part of the official e-mail bulletin that gets sent out about major campus events.

Anyway, you can imagine how amused it made me then that today's e-mail of campus big events contained only a hint of important news, forcing me to go look for the real story myself. Evidently, the university has finally decided on a policy about disposing of documents. You know, pesky things that might have student information on them and such? Of course, the e-mail doesn't tell me what the policy is, or even where to go find it quickly.

Good times.