Taking Stock, Pt. II

Let's think more specifically about how I can make my characteristics work for me. Or as the Dread Pirate Roberts says, let's list our assets.

1. I am congenial and kind and engaging toward my students. I generally have a good rapport with them and enjoy a measure of popularity as a result. I know this is one of the ways I succeed at my job, but I also know that it demands a lot of me and my time and my emotional energy. It is also far too easy to get trapped by the notion that popularity and admiration are things to be sought...I would be lying if I said I don't enjoy my reputation.

2. I am a careful, methodical worker who seldom shows brilliance but does demonstrate a kind of steady reliability. I am not a self-promoter or a terribly creative sort. But when it comes to the kind of scholarship I am able to do, this may serve me well. We in the humanities are plagued with books, with "creative" approaches to our disciplines. Perhaps a slow but careful approach will yield a greater work in the end.

3. I have tried to create and maintain a reputation for honesty and discipline and hard work and even-handedness. Maybe I will be called on at some point to exhibit those qualities in a way that can really do my colleagues, my institution, or my profession some service. If I am not granted that chance, at the very least I can look myself in the eye.

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Taking Stock

Given that the school year is about to begin with me still grappling with some doubts about my place, a bit of self-examination seems in order.  What strengths do I possess, and how are they balanced against my weaknesses?

1.  I am an analytical thinker.  I am not particularly creative.
2.  I am a skillful and engaging teacher.  I am not as good at the research phase of my job.
3.  I do not speak overly much.  Sometimes I think I've said more than I actually have.
4.  I am usually kind and compassionate.  I am quick to avoid conflict.
5.  I have a sense of humor about myself.  That sense of humor can be overly self-deprecating.
6.  I mind my own business.  I imagine this can seem cold.
7.  I know the difference between what's important and what isn't.  This can also seem cold.
8.  I am unselfish and loyal.  Not always able to say no when I should.
9.  I am introspective.  Too introspective.  For an example, see this entry.

An encouraging word

Comment I got today on my GSH evaluation:

• Dr. Hill simply lit up my world. He made sure we understood the text and was patient when we did not. He also taught me how to think differently, I wish I could learn under him again.



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A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 10

With our department "retreat" (i.e., our all-day meeting to start our academic work year) tomorrow, it's time to move from grappling with concerns about my career and profession to grappling with what's required over the next few weeks.  So I'm drawing this little series to a close with a set of things I might do to move forward from here.

1.  Choose an entirely new set of service activities to invest myself in.  I've been doing many of the same committees for years now; maybe it's time to take on something I wouldn't have considered even a few months ago.

2.  Rid myself of interactions that bring me no peace or enjoyment.

3.  Look for work elsewhere.

4.  Spend more time exercising and less time in the office.

5.  Double down on my own academic projects and let everything else take care of itself.

6.  Resign myself to the way things "have to be."

Something has to change...just not sure in what way yet.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 38

Two statements involving Number One Son, both from yesterday evening:

1) "guess what? I have a girlfriend." 

2) "yes, sometimes in class he visits Jonathanland, but he come right back to us when I get his attention."

A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 9

In a continuation of my reflections from yesterday's post, I want to discuss the remainder of the article I mentioned yesterday.  One of the chief intellectual problems I face is the question of just how valuable in a broad sense my work can be.  The writer points to at least one way the humanities remains valuable even in an increasingly commodified higher ed climate:

To say that excessively specialized humanities scholarship today is irrelevant is not to say that the humanities are irrelevant. The humanities are that space in the university system where power does not have the last word, where truth and beauty as well as insight and eccentricity reign supreme and where young people come into contact with the great traditions, writing, and thinking that have made us whom we are today. The humanities introduce us to our ancestors and our forebears and acculturate students into their common heritage. It is in the humanities that we learn to judge the good from the bad and thus where we first encounter the basic moral facility for making judgments. It is because the humanities teach taste and judgment that they are absolutely essential to politics. It is even likely that the decline of politics today is profoundly connected to the corruption of the humanities.

"The corruption of the humanities?"  This is where I would be likely to be looked at askance by some of my colleagues.  I don't think there's any question that the disciplines of the humanities are in themselves the most worthy to be studied:

What unites culture and politics is that they are “both phenomena of the public world.” Judgment, the primary faculty of politics, is discovered, nurtured, and practiced in the world of culture and the judgment of taste. What the study of culture through the humanities offers, therefore, is an orientation towards a common world that is known and understood through a common sense.  The humanities, Arendt argues, are crucial for the development and preservation of common sense—something that is unfortunately all-too-lacking in much humanities scholarship today.

What this means is that teaching the humanities is absolutely essential for politics—and as long as that is the case, there will be a rationale for residential colleges and universities. The mania for distance learning today is understandable. Education is, in many cases, too expensive. Much could be done more cheaply and efficiently at colleges. And this will happen. Colleges will, increasingly, bring computers and the internet into their curricula. But as powerful as the internet is, and as useful as it is as a replacement for passive learning in large lectures, it is not yet a substitute for face-to-face learning that takes place at a college or university. The learning that takes place in the hallways, offices, and dining halls when students live, eat, and breathe their coursework over four years is simply fundamentally different from taking a course online in one’s free time. As exciting as technology is, it is important to remember that education is, at its best, not about transmitting information but about inspiring thinking.

Sadly, most of my colleagues would take the above as an ideological attack aimed at their chosen disciplines/values/etc.  As long as this kind of critique is seen as a kind of anti-intellectual demagoguery (I have heard similar critiques--and their authors--be summarily dismissed with just this language), the necessary adjustments (and I do believe they are utterly necessary) will not take place until the market forces our hand--which it may have already done, given the kind of conversations I hear when the state secondary and higher ed curricula come up.  

The article does counter one oft-suggested solution:

The focus on pedagogy is a mistake and comes from the basic flawed assumption that the problem with the humanities is that the professors aren’t good communicators. It may be true that professors communicate poorly, but the real problem is deeper. If generations of secondary school teachers trained in pedagogy have taught us anything, it is that pedagogical teaching is not useful. Authority in the classroom comes from knowledge and insight, not from pedagogical techniques or theories.

The pressing issue is less pedagogy than the fact that what most professors know is so specialized as to be irrelevant. What is needed is not better pedagogical training, but a more broad and erudite training, one that focuses less on original research and academic publishing and instead demands reading widely and writing for an educated yet popular audience. What we need, in other words, are academics who read widely with excitement and inspiration and speak to the interested public.

More professors should be blogging and writing in public-interest journals. They should be reviewing literature rather than each other’s books and, shockingly, they should be writing fewer academic monographs.

To say that the humanities should engage the world does not mean that the humanities should be politicized. The politicization of the humanities has shorn them of their authority and their claim to being true or beautiful. Humanities scholarship can only serve as a incubator for judgment when it is independent from social and political interests. But political independence is not the same as political sterility. Humanities scholarship can, and must, teach us to see and know our world as it is.

The critique he levels against "pedagogical" thinking is apt, I think.  My experience has been that while some of my students who focus on Education are quite bright, the qualities they bring to the classroom (when and if they become teachers) will have very little to do with the theories they know (especially that blasted "Bloom's Taxonomy" which is apparently gospel) and much more to do with the actual things they know--how much and widely they have read, how intellectually curious they are, how carefully they are able to analyze not only their own thinking and writing but that of others.  Conversely, I have observed many colleagues both in graduate school and later--and there were some whose teaching could not be saved, yea, even by years of workshops on classroom management techniques.

But because this sounds suspiciously "conservative," it would be dismissed right out of hand, especially in the current climate.

A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 8

What I have been trying to do these past few weeks, as I've written my way through some pretty difficult personal and intellectual problems, is chart out a course for the next few years. Up until this point, there have been some pretty significant markers of progress--objectives that had to be hit.  I had to earn each degree--B.A., M.A., Ph.D.  I had to earn a job and then earn tenure and promotion at that job.  Now that I am tenured . . . what, exactly?

The usual answer is publish.  But I am forced to admit that I don't see it happening--not only because I'm frankly not smart or focused enough to put together a book, but I'm not sure I believe in the degree-book-tenure-book pattern taught to me by my beloved mentors at UNC.  The other day, I stumbled across this article, which seems to encapsulate a lot of what I've been thinking.  Here are some excerpts:

Railing against college professors has become a common pastime, one practiced almost exclusively by those who have been taught and mentored by those who are now being criticized. It is thus only fair to say upfront that college education in the United States is, in spite of its myriad flaws, still of incredible value and meaning to tens if not hundreds of thousands of students every year.

That said, too much of what our faculties teach is neither interesting nor wanted by our students. This is a point that Jacques Berlinerblau makes in a recent essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Observers of gentrification like to draw a distinction between needs and wants. Residents in an emerging neighborhood need dry cleaners, but it’s wine bars they really want. The application of that insight to the humanities leads me to an unhappy conclusion: Our students, and the educated public at large, neither want us nor need us.

What is amazing is that not only do our students not want what we offer, but neither do our colleagues. It is an amazing and staggering truth that much of what academics write and publish is rarely, if ever, read. And if you want to really experience the problem, attend an academic conference some day, where you will see panels of scholars presenting their work, sometimes to one or two audience members. According to Berlinerblau, the average audience at academic conference panels is 14 persons.

I am under no illusions about the importance of the things I study.  I do find them interesting and even valuable to my understanding of the way rhetoric is employed in political, religious, and literary contexts in the Tudor and Stuart eras in England.  I am well trained enough to extrapolate points to other periods and contexts as well.  I think the rigor of what I study helps me be more rigorous as a thinker and as a professor (i.e., teacher).  However, I know that a book published on the things I study, assuming I could produce such a thing, would not be what anyone actually needs.

While there are exceptions, little original research is left to do in most fields of the humanities. Few important books are published each year. The vast majority are as derivative as they are unnecessary. We would all do well to read and think about the few important books (obviously there will be some disagreement and divergent schools) than to spend our time trying to establish our expertise by commenting on some small part of those books.

The result of the academic imperative of publish or perish is the increasing specialization that leads to the knowing more and more about less and less. This is the source of the irrelevance of much of humanities scholarship today.

As Hannah Arendt wrote 50 years ago in her essay On Violence, humanities scholars today are better served by being learned and erudite than by seeking to do original research by uncovering some new or forgotten scrap. While such finds can be interesting, they are exceedingly rare and largely insignificant.

As a result—and it is hard to hear for many in the scholarly community—we simply don’t need 200 medieval scholars in the United States or 300 Rawlsians or 400 Biblical scholars. It is important that Chaucer and Nietzsche are taught to university students, but the idea that every college and university needs a Chaucer and a Nietzsche scholar to teach Chaucer and Nietzsche is simply wrong. We should, of course, continue to support scholars, those whose work is to some extent scholarly innovative. But more needed are well-read and thoughtful teachers who can teach widely and write for a general audience.

There's plenty more in the article which, for the sake of space and in order to not weary my reader, I will save for another related post.  Still, this strikes me personally because I see so many colleagues and former classmates publishing wonderful stuff, and I greatly admire the work of my graduate school mentors.  I wonder why I cannot contribute in the ways they have, but almost immediately have to ask myself if anything I would write would in fact be a contribution.  Does this mean that I am a small-potatoes teacher in a small-potatoes college and must resign myself to that?  I have been able to tell myself that this position I am currently in, though it doesn't realistically allow for serious research or "scholarly" development, does fit my introverted personality and unwillingness to aggressively market myself.  It fits my service-oriented outlook.  I have told myself that because I am good at teaching, and because that teaching  (at least in the way I do it) is an important work, I should be satisfied with where I am and what I'm doing . . . and what the prospects appear to be.

Unfortunately, I'm losing confidence in all those things.

A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 7

Yesterday, I overheard a conversation in the lounge (this was at the office) between some of my co-workers.  One of them, who is no doubt in a position to know such things, was talking about some of the curriculum changes in secondary ed, and how they are likely to affect the way things go for higher ed.  Apparently (and I knew this was coming anyway), there are some plans in place to have a majority of students in our state come to college with composition credit already earned.  This would be a big change for my department, of course, because at least half of our total sections are composition sections.  And frankly, given the constant competition on campus for students to fill out sections, missing students from composition sections also means missing the opportunity to recruit them for literature survey classes.  This means, unfortunately, that the makeup of our department is apt to change.  It also means that the amount of resources to which the department is entitled is apt to change.  It also means that the makeup of the courses we teach is apt to change.

We (my colleagues and I) might be forced to make the case for why our discipline matters in a 21st century regional state university.  And frankly, if we can't make that case, we shouldn't have the positions we have.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 37

Second grade! Time to get back to it!

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A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 6

Work begins in earnest this week, as Number One Son goes back to school, as we settle into the Fall routine, and as I get ready for my slate of classes for the term.

Before that, though, comes the annual department "retreat" (the word "retreat" is misleading because it's only an all-day meeting...apparently you can use department funds for food at a department "retreat" but not for food at a mere "meeting."), in which we will discuss yet again how to increase the visibility and appeal of the major for the sake of numbers.  We will discuss how to communicate the benefits of the degree, how to attract more students to the major, whether nor not to purchase marketing materials, and so on.

This all puts me at a real disadvantage because I am torn between the institutional demands of the department and the demand of truthfulness.  More specifically, I can tell people that the English major is important--but I can't truthfully say it's important for the reasons I am "supposed" to say it's important.  Especially nowadays.  I can no longer tell students that graduate study is a good option.  I cannot tell students, given the employment climate they are likely to experience for the foreseeable future, that a humanities degree will be useful for getting them a job.  I've taken to hedging, saying that English is a good degree because it meshes well with just about anything else and allows you to heighten and broaden the strengths you already possess.  The problem is, to really benefit from a degree in the traditional humanities (English, History, Philosophy), a student has to invest more time reading than everyone else, has to figure out how to join the various disciplines into a unified whole, and has to love learning for its own sake.  Put bluntly, almost none of my students have that ability--or even that desire.

In a climate where everyone wants to know how their education dollars are contributing to measurable results, it's hard to be a cheerleader for my discipline--at least the way it is currently practiced.

An anatomy of absurdity

a.  I arrive at the office, and unload my MacBook Pro (well, technically the STATE's MacBook Pro), my iPad, and my iPhone, making sure to check the battery status of each device.

b.  I pull out the journal I am using (with its brand of paper that handles fountain pens okay), and choose one of innumerable pens to write with--usually sure to choose a color of ink that I did not use the day before.  Then I write my entry for the day.

c.  Meanwhile, I'm also opening two email programs and two browsers, arranging them across the two-monitor setup on my desk.

d.  I check Facebook, my RSS reader, my blogs, and I keep an ear out for text messages.

e.  I delete rafts of "sale event" messages from various online merchants, and campus email messages I do not need, and skim several dozen articles, dumping promising ones into Instapaper. I also double check electronic and paper calendars for the important events of the day.

f.  I drink loads of coffee while all this is going on.  Black.


g.  And then I try to concentrate.

The Inaugural use of the Perry Stare.

This is a picture Lileks is fond of using when he wants to comment on something rather . . . risible.  I would like to take the picture and use it (with attribution to Lileks, whose work I admire very much) on occasion when I too run across something rather . . . risible. 

This Perry Stare goes out to my pastor, a man whose heart is assuredly in the right place, who brings energy and honesty to our little(ish) church.  He is, however, a young man, and sometimes speaks as a young man.  Yesterday was one of those times.  When speaking about the second chapter of Genesis, and how it depicts God's perfect provision of a mate for Adam, he felt the need to address the unfortunate reality that marriage in real life may not always be as perfect as that of our forebears. 

He said that when people find themselves in unhappy marriages, it's because they didn't wait for God's perfect provision for them.  Or it's because they rushed into a relationship.  Or it's because they haven't trusted God enough, or done it His way, or whatever.  Essentially, he was asserting (not arguing) that marriage discord comes about because someone sinned or tripped up, and can be avoided if one properly seeks divine wisdom.  As "evidence," he read a little bit out of C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. 

The Runner was helping out in the nursery at the time, so there was nobody I could scrawl an "UH OH" note to . . . but her reaction when I relayed the point was much as I had expected:

This kind of thing is what occupies a lot of her time as a therapist.  The above is spoken by a young man, very much as a young man, secure in what he believes and in his understanding of how the world works.  I hope he and his wife (and children) never experience the trials that befall even the most well-intentioned of people, but I have come to suspect that life has its own ways of robbing us of our illusions.  Either way, I also hope that a few more years of study (if he can discipline himself to do it) finds him singing a slightly different tune.

In which Piers gets his hands dirty

My bike suffered a full-fledged component failure on Thursday last week.  After 4,000+ miles (that's not as much as it sounds, trust me), it was probably about time that an entry-level bike with entry-level components gave up at least something.  So, I have ordered a replacement part.  I am waiting for it to arrive, and in the meantime am taking some time to disassemble parts of the bike for some well-overdue cleaning.  I've discovered that I can be really patient and careful with tools when I have a need to be, and I actually take a lot of pleasure in tinkering like this.  I would replace more items on the bike if it were not for the cost of actually PURCHASING said items. 

Unfortunately, the only other bike I have is a single speed made for work commuting and really casual riding, not the more serious "exercise" riding I do in the mornings.  So for at least a little while, I'm going to be sitting on my thumbs.  And resisting the urge to BUY MORE TOOLS so I can TAKE THE BIKE APART EVEN MORE.

I also tried to make the argument to The Runner that this shows how much I need a third bike (I have my eye on this one), but she was not convinced, alas.

A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 5

There are many ways in which the academic landscape is changing, and stories like this will continue to come up in the coming few years.  The opponents of such moves (in this case, the shuttering of the University of Missouri Press) will express their "outrage" (outrage?) in the most moralistic and inflated language possible. 

I've read several articles on this particular closing, because it symbolizes one of the many changes that will happen--needs to happen--to the academy in the United States, especially that portion populated by public institutions.  The money is not there like it once was, and it is unlikely to return.  The publishing industry is changing as modes of publication change.  The notion that an academic monograph (published at a loss, bought almost entirely by libraries, and almost never read) must be the sole standard for tenure at a major institution is being scrutinized--and needs to be further scrutinized.  Given these trends, the expectation that things will not change (sometimes unpleasantly for those working in university settings) strikes me as odd.  The entire academic enterprise simply cannot continue as it has been. 

Things will look very different in ten years.  The question is whether or not our academic institutions--university presses among them--anticipate and adapt to what must inevitably come.

In which Piers knows he is super preoccupied

...because he can't even read.


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When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child,
that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman's second glance, a child's apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother's papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father's voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.

-- The American Scholar: Joyas Volardores - Brian Doyle


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A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 4

In larger, more research-oriented institutions, the pre-tenure period is one for putting together a serious volume of research that can be published as a scholarly monograph. Post-tenure, an assistant or associate professor is supposed to be putting together further volumes as he or she works up the academic ranks to a full professorship. Unless one then chooses to enter administration as a dean, the position of full professor is the career pinnacle.

I have earned tenure at my institution, but have had very few meaningful publications. Some of that is a natural outgrowth of my teaching load--four classes a semester, plus more during the summers.

Some of that is also due, however, to my own abilities and choices. I focus a lot of attention on my classes and students, and on serving my department and college, and on my family needs. I am also not the most focused or prolific of researchers (nor am I very creative in my approaches to the work). On the upside, I am not at all willing to send out just anything--I'm not going to put out any material with my name on it unless I think it is really worth something.

So, how do I progress in my career? I do not have to publish to receive tenure--that part has been done. If I want a promotion in another five to six years, however, I do need to produce. Likewise, should I feel the need to move to a different institution, I need to look better on paper than I do right now. I could opt for the administration track, but I doubt whether I'm cut it for that kind of work...at any rate, I don't want it right now. Can I avoid stagnating, though?

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A crisis of confidence, Vol. 3

When I arrived at this institution, times were flush and everyone was living (comparatively) high, thanks to all kinds of money in the state coffers.  Perks were doled out relatively liberally.  And of course, everyone acted as if the good times would last forever.  And then the state budget collapsed.

Tough times make for tough choices, and the state contributions to this institution have shrunk from year to year.  This has caused some of my colleagues to act angrily--especially after the 2010 election put the GOP in charge of the state legislature for the first time in roughly forever.  Seeing a plot to systemically gut higher ed, they have tended to refer to state legislators as slope-browed homunculi incapable of seeing what is self-evidently true:  what we do here is super duper important and should be funded to the hilt.

As a result, I have heard many assertions about the value of higher education to the taxpayers of this state, but few arguments.  I recall a special faculty senate subcommittee that was formed a couple of years ago to do the typical things:  convene a conference, gather stories of people with hardship, demonstrate at the state capitol, etc.  And, as is usual for ad-hoc groups of this nature, the effort collapsed within a year because its goals were neither clear nor actually possible.  That was okay by me, because I saw in the confrontational approach a fatal strategic flaw.

Things have not gotten better.  In fact, the challenges are greater now than they were before, especially for an institution such as this one, which has no particular prestige attached to it and is not likely to generate a significant endowment to help manage its own affairs.  If this place is to be successful over the medium to long term, those of us who work here are going to have to be able to articulate--in non-condescending ways--arguments for why the work we do here is valuable.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind, in response to the current situation (I should probably revisit these in later installments):

a.  The "jobs" angle has been overplayed and overpromised, especially in fields like the humanities and fine arts, and even the hard sciences.  Quit pitching an education in the liberal arts & sciences as a sure pathway to employment--this just isn't true anymore, and these kinds of claims end up looking more like broken promises.

b.  The money isn't there like it used to be, and university faculty members should remember that there are plenty of constituencies fighting for the remainders.  We are not entitled to any of it, especially if we do not want the oversight that comes with using someone else's money.

c.  The advances in computer technology and connectivity are in fact going to change the way we do our work.  We need to be prepared for a pretty significant shakeout and embrace rather than fight the outcome.

Midweek update

Had my first flat of the season today. Knew something was up when the ride felt squishy.

Swim lessons for the boys. This makes them most tired, which is good because they go to sleep more quickly.

This is the kind of weather in which one thinks it would be nice to have a pool. Until one remembers just how much work it takes to maintain one. I mean, the yard and tiny garden is apparently more than we can handle as it is.

Reading lots of interesting stuff these days--more than I can keep up with, honestly. Also read a couple of things that were supposed to be sophisticated and intelligent...but were instead tedious and dull. Alas.

Visited the life insurance guy today. Time to put a substantial policy in place. I wish I could have answered his questions about future plans and income, etc., with less pessimism in my heart.

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Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 36

Every year since he was three, Number One Son has had swim lessons with the UTM Children's Center in mid-July.  Every year, he has fretted and fussed about it until the lessons actually started, and then he was all about showing off how good a swimmer he is.  So it was without much surprise that I found myself explaining to him yesterday morning that yes, he was going to have to go and participate, and no, he wasn't going to be able to just skip one day, and yes, we would see if mommy could take him into his room beforehand.  We did manage to get The Runner to take the children to their rooms at the Children's Center. 

However, Number One Son didn't get in the pool yesterday, because he fibbed his way out of doing it.  Overcome with anxiety over the upcoming lessons, he took advantage of some confusion and told the teacher that he had not been signed up to go (this in spite of the fact that he was wearing sandals and swim trunks at the time).  When the little deception was discovered, he got stern talkings-to from teacher, The Runner, and me.  He didn't like it, but I hope he remembers how uncomfortable it was when the next time arrives that he is tempted to be sneaky.

A crisis of confidence Vol. 2

What's wrong with "accreditation."

SACS Accreditation is right around the corner, and as in the article above, the emphasis here on campus has been overwhelmingly on getting the paperwork right and on having all the furniture dusted before the satraps and other functionaries arrive.

Having the furniture dusted is nice, and accreditation is important for all sorts of reasons. I just wonder if the questions being asked are the necessary ones --given the way higher ed is heading. I don't really think they are.

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Just a little rain

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A crisis of confidence vol. 1

I'm in a profession that is facing a real crisis of legitimacy.  Most reports involving student learning indicate that despite the millions of dollars poured into higher ed, outcomes have remained static or worse.  Meanwhile, one only has to look around to see a distressing level of silliness in many of the things going on (especially in the colleges of humanities & fine arts and of education) even while tuitions and fees continue to rise and colleagues complain that the state is paying a smaller & smaller percentage of the institution's expenses.

It's not just here, of course; in some ways, we are insulated from the worst features of academe simply because there's comparatively so little at stake at a small regional campus like this one.

 From one of many many articles on this topic:

The higher-education bubble has been inflating for decades, and it’s ready to burst, or at least deflate. That’s because many Americans are realizing that the huge cost of college is often a waste. Whereas college degrees used to be regarded as sure-fire investments, the labor market has become glutted with people who have been to college but can’t find “good” jobs.

Did you know that 22 percent of customer-sales representatives and 16 percent of bartenders have bachelor’s degrees?

Furthermore, at many schools, academic standards have fallen to the point where students can coast through without learning anything worthwhile. As University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds recently wrote, “The higher education bubble isn’t bursting because of a shortage of money. It is bursting because of a shortage of value.”

As a result, many students and parents are looking for less expensive, more effective alternatives to the traditional degree. They’re finding plenty of new options with online courses and independent certification of competencies, such as ACT’s National Career Readiness Certificates.
This educational revolution will transform higher education for the better as people shop for good value for their education dollars rather than robotically enrolling in a college, taking its courses and paying its bills.

During the bubble, colleges could get away with offering lots of courses that met a standard that former Indiana University English professor Murray Sperber characterizes as “the faculty/student nonaggression pact.” That is, the professor didn’t demand much of the students and gave high grades; in return, the students didn’t expect much from the professor, who wanted time for academic research projects.

The students were happy: Who complains about courses with high grades but little work? The professors were happy, and the administrators were happy because students getting good grades typically don’t gripe or, more important, drop out.

But courses in which students just go through the motions without learning anything are a waste of time and money.

The good news is that in the new higher-education world, courses like that will be jettisoned. Like dieters giving up doughnuts in favor of more nutritious, low-calorie foods, college consumers will look for affordable courses that lead to demonstrable educational gains.

The housecleaning in higher education also will sweep out lots of courses that exist only because professors like to teach them. Such courses typically focus on narrow, trendy or highly political subjects that interest the professor. For example, students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, can take “The Psychology of Clothes: Motivations for Dressing Up and Dressing Down.” In the new era of value consciousness, such boutique courses will be culled out.

Not only will boutique courses go, but professors will be required to do more of something many dislike and avoid as much as possible: Work with students.

(link)

I will admit that I resent being tarred with the same brush as some of my more unscrupulous colleagues at much much larger institutions.  But then again, they have a greater responsibility given the prominence of their appointments . . . and they have in many ways failed the rest of us (my mentors, thankfully, do NOT fall into this category) by giving our profession such a wretched reputation. 

I have much more to say on this matter, so it will probably come back up--as it is I'm already well past my usual brevity.

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True freedom means the freedom...

...to fall on your face, or stumble, or worse. And there is no way to avoid that risk unless, like so many, you would prefer to not carry the burden of meaningful choice.

This is one of the many things it is my duty to teach my students and my children.

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A partial list of pivotal moments

for their last assignment, my governor's school students had to write about their experience in school, which led me to think about school moments that were important to me. Here are the first three that came to mind:

1. That time in the fourth grade when I passed my first addition time test (after many practice rounds courtesy of Mom).
2. Having to rewrite (for no credit) my John Paul Jones report for my 5th grade teacher Miss Kaiser.
3. The time I got in trouble for laughing when a fellow 7th grader, reading out loud from the book of Acts, mispronounced "Annas" as "anus."
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In which Piers strategically retreats

I came to the end of my rope on Monday morning, just after The Mutt had decided to roll in something incredibly foul on her morning walk--which had meant that I had been compelled to stand out with her, the hose, and the doggie shampoo while she suffered through a bath.  I just realized that I couldn't keep it up any longer.

I've been trying to do too many things, and now it's time to let some of them go.  I'm not accustomed to making allowances for fatigue or weakness or whatever, but I didn't have a choice in this case.  So:  no more attempting to do research or writing for a few weeks.  Just my teaching, my books, my bike, and all the various requirements of the household (and there are plenty).  Nothing wrong with a little enjoyment.  At least that's what I tell myself--and that this isn't a matter of me not working hard enough.

"Kind" = ??

I was called "kind" the other day, and while I appreciated the sentiment, I also found myself having an inward dialogue about the worth of that kind of virtue.  Let's face it, "kind" is not something flashy or interesting.  It's not quite as bland as "nice," but it's in that direction.  The thing is, I try to be kind; I understand how important it is when life is so often painful and destructive to people. And if I actually exhibit that quality, isn't that a good thing?

I guess maybe I think it's common--that everyone does their best to be kind, so it's an unexceptional quality?  Or am I perhaps even more vain than that, wanting to have some ultra-significant and unique virtue that almost no one possesses?

What's more, maybe all this introspection is also a symptom of vanity.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 35

Last night was the first game in Number One Son's little league baseball tournament.  Going into the bottom of the 6th inning, his team (the "Marlins," ugh) was ahead 12 to 10 against the "Yankees."  Alas, the Marlins did not manage to record a single out before the Yankees had scored the winning run.  Season over.

Once we got home (at 10:00!!!), Number One Son cried and cried.  He didn't cry because his team had lost, or because he hadn't gotten a hit.* He cried because baseball season is over and he can't play with his team any more.  I put him in my lap and let him cry about it, and told him yes, we would find a way to hang up his jersey and his hat so he could remember his first baseball team.  I told him I was proud of the way he learned to play the game this year, and of how good his attitude always was, and how glad I was he enjoyed it so much.  I was also proud that he just wants to play more.  I was never any good at baseball, so I don't have a lot personally invested in this game . . . but I'm awfully proud of the way he stuck with it so cheerfully all season.

*he made contact three times last night--all foul balls--but it was the closest to a hit he got all season.  Hard to catch up to a 40 mph machine-pitched baseball, especially with his skinny arms.

GSH Day One

Yesterday, a prime example of a student who is used to being hot stuff and who apparently thinks he can push around his teachers.  He came in with tons of attitude and tried being a smartass with me three or four different times.  I indulged him.  If he thinks to intimidate me, though, he's going to have to step up his game quite a bit.  For now, he gets the above response.

Non-Intentional Hiatus

This blog is not dead!

I've just been catching up with other parts of my life, and sometimes barely at the computer at all.

That said, big week coming up, what with the trip to Atlanta and all.  Gonna be traveling with The Mutt for the first time ever.  Risky, yes.

Meanwhile, I'm terribly concerned about my career.  I feel like I've stagnated, that I'm spinning my wheels, that this is all a big fat exercise in futility.

the above is subject to change, of course.

extremities

I took The Mutt out for her morning walk today.  It was 5:45, and she was in her crate in the other room giving the "I NEED TO GO POTTY" whine.  Usually, The Runner takes her out while I rouse whichever children need rousing for the day...but she was sleeping so soundly on one side, while Little Red snored in my ear on the other side, that I figured I'd be the one to do it.  So we went out for her morning walk--sans leash, since it's just around the loop road in the back, and there aren't any people or cars back there.  The Mutt was just overjoyed to be alive, and ran, and ran, and chased a bird, and would sniff in a hole, and then come bounding my direction, tongue and ears flopping.  It was a nice way to start the day.  She is good for all of us--but in a strange way she is perhaps best for me, in that she does what I find so hard:  live entirely in the joy of the moment.

Upon getting ready for work today (yes, it may be summer, but I'm trying to write something, so . . . work), I glanced at the bathroom counter where stood two large pharmacy bottles of Lithium.  I stopped taking it back in March 2009 or so, but there the remainder of my prescription sits.  Another reminder, of a different kind, to enjoy the moment I have been given.  If I make it sound like a discipline, that's because it is one for me.

That said, I'm glad I'm not there anymore.  It's hard to believe that I was ever so bad off that the doctors felt the need to bring in that kind of artillery.

It's time for student evaluations!

Among the comments garnered this year:

• "There's only three teachers [sic] that have effected [sic] me, inside and out of the classroom, making me a better person.  [Piers] is the third."
  
• "I wouldn't do so much poetry, poetry is nessecary [sic] but not excessive amounts."
  
• "I would like it if he tried not to cuss but that's just me"  [oops. I just get carried away.]
  
• "The way he allowed himself to birdwalk at times was good."  [birdwalk??]
  
• "The analyzation was a key thing for me."
  
• "This man needs a laptop to reference certain academic materials mentioned in class."
  
• "Sometimes too funny, off topic."  [TOO FUNNY!!  hahahaha]
  
• "no bullcrap."
  
• "Never mention Monty Python in class. Ever." [fat chance, sister]

As usual, I got props for being "enthusiastic" and "caring," and had many students who found the lyric poetry frustrating.  I also got the usual, and still mystifying, request for "more grades" in the class.

May flowers

Just our one peony, Paeonia lactiflora

Actually, it's been so warm that the flowers mostly came and went.

I always find myself at loose ends when the semester is over and I have some time to myself...so many projects, and yet the time passes as quickly as it always has.  I'll be working enough once June starts, but I can't justify taking this whole month off...at least there's grass to mow and a big puppy to look after.  And books to read and a paper to write and children to mind and baseball games to attend and gardening to do.  And bikes to be riding.  And so on.

Some end of semester thoughts

...both positive and not:

1. This department, the one in which I work, has a serious PR problem because it does not promote--that is, encourage and reward--its most engaging people.

2. If the department is in need of majors, and is having a hard time attracting enough students to fill upper level classes, then perhaps one ought to take a look at whose classes are filling up . . . and whose classes are not.  Students sign up for professors, not literature topics or periods.

3.  The campus reorganization that merged my department and the foreign languages department was an exercise in shuffling deck chairs.  The positive results have been negligible, but the hit to morale has been devastating.  It needn't be that way, but that is the way it has turned out.

4.  To Miss Saucy Student:  that act is appealing as long as it is paired with adequate attention to the requirements of the course.

5.  I wish some of you students would show me your personalities before the very end of the term.

6.  Gentlemen and ladies:  stop running down your dating partner in public.  If he or she is that awful, then move on to another, better person.  No one is forcing you to date so-and-so.  Also, if that person is showing some glaring character issues, just be ready:  they will not get better over time.

7.  I understand why english professors get to the point where they write assignments with huge stipulations regarding formatting, numbers of sources, source quality, page number, quote integration, and so on.  I have resisted such tactics up to this point, thinking that I can use the positive rather than negative approach.  This semester has taught me to rethink that attitude.  First new stipulation:  if you use a source that sounds idiotic (like SHMOOP), then I'm going to treat your essay is if it is written by a person who uses idiotic sources.

8.  I am supposed to do writing all this month.  I can't see straight at the moment, so time will tell if that is going to happen.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 38

The best exam response I've gotten so far:  In response to a question about Beowulf, this student writes "Best I remember Beowulf rips his arm off or something and he bleeds to death, but either way Beowulf won."

Monday Update, exam week edition

The strangeness of exam week never fails to impress.

Glad to say that The Runner finished another half marathon this past weekend.  She was not pleased with her performance in the race, but I think that running any half marathon at all is pretty impressive.

Meanwhile, I was at the in-laws' house with the children . . . and I had intended to grade a whole mess of papers.  I would have done that, but I had managed to leave 60 or so of those essays sitting at home in my bedroom.  Not very well done.

So here I sit at my desk, after a good ten hours at work, waiting for the end of this little "exam period" so the remainder of my first year students can turn in their final assignments.  Number One Son is having a baseball game at the moment, and The Runner is limping through the rest of what has been a stressful day.

We got The Mutt back from the kennel yesterday . . . and she was absolutely WILD.  Glad she had a good time, but it was also a stern reminder that we will have to be working with her for months to come. 

Another colleague note from a meeting late last week:  if in a meeting one feels the need to preface comments with a phrase like, "This isn't a big deal, but . . . " or "This is probably not important, but . . . ":  one should not continue speaking.  One should take one's own words seriously . . . and shut the pie hole.  Lest someone like Piers speak up with a snarky growl.

Self-importance drives me absolutely insane.

Colleagues, episode 2

Had a retirement reception for one of my department colleagues this afternoon.  Sparsely attended, of course.  It caused me to wonder about the trajectory of my career:  at the end of it all, is that what it'll amount to?  Some coffee and other beverages, a fruit plate, and mixed nuts? I don't expect to be worshiped or anything, but one likes to think that one's efforts are counting for something significant. Maybe little retirement receptions aren't a good measure of a career well-spent.  On the other hand, she's more than ready to be out of here, so it probably made no difference to her one way or the other.

Colleagues, episode 1

From an email advertising a political discussion forum to be held today:

Colleagues:

From Ted Nugent’s comment that he’ll be in jail or dead or in jail if President Obama is reelected, to the alleged comments SGA members made recently stating that Chancellor Rakes could “suck it,” where has all of the civility gone in public discourse? It seems, instead, that public discourse has turned into a morass of vitriol where competing sides of a debate degenerate into a pool of ad hominem attacks and shouting matches where no meaningful and constructive discussions can occur. Where is all of this hate hubris come from? Are we doing enough in the academy to teach our students to be good citizens? What can we do to promote civil discourse?

Join us today at noon in UC 125 as Dr. _____________ tackles this troubling issue. The article under discussion is below. 

I would like to add one question:  Where has all the art of not overwriting gone?  Are we all just now at the mercy of whichever colleague wants to write melodramatic emails?  It seems, instead, that emails are now an opportunity for one to take one's wits for a walk and to throw in an inkhorn term or two if one can.

Also:  even a cursory understanding of rhetoric, or of political history (or just plain history), would allow one to recognize that "civility" has never been a particularly strong point in American politics.  It is also my observation (anecdotal only) that "civility" is only of concern to most academics when their favored politicians and policies are the ones being pilloried.

In which Piers gets five stitches in his lip

"sutura" is Spanish for "suture"

The word is "mucocele," and today I had my second one removed.  It's an interesting experience to watch as the surgeon snips and slices a bloody mass out of your own lip.  Here's hoping two in the same spot is plenty.

In an unrelated development, I had my students correcting my Spanish today!  What the heck!

The situation as of now

1.  Little league is a "hit," no pun intended. Number One Son is having a great time with his team and at the games.  His coaches are encouraging, his attitude is bright and cheerful, and the facilities in our town are pretty nice.  If only they weren't having games at 7:30 pm on school nights.

2.  Casey is now living at our house--we picked her up yesterday.  She is a three month old lab/husky mix with an incredibly sweet temperament.  She loves the children, and apparently loves the dogs next door.  Our first night in the crate was accident-free.  She has been going leash-free in the back yard all afternoon.  Little Red AND Number One Son are both absolutely in love. 

3.  The main trainer of this sweet puppy will be The Runner, since she is the one who is at home all day most days.

4.  I spent part of this week effectively blind--something got a hold on me on Saturday evening, and by Sunday evening, I was so bad off that I was sitting in my darkened bedroom with a cold compress over my eyes.  My eyes were completely red.  We thought pink eye for sure.  I suffered my way through teaching on Monday and went to the doctor on Tuesday.  Diagnosis:  super-ultra allergic reaction.  Thank goodness for steroid eye drops.

5.  This is the penultimate Friday for the semester.  It doesn't seem possible that we are done so soon, but isn't that the way time works?  Always shortened in retrospect.

In which Piers gets implicated

Here is a "letter" copied from another publication that is currently making the rounds by email at my institution.  My name is attached, though obviously it's not me.  I've already had to correct one colleague who apparently took umbrage.

Though I have to admit, if I were going to write something sarcastic, I could do worse than this performance.

Zero-sum

Reading and teaching portions of Paradise Lost for something like the 14th straight semester, I am struck that one of Satan's most contemptible qualities is his unwillingness to see happiness as anything other than a zero-sum game.  If the Son is exalted, it must also be a denigration of Satan.  If Adam and Eve have Paradise, it must have been taken from stuff that was rightly Satan's.

I always ask my students if they know people whose reaction to another person's good news is to be either cynical or envious . . . as if others cannot be happy on their own terms without taking happiness or goods from someone else. 

I wonder how many times I have a similarly contemptible attitude, even though I try to remember to be unselfish.  Actually, I hope it's fewer times than I'm tallying in my head.

Keep Pedaling!

via

In which Piers hears an odd story

Yesterday, just before I was due to leave work, one of my former students came in to talk for a bit.  He has a habit of doing this, and sometimes he overstays his welcome, but oh well.  He came in for a serious reason, though--he had experienced something extraordinary.

In his Ethics class, taught by a colleague I know fairly well, the discussion had recently turned to the effects of immortality on moral behavior.  This student had voiced the opinion more than once that if humans were to extend life indefinitely, they might very well end up monstrous--because life would cease to have meaning.  As he put it, "personally, I don't know if I wouldn't end up being murderous, simply because I had gone nuts."

Perhaps not the wisest words to speak in a class, but in a case of hypothetical reasoning, certainly even an unpleasant or weird response isn't totally out of bounds? 

This instructor reported this student to the campus police for uttering "threats;" they tracked him down in the University Center, escorted him out, and subjected him to a search of his belongings and to questioning.  Fortunately, he cooperated and didn't give them any reason to get nervous. I am not at all comfortable with this treatment of a student who did nothing more than respond perhaps too honestly to a classroom hypothetical.

It's nothing more or less than the human condition

In the age of Big Pharma, we have, of course come to medicalize such thoughts — not to mention just about every other whim and pang. When I once confided with a physician friend that one of my children seemed to overheat with anxiety around tests, he smiled kindly and literally assured, “No need to worry about that, we have a cure for anxiety today.” On current reckoning, anxiety is a symptom, a problem, but Kierkegaard insists, “Only a prosaic stupidity maintains that this (anxiety) is a disorganization.” And again, if a “speaker maintains that the great thing about him is that he has never been in anxiety, I will gladly provide him with my explanation: that is because he is very spiritless. ”

Kierkegaard understood that anxiety can ignite all kinds of transgressions and maladaptive behaviors — drinking, carousing, obsessions with work, you name it. We will do most anything to steady ourselves from the dizzying feeling that can take almost anything as its object. However, Kierkegaard also believed that, “Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.”

In his “Works of Love,” Kierkegaard remarks that all talk about the spirit has to be metaphorical. Sometimes anxiety is cast as a teacher, and at others, a form of surgery. The prescription in “The Concept of Anxiety” and other texts is that if we can, as the Buddhists say, “stay with the feeling” of anxiety, it will spirit away our finite concerns and educate us as to who we really are, “Then the assaults of anxiety, even though they be terrifying, will not be such that he flees from them.” According to Kierkegaard’s analysis, anxiety like nothing else brings home the lesson that I cannot look to others, to the crowd, when I want to measure my progress in becoming a full human being.

--from Mockingbird.

Let's talk about symptoms

There is the "anhedonia" phase.
Then there is the "I just want to sleep" phase.

Then there is the strange "I don't give a sh*t" phase.

Meanwhile, the disorder in my office and at home grows & grows.

Lapis Lazuli

I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.

All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,'
Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus,
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay.

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instmment.

Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay. 

--Wm. Butler Yeats

I owe everyone an apology

...The Black Dog is making me a bit self-absorbed these days.  One of its greatest tricks is to make me want to isolate myself, which makes me feel isolated & lonely & self-pitying, which is a self-reinforcing cycle even while I try to fight it.  Trying to make it a day at a time right now.

How fragile a thing . . .

 . . . is trust.

Monday Update, Post-Florida Edition

In short, I could use about another week of break.  This past week was grueling.  I have learned that traveling like I did this past week really takes a toll on my energy and my mind.  Sarasota is a wonderfully nice city--but also awfully expensive to visit.

Seriously, I feel like I need to find a reset button.  It's hard not to get overwhelmed by the simplest things these days.

I have learned some things recently that are hard to swallow.  Best to choke them down, though.

I guess people get used to it

Thoughts upon completing this trip to The Sunshine State, mostly involving the interminable airport parts:

1. The TSA shoe tango is utterly absurd.
2. Car rental may be the most baroque process ever devised by man. Trying to return the damn keys was an ordeal...and apparently the agent got frustrated with me because I parked the car in a spot designated for the company from which I was renting...which was apparently the wrong place to park it.
3. Traveling is brutally expensive. Why? Because when waiting for flights at the terminal, we will pay whatever they want to charge us for our coffee/cocktails/beer/soda/water.
4. How come the Sarasota airport has a B terminal but not an A terminal?
5. Props to this airport for the free wi-fi. Or for hiding the charge in the ticket prices, etc.
6. Why do people dress this way?? Eeek!
7. I think I become almost invisible when I travel by myself. You could probably put your hand right through me right this very second.

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Little Red

Tomorrow is his 4th birthday, and I'll be heading to Florida. 
I would rather spend the day with him.