Academia: December 2005 Archive Page

Jessica Prokop thought the textbook for her class at Seton Hill University was biased and that its author "seems like a bitter man." In the annals of student rants, nothing extraordinary there.

Except she didn't just blurt out those words in her journalism class. She blogged them. Soon, the author himself was responding all the way from England, pledging to re-examine an upcoming edition given her critique.

Junior Mike Rubino got a more extreme lesson about free speech in the blogosphere. His "10 reasons why Seton Hill doesn't need a football team," including a claim that "jocks" would bring more drugs, alcohol and fights to campus, irked arriving players who found his Internet posting months later.

"I even got calls to my room," he said. "They talked to my roommate, thinking it was me, saying things like they're going to kick my butt."

Awkward encounters? Sure. But instances such as these are providing teachable moments for faculty at a growing number of colleges nationwide, including Seton Hill. There, a professor and his prolific community of student bloggers are exploring the good and the ugly about a rough-and-tumble form of Internet discourse whose popularity has exploded. --Bill Schackner --Freedom of speech redefined by blogs: Words travel faster, stay around longer in the blogosphere (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Schackner did an excellent job looking past the stereotype of bloggers ranting in their pajamas from their parents' basements.

The article includes a picture of me in my office with two students. (That was a very wide-angle lens -- my office isn't very big, but I do manage to use the space very well.)

The article also mentions the comfy chair, and photos from the wreck my family and I survived in June.

I've been working on a new portal for blogs.setonhill.edu. What do you think? This is version 1.1.

The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for "The Little Red Book" by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story. --Aaron Nicodemus --Federal agents' visit was a hoax  (South Coast Today)

This does not come as a surprise to me.

Kudos to Nicodemus for posting a follow-up to the original story, in which he reported on flaws in the story. (See my first post on the Little Red Book hoax.)

On the last day of class, I handed out index cards for our last collaborative piece of writing. I told my first year students to write something they learned this semester, in any class or in the residence hall. Then we shuffled the cards together and read them aloud. Here is what one class came up with: --What we learned this semester (Writing as jo(e))

I saw one ray of hope -- a "popular writing" program at Seton Hall University, where nontraditional students (i.e., grownups with day jobs) could earn a degree and, more to the point, gain serious professional training without having to attend a university full time. The fact that one school had dared to attempt such a thing suggested that maybe, someday, the teaching methods and subject matters I had developed over the years might be put to good use with serious students of writing. --Orson Scott Card --Why I Am Teaching at SVU -- and Why SVU is Important (Meridian Magazine)

Almost but not quite... isn't he talking about Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction program?

The article itself is noteworthy because it presents Card's politically incorrect belief, as a Mormon, that Christian values are important to a society that wants to survive.

If they want to deliver a written paper, they need to understand that, no matter how short they think it is, the odds are against their finishing it. They need a conclusion they can jump to when they get the five-minute warning. That conclusion must be brief. Rather than reading a full paper, it's better to summarize it and have copies of the full paper available. Presenters could also tell attendees that they will send copies to those who want them. Tell the presenters this: when you get the five-minute warning, do not take that to mean you must read the rest of the paper at double or triple normal reading speed. No one in the audience will be able to follow it, and you will probably hurt yourself. --Timothy J. Madigan --''Thank You Very Much. That's All the Time You Have'' (Academe)

The problem is this: if you want to teach Victorian literature at the university level, the path to doing so, while not easy, is straightforward: you go to a Ph.D.-granting university English department, take a doctorate, and apply for suitable jobs in other university English departments. But because all of the various fields and subfields in the digital humanities are so new and by definition interdisciplinary there'sno one equivalent path to the appropriate credentials. --Matt Kirschenbaum --So You Want a Ph.D. in Digital Humanities, Digital Studies, New Media, Electronic Literature . . . (MGK)

Great round-up. Like Kirschenbaum, I got my Ph.D. in a traditional field. Since I teach at a small liberal arts institution, where I'm expected to teach a wide variety of courses, the broad background really helps.

Many American academic libraries have sought to provide journals in both print and electronic formats for the past 5 to 10 years. The advantages of the electronic format have been clear, so these were licensed as rapidly as possible, but it has taken time for some faculty members to grow comfortable with an exclusive dependence on the electronic format. In addition, librarians were concerned about the absence of an acceptable electronic-archiving solution, given that that their cancellation of print editions would prevent higher education from depending on print as the archival format. Eileen Gifford Fenton and Roger C. Schonfeld --The Shift Away From Print (Inside Higher Ed)

In the 40 years since Derrida paid that visit to Johns Hopkins, succeeding generations of scholars have had time to fall in love with theory, fall out of love with it, and learn how to live with it. As in any long-term relationship, there's a continuing re-evaluation and reimagining of what works and what does not. Rei Terada, chairwoman of comparative literature at the University of California at Irvine, says: "As the 60s becomes a historical period... we can make finer distinctions and groupings among things that seemed all of a piece closer to the time. ... People are starting to sort out such legacies." No one still believes, for instance, "that all French theory is politically progressive," she says.

It may be neither fair nor accurate, decades after Theory hit its high-water mark, to keep using it as a whipping boy for everything that has gone wrong with literary studies. "The problem of the humanities is funding, lack of institutional support, lowering enrollments, lowering numbers of hires, the rise of part-time labor," says Andrew Parker, a professor of English at Amherst College. "This is the real crisis, not whether we have theory with a capital T or a small T." --Jennifer Howard --From the issue dated December 16, 2005 (Chronicle)

They enjoy learning. For nearly all professors, the chance to review and expand their own youthful education in a variety of fields is a treat that almost transcends the educational needs of their children. Mathematicians, for example, relish the chance to reread the literature they half-missed when they were mastering geometry, and English professors, like me, enjoy the chance to relearn the astronomy they once loved before calculus crushed their hopes for a scientific career. They often see themselves as learning with their children rather than simply teaching them.

They are confident in their ability to teach. Professors often see teaching their own children as part of a continuum of pleasurable obligations to the next generation; they seek to integrate the values of their profession with the values they live at home. Since professors often teach the teachers, they tend to believe -- perhaps with some hubris -- in their ability to teach effectively at all grade levels. But more often, they recognize their limitations and seek collaboration with other parents -- often professors themselves -- with different areas of expertise. --W. A. Pannapacker --For Professors' Children, the Case for Home Schooling (Chronicle)

Pannapacker's list doesn't don't completely overlap with the reasons my wife and I homeschool, but I enjoyed reading it.

Of particular interest to me is the one about how much time is lost shuffling students around during a typical day in what my son calls "the school building":

Without all the crowd control and level seeking, the formal requirements of education can be completed in only a few hours a day, leaving lots of time for self-directed learning and play. As a result, home-schooled children generally learn faster and with less boredom and less justified resentment.

I'm always extremely nervous about wasting time passing out papers or doing other housekeeping during class. Maybe too nervous.

I was surprised to see how prominently Pannapacker mentions bullying. Junior high was difficult for me. I remember horrible Machiavellian power struggles on the bus, where I spent an hour and a half each day, ducking spitballs. Desegregation meant that I was bussed past two junior high schools in more affluent suburbs, to a third school in a less affluent area. I remember a gang of tough girls tried to get me to hit one of them, presumably so they could tell their boyfriends to "protect them" by beating me up.

I remember my first week in Catholic high school, when it felt like I was floating down halls full of kids in crisp button shirts. Once a jock with four or five of his buddies dared me to step outside, but I had just dumped a carton of chocolate milk over his head, so I can understand why he was mad at me. I ended up getting out of the fight by confusing him.

Him: Why'd you throw chocolate milk at me?

Me: I wasn't aiming my chocolate milk at you, I was aiming at this total jerk who's been throwing food at me for three days in a row. He's really stupid and cowardly, since he only picks on me when he's with a group of his friends. You should go pick a fight with him -- he'd probably be a lot more challenging to pick on than a wiry, pasty-skinned loner who'd really rather prefer to study for his Latin test. But thanks for the suggestion that I'm a severe threat to your social status, such that you are forced to retaliate with violence.

Him: Why'd you throw chocolate milk at me?

Me: Were there some words in there that you couldn't understand?

Lunchroom Crowd: Ha ha!

Him (blinking): Why'd you throw chocolate milk at me?

(I got that survival tactic from "I, Mudd," a classic Star Trek episode in which Captain Kirk confused a planet full of androids by flooding them with illogic.)

In a larger university context, I can’t be open and honest, I fear, because of my lack of tenure, lack of position, lack of a terminal degree. I’m reminded often that only those with tenure have the freedom to “take risks” with students because with tenure, one has some protection if the risks don’t work out. Yet I’m working with students who have great needs and who present great risks. But there is no protection for me if the risks don’t work out.

[...]

They resisted the work, resisted me, and resisted the system that had them in such a foreign place. They resisted and behaved badly because they were afraid of failure, because they had so many other pressures placed on them, and because by behaving badly, they could gain a little respect from their peers by not appearing “stupid.” Yet we all knew what was going on…. we all knew about the resistance and the face-saving. The students and myself, we all knew. And we all knew that many times they just played me. They sometimes played me because they are in a system where everyone is played in some manner because someone has to win and someone loses. That’s just the way it is. They put on a face that allowed them to survive a difficult and foreign system and that face was one of belligerence and defiance. But I wore a face, too. My face was one of the educated, of the elite. They would never see themselves in my face because they couldn’t see through the mask.

Look how we all lost.

How could I expect them to remove their masks if I didn’t remove mine? Removing my mask would have been to tell my story (or part of it), to be real to them, to be a little vulnerable. Yet I couldn’t. I feared. I failed. I failed them. --Rubicon --Basic Writers and the Academy (Pass the Rubicon)

What’s the magic formula? How do I take the “good” and catch it in a bottle, and let it out when I need to ward off the “bad”? Sometimes I feel like Willy Loman pleading with the image of his fantastically successful brother – What’s the secret?

Of course, there is no "right answer," but I'm pursuing this line of thought because in myself I can see elements of that first-semester freshman sitting in a classroom, furious and terrified, alienated from a discussion everyone else seems to understand, silently pleading that the professor would stop talking about concepts and rules and theories, and just write on the board the answers to the questions that will be on the final exam.

Beldner, an artist, teaches a St. Mary's College class called "Pranks: Culture jamming as social activism." Among his students' projects this term was the distribution of a news release touting a fictional bar to be opened near the Moraga campus.

The news release was sent to the Times, the Associated Press and several other Bay Area newspapers. None published the information as news, although the Times ran a brief item on the hoax itself after a reporter spent several hours researching the nonexistent bar. --Matt Krupnick --Prank class tries to fool news outlets (Contra Costa Times)

I teach my news writing students about Joey Skaggs, and we all had a good laugh when I told them about his annual April Fool's Day Parade press releases.

But I hope the college looks very closely at the ethics of teaching students to lie for credit.

I'm using this sabbatical to work on a longer, more complex novel than I've ever written before. Even though I'm giving my writing, and my child, more of myself than they've ever had before, they both cry out for more. "Mommy, I wish you were there when we sing "Come In, Grown-Ups," my daughter says, referring to the fact that she goes to extended care after preschool, while some kids are picked up by their parents. Never mind that last year, she was both taken to preschool and picked up by the extended-care team.

Meanwhile, my book's pull is fierce. I've never had time for perfectionism before, but now I find it hard to let go of any pages. The book's demands sometimes out-shout my daughter's none-too-quiet voice. "Go play," I snapped at her this morning as I tried to finish a complicated scene, and then felt guilty when she melted into tears. --Lee Tobin McClain --Mom on Sabbatical (Chronicle)

Lee is my colleague down the hall.

After a faculty meeting ran a bit long yesterday, I dashed home, grabbed my seven-year-old son without giving him time to finish his daily root beer, and headed back out again for his piano lesson. We usually make it right on time, but the slightly late faculty meeting and a string of red lights meant that we were 20 minutes late to his half-hour lesson.

After the lesson, we came back to campus to help decorate the cafeteria for Christmas. While my son was worried that the event would cut into his computer game time, he had a grand time eating pizza and talking with our Spanish and French teachers. One of the Sisters of Charity handed him ornaments, one a time, bending the little metal hooks for him so he could hang them on the tree easily. Meanwhile, I strung Christmas tree lights. I dropped by The Setonian office just in time to watch the students resolve a photo caption crisis, and then went home.

When I woke up this morning, I realized I didn't want to go to work. I could have used a full day as Dad. My wife had cleaned the rugs and put a lot of stuff away, making room for bringing out our Christmas tree. The sight of big empty stretches of carpets, with neat piles of toys and stacks of library books, just made me want to stay home and have adventures with my daughter’s ponies, teach my son’s home-school lessons, and read aloud the six or seven chapters we have left until we finish The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

If I were working at a dot-com, or selling furniture, I wouldn't at all feel comfortable admitting something like that.

There was nothing about today that I was particularly dreading. In fact, the semester is winding down fairly nicely for me.

What I have done is taken two blog entries from the same story: The Yellow Wallpaper. I have taken one blog from when I was a freshman, and another blog from this year's American Literature course. I feel that these essays are written from two completely different people. I am going to leave both of these with you, and hopefully you feel the same way. --Jason Pugh --How I've Grown..... (The Gentle Giant)

I had Jay for an "Intro to Literary Study" course his freshman year, and he's now a junior who's finishing up my American Lit I course. This blog entry illustrates his growth admirably. That's an unplanned, but not particularly surprising, side-effect of giving students individual blogs that they can keep when the class is over.

Abortion, legalised throughout the United States by the Supreme Court's Roe v Wade ruling in 1973, prevents unwanted pregnancies from becoming unwanted children. Higher abortion rates from the 1970s onwards thus help to explain why crime rates fell in America about two decades later.

That's the theory. But a paper published last week? by Christopher Foote and Christopher Goetz, two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, finds an embarrassing hole in the evidence. --Oops-onomics (Economist)

I've blogged before about the flap Bill Bennett caused when he alluded to this study.

# If neither player makes a mistake, the game is drawn (but we knew that already).
# This is an exercise in examining the objective properties of a game. There are two interesting sides to this:
# 1) The objective properties of Tic Tac Toe really matter for our enjoyment of it: It is a boring game because there are so relatively few combinations.
# 2) On the other hand, humans clearly play the game in a different way than the computer. The computer's playing style lets us make some observations about how humans play games.
# To the computer, the first move is the most complicated (takes around a second on my 2ghz machine). This is unlike human players who seldomly have any problem deciding what to do on the first move.
# The program assumes that the opponent does not make any mistakes. Humans do make mistakes, of course, so in actuality the program isn't playing optimally. --Jesper Juul --Tic Tac Toe (Half-Real)

From the website for Juul's new book. Looks good.

If you read newspaper headlines last week you would have thought that planetary warming meant an arid apocalypse was inevitable for Western Canada.

After a new review of what is projected to happen to the hydrology of snowy places like Canada was published in Nature magazine, the Globe and Mail thundered: "Drought threat looms over the Prairies' bounty."

"Canadian Prairies singled out as region set to suffer droughts," exclaimed the Vancouver Sun about the same study.

Well, no. --Stephen Strauss --Global warming rains contradictions (CBC News)

Since this will be my last drama wildcard, I wanted to say goodbye & good luck to everyone in our class. It has been a fantastic semester and I had a great time. I came into this class thinking I had nothing more to learn (damn senioritis), but I was wrong. I not only developed a more keen sense of myself, but also of those around me. Everyone one of you has touched me & I thank you all. --Katherine Lambert --Goodbye & Goodluck (Katherine Lambert)

A student in my "Drama as Literature" course uses her "wildcard" blog entry (part of the blogging portfolio assignment) to say goodbye to all her classmates.

Classes don't always bond this tightly, but when they do, it's a rewarding thing to witness. And we still have all next week to discuss Death of a Salesman.