Mid-week recharge among the wildflowers

This morning a student hopped up in the middle of class to carry his laptop closer to a power outlet. "I'm about out of power--I need to plug in," he said, and I thought, aren't we all. All out of power--need to plug in.

So that's what I did yesterday when I discovered I had a rare afternoon with no responsibilities. I came to campus for an 8 a.m. meeting and then high-tailed it out of town for a quick trip to Jackson.

Now I know I've told a million people what a relief it is not to have to make that drive to Jackson every weekend. It's only 90 minutes, but for a few years it was 90 minutes in the car every Friday afternoon and then 90 minutes in the car every Sunday afternoon and then all kinds of stuff to catch up on in Jackson over the weekend, which felt exhausting.

So it's been a real treat to not make that drive every weekend, but yesterday I didn't mind the drive so much because it allowed me to have lunch with a friend and then take my favorite hike at Lake Katharine, which hosts the widest variety of spring wildflowers I've ever seen in a two-mile span. I was pleased to see some improvements in the steep trail, but mostly I was delighted to see so many spring flowers blooming in profusion. 

Halfway through the hike I sat on a bench while the creek burbled nearby and a hairy woodpecker hopped along a tree limb and I felt plugged in, as if that bench contained a power outlet that plugged right into my soul. I'm a little out of practice so I walked more slowly than I used to, but I still took the long loop on the off chance that I might find the rare showy orchis still blooming. Sure enough there they were, the blossoms fading and ready to fall but still making a stand for beauty and growth.

Today I'm that showy orchis, battered by the elements and exhausted by the demands of this train-wreck semester but still standing in front of my classes and pointing toward beauty and growth. Final exams are next week, followed by grading and assessment activities and one long meeting after another, but after that maybe we can all move a little closer to the outlet and recharge our batteries, whatever it takes.

Violets popping out from the cliff face

Bloodroot, past blooming

Foamflower

Wild geraniums

Ferns

Trilliums

Bluebells in many colors

One of four types of violets I saw

Jack in the pulpit

Solomon's seal

Magnolias just leafing out

Path through the bluebell woods

Pawpaw blossoms

More trilliums

Showy orchis

Spurred violets

 

Today's hot teaching topic

I just printed out eleven copies of a handout for my composition class, something I've been doing all semester--even though I haven't had more than seven students in the room on any day since Spring Break. Most days just five or six show up. Why do I keep printing eleven copies when I haven't seen eleven students in the room since early March? That's the triumph of hope over experience.

This morning we met outside, where we could discuss the reading assignment without melting into a massive puddle of sweat. Cold temperatures last week followed by a very hot weekend moved the entire building into Meltdown Mode. I opened every window but we were too hot to think straight so we moved the class outdoors. I could not do that with my American Lit class because I needed to use the projector, which only made the room feel hotter. 

An hour from now that same room will be crammed full of sweaty students, five of whom will be extra-sweaty because they're giving presentations.  I wouldn't want to be in their shoes in a building this hot. Frankly, I don't really want to be in my shoes either. I already feel like a sweat-bomb after teaching one class in that room, and I've got two more classes to come, both of which feature student presentations that can't be done outside. 

And so we will suffer together, sharing a vivid reminder that the life of the mind cannot be conducted without the cooperation of the body. (Just don't sit too close because we're all gonna stink.)  

Wildflower walk, blurred but beautiful

The camera and the eye see the world differently, I keep telling myself, but it's never been more apparent than it is right now. Cataracts are clouding my vision to the point that I've lost my confidence in what I'm seeing. I sit down to edit photos and I can't tell whether the fuzziness I'm seeing is in the photo or in my eyes, and the colors look washed out but I can't trust myself to enhance them because I fear I'll go overboard. The good news, though, is that I have an appointment with the cataract doctors in two weeks, when I'll undergo extensive testing to find out whether my cataracts have reached the level where our insurance will pay to remove them. If not, I'll keep seeing a washed-out world, keep second-guessing all my photos. But that doesn't mean I'll stop venturing out into the woods to see what I can see--and wonder what I can't.

 

Partly sunny with chance of train wreck

Yesterday I saw the signs that we were finally emerging from this cold, wintry spring when I got out the mower and mowed the front lawn. Granted, it was still chilly enough for long sleeves and layers, but the ground had dried enough so the mower wouldn't sink in, and the unruly grass was desperately calling out for a trim. The smell of wild onions, the cheery grape hyacinths nodding their heads in the breeze--our long extended winter might finally be coming to a close.

And this morning I saw the signs that we might eventually emerge from this long, taxing semester when I collected the last set of student drafts. I'll have plenty of grading yet ahead--papers and presentations and final exams--but this is the last time this spring that I'll have to read drafts and make suggestions for revisions.

Back in January I thought this semester would be pretty much like Fall semester except with fewer masks. In fact, for a while it seemed that the biggest problem we'd face this spring was whether--and when--to go to a "mask optional" policy. After a great deal of fuss, we pulled off the masks in late February and suffered no apparent repercussions, but by Spring Break no one was talking about masking anymore. We'd been blindsided by a different kind of problem and we're still not sure what repercussions we will face or for how long.

Sure, everyone knew that some budget-tightening would be needed in the next couple of years, but what we didn't expect--and by we, I mean everyone below the VP level, from students to staff to faculty--what we didn't expect was that the budget train was about to drive right off a cliff. The budget crisis hit hard and fast and repeatedly, causing an epidemic of insomnia and angry meetings. Kind of a bad time to be on Faculty Council! It's easy to say that we're not going to let campus controversies affect the students' learning experiences, but it's hard to accomplish that when cuts are affecting academic offerings and when the people charged with fixing the problems aren't getting any sleep. 

And then fall course scheduling season dealt another blow. Changes to our general education curriculum have been causing steady declines in enrollments in my department for a few years, but now the English train has driven off a cliff and I find myself dangling out a broken window, holding on for dear life. Suddenly I see a whole new vista opening up ahead of me: a few final years of teaching freshman comp and the sophomore seminar and other service courses before I fade away into insignificance. 

Sure, the changes that were made to my fall teaching schedule will affect only a small number of students, but I feel the difference every day. Today, for instance, as I was introducing my American Lit Survey students to Allen Ginsberg's poem "A Supermarket in California," with its "What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night!", I told them they could see how Don DeLillo made use of this image in White Noise, which I'll be teaching in my American Novel class this fall, except I had to stop myself before the sentence was over because of course the American Novel class got cancelled and, depending on how the next few years go and when I decide to retire, I may never get a chance to teach it again.

Those two unexpected blows would have been enough to make this semester difficult--and I'm working really hard to make sure my anger and disappointment don't affect my teaching but I'm not superhuman, especially when I can't sleep, so it's a struggle. But then we've seen a host of smaller disturbances, the most horrible of which can't be written about or discussed openly, to protect the guilty as well as the innocent. 

Last week before the Faculty Council meeting we were delicately skirting the perimeter of one of these difficult issues when I was reminded of what happened at the end of my first semester at Marietta College. I was a newbie still feeling her way around campus, and suddenly the place was swarming with cops and the FBI was confiscating equipment and a colleague I'd never even met was being led away in cuffs, soon to be tried and convicted for setting up a secret email server to distribute child pornography. 

So last week when a few of us old folks on Council were reminiscing about that long-ago scandal, a fresh-faced junior faculty member asked, "After all that, why didn't you just walk away?"

"Some of us needed the job," I pointed out, but it was more than that. Even at the end of one semester, I knew that Marietta was a place where I could do good work that would be appreciated and occasionally rewarded, and I'd seen enough to suspect that the College could weather this storm and come out the other side stronger.

Is that still true? Possibly. Probably, even. But will I still be here to enjoy the recovery? And if my fingers lose their grip on that bloody broken window, will anyone even notice that I'm gone?

Explaining the obvious, one draft at a time

I can't read it if I can't see it.
I can't see it if you didn't submit it.
A full draft is better than a partial draft, but a partial draft is better than no draft at all.

Reading the abstract is not the same as reading the article.
Reading the article is not the same as understanding the article.
Quoting the article is not the same as synthesizing the information into your argument, but it's a good start, especially if you cite it properly.

The words "Works Cited" indicate that the works on the list have actually been cited within the accompanying document.
"Cited" means the document refers to the source specifically, by author's name or title and, when available, page number.
Vaguely gesturing toward "some experts" is not the same as citing a source.

It may be accurate, in a metaphorical sense, to refer to an institution of higher education as a Collage, but students who want to be taken seriously spell it College.

Using only commas is better than using no punctuation at all, but just barely.
Consider the colon: a pause that promises more to come.
Or the dash--that dashing shift to something different.
Or if you can't manage those, how about the occasional question mark at the end of a question?
Really, at this point, any punctuation at all would be a nice thing. And would it kill you to capitalize proper nouns?

Kidding! We are all improper now. We should be happy simply to receive a pile of words, in whatever form they arrive--provided that they actually arrive. Because let's face it: the easiest paper to grade is the one that does not, in the strictest sense of the word, exist.

Where are the academic cheerleaders when we need them?

We're getting ready to celebrate All Scholars Day, when students present the results of their research and creativity, so this morning a first-year student asked me what ASD is all about. "It's kind of like a pep rally for academics," I lied, "with bands playing and cheerleaders leading a massive crowd in chants celebrating all our hard-working students: Give me an A! Give me another A! Give us all A's!"

If only. All Scholars Day is back to being a face-to-face event this year, so I'll spend time Thursday walking around the poster session and asking students to explain their work. There will be no bands or cheerleaders, but students will hear encouragement and occasional gentle applause, and maybe someone will give them the A's they're after.

First, though, I need to tackle the big ol' pile o' papers in my inbox, some needing feedback and revision and others begging for a grade. Would the work go any more smoothly if I had an academic cheer squad urging me on? They wouldn't have room to turn around if I tried to cram them into my office so they'd have to do their jumps and tumbling runs out in the hallway, which might disturb my colleagues trying to teach in the nearby classrooms. Then again, they could adapt their cheer routines to encourage all kinds of learning experiences: 

Two bits! Four bits! Six bits! A dollar!
If you did your homework, stand up and holler!

We've got spirit, yes we do!
We submitted our files into the Moodle dropbox--how 'bout you?

Give me an A! Give me another A! Give me another A! What's that spell?
Wait, what are you doing in college if you don't know what AAA spells?!

And then they'd form a pyramid in the hallway while the pep band marches past playing "We Will Rock You," and everyone in the building would stop what they're doing and stomp their feet to indicate their eagerness to teach teach teach and learn learn learn!

I don't know if that kind of motivation would inspire me to get my students' papers graded more quickly, but I'll tell you one thing I'm sure of: I won't get them graded at all if I keep indulging in ridiculous fantasies. Time to send the academic cheerleaders home and get back to work.

Wait--who left this pom-pom in my office?  

 

 

Even the cruelest month has its bright moments

April is the cruelest month, breeding student papers that must be read and graded, computer bugs that shut down our ability to function, wide-spread panic attacks and existential despair even among students who've never read The Waste Land--and now the weather forecast tells me April is bringing snow? Like, tomorrow? While tulips and daffodils and forsythia are blooming all over the place? That's just gratuitous suffering.

A student explained that he had to miss class today in observation of Good Friday--which is next week.

The flag in the center of campus is flying at half-staff again today, as it has every day this week, and no one can tell me why.

Five e-mails in a row came from students looking for extensions on a project, and I went ahead and granted the extensions because it's really hard to expect students to do research in our online databases when the campus internet connection has been taking frequent unplanned mini-vacations for hours at a time.

Cruel, I tell you. April is pouring on the cruelty relentlessly, luring us outdoors with sudden bursts of sunshine and then dumping dark rainclouds on our heads, and now snow? It may not be Good Friday yet, but this so-called spring sure feels apocalyptic.

And yet we carry on. Each time a new disaster drops--and I can't even talk about the most interesting ones--we just grit our teeth and carry on, because what else can we do? 

This afternoon I'm filling in to teach a colleague's religion class, leading a discussion of the book of Job. Students have been talking about the problem of pain, but I'm going to direct the to the problem of genre: how do we know how to approach a text like Job if we don't know if it's supposed to be read as tragedy, comedy, courtroom drama, or something else entirely? And yes, I'm going to make them learn some characteristics of certain genres and think about how the frame influences how we view the picture.

Right now April is framed in alternating gloom and glee, with massive black clouds hanging over a campus where daffodils bloom, robins sing, pandemic masks get flung to the ground, and the flag remains at half-staff. How do we react when gratuitous grace mingles with gratuitous suffering? Right now, all we can do is carry on.

With Prufrock in the art gallery

 

One panel of the Prufrock project

At an art exhibit on campus last Friday I encountered an old friend: the ghostly presence (or absence?) of J. Alfred Prufrock in a collage of torn paper and string. Leaning closer, I saw lines from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" adhering to each panel. Here were the words "I have measure out my life with coffee spoons" near an image of a steaming cup of coffee, and alongside a swirling black hole was the eternal question, "Do I dare disturb the universe?"

It's no surprise that this work of art was created by a student with dual majors in Art and English. She encountered the poem some time ago in my American Lit Survey class, where Prufrock pops up every spring like clockwork just before midterm. I was touched to see that a hundred-year-old poem could inspire such creativity and insight, especially since Prufrock often evokes very different responses from students--confusion, boredom, anger. "Why can't he just say what he means," they ask me, and I say, "That, in a nutshell, is the problem." They are not amused.

But amusing students is not my primary purpose here. Lately I've been thinking more deeply about that purpose, not because I'm at a loss for things to think about but because I'm fighting off the perception that I'm an old stick-in-the-mud resistant to change--or, as a colleague told me succinctly last week, "Maybe your courses would attract more students if they had more interesting titles." Would more students be attracted to American Lit Survey if it were called Love Songs with T.S. Eliot? I don't think so!

And this persistent accusation that I am resistant to change does not hold up under scrutiny. When I was hired here 22 years ago, the department had no African American Lit class, so I created one. There was no Postcolonial Lit class, so I created one. It's interesting to look through the course listings and see the number of courses that are now a permanent part of our curriculum that I've designed, proposed, and taught: Concepts of Nature, Concepts of Comedy, Concepts of Place (taught as Cal Lit and Florida Lit), Creative Nonfiction, Life Writing--and in addition I've designed special topics courses on Flannery O'Connor, Stephen Crane and Kate Chopin, Colson Whitehead, animals in film, machines in film, Nature Writing, Comedy Writing, plus capstone classes on postmodernism, Garbage Theory, and 9/11 Literature. To fill a need in the curriculum, I developed and taught an experimental Sports Lit class that was linked with a developmental writing class. And I'm not done doing new things: next spring I'm slated to teach a special topics class on the ambiguous zone between fact and fiction, if anyone registers for it. That's a pretty wide variety of classes to develop and teach over a 22-year span.

But one class remains constant: every year, usually in the spring, I teach a sophomore-level Survey of American Lit since 1865. Sure, I tweak the syllabus to introduce more recent authors (because the Norton Anthology only goes so far) and I've changed the assignment structure significantly over the years, but if you look at the syllabus for any one semester, you'll get a pretty good idea of what the course covers and what it's trying to do. Somewhere near midterm during the unit on modernism we'll spend a whole class period discussing Prufrock, and that's not going to change, no matter how many students complain.

Why? Because Prufrock still has something to offer today's student--and so do I.

The full project. It's more impressive in person.

Not a peep

I have complaints! Many, many complaints! But every time I try to articulate them, I sound just like a former colleague who frequently inspired me to pray, "Lord, help me never to be like her!"

I'm trying not to be evil, but it's an effort. All this tongue-biting is painful, and I don't always have something soft nearby to kick. The disconnect between how I expected my career to be going and where it's actually going is keeping me awake way too many nights, and all that sleeplessness makes it even harder to maintain self-control during the day. So I grit my teeth and bite my tongue and vent only when it's safe, but here we are at the end of an exhausting week and all I want to do is scream. 

I need a diversion. Fortunately, there are some options. The sky is gray and spitting rain (and snow--in April?) so I won't be able to walk up the hill to look for wildflowers as I did yesterday afternoon, and tomorrow I need to do some house-cleaning to prepare for visiting grandkids. (Because when we moved my husband back home from the Jackson house, we dumped a bunch of things in the guest rooms and said we'd deal with them later. Well, later has arrived!) 

Today, though, I think I'll distract myself with a Peep Show. 

Relax--it's not that kind of Peep Show. Downtown businesses are creating sculptures and scenarios out of Peeps, the marshmallow candies that taste like foam insulation.  I missed last year's event, which included gardening Peeps, tropical-fish Peeps, and a Peeps pizza (Peepza).  And it's all dedicated to raising money for worthy causes. Who can complain while in the presence of charitable Peepzas?

Now all I have to do is keep my rage contained until 5 p.m., when the Peep Show starts. (Don't be evil don't be evil don't be evil...) Provoke me all you want--you won't hear a peep out of me.