Finally we're getting some beautiful spring weather! So I go outside to eat my lunch on a bench under a flowering tree in the middle of campus, and along comes a retired colleague who used to have an office next to mine and pretty soon we're sitting there chattering away and enjoying the sunshine so much that I don't even notice that bugs are falling on me.
Two hours later I'm still picking them off, little black beetly things that crawled up my sleeves and down my shirt and into my underwear until I'm feeling bugs crawling even where there are no bugs. Good thing I'm not teaching this afternoon--imagine trying to retrieve a squirmy insect from inside your bra while standing in front of a room full of freshmen.
So typical! In the middle of the most gorgeous day of the semester, I get attacked by creepy-crawlies. Looks like it's time to get out of Dodge!
And, thanks to the generosity of my wonderful colleagues, I'm going to do just that--not because of the bugs but because my mother's health is deteriorating quickly. I'm flying out Saturday and missing the last week of classes but leaving behind detailed instructions for colleagues who are stepping in. I should be back for finals week but I've prepared all my final exams and set them out on my desk with full instructions just in case I get delayed.
I'll take some work with me, of course--a little grading, a little committee work, a few drafts that require responses--but I think I'll leave behind the bugs.
(But first I have to find them all.)
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
So I think I'll just schedule that crisis for sometime next millennium, okay?
Thank you for calling the Crisis Scheduling Service. All our Certified Crisis Scheduling Counselors are currently providing careful, compassionate care to other callers. Please do not hang up! Your call will be forwarded to the next available Certified Crisis Scheduling Counselor. Meanwhile, relax and listen to selections from "Music that Makes You Want to Stab Your Eardrums with a Sharp Stick."
....
Thank you for calling the Crisis Scheduling Service. Your call is important to us--so important that we're waiting until the Certified Crisis Scheduling Counselor best equipped to handle your particular Crisis Scheduling Needs is done dealing with Marge from Milwaukee, whose panic attacks need to be scheduled on alternate Wednesdays after 3 p.m. except when the moon is full and Jupiter is in the house of Mars. Please continue holding and enjoy this little repeating loop from the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.
....
Still there? My, you're persistent. Really committed to scheduling that crisis, aren't you? Please continue to hold. Your call is important to us! Really! Would we lie to you?
....
Thank you for calling the Crisis Scheduling Service. While you wait, you may be wondering how we determine which Certified Crisis Scheduling Counselor is best equipped to handle your particular Crisis Scheduling Needs. The fact is that we're watching you. We've got cameras everywhere and we know how to tap into your personal computer, smartphone, television, microwave, car, refrigerator, and even your electric toothbrush. We know all about the toenail clippings under the rug, the secret stash of Häagen-Dazs behind the stuffed peppers in the freezer, and the phrase you mutter under your breath every time your brother-in-law calls. ("Oh, chickenpoop!") So just sit back and relax as we examine our files for the best possible outcome to your Crisis Scheduling Needs.
....
Thank you for calling the Crisis Scheduling Service. Unfortunately, our Certified Crisis Scheduling Counselors are not equipped to work with clients prone to violence. Don't try to hide it! We saw you bang the phone against a brick wall! And don't give us that story about banging your head against the wall when the phone got in the way, as if violence to a telephone were simply collateral damage. We don't deal with collateral damage. We insist that all clients schedule their crises in a calm and rational way. If your Crisis Scheduling Needs cannot be conveyed in an adult manner, then maybe you'd better schedule your crisis on your own time.
....
Thank you for calling the Crisis Scheduling Service. All our Certified Crisis Schedulers are currently providing careful, compassionate care--wait, what's that noise? Sounds like someone pounding on the bunker door. Who's there? Is that--it can't be--is that you, Marge from Milwaukee? Put down the sledgehammer! Please, I'm sure we can work this out if you'll just be calm and rational---AHHHHHHH! No, Marge, No! Your call is impor---
Click.
....
Thank you for calling the Crisis Scheduling Service. Your call is important to us--so important that we're waiting until the Certified Crisis Scheduling Counselor best equipped to handle your particular Crisis Scheduling Needs is done dealing with Marge from Milwaukee, whose panic attacks need to be scheduled on alternate Wednesdays after 3 p.m. except when the moon is full and Jupiter is in the house of Mars. Please continue holding and enjoy this little repeating loop from the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.
....
Still there? My, you're persistent. Really committed to scheduling that crisis, aren't you? Please continue to hold. Your call is important to us! Really! Would we lie to you?
....
Thank you for calling the Crisis Scheduling Service. While you wait, you may be wondering how we determine which Certified Crisis Scheduling Counselor is best equipped to handle your particular Crisis Scheduling Needs. The fact is that we're watching you. We've got cameras everywhere and we know how to tap into your personal computer, smartphone, television, microwave, car, refrigerator, and even your electric toothbrush. We know all about the toenail clippings under the rug, the secret stash of Häagen-Dazs behind the stuffed peppers in the freezer, and the phrase you mutter under your breath every time your brother-in-law calls. ("Oh, chickenpoop!") So just sit back and relax as we examine our files for the best possible outcome to your Crisis Scheduling Needs.
....
Thank you for calling the Crisis Scheduling Service. Unfortunately, our Certified Crisis Scheduling Counselors are not equipped to work with clients prone to violence. Don't try to hide it! We saw you bang the phone against a brick wall! And don't give us that story about banging your head against the wall when the phone got in the way, as if violence to a telephone were simply collateral damage. We don't deal with collateral damage. We insist that all clients schedule their crises in a calm and rational way. If your Crisis Scheduling Needs cannot be conveyed in an adult manner, then maybe you'd better schedule your crisis on your own time.
....
Thank you for calling the Crisis Scheduling Service. All our Certified Crisis Schedulers are currently providing careful, compassionate care--wait, what's that noise? Sounds like someone pounding on the bunker door. Who's there? Is that--it can't be--is that you, Marge from Milwaukee? Put down the sledgehammer! Please, I'm sure we can work this out if you'll just be calm and rational---AHHHHHHH! No, Marge, No! Your call is impor---
Click.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
On not being a buffoon (for now)
Finding out that a classroom technology glitch was Totally Not My Fault counts as a major triumph these days, which suggests just how low morale has fallen around here. We're not getting raises and we can't replace some of the valuable people who are leaving and changes to our health insurance are kicking me in the checkbook , but by golly an IT person told me I'm not a complete idiot and I'm ready to jump in the air and let out a whoop.
Yesterday when I fumbled around in front of my first-year writing class failing to get a DVD to start running, I assumed that I was just being a technological idiot. I've never had problems with that DVD before but that classroom is the only one I use that's equipped with Apple products, which always make me feel like a tech novice. Why is that icon bouncing? Where did the document I opened disappear to? How do I switch to a different DVD player? It's difficult to maintain my sense of authority when I have to ask a callow 18-year-old, "Where's the slot for putting in the DVD?"
I found the slot, but the computer kept rejecting my DVD. I fiddled around for a while and then sought help from students, who were similarly stymied. Finally I realized that if I saw another error message I'd have to start throwing things out the window, but I didn't want students to see that so I let them go ten minutes early. Yes, I allowed a tech glitch to utterly derail both my lesson plans and my ability to adapt to difficulties.
And then I tried to get someone to care about the problem and heard that no one else has had any problems with that computer so probably it's just me being an idiot. IT paid a visit to the room this morning and had no problem playing a DVD and thus confirmed that yes, when it comes to technology, particularly Apple products, I am an utter and complete buffoon. So when I asked the IT person to meet me there and show me what I was doing wrong, and when she suffered the same problems I'd encountered, and then when she admitted that she had no idea how to fix it but had to go back to the office to do some research, I felt vindicated: Yes! I'm not a total moron!
Now if only I can get someone to put it in writing so I can add it to my Vita!
Yesterday when I fumbled around in front of my first-year writing class failing to get a DVD to start running, I assumed that I was just being a technological idiot. I've never had problems with that DVD before but that classroom is the only one I use that's equipped with Apple products, which always make me feel like a tech novice. Why is that icon bouncing? Where did the document I opened disappear to? How do I switch to a different DVD player? It's difficult to maintain my sense of authority when I have to ask a callow 18-year-old, "Where's the slot for putting in the DVD?"
I found the slot, but the computer kept rejecting my DVD. I fiddled around for a while and then sought help from students, who were similarly stymied. Finally I realized that if I saw another error message I'd have to start throwing things out the window, but I didn't want students to see that so I let them go ten minutes early. Yes, I allowed a tech glitch to utterly derail both my lesson plans and my ability to adapt to difficulties.
And then I tried to get someone to care about the problem and heard that no one else has had any problems with that computer so probably it's just me being an idiot. IT paid a visit to the room this morning and had no problem playing a DVD and thus confirmed that yes, when it comes to technology, particularly Apple products, I am an utter and complete buffoon. So when I asked the IT person to meet me there and show me what I was doing wrong, and when she suffered the same problems I'd encountered, and then when she admitted that she had no idea how to fix it but had to go back to the office to do some research, I felt vindicated: Yes! I'm not a total moron!
Now if only I can get someone to put it in writing so I can add it to my Vita!
Monday, April 11, 2016
It's easy to hide in plain sight when everyone's eyes are on their Smartphones
It was really not the appropriate time to catch a case of the giggles. We were dressed in black, joining a parade of somber people headed for the memorial service honoring a recently deceased colleague, and at the time we were discussing the news that yet another valued colleague is leaving us for a much better job elsewhere, which made me really sad (for us) but happy for him--so mixed feelings for sure but not a time for giggling. However, in the midst of this bleak and somber occasion I glimpsed, just over the President's wife's shoulder, a new addition to our campus: the head of a pinata attached to a blue and white traffic cone perched high atop a campus kiosk.
Now I've been noticing that traffic cone up there for a week or so and I've even pointed it out to others, but the Powers That Be apparently haven't notice or it would have disappeared in a heartbeat. After all, we're in the heart of recruiting season, with prospective students and parents visiting almost daily, and the people who keep the grounds spiffed up have made some special efforts to bring out the beauty of spring. That traffic cone really doesn't fit into the tulips-and-daffodils color scheme of the campus mall.
But the traffic cone sat on the kiosk for a full week, and then sometime over the weekend it suddenly sprouted a face. What pinata sacrificed its head for the cause? Who climbed up there to embellish the traffic cone? If the miscreants had fallen off a ladder or otherwise injured themselves in creating their art piece, how much liability would the college bear? Inquiring minds want to know!
What amuses me the most is how few people have noticed this colorful new embellishment sitting right smack in the middle of the busiest part of campus. How long will it stay before someone in power notices and takes it down? There's only one way to find out: keep the pinata's presence strictly under wraps. (My lips are sealed! How about yours?)
Friday, April 08, 2016
Sorry, all out of answers for today
Q. My search term doesn't produce results. What should I do?
1. Try a different one?
2. Ask a Reference Librarian. They live for questions! Toss a research question at a reference librarian and he'll pounce like a puppy on a junebug.
3. Ever heard of browsing? If the first book you grabbed from the shelf does not immediately offer up the one very specific piece of information that will make your paper complete, you could skim through other chapters or flip through the index or look at nearby titles on the library shelves or scroll through the online catalog, or you could even look at the Works Cited of a journal article and see where others are finding information on the topic.
4. Funny, but we have experts on that very topic teaching right over in the next building. Have you respectfully approached them and asked for advice on a good place to find a general introduction to the topic and maybe develop some essential vocabulary?
5. Nothing at all. Just turn in the paper with the sources you've already found, even if they're all for-profit web sites peddling the latest conspiracy theories. Surely no one would expect you to come up with new search terms out of your own sweet little head!
Thursday, April 07, 2016
Now where did I stash those thumbscrews?
I was looking over the final exam from the last time I taught a certain class (four years ago!), and the word that came to mind is "punitive." It was a Spanish Inquisition kind of exam, full of thumbscrew questions that squeeze the students for specific bits of vocabulary and squeeze them on the rack of narrow interpretations. What led me to write that kind of exam? I can't imagine giving this year's class that kind of exam. Have the students changed or have I?
This year's class loves to discuss the literature and they always come up with interesting connections among works, so I've been giving them questions that let them tell me what they know and even get a little creative: If the male characters in these two stories got together to talk about gender roles, what would they say? If a character in this story could give one piece of advice to a character from that story, what would it be? I'm still giving them some quote identifications, but then I ask them a question that requires them to analyze or discuss ideas in the quotes, so it's not just rote memorization. I don't believe my new exam is any easier than the old one, but I certainly think it's more enjoyable--or maybe just less painful.
But who knows? Most of my literature classes come up frequently in the rotation of courses, so change occurs gradually, a little bit each year; looking back at course materials I last used four years ago, on the other hand, reveals just how much I've adjusted my pedagogy in that time--for the better, I hope. Maybe four years from now I'll look at this year's exam as akin to waterboarding, but that's further evidence that I'm committed to continual improvement.
(Alternately, I'm becoming too frail to wield the tools of torture.)
Wednesday, April 06, 2016
On sad smells and sour sounds
It was the cigarette smoke, I think, that made my eyes water all day long, the smoke that clung to the sweater of the woman sitting beside me in a doctor's waiting room so small and crammed with people that I could not avoid inhaling that lingering smoke, the smoke that penetrated the room as insistently as the inane yammering issuing from the television perched on the wall just over my head, the yammering that made me thankful that I didn't have to watch what I was hearing, the annoying noise as sour as a bad smell.
The smoke, yes--that must be the reason my eyes keep filling at inopportune moments, like when I hear about another valued colleague who is leaving us or when I stand in front of a classroom teaching a story about a young man returning home to visit his dying mother or when I recite that line from Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" asserting that "The art of losing isn't hard to master," the poem that urges us to "practice losing farther, losing faster," to gracefully accept the losses that pile up inevitably as we age until they penetrate every corner of our lives like an annoying noise or a lingering smell.
What else could be making my eyes water besides that smoke? Sure, we may be struggling with uncertainties (in enrollment, in employment, in my mother's health), but there's no need for tears when we can handle uncertainties in a rational manner by making plans and taking steps and distributing documents and even, heaven help us, participating in focus groups intended to gather information to improve branding. Who could be glum in the presence of focus groups?
So I blame the smoke for filling my eyes and bringing on the sniffles, for making me look at Spring red-eyed through a haze of tissues and nasal spray, because if I couldn't point my finger at the offending cigarette smoke, I'd have to come up with some other likely culprit to bear the blame for everything that threatens to fill my eyes with tears.
The smoke, yes--that must be the reason my eyes keep filling at inopportune moments, like when I hear about another valued colleague who is leaving us or when I stand in front of a classroom teaching a story about a young man returning home to visit his dying mother or when I recite that line from Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" asserting that "The art of losing isn't hard to master," the poem that urges us to "practice losing farther, losing faster," to gracefully accept the losses that pile up inevitably as we age until they penetrate every corner of our lives like an annoying noise or a lingering smell.
What else could be making my eyes water besides that smoke? Sure, we may be struggling with uncertainties (in enrollment, in employment, in my mother's health), but there's no need for tears when we can handle uncertainties in a rational manner by making plans and taking steps and distributing documents and even, heaven help us, participating in focus groups intended to gather information to improve branding. Who could be glum in the presence of focus groups?
So I blame the smoke for filling my eyes and bringing on the sniffles, for making me look at Spring red-eyed through a haze of tissues and nasal spray, because if I couldn't point my finger at the offending cigarette smoke, I'd have to come up with some other likely culprit to bear the blame for everything that threatens to fill my eyes with tears.
Monday, April 04, 2016
Lost amongst the spambots
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| Bloodroot--rare and transient tiny blooms. |
But while I was busy restoring my soul, some evil bot stole my Facebook identity and started spamming my friends. I finally signed back on Sunday afternoon feeling rested and refreshed, only to find my inbox bristling with concerned messages from people saying things like "When did we stop being friends?" and "Why are you doing this?"
A few fell for Mystery Me's friend request, probably because he/she/it stole my adorable profile photo, but others knew right away that the spam messages weren't coming from me: the spammer's profile page featured no bird & flower photos, and the messages were studded with grammatical errors. I quickly reported the violation and Facebook took down the fake profile within minutes.
Now I wish I could get in touch with Mystery Me, and not just to chew out him/her/it for nabbing my favorite profile photo. I'm more interested in another side of the story: Mystery Me tried to engage my friends in discussion of a $100,000 grant opportunity, which is way outside my league. But since I recently got turned down for a summer research grant, maybe Mystery Me could give me some good advice on funding my future research projects!
On second thought, Forget it. I'm likely to get more profit out of tromping amongst wildflowers.
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| Dutchmen's breeches |
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| Rue anemone (left) and bloodroot (right) |
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| Trilliums! (My favorite.) |
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| Buckeyes bursting into new growth. |
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| Dutchmen's breeches |
Friday, April 01, 2016
On the selfie stick as a research tool
When I asked to see his sources, a student e-mailed me a page of Google results--no, he didn't send the links, but he used his smartphone to take a photo of the page of results and he sent me the photo. Is this the future of research papers?
Learning objective: This project will equip students to document that they have mastered the process of pursuing a research question and communicating the results.
Measurable learning outcomes: Students will produce an electronic portfolio documenting the research process. The portfolio will include, at mininum, each of the following artifacts:
1. Photograph of student sitting at desk, thinking up a meaningful research question.
2. Photograph of "Ah-ha!" moment.
3. Photograph of student typing search terms into Google.
4. Photograph of page of Google results.
5. Photograph of student checking out library book and/or "reading" e-book.
6. Photograph of student taking notes (by hand or by cut-and-paste).
7. Photograph of student pumping in the Energy drinks during an all-nighter.
8. Photograph of draft of paper in process on computer screen.
9. Photograph of student reading and commenting on other students' drafts.
10. Photograph of student revising draft.
11. Photograph of student submitting finished paper to the online drop-box.
12. Photograph of student looking appreciably smarter than he did at the beginning of the process.
Evaluation: Portfolio will be evaluated based on clarity, color quality, and composition of photographs. Points will be deducted for blurred shots, unless they are intentionally blurred for aesthetic effect. Documents in photographs need not be readable as long as the photo conveys the earnestness of the attempt to appear to do research and communicate results.
Originality: All photographs must be original work created for this class. Students who include stock photos must also include a photograph appearing to show an attempt to track down appropriate citations.
Learning objective: This project will equip students to document that they have mastered the process of pursuing a research question and communicating the results.
Measurable learning outcomes: Students will produce an electronic portfolio documenting the research process. The portfolio will include, at mininum, each of the following artifacts:
1. Photograph of student sitting at desk, thinking up a meaningful research question.
2. Photograph of "Ah-ha!" moment.
3. Photograph of student typing search terms into Google.
4. Photograph of page of Google results.
5. Photograph of student checking out library book and/or "reading" e-book.
6. Photograph of student taking notes (by hand or by cut-and-paste).
7. Photograph of student pumping in the Energy drinks during an all-nighter.
8. Photograph of draft of paper in process on computer screen.
9. Photograph of student reading and commenting on other students' drafts.
10. Photograph of student revising draft.
11. Photograph of student submitting finished paper to the online drop-box.
12. Photograph of student looking appreciably smarter than he did at the beginning of the process.
Evaluation: Portfolio will be evaluated based on clarity, color quality, and composition of photographs. Points will be deducted for blurred shots, unless they are intentionally blurred for aesthetic effect. Documents in photographs need not be readable as long as the photo conveys the earnestness of the attempt to appear to do research and communicate results.
Originality: All photographs must be original work created for this class. Students who include stock photos must also include a photograph appearing to show an attempt to track down appropriate citations.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Seeking a still spot in the maelstrom
Some years ago (2003, I think it was) I attended a conference on the Poetics of Exile, where a discussion of what exile means led someone (a poet, I think) to state that exile means experiencing your mother's death via long-distance phone call.
I'm not in exile and my mother is not quite on the point of death, but she's dealing with a pretty serious diagnosis and difficult treatments so I'm spending a lot of time on the phone trying to figure out how she's doing and what I ought to do and when would be the best time to travel to Florida and how I'll get there (my mechanic just told me this morning, "You've gotten about every possible bit of use out of these brakes"), so it's not surprising that suddenly my blood pressure is higher than it's been for the past decade and my doctor wants to schedule a round of time-consuming tests while I'm in the middle of working ahead on my class preps so that if I have to leave suddenly, I'll leave behind a reasonable plan for getting my students through the rest of the semester.
Trust me: none of this is particularly fun. I feel helpless a dozen times every day. I've been gratified by my colleagues' offers to cover my classes and I'm pretty confident that at some point a clear path forward will reveal itself, but meanwhile, I'm trying to just do my job in the midst of the maelstrom. Some days it works well; others not so much.
I want to follow Wendell Berry into "The Peace of Wild Things," the woodland beasts "who do not tax their lives with forethought / of grief." I want to find rest by still water.
But I have meetings all afternoon and drafts to read and a plagiarism case to investigate and at some point I'll need to get some groceries and clean the bathrooms and retrieve my car (with new brakes!) and wrap a gift and I don't know what else.
So tomorrow I'm giving myself the afternoon off. My 1:00 class isn't meeting, so I intend to walk away from whatever work remains and find a place near woods and water where no one can find me and turn off my phone and be still. One afternoon of voluntary exile may not fix anything, but if it helps me endure these difficult weeks, then it's worth every minute.
I'm not in exile and my mother is not quite on the point of death, but she's dealing with a pretty serious diagnosis and difficult treatments so I'm spending a lot of time on the phone trying to figure out how she's doing and what I ought to do and when would be the best time to travel to Florida and how I'll get there (my mechanic just told me this morning, "You've gotten about every possible bit of use out of these brakes"), so it's not surprising that suddenly my blood pressure is higher than it's been for the past decade and my doctor wants to schedule a round of time-consuming tests while I'm in the middle of working ahead on my class preps so that if I have to leave suddenly, I'll leave behind a reasonable plan for getting my students through the rest of the semester.
Trust me: none of this is particularly fun. I feel helpless a dozen times every day. I've been gratified by my colleagues' offers to cover my classes and I'm pretty confident that at some point a clear path forward will reveal itself, but meanwhile, I'm trying to just do my job in the midst of the maelstrom. Some days it works well; others not so much.
I want to follow Wendell Berry into "The Peace of Wild Things," the woodland beasts "who do not tax their lives with forethought / of grief." I want to find rest by still water.
But I have meetings all afternoon and drafts to read and a plagiarism case to investigate and at some point I'll need to get some groceries and clean the bathrooms and retrieve my car (with new brakes!) and wrap a gift and I don't know what else.
So tomorrow I'm giving myself the afternoon off. My 1:00 class isn't meeting, so I intend to walk away from whatever work remains and find a place near woods and water where no one can find me and turn off my phone and be still. One afternoon of voluntary exile may not fix anything, but if it helps me endure these difficult weeks, then it's worth every minute.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Anyone lived in a pretty how town (but never went to grad school)
Recently a colleague in a STEM field was describing the difficulty of finding qualified experts to teach a particular upper-level course, and it never occurred to me to ask, "Can't anyone in your department teach that?" I've been around academe long enough to know that every field has its areas of expertise and while most of us could, in a pinch, teach an intro-level course outside that area, those upper-level specialized courses require a level of expertise not possessed by everyone.
So it's always surprising to be reminded that others don't necessarily share that understanding. Years ago we had a provost who wanted us to search for someone who could teach anything, but good luck finding that universally qualified person. Maybe it's a mistake for graduate programs to insist on turning out scholars with expertise in specific areas, but on the other hand, how long would you have to stay in grad school to become an expert in everything?
And now that my own department is working on ways to staff certain courses in the coming years, I'm hearing that same annoying question that I've refused to ask others: "Can't anyone in your department teach that course?"
The problem is that anyone doesn't work here. Instead, we are an eclectic collection of someones who have worked long and hard to develop expertise in specific areas, and while we're all committed to lifelong learning and willing to stretch outside our comfort zones, it would be ridiculous to expect any of us to develop full-blown scholarly expertise in an entirely different area in our "free time."
Maybe somewhere there's an academic discipline in which anyone can teach everything, but until that condition becomes universal, we'll continue to rely upon that highly qualified someone to teach that special something so necessary to our students.
So it's always surprising to be reminded that others don't necessarily share that understanding. Years ago we had a provost who wanted us to search for someone who could teach anything, but good luck finding that universally qualified person. Maybe it's a mistake for graduate programs to insist on turning out scholars with expertise in specific areas, but on the other hand, how long would you have to stay in grad school to become an expert in everything?
And now that my own department is working on ways to staff certain courses in the coming years, I'm hearing that same annoying question that I've refused to ask others: "Can't anyone in your department teach that course?"
The problem is that anyone doesn't work here. Instead, we are an eclectic collection of someones who have worked long and hard to develop expertise in specific areas, and while we're all committed to lifelong learning and willing to stretch outside our comfort zones, it would be ridiculous to expect any of us to develop full-blown scholarly expertise in an entirely different area in our "free time."
Maybe somewhere there's an academic discipline in which anyone can teach everything, but until that condition becomes universal, we'll continue to rely upon that highly qualified someone to teach that special something so necessary to our students.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Another reason I won't be retiring any time soon
One of these days when I finally retire the college will cancel classes so everyone can celebrate Bev Day, which will feature poetry slams, doggerel duels, and a massive all-campus Scrabble tournament followed by a cruise on the river with great food and speeches of appreciation from students I've inspired and colleagues I've mentored.
I'm dreaming, of course. For one thing, every time I pay a visit to the money in my retirement plan, it laughs a cruel laugh and says "dream on." For another, I stink at goodbyes and shrink from gratitude. Just yesterday, for instance, a student came to my office to thank me for all kinds of interesting things, but I just wanted to hide under my desk. I'm supposed to be the word expert, but put me in front of a beloved student at Commencement and all I can do is mutter cliches and make a quick escape.
And then I cry. It doesn't take much to move me to the edge of tears--a great line of poetry, a picture of my granddaugher, even a really well-made car commercial--but a room full of people trying to say "So long and thanks for all the fish" will reduce me to a blubbering moron with a face that looks like a raw, oozing wound.
So I sympathize with colleagues who resist the hoopla and just ease silently from the scene. I'd like to be able to just walk away and hope that I've left a mark, but it makes it hard on those left behind, who would really appreciate a chance to offer a final hurrah.
So here's my compromise position: when (if?) I finally retire, I'd like all the hoopla the college can muster, but I'd like to put on a Cloak of Invisibility so I can enjoy the fun without being noticed. I'll ask my colleagues over in Physics to get to work on that whole invisibility thing--surely they'll have time to perfect it by the time I can afford to retire.
I'm dreaming, of course. For one thing, every time I pay a visit to the money in my retirement plan, it laughs a cruel laugh and says "dream on." For another, I stink at goodbyes and shrink from gratitude. Just yesterday, for instance, a student came to my office to thank me for all kinds of interesting things, but I just wanted to hide under my desk. I'm supposed to be the word expert, but put me in front of a beloved student at Commencement and all I can do is mutter cliches and make a quick escape.
And then I cry. It doesn't take much to move me to the edge of tears--a great line of poetry, a picture of my granddaugher, even a really well-made car commercial--but a room full of people trying to say "So long and thanks for all the fish" will reduce me to a blubbering moron with a face that looks like a raw, oozing wound.
So I sympathize with colleagues who resist the hoopla and just ease silently from the scene. I'd like to be able to just walk away and hope that I've left a mark, but it makes it hard on those left behind, who would really appreciate a chance to offer a final hurrah.
So here's my compromise position: when (if?) I finally retire, I'd like all the hoopla the college can muster, but I'd like to put on a Cloak of Invisibility so I can enjoy the fun without being noticed. I'll ask my colleagues over in Physics to get to work on that whole invisibility thing--surely they'll have time to perfect it by the time I can afford to retire.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Dash away all!
One student needs to be told--repeatedly, on every paper--that dashes are like Tabasco sauce: a little bit goes a long way. Another asks--out loud, in front of everyone--"What's a dash?" (And she's not kidding.)
And then there are the punctuation avoiders, students who pile word on word and phrase on phrase without a shadow of a hint of a comma and who approach the semicolon as if it were about to bite them and who have to be reminded that a question should end in a question mark and who even sometimes forget to put an end stop at the end of the sentence as if it could go on eternally and infinitely and neverendingly and lots of other synonyms students like to find in the handy thesaurus they keep always open on the laptop screen to allow easy access to words that are often right but frequently only almost right and sometimes dead wrong and when will this sentence ever end and what was I talking about anyway?!
Ah yes: punctuation! It's a beautiful thing. I'm not going to mourn its imminent demise as long as I see commas deployed elegantly in the occasional paper, but it's really difficult to teach proper use of the dash to students who've never seen one--and don't even get me started on the colon. Once (this is true) I detected a case of plagiarism after a student used a colon correctly, such a rare occurrence that it put me on my guard. When I encourage a student to use a semicolon to connect complete sentences, half of the time I get either a colon connecting sentences or a semicolon connecting dependent clauses. (And if you know why that's funny, you are a certified grammar nerd.)
Hyphens (not dashes!) do one kind of job,
virgules (or slashes) another.
Ellipses replace the deleted words.
(Students ask--to my face--"Why bother?")
And then there are the punctuation avoiders, students who pile word on word and phrase on phrase without a shadow of a hint of a comma and who approach the semicolon as if it were about to bite them and who have to be reminded that a question should end in a question mark and who even sometimes forget to put an end stop at the end of the sentence as if it could go on eternally and infinitely and neverendingly and lots of other synonyms students like to find in the handy thesaurus they keep always open on the laptop screen to allow easy access to words that are often right but frequently only almost right and sometimes dead wrong and when will this sentence ever end and what was I talking about anyway?!
Ah yes: punctuation! It's a beautiful thing. I'm not going to mourn its imminent demise as long as I see commas deployed elegantly in the occasional paper, but it's really difficult to teach proper use of the dash to students who've never seen one--and don't even get me started on the colon. Once (this is true) I detected a case of plagiarism after a student used a colon correctly, such a rare occurrence that it put me on my guard. When I encourage a student to use a semicolon to connect complete sentences, half of the time I get either a colon connecting sentences or a semicolon connecting dependent clauses. (And if you know why that's funny, you are a certified grammar nerd.)
Hyphens (not dashes!) do one kind of job,
virgules (or slashes) another.
Ellipses replace the deleted words.
(Students ask--to my face--"Why bother?")
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Mail-merge gone mad!
From today's Columbus Dispatch:
Dear prospective student:
Please accept my personal apology for the computer error that mangled your name in a recent mailing. We are well aware that no sensible person would name a child Pataskala--unless that is your actual name, in which case please accept my personal apology for ridiculing your given name. (Although if your name really is Pataskala, maybe you ought to ask your parents for an apology along with regular sessions with a good therapist).
In addition, we are heartily sorry that the salutation "Dear Potential Moneybags" slipped past our skilled proofreaders. They'd been out to a long lunch celebrating Evelyn's divorce from that no-account scumbag Earl, and they may have been less than diligent in their duties. Nothing personal! Such an error is unlikely to occur in the future thanks to a strict "no long lunch" rule and a revolution in Evelyn's outlook now that she's moving in with her new soul mate, Pataskala.
And you know that part of the message where we encouraged you to enroll in our Children of Convicted Sex Offenders support group? Sorry! We don't actually have a CCSO support group, but you can play an important part in creating this vital resource by pledging to donate $75 per month in perpetuity, for which you will receive as a thank-you gift one "Barely Legal" pinup calendar.
Finally, I want to assure you that our skilled IT people have repaired the glitch that scrambled some information on previous mailings so such an error will not be repeated. We are fully committed to making each student feel welcomed and appreciated as an individual human being, and that means you. So please give us another chance to woo you, Wapakoneta!
(Unless your name is Pataskala, in which case see paragraph 1.)
Sincerely,
Brutus Blackeye
Ohio State University wanted to reassure 17,000 accepted applicants that they won't be lost in the crowd at an institution with 50,000-plus undergraduates.
The problem: The postcards they sent out all had wrong first and/or middle names for the prospective students.
Dear prospective student:
Please accept my personal apology for the computer error that mangled your name in a recent mailing. We are well aware that no sensible person would name a child Pataskala--unless that is your actual name, in which case please accept my personal apology for ridiculing your given name. (Although if your name really is Pataskala, maybe you ought to ask your parents for an apology along with regular sessions with a good therapist).
In addition, we are heartily sorry that the salutation "Dear Potential Moneybags" slipped past our skilled proofreaders. They'd been out to a long lunch celebrating Evelyn's divorce from that no-account scumbag Earl, and they may have been less than diligent in their duties. Nothing personal! Such an error is unlikely to occur in the future thanks to a strict "no long lunch" rule and a revolution in Evelyn's outlook now that she's moving in with her new soul mate, Pataskala.
And you know that part of the message where we encouraged you to enroll in our Children of Convicted Sex Offenders support group? Sorry! We don't actually have a CCSO support group, but you can play an important part in creating this vital resource by pledging to donate $75 per month in perpetuity, for which you will receive as a thank-you gift one "Barely Legal" pinup calendar.
Finally, I want to assure you that our skilled IT people have repaired the glitch that scrambled some information on previous mailings so such an error will not be repeated. We are fully committed to making each student feel welcomed and appreciated as an individual human being, and that means you. So please give us another chance to woo you, Wapakoneta!
(Unless your name is Pataskala, in which case see paragraph 1.)
Sincerely,
Brutus Blackeye
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Put the cash on the barrel-head
It was the typical faculty gripe-fest about students who don't value their time in class, who applaud when you let them out five minutes early and have multiple orgasms of joy when you have to cancel class, as if they don't realize that a cancelled class means they're getting less than they paid for, and so on and so on yadda yadda yadda, when someone came up with a brilliant idea: Maybe they'd value their time in class more if they had to pay in full up front.
Imagine how it would spice up the matriculation ceremony if students had to walk through the center of campus pushing wheelbarrows full of greenbacks! Or if students had to swipe a credit-card reader every time they came through the door of a classroom--think how cheated they'd feel if we let them out early!
I don't know how such a system would handle my student who comes in five minutes early, sets his backpack down on his chair, and then steps out to do whatever he does--phone call? cigarette break? rest room?--only to return to class three minutes after we've started. "I wasn't late," he insists, pointing to his backpack. (Maybe his backpack should get the credit for the work he's missed.)
Imagine how it would spice up the matriculation ceremony if students had to walk through the center of campus pushing wheelbarrows full of greenbacks! Or if students had to swipe a credit-card reader every time they came through the door of a classroom--think how cheated they'd feel if we let them out early!
I don't know how such a system would handle my student who comes in five minutes early, sets his backpack down on his chair, and then steps out to do whatever he does--phone call? cigarette break? rest room?--only to return to class three minutes after we've started. "I wasn't late," he insists, pointing to his backpack. (Maybe his backpack should get the credit for the work he's missed.)
Monday, March 21, 2016
I don't know where to put this so I'll just leave it right here.
You know you live in the sticks when the local newspaper can be relied upon to include a spelling error in an article about the regional spelling bee. This time they misspelled the.
A student e-mailed to ask whether adding subtopic X will improve his paper. "It depends on what you do with it," I told him, and then I offered some suggestions. I don't know what he can do until he writes, but he doesn't want to write until I tell him whether his writing will be good enough. I don't see a way out of this impasse.
Rambling? Just a bit, but you'd be rambling too if you'd had the kind of day I've had. I'm lucky I still remember how to spell the.
I didn't intend to hit that bunny this morning--honest! It just ran out in front of me in a thick fog. At least it wasn't carrying a basket of colored eggs. (Wait, bunnies carry baskets of eggs? Who thought that was a viable plan?)
Didn't get the summer research grant I applied for. Nuts. Now I'll have to find a different way to motivate my summer work. Maybe I'll lay in a supply of little gold stars.
A friend recently posted a bunch of photos from our church youth group events when I was in ninth and tenth grade, and every time I appear, I'm happy. This does not accord with my memories of adolescence, which are full of loneliness, despair, and self-loathing. Either the pictures lie or I'm an expert at viewing life through mud-colored glasses.
A student e-mailed to ask whether adding subtopic X will improve his paper. "It depends on what you do with it," I told him, and then I offered some suggestions. I don't know what he can do until he writes, but he doesn't want to write until I tell him whether his writing will be good enough. I don't see a way out of this impasse.
Rambling? Just a bit, but you'd be rambling too if you'd had the kind of day I've had. I'm lucky I still remember how to spell the.
I didn't intend to hit that bunny this morning--honest! It just ran out in front of me in a thick fog. At least it wasn't carrying a basket of colored eggs. (Wait, bunnies carry baskets of eggs? Who thought that was a viable plan?)
Didn't get the summer research grant I applied for. Nuts. Now I'll have to find a different way to motivate my summer work. Maybe I'll lay in a supply of little gold stars.
A friend recently posted a bunch of photos from our church youth group events when I was in ninth and tenth grade, and every time I appear, I'm happy. This does not accord with my memories of adolescence, which are full of loneliness, despair, and self-loathing. Either the pictures lie or I'm an expert at viewing life through mud-colored glasses.
 |
| That would be me. |
Sunday, March 20, 2016
A Doubter's Almanac: Our fathers, ourselves
I was mentally composing an impassioned rant about the last quarter of Ethan Canin's A Doubter's Almanac, grumbling under my breath that I wished a certain character would would for heaven's sake just hurry up and die, and then a single line in the final chapter absolutely floored me: "I remember being happy."
It's not a particularly impressive line, but when it arrives in the final chapter of a book devoted to characters who seem determined to make each other unhappy, the line is both surprising and oddly believable--but you'll have to read the book to find out why.
I often teach Canin's short story "The Year of Getting to Know Us," in which a rebellious teen struggles to assimilate unpleasant knowledge about his distant and intractable father. Toward the end the dad is giving his son a rare golf lesson when the dad says, "You don't have to get to know me because one day you're going to grow up and then you're going to be me." Tragically, he's right.
A Doubter's Almanac covers similar territory in much greater detail, introducing brilliant but tortured mathematician Milo Andret first through his own eyes and then through those of his son, Hans, who knows his father well enough to know he doesn't want to grow up to be him but can't seem to stop himself. In Canin's hands the characters come to life in all their--well, I wouldn't exactly call it glory. "Ignorance and wounded shrieking" is Milo's assessment of the human condition, which about covers the tenor of the book.
And yet it's a compelling and skillfully crafted novel. Milo holds his own alongside a long line of Professors Behaving Badly--move over, Thomas H. Chippering, Moses Herzog, and William Henry "Lucky Hank" Devereaux Jr.--with the exception of his total absence of humor. The humorless boy who carves an elaborate chain from a chunk of tree stump only to hide it carefully away ("he'd long wanted to produce something worthy of concealing") becomes the humorless adult so single-mindedly devoted to his worthy goals that he alienates anyone who gets in his way and even some who don't.
Which makes that moment of happiness in the final chapter so much more remarkable. The novel could easily have turned into an extended rant about horrible fathering, but Canin knows that no son would be so obsessed with a father who didn't have some redeeming qualities, and he also knows that memory is fickle and a child determined to hate his father would have to intentionally block out those fleeting moments of happiness.
Hans believes that he has escaped his father's obsessions with solving great mathematical mysteries, but he merely transposes his father's obsessions to a different field, turning algorithms into ready money by peddling "the shadow of the prediction of risk" on Wall Street. He and his father hunt for different types of treasure, but Milo recognizes in Hans a similar obsession with the pursuit itself:
It's not a particularly impressive line, but when it arrives in the final chapter of a book devoted to characters who seem determined to make each other unhappy, the line is both surprising and oddly believable--but you'll have to read the book to find out why.
I often teach Canin's short story "The Year of Getting to Know Us," in which a rebellious teen struggles to assimilate unpleasant knowledge about his distant and intractable father. Toward the end the dad is giving his son a rare golf lesson when the dad says, "You don't have to get to know me because one day you're going to grow up and then you're going to be me." Tragically, he's right.
A Doubter's Almanac covers similar territory in much greater detail, introducing brilliant but tortured mathematician Milo Andret first through his own eyes and then through those of his son, Hans, who knows his father well enough to know he doesn't want to grow up to be him but can't seem to stop himself. In Canin's hands the characters come to life in all their--well, I wouldn't exactly call it glory. "Ignorance and wounded shrieking" is Milo's assessment of the human condition, which about covers the tenor of the book.
And yet it's a compelling and skillfully crafted novel. Milo holds his own alongside a long line of Professors Behaving Badly--move over, Thomas H. Chippering, Moses Herzog, and William Henry "Lucky Hank" Devereaux Jr.--with the exception of his total absence of humor. The humorless boy who carves an elaborate chain from a chunk of tree stump only to hide it carefully away ("he'd long wanted to produce something worthy of concealing") becomes the humorless adult so single-mindedly devoted to his worthy goals that he alienates anyone who gets in his way and even some who don't.
Which makes that moment of happiness in the final chapter so much more remarkable. The novel could easily have turned into an extended rant about horrible fathering, but Canin knows that no son would be so obsessed with a father who didn't have some redeeming qualities, and he also knows that memory is fickle and a child determined to hate his father would have to intentionally block out those fleeting moments of happiness.
Hans believes that he has escaped his father's obsessions with solving great mathematical mysteries, but he merely transposes his father's obsessions to a different field, turning algorithms into ready money by peddling "the shadow of the prediction of risk" on Wall Street. He and his father hunt for different types of treasure, but Milo recognizes in Hans a similar obsession with the pursuit itself:
We'll always be in chase. In chase of the next question, which we're usually familiar with because it was the answer to the previous one. Everything builds. Increment upon increment....The trick is accumulating the steps, each one so trivial that it can be comprehended by the crippled thing we call the mind.A Doubter's Almanac builds its case against Milo Andret step by excruciating step but then, surprisingly, turns back and starts tearing those steps down. In the end Canin provides no bright moment of redemption, but he does allow us to turn away from the "ignorance and wounded shrieking" long enough to hear a refreshing note of joyful laughter.
Friday, March 18, 2016
All aboard the Interpretive Map Express!
How do you draw a map of chaos?
My Postcolonial Lit students just completed their second Interpretive Map assignment, which requires them to map out the locations in a piece of literature in a way that illuminates contexts or themes. For this assignment, they could choose to map out a short story by Jhumpa Lahiri, a chapter from Salman Rushdie's Shame, or a short story by Krishan Chander. Nearly half of them chose the Chander story.
It must have looked like an easy pick, especially compared to the Rushdie chapters with their rapid shifts in place and time. For instance, two students mapped out Rushdie's "Mother Country," one as an ever-evolving labyrinth with no clear way out, the other as a set of clearly defined steps in which the paths multiply and meander toward chaos.
Those who chose Chander, however, may have thought that "Peshawar Express" would make for easy mapping, since it's narrated by a train carrying Hindu refugees fleeing the newly-created Pakistan immediately after the 1947 Partition. The story traces events of senseless bloodshed, violence, and hatred, but on the other hand, how hard could it be to map out the route of a train?
Pretty hard. "Peshawar Express" offers many names of places, but students couldn't always tell whether those place names referred to cities or regions, and names of unfamiliar landmarks left them scratching their heads. They also discovered the fluidity of geography: names changes; routes vary; borders move. No two maps of the train's route looked quite the same.
One map showed a very clear route for the train but then down in the little box in the corner of the map, where you would expect to see an explanation of symbols or demographic data, I found a list of the number of people killed or at each point on the route and the method of killing. The juxtaposition of cold, hard data with brutal bloodshed was positively chilling and effectively evoked the mood of the story.
When we were learning about the massacres surrounding Partition, a student asked, "Why haven't we heard about this before?" Good question! One student said drawing the map made him sad because it made him aware once again of how much we don't know about the pain of others, while looking at how his classmates chose to map out the stories made him realize that "we pick and choose our history."
I told them when we started this that every map is an interpretation--an act of picking and choosing what matters and deciding how to represent those things visually. I'm not sure they believed me at first, but now? They've boarded the train and set out on the route, even if it leans pretty close to chaos.
My Postcolonial Lit students just completed their second Interpretive Map assignment, which requires them to map out the locations in a piece of literature in a way that illuminates contexts or themes. For this assignment, they could choose to map out a short story by Jhumpa Lahiri, a chapter from Salman Rushdie's Shame, or a short story by Krishan Chander. Nearly half of them chose the Chander story.
It must have looked like an easy pick, especially compared to the Rushdie chapters with their rapid shifts in place and time. For instance, two students mapped out Rushdie's "Mother Country," one as an ever-evolving labyrinth with no clear way out, the other as a set of clearly defined steps in which the paths multiply and meander toward chaos.
Those who chose Chander, however, may have thought that "Peshawar Express" would make for easy mapping, since it's narrated by a train carrying Hindu refugees fleeing the newly-created Pakistan immediately after the 1947 Partition. The story traces events of senseless bloodshed, violence, and hatred, but on the other hand, how hard could it be to map out the route of a train?
Pretty hard. "Peshawar Express" offers many names of places, but students couldn't always tell whether those place names referred to cities or regions, and names of unfamiliar landmarks left them scratching their heads. They also discovered the fluidity of geography: names changes; routes vary; borders move. No two maps of the train's route looked quite the same.
One map showed a very clear route for the train but then down in the little box in the corner of the map, where you would expect to see an explanation of symbols or demographic data, I found a list of the number of people killed or at each point on the route and the method of killing. The juxtaposition of cold, hard data with brutal bloodshed was positively chilling and effectively evoked the mood of the story.
When we were learning about the massacres surrounding Partition, a student asked, "Why haven't we heard about this before?" Good question! One student said drawing the map made him sad because it made him aware once again of how much we don't know about the pain of others, while looking at how his classmates chose to map out the stories made him realize that "we pick and choose our history."
I told them when we started this that every map is an interpretation--an act of picking and choosing what matters and deciding how to represent those things visually. I'm not sure they believed me at first, but now? They've boarded the train and set out on the route, even if it leans pretty close to chaos.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Flood stage
Easy to see it's spring around here.
Floods of water over the dam, floods of student projects all over my desk.
It sounded like such a good idea when I created the assignment, but now I'm treading water.
(But at least I'm in good company.)
Come on in! The water's fine!
Floods of water over the dam, floods of student projects all over my desk.
It sounded like such a good idea when I created the assignment, but now I'm treading water.
(But at least I'm in good company.)
Come on in! The water's fine!
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Ohio becomes a verb (again)
Sometimes the best part of voting is getting the little sticker. This year, though, the sticker is nearly as incomprehensible as the ballot.
If you squint, you can just about make that the red Ohio looks sort of vaguely like a lopsided angular warped heart, which makes this "I Heart Voting." But if your eyes are worn out from trying to make sense of the ballot, the sticker looks like "I Ohio Voting," which makes sense as long as Ohio is a verb, or "I Lopsided Angular Warped Heart Voting," which makes no sense at all.
Who came up with this idea? Exhaustive research (of the first Google entry that popped up) reveals that this sticker design was the result of a statewide contest, earning 38 percent of the vote--and the first runner-up received 37 percent (see all the contenders here). The Ohio Secretary of State thinks all Ohioans should wear the sticker as a "badge of honor," but you'll notice he didn't call it a badge of grammar or logic or comprehensibility.
But okay: I'll wear my sticker as a badge of honor even if today I didn't particularly heart voting. This election season has been making my heart feel squeezed and stomped on and warped into lopsided shapes, and if that's what the sticker is trying to say, I'm all for it.
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