Dr Chuck Pearson: Academia Archives

April 04, 2008

College where they need it the worst

It is absolutely essential for me, in times like these, to remember how good I have it.

After an up-and-down week, where I still can't find a way to make the highs anywhere near as high as the lows, my random bouncing around the internets brought me to desperately needed perspective, in the form of two stories from Bunker Hill Community College written by Wick Sloane.

The first, written last year this time, is a piece mourning the death of a 19-year-old student named Cedirick Steele and how this impacted the English class he had been taking. The second, written today, is a broader picture of the experience at BHCC, captured in single snapshots, nothing terribly coherent because "these pages keep spinning out in rage and gibberish. I can’t circle longer, looking for the perfect storyline on this problem 'too big to be seen.'"

Here's the part of the second piece that absolutely killed me (edited so that Baptist-college-stylee SonicWall doesn't start hating my guts - go back to InsideHigherEd for the unedited version):

Slide Five: A Thursday last spring. A textbook publisher has brought lunch for two students whose essays she wants to buy for a new book. On Tuesday, one student had e-mailed his lunch order. Thursday morning, he canceled. He had to quit school. No explanation.

Slide Six: The final paragraph of his essay.

"My stomach begins to churn as I start the last phase of my pilgrimage. The last phase consists of walking out of the train station, down the walkway and into BHCC. I compare this walk to the walk death row inmates take before they are executed. As I take this walk I begin to ask myself, “What the f___ am I doing here?” Within seconds my sensible half answers, “You’re here so that you don’t have to live like the rest of your family. The rest of your friends are in school, and lord knows half of them aren’t half as smart as you. Lastly, we already paid for this s___ so get it done, lil’ n___a.” With BHCC right in front me, I take a deep breath and end this pilgrimage by entering the Mecca that will start me on the path of reaching my pinnacle.”

Why is it that the people who need education the most desperately - and who know it, and are hungriest for it - are the very same people who find it the hardest to get?

(And, of course, this is "first in a series." I'll be reading this some more.)

Posted by Chuck at 10:00 AM | TrackBack

April 03, 2008

Your Cornford reading for the day

We interrupt the steady stream of Israel-blogging to bring a reminder of the real world, via Part VI of Cornford's Microcosmographia Academica (last making appearances in this place here and here):

You will begin, I suppose, by thinking that people who disagree with you and oppress you must be dishonest. Cynicism is the besetting and venial fault of declining youth, and disillusionment its last illusion. It is quite a mistake to suppose that real dishonesty is at an common. The number of rogues is about equal to the number of men who act honestly; and it is very small. The great majority would sooner behave honestly than not. The reason why they do not give way to this natural preference of humanity is that they are afraid that others will not; and the others do not because they are afraid that they will not. Thus it comes about that, while behaviour which looks dishonest is fairly common, sincere dishonesty is about as rare as the courage to evoke good faith in your neighbours by showing that you trust them.

No; the Political Motive in the academic breast is honest enough. It is Fear -- genuine, perpetual, heartfelt timorousness.

Never chalk up to malicious intent what can be just as easily ascribed to raw, unadulterated scaredy-pantsness?

There is a lot of truth in that. A whole heapin' lot.

Posted by Chuck at 03:09 PM | TrackBack

October 03, 2007

And just to make my point...

...and further pound it into my skull that I am, in fact, part of a dying vocation, and the vast majority of America thinks I'm completely useless to the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, the mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley.

Education cannot get so costly that it takes 80 percent, 90 percent of Americans out of the reach of college. If that happens, God help America...They should cut half the courses. It would cut the cost down tremendously. What are the basic courses that you need in college? Cut some of the unnecessary courses out.

Wow. Just wow.

Of course, this is horribly out of context, and I'd like to see the actual full-text of the comments. (It bears mentioning that Daley has been pounding on the idea that American public education is horrible for some time, and just yesterday was addressing school kids and teachers at a "Science In The City" festival and saying that "the United States is at risk of falling behind other nations in science and technology...we have the responsibility to make a career in science available to any children here in Chicago.”) But to say something as stupid as "They should cut half the courses"...

I mean, you want to alienate every person in higher education immediately? There you go. Run, don't walk, to you nearest two-year college or small private school and say "Yeah, you're an overpriced bunch of twats because you offer too many courses. You could surely run things on half the people you're employing right now."

The problem is, I absolutely guarantee you that Daley's Q-rating just went up, not down, because of that comment. Note its context - cost of higher ed. Which is, in fact soaring. Which is, in fact, beginning to exceed the reach of the lower class, even elements of the middle class. And which is beginning to deal with financial realities - from health care for an aging faculty to competition for PhD's from industry to paying for programs to deal with underprepared students...and we could go on for hours. The number of courses an institution teaches? That's the tip of the dang iceberg.

But the populace doesn't see it that way. The populace sees it as a question of pampered faculty taking their money and giving their kids an overpriced piece of paper in return.

So yeah, those of you who were so kind and commented on my "Grade D Culture" post...thanks. And know that you've just placed yourself in the 1% or so of the population who actually gets it. Right now, that 1% is not a happy place.

(HT: Dean Dad.)

Posted by Chuck at 07:25 AM | TrackBack

September 29, 2007

Grade D Culture

Shortly after I started at Middle Georgia in the fall of 2000, I read the seventh - and my first - state-of-the-system address given by the chancellor of the University System of Georgia at the time, Stephen Portch. It, frankly, inspired me. It gave me the idea that I was working in the right place. It was very specific about setting goals for the whole university system - and for specific schools in the university system - and relatively specific about specific accomplishments that were in place and accomplishments that needed to happen.

But when I read the speech, I found one primary thing resonating with me more than anything else - in the midst of grading the University System of Georgia for performance to date, he assigned the culture in which he worked a grade of "D". And very deliberately explained why.

It is important to remember we don't operate in a vacuum. We operate in a society and in an environment that has many challenges. On culture, I grade a "D." This is not unique to Georgia. We continue - in my mind -- to have a pervasive, anti-intellectual culture in this country.

When Sherita Denson -- a bright young African-American student at South Atlanta High School - writes an op-ed piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and describes how she must endure being called a "nerd" and a "loser" to succeed academically - we have a grade D culture.

When a basketball player with a troubled past gets more ink than the number of new freshmen with perfect SATs - we have a grade D culture.

When I see more emotion generated over UGA's weekend football parking than their Rhodes Scholar output - we have a grade D culture.

When we have too many young people who dream of playing in the NFL and NBA - and who have a better chance at winning the Georgia Lottery -- we have a grade D culture.

When almost 90 percent of Georgia eighth graders watch TV two hours or more daily -- we have a grade D culture.

When we have a culture where too many school boards spend time debating the need to doctor "evolution" out of science books, rather than focusing on preparing young people to face a technologically and scientifically-oriented society -- we have a grade D culture.

When we can come up with the perfect plan to produce talented teachers, but when they graduate they choose the $80,000 non-teaching job with stock options over the $25,000 teaching post with long hours and metal detectors - we have a grade D culture.

It was one thing to say "hey! yeah! isn't it time to change the world now?" as a young-punk, 28-year-old faculty member, new on the tenure track. But I wasn't really prepared for how much that grade D culture would impact my day-to-day work as an education professional in Georgia.

What has boggled my mind as a professor, the more that I've seen it, has been the simple lack of expectation that adults have had for their children. It's true all over the country, I know. But it's true in Georgia (and in other places in the Southeast) in particular. In principle, we want our children to do well. But when they don't do well, we make excuses for them. We understand their struggles. We look to give them a less stressful way.

And we don't even consider that, if they could just work through those struggles and do a little bit more and push a little bit harder, the whole world might open up to them. In fact, we're pretty sure that the whole world won't open up to them. We think, honestly, that's something that the kids from the big cities do. Or the big money school districts. Or the private schools. Or anywhere else but our own back yard.

(Now, playing football on Sundays? Ballin' in the Association? Maybe even getting a preaching gig at a big church and getting to the high-five-figures of income? We might do that. But making important scientific discoveries? Becoming a writer who influences people's thoughts and minds and lives? Being the rare transformative political leader who will actually improve the world instead of demagoguing the mess out of every issue? Sakes, even being the inspirational teacher who isn't content to go to school and pick up a paycheck, but actually wants to develop students? Nope. Not us.)

The hard lesson that you have to learn, when you start in this business, is that changing the educational culture of a place - a city, a region, a state, maybe even a whole country - is difficult work. No. Check that. It's nearly impossible. You're working to spread a gospel - in my case, a gospel of science and the possibilities that the young thinkers might do great things - and you have to preach that gospel repeatedly, day in and day out, to have even a hope that a tenth of the people might actually hear you and take your words to heart.

But even then, when that small fraction of people hear you, their family and friends - and their family and friends have constructed different ideas and different visions of their future. And those visions didn't usually include leaving the small town and seeking out great things to be done. Because people from Rome, Georgia (or Canton, or Trion, or Rockmart, or Cartersville) don't do those things. The men find the steady jobs on graduation and support their families. The women stay at home and raise the children. And if that business hasn't started by the time the kids hit 23, then, well, what's the problem? What's the holdup? We want grandkids, y'know.

I recognize that I'm a terribly blessed man, because I was pretty determined to get the heck out of Hilliard, Florida, when I graduated high school and go off and Do Great Things (whatever those things were), and my parents didn't show any level of doubt in me. On the contrary, they showed disappointment whenever I showed even the slightest weakness. They didn't punish me, but they made it abundantly clear that they thought I was brilliant, and that I Could Do Better. And that steady drumbeat of messages lasted while I was in college, even at points when I really had other things on my mind and I was annoyed by it. But it was a drumbeat. "We're proud of you. You do good work. You should do better work and get rid of the B's. You should be preparing for life after graduation. You're going to be great. We're proud of you."

When I talk to students whose parents don't even attempt to understand what's going on with their schooling, how the college experience is changing them and their parents are offended by the changes and they're feeling alienated and ostracized because of the changes, rather than encouraged...well, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart over and over again. And the more I see it happen, the more I find myself wondering what in God's name I'm doing here.

Not that anybody has to worry about me throwing in the towel at this point. I said this a while ago, and I was reminded of it this week, and it bears repeating:

Teaching is what I do; it's who I am; it's what my vocation is. For some people, this gig is nothing more sophisticated than a job, the thing they do that pays the bills. For me, I borrow Ludlow Porch's line about being on the radio: "If anybody ever found out I'd do this for free, I'd be in Big Trouble."

But I really wonder if it's time to qualify that. I still have teaching experiences where it's apparent that I've got kids who really want to give it everything, and parents who are willing to throw their backing behind it. (Special props at this point to a group of seven young people I've been meeting for the past three Tuesday nights, that I've taught a bit of chemistry to, and who have taken a couple of those days that had just been ruined beyond all repair and actually reminding me why it's worth it.) But the more I look at the youth of 2007, the more I see the numbers of kids who really give it their all dwindling, and the number of kids who give it their all AND get the full round of support from their so-called loved ones dwindling even more rapidly.

I'm tired of the Grade D Culture. I don't want to hit 65 and see the Grade D Culture still pervasive, and be asking questions about what more I could have done.

(Stephen Portch left the University System of Georgia in 2001. I left the University System of Georgia in 2003, convinced that I could best contribute to the challenge of creating a more educated Georgia outside of the University System.)

Posted by Chuck at 09:38 PM | TrackBack

April 24, 2007

Standard finals week prayer request

Pray for me.

Pray for my students.

Pray for everybody who is dealing with unacceptable, unexplainable loss - and for the next two weeks, is getting on with academic work anyway.

And pray for those people even if they aren't at Virginia Tech.

Posted by Chuck at 06:11 PM | TrackBack

April 18, 2007

One Virginia Tech question

There's one thing that stands out in all of the profiles of Cho Seung Hui - the fact that this was a student who was miserable, disturbed, and within himself. His writings for classes were clear hints of the damage he could do, and how little he would care about those he hurt. The faculty who taught him were quite aware that something was deeply wrong, but those who were able to muster up the sense/courage to talk to him and offer help were systematically shunned.

What the heck do you do if you're Nikki Giovanni?

Cho (whose full name is pronounced joh sung-wee) appears first to have alarmed the noted Virginia Tech poet Nikki Giovanni in a creative writing class in fall 2005, Giovanni said.

Cho took pictures of fellow students during class and wrote about death, she said in an interview. "Kids write about murder and suicide all the time. But there was something that made all of us pay attention closely. None of us were comfortable with that," she said.

The students once recited their poems in class. "It was like, 'What are you trying to say here?' It was more sinister," she said.

Days later, seven of Giovanni's 70 or so students showed up for a class. She asked them why the others didn't show up and was told that they were afraid of Cho.

"Once I realized my class was scared, I knew I had to do something," she said.

She approached Cho and told him that he needed to change the type of poems he was writing or drop her class. Giovanni said Cho declined to leave and said, "You can't make me."

What do you do if you're Lucinda Roy?

Giovanni said she appealed to Roy, who then taught Cho one-on-one. Roy, 51, said in a telephone interview that she also urged Cho to seek counseling and told him that she would walk to the counseling center with him. He said he would think about it.

Roy said she warned school officials. "I was determined that people were going to take notice," Roy said. "I felt I'd said to so many people, 'Please, will you look at this young man?' "

Roy, now the alumni distinguished professor of English and co-director of the creative writing program, said university officials were responsive and sympathetic to her warnings but indicated that because Cho had made no direct threats, there was little they could do.

"I don't want to be accusatory or blaming other people," Roy said. "I do just want to say, though, it's such a shame if people don't listen very carefully and if the law constricts them so that they can't do what is best for the student."

What do you do if you're a professor, you genuinely care, you want to see your student get to a healthy place in life, and you're shut off at every turn?

Of course, it's still early days, and there's still a lot of journalism yet to be done and a lot of story yet to be told. But I can't help but feel like Virginia Tech comes off looking very good here. Giovanni and Roy come off as caring, compassionate professors that you wouldn't expect to find at a larger school. There are others who have been written about who don't come off quite so well in the stories, but only under the influence of Cho's strange (and, in most cases, belligerent) behavior.

He simply didn't want to be helped. What do you do? What can you do?

This is going to be the reason another generation of kids are watched and forced into counseling or suspended from school simply for WRITING about killing or about suicide. I'm not saying that's right. I'm saying that good people who are at wit's end over this - and about the epidemic of senseless violence we've fallen into - are going to be desperate to do something.

I have no answers, only the rant.

(It occurs me that I've just taken a nice swath of time that was otherwise going to be used for not sounding like an idiot in class and spent it pounding out notes on the keyboard - and that has been happening more than a bit lately, first harvesting old stuff I've written, and now writing new stuff. I'm afraid something significant has been going on here, and - monkeys who own me aside - the theme of the writing on the front page of this blog speaks to what I've seen going on around me lately, and how much it concerns me.)

(UPDATE: Heh. Eric Burns was thinking a lot of the same things last night.)

Posted by Chuck at 05:56 AM | TrackBack

April 16, 2007

Pray for Virginia Tech

Self-explanatory.

Dean Dad has already weighed in, and his take is worthwhile.

(UPDATE: When good work is done in bad times, it's worth pointing it out. Virginia Tech's student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, got quality stuff for their edition today; the obvious interest overwhelmed the paper's website, so trying to hit up the newspaper site bounces to collegemedia.com, which is the parent publishing company for a host of campus newspapers. Check out the front page of their paper today - it's IMPRESSIVE layout.

But the winner for a painful, brutal synopsis of the day and our feelings comes from Mike Harden, who writes for the Columbus Dispatch:

We are a bilingual people. We speak English and violence.

It's true. It's true.)

Posted by Chuck at 03:30 PM | TrackBack

December 04, 2006

Essential tips for better communication

Even I got some very useful insight from this primer for electronic communication with faculty, especially faculty you don't know, posted on Inside Higher Ed (and you really should be reading Inside Higher Ed if you have any interest in the academic stuff I post 'round here). Here's what you get out of that piece, for minimal investment of reading time:

Given people’s limited amount of time, how can we ensure that our inquiring e-mail is not simply relegated to the recipient’s trash folder? It is important to recognize that those possessing information of interest to us will be the types of people who are valuable sources of knowledge for others as well...

Regardless of the status difference (prospective student contacting a faculty member or a senior researcher contacting a junior professional), it is important to be polite, direct, clear and succinct.

Perhaps because of the ease with which contact can be made these days, correspondence often lacks professionalism. I am not advocating absurd formalities, rather, some minimum standards for cold-contacting someone.

Read The Whole Thing.

Posted by Chuck at 11:47 AM | TrackBack

November 28, 2006

Standard (and non-standard) finals week prayer requests

Pray for me. Pray for my students.

And pray for Stan Wilkins and his family.

(UPDATE: Since the link above no longer works, I feel compelled to leave this newspost behind instead.)

Posted by Chuck at 08:59 PM | TrackBack

November 16, 2006

We love you, Dr. Butcher, we do

Y'know, I'd say that they never give out these types of awards to people who deserve them this much...except they just did.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education have named Dr. Carmen Acevedo Butcher at Shorter College the 2006 Georgia Professor of the Year...

“Dr. Butcher stands out among her peers because of her academic credentials and scholarly production,” said Dr. Craig Shull, Shorter College provost. “Equally remarkable is that fact that she is not only a good scholar but also a good teacher. She uses Internet technology and interactive research to involve her students in the learning process.

"She is really skilled at interaction with students. On top of all of that is a wonderful personality. She is always friendly, always positive, always looking forward and always talking about what we can do. A lot of time when scholars are productive, they are very focused on their research and have little time for other things. It is pretty rare for a professor to be that productive and that personable with her students and her peers. Shorter College is fortunate to count Carmen Butcher as one of our own.”

All true. All true. Every. Last. Word.

And, honestly, that description might be a bit modest.

We love you, Carmen Butcher. Congratulations.

Posted by Chuck at 05:01 PM | TrackBack

August 16, 2006

And awaaaaaay we go

Classes start tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM.

I am so not ready. Nonetheless, I shall wing it to the best of my ability, and I might even say something intelligent on the way.

I've found that I read something somewhere this summer - I think it was this bit on Inside Higher Ed on the expectations that we place on our students (and that we usually don't communicate nearly well enough). Of course, instead of being a gentle encouragement to communicate better, reading this caused me to go completely emo over every single expectation I've ever had of a student and attempting to figure out how to communicate that expectation set better. It's the reason that my syllabi are progressively getting longer, and that in Biochemistry the handout that describes the group project will be five pages in length.

What this means, of course, is that I have effectively not practiced what I preached. I have "let the best become the enemy of the good", as my old doctoral advisor once said, and I've been so psycho about getting the best possible information and completeness into my syllabi that I'm up against the very semester itself and they're not DONE, and they've taken away from me worrying about, you know, the actual stuff I'm TEACHING.

Which means, enough writing about not being ready and more actually getting ready.

Posted by Chuck at 09:15 PM | TrackBack

August 12, 2006

Christian Higher Education

I never clean up well, because I always find things while cleaning up and wind up thinking. Thinking and cleaning up do NOT go hand in hand.

What I found on this round of cleaning out the office is an essay I printed out a year ago, and that is slapping me upside the head all over again. It's called Christian Academe vs. Christians in Academe, by Kenneth Elzinga, who teaches economics at the University of Virginia, of all places. It was thoroughly exciting to find it now because I've been getting comments lately about what it means for Shorter to be a Chrsitian school. It's a good question, honestly. It's a question that demands asking.

If you are interested in how Christians and education come together, you need to read the whole thing. It's not an argument that I can pull little bits here and there out and have them stand on their own; the whole thing is the argument. (Which is why I printed it out but never posted it anywhere. I couldn't post it without posting seven pages' worth!) But let me pull out two takes in particular.

First, I've gotten a lot of people grumbling around me about the morality of the students around them, and marveling that some students 'round here don't even go to church and believe, and what's up with that?

Elzinga tells you exactly what's up with that:

Christian higher education does not start with Christian students. That may surprise you. But I would hope Christian institutions do not have a Christian litmus test for students.

If students want to be a part of Christian higher education, they should be welcome. The Christian faith is defensible; the Christian faith is compelling; the Christian faith is true. So let unbelievers live and learn in the environment of Christian higher education and test the faith.

Jesus did not throw out Doubting Thomas. Christian higher education should be a place that welcomes Doubting Thomases, as students.

But Christian higher education should be dominated by a faculty who are followers of Jesus. The majority of faculty at a school of Christian higher education should be Christians. The institution makes no sense if that is not the case. Students are transients; they come and go. Christian higher education is defined by a core of faculty who believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:16), that every thought is to be made captive to Him and they are not ashamed of the gospel.

And second, if you were to ask me the one thing that I am proudest of in being at Shorter, it's that I see so much tangible evidence that we fulfill a vision of this sort:

I would expect Christian higher education to be full of professors who mentor students. Not just teach them chemistry and accounting; not just teach them biology and Spanish; but model out for them how to walk with Jesus. Not because these faculty members have mastered how to do this, but because they have been pilgrims longer, because they have experienced more often the consequences of sin and redemption.

I have been surprised, in my travels, at how few faculty members in Christian higher education mentor students. When I have asked why, the answer I have heard is: well, that’s for the Dean of the Chapel to do, or that’s the job of the Dean of Students office.

I am an economist, so I appreciate that answer. It is right out of Adam Smith; it appeals to what Adam Smith called the specialization and division of labor.

But I can restrain my enthusiasm for the answer. To me, it means that Christian higher education has professors who are not investing in the lives of students beyond teaching them chemistry and accounting and biology and Spanish.

But you can learn chemistry and accounting and biology and Spanish anywhere; and probably at less cost than in Christian higher education.

The implied answer, of course, is that some things are way more important than money. And may my own priority set never change.

Posted by Chuck at 01:57 PM | TrackBack

July 28, 2006

All The Governor's Men

(This is legitimately my first multi-category post, and justifiably so.)

I am currently listening to one of the most amazing things I have heard in my life. It is a unique mix of progressive history and old-time radio.

It's called All The Governor's Men, and it's the story of the contested Georgia governor's election of 1946, wrapped up in the early stirrings of civil rights ideas and the aftermath of World War II.

There is historians' comment, actual radio footage from '46, and dramatization (and some pretty brutal dramatization at that) of the times.

And they're putting this on the radio.

Not only am I totally on-board, it's even kept my eldest daughter's attention for more than just a few seconds.

I may be about to actually give some money to public radio - under the guise of Georgia Public Broadcasting - for the first time in my life. This program is worth it. More please more please more please.

(EDIT: It would be even better if the media file on the site didn't say "All The Governer's Men" - ow. Try not to let that egregious mispelling distract you. Of course, I would have more right to moan if my syntax on the parenthetical sentence above wasn't so horribly fractured.)

Posted by Chuck at 03:20 PM | TrackBack

April 27, 2006

The standard finals-week post

Pray for me.

Pray for my students.

Pray for my church, too, while you're at it.

Posted by Chuck at 08:47 AM | TrackBack

April 04, 2006

Being positive with a purpose

Submitted without comment, from a Washington Post review of high-acheiving primary and secondary schools:

Sharon Brittingham, who retired this year as principal after eight years at Frankford [Elementary School, in Delaware] and 35 years in education:

"When I first arrived at Frankford, the school was very low achieving. The attitude and the most commonly heard phrase among teachers was, 'You can't make chicken salad out of chicken [waste].' This had a special significance because many of our parents work in the chicken industry.

"I told teachers to either believe all students could learn to high levels of achievement, act like they believed it, or find employment elsewhere. If teachers made negative comments about not believing their students were going to be successful, then I bluntly told them to look elsewhere for a job...

"I know I sound like a preacher, but it boils down to who is in that classroom --- and until someone in authority says, 'It is about the kids, put kids first and stop being afraid of hurting some teacher's feelings,' then things will not change.

"If you asked them now, the teachers at Frankford would tell you that they can make chicken salad out of chicken [waste]. It is that belief in their ability to make the students successful that is the key."

Posted by Chuck at 08:56 PM | TrackBack

March 22, 2006

A nightmare.

Somehow, I find myself teaching General Biology again.
I'm giving the first exam of the term. I'm busy enough that I've had somebody else put the exam together for me.
I've promised the exam is going to be a straightforward one. 50 multiple-choice questions over basic biological chemistry (the stuff in the first six chapters of Campbell, for those of you who know my favorite GenBio text).
For whatever reason, I'm giving the exam in the library.
Students are taking the exam in increasing fits of unhappiness.
One leaves the room very quickly in a huff.
I recognize these looks, and I know where these looks come from. They're the looks of people who haven't seen this material before in their lives.
This is a good thing, I tell myself. You can't take a course like General Biology for granted. You have to seriously prepare for it, and this will be a good lesson for these guys.
But they seem to be taking the exam hard.
I'm getting a lot of students handing me the exam in tears.
I remember the face of one in particular (something in my brain says "she's already through physics and biochem - why is she even taking this course, let alone having problems with this exam?") who throws the exam at me and tells me point-blank how cruel I am.
And that's when I look at the exam.
The fifty questions aren't simple biochemistry at all. They look more like taxonomy - protist genus/species stuff. The type of stuff you'd find in a first exam in microbiology, maybe. But certainly none of it is actually stuff I have taught.
They're taking the wrong test.
They are in an absolute panic because they truly never have seen this stuff before.

I completely freak out.
Everybody in the library (dear God, why am I giving an exam in a library?) starts to rush towards me as I crumple to the ground, convulsing in tears, sobs, and shrieks, in complete terror as to h ow I could have made such a simple and foolish mistake, how could I have been so...

...and I wake up.

But that's not the awful thing. That one student's face is absolutely frozen in my mind, and I feel like I should find her tomorrow and apologize to her, even though I only saw her in the nightmare. The awful thing is the feeling of terror from that nightmare that simply will not go away.

If you want to know how strong that feeling is, look at the timestamp.

Posted by Chuck at 03:25 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

February 20, 2006

"Don't play favorites..."

I have subtly changed names and details of stories here to protect the innocent. If you're afraid that I'm talking about you in particular here, rest assured that yours is not the only experience of that sort that I've had...hopefully fingers point nowhere more forcefully than they point at myself...

I've built a large portion of my teaching career around the idea that, because teaching is a human exercise, where it's important to be able to work with the student and understand what that student's needs are and meet the point of every student's need, it is absolutely necessary to treat all students equitably. There should be no "most important student" in a classroom, nor should there be a "least important student." The biggest reason to avoid playing favorites is because that poisons the learning environment; it makes certain students feel like they're less important than others, and it keeps those students from learning at their peak.

This is what has bothered me the most in the past when I've been accused of having favorites - the idea that somehow, whether of done so consciously or subconsciously, what I've done is convinced a student or a group of students that they were of secondary importance. I don't want to go there. I want everybody to feel like they're equally important. I want to go the extra mile - an extra several miles, in fact - to reach out to the students who feel alienated. It's their right, I rationalize to myself. It's what they've paid for.

So I reach out, I try to go that extra mile. And two things happen in the process.

(1) I rapidly find that certain students are easier to reach out to than others. For some, it is simply a matter of taking that one step, and the barrier crumbles completely.

I remember one guy at The Other Place who was frustrating me more than a bit in learning the calculus-based mechanics, and he had stood me up multiple times when he'd arranged to come by and get help. After the fourth time of being stood up (and promising him I was going to do this in advance), I went marching to his dorm to find his room and read him the Riot Act.

Where I found him in a jam session with his mates. (Caleb could play serious guitar, see.)

"Pearson, hey man, how are you?"
"Hey Caleb, are we talking physics tonight?"
"Yea...oh, crap, what time is it?"
"6:15. You were coming by fifteen minutes ago."
"Damn, man, I'm sorry. Gimme five more, I'll be over there."

The guy was so lost in his playing (and, I found, he routinely got so lost in his playing) that he just lost track of time.

But I did wake him up, so to speak, and he did come by. We went on for an hour and a half that night, two guys and a whiteboard and conservation of energy problems. And he was very free from that point forward with making the effort. He didn't get the grade I wanted him to get out of PHYS 2211, but he got a grade and he understood stuff on the way. And he and I still talk from time to time, and I think we connected in a geniune way.

I'd say, in my experience, I break through like that with a guy (or girl, although I make it policy not to knock on girl's dorm room doors, which is an inequity right there) about 20% of the time. Which in baseball isn't even a good batting average. More often, it's not the barrier crumbling, but me taking a chip at the barrier at a time, and more often finding that getting the barrier down is more than a semester or two semesters' worth of work.

It's getting tired with him not coming to class despite multiple attempts at olive branches, getting tired of her standing up appointments time and again without a hint of apology, getting tired of his mountain of emotional problems getting in the way of getting stuff done and yet a lack of serious effort to deal with those problems. It makes me tired, it makes me frustrated, it makes me seriously wonder if it's worth it.

And then I get the two-by-four full of clue.

(2) I find that I screw up. Multiple times. In multiple ways. And, in my arrogance, I believe that I'm doing everything exactly the way that it needs be done - all the while, I'm making a student feel two inches small and missing it entirely.

I have this group of students. There is one young lady in particular who has been in and out for the past few weeks, because of a multitude of issues on her plate, more than anyone should have to bear really. She is there this evening, and I'm glad to see her.

We go into a group exercise, and I break the students up into small groups. I place one group here, one group there, rattling off names off the back of my head, the exercise is set up beautifully, I have the groups balanced exactly the way I want them. I move to start the exercise...and Lauren is standing there, in the corner, with a forlorn look in her eye.

When our eyes meet, the words her eyes say are absolutely unmistakable.

You forgot about me.

I hurriedly try to rectify the mistake, to reorganize, but the damage is done. I've lost Lauren for the rest of the night. She's there, but she's going through the motions, and she's getting nothing out of the group work. I try to say something encouraging as she leaves, to make amends, but she gives me a look that says "yeah, right" and she just leaves.

Way to go, Pearson. You suck at life.

And then here comes the tragedy of this teaching stuff I try to do: If I noticed my screwup that time, how many more times do I completely blow it without even having a clue that I've blown it? How many of the barriers that I'm trying to tear down are barriers that I've erected in the first place?

Most of you who read this thing are students. I thank you for paying attention to my emo ramblings. And I hope you hear my big point:

Your teachers, your professors, are trying to communicate with you, the best way - the only way - they know how. We are all different, we all have different languages, we all have different biases we build into the way we teach. But we are doing the absolute best we can.

Sometimes it's brilliance. Sometimes it's eh. And sometimes we just blow it.

But, more often than it isn't, what we're doing is honest.

Be patient with us. And, when we're not putting you on the same level as the others in the room, help us a bit. Figure out what it is we want of you - ask sometimes, even, we usually don't bite - and give us what we ask for, even when you think it's a bit stupid and pointless. We have our reasons, and they're usually pretty good ones, especially in retrospect.

And - here I do not presume to speak for my colleagues and comrades, only for myself - when you've tried all that with me and I'm still being an idiot, you are permitted to bring a laboratory notebook by the office...

..and HIT ME UPSIDE THE HEAD WITH IT.

Posted by Chuck at 10:42 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

January 17, 2006

The opposite of schadenfreude

How many bigwigs with the Georgia Baptist Convention do you think are waking up this morning and toying with the idea of placing a call to a certain college president to say something vaguely similar to "NEENER NEENER NEENER"?

Shorter College’s accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools has been continued with no stipulations through 2012, President Harold Newman announced Monday.

“We just want to communicate to the community, parents and students that accreditation is not a concern at Shorter College, and we’ll continue to provide excellent education to those who attend Shorter,” Newman said.

I have no editorial comment beyond this. I find the RN-T story HIGHLY entertaining, is all.

Posted by Chuck at 07:58 AM | TrackBack

January 09, 2006

Hey, look, it's not blank anymore.

Mind you, I don't have time to say much of anything.

But - especially if you are currently dealing with the physics or the physical chemistry - this post by Chad Orzel on science education is a nifty read.

I will actually get back to updating this page one of these years. Stay tuned. And read IHE.

Posted by Chuck at 07:37 AM | TrackBack

December 02, 2005

Update on the Kansas University "ID/mythology" course

Ding-dong, the course is gone. Well done to Evil Dr. P.

But mad props to the Kansas U Faculty Senate, who have broken out with this truly novel and remarkable admonishment for their faculty:

The Faculty Senate at Kansas on Thursday afternoon adopted a resolution affirming the right of professors to teach and do research on controversial subjects, but also noting their responsibility to speak in respectful, civil ways.

“Our values are that we’re not going to flinch from examining controversial issues. That’s part of what you do,” said Joe Heppert, a chemistry professor who is chair of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee.

“But we also wanted to recognize that along with freedom comes responsibility to recognize that the way we speak, the attitudes we express, can result in the public reaching certain conclusions about ourselves as scholars and as an institution,” Heppert said. “We have the responsibility, even when we speak privately, to do so with respect for the attitudes of others.”

So it's an academic virtue, when you want to teach on something going on in society right now, to be careful with your words and respectful of all opinions that will be in the room - because God forbid you make anyone believe that you've made up your mind about who is right and who is wrong before you actually start to study something as important in society today as the evolution/ID question? That you make anyone believe that you're - gasp - closed-minded?

"Open-minded Atheists and Agnostics." That's a laugh.

(Follow that link, and the offending (and offensive) e-mail is at the bottom of the page. It should be a textbook example of how an academic does NOT introduce a college course to the population.)

Posted by Chuck at 08:27 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 22, 2005

Blog-conversation about grading

Here's a little appetizer for your thanksgiving turkey.

Chad Orzel, another physics professor who blogs, responded to a missive in the higher-ed blogosphere about grading and quizzes some time back. It was a terribly thoughtful post on a difficult topic, or so I thought.

A Japanese translator who keeps his own blog saw that post, and responded with a pretty cutting post on hoop-jumping, claiming that if he had known when he was an undergrad what he knows now, he would have been much more relaxed about his grades than he is. To wit:

What strikes me as wrong about this entire way of thinking is the assumption that students need to be punished for not working. It also assumes that the teachers are in control, even though the only leverage they have over their students is that of the grade.

A much more rational construct would be to view the professors as sort of highly-trained or educated waiters. Their job is to serve up the students a healthy dose of knowledge. In return, the students, their parents, or the state pays the professors a very nice wage. In other words, the profs serve the students, not the other way around.

The students are the consumers of knowledge, and the profs are service providers. This is, objectively, the reality of the situation. Why have things gotten so turned around that students have to kow-tow to their servants?

Grades.

When they are in school most students have not yet become wise enough to learn that grades don’t matter at all. After all, I had a stellar grade point average but my life would have been not one whit worse had I received a D- in every single class. I wonder if the profs realize this and live in fear that one day they won’t be able to scare their students into obedience any longer with the power of a single letter.

What’s most offensive about this state of affairs is that it assumes the students don’t really want to learn, but have to be bullied into it. If I knew then what I knew now, my response to professors would be something like this:

“I am here because I wish to learn. You have the knowledge I want, and I am paying you a very handsome salary to impart that to me. I will do most of the homework and attend most of the classes because I want to master the material, but I reserve the right to follow the assignments only so far I think it benefits me, or so far as it does not interfere with things I judge more important. My future, my learning. Now hop to it and teach.”

Orzel sees this post and takes a tad bit of offense, and gives an example from his own experience to justify his take:

The flawed assumption here is that college students are actually capable of correctly determining the point at which the assignments cease to be of benefit to them. For the most part, they can't.

How do I know this? Because I've played this game from the student side. At various points in my college and grad school careers, I've attempted to take classes while "follow[ing] the assignments only so far... as it does not interfere with things I judge more important." And every single time it blew up in my face. In some cases, I managed to get things turned around and learned stuff, and in some other cases, I got a second crack at the same material, but to this day, I have only the sketchiest understanding of solid state physics, largely because I judged other things more important than doing the homework when I took it in graduate school...

I assign the homework because the only way to really learn the material is by doing problems. I grade some of the homework because that provides incentive for students to actually do it-- without at least some credit being attached to the homework, a dizzying array of activities start to be judged more important than completing the assignments, and the students don't end up learning the material.

I found points I could appreciate in both. I'm not going to betray too much of where I think the goodness in either post (or in both posts) lie - but, since I know that a massive fraction of the people who come across this blog are students, I would like to hear what you think about our little grading racket. Do you appreciate why we do this grading deal? What grading feels legitimate, and what grading to you feel like is hoop-jumping?

Posted by Chuck at 03:54 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 17, 2005

One more round of Mercer links

* The "official" report from the Christian Index about the GBC vote on Mercer.
*An editorial in the Macon Telegraph about how sad it is that it's come to this.
* And a piece on a piece on Inside Higher Ed ripping the Mercer-loves-gays angle a new one. Quote:

But whatever some Baptist leaders may have said about Mercer welcoming gay groups, the university actually asked the student group to disband, which it did. So if the Baptists follow through with their plans, they would be punishing Mercer by holding back millions of dollars that provide scholarships for Baptist students — all because of a student group that existed only briefly and that the university shut down.

If Mercer is enforcing Baptist rules about gay people, why all the fuss? Experts say that there are multiple conflicts going on. To be sure, one concerns gay rights — a flash point not only at Mercer, but at other Baptist colleges and institutions of other faiths as well. But more broadly, there is the question of who runs Baptist colleges — state conventions or boards of trustees.

“I think they wanted to defund Mercer University because they couldn’t control it,” said Rev. David W. Key, director of Baptist studies at Emory University’s theology school. Mercer’s charter, Key said, limits the convention’s control over it, so state officials would prefer to spend their money on colleges that they can control. In fact, the Georgia Baptist Convention waged a long legal battle — that succeeded this year — to regain complete control over the board of Shorter College.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by Chuck at 01:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 16, 2005

Mercer. ARRRGH.

As promised, news links from the Macon Telegraph, the AJC, and the Associated Baptist Press.

I want you to especially pay attention to the last one, because it's evidence that it's not just about the "begone vile Mercer so we can be rid of these gays" storyline:

David Hudson, an Augusta attorney and longtime Mercer trustee, said the most recent problem cited by Georgia Baptists "has been remedied; the university has already taken steps to deny use of facilities for such a group of students."

He said the homosexuality issue was merely a "pretext" for a parting of ways long desired by many conservative Georgia Baptist leaders.

"Anybody that's intellectually honest, that is concerned about students being exposed to the gay agenda because Mercer has some students who speak for equal rights for gay people should immediately have their children stop using their computers and take them out of their homes -- because there's no greater avenue for deviant sexual information than the computer," he said. Hudson is a member of First Baptist Church in Augusta.

"Put it this way," Hudson said. "I think it's more than coincidence that that [article about the symposium] surfaced in the Christian Index the week before the convention..."

Mercer trustee Jimmy Elder, pastor of First Baptist Church in Columbus, said the decision was worse for the convention than for the university. "They have an institution that faithfully and strongly has been teaching future leaders based on Baptist principles and on Baptist values, and they have basically turned their back on them and walked away -- and that's sad."

He said limiting scholarships for its own students will hurt the convention. "It's sort of like, you get mad at the institution and you hurt the people who are least able to defend themselves," Elder said.

Y'know, I was wondering why Kirby Godsey was so willing to give the Christian Index a snap interview on that Mercer Triangle Symposium issue. He apparently understood what was stirring far better than I did.

There is something going on here that is far bigger than a gay student group. I don't know what it is. But it's something.

Posted by Chuck at 05:30 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 15, 2005

Mercer. Aieee.

The Georgia Baptist Convention today took a major step towards severing ties with Mercer University. The immediate catalyst for the severing of ties appears to be a "Coming Out Day" event sponsored by a GLBT student group, with some faculty support.

I'd personally be VERY suprised if that single event was all that was in play here, but that does seem to be the media storyline at least.

I think we need to be paying attention to the Baptist press services and how they approach this story over the next few days; I think a lot of stories here are yet to be told, and there is a lot yet to play out.

Prayers for all parties are required.

(Hat tips, by the way, to Catie and Summers for the independent links.)

UPDATE: Catie also provides text of the official GBC executive committee recommendation.

Posted by Chuck at 07:08 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

October 17, 2005

Science and engineering education, and associated bitterness

News item: There is increasing concern over the "brain drain" in hard-science and engineering education in the US.

My general response to that is simply: big, fat freeking surprise there.

Who wants to study the physical sciences or engineering, after all, when the disciplines have the reputation of being absolutely brutal and soul-destroying, when in the name of "character-building" students are left to fend for themselves without proper support, when high schools undersell the importance of mathematics and leave students to be broadsided by teachers who expect just a fundamental understanding of algebra? trigonometry? God forbid - calculus?

I came across this article on one man's engineering education experience and read things that I have watched happen to people I care about, and recently:

In high school I had grown accustomed to math classes that featured clear, helpful instruction from teachers who liked to teach and excelled at teaching. At Smartypants U, the jewel in the crown of American academia, my math instructor was a twenty-something teaching assistant whose classroom style never deviated from the following pattern:
Greet class.
Ask if there were any questions about the previous evening's problem set.
If so, work out the problem in question on the chalkboard, without further explanation.
Repeat step 3) as needed.
Announce the pages in the textbook from which the next problem set would be derived.
Perform a sample problem from the new problem set.
Ask if anyone has any questions.
Give the problem set assignment.
Dismiss the class.
Total elapsed time: never more than 25 minutes.

Clutching the shredded tatters of my pride and dignity, I trudged to the office hours of my math instructor every week, seeking an explanation for the increasingly mysterious problems in the textbook. My instructor welcomed my presence as she would welcome the Angel of Death. Irritated? She was terrified. Explain…the problems? Articulate…the steps? Relate…the concepts? I would ask questions, and she would respond by completing yet another sample problem as fast as she possibly could, blushing nervously. I felt like I was on a Star Trek episode. "Captain, I think I understand…the creature communicates through multivariable calculus problems!"

I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. She was as American as I am. Spoke perfect colloquial English.

Now, I was a blessed man. I finagled tuition to the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology out of my parents, and got a sequence of mathematics professors in Roger Lautzenheiser, Elton Graves, Steve Carlson ("What's the derivative of one-half y squared?" "Um, y?" "Because I want to know!") and Robert Lopez, all of whom made themselves available, some of whom directly and forcefully challenged me to excel, some of whom made me comfortable and confident with the material, all of whom influenced me in a positive way in learning not just the mathematics, but the whys of the mathematics.

But the more stories about people going to the big state schools to learn the math that I hear, the angrier I get. And the more convinced I get that there must be a better way.

It's not just the quality of teaching that angers me about that post, though, and that resonates - it's the quality of the care for the individual...

Engineering physics was only marginally better. The harried teaching assistant could actually explain the occasional physics concept. But he made sure you understood that a poor grade on any assignment reflected upon your merit in the eyes of God. "If you get a 60% below on ANY quiz," he wrote on the chalkboard on day one, "YOU ARE NOT STUDYING HARD ENOUGH." I wondered what would happen if you got a 30% on a quiz. Were you branded? Expelled? Excommunicated?

The social-life-killing workload was the stuff of gallows humor among the three or four upper-class engineers who could still laugh. "Sleep is for the weak!" they bellowed, when gathering at the listless engineering parties. "Your underwear has two sides," they whispered, pressing their furry acne-ridden faces into the ears of bewildered freshmen. "Use them."

This is written as one great big joke. If you are a person who (like this author, who eventually fled to a liberal-arts degree and law school, God bless him) can build an alternate vision for your life, then that's a wonderful thing and you can laugh. But if engineering is the only desire you have ever known, and you find that desire ripped away from you by people who care not one whit for you and by a workload that destroys any love you ever had for the stuff...then the only reason you're laughing is to avoid the tears that will stream from your face otherwise.

I live in a state where there is one school that runs roughshod over engineering education. If you want to be an engineer, pretty much you're going to Tech. And Tech is, please forgive me, evil. How many people have I heard complain to me that "the only thing you learn to do at Tech is teach yourself"? How many people have I talked to who have had their lives fall apart at Tech, and felt loneliness and gloom envelop them while everybody else (wrapped up in all their OWN work they had to do) didn't lift a finger to help?

How many people have lost their love for science, engineering, and all they have known in life at Tech? Or at Smartypants U? Or at any large research-university outposts of engineering education?

And I've heard many people call the people who have flunked out, gotten kicked out, or had "other personal reasons" for leaving school "weak individuals who didn't need to be engineers anyway." Well, by that standard, I'm a weak individual who has no business being a physics professor. The only reason I'm here and I'm doing the stuff I'm doing is because, throughout the process of my education, I have had people who took an interest in me and making sure that my talent was going to be used, to the fullest extent possible. If I had been left to my own devices, I would have been the same kind of washout that this guy Kern was - if I was fortunate.

I suppose that, more than anything else, this post is simple venting and a simple reminder to myself of why I have the priorities that I have. And that somewhere, deep down in my soul in the place that I dream, I would love to see a challenge leveled against engineering education as it's currently structured by a group of people who want to do things better, with a greater amount of care for the student and care for only one bottom line - percentage of students admitted who leave with degrees.

Posted by Chuck at 07:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 12, 2005

To those people who are now finding these musings...

The reason I keep the "real blog" these days on Moveable Type, and not on Xanga or LJ or any of those associated sites, is because I expect it'd be a bit easier for somebody who cared about such things to find an old post and reference it appropriately. And if I'm going to be arrogant enough to believe that My Words Actually Mean Something, I'm going to be equally arrogant enough to believe that somebody might want to read something I wrote six months ago in the light of current events.

Hence, I am so full of myself as to link back to this post I made when I first got this thing set up, because several of the observations in that post I feel are still as relevant at this point in our history as a college.

I'm still a young enough punk that I really don't fit well into anybody's camp here, and looking at both camps, I'm not thinking I really want to fit in either. I think it's important for me to ask my own questions about what my priorities are in setting out my academic path - one in which I put equal priority on academic excellence, care for students, and Christian ministry and mission. I don't want to be so independent as to "reinvent the wheel" - I acknowledge that not only have many people gone before me on this path, many people have gone before me on this path AT SHORTER COLLEGE - but I think there is a lot that will be more satisfying if I work it out for myself.

Watching what is going on right now in Christian academia - not just at Shorter, but at places like Baylor, Louisiana College, and others - is part of me working it out for myself. What are the schools' administrations trying to accomplish? What are they actually doing to accomplish it (and how productive/counterproductive is what they're doing)? What resistance are they meeting? Does it come from fear of losing academic collegiality, of losing academic integrity, of losing their Christian nature, of losing money or power?

I can't even honestly say that I've come to any overarching conclusions, except for overarching support for my original thesis (that evangelical Christians abdicated intellectual life about 100 years and change ago, and there still isn't a consensus in the broad population that this abdication was a Very Bad Thing, even as intellectual life has come to be dominated by people who care not one whit about religion and theology in general, to say nothing of evangelical Christianity, and evangelical Christians complain about this loudly but do nothing about it). But hopefully the observations made will help me be a better leader when that time comes (whether that's two years from now or twenty).

Holy crap, I meant for that to just be a link and not a new set of musings. Sorry about that.

Posted by Chuck at 05:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 08, 2005

thump

That sound you just heard was the sound of the other shoe dropping.

A DeKalb Superior Court judge signed a consent order Friday disbanding Shorter College’s pre-existing Board of Trustees and installing one elected by the Georgia Baptist Convention.

The signing of the order, which took effect immediately, was more of a formality following the Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling in May that Shorter College had improperly broken its ties with the Baptist organization in an attempt to strip the GBC of its power to elect trustees.

Nelson Price, the retired pastor of Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, has been named the interim trustee chairman for Shorter, a title he will hold only until the board convenes and appoints a permanent chairman, said GBC spokeswoman Diane Reasoner.

Theoretically, Gary Eubanks has also released an outgoing statement in which he gives the GBC what-for for electing the new board members without any college input - in a move that surprised just about no one whatsoever. They won the dadgum case, after all. But I haven't been able to find hide nor hair of the statement.

That's all the news that's out there right now - and I know only marginally more than any of you (I'd heard murmurings over the past few days that this might be about to happen, but they were only murmurs and I was too busy with other things to pay too much attention to them). The standard Baptist press wires don't have anything to say yet (although ABP does have a nifty story on Kate Campbell, and if you haven't heard of her you really should, but forgive the tangent). The only newspaper that's touched this so far is the Rome News-Trib, even the frighteningly-reliable K-98 radio website has nothing.

In other words, yay uncertainty.

I'll keep y'all posted if I hear something reliable.

One other thing to Shorter people, though: Please don't freak out and start expecting that you're going to be coming onto a completely new GBC University when you come back on campus on Wednesday. It would benefit nobody for anybody to come on-campus in the middle of the semester and start axing people. There may be long-term changes in the offing, but there's still a PHY 1030 exam on Friday too. We have immediate business to take care of; let's take care of it.

UPDATE, Wednesday morning: Before my ability to link to it completely goes away, I ought to be complete and link to Sunday's story in the News-Trib as well. You might not see anything new in it at all. You might see in it reasons for optimism. You might see in it reasons for pessimism. I'll just go ahead and leave that take to you - I fully expect you can predict what I can see...

ANOTHER UPDATE: There is now an Associated Baptist Press story up, also quoting from this mythical Gary Eubanks press release (boy, I really want to see that) and nothing interestingly that "Georgia Baptist leaders have been low-key since the May court decision." Take that to mean what you will.

Posted by Chuck at 11:23 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

July 28, 2005

End-of-term chaos

Not only do I request prayers for my students, as I usually do when final exams come close, I need 'em pretty bad myself. There is just SO MUCH right now in my world that has blown up, fallen apart, or come to a head, and I am even more mental than usual. (And, if you see me face-to-face ever, you know that's saying a whole lot.)

I'm going to try to get back to a better reading and blogging pattern going into the fall term, although I might inherit so much on my plate that I won't be able to get a good pattern then either.

In the meantime, this is an interesting blog, and I'm trying to figure out how much I disagree with her, even if we're on the same page with wanting greater cross-gender participation in science.

And if you have any aspiration of going to graduate school and going into academia when you're done with your undergrad, this is required reading.

Posted by Chuck at 09:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 15, 2005

Microcosmographia Academica II

It's old English, but hopefully this is a bit clearer of a quote than what I quoted yesterday. Please bear in mind that I, as I read this, am thinking about every effort I have made over the past five years to toss out my good and reasonable ideas about how the academic enterprise should be run and the responses that I have gotten back to those ideas (which have been varying flavors of "no, thanks, not today").

So, with that in mind, from the introduction to the book, which is ominously titled simply "Warning":

I shall take it that you are in the first flush of ambition, and just beginning to make yourself disagreeable. You think (do you not?) that you have only to state a reasonable case, and people must listen to reason and act upon at once. It is just this conviction that makes you so unpleasant. There is little hope of dissuading you; but has it occurred to you that nothing is ever done until every one is convinced that it ought to be done, and has been convinced for so long that it is now time to do something else? And are you not aware that conviction has never yet been produced by an appeal to reason, which only makes people uncomfortable? If you want to move them, you must address your arguments to prejudice and the political motive, which I will presently describe. I should hesitate to write down so elementary a principle, if I were not sure you need to be told it. And you will not believe me, because you think your cases are so much more reasonable than mine can have been, and you are ashamed to study men's weaknesses and prejudices. You would rather batter away at the Shield of Faith than spy it the joints in the harness.

Hammer.
To.
Head.
All over again.

So much of my general frustration with Life, The Universe, and Everything has been tied up with this idea that, dang it, my ideas make sense, and why doesn't everybody else jump on board with my ideas? Cornford's response to that (translated into a less elegant, but more direct, contemporary English) would be something along the lines of "you dork, why do you think that everybody else is motivated by the same high ideals that you are? People want to protect their own positions. People want to protect their own principles. People, for God's sake, want to protect their own incomes. And many people just want to protect the way things are, for the sake of protecting the way things are and nothing else. And you're so arrogant to believe that you have a better way? Fine. But you're never going to get anywhere unless you convince everybody else that your way is better, and don't you dare think that should be an easy task, because it's not."

Common sense, I suppose, but I've never been accused of having common sense.

(Edit after comparing the titles of the two posts: Has anybody noticed how easy it is to sneak in an extra c into a hyper-long Latin title? For crying out loud, I keep wanting to type Microcosmographica Academi_a, instead of placing the c the other way around, which is the way it's supposed to be (and, I think, finally, the way I have it in the title to this post).)

Posted by Chuck at 08:36 AM | Comments (1)

July 14, 2005

Microcosmographica Academica

I'm learning my way around Inside Higher Ed. It's a wonderful news site for affairs of higher education generally.

One of the recent pieces that has popped up there is a review of a 1908 English work of satire and wit called Microcosmographica Academica. It was authored by Francis M. Cornford, who was at the time a not-too-young professor of classics at Cambridge. An online copy of the book is available; it's apparently escaped to the public domain, always a good thing.

The text itself I'm only starting to get through, but I'm already absolutely clobbered by one of Cornford's descriptions. As you work your way through the parties involved in academic politics, after he describes Conservative Liberals, Liberal Conservatives (and those two are as different as they appear to be), Non-placets (men of principle) and Adullamites (men who want all the money there is going), we reach this beast:

The Young Man in a Hurry is a narrow-minded and ridiculously youthful prig, who is inexperienced enough to imagine that something might be done before very long, and even to suggest definite things. His most dangerous defect being want of experience, everything should be done to prevent him from taking any part in affairs. He may be known by his propensity to organise societies for the purpose of making silk purses out of sows' ears. This tendency is not so dangerous as it might seem; for it may be observed that the sows, after taking their washing with a grunt or two, trundle back unharmed to the wallow; and the purse-market is quoted as firm. The Young Man in a Hurry is afflicted with a conscience, which is apt to break out, like measles, in patches. To listen to him, you would think that he united the virtues of a Brutus to the passion for lost causes of a Cato; he has not learnt that most of his causes are lost by letting the Cato out of the bag, instead of tying him up firmly and sitting on him, as experienced people do.

Ho-lee shaving cream.

I am convicted. Nay, I am pricked to my very soul.

I'm gonna have to read more of this.

Posted by Chuck at 10:40 AM | Comments (4)

July 01, 2005

Shorter's reconsideration request denied

Yeah, we figured that wouldn't work.

So now it becomes real interesting. Included in the news story above (and I'll include it here after the jump) is the response of Gary Eubanks, who is now a self-professed outgoing chair of the Shorter Board of Trustees. It is, shall we say, a way interesting statement, and things murmured about previously are now apparently coming to pass.

I'll leave it without too much more comment than that, except to say that apparently we need to get to know this guy over the next days and weeks.

Keep prayin'.

STATEMENT OF OUTGOING SHORTER TRUSTEE CHAIRMAN

Shorter College has come a long way from its modest beginnings 132 years ago. It has been fortunate to have trustees, faculty, staff, alumni and friends who have been dedicated stewards of the College’s educational and financial well-being.

Today, Shorter College is at a crossroads. And, its faculty, staff and students are in the intersection. If there has ever been a time when the Shorter family needs to keep its perspective, it is now.

Briefly, the Georgia Supreme Court by a 4 to 3 vote has ruled improper the Shorter College dissolution which was central to its trustees’ effort to bring the college outside of the control of the Georgia Baptist Convention (GBC). This ruling became final today. The Shorter dissolution was in response to the position of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). SACS, as part of an accreditation review, questioned whether under the fifty year old version of the Shorter College charter the Shorter trustees met the independence requirements of SACS accreditation standards.

Ours has been a long fought battle in the courts. We have been aided by some of the best legal minds available. I single out for special thanks former Shorter President Ed Schraeder for his devotion to this cause and former Governor Roy Barnes for his uncompensated vital assistance in the later stages of the case.

We must now face the fact that we have lost the court struggle. Complete, absolute control of Shorter College will shortly be in the hands of new trustees selected by the GBC. The leadership of the GBC has on numerous occasions in the courts taken the position that Shorter really did not really have an accreditation problem with SACS. We will soon see whose position is valid.

To the Shorter faculty and staff, I do not need to remind you that you need to brace yourselves for the likelihood of difficult days ahead. I thank you for your steadfast devotion to Shorter despite considerable personal sacrifice. Be open minded in dealing with the new management. Your support system of Shorter Alumni and former trustees will not cease because of the change in control.

To the new trustees elected by the Georgia Baptist Convention and Shorter’s likely new President, Rev. Nelson Price, I say that you have my good wishes as you undertake to run a wonderful private, Christian college during a difficult time. You are being given control of a Shorter that shows more promise than at any time in her long history. I will remind you, however, that with your new power comes both responsibility and liability. Be prudent.

I must also be candid with present and past Shorter trustees. After the change in control, there will not be opportunities of effective service for many who have dedicated much of their lives to this small college. Though less significant, my family’s involvement with Shorter would also appear to be at an end. I am sure I await new challenges elsewhere in my Christian pilgrimage.

Gary F. Eubanks
July 1, 2005

Posted by Chuck at 11:24 AM | Comments (1)

June 30, 2005

Standard final exams request

Do not forget to pray for students taking summer classes. They're fewer in number, but their experience is far more intense, and right about now is when they truly feel overwhelmed.

And yeah, praying for their overwhelmed professors is a good thing too.

Posted by Chuck at 10:09 AM

June 13, 2005

Two situations to pray for

One of them is at my undergraduate alma mater.

One of them is at my graduate school. (And it involves some of the creation/evolution controversies I've brought up here in the past.)

Pray for them both.

Posted by Chuck at 12:18 PM

June 08, 2005

Shorter has filed for reconsideration

I'm still trying to figure out what I feel about the fact that I get most of my useful local news from K-98, the pop radio station in town.

Nonetheless, there it is - "Attorneys for Shorter College have filed a motion for reconsideration before the Georgia Supreme Court in an attempt to void an earlier ruling that basically gives control of the college back to the Georgia Baptist Convention."

My understanding of how this will proceed is that the Georgia Supreme Court will respond to this motion within the next 10 days. I don't put too much stock in the time thing, because it doesn't seem like anything in the Georgia court system gets done on time.

I am also gathering that the chance that the Georgia Supremes will actually reconsider might not be zero, but it approaches zero asymptotically.

(Apologies for inserting math geekery into a rather serious post.)

Posted by Chuck at 07:34 AM | Comments (1)

May 24, 2005

Faculty meeting goodness

No sarcasm* included, either.

First, if you haven't read this post first, do so. It sets up the context.

We had a faculty meeting today about the current situation with the GBC. I got all kinds of information, and all kinds of perspectives. (Again, I feel the need to issue the disclaimer that I do not speak for Shorter College, these are my own opinions - but I feel a bit better that I'm on the same page as everybody else, particularly my fellow faculty members.) Some of the information I got today I can't share publicly, of course, and I hope you understand that - but I think most of what I'll say will satisfy.

Most important thing to know: There are rumors beginning to spread about Shorter's accreditation status, and some of those rumors have started to come back to the current administration. IF YOU HEAR ANYBODY TELLING YOU THAT SHORTER IS LOSING THEIR ACCREDITATION IN THE SHORT TERM, THAT IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE. Fact the first, SACS doesn't work that way - there is a process, and a fairly public process at that, that SACS goes through before anybody's accreditation gets pulled, and SACS doesn't pull accreditation without substantial warning. Shorter is accredited now, and Shorter will be accredited even if SACS gets concerned enough about goings-on to put Shorter on probation. Once again, this supreme court decision does not mean that "the GBC has won and Shorter is dead" - far, far from it. All systems are still go, and the status quo will be maintained for the immediate future in all respects, even and especially the accreditation aspect.

But even more than SACS' procedures, the one thing that the GBC's statements and Shorter's statements have in common is a committment to keeping Shorter accredited, period. Whatever you think about either side, both have put their words out there that they're willing to do what is necessary to keep Shorter out of jeopardy with SACS. I can't see any reason at this point not to take both sides at their word, and I firmly believe that there will be a solution that comes out that meets the GBC's needs and keeps Shorter in good standing with SACS.

Of course, the simple fact of the matter is that this process will end with a GBC-appointed board of trustees at Shorter College. The means to this end are yet to be determined, but that end will be achieved. I know there are those of you who were invested in this not happening. All I can say at this point is: I'm sorry, but I don't intend to go anywhere, and I really hope you don't either.

(Interesting side note: There are actually legal concerns if anybody on the faculty takes any students aside and says "yeah, it's going to h-e-double-hockey-sticks here at Shorter, you really ought to transfer." As in, the GBC could go back to the courts and argue, if enrollment drops as they take over, that the Shorter faculty conspired to dismantle the student body of the college before the GBC took it over, and go after individuals on the faculty or the whole faculty for damages. So there is LEGAL reason to be positive!

That said, I hope y'all know me well enough to know that I'm not just saying what I say to cover my butt and suck up to the incoming Georgia Baptist Overlords. There is going to be enough misinformation running around over the coming days and weeks that, if I really wanted to do encourage people to leave, I wouldn't have to say anything at all - just let the rumor mill take its course. The fact is, I'm saying stuff because I want to keep the misinformation refuted, I want you to know what's really going down, and frankly, if you're a student at Shorter and reading this, I want you to stay - and right now, there really isn't a reason for you NOT to stay.)

The one other impression I want to make sure you're left with is this: This could have been a really awful faculty meeting. There could have been all kinds of sniping back and forth about how we got to this point. There could have been announcements of exactly who is leaving, and why, and we could be

Dr Chuck Pearson

I / I don't believe / Not in you / Not in us / Nor in this place / Leaving.