Heather HigginBottom's Stale Suggestions: Same Ole Sorry Message

The White House is spitting out the same ole sorry message about how they are helping student loan debtors.The focus remains on prospective students.

Heather HigginBottom, the Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, shares the latest suggestions from the White House (assess and view her comments below). She responded to a young woman who has student loan debt and four children. The young woman wrote to President Obama about her student loan debt. The note did not indicate what sort of loans she has, so that makes the message problematic. Ms. Higginbottom let her know that they are committed to making college more affordable. Wow! Great. Because we've never heard the White House talk about prospective students. Shortly after she talked about all the awesome things they're doing for future college students, Ms. Higginbottom turned to the woman's current situation. She encouraged her to look into consolidating her loans and IBR. Those things are fine, but again what if the woman has private loan debt? IBR is of no use. Moreover, if the woman were to go into default, she would no longer be a candidate for these programs. But Ms. Higginbottom really didn't have much else to suggest. Luckily, she returned to speaking about prospective students and all the wonderful things they're doing for them, and how this woman can be assured that her 4 children will have opportunities to go to college, and take on their own student loan debt. Whoopdeedoo. Ms. Higginbottom, you are ignoring the indentured educated class, but why am I surprised?

Turning War Veterans Into Indentured Educated Citizens

Regardless of the critics going after Sen. Harkin, I will continue to applaud him for his recent efforts to combat the for-profits. At least someone on the Hill is fighting for a portion of the indentured educated class. Of course, the problem goes way beyond the for-profits, and that is where Sen. Harkin's focus falls short. The student lending crisis encompasses the non-profits, too. It must also be emphasized that the problem is inter-generational. Of course, it is important to point out that minorities and the poor are the ones who carry the heaviest burden of debt, and they are easily targeted by the for-profits. Sadly, there is another group that these schools are going after: war veterans. There have been several pieces (for example, see here) that discuss war veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, enrolling in for-profits, and finding themselves drowning in a sea of student loan debt.

I was recently in touch with a veteran who attended a non-profit school. While this person was a soldier in Iraq, their loans went into default. This occurred despite their efforts to get in touch with their lender to inform them that they were going to war. These are issues that ought to be investigated by the U.S. Department of Education, and as far as I am aware, no such thing is happening. How can we do this to soldiers who fight for the United States of America? How can we rip off any American who only wishes to better their lives through higher education? Here is yet another sad example of how we've lost our way - American is downgrading itself. Higher education is all about the bucks, and as a result it has become corrupted in the most sickening of ways.

Here's what the veteran had to say:

I was a music major at NMSU during the 2000-2001 academic year. During this period I had no choice but to take out one Stafford loan, and one Perkins loan, totaling about $5500, to cover my tuition and expenses for two semesters. I only had the New Mexico Lottery Scholarship for one semester, and at that time it barely covered half of the tuition, and a $500 a semester music scholarship, plus the minimum Pell Grant. During the Fall 2001 semester I withdrew from school, left the NM Army National Guard, and went into the regular Army, after the events of 9/11.

I somehow had my loans deferred while I spent my first year of service in Korea (2002-2003), I do not remember how. After my year in Korea, I was back in the US, but three months later I was deployed to Iraq(2003-2004). Before I deployed, I contacted NMEAF (the lender, now known as New Mexico Student Loans) and informed them I was going to be deployed to Iraq, and may not be able to make payments. I sent them a copy of my orders, which said I would be gone for 6 months to a year. I informed them I would most likely be deployed for a year. To my surprise 6 months later, I received some mail from my grandfather including a letter from NMEAF that my loans were in default and that the US Department of Education had consolidated them.

I thought this wasn't too big of a deal. When I returned home, I checked on how much I owed. The amount was a lot more than I expected. Apparently one of the loans accrued over a thousand in fees. My total was now roughly $7200. I wonder how much I would have owed had my loans stayed in deferment.

If this war veteran is unable to get out of default, the fees will make the debt astronomical. I've reviewed enough documents and listened to enough stories to know that a reasonable amount of debt can balloon once in default.  And while this amount of debt may seem minuscule by a lot of people's standards, I know of many cases in which similarly small principal balances ran into the tens of thousands (and more) once the default machine was set into motion.

 

Tell Us About Your Dissertation: And Other Commonly Fumbled Interview Questions

Photo credit.

As has been frequently indicated over the four years of Tenured Radical's existence, Interviewing R Us. Why? Well, it is probably not too modest to say that over the years we have interviewed a great many people in hotel rooms, been interviewed by more than a few hiring committees ourselves, and have hung out in the bar afterward talking to other hiring committees about what they saw that day.  Over time, we have developed a perspective on what works and what doesn't.  It isn't the only perspective, but to paraphrase Monty Python, it is the perspective which is ours.

So for those of you lucky enough to have AHA or MLA interviews, here is our list of the most frequent fumbles and how to avoid them.

Know how to talk about your dissertation.  You nubies out there would be shocked to know how many of you blow it coming right out of the gate.  When you can't talk intelligently about your own work, my friend, you have a 98% chance of being absolutely dead in the water for the rest of the interview.

It is a lead-off question understood from the perspective of the hiring committee as an icebreaker.  It is a big, fat softball that we toss up there, gleaming white, intended to set you at ease as you triumphantly hit it out of the park and then relax, showing us your very best self for the rest of the interview.  And yet, so many of you -- probably half of the people I have met in a hotel room for this purpose -- get this deer in the headlights look, and before you know it I can hear my beloved Phillies announcer Harry Kalas in my mind saying:  "It's a... SWING! andamiss."   

So don't sit there with a look on your face that says, "Huh?  Dintcha read my letter?" Don't, if you are a historian, go off on a long, rambling narrative that is some combination of an extended, muddled  chapter outline and a nighty-night story that happens to be historical. Don't talk to me about the IWW as if this is something I have never heard about and you are rescuing it from the ash bin of history. Do have the following prepared:

• A concise, five-minute statement that identifies the specifics of the topic; any interesting people who are part of the project; the archives you are using that are either new or that you are reinterpreting; why your archives are new/in need of reinterpretation; the scholarship that influenced your choice of topic; and a statement on how you are improving on or adding to that scholarship.
• A sentence about how far along you are and when you will be finished that matches what your dissertation advisor has said. 

That's all:  five minutes, then stop. Remember, the whole interview is between half an hour and forty-five minutes, so if you ramble on about what they have already read they won't have any time to get more information about you, which is what this interview is at least partly about.

Next comes the opportunity for the committee to ask you questions about your thesis:  this is what you are leaving all that extra time for.  You have no way of anticipating what they will ask except to do your homework on the faculty in the room ahead of time and making informed guesses about what their interest in your work will be.  But as part of this phase of the interview, you should make sure you squeeze in:

• A statement about methodology;
• Reasons why you chose this particular topic to write about that you can link to your enthusiasm for the field more generally;
• A reference to some feature of your research that allowed you to do something creative in the classroom;
• A name-dropping opportunity.   Feel free to mention one scholar who doesn't work at your university, and with whom you have discussed your research or appeared on a panel, but make it substantive.  This doesn't make you look connected:  it means you are connected.  Extra points if you are a male bodied person and the scholar you name-drop is a woman.

Know how to talk about the courses you will be asked to teach.  Seems like a no-brainer, eh?  But here are the ways I have seen this portion of the interview tank:

•  When asked about a period survey, the candidate talks about one small part of that period.  This is a particularly egregious interview flaw if you are an Americanist, because whatever else might be challenging about our field, the amount of time we must cover in a semester tends not to exceed 200 years.  There is one excellent graduate school that seems to kick out candidates who all interview as if they are prepared to teach the period of their dissertation and no more.  It is just stunningly weird to hear someone talk about the colonial history survey, for example, as if it only had to cover the years between 1688 to 1724.  But it also reveals you as narrow in your interests and knowledge -- narrower, perhaps, than you actually are.
• A candidate being asked why s/he chose a particular book and not being able to say.  This makes us think that the syllabus you are talking about is from a course you T.A.'d for, or worse, a course you pulled off the web. Yes, I have heard of people on search committees being handed their very own syllabus by a complete stranger. This, by the way, makes you look like a psychopath.
• A candidate saying sincerely that s/he believes in the Socratic method (which in and of itself makes it sound as though you have never actually taught at all) and not being able to say what that means in a real live 21st century classroom.

Prepare at least two courses you would like to teach.  Common ways people screw this up?

•  Not having thought about this at all.  True.
• Proposing a course that is a slight variation on the survey they will be responsible for.
• Proposing a course that someone, perhaps someone who is actually in the room, already teaches and seeming to be completely unaware of that.

Particularly if the interview is going well, you should fall into a happy, general conversation in the last ten minutes or so, so that even if you aren't specifically asked about new courses, these are good to have in your hat to show them an aspect of yourself they might not have seen.

Don't trash a search committee that evening in the hotel bar.  Leave the hotel and go far, far away if you must trash a search committee, and even then make sure you have your back against a wall and a good view of the door. 

Extra points if you don't go on the job wiki following the interview to leave a few observations about what $hit heads the interviewing committee was and how unappreciated you felt.  There are two good reasons you should not report on your experience, other than the fact that it is childish and you probably don't even really believe that you are giving other candidates information that they need (if you did think you were helping them, would you give it to them?  Really?) 

• Your view of the interview could be very different from the committee's view.  Not only are academics not always aware of it when they are treating people badly (you knew that!), but the people who behaved badly may be marginal to making the decision.  Why is this important?
• Because we read the job wikis too, and bitching out the committee could cost you your campus interview.

On that note, good luck young folk, and I'll see you in Boston.  The Radical Panel is at 2:30 on Friday.  Be there or be square.

Merry Christmas From Tenured Radical

Like Eartha, we were so bad this year, but we got presents anyway! Here's hoping you did too.

This Time Last Year We Were In South Africa On The Western Cape

We had just finished one of the most exhausting, exhilarating things we had ever done:  working at a  camp outside Johannesburg for teenagers whose lives have been affected by HIV.  There is not a day we do not talk about what we did or saw there, and probably not a week that goes by without one of us saying: "When we go back..."  I learned so much on our trip, and at camp, that sometimes it felt like my brain was moving faster than I could process the information.

I loved it. 

By the time we landed in Wilderness, we were ready to put our feet up, lay in a store of food at the Pick n' Pay, buy some new books (I had given away most of mine, including ones I had not yet read, to some of the campers) and rest for a good long time.  I had lost about ten pounds at camp from working hard, and getting dramatically fewer calories, since there was no alcohol and no snacks other than what my friend Manu brought back from Jo'burg and shared with us.  Our hosts left for their own Christmas vacation -- they went camping somewhere, leaving us the keys to their house in case we needed anything.  The one thing she told us was:  "Do not go to the beach on Christmas!"  She warned us in great detail that terrible things occurred there on holiday that we would find strange and threatening.

So of course we did go to the beach on Christmas.  Nothing terrible was happening, and it reminded us once again that the scars of apartheid were still very deep, for we suspected our hosts had actually never been to the beach on Christmas.  Instead of the bacchanal we had been told to expect, we found extended families, grilling on hibachis, many wearing red and white fluffy Santa hats. 

If you think this kind of racial disconnect is peculiarly South African, go watch D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915) why don't you?  Anyway, we had a lovely time socializing on the beach.  We then went home and had spaghetti and salad for Christmas dinner, having agreed in advance that our gift to each other was this trip.

On the Beach at Wilderness, Western Cape, ZA

Anyway, Merry Christmas to my friends in Jo'burg, Soweto and Durbs: this post is really a Christmas card for you and a way of saying thank you, a year later.  For those of you who are just home from Sizanani, I hope you are recovering from being wowed by the kids.  Mbali, I'm sorry I missed you when you were here this summer, and please come back.  William, be careful on Christmas brother, because we love you!   Kabelo, big, big hugs for you, your mother and the children.  Siza, don't you give Mbali a harder time than she needs to keep her in line, ok Vocelli?  Yolanda, I hope you are being good (not!) and that you moved forward on your business plans.  Enos, when are you bringing your plays to the US? Eliot, stay sweet, ok? Kedi, I need a band-aid!  Mphu, I will learn Zulu:  at least some.  I promise.

And dear Manu, our conversations and your music is always with me.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Good-Bye Korea, Hello Home - plus the best present ever (AEM, Inc!)

Annyeong Korea!

It's Christmas Eve in Korea. I have no Christmas tree. I have no lights. I have no new dog. I just shipped the puppy-pooch off to the vet for 10 days this morning. I will be boarding a plane and coming home in a matters of days.

But you know what? It's time. It's high time.

I say that, but then I think about leaving Korea, leaving the kids, leaving the great friends . . . 

I was looking forward to having my little apartment filled with good cheer and good food, good barks and good laughs. But that wasn't in the works, and that's fine. I'll see my dog again stateside, and I won't lose touch with the special people here. Plus, I have my health and a wonderful spouse. I have also forged significant and long-lasting relationships here, one of which has changed my life in ways I never thought possible. On top of having the best female friend ever  - she's charming, witty, and British! (kinda) - we have become co-authors of a fantastic book. I know the editor who winds up publishing it for us will be the luckiest gal alive, aside from me.

Hello Home

So I'm returning to the land of the grim. Increased poverty. Stagnating wages. Outrageous Bush-era tax cuts. A President who doesn't seem to care about issues that matter to most Americans. But it's time that we stop thinking of America in that way. We're all right about feeling down on America: it is grim and it sucks right now, especially because a lot people who are running the country are tone deaf. People are hurting and in terrible ways. That is why I don't want a soul to feel bad that I'm crying like a water faucet on full blast at the moment. Because my tears are for the great things and the good people I'll be leaving behind (especially Abi). I'd names others, but I don't want them to freak out, and I'm not sure about their privacy wishes. But to the friends I've made here, and who I will miss sorely, you know who you are. You have been supportive, fun, and genuine. I look forward to seeing all of you back in the states.

The sadness that I'm reading in emails from you, well, that's different from what I'm experiencing. The need for a voice, for change, that's what I hear you demanding through your despairing notes. That's why it's time for me to return.

We're going to make this work. I'm determined.

I've made thousands of connections across the U.S. I'm in contact with hundreds of you on a regular basis. You are talented, smart, capable. On top of that, you want things to be better, and you want it now. We need to stop letting D.C. decide that the focus should only be on 'prospective' students. That's bullshit. We need to let them know who we are. That's why I am intent on opening an office in D.C. The decisions are made when you're in that swamp of a city, and I'm willing to sweat it out.  

It's Christmas Eve and bitterly cold, but I am filled with good cheer. I've been in touch with a number of my Board Members already about my imminent return, and we've been discussing ways in which we can move forward.

AEM, Inc. is the best present I could have received on this very special, yet odd Christmas, and if it weren't for your generous donations, we wouldn't even be a non-profit. There you have it: AEM is a wonderful gift, and I want to thank all of you for making it real.

Now it's time to get down to business. Grant time, friends. Legal defense fund time. All of this will lead us to establishing an office and a presence in D.C. It's time to get busier and to get things accomplished for the indentured educated class.

Happy Holidays to all of you (non-believers and believers alike). Most importantly, Abi and husband, thanks for being the best gal pal and husband ever.

"Let's see who's up next. Oh . . . Cryn. Her readers and volunteers have given her AEM, Inc. as a gift, and her friends are offering her genuine support and love. Splendid presents!"

Willing to speak up about suicide for the indentured educated class?

I am in touch with someone at CNN who is interested in my research on suicide and student loan debtors. They want to move forward with this story, but they would like someone to publicly admit that their student loan debt has made them contemplate or attempt suicide. I realize that it's asking a lot, but if you are willing to have the courage to speak out and on television about these feelings, we could get this story on CNN.

If you are willing to discuss it, please let me know ASAP. I can be reached by email (ccrynjohannsen @ gmail DOT com).

To Those Who Tell Us Not To Celebrate The Repeal Of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell:" Ask Yourself Why People In Your Workplace Can't Come Out, and What You Plan To Do About It

You might also want to take a little vacation from critique and let the rest of us enjoy the elimination of a law that went out its way to make life even more difficult for queer people, all in the name of progress. As for the killjoys who say that this won't prevent gay and lesbian soldiers from being harassed in the military, I say: true.  BUT: why don't you tell me a place where we actually are safe?  School perhaps?  The streets? At home?

Whether you believe in the military or not, and whether this is only part of the pie rather than the whole pie, shrinking the circle of legal stigma is a baby step to making this country a little more livable for everyone.

Photo credit.

Hoo-rah!

Who Has Short Shorts? The Radical Has Short Shorts!

Photo credit.

Do you ever have those days when you wake up and think, "If I didn't blog so much I might publish more?"  Actually, for me it isn't true, since I have been publishing more (on paper) since I started blogging, but nevertheless, this retrograde form of disseminating knowledge and wasting trees has seized me in a new way, and after days of grading, it cannot be denied.  So here are a few tidbits for your enjoyment:

Concurrent minority, anyone?  If you saw Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli last night on the PBS News Hour, and you know a bit of southern history, you might have heard shades of John C. Calhoun's theory of state's rights in Cuccinelli's assertion that attaining a majority in the Senate is no way to make a law to govern everybody. In arguing that the federal government's constitutional rationale for mandating the purchase of health insurance is incorrect and dangerous, Cuccinelli goes on to say:  "The power for the federal government is limitless under this theory of the Constitution, and the only limit left is majorities in Congress. And if it was just going to be majority rule, why have a Constitution in the first place?"

Can I have a witness on that?  Because if majorities in Congress don't count, I would like universal access to abortion back, the immediate repeal of DOMA, the return of protections to GLBT peopel in the state of Virginia that were withdrawn on Cuccinelli's orders last March.  Don't even get me started here, Ken!  For a broader (and calmer) view of the historical context for these views, see  Manisha Sinha on the 150th anniversary of South Carolina's secession from the Union in today's HuffPo.  Among other things, Sinha points out that "Not just nullification but secession is back in fashion. Some Republicans like Governor Perry have unearthed the constitutionally and militarily discredited notion of a state's alleged right to secede from the Union, albeit more as a flamboyant political gesture than a serious threat. It is indeed a supreme irony of history that the Grand Old Party of the Union, the party of Lincoln, is becoming the Grand Old Party of Secession and Calhounian state sovereignty." 

Got Conference Monnehz?  On November 3-4, 2011, the NIOD, Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies is hosting a workshop in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) on ‘Internment, Incarceration and Detention:  Captivation histories in Western Europe around the First and Second World War.’ Go here for what looks like a truly intriguing conference, particularly given all the interesting new work appearing in this field.  After the conference, you can also wander off into Amsterdam and get legally stoned.

Jimmy Carter Predicts A Gay Prez:  Isn't this guy something?  Read the story in yesterday's New York Times, also forwarded to me by the father of a student who shares my perverse fascination with a one-term president who has turned into one of the more courageous political observers of his time.  I find this particularly intriguing since I am finishing up an article now on gay civil rights in the Carter administration:  in 1977, Carter came out against the Briggs Amendment in California (so did Ronald Reagan), but was persuaded by his staff to maintain a distance from gay civil rights activists.  Nevertheless, it was during his administration that numerous barriers were dropped to federal employment of homosexuals, and the Civil Service and Federal Communications Commissions were persuaded by National Gay Task Force (now the NGLTF) to use their powers to enforce equal access for gays and lesbians.  While you are on the Times website, go here for today's op-ed by George Chauncey on DADT.

In Conclusion:  A souvenir from the 1980s that ties back into our title and reminds us that higher forms of femininity can be chemically induced.

This Is My Weapon, This Is My Gun: A Gay Primer For Worried Straights In The Military

"Simply because you're near me, I'm in the mood for love!" Credit.

This is my rifle, this is my gun;
One is for fighting, one is for fun.
-- The Rifleman's Creed, 1941

Want to know whether repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is good policy?  Why listen to the generals or the Secretary of Defense?  Go ask an expert -- an 18 year-old boy in South Carolina.

In today's Grey Lady, James Dao goes to Jacksonville, South Carolina to do just that.  Although a few young soldiers offered indifferent or positive responses to the question, "Would you want to share a foxhole with one?" (another version of, "Would you want your daughter to marry one?") others are worried.  Among the memorable quotes are:

From an 18 year-old soldier who says he is socially comfortable with gays: “They won’t hold up well in combat."

From a 22 year-old soldier who has served a tour in Afghanistan: "Coming from a combat unit, I know that in Afghanistan we’re packed in a sardine can....There’s no doubt in my mind that openly gay Marines can serve, it’s just different in a combat unit. Maybe they should just take the same route they take with females and stick them [in] noncombat units.”

From a 19 year-old soldier who is happy to serve in combat with gay men: “Showers will be awkward.”

From an 18 year-old soldier: “Being gay means you are kind of girly. The Marines are, you know, macho.”  Ain't that the truth, Ruth:  especially macho are the Marines who are already playing Seven Minutes in Heaven with each other at off-base parties.  That's what makes it so sexy.

Part of what I find amusing about this, and perversely cute, is the absolute certainty of many young men that they are infinitely and universally attractive; and that they spark desires in others that cannot be reined in.  In this scenario, gay male soldiers are simply an addition to the already substantial female population that thinks they are hot, hot, hot.

Anyone who is a college teacher knows that there is a substantial population of athletes (and guys who look like athletes but are too lazy to go out for a team) who, once the weather warms up, spend hours in prominent campus locations, stripped to the waist, six packs a-rippling, playing wiffle ball or some other pseudo-sport.  Why?  Because they know they look so good and they are dying to share it.  Oh yeah, this has a dark side too, but at its most benign, it is a core feature of a certain kind of masculinity.

And don't you think it's interesting that Dao  interviewed no women for this article?  What do you think that was about?  Enquiring minds want to know.

Interviewing worried straight people is not, however, a good data set to base a transition to the post-DADT military on.  So here are some positive steps I would like to forward to Secretary Gates.

In each service, pick out an all-gay platoon, an all-straight platoon, and a mixed gay/straight platoon.  Send them all to Ranger School and see how many in each platoon come back with Ranger tabs.  The platoon that comes back with the most soldiers in tabs wins.  I'm putting my money on the gays:  we are incredible overachievers. 

Put lesbians in combat.  If gay men are girly, it is another well-known fact that lesbians are mannish, right?  I'm thinking while we are waiting for the gay guys to man up in non-combat related jobs, we can fill in the gaps with lesbians who are definitely not going to sexually abuse men in those tight little foxholes.  Think Joan of Arc.  Furthermore, after a tour with some super-star dykes, I guarantee some of these straight men will be combing the ranks for gay soldiers who won't be kicking their a$$es nonstop.

Gently break it to the straight boys that it seems to be them who are "looking" in the shower.  I mean, how do they know that anyone is looking in the shower, or become experts about what is behind the look?  I rest my case.  Boys will be boys.  They always look at each other, when they are not looking at themselves.

Gay men are not women.  I'm just saying.  And by the way-- what if they were? Lose the sexism before some female Marine comes along to kick your a$$.

Young men are in a constant state of arousal no matter what.  This is simply a fact.  If you see a guy walking past you with an erection, don't take it personally.  Look to your own short arm and make sure it's in its holster. 

Any erection that arrives while the body attached to it is under fire, or about to be under fire, is likely to be a source of mirth rather than a threat to the sexual safety of others.  I mean, seriously. 

Homosex and heterosex are not actual differences.   It is a fiction that straights and gays are actually different kinds of people.  Furthermore, there is no difference between what men and men; men and women; and women and women do in bed, and there is no difference between homosexual and heterosexual desire that wasn't invented by some doctor, psychiatrist or cleric.  It's all sex, there are appropriate and inappropriate venues for having sex, and people agree and disagree about what they are regardless of whether they are bent homo or bent hetero. 

Military people are overwhelmingly religious.  Make a list of the crazy $hit that folks say about GLBT people, hand it out to all the chaplains, and get them to work with homophobic soldiers on it.  While you are at it, get the chaplains to stop saying crazy $hit about gay and lesbian people as if it were actually coming straight from God.  Jesus would serve happily with a gay man.  I am absolutely certain of this (and come to think of it, Jesus looks a little girly in most pictures.)  But on a more practical note, since one of my closest kindred spirits is a Christian conservative straight woman (whose son is on the brink of deploying) I would say that one of the finest features of our friendship is that although we have differences on some core issues, we don't say the kind of crazy $hit to each other that is the lingua franca of our different constituencies.  This, in turn, I would like to think, promotes genuine tolerance (as opposed to the fake-y hypocritical tolerance) in both of us towards the attitudes represented by other.  This form of tolerance then becomes a bridge to sympathetic understanding, transformation, respect and deep friendship.

And now, to reinforce distinctions that are already well-known to any grunt who has gone through basic training, a performance of the Rifleman's Creed from Full Metal Jacket (1987).

Why Ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell Is Important, And What Remains To Be Done

Make love, not war?  Photo credit.

I am one of those lefty queers who is both anti-war and desired the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  Noxious as war is, it is also my view that allowing forms of discrimination to be written into the law is neither a gift ("Yay, I am radically free from compulsory marriage!") or a way to distance from the American war machine ("Yay! I'm not implicated in the American war machine, even though my consumer habits, my pension and the university that employs me depends on it!")

In regard to this latter point:  think Bayard Rustin.  True, Bayard was not out as a gay man until very late in life, but he was very black, and he went to jail during World War II as a conscientious objector as a member of both the civil rights and anti-war movements.  I mention this both because he might have evaded service by announcing his homosexuality (although this would have complicated his life on the homophobic left earlier than it eventually did) and because going to jail was not a move that a black man made lightly in the 1940s, as he was more than likely to come out in a box.*

While watching the signing ceremony is not going to make me teary (as I was, for example, back in 1987, when Barney Frank came out; and again in 1990, when the first openly gay person was permitted to address the Democratic convention) I consider this to be an important step -- not necessarily towards equality, but towards a basis by which we might imagine an inclusive human rights agenda in the United States and a recognition of the ways in which certain groups are confined by the law and other groups are freed by it.  Repealing DADT is an imperfect way of getting there, as is marriage equality, but they are both necessary moves even if you, personally, find marriage and the military noxious and retrograde.

Myself, I find hypocrisy to be the source of most social and political toxicity.  From that perspective,  these institutions are merely the effect of a broader American commitment to hypocrisy and a reproductive mechanism for it, not the actual problems.

I say this because a great many queer intellectuals and activists will not be popping the cork on this one.  In "Don't Enlist, Don't Serve", Troy Williams writes:  "There are many things worse than discrimination. Being hit by a mortar blast, losing a limb, living with post-traumatic stress disorder or killing another human all come to mind."  Arguing that DADT has "saved an uncounted number of queer lives," he also points to the high levels of violence perpetrated by soldiers against each other.  "The culture of the military encourages hazing, misogyny and homophobia;" that "war fucks people up;" and that veterans are often neglected and abused following their service by a political machine and a society that refuses to commit to sane social welfare policies.

Kathryn Franke notes the ways in which increased visibility of lesbians has the potential to enhance institutionalized brutality towards women in the military.  In "It Gets Worse:  What Repeal of DADT May Mean For Sexual Violence In The Military," she argues that like the marriage equality movement, military service is a "curious" location "for the elaboration of a free-self."  By this she means, in fact, wrong-headed, since both institutions are forms of state regulation that emphasize disciplining the self to a set of rules that are intended to control and confine us.

Franke goes on to remind us that, within this highly disciplined institution, there are already appalling rates of sexual violence against women in the military, and that "open military service for lesbians may hold greater, or at least different, peril for lesbians than it does for gay men."  She continues:

Surely gay men who will serve openly will be vulnerable to hazing, harassment and even violence from other service members who do not welcome their presence in the U.S. military. Even in countries that have allowed gays and lesbians to serve openly for some time find their gay soldiers brutally harassed from time to time. (See e.g. here)


But lesbians will face harassment on account of their sexual orientation in a way that compounds the kind of harassment and violence all women in the military suffer as a routine matter. A routine matter about which the military already knows and does very little to combat.

Interestingly, at one point in his testimony last week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates linked the issue of violence against women in the military to the potential for violence against out queer soldiers, the only time I have ever heard a military official bring this subject up voluntarily.  So another possibility here (sigh) is that DADT has caused new scrutiny of systemic sexual violence in the military because we can now acknowledge that men are candidates for rape.
 
Together, the posts by Williams and Franke point to a yawning absence on the queer, policy-oriented left that the vital new directions in queer scholarship have yet to make a serious dent in:  what a queer anti-violence politics that was not entirely situational would look like.  This, in turn, would require a new interrogation of cultures of male violence that were the object of violent disagreement on the feminist left in the 1980s; that were never fully resolved; and that are imbricated in the queer intellectual perspectives articulated above.  We need a better theory of the institutional conditions that produce homophobic and sexist violence, as well as high levels of compliance by those who do not perpetrate violence with those who do, and a theory that does not entirely rely on disappearing the institution itself.

DADT has moved to yesterday's Senate vote, for example, I have thought constantly about a straight male acquaintance who joined an elite branch of the armed forces, and was, at every stage of his training and deployment, forced to endure rituals of violence and humiliation that were not specifically homophobic.  They included such useful military skills as spending a day doing his work with a filthy toilet seat around his neck, standing in formation in the middle of the night nude except for the women's underpants on his head (yes, what happened at Abu Ghraib happens all the time in the U.S. military), staying up all night cleaning a latrine with his toothbrush and then being ordered to use it in his mouth, and being repeatedly beaten up by other soldiers for imagined failures of deference.

What strikes me as a particularly graphic example for the need of a more embracing theoretical perspective is the failure to make a practical connection between what currently counts for an anti-violence politics on the queer left -- homophobic and sexist bullying among high school students -- to a realistic sense of the ways the military (but also marriage and the family) perpetuate and institutionalize violence.  These issues are, in fact, inseparable, as a political history of school and of the the military are also inseparable.  Each institution relies heavily on invisible systems of self-rule to maintain governance and subservience.  In each case, self-rule is based on forms of brutality that could not possibly be legitimated by the state, but which serve as discipline by proxy.

So yes, sign that bill President Obama, so we can get started on the real work of ending violence.
________________________

*You can read about it Rustin's heroism in John D'Emilio's excellent biography, Lost Prophet:  The Life And Times Of Bayard Rustin.

Is There A Budget To Be Cut Under Your Christmas Tree? A View To The Future

In yesterday's Huffpo, David J. Skorton, the president of Cornell University  asserted that "We Can Do Better On College Costs."  He proposes calling a halt to the educational blame game:  "let's stop the intellectual shoving matches," he argues, "and get about the business of dealing with those factors that can and should be controlled to attenuate the rate of rise of both cost and price. And let's also stop apologizing for investments that are necessary to keep higher education one of America's premier 'products.'" His suggestions include:

1. greater specialization on individual campuses, so that institutions are not duplicating partially filled programs;
2. reviews of "faculty productivity and quality," including post-tenure reviews;
3. acknowledging that educational administrators who are skilled at running an institution might not always have the skills to do so in a cost-efficient way.

The economic crash that has motivated our current state of intensified budget cutting, Skorton argues, should be viewed as a re-set.  "Given our continuing uncertain economy," he concludes, "I call on my colleagues in higher education to reduce the rate of rise of our operating costs through focus, connectivity, accountability and administrative streamlining. Improvements in higher education's pricing and accessibility will follow."

Now, before you fill the comments section with off the cuff remarks about what self-interested sleazebags and incompetents administrators are, please do two things.  Read the article, and ask yourself the question:  Isn't it time that faculty started to work with administrators to reshape and rethink what we do, rather than sitting around and howling about the latest set of budget cuts made by corporate executives and legislators who really don't have a clue what we do or why it matters?  And isn't it time for faculty to stop defending everything they do, in exactly the way they learned it should be done decades ago, as if the university is a place where nothing has changed since the 1880s?

So here are a few initial responses to Skorton's suggestions from this faculty member.

Overspecialization on campuses:  The vast majority of departments and programs would not be vulnerable to elimination on any campus under a plan to scrutinize overspecialization, in my view, although some positions within them might be useful targets for cross-institutional appointments.  Colleges would want to duplicate fields that draw numerous students and that are basic to citizenship, social/cultural competence, literacy and a student's capacity to choose a future: for example,  English, history, political science, mathematics, and philosophy.  But such departments might be asked to work together to ensure that they represented an intellectual direction that was coherent and distinctive, rather than one that fulfilled individual desires without regard to how those fields are supported elsewhere in the curriculum.

Furthermore, the failure of area colleges to work together to establish consortium arrangements for areas of knowledge that are less desired by students is leading, not to duplication, but to the actual collapse of certain fields of knowledge.  German, for example, is under-taught on many campuses, due in part to the fact that the teaching of German at the high school level is almost non-existent. It is a difficult language that requires dedication to learn, and a background in other languages (also difficult to get more than a couple years of in most high schools) doesn't hurt either.  The response of the budget cutters is that there German departments should be eliminated due its marketplace failure -- even though the market for German among students has been actively and deliberately undermined.  One might argue that this failure does not, in fact, represent the actual value of being literate in German.  Knowledge of German continues to be highly relevant to many fields other than German literature (science, philosophy, history); furthermore, if you look at a market that really matters, Germany is the biggest economy in the EU, and you might think a global power like the United States might want to train people to communicate in German.

Proposed solution:  cooperative hiring practices and curriculum development between area universities, as well as investment in transportation and technology that could make a cooperative curriculum genuinely accessible to all students.

Improving faculty productivity:  I am not altogether sure what is meant by this, but there is one thing I know:  if we are talking about the teaching of students, there are very few courses that are underpopulated because the professor is a well-known incompetent (in fact that can have the opposite effect, as well-known incompetents are also often well-known for assigning very little work.)  Profs pulling down big salaries to teach few students is far more complex than this.  Issues to be addressed would include:

• Elimination of core curricula and real distribution requirements in liberal arts schools means that most of us are simultaneously maintaining fields of knowledge and allowing uninformed student preferences to dictate how courses are populated.  Hence, Department X might be groaning under the weight, not just of its numerous majors, but of its massive service to the general curriculum.  Meanwhile Department Y culls a few dedicated majors from an introductory curriculum that students can completely avoid; and those faculty go on to teach 10 students a semester or so -- for salaries that can be (if say, the comparison is between a humanities and a science or social science department) significantly higher than the faculty in Department X.  
• This straightforward ratio of students taught to salaries paid is accentuated by a second problem:  that most faculty don't want to teach students who are only in the room because they are fulfilling a requirement.  Hence, core curricula have to be backed up by persuasive advocacy and creative teaching.
• The mania of "raising standards" for tenure and promotion everywhere is affecting other things that faculty do.  Granted, the production of good scholarship is important to good teaching in any field.  However, the increased pressure to produce ever more prior to tenure and promotion to full that younger scholars are facing is an indirect incentive both to evade students and to evade roles in faculty governance that, in turn, creates a need for more administrative staff.  In many places, senior faculty instruct those they supervise to attend to publication over all other activities, sending the message that dedication to teaching and institutional work is evidence that the scholar is insufficiently dedicated to success.
• The mania of liberal arts college faculties for insisting that their "standards" for tenure and promotion are just as high as those at institutions with prestigious graduate programs undermines teaching at institutions that advertise this as their greatest value.  This is an odious and false assertion, and academic administrators should act to intervene in these expressions of hubris. Standards can be high in terms of quality without sacrificing anything to the teaching mission; however, except for the rare scholar, it absolutely cannot be true in terms of the quantity of publications in the dossier prior to tenure without sacrifice to the teaching mission. 
• Take a good hard look at faculty who, post-tenure, might benefit everyone including themselves, by choosing another career and help them transition to it.  Admit that a faltering vocation is one of the conditions of labor, not just in the academy, but everywhere.  Most of us have a mid-life crisis; not all of us are good at addressing it without help and encouragement.  Instead of talking about "dead wood" in the contemptuous way we do, wouldn't it be better to find other things for such faculty to do and replace them with another person who really wanted the job?

Proposed solution:  sustained discussions that instill a sense of collective responsibility for educating students across the faculty, establish a curriculum that demonstrates the values that caused the institution to invest in the faculty it actually employs, and see which fields and disciplines might be revived by humane restructuring of personnel.

Increased administrative efficiency:  Okay, so you know what is not helping here?  The constant screeching, at all levels, for "accountability" and "standards," particularly from politicians who don't know squat-all about what constitutes good education.  Administrators who should be engaged in leading a process of renewal and reform are, instead, responding to politically-motivated attacks on education. But the other thing we have to re-think is the question of what kinds of problems are amenable to governance by people who are trained as scholars; and when is a good time to call in a consultant or two.  I can't tell you how much time I have spent over the last decade trying to solve problems that neither I or anyone around me has any expertise in solving.  One solution to this problem would be administrative exchange programs between colleges and universities:  if College X has someone who was able to find a creative solution to a particular problem, could we bring hir to College Y for a few months to look at our problem, sending in return one of our people back to College X to study the outcomes of their reorganization?  Reversing this exchange would then give College Y an administrator who was skilled in implementing the new plan.  As a not insignificant aside, this might eliminate the problem of larding on new administrative staff to address new problems without ever taking a fresh look at what the old administrators are doing and whether their work is still relevant.

Proposal:  Increased hiring of consultants with relevant expertise; a high focus on continuing education and retraining for administrators; and ongoing consultation between institutions with similar missions about the challenges of the new environment.

A Former Law Student Confesses: "I think about jumping from the 27th floor of my office building every day."

As most of you know, I am currently working on an article about suicide and student loan debt. Earlier this week, Matt Stannard from Shared Sacrifice interviewed me about the subject.

Since that interview, I've received a few posts from people who have informed me that they fully intend to off themselves (see the most recent comments here and here). As a result of these disturbing posts, I have asked many of you to come out in support of struggling individuals, and tell them that nothing - not even Everest-sized mountains of student loan debt -  ought to lead them to committing suicide. Thanks to all of you who have posted comments of support so far. Trust me, it helps. Several people have told me that if it weren't for me - and others who are raising holy hell about the student lending crisis - they would have killed themselves long ago. So please, if you haven't posted something supportive, think about doing it now. You never know, your own story about feeling similarly could safe a life.

So many people are hurting, and so many people are thinking about killing themselves. These people aren't crazy. Far from it. They are approaching their indebtedness from a rational perspective, and sadly suicide seems like a viable choice. That's not out of the norm. When there are severe economic downturns, people often turn to drastic measures to get out of a  hopeless predicament. Financial ruin leads many healthy people to an early grave, and quite often it's from their own hand. As Barbara Ehrenreich stated quite frankly in an article from 2008 entitled, "Suicide Spreads as One Solution to the Debt Crisis," when people feel backed up against a wall, it's only natural for them to say, "Just shoot me!" At that time, many people who found their homes being repossessed chose to proclaim, "I'll just shoot myself!"

After listening to my interview, a reader let me know that they contemplate jumping from the 27th floor of their work every day. 

Here's what they wrote:

Cryn, I listened to your interview and cried for hours. I graduated from law school with honors back in 2003 and never found a job as an attorney. I've worked a bunch of odd jobs the last 7 years just to survive. I've been a retail worker, a call center worker, a housekeeper, a dishwasher, and a temp - seriously, it seems like I've been everything except what I went to school for! I know my life is ruined and that I will never be a practicing attorney. I get it, really I do. After all, I'm around attorneys 24/7 in my current job and they look down their noses at me or else just ignore me. I am a loser and no one wants to be around a loser or else they might become one to. I try to remind myself that my life wasn't always like this - that people used to like me and that I had a lot going for me in college and even law school. However, after years of being snubbed and treated so terribly, I have learned to be as invisible as possible and to keep to myself. I'm sure that gives everyone at work a good laugh - then they can say I'm anti-social or not good with people and therefore not attorney material.

I could live without being a practicing attorney but what I can't get over is the fact I ruined my life by borrowing $100,000 to go to law school. I thought I was making a really good investment in myself because I believed in myself back then. I knew I would do well in school, and I guess I thought I would get a job and be able to pay back my loans. How incredibly wrong I turned out to be. Even if I am able to get out of student loan debt, I will be starting over from scratch. Zero savings. Zero retirement. Zero career options.

Every day I think about jumping out the 27th floor window of the office building where I am currently working to escape the mess I have made of my life. I am in so deep now, there is no way out. I used to keep myself up at night thinking about how I would ever pay my student loans off, but now I keep myself up at night, wondering if this is really how the next 30 years of my life will be - always moving from one dead-end job to the next, always being looked down at by attorneys (and even non-attorneys when they find out I'm an attorney but not working as one), always feeling so sick to my stomach that I can't hardly even eat anymore. I used to worry about starving to death if I couldn't afford to buy food if I never found a job, but now I don't have to worry about that because I have no appetite! Maybe I will just wither away and finally be put out of my misery. I really don't think I can keep doing this for another 7 years, let alone the rest of my life. I don't know what to do. While I haven't completely given up, I don't think it's that far around the corner. . .

I'm sorry this is long and depressing, but it's nice to get this all out. I am not asking anyone to forgive my student loans; I fully intend to pay back every last cent I borrowed. I just want to feel like all of my hard work and sacrifice was worth it, instead of always feeling humiliated, embarrassed, ashamed, bitter and angry. I'm so tired of feeling this way - I just want the pain to go away. Thanks for listening. 

As Matt Stannard asked, and I'll reiterate, how many people aren't reaching out to me? How many people will wither away, jump from buildings, or drink themselves to death because of their debt?

 "No More Anything" by Yulonda Rosio

The Radical History News: Shopping, Nixonland, Feminist Blogging and A Farewell

Yesterday I passed two milestones:  I went to BJ's Wholesale for the first time, and I finally bought an iPad.  As I was driving home, the Sister of the Radical (SORor) called, and I asked her if I was the last person on earth to discover BJ's.  "Yes," she said, not unkindly.  Well, so be it.  I was late to the game on Deadwood too, but caught up eventually.

BJ's had been recommended to me by my dentist during a prolonged procedure (he was trying to distract me from the root canal he was performing) and I must say, neither the root canal or BJ's has been a disappointment.  As I toodled down I-91 with a full trunk of loose items (they don't give you bags at BJ's, and I made a mental note to bring cardboard boxes or totes the next time) the only parallel experience I could compare it to was being allowed to visit a warehouse stocked by UNESCO, or being the patriarch of a polygamous Mormon family.  Bales of socks and long underwear were nestled next to a case of baked beans, a massive brick of TP, a bushel of garlic, six quarts of shrink wrapped OJ, and a variety of other jumbo-sized items. 

Riding shotgun was the iPad.  What can I say?  64 gigs and it's everything I can imagine. Having posted the purchase on my Facebook, I got the following link from Rick Perlstein (who is cool and funny and nice, in addition to being a terrific writer) advertising the enhanced e-book of his Nixonland:  the Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (Scribners, 2008).  I embedded the video here:



Is that cool or what?  In other news:

Historiann and Tenured Radical have been nominated for a 2010 Cliopatria award in the category  "Best Series of Posts," for their series on Terry Castle's The Professor (You can get started reading here).  If that isn't enough, the roundtable on feminist blogging I have been promising, "Women Gone Wild," starring TR, Historiann, Jennifer Ho, May Friedman, Marilee Lindemann and Rachel Leow, is now up and rocking the house at the Journal of Women's History.

Finally, we are sad to say that the authors of Edge of the American West seem to be biting the poison pill.  Oh yeah, they say they are going on hiatus, but when and if they come back, they will come back as something else.  As one co-author said:"I’d rather take a break before it becomes a chore or I start posting pictures of cats." Another: "We associate the West with new beginnings, but also the end of the day, and maybe we have got there."

Maybe. We'll miss you, and thanks.

Debt And Suicide: Interview On Shared Sacrifice

Yesterday evening I was interviewed by Matt Stannard at Shared Sacrifice. Our focus was student loan debt and suicide. If you weren't able to tune in last night, you can listen to the recording here.

Thanks again, Matt and Shared Sacrifice!

It's A Poor Sort Of Memory That Only Works Backwards; Or, New (Old) Thoughts About Tenure

Alice Ad-dressing the White Queen.

`You're wrong there, at any rate,' said the Queen: `were you ever punished?'

`Only for faults,' said Alice.

`And you were all the better for it, I know!' the Queen said triumphantly.

`Yes, but then I had done the things I was punished for,' said Alice: `that makes all the difference.'

`But if you hadn't done them,' the Queen said, `that would have been better still; better, and better, and better!' Her voice went higher with each `better,' till it got quite to a squeak at last.

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass (And What Alice Found There) (1871)

Paul Caron over at Tax Prof Blog reports that a new study "conducted under the auspices of the American Bar Foundation with additional funding from the Law School Admission Council" finds that "the perceptions of female tenured faculty members and tenured faculty of color" about the granting of tenure in law schools "differ significantly" from the perceptions "of their white male counterparts. Both female professors and professors of color perceived the tenure process as less fair and more difficult than did male or white professors. Female professors of color had the most negative perceptions [.]" 
  
Quelle surprise.  Try doing this study in the humanities and social sciences, why don't you?

It is interesting how we can know these things and then continue on as if we did not know these things.  I have to wonder whether any empirical study is capable of altering the ingrained practices that produce the "perceptions" described above (many of us would substitute the word "reality" here, but never mind.)  For different reasons, depending on our position in the hierarchy of academic bodies, like Alice's White Queen, we who are tenured have become adept at managing impossible information.  While one commenter on Caron's post is amazed that you would survey a group of people who have succeeded in a gate keeping process about the fairness of the gate keeping, I would argue that part of what is interesting about the study is that people who have succeeded don't always see their own success at achieving tenure as an unqualified vote of confidence for their intellectual work.  Indeed, the difficulty of evaluation and promotion, the rude inquiries that are often made about women and scholars of color during tenure procedures and the public undermining of the intellectual authority of these scholars even in successful promotion cases, is often stunning.  It is equally stunning to me how eager one's colleagues are to relieve white men from the burdens of such scrutiny.  A variety of what might be considered flaws and procedural bloopers that require lengthy revisiting for women and scholars of color are simply dismissed as irrelevant for white men.  Connections of the candidate to prominent people in hir field that are serving as tenure referees are seen as proof of a white man's prestige (correct).  But in the case of (wo)men of color, such referees are often dismissed because they are perceived as lacking objectivity (they are often perceived as lacking status in the field as well), and new ones must be found, even if those new referees are further from the field of specialization. And scholars in queer studies?  Fugedaboudit.

Here's another piece of unofficial data for you:  the number of women, and people of color who, denied tenure in one place, go on to a better job elsewhere.  Not always true, but boy, would I like to see the numbers on it.  A common assumption about failed promotion cases is that the person's career as a scholar is brought to an abrupt end by denial, and that is true in too many cases.  However, very often it is not true, and that is where follow up of failed tenure cases might be worthy of investigation. At one prestigious SLAC I know well, two tenure cases involving individuals in the group under scrutiny were differently fumbled in the not so recent past, and both individuals almost immediately went on to tenured positions at prestigious R-I universities.  You would think that would count as some kind of data, wouldn't you? Or that it might trigger some kind of public recognition at the tenure-denying institution that what is being smugly articulated as high standards could be, just perhaps, something else.

`That accounts for the bleeding, you see,' [the White Queen] said to Alice with a smile. `Now you understand the way things happen here.'

`But why don't you scream now?' Alice asked, holding her hands ready to put over her ears again.

`Why, I've done all the screaming already,' said the Queen. `What would be the good of having it all over again?'

What Time Is It? It's Exam Time! Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Blue Books!

Cowabunga, Buffalo Bob!

Truth be told, I am actually writing this post while proctoring my exam.  You would think a Tenured Radical like myself wouldn't even believe in exams, wouldn't you?

Wrong.  True, I think this generation of students comes to college so stressed-out, and so tested-out, that in many ways it is an act of mercy not to plan any kind of evaluation that awakens their anxieties (see this article for the use of therapy dogs during exam period at Tufts University.)  In fact, here at Zenith, students have been heard to complain that quizzes (particularly of the "Pop!" variety) and exams are "like high school" and unworthy of college-level scholars.  The desire to administer such forms of evaluation, it is implied, reveals the professor hirself as not quite cool for school. ("Like, man, if you really knew me, you would know what grade to give me!")

And yet I give exams, and here are the reasons why:

• Taking exams is a skill.  For the vast majority of professional careers, in graduate school, and for a variety of other occupations, these very same students will be asked to take exams.  Oh sure, some of them will be self-administered, but most of them will be taken in a large impersonal room, written by hand, and timed.  Any career -- from soldier, to lawyer, to electrician, to police officer, to medical doctor, to the State Department requires at least one exam -- and sometimes numerous exams, taken throughout one's work life.  Many careers require periodic re-certification; many others require exams for promotion.  The idea that graduating high school liberates most people, of any social class, from test-taking is a lie.

• As long as we teach surveys, making sense of -- and knowing what you think about -- a period, a field of study, or an area of expertise requires time set aside for comprehensive study.  The exam, in this case, becomes a means to an end.  Let's be honest:  even our best students prepare erratically for classes, and students of all kinds work in bursts that are in many ways governed by the many disparate courses and the work schedules to which they are responsible.  The act of studying, at its best, brings all of these pieces that have been acquired erratically (or not yet acquired at all) together in a whole, at the end of which (ideally) a student has a building block to go on to more advanced work, to research, or to simply salt away for whenever it becomes useful.

• In the humanities and social sciences, exams allow students who are not yet sophisticated thinkers, or particularly good writers, to work hard, do well, and be proud of themselves.  At all colleges, equally intelligent students enter with different capacities and with different skill sets.  Students who work hard and want to achieve deserve some reward and encouragement for their efforts: if every assignment that they are graded on requires excellent writing skills, or the capacity to structure a complex argument, this means that under prepared students will not get credit for what they are achieving even if they are growing as intellectuals through the act of diligent study.  In other words, there will be some lag time between the acquisition of sophisticated reading skills and the capacity to reproduce and build creatively on what has been read.  This means that many students who are learning and growing will have difficulty showing that unless they are given exams geared towards revealing what they have learned.

• Let's tell the truth:  many faculty don't give exams because it is a nice way to artificially shorten the semester.  A papers-only class, a series of short quizzes, a take-home or final paper due on the last day of classes -- all of these tactics send certain of our colleagues home a week, or even two weeks, early.  At Zenith this is illegal, but it happens anyway.  Little things reveal it, like the student who wrote to a colleague that but for a pesky exam in that class s/he would be able to leave town slightly before the end of classes to (and I quote) "maximize boy-friend time."  Why is this bad for students?  Well, two reasons.  One is the absence of any of the benefits stated above.  The other is that this puts heavy pressure on the final two weeks of the semester, and in fact, stresses students out more than if they had reading period and exam week to finish up in a more orderly way.

 On a final note, I attended a party the other night at which a number of colleagues and I waxed nostalgic about (wait for it) our "favorite exams, ever!"  This was, just to be clear, our favorite exam that we ever took.  Mine was an oral exam in eighteenth century French history with John Merriman, my sophomore year at Oligarch.  Feel free to contribute yours in the comments section

God it's fun to group up nerdy.

Former For-Profit Instructor Shares

I've been on a for-profit kick lately (see my previous posts entitled, "Screw U" and "Sordid Relationships And Broken Promises: Kaplan University's Troubling Relationship To The Washington Post"). While I think we shouldn't lose focus on the larger student lending crisis and culpability of the non-profit institutions in this mess, it's just too easy to beat these places up! There. I said it. But let's be honest, they suck and they are by virtue of their nature evil. I do wish to clarify that point, however. I am not necessarily suggesting that the teachers at these schools don't do a good job, and I know plenty of highly intelligent people who obtained degrees from such institutions. Nevertheless, the for-profit industry is a sham and it should be shut down.

Here's another heartwarming tale, this time from a former instructor, about what it's like to work at a for-profit:

I went to and was later hired on as an instructor at a for-profit career school, and this is what I saw, as briefly as I can tell it:

As a student, my experience was actually quite good; a couple of years later, however, saw the place taken on by new ownership, and that's when all the games began. . .

First, they took over several classrooms and converted them to admissions offices. That seemed weird from the outset, but then shortly thereafter there was a staff meeting where they wanted each instructor to give them five ideas on how we could increase the size of the student body by 25% a year over the next five years. I refused to participate, and got written up because I told them that (a) this was an unreasonable goal, and it seemed like they were expecting the phenomenal growth of some stocks to be transferable to our situation; (b) there wasn't any place to put any more students, as they had just converted all of the 'extra' classrooms to admissions 'counselor' offices.


Anyway, the second thing that started to become apparent was that they were no longer testing applicants before they allowed them to enroll; I could no longer believe that a good 30% of my students had managed to graduate from high school, and the basic computer skills that were allegedly required also seemed to be optional as well. This was a huge problem for an instructor who was supposed to be effectively teaching 30 students how to program computers, and yet I was now forced to teach basic Windows stuff like saving files (I shit you not!) to these poor unprepared students while the rest of the class grew increasingly frustrated. Guess who got yelled at when they complained?!? I wasn't allowed to send them back to the admissions (SALES) people for placement in an alternate program or to send them home until they got the prerequisite knowledge, so there was nothing I could do. Sadly, the slower students monopolized the class and that, in turn, slowed down my instruction, and I finally had to talk some of the faster students into tutoring them in exchange for extra credit in order to get anything accomplished.

Next, I found out the hard way that an instructor who gave grades based upon actual merit was going to get in trouble if a student (or his or her parents) didn't like the grade he or she received. I was ordered to re-evaluate several grades each class by my program director, and to give re-tests to students who had done poorly and felt the tests hadn't been 'fair.' I even failed a student for cheating - not once, but twice - after I had called him on it and told him what the consequence would be if he chose to do it again. He did, and I followed through. That was until his father called and threw a fit, threatening to sue. I had to let the student re-take the final exam and resubmit any assignment where he didn't like the grade he got, followed by being forced to apologize to the kid and his father and listen to the father tell me what crappy 'customer service' skills I possessed. The director just stood there, and told him that it wouldn't happen again; later, I was shocked when he didn't even try to apologize to me for having to fall on my sword like that, and when he told me that I should try to 'overlook' such matters in the future for the good of all concerned. What about the honest students?!?!? Letting the assholes who knew that complaining would let them slide through get away with it was a slap in the face to everyone else, and most importantly it would devalue the certificates awarded by the school over time as the news got out that straight A's didn't mean squat from our institution anymore.


Finally, a few former students sued when they couldn't find jobs after graduating. They claimed that they had been led to believe that the school had promised them that they would get them a job, and that all they got was just a 'career resource center.' This was true, to a point, because they changed their language in the sales pitch to 'career placement assistance' from 'job placement' - but someone will hear what they want to hear, especially when the emphasis can be placed differently by individual salespeople. Taken along with the hard sell, it was misleading, in my opinion, and probably deliberately so.

I left that job after just under a year, and went to the corporate training world, which had its own issues, but at least I didn't feel like I was ripping off the students . . . 


Shocking, right?

Screw U

Here's yet another damning clip about for-profits. Please share this post with as many people as you can. The problem, in my view, is bigger than just the for-profits. However, their tactics are despicable and the industry should be obliterated.

Chinese do better on tests than Americans! Oh my God, what will we do?

Recently, we have been subjected to yet another round of fright about our education system because the Chinese have scored better than the U.S. on the PISA test. Arne Duncan tweeted “PISA results show that America needs to ... accelerate student learning to remain competitive." The New York Times ran its usual scare article. “The results also appeared to reflect the culture of education there, including greater emphasis on teacher training and more time spent on studying rather than extracurricular activities like sports.”

I even heard a man who should know better state that these tests were actually meaningful since they were problem solving tests. Nothing would convince me that the tests were meaningful in any way, but just for fun I took a look at some sample questions anyway. Here are four of them (chosen because they were shorter than the others.):

A result of global warming is that the ice of some glaciers is melting. Twelve years after the ice disappears,

tiny plants, called lichen, start to grow on the rocks.

Each lichen grows approximately in the shape of a circle.

The relationship between the diameter of this circle and the age of the lichen can be approximated with

the formula:

d=7.0× t−12

( ) for t ≥12

where d represents the diameter of the lichen in millimetres, and t represents the number of years after

the ice has disappeared.

Question 27.1

Using the formula, calculate the diameter of the lichen, 16 years after the ice disappeared.

Show your calculation.

Question 48.1

For a rock concert a rectangular field of size 100 m by 50 m was reserved for the audience. The concert

was completely sold out and the field was full with all the fans standing.

Which one of the following is likely to be the best estimate of the total number of people attending

the concert?

A.2 000

B. 5 000

C. 20 000

D. 50 000

E. 100 000

Question 7.1

The temperature in the Grand Canyon ranges from below 0 oC to over 40 oC. Although it is a desert

area, cracks in the rocks sometimes contain water. How do these temperature changes and the water in

rock cracks help to speed up the breakdown of rocks?

A. Freezing water dissolves warm rocks.

B. Water cements rocks together.

C. Ice smoothes the surface of rocks.

D. Freezing water expands in the rock cracks.

Question 7.2

There are many fossils of marine animals, such as clams, fish and corals, in the Limestone A layer of the

Grand Canyon. What happened millions of years ago that explains why such fossils are found there?

A In ancient times, people brought seafood to the area from the ocean.

B Oceans were once much rougher and sea life washed inland on giant waves.

C An ocean covered this area at that time and then receded later.

D Some sea animals once lived on land before migrating to the sea.

Whether or not you know the answers to these questions I think it is important to think about what it means to be good or bad at such questions. As someone who studied mathematics and who considers himself a scientist, I can tell you that these questions are both simple and irrelevant to the average human being. One can lead a prosperous and fulfilling life without knowing the answer to any of them. Why then are test makers, newspapers, and Secretaries of Education, hysterical that the Chinese are better at them than their U.S counterparts?

One answer is that every nation needs scientists and that knowing the answer to these questions is on the critical path to becoming a scientist. I can assure you that that is simply false.

Whether or not a nation needs scientists, it surely doesn’t need very many of them. In any case, while scientists I know would know the answers to these questions, that has nothing to with the reason they have been successful as scientists. More relevant would be a personality test that sought to find out how creative you were or how receptive you were to new ideas or how willing you were to entertain odd hypotheses. Having been a professor who supervised PhD students from many different countries, I can assure you that Chinese students are very good at learning what the teacher said and telling it back to him. Of course they do well on tests if they come from a culture where that is valued. In the U.S., questioning the teacher is valued and most U.S. scientists have stories about how they fought with their teachers on one occasion or another. If we need scientists why not find out what characteristics successful scientists actually have? Memorizing answers is probably not one of them. You don’t win Nobel Prizes, something the U.S. is still quite good at, by memorizing answers.

But, of course, the problem with the U.S. education system is not in any way our lack of ability to produce scientists. We are very good at it actually.

Our problem is that a large proportion of the population can’t reason all that well. We don’t teach them to reason after all. What we do is teach them mathematics and science they will never need and then pronounce them to be failures and encourage them, one way or another, to drop out of school. Brilliant. We also to paraphrase President John Adams, don’t “teach them how to live or how to make a living.”

As usual, neither Arne Duncan nor the new media has a clue about the real issue in education. To paraphrase President Clinton “ It’s the curriculum, stupid.”