Sacrificing Students to the Major

This post at Dr. Crazy's has me thinking about problems of institutional culture--specifically, what happens when a significant minority of a college's faculty does not value intellectual exploration and development for its own sake. Sounds like a paradox, right? Only, at Field--and obviously elsewhere, as indicated by Crazy's post--it isn't.

Let me give you some background. We have quite a few faculty who don't have Ph.D.s--fewer than we had even just a few years ago, but still a good handful. Some of these faculty have, say, MBAs and significant work experience, and teach business or accounting; some have M.A.s in foreign languages and teach those (both our French and Spanish professors actually just have M.A.s and originally taught high school); etc. I am quite certain that many of these professors, by virtue of having had minimal reseach experience of their own, retain a kind of business model of education whereby students come to acquire a degree, and it's our job to get them to that degree as expediently as possible. Period.

And some of our faculty who do have Ph.D.s have been here for a very long time and, I suspect, grown accustomed to the minimal research expectations at the College as well as the largely pre-professional orientation of our student body, and are, perhaps, somewhat resigned. For our students, by and large, come in thinking that they need to get a degree in Education or Business and then go on to get a related job, because (I suspect) they have no idea just how many varied jobs there are out there (in fairness, neither do I) and they don't come from a background that values intellectual pursuit as a formative and exploratory thing.

I know that we're not going to radically change our student population anytime soon. And I know that job prospects are a real concern. But I can't help but think about how much our students are missing if they see college as a road to a job, and nothing more. (And how much they must suffer through most of their classes if that's how they see it!)

The other thing is that we still are a liberal arts college. Not a Swarthmore or an Oberlin or a Carleton or a Reed, but a liberal arts college (with pre-professional programs). And our mission is to provide students, whether they are in a traditional liberal arts program or a pre-professional program, with an education that gives them a liberal arts perspective: a cultural breadth, a holistic framework, a broad set of approaches to the intellectual, social, and personal situations that they will encounter throughout their lives.

Our (extensive; perhaps too extensive) gen ed program introduces them to the liberal arts. But I know how easy and tempting it is to talk to advisees about these requirements as a series of boxes to tick off--to say things like, "Great, you got your lab science out of the way"--which only adds to the sense of these courses' being arbitrary hurdles and the "breadth" component of the liberal arts curriculum as a hassle.

And then, as director of the Honors Program, I meet students who--as first-years!--have had their advisors tell them that they shouldn't bother pursuing a psych minor because they'll never have time to finish it, even though the student himself really wants to study psychology. What the hell is that? Maybe the student should major in psychology, not just minor, but how will he ever know, if his advisor discourages him from taking it because a) he might not have time to pick up a minor (to which I say, Really?) or b) it might deflect him away from his original major--which is, of course, in the advisor's department. (And dude, you can take a psych class. The idea that there's no point in taking a course if it's not going to show up on your diploma is absurd.)

There are a series of forces at work here, of course, and part of the problem is that there's been a lot of talk in recent years about eliminating "under-enrolled" majors. So we want to hang on to our students. But that shouldn't be a consideration (nor should "under-enrolled" majors be cut. Luckily, we haven't been having those conversations recently). And when it starts to look like the student's interests are being ignored for the sake of keeping a major on the books, or--less perniciously--because the advisor forgets to think of the student's intellectual trajectory as her own and instead remains bent on following the curriculum that he has been accustomed to recommending, the student suffers.

And the college suffers.

Because we, the faculty, are then telling our students not to pursue intellectual enquiry, not to take courses to seek fulfillment or satisfy curiosity or because something sounds cool. We are telling them that education is about getting a job, and a job is gotten* by completing a particular major, graduating as swiftly as possible, and maintaining a good GPA--by taking easier courses, if need be.

And yes, I am partly angry about this because I see students being talked out of completing the Honors Program, because what's the point of writing a thesis, after all? Better just to take another intro-level course to fill out your required hours to graduation.

Not all of my colleagues are like this, of course. I wouldn't even say that most of them are. And many of them have twenty or thirty-five advisees and just don't have the time to help each one find him or herself. But it's a problem of institutional culture. What can we do to address it?

*I hate the word "gotten." I used it there on purpose.

Publication dismay/query

I am disheartened and need advice.

Today I emailed the editors of the two journals in which I have published/had work accepted for publication, verifying that the publication of (different, revised versions of) those articles in the book would be okay. My understanding is that my doing so is largely a courtesy, right? I should note that the book is eight chapters long, so two previously published bits--one of which is only half a chapter--is not excessive.

Haven't heard back from one yet, but I'm not terribly worried about it.

Got an email from the second. This is Big Fancy Journal, and they accepted my article almost two years ago, but it's not in the pipeline yet. Editor writes (very nicely) that ze could push publication ahead so that it'll beat the book, but is there a point? Maybe I should withdraw the article with a note in the book about how it was going to be published in BFJ but would have appeared too close to the book for that to be worthwhile?

I see where ze's coming from, but...I really want to publish in this journal. Of course, it's a nice line on the CV. But more importantly, I think that it will reach a much wider audience--not to mention being available through JStor, Ebsco, etc.--through the journal than through the book.

The article is not identical to the chapter, by the way. It's about half as long and, while the argument is similar, the emphasis is different. It was changed quite a bit from the original chapter in order to stand alone, and then even the original chapter was revised quite a bit for the book. Now, it's not an altogether different thing, and I couldn't make a strong argument that it contributes to the field in a substantially different way. But the journal did commit to publishing the article (right? I think? maybe?), and, well, see the point about being made available to a wider audience, above.

I haven't written back to the editor yet, but I'm wondering: What's the protocol here? Can I (politely, acknowledging that it's ultimately up to the editor) indicate that I'd really prefer to have the article published in BFJ anyway? Or would that be out of line/simply not done? It's a bummer to be sure.... I was pretty psyched about that acceptance (and have been waiting impatiently for publication, too!).

(Kittenfoot is fine. Updates to follow.)

Regular Blogging to Resume

Okay, I know that I've been pretty quiet here--not posting much, nor replying to your comments, nor commenting on anyone else's blogs. But the state of exception (holidays, MLA, boyfriend visiting) has come to an end, and as the ordinary routine returns, I expect I'll be appearing here more frequently.

To sum up my recent activities: After the MLA and the VGS rejection, TB came to Field Town for a week-long visit. He's just left, and it was rather a sadder parting than usual, because in a couple of days he'll be leaving for a long sojourn on the other side of the world. I'm hoping to make it out there in March and then again at the end of the semester, but it's an expensive flight and my life is currently too unsettled (i.e. will I have a job?) to plan things at all in advance.

So here I am, staring down the barrel of another semester (classes start tomorrow), and hoping that I'm not too many more job searches away from a livable life.

All right, fine: that was melodramatic. Life is livable. I'm just ready for a life lived in one place, with the person I want to be with, and the possibility of a family. Forgive me; I'm in a low place this morning.

And I have things to do. Doing concrete things is one reasonably reliable way of getting out of low places. Here's a list:

• look into airfares to Other Side of the World, estimate taxes, try to come up with a budget so that I can fly there twice
• buy a humidifier so that I don't wake up choking on the dryness of the air or drive myself crazy with itching
• prepare my classes
  
• groceries
• make granola for the week's breakfasts

I want this semester to be different. Last semester was such a haze of teaching and anxiety--as I knew it would be, of course. That was fine for the first semester, but I can't sustain that level of busyness. This semester will be different, in fact, in two important respects: 1) I only have 2 preps (albeit 4 classes) and 2) I only teach MWF. Now, MWF will be brutal, given the 4 classes, but since I did three classes MWF last semester I don't see how it'll be all that much harder, and the TuTh off will be a miracle. So, in light of this novelty, I have resolved the following (see, this is kind of a new year's post, too):

Teaching will not be the whole of my life. I will keep it in perspective. To that end, I hereby resolve to not be the very best possible teacher every single day. Because if I'm constantly trying to be the very very bestest, as I was last semester, I will be exhausted and every day that I'm not perfect will demoralize me. Moreover, my life will be unsatisfying and lopsided.

During MLA, I realized that I missed research. It was such a pleasure to talk about my dissertation during the interviews that I know I need to get back into it. I'm not going to have the time or resources for serious research this semester, but I have to get the book proposal out, and I need to revise the intro. I also need to prepare a job talk and a teaching demo--one of last month's phone interviews has yielded a campus visit, and I must get on that.

There. I feel better. The weepiness has subsided. Nothing like a list....

Faculty Retreat

In response to Undine's request in the comments, I will blog a little bit about the faculty retreat I attended yesterday. But first, here's my request to the whole world:

Please. Can we stop saying, "Think outside the box"? Please?

After 2.5 days of meeting-type activities, I think that I will throw something if those words are uttered in my presence again. My god. This has been the cliche-of-choice for years now; may it die? Please?

All right. PSA over.

The retreat, which took all day yesterday, was useful in two ways. First, it let me get to know a few more faculty members, which was nice. Second, it gave me more of a sense of how Field College* works and how it thinks about itself. Now, I know that a day of activities and exhortations probably doesn't constitute the "real" behind-the-scenes Field, but you can still learn a lot from the kind of rhetoric that an institution employs. (*This is not, of course, its real name. I call it that because we are in the middle of the fields out here. Just to be absolutely clear.)

So I won't say that it was a complete waste of time, by any means. But if I'd been teaching here for ten or five or even two years, I might have found it kind of pointless. It's just that, as a new person, I'm still gathering information, and even the boring and otherwise pointless activities serve a purpose.

That said, it was a pretty weird day. We met at a sort of nature park/preserve, and after some introductory presentations, we had an Activity. The Activity involved, fortunately, about 90 minutes of solitary walking around the park, which was quite enjoyable. We were also supposed to engage in some independent creative stuff while we were wandering, so I did some drawings; I'm not a great artist by any means, but I enjoy drawing, and I usually forget that it's something I enjoy, so it was a nice meditative kind of thing to do a few sketches.

After Activity Part One, we reconvened for a half-hour of talk about how to best actualize (a word I loathe) the religious mission of the college. This was fairly brutal, because the person running the conversation seemed a little uncertain of how to lead the discussion. In fact, it reminded me of the less good discussion sections I've run as a TA: lots of difficult and poorly explained questions, which the leader started answering almost immediately after asking them, and no one else saying anything (because we didn't really understand what was going on).

We then broke up for an overly-air-conditioned lunch. The theme for the week could be "freezing your ass off in the middle of summer." Digression: What's up with that? I worked in an office once, in a VERY hot part of the country, where I had to bring sweaters and a space-heater to work in July. I weep for the planet.

Anyway. Lunch over, we were split up into pairs to talk about what we did on our walks. Then we were divided up into different, larger groups, again to share what we did on our walks. Then we all came together as a group, and each small group reported on what we'd "learned." Um. I didn't find this so useful. I mean, it was nice to talk to a couple of other people in a structured yet informal way, but the activity as a whole was supposed to teach us something about collaborative learning, and I'm not sure that it was successful. But it was a good effort, and relatively painless, so okay. Better than just listening to talks about budgeting or whatever.

Then there was a little talk about, I dunno, something to do with student learning, but I was tired and bored at that point and didn't pay much attention.

So that was the day in outline. Here are some of my thoughts.

One of the things that was talked about in the first session was the utility of a liberal arts education. Nationally, as we all know, there is a certain amount of skepticism about how useful or important a liberal arts education might be. So this one person gave a couple of examples of how Field College students used what they'd learned in school out in the world: a student who had studied psychology volunteered in a counseling center, and a sports team captain used what she had learned in a management course.

Fine and good. But. Doesn't this exactly not answer the question of how/why a liberal arts education is important? By hearkening to professional applicability, you're essentially arguing for a more vocational-style approach to education: Take this course because it will serve you in a directly applicable practical context outside of college. But when people argue that humanities courses are irrelevant, it's precisely because they don't have that kind of obvious, direct applicability. You can't easily measure the positive outcomes of these courses--that they help to develop a more complete human being, or influence the culture in which we live.

A liberal arts education is important because human beings are more than economic or professional animals. Our world is not simply our jobs. We live in a culture and a society, and developing our knowledge of and connection to that culture, as well as the skills to critique and try to shape it, is essential. It's interesting to me that complaints about the pointlessness of most college courses circulate at the same time as so many people seem to deplore the supposed degradation of our culture, when a solid liberal arts (and especially humanities, to let my allegiances show) education seems to be one of the most reliable ways of learning to observe our culture critically and actively decide what kind of participation one wants to have in it.

So that rankled, a bit. I feel that I should note that the person making these arguments was not a faculty member, but someone from career services, so she was probably approaching the question from a different angle. But still, as a literature person, I felt a little put off by what she was saying, because I can't think of such transparent applications of my own courses to the world at large (other than comp, of course).

Well, regardless, it's over, and now there are just a few more meetings and that kind of thing before the real fun begins!

Adjusting

Okay. So I'm going to be open-minded. There will be things to like here, right? There are good things about every place. Right?

Here's the deal: My apartment is pleasant, light, quiet, and consoling. Everyone I've met is nothing but friendly. But the town...oh, the town. Field Town, I am disappointed in you.

What I'm realizing (in the 3 days that I've been here) is that there are certain things that I like to have nearby. Near enough to walk to, ideally. Or to bike to--but there's no bike shop in town, so even if there were these things in bikeable range, I wouldn't be able to get to them. These are the things that I like to the point of needing:

1. a yoga studio (or, at worst, a gym with yoga classes)
2. a decent grocery store or farmers' market
3. a bookstore (other than the campus bookstore, which only sells course books)
4. multiple restaurants
5. a pleasant place to have a drink
6. a nice cafe

There's a good-looking coffee shop not too far from me, so we've got #6 covered. But 1-5? Not so much. Not at all, actually. The only drugstore/general-store nearby is a CVS. The only grocery store is a major chain with no organic yogurt or vegetables and a sorry selection of cheeses. Main Street is littered with empty buildings. All of this--well, it depresses me. I'm seriously considering starting to make my own yogurt and cheese--but I need to take care not to get too ambitious, given the workload that's about to fall upon me.

It's a shame.

Last night, making dinner, I suddenly felt sad. More than that: I felt afraid. What if this was all a mistake? I wondered. What the hell, in fact, was I thinking? Moving all the way out here, away from everyone I care about and the lifestyle I'm used to (and love), for a short-term, middlingly-paid job that I'm not actually sure yet that I'll like? Am I insane? Is everyone secretly thinking, "Wow, that j, she sure made a nutty decision there"?

Then, of course, I thought about how many of my friends have done this exact same thing, for the same stakes and with all the same discomforts (some in far, far worse places), and I felt a little better.

--Sort of. Because just how bizarre is this profession, that we expect to have to live far away from our families, friends, and partners, going through exhausting moves year after year, often postponing having children, just in the hopes of one day being able to settle in approximately the part of the continent that we'd prefer? Or in the hopes of being able to settle somewhere, period?

I know that this is an old subject, and I don't have anything new to add; nor can I imagine a plausible solution. I've thought about this a lot before, too. But living it--well, it adds a certain reality to the madness. I know that I'll get used to this place, and will probably like it fine before the year is out. (Maybe I'll break down and get a car--surely all the things I want are within half an hour of here. And I used to walk half an hour to yoga, so what's the difference? Other than the fossil fuel consumption, of course.) Right now, though, it just seems crazy.