June 30th Rant, from TubaPlayingProf

It's June 30th!

Time for the annual flood of emails from the various offices of the admin state with huge announcements that will most likely change the way we operate here at Ambitious State—or at the

very least that will introduce several new admin positions and staff and/or cost the school huge amounts of money.

Our ten-month contract ends today.

So do I need to detail to you the reasons I have come to dread emails that arrive on June 30th? Especially after four pm? Oh NO: this year it falls on a Friday!

Not much of a rant, I know.  I hope your inbox is empty!

--TubaPlayingProf

(potentially) free patriotic poster for July 4

The tradition continues.

We're giving away a poster (see the image).  Mint condition.  Frame not included. It's been hanging in the climate-controlled barn next to the pasture for 29 years.  It does not smell like manure or hay.

You may wish to imagine that Bill the Cat should run for U.S. President (or replace your college's president). At any rate, this is the genuine Reagan-era poster advocating for "Bill the Cat for President."

Just guess what you think will be the highest number in the July 8 Lotto Texas drawing.  (For example, on March 25, the highest number was 48.)  You'll receive the poster FREE if your guess is the closest to the actual highest number in the drawing on July 8.  Just put your guess in the comments below.

Terms and conditions may apply.  For example, I reserve the right to void this whole thing if there's a tie between two people, so just don't guess what someone else guessed.  Also, this is only open to people/personas/avatars who clearly have previously posted or commented in one of the RYS progeny blogs. And if someone outside the U.S. wins, this poster is getting shipped to your best friend in the states.

Let the games begin!  Or, alternatively, you may choose not to participate if you want to make the artist feel bad--or if you believe that this is less meaningful than the great "Student Success" program you're organizing for next month's conference.  You have choices.

Sincerely,
Your Real Gosh-darned Moderator

P.s.  Experts predict that you are 1,725 times more likely to win this poster than to win a gift card from Pearson.

Power Causes Brain Damage (in administrators?)

How leaders lose mental capacities—most notably for reading other people—that were essential to their rise:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/power-causes-brain-damage/528711/

By Jerry Useem

Eleven sketches inspired by the university mental health crisis [From The Guardian]

The number of students dropping out from degree courses due to mental illness has increased significantly in recent years.

Illustrator and student Ella Baron captures the experiences of 11 undergraduates.

Data shows record 1,180 students who experienced mental ill health left courses early in 2014-15, up 210% from 2009-10.

"'You’re going to feel like you’re drowning and if you’re not then you’re doing it wrong.' That’s what my tutor says to her undergraduates at the beginning of their degree."

"Sometimes I feel small, like only the very smallest piece of a Russian doll. The outer shells are always smiling, even if I’m not."

"We were brought up breathing the internet. Why go to the library when all the articles are online? Who wants to go clubbing when Tinder can find you the perfect one-night stand? Who even needs real friends?"

Not an uplifting story. [from Frankie Bow]

From Inside Higher Ed:

By Nick Roll   
June 26, 2017

When Morgan King emailed her professor about missing class, it wasn’t a typical request for an excused absence. King, a single mother and University of Tennessee student, couldn’t find child care June 14 and emailed her professor, Sally Hunter, the next day to explain why she missed class, The Knoxville News Sentinel reported.

In Hunter’s response, which King shared on Twitter, she not only invited King to bring her child to class if need be, but offered to hold her while lecturing so that King could take notes and pay attention.

“In the future, if you are having trouble finding someone to watch Korbyn, feel free to just bring her with you to class. I would be absolutely delighted to hold her while I teach, so that you can still pay attention to the class and take notes,” Hunter wrote.

King's tweet has since garnered nearly 5,000 retweets, one of which was by University of Tennessee Chancellor Beverly Davenport.

---

This is not an uplifting story. This is administrators not providing childcare to students who need it,
who are all too happy to let professors pick up the slack and provide free childcare on top of all their other duties.

I let students bring their kids to class, because our institution doesn't provide childcare either. But I'm not going to pretend it's wonderful and awesome. It's not. It's us doing the best we can in the face of administrative indifference.

Frankie

Speedy Rant, from Wombat of the Copier

If you fucking hate students - I don't mean if you get frustrated - I don't mean if you have your daily WTF moments - hell, I don't even mean if you have HOURLY wtf moments - I mean if you REALLY fuckin' hate them, then too bad you suck at chem too bad to land an industry job, but go get a real estate license or something and get the fuck out of here.

Actual footage of my summer session colleagues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U

--WotC

MEET A.D. CARSON, UVA’S PROFESSOR OF HIP-HOP [from UVA Today]

The flava:

A.D. Carson read his first poetry book as a fourth-grader in central Illinois, when he asked his teacher
if he could make his writing assignment rhyme.

Decades later, Carson – now a University of Virginia professor of hip-hop and a prolific rapper – still loves writing rhymes.

The rest:
https://news.virginia.edu/content/meet-ad-carson-uvas-professor-hip-hop

K A T I E I S G E T T I N G M A R R I E D ! ! ! ! !

Just a tidbit sent to me by an old CM pal.

Katie from Kalamazoo is marrying a real live boy a month from today. (I've seen the gift registry, and I won't tell you how. But I will show you a sample below.) Any oldtimers will remember (but still not understand) the incredibly odd relationship she had with the blogs.

But, I want to say this as someone happily married for many years, good for her. Finding love is one of the grandest steps along the path. Finding love, building it, sustaining it, it is all good for the soul.

I wish her the best.

XOXO
Fab

What I Learned at Today's Student Success Webinar, by Frankie Bow

1) Students are our customers. You don't go into a store and expect the cashier to tell you what to do. Similarly, who are we to tell students what to do?

1a) We need to take our students in hand and teach them time management. You know, the way
cashiers do.

2) Some students report dropping out because of boredom or lack of motivation. Therefore it's our responsibility to be more "entertaining" and "inspirational." Other reasons students gave for dropping out included procrastination, poor sleeping habits, relationship issues, death in the family, addiction, and partying. These can all be fixed if we are "engaging" enough. We must not make lame excuses like "but I'm not a trained addiction counselor." Anything short of taking full responsibility for students' progress is tantamount to blaming the students, and we must never blame the students.

3) Many students report dropping out due to financial issues. For some reason this point was passed over quickly and without discussion.

4) Millennials want meaning, not money or job security.

5) Some majors "need to go" because they don't lead to those high-paying and stable careers that millennials apparently don't care about. (Also, "everyone knows" which majors should be eliminated: The ones that sound old-fashioned and don't have "digital" in the name.)

6) Students need to find their passion. We don't have the right to discourage students from following their passion.

6b) But if they major in something impractical and end up broke and indebted that's our fault.

7) The presenter thinks we're idiots. "Look up your institution's graduation rate on College Navigator. Are you shocked your graduation rate is so low?" Um, no, folks like you have been beating us up about our (entirely predictable) graduation rate for years.

The miserable icing on this cake of despair? The above gems were greeted with coos of appreciation
and mutterings of "we really need to get the faculty involved in this conversation." [1]

Unfortunately, it's too early to start drinking. So I'm going to go look at guinea pigs in costumes instead.

Frankie

[1] Of course there won't actually be a conversation. If there were, the faculty would trot out with the same old hidebound and unfashionable ideas we're always banging on about: offering the classes students need to graduate, reducing class size, hiring full-time faculty and paying them a living wage, and providing childcare. BO-ring!

Weekend Thirsty

What's your favorite inspirational movie (about education)?

dread

Sometimes, at 3:00 a.m., I awaken from a nightmare about ___________.

A)  Moodle
B)  Canvas
C)  Blackboard
D)  D2L
E)  Google Classroom
F)  Sakai
G)  OpenSIS
H)  the old mimeograph machine
I)  my old Underwood upright typewriter
J)  Schoology
K)  all of the above
L)  other

Wombat of the Copier mulls over Attention-Seeking Behavior

Does anyone else use strategies they learned from the Dog Whisperer to deal with colleagues?

--WotC

acting

This past year, I watched a Louis C.K. stand-up routine that had been recorded a few years ago.  I also watched the entire Horace and Pete series that he created.  I found the latter to be somehow beautiful and meaningful.  The former, though, made me laugh not once, smile not once; it seemed like a bunch of immature and insulting potty jokes.  One was more about scatology, and the other more about eschatology.

Very same artist, though.

I look back and wonder whether or not I have presented analogous personas to my students over the years.  There were times when I felt like I needed to appease the students, pander to them, to varying extents.  I had to earn a living--perhaps like Louis C.K. did.  I wonder if he felt like he needed to take a shower after doing such shows.  Did he feel the same regret that I did?

I hope I never again have to do that.  I want to be better, authentic.  Is it possible to be authentic?  Is it possible to be inauthentic?

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be," as one of Vonnegut's characters said.

And Prince said, "Don't talk down to your audience.  That way they can grow with you....  You have to challenge them....  You're going to get the audience you deserve."  

Yet Prince, it now seems, was pretending.  He was telling the world not to use drugs, telling the world that he didn't use drugs.  Maybe it was acceptable and good, because he was pretending to be someone "better" than he was?

Not one of us walks around naked, speaking Truth all the time, writing Truth all the time, being Elegant all the time, do we?

I just wonder what I'm supposed to do.

Big Thirsty: What are they waiting for?

[If this were any other day of the week, I'd borrow Hiram's schtick and be baffled, but since it's Thursday, I'm presenting this story in thirsty form.]

I began a new summer-term online class on Monday. Regular deadlines for the class fall on Monday and Thursday, and there was one task due on Monday: introduce yourself on the Discussion Board by answering a series of easy (I think) questions: where did you grow up and what are you up to these days?, what's your major (crucial for group formation)?, what might you do/are you doing in/with that field?, what do you think are you major strengths and weaknesses as a writer? Nothing complicated, and students can email me directly with the answers to any questions they don't want to answer in a public forum. Like all Discussion Board posts, this one earns participation credit (and it should be a lot easier and quicker to complete than most posts worth the same number of points).

So now it's Thursday. I sent a whole-class thank-you for the introductions I'd received (and reminder to complete the introduction if they hadn't yet done so) early Tuesday morning, and I'm about to send another reminder, about the reading and a couple of self-tests due today, and about the introductions. Because, while 75% of the students currently enrolled in the class have completed the assignment (some considerably more thoroughly than others, but good enough; I only had to email one student to ask "thanks for the other information, but what is your major?"), 25% have not.

And I'm left wondering:

Q. What are they waiting for?

Please offer your hypotheses -- plausible, implausible, or anywhere in between -- in the comments below.

Optimistic Monday Magic?

If you could wave a magic wand and make today the ideal day at your school, what would be most noticeably different from last week?

Interesting link, submitted anonymously from a British person

Hello to Zooze,

Today's paper has a story about self-esteem.... As a Brit, it's not something often discussed, at least for my generation.

I wonder what other visitors to the pasture would make of it...

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jun/03/quasi-religious-great-self-esteem-con

Big Thirsty at 10:20 p.m.

Are you an academic who has taken drugs to keep up with work?

There is concern about the pressures faced by professors as one in five take drugs to help them with work, according to a Cambridge academic. 

Dr Hannah Critchlow, a neuroscientist, said that academics were increasingly using medication which was meant for Alzheimer’s patients, narcoleptics or children with ADHD.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/30/academic-drugs-keep-up-with-work