Thoughts, submitted by Compound Cal

Fast approaching 60 years of age, I'm a trailing spouse who has a mixture of tenured, t-t, visiting, and part-time positions in a 30+ year career. Still like/love the classroom for the handful of students willing to take a chance, open their brains, and get after it.

But my current 3 year position is a crush of 80 freshman every term. Nothing but the same intro class over and over, some long days, and an amount of grading I didn't even do as a young man.

I've finished year one but have told the chair I can't come back and do another one. Because of this grumpiness and my age, the powers that be have tried to lure me back with a reduction of teaching from 4 to 2 sections per semester in exchange for a bunch of nebulous administrative work - assisting a terrific and interesting director. It's lousy money, 70% of what I used to make in my 30s at a far better school, but it's the only job I have in front of me.

I've decided I can't do another year of the straight 4/4 load of freshmen. But I fear - honestly - that my intractability will make it hard to work in administration FOR someone else. In all of my previous administrative work, I was in charge. I assessed the program, set a plan, organized the resources, found the money, and followed through.

This would not be that. This might include pushing a cart of bagels across campus, making some photocopies, and occasionally doing a little twirl in the ring on a topic with which I have experience.

There is no grand nest egg, though my spouse still works and could support us - I might have to switch to the lesser quality gluten free cookies. I don't have any appreciable other skills - my golf game has gone to shit after a surprising and long winter.

I sometimes feel like I'm staring at the retirement finishing line - oh so close - but with not enough steam to get to it. I'd like to do 4-6 more years of good work. But this opportunity - my only at this point - doesn't feel like it.

--Compound Cal

'A Conversation with Bill Gates' live at Harvard's Science Center

His College Knew of His Despair. His Parents Didn’t, Until It Was Too Late. [nytimes]

The flava:
In the days after her son Graham hanged himself in his dormitory room at Hamilton College, Gina Burton went about settling his affairs in a blur of efficiency, her grief tinged with a nagging sense that something did not add up.

She fielded requests and sympathy notes from the college, promising the dean of students a copy of his obituary “so you can see how special Hamilton was to him.” This was why his suicide “makes no sense,” she added in a puzzled aside. The next day, Ms. Burton accepted condolences from the college president, and assured him “how right a choice Hamilton was” for her son.

But two weeks later, she read her son’s journal and everything changed. Mr. Burton, a sophomore, wrote that he was flunking three of his four classes and called himself a “failure with no life prospects.” He had struggled to sleep, missed classes, turned in assignments late. The college had known of his difficulty, he wrote, but had been slow to offer help and understanding.

The article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/12/us/college-student-suicide-hamilton.html

recycling test questions

"We represent a number of TCU students who were recently suspended from the University on allegations of 'academic misconduct' after using Quizlet — a public online study guide used by millions of students worldwide. While preparing for an exam, the students located and studied previously posted materials readily available on Quizlet — not knowing these items would be on the exam. Some students were even directed to these materials by TCU employed tutors. As it turned out, the professor responsible for the exam recycled test questions from past semesters. The 'cheating' accusations stem from the professor's belief that students should notify professors if they recognize exam questions. The knee-jerk suspensions have far-reaching and lasting implications for the students involved. The sanctions are being vigorously appealed.  In this modern day, it is incumbent for Universities to adapt to changes in technology and for professors to change their tests. It is our sincerest hope that after TCU officials review the cases in full, cooler heads will prevail and the sanctions will be reversed."
--Letty Martinez, Fort Worth lawyer

To what extent did your schooling interfere with your education? By Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno

I got interested in science when I was in Kindergarten. It wasn’t until 11th grade that I would finally get science teachers who knew more science than I did. During those long years in between, the main message I got from my teachers was “SHUT UP!” I still felt obliged to tell my 8th grade teacher that Saturn was the one with the rings.

In 9th grade, an incompetent guidance counselor told me, “Girls take typing. Boys take wood shop!”  Being unable to type was a bad disadvantage in college. During this same meeting with this guidance counselor, I was not allowed to take Algebra I, the rationale for this given as “That’s too much math.” It sure made things interesting in Algebra II the next year. My high-school physics teacher was an affable, inconsequential, old bit of fluff who gave us organized, well-prepared lectures on physics all of twice during the entire school year. He didn’t cover electricity at all. It put me at a disadvantage in calculus-based physics as a first-year undergraduate.

In college, I was not allowed to take public speaking for credit, even though I was at a university with famous theatre and film departments. My undergraduate education was badly marred by institutional conflict between the astronomy and the physics departments, who had been merged “in a shotgun marriage no one wanted,” as my undergraduate advisor told me. He hadn’t done research in 20 years, and taught how to develop photographic plates, which had been obsolete about that long. The words “electronic imaging” never passed his lips, although there was a revolution in it happening exactly then.

It is nice to know that my students can’t be fouled up by some of the things I struggled with. They all take typing (more properly, keyboarding) quite young, and public speaking is a common undergrad general-ed course now. There are still other problems, though. To what extent did your schooling interfere with your education?

–-Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno

Editorial: Keep the final exams in finals week [pittnews.com]

The flava:
In spite of tradition and the week’s name itself, a substantial number of professors decide to conclude their courses during the 15th week of instruction, requiring students to take exams, submit final work and catch up on content before the two-day reading period for finals even begins. But while educators and administrators might think they’re doing us a favor by giving us our exams early, they have exactly the opposite effect.

The article:
https://pittnews.com/article/131049/opinions/editorial-keep-the-final-exams-in-finals-week/

Monday Magic in April

Can you say something positive about your school, or about higher education somewhere in the world?

Zooze Newwz

This college professor gives her students extra credit for going on dates

"I Don't Know How Professors Teach Without Fighter-Pilot Experience"

Did I Choose the Wrong College?

Dartmouth College Launches $3 Billion Capital Campaign
(aka "Brother, can you spare a dime?")

"Volunteer adjuncts?" [from Frankie Bow]

The Southern reports that SIU Carbondale's Associate Dean for Budget, Personnel, and Research is asking department chairs to recruit alumni willing to serve as zero-time adjuncts. 

These blanket zero-time adjunct graduate faculty appointments are for 3-year periods, and can be renewed. While specific duties of alumni adjuncts will likely vary across academic units, examples include service on graduate student thesis committees, teaching specific graduate or undergraduate lectures in one’s area of expertise, service on departmental or university committees, and collaborations on grant proposals and research projects.

(In an amusing coincidence, the very next article down in The Southern announces that SIU Carbondale has hired a new associate chancellor for enrollment management. Presumably not on a volunteer basis.)

--Frankie

How Liberty University Built a Billion-Dollar Empire Online [nytimes]

“When I was there, at faculty meetings the commentary was that online was funding the school, while they were trying to just break even on the residential side.  It was understood that on the online side, they were making a killing.”
        --Chris Gaumer, Liberty University graduate and former professor of English

Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/magazine/how-liberty-university-built-a-billion-dollar-empire-online.html