It IS Just Me, Isn’t It?

File this story under: wildly obscure things I probably shouldn’t blog about—that NO ONE else would blog about, but which are unique to only me; as no one else seems to struggle with basic daily tasks like I do—which makes me who I am today and in order to understand me, you have to understand this.

If there’s one thing at my job that bothers me, it’s that when the students are back, there’s nary an available restroom to be found. There are five bathrooms I know of in my immediate vicinity, and like as not, they’ll all be occupied when I decide that the third cup of coffee has put me over the edge. One will have students lining out the door, and one will have a single student crying hysterically after a test, and two will have staff members racing each other/ cutting each other off for the pleasure of being there first, and then there’s the last one. The forgotten one. The one that’s desperately in need of a remodel, but again, everyone has forgotten it exists. I invariably go to this one each day, but since it’s the furthest from me, I will check all of the rest (sometimes I luck out) before finally making my way there.

Be afraid. Very afraid. Photo Source

Weekend Wrap-Up: May Day-ish

Ah… another week gone by, and this time I’m actually going to have a weekend wrap-up! May is always a crazy whirlwind of activity (how many field trips and class projects can one school district throw at a family? I’ll let you know once the month is over, but we are standing at four and three, respectively, for the next two weeks), and I am usually rather impressed with myself if I can MOSTLY hold things together through the university’s commencement ceremonies and until the boys get out of school.

Photo Source

J and I actually had the time and the energy to have a date night last night. A date night! With a bottle of wine and things that the boys would never agree to eat (like duck. DUCK!). It was weird to be sitting down, eating together, and talking. About things that weren’t “Which one of us is going to the school lunch thing on Tuesday?” and “What time does he need to be dropped off for the Six Flags trip?”

Ah, the glamorous life of parenthood. Why didn’t the nurses warn us of this crap before we left the childbirth prep class? Why don’t they teach classes on logistics and event planning the way they do for epidurals?

While on our date night, we discussed the wild success that The Bloggess has had on her book tour (seriously, buy this book!) and J, of course, always wonders how her husband (Victor) feels about all of this excitement surrounding his wife, and then I mentioned that I planned to buy him a TEAM VICTOR shirt, and then J said the most astounding thing I’ve heard him say in our marriage…

That is, when you compare idiosyncrasies between him and myself, it becomes increasingly apparent that J is actually The Bloggess type in our relationship, and I’m more like Victor.

Say what? I have always felt that I’m the more eccentric one.

And then he laid out his case… about how I’m more the one to be silent and listen in social situations, and he’s more likely the one who says something wildly off topic and inappropriate and quirky… about how he’s the one who randomly buys things (this is true—he’s on this glasses thing—we don’t need more glasses, but he thinks he must buy them if they’re on clearance, and then we’re trying to find a place to put these things—like Waterford pilsner glass sets that he picks up for $17)… about how he’s the one with the wild imagination and no filter on his mouth…

I realized he’s right. As much as I hate to admit it, I am downright boring when it compares to J. So, why is it that I have the blog and he doesn’t? When I asked him this, he said that I just need to spend some more time writing about him. Something in a cross between “Shit my husband says,” and “Let me tell you about all of the times he’s scared the shit out of me by making the children’s toys—and other inanimate objects—‘speak’ to me when I least expect it. Like when I’m asleep.

And this is why I will never get bored in our marriage. Since the first night I met him, he’s had a thing for elaborately rigging up happy meal toys to say foul-mouthed things.

Okay, I’m done allowing J to hijack this post, so let’s get down to business! This is what I wrote when I wasn’t here:

I talked about how Don Draper’s example can save you thousands in couple’s therapy, if you just do the opposite of what he does.

On a more serious note, I talked about a one-sentence long piece of legislation in our state that makes me a bit less proud to live in Missouri. Apparently, someone forwarded it to Ellen’s show!

Also, I wrote a 6000 word piece of fiction, and submitted it to a contest here! Wish me luck (and if you write, enter it!).

What was going on elsewhere:

Alex from Late Enough shares her hatred of birds. I shared my hatred of birds with her. We realize that birds are the scourge of the earth.

Sunday Morning has broadcast the most accurate and balanced description of student loan and tuition problems that I have seen. Check it out—it shows all sides.

The Bloggess makes mention of the book signing snafu that happened directly in front of Jesse (wail of grief here!) when she was at the signing in Dallas. More on this to come!

Steffie (don’t call her that!) relates the best text message conversation I’ve ever heard.

What was I nattering on about last year?

I wrote the first ever Imperfect Mothers post, in honor of Earth Day, no less. It is one of my highest viewed posts, ever. If you haven't read it, you need to. Because it will make you a good parent AND save Mother Earth!

In Love…

Photo Source

I say this again and again, but I don’t blog about my work. It’s not right (or legal) to discuss everything I do in my job, because a lot of it involves sensitive information about students. Except that I, sometimes time and again, break this rule—and speak of general things.

I want to tell you some very general things today, as they relate to why I do what I do.

I have always been of the opinion that if you find a career where you feel valued, listened to, and free to pursue your talents and learning, you have found the perfect place. I know that many of us do not have this luxury (especially today), and I know that there have been plenty of places where I’ve worked in the past that did not provide this to me. That being said, I have had a couple of places that did—and I’m in one of them right now.

Yes, I do know how lucky I am. And while you may think I’m crazy, it is completely possible to be in love with your job.

When you work at a place that isn’t your dream job, you can have fun. You can like your co-workers. You can make lots of money. You can do your job well and be recognized for your dedication and effort. Still, if you feel as if any part of the three things I mentioned above are missing, my bet is there’s (at least a small) part of you that is left unfulfilled.

I’ve known for years and years that academia is the life for me. I’ve worked in corporations and I’ve worked in retail, and I’ve even worked in government jobs, but I was left slightly unfulfilled. In academia I am home. I understand the premise and the nature of higher education, and it is something I believe strongly in.

Some of it is logistical—the processes and flow of the work suit me. The new issues and challenges that present themselves to me make my job interesting. I enjoy supporting others and watching them as they (or a program) develops.

Some of it speaks to my inner rebel—I would never do well in a place that dictates to me what nail polish I can wear, how ‘closed’ my shoes must be, or what the texture of my pants should feel like. I would chafe under that level of oversight in no time flat. I know that others would not feel the same.

And the biggest part of my job speaks to my talents, and the talents I want to develop. Never underestimate the power of a boss who says, “That’s an interesting idea. I want you to pursue that! I think you can really make that happen. I know you’ll do a good job!”

It can make anyone’s heart sing.

This week I’ve been participating in some training sessions that help you identify your strengths and use them to your benefit at work. I always enter these things a tad bit skeptical (SO glass half empty here), but for the first time in my life, I’ve found a diagnostic test and materials that actually seem to get it. To work. It has put words to things I’ve thought about myself but could never articulate. It’s helped explain why I love my job the way I do.

It’s also told me—this very general test—exactly which career would be best for me and it happens to be the exact one I am in currently. That’s some nice external validation right there.

I love to research. I follow tangential things and store them away for later, when they might come in handy. I love to learn. I feel as if I can never learn enough. I love to help others learn. I can put myself in other peoples’ shoes, and feel what they may be feeling. I can spend hours upon hours thinking. I love to write. These are all of the things that this training has reinforced for me.

These are the things I want for everyone. No, you might not have (or even want) my talents. That’s not what I am talking about. I want everyone to feel fulfilled. To feel that their best talents and strengths are being put to use, each and every day. To feel as if they are contributing to something important and worthwhile. It can take form in a myriad of ways, but I do think it is possible to achieve that—if only we made this a priority as a society.

How do we, as a society, as a culture, make this happen? I don’t know. I don’t have the exact answer for that. I know someone out there with talents a bit different than mine may have some very good ideas. I do wish we could talk about this further. Can you imagine a world where we talked about innate talents and seeking fulfillment instead of who works harder (stay at home moms or working moms) and who makes more (men or women) and who has a better portfolio? Can you imagine a world where we could openly tell someone what one of our weaknesses may be, but feel comfortable in the fact that where we may have a weakness, another may have strength, and when we work together we both find fulfillment?

I can see this. John Dewey saw this over 100 year ago. And I want to help others, today, see this as well.

This post was written for Mama Kat’s #5 prompt: What do you love most about your job?

The University: What I Tell You as a Teacher, and What I Don't

Dear Students:

Oftentimes, I think my students are frustrated with me. Perhaps you can feel the underpinnings of my course, but not knowing exactly what I am after, you find yourself frustrated and somewhat unsettled.

You see, I have learning objectives that I list in the syllabus, and then I have learning objectives that only reside in my head. I have grading rubrics that I share with you, and then I have grading rubrics (that grade me, and not them, actually) that I do not share with you. I pick readings because I find some of them to be spot on, and then I find others to be completely wrong. I pick some that are good, and then again pick some that are crap. I want to see what you think about them—I want to see if you pick up on this as well.

Either I’m an exceptionally nefarious individual who over thinks just about everything (this is entirely plausible) or I am NOT the only teacher that does this. I think it’s the latter.

In the classes that I teach on a regular basis (which are graduate seminars, and one is directly related to the thesis), I am often teaching writing. Not the grammar and syntax of writing, but the style, the components, the marrying of research question to theory, the justification of analysis, the ways in which we can still hook an audience in a scholarly piece of writing.

Except, these are not really the goals of the specific course content. The goal of the thesis seminar is to successfully craft your thesis proposal and learn about the thesis process. The goal of the theory course I teach is to introduce students to theories applicable to mass communication that reside in other disciplines. Exceptional writing is, however, the ultimate goal of any individual who is working to master the literature (hence, the term: master’s degree), and is fledging their scholarly writing wings.

You can do damn near anything if you can write well. I want you to be a better writer.

Picture by ninniane

So, in one class, I write about the research proposal in the syllabus, and give three more documents to assist you. I then lead three different discussions about the process. This may sound like a lot, but I do not tell you everything. I do not answer all of the questions you may have. I do not prescribe to you how I want theory introduced, or how to pick the best question. I want to see what you produce in the first draft (the research proposal you write is written in stages, after all). I want to know what I can teach you.

You may think the paper is about showing you are invested in the course content, understand what we are basically talking about, can do basic research in the field, and cite correctly. My goals for the paper is actually about reading between the lines of the literature, picking the question no one has asked yet, and taking a (small) risk with theory.

So you get this draft back, and you are astounded at the feedback you receive from me (my evals say I give the most paper feedback you have ever encountered). I often write in excess of twenty comments on a ten page paper, and then fill up the majority of another page with additional feedback. I know that sometimes you read that feedback and think to yourself, “But she didn’t tell me this!” You’re right, I didn’t. I wanted to talk to you about this; not TELL you.

You see, I want you to screw up in your papers.  I want to brainstorm with you about when to use “as cited in” and when to go directly to the source. I want to talk to you about how you describe the background of your theoretical underpinnings, and how you tell your readers why your question is the best damn question to be asked since the days of the Ancient Greeks. I want to have hard conversations—and ‘conversations’ is the key term here—instead of giving you a bland, one-size-fits-all to do list.

Because writing, in my classes, is this biggest thing I can teach you. From the beginning of the process, to the end-- encompassing everything from getting the right sources to who should be listed as first author and second—I want to guide you through the process of academic writing, and make you the best writer you can be.

I hope you remember this about me during finals week, when you are trying to finish up that research proposal. I hope you think about this when you wonder exactly what it is another instructor of yours is looking for in their class. It’s not always about what is listed in the syllabus. Sometimes what is not listed is more important than what is.

The University: Warping Young Minds

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We’ve discussed the money. It’s time to talk about what you can expect for the money. We know that the majority of what a university spends is on instruction, so let’s start with the faculty. There are many myths about faculty. Since they are an important pieces of any university (I like to think the academic support and student services staff are pretty freaking important, too), I want to tackle some misconceptions head on.

Back in 2009 CNN listed College Professor as the 3^rd best job in America. With one quick blurb, CNN stated faculty get to choose what they do, when they do it, and that they get perks. While this description was true, it wasn’t exactly accurate.

It’s pretty damn hard to get a job in academia, by the way. You’ve been forewarned. Grad students who write for the Chronicle of Higher Education lament on this fact all the time.

Let’s define some parameters. We’re not going to talk about adjunct or community college faculty, or even professional teaching faculty. These individuals focus first and foremost on teaching, and the rates of pay and teaching loads can be as diverse as the schools they work for. In my area, the average adjunct makes about $3000 per class; cobbling together a living from that rate, one class at a time, is enough to give anyone an ulcer. Community college and teaching faculty can make good money, but carry course loads anywhere from 3/3 (this means how many classes they teach each semester—fall and spring) to 5/5. Most of them also teach in the summer, either as part of their teaching contract, or in the hopes of making some extra cash (called overload).

Teaching, FYI, is more than showing up to class 3 hours a week for 15 weeks. It involves grading and prep and resolving student issues and meetings…

At research universities (many of your four years, and any school with a graduate program), the responsibilities are different.

Still, a faculty member’s first responsibility is teaching, right? The answer is no. The PhD is not a teaching degree; it’s a research degree. You’re expected to be an expert in your field when your chair (your faculty advisor) hoods you (part of commencement ceremonies) and declares you a peer. At a research university, a faculty member’s first responsibility is research—even a newly-minted junior faculty.

Teaching is secondary, and other responsibilities (committee service, university service, community service, advising, and participation in professional organizations) are usually crammed into remaining time throughout the week. Professors at research universities are supposed to produce research, attend conferences, publish scholarly articles, write books, and mentor graduate students who wish to do the same in the future. While everything mentioned above is considered in a faculty member’s tenure file, research takes the lead. Those in academia often refer to this in a negative way as “publish or perish,” meaning that it’s hard to prove you’re researching unless you’ve been able to actually publish that research, and in reputable journals.

What’s this tenure thing, anyway? Doesn’t it mean you can’t be fired?  Hardly! Tenure means that you cannot be dismissed from your job without just cause. Just cause can be anything from misconduct to a department shutting down. When a person is first hired as faculty on the tenure-track (Assistant Professor), they are given a short term contracts, which can be renewed if they’re coping well and the university has the funds to do so. Those contracts are separate from tenure. Tenure review (usually happens anywhere from the 4^th -8^th year on the job; I’ve mostly seen 6^th) means that your contract letters will cover a longer period. It also means that you can stay at the university. If you do not get tenure, you leave—usually within a year.

Receiving tenure means that your research and conduct (teaching, service, etc.) has been reviewed and found to be in very good standing. Tenure actually provides you with academic freedom—freedom to research your interests and disagree with your peers; freedom to voice an opinion not shared by your university’s administration.

Tenure is a multistage process where your file (dossier) is compiled (it can take a year for you to compile that mother) and reviewed by lots of people (both at the university and external to the university). It usually goes in this order: 1) department, 2) dean 3) provost, and 4) chancellor. Everyone has to be in agreement that you are worthy of keeping around. You can be shot down at any level. If they all approve, you can call yourself an Associate Professor.

Once you have tenure, you’ll go through promotion (continuance of tenure) to become a full Professor. Let’s not even start on what it takes to become a distinguished chair or endowed professor.

Most faculty are tenured, right? It’s not like they ever deny someone tenure. False and false. First off, tenure has been steadily declining since the 1970s. According to the American Association of University Professors, today, you can expect that less than 25% of your instructors in college are tenured or on the tenure-track. You can expect over 66% of your instructors to be part time or full time non-tenure track faculty.

As for being denied tenure, it happens, and more frequently than we like to think. There are some schools who have such a reputation for denying tenure (cough, Harvard, cough) that if you’re denied tenure it’s not a stigma on your career. For most faculty, it is a stigma, however, but one that can be overcome. You don’t actually perish if denied. There are appeals processes, and you can get a job elsewhere (as long as your performance wasn’t abysmal). There IS a nasty little secret that we should talk about: women are granted tenure less than men. The National Science Foundation found that women in the sciences who were married with children were 27% less likely to receive tenure than their male counterparts. These numbers are estimated to extend to all disciplines.

What other problems do faculty contend with? In no particular order: misconceptions that faculty members only work a few hours a day and never in the summer, problems of micro-niching (where faculty specialize in super-small area in order to increase research productivity and esteem), budget cuts to research agendas, plagiarism in students (we’ll talk more about this later), the idea that they are out of touch with the real world (Ivory Tower), and are in no way relevant to normal people, grade inflation, helicopter parents, increasing innovations in teaching and technology… the list goes on.

This is depressing! Why do we allow it to continue? It does have benefits! I know most people wouldn’t agree with me, but research IS important. No one doubts the benefits of Einstein’s work, or even the benefits of Maya Angelou’s. Research, in all fields, brings us new products, understandings, innovations, and even money. As I’ve said before, I’m a big believer that an exceptional teacher is one who is still learning, and I’m not alone. When we send our kids to college, we don’t want them to be taught by Luddites who’re still stuck in the mid-twentieth century. We don’t even want them to be taught by people on the cutting edge of what’s going on today. We expect our students to be taught by faculty who are on the bleeding edge of their fields—anticipating new trends and setting the stage for where we, as humanity, will go in the future. The system may not be perfect, and there are plenty of areas for improvement, but value remains. The goal is to make decisions about how we will go forward in academia based on knowledge, not myth.  

The University- Penny Pinching

This is the third posts regarding how a university works. You can read the first post to get some background, if you haven’t already, and in the second post we talked about where schools get (or don’t get) their money. Now that we’ve talked about what’s coming in, let’s talk about what goes out. This is your tax money (and perhaps the tuition you paid or will be paying). It’s good to understand what that money is doing. I’m of the opinion that it’s stretching a lot farther than you may think.

I want to start off by telling you that I get it-- I really do. College and graduate school is expensive—very expensive. I have the student loan debt to prove it. I also know that many people look at a college or university, and see giant buildings and well-manicured grounds. They see computers and professors in tweed jackets and events on campus and state of the art labs and the first thing they think is that these schools take those huge bags of money and make it rain.

So, where do universities really spend their money? It’s super easy to find this out for public schools, because it’s a matter of state government, and you have the right to look it up. In fact, Sunshine Law requires all government (schools included) bodies to open all meetings and records to the public. These things are published, and you could likely find this information at your local library or online (in Missouri we call it the Blue Book). Private schools are a bit trickier, but non-profits should disclose their records as well. In fact, any school of good reputation is going to want to tell the community how they spend their money.

Here’s two tables to show you the breakdown, one for publics and one for privates. The numbers come from National Center for Education Statistics, which tracks these kinds of things:

The main note to take away, at least in my mind: half (or more) of each school’s money goes into teaching, research, and hospitals. All of the staff (institutional, academic, and student), the dorms, the maintenance of the buildings, etc. falls within that other half (or less). The only place the university is really making it rain is in the classroom. And I think that everyone should expect this to be the case.

There are some differences between privates and publics, to be sure. If you’d like a better side-by-side comparison of money coming in and going out between the two types, I’ve found another nifty little infographic for you to look at. I’m a sucker for a good infographic.

But how much can it really cost to teach some college students? The answer is “a lot”. You have to pay for faculty. Instructional supplies. Teaching assistants. Books, computers, classroom technology, software licenses, etc. The list runs on and on. The big thing—that’s not all faculty salary. In fact, if you want to get rich (or just even want to have a job), go into the corporate world, not academia. You won’t get rich there.

What’s the big deal with research, anyways? Well, I’ll go into more detail about this when I talk about the job responsibilities of faculty members, but the quick answer is this: universities are supposed (even  mandated) to conduct research, and many people (myself included) think you can’t really teach if you’re not still learning yourself. Research gives us things to teach about, in addition to improving our lives.

Are those other services really that important? Yes. Especially if you expect someone to answer the phones, take out the trash, mow the grass, cook for the dining halls, and get the students’ financial aid posted against their accounts. As for my pet peeve—people complaining about the manicured grounds and wasteful spending on flowers and the like—show me one person who would want to send their kid to a school that didn’t have nice grounds. Show me a single person who says the only school they’ll send their child to is the one with no flowers, no trees, and no grass.

What about the new buildings—universities always seem to be constructing or remodeling something, and that’s expensive, right? Let’s clear this issue up right now, because once you know, I think you will understand. Before World War II, colleges and universities were mostly for the upper middle class and the rich. Enrollment numbers were small. After World War II, that shifted dramatically. When the Greatest Generation came home from fighting in Europe and the Pacific, they were rewarded for their service in many ways. Rosie gave the fighting men back their jobs. The federal government (under the Veterans’ Administration) gave them affordable mortgages, so that they could buy a home. And we gave them college education under the GI bill. The number of students at colleges and universities soared. They, in turn, ended up in jobs that afforded them the ability to save and pay for their children’s (the Baby Boomers) college educations. The numbers at colleges and universities went even higher. During those two periods of time, the majority of buildings we see on campuses today were built. Many of which were not touched again until decades later, if at all.

We have tons of university buildings across this country that have not been remodeled or rehabbed since the 1950s and 1960s. They are falling apart now. Also—newer technology (the technology that we demand our children have available to them in the classroom, given the amount of tuition we pay) cannot be supported or incorporated into some of these old buildings. Honestly, try making wireless routers work in a concrete building from the early 1960s, or, try bringing a building that is nearly 70 years old up to code! Universities keep deferring most of these projects, but some can no longer be ignored.

Another factor—university enrollments are swelling once again. In less than twenty years, the campus I work at has increased its population by 14,000 students. Where do we house them? Where do we teach them?

Finally, let’s spend a moment talking about private gifts and donations. We’d like to think that the only donations that our donors would want to give are unrestricted scholarship funds. This can be the case—often is the case—but there are many donors who want to see a tangible product for their gift. Many people who have the means to give to schools want to have their name on a building, or a room, or even a bench, instead of on a professorship or a scholarship fund.  Gift money and endowments come with restrictions, and the money has to be spent in the manner that the donor wants to be spent-- no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

So, we now know where the money comes from, and where the money goes. I hope you feel as if you have a better understanding of what the taxes and tuition pay for—instruction. This leads to the topic of faculty and instructors. In the next post we’ll talk about what the faculty actually does at a university. I’ll give you a hint: it’s more than just teaching for nine hours a week.