Leeds Reaction 2

Went to lunch today with a friend who needs to come to Leeds more so he can talk about Viking-y things (and grace the disco with his presence), and Friend Who Needs a New Pseudonym (so, currently, FWNNP), and told them about it, at their request. It was sort of nice, because it reminded me of some of the highlights and less-than-highlights, so that I can start writing them up. Still unable to say how my own paper went, although FWNNP liked the one report he'd seen. But then, he liked the paper, too, which he read in a less-polished draft.

But other than that, I was able to tell them about the Really Not Fun experience of giving the time signal, then giving it again, and then again, and having the speaker tell me he was finishing -- only to go into another section. Good thing the original moderator was not there, is all I can say. But, since you all know how I feel about this, let me just say it again: DO NOT DO THIS. EVER. Not if you are famous, not if you are a post-grad, not if you are in the middle. You are taking time from other people. Also, you really aren't doing yourself any favors. If you go over by more than about 2 minutes, people stop paying attention, because they are counting. that's right. You lose your audience. You especially lose the audience if what you are saying is already on a slide in front of them. And, if you are trying to impress, there's a chance you won't, because people will remember the behavior more than they will a brilliant (or even weak, I think) paper.

And I told them about the paper that was pretty much all about how one historian had got it wrong, over and over again. That one was really pretty fun. And the clothing papers, which I will say something about. And the really good one in the session before mine, which was well-delivered by someone speaking in a third language, well-constructed, and really just plain interesting.

I got to tell them about the disco, which suffered from poorer musical choices this year than in the past (really? American Pie when people are still sober? or, actually, ever?), and the very nice people who were there and who they would have liked to have seen. And then we had an extended conversation about "Scandinavian" burials in Ireland. Very extended. Is "Scandinavian" indicative of location? or of ethnicity? both? neither? When immigrants do things that commemorate their cultural traditions (but may not actually be those traditions, but things that are sort of blown up beyond recognition), how do we treat that?

And then we talked more about archaeology. Or rather, they did, and I interjected on occasion, because as I told them, I managed to survive a grad seminar where we talked about onion-topped fibulae for over a week, I think, and can vaguely tell the difference between the best-known fibulae (or brooch, if you'd rather) types. I can even read archaeological reports and understand them pretty well. But really? Not so much my thing. On the other hand, it's nice to have been updated on the whole NO! it's not that! it's an SBT! thing, even if it reminds me that I need to read a bit more on the 5th C.

And now, I'm off home tomorrow. Sad to leave the UK, happy to be going home to cats and friends, sad to not be working in the BL, happy that the Nice Librarian has offered to let me work in a nice space over there, so that I don't have to spend any more time in my department than is necessary. Yes, I think that this year, I will be playing the role of the absentee Department Chair: on campus, available to students and administrators, but not actually in my office unless there are plenty of people around.

Cool teaching tools!

Hi all --

So at present I am buried under a pile of really poor essays. Really poor. So poor that I will have to write a post about why differential teaching and learning is good, but that it's very hard to draw some lines: where, for example, is the tipping point between making the good students better and making the failing students passable?

In the meantime, I am occasionally thinking about resources for a re-vamped historical research course. In some ways, I fear for this course. The intention is supposedly to teach students to write a research paper, so that we don't have to teach that as part of the upper-division courses where research papers are now mandatory. There are some who want to teach historiography proper, and something called 'an appreciation for the art of history' in there. If that means teaching big questions in the field and the arguments historians present, I can't see it. After all, I could teach such things, but they would make no sense to students who have never taken a medieval content class. I could teach the history of history-writing, but you know? I just don't think it's as important as actually learning by doing. At some point, we need to know that there is a tradition of historical writing out there, and that ideas of history change from Thucydides to Ranke to Bloch (and I don't have any idea about Americanist historiography). But I'd much rather teach that as part of my content classes than as part of a methods class: "here is a big question for medieval historians -- 'is there such a thing as feudalism/the feudal system?' and here are the major arguments and the people who are making them." In a lower-division methods class, if I'm teaching a paper with an annotated bibliography and/or lit review, then I can set the stage with the idea that historians don't agree and that approaches change over time. How this will all work out when it's a rotating course is going to be interesting.

Anyway, here are some fantastic tools that I think I will be using for teaching methods and in my survey classes, especially:

First, Sharon Howard has posted a tutorial for integrating zotero at the Old Bailey online. How cool is that? the tutorial goes beyond using that site, too! I've been trying to get students to use something like zotero, because they are crap at keeping their bibliographies up to date...

Then there is Wall Wisher, which I found through one of the links on the Old Bailey page. I'm thinking of using that for having students prep class discussions. That, and maybe have them use it for structuring essays and studying together.

There are other cool things linked, too -- I especially like the group assignments in zotero.

Long Day

Long Day (NaNoBloPo/NaSchoWriMo 19)

I can't honestly think of anything substantial to say today, because my day just ended. Email, Doctor, tidying desk, lunch with guest speaker, guest speaker to class, office hours packed, more email and reading of Tacitus, grocery store, mad tidying of house, book club, now to clean up. Cannot wait for the weekend, except that I realized I have a meeting with my professional organization colleagues Saturday for between 4-6 hours, probably. Monday will start at 8 am and end at 10 pm, unless there is also beer. Thank goodness for Thanksgiving!

Something that struck me today

Something that struck me today (NaNoBloPo/NaSchoWriMo 18)

One of the things that struck me today has to do with faculty privilege and how weird some of it seems to me. It's about communicating one's availability. I was feeling really grumpy today about people who don't communicate or pay attention. I'm talking about basic communication, nothing really work related. Just that I have colleagues and co-workers and student workers who just don't make sense to me. Some do. One of my colleagues never fails to pop hir head in and say hi when zie notices I've come in, and always says goodbye at night if zie leaves before me. Another always asks if I want the coffee left on when zie leaves, and I always know when zie is not going to be in, because zie mentions zie will be gone to a conference, for example. Some of my colleagues post their office hours clearly, and leave their doors ajar. If they are friends, we sort of know each other's schedules, more or less. Most of the students who work for my colleagues in our building pop their heads in when arriving or leaving, even though they don't work for me, just to say hi or bye. A couple even ask if I have work, if they have nothing assigned to them.

But then there are people who just don't communicate. The reason I started thinking about this was that I was by myself in the building for part of the afternoon, save one student. I don't know when the student left, but it was dark when zie did, and zie left the building door open. At night, after dark, with one female faculty member by herself in a building on the periphery of campus and adjacent to a busy road with not only lots of foot traffic, but a main thoroughfare for Dabbaville's homeless. It annoyed me. Part of it was the apparent lack of consideration, but then I realized that my expectations of communication just don't hold true for everybody.

This has happened before. I have a couple of friends who understand entirely when I ask them to text when they get home, if we've been out late, or if they have gone somewhere lonely by themselves to run, or some such thing. And we do that. They don't laugh when I post to facebook about illness or going for a run, because they were raised to check in, or know that single people can end up in all kinds of trouble and not be missed. Friends who thought it was a little silly have become a bit more understanding after I passed out for no identifiable reason last year. But anyway, I just think it's good to have an idea of where the people you care about are supposed to be, in case they end up somewhere else. Not everybody feels that way, and that's fine.

That was my reaction today. I reminded myself that my colleagues don't all have the same idea about communicating their whereabouts. And most of them are faculty. Faculty don't have to account for their time and where they spend it, except when required to be in a certain place for a class or meeting. So why should they communicate their schedules?

And then, I realised that I just don't buy it -- or not completely. If I need to talk to Superdean, or the Provost, or the President of SLAC, I may not be able to, but someone will know where they are and when they will be available. I don't account for every minute of the day, but I put a schedule for the week on my door, so that if people are looking for me, they can at least see if I'm definitely supposed to be somewhere else. And normally I shoot an email to folks if I'm coming in after about 10 on a non-teaching day (I like to go to the gym in the mornings sometimes, and often work till 7 ish). Hey, I'm department chair and have 25 advisees: people occasionally look for me. And if I'm home or working in a coffee shop, it's likely I'm checking email, anyway. Why? because it seems to me that, despite the freedom we have as faculty, people still normally keep something resembling bankers' hours, and part of the job is to be available to students and colleagues.

I've worked on a flex schedule before, by the way. I've worked jobs where I had a home office and only had to see my boss once a week. But if he was looking for me, he could usually find me, even if sometimes I was at a conference call in my pajamas. I've worked for places where every minute was jealously guarded as well. There's a difference in those atmospheres. Working from home on salary feels different from punching a clock. I never felt that I was obligated to call my boss and ask him if I could go to the gym at lunch, and he didn't care, as long as my work was done, and I returned calls and emails in a timely manner. But if I knew I'd be out of cell phone or internet range for more than a couple of hours, I'd usually let people know, because it's best not to have customers calling the boss to complain that you didn't pick up on the second ring.

I guess my point is that we work in a world where lots of people are accountable for their time, and there are lots of good reasons to communicate where we are, if only for simple courtesy and to make sure that, if our students need to see us, someone knows what to tell them about how to get hold of us. I'm just not sure how not having to account for one's movements got to be a faculty privilege, nor how that privilege seems more and more to be something assumed by staff and students, as well. Seems a little weird to me.

Substanceless

Substanceless (NaNoBloPo/NaSchoWriMo 17)

I have no substance today. I had posts in my head, but invited a friend to dinner and we ended up talking till about an hour ago. So this is semi-substance. Here's a not-so-secret:

I hate administration, but am better at it than I like. The same with service.

Today was partially about service. That and the podiatrist, who tells me that no, I do not actually have gnarly feet. I'm not completely convinced, but apparently, the most I need is a pedicure. Service-wise, it was job applications. Can I just say that there are things people should make sure they do when applying for jobs? Like, for example, make the letter and the recommendations look like they are for the actual job they are supposed to win for the desperate candidate? Proofread the letter and all other documents, especially if the job is in a field where writing and editing skills might be seen as, you know, important? Referees, please make sure that, when cutting and pasting from more than one letter, you go back and make sure that what you send is all in one font, and that you haven't allowed spell-check to misspell any words.

Also, is it just my experience, or are all search committees fraught with politics and the possibilities offered by multiple agenda?

Should I or shouldn't I?

should I or shouldn't I?

So there is one reason at SLAC that I really do not love it. It's nothing I can do anything about, sadly. It will play itself out, one way or another.

Otherwise, I love my job, mostly. I love my colleagues, mostly, and I have made really good friends here. I am happy to work with them AND play with them. I love working for Superdean. He's a great boss in almost every way (nobody's perfect), and knows me well enough to nag me about my scholarship. Frankly, I could use a bit more nagging, but that's not really his job. I also just get along really well with him.

We have a cool new Provost and an energetic BoT, and I think that the direction SLAC is taking is one I like. In 5-10 years, I think we may have moved along to much closer to the kind of place where I want to end up. It's a neat idea to think of myself as someone who can help take it there.

Speaking of which, I really think that there's a chance of building a much stronger program, one known for producing good teachers, public historians, and grad students.

And I really like my students. Sometimes I wish they were more driven, but as human beings, they are some of the nicest I've taught.

So why am I thinking about applying for the really cool job? Especially when I really am not competitive compared to many of the candidates?

Well, besides working with an incredibly cool scholar I really admire, that is?

Because honestly, as much as I love SLAC, I sometimes feel that I work best when surrounded by people who function at the levels I aspire to. When I surround myself with people who are good teachers AND good scholars, I find myself more energized and more productive. It's not that SLAC doesn't do that, but ...

so, my loyal readers, should I or shouldn't I? Am I disloyal to SLAC if I do? Am I being selfish?

Or is it just smart to keep reaching higher?

it's baaack!

it's baaaack!!

Well, so all of a sudden I realised that I had crunched all of our assessment numbers, but hadn't actually entered them into the computer to be stored forever into our accreditation records. Interesting thing. Turns out the numbers I crunched don't match up to what we say we're tracking. So ... I'm guessing I have one more task to add to my increasing OMG, the semester hasn't started and I haven't worked on the book, I now need to write an article draft by the end of the year, I owe a book review that is so late it may have been forgotten, helping organize a panel for K'zoo and an abstract for Leeds, and syllabi?????

OY.

It does not help that I've been going through that 'oh, wait, I am now senior faculty, wth?' thing since I got back.

so yeah, assessment.

Still, one of my goals this year, along with getting to the gym and getting that personal life that Superdean suggested I might want? is to blog a little more thoughtfully, and a little more often. Wish me luck!

Some thoughts on Service

Some Thoughts on Service

As the semester crawls ever nearer, I'm starting to get into the usual panic of not having accomplished enough with my summer and worrying about not being able to get any writing done during the academic year. It would probably not surprise any of you that one of the things that I see as getting in my way is service.

Like many small colleges and universities, SLAC counts service in a big way. Although this is changing, many 'teaching' colleges and universities often used to count service and teaching as important -- or even more important -- than research and scholarly publication. This seems perfectly reasonable to me, to a point. After all, I have colleagues at SLAC, and know people who have taught at similar institutions, not to mention friends at community colleges, who were hired to teach 5-5 loads (that is, 15 lecture/seminar hours a week). Often that includes 2-4 different preps. It's a lot of work. Add to that service, and really there's not time for anything else.

That was then.

Now, faculty are increasingly expected to carry a somewhat balanced load of teaching, research, and service. That is true at all institutions, I think, at least according to my colleagues at research universities. I have a friend who can tell stories of merit increases denied to faculty who didn't do all three things. It's just that at research universities, there are generally larger numbers of faculty to share the work (maybe), and the teaching load is considerably lighter. At any rate, I'm going to try to focus on the smaller institutions, the ones that are in the process of redefining themselves, taking advantage of the glut of PhDs who still want to do research to boost their own prestige as they grow.

What is service? There's service to the profession and service to the university, right? The service that counts most is usually service to the university. But what does that mean? Well, for some of my colleagues, especially the older ones, and the ones at more isolated universities, service includes community service -- establishing strong connections between town and gown. LDW once told me that he was talking to a young colleague who taught at a very small SLAC in the deep South who was allowed to count coaching one of the town's little league teams toward his service. I think that that sort of thing is going by the wayside, although I know that we at SLAC are encouraged to join local service organizations and get on the boards of various non-profits, etc., but it no longer counts towards tenure and promotion... just some sort of nebulous good will. And that works for me.

Then there is service to the profession. For example, I have a couple of colleagues who serve on the editorial boards of journals, another who is the main review editor. I'm on the council of a professional organization. None of us get course release time for these duties, although I think that the people who run major journals do -- in part because they are at research universities that have a system for such things. Anyway, this doesn't count for us as service on our load evaluation, but it does count towards promotion. And it's appreciated by our administrators.

But really for me, service = university governance. I believe strongly in faculty governance. Without faculty participation, faculty governance cannot work. There are lots of things that can get in the way, but that's a basic necessity. Faculty senate committees, task forces, search committees -- they have to be driven by faculty. That's true even in places where the administration regularly overturns or ignores faculty input - and that can and does happen in many places. Still, if faculty don't serve, and serve well, they can't complain if things are taken out of their hands. The problem is, there is a different kind of university service, too. Running institutes, putting on conferences, setting up programs that make the university look good ... these are all important, and they take time, but they can also be self-serving. Say a person gets course releases or even release from all other service to run an institute or conference in their field. No one is denying that it's work, nor that it's good for the university in a very general sense. But the only faculty who receive a direct benefit are the ones directly involved. In many cases, faculty turn their personal hobby horses into a service boondoggle, making sure their service also ties directly into their research. In many ways, I say, "good for them." But not in others.

I have mixed feelings about this sort of service because other faculty end up carrying more of the governance work. That work can impinge upon their own ability to get research done, and thus have a negative impact long-term. There's a certain unfairness in that, I think, although not as much as there is with people who do their best not to do a damned thing. There are those as well, the colleagues who just can't be bothered. Moreover, at all of the institutions where I have worked, and according to many of my colleagues this is true for their institutions as well, big or small, what ends up happening is that a small core of people end up serving over and over again -- and often on a disproportionate number of service assignments at a time. Good department chairs and deans will try to keep people from being overloaded, but even they will start to go to the same people over and over ....

It's a situation that pisses me off for a number of reasons, one of which, I freely admit, is that I am one of the people who often gets chosen or nominated to committees, often by people who are serving on no committees because they are doing 'important work.' More importantly, though, is that I think it breeds resentment among faculty and helps to create situations where talent can be overlooked. Faculty who feel overburdened start to resent the people who seem not to be carrying their own weight. Some of the people who aren't performing service, or who think what they are doing is a valid substitute, feel the resentment and withdraw because they are uncomfortable. Some may even start phoning it in even more than they were before. And, because we always think we know more than we do, we start to respect some of our colleagues less.

It goes beyond losing respect for our colleagues and the ways that that affects our work environment, and perhaps even our students. It also tends to make some of the people carrying the load start to think that they have to be involved in everything, and they voluntarily take on additional service, because after all, nobody else will do it, right? Or because the committee looks interesting or important, they want to be on it because they deserve it to make up for all the crap committee work they already have. Meanwhile, there's still the issue of people who aren't serving. Or those who haven't yet had a chance to serve. And yet, sometimes when members of the former group get put on the right committee, they get sucked in. And they do good work, sometimes becoming the experts on whatever that committee does. But the resentment against them for years of non-participation is hard to get over. The only way to change it is for people to actively point out that Colleague X is really good at thing Y -- which is annoying and patronizing in its own way (and I'm not even going to get into whether or not people get into these messes themselves or deserve the resentment -- it's not productive, and shouldn't be the point). For the latter, the new faculty, especially the really junior people, it's hard not to get sucked into the dynamic when you're just trying to keep afloat with the transition from grad student to faculty member. After all, you want to emulate the people who seem to be 'in' on how the university works.

I haven't got any bright ideas on how to fix these things, by the way. I've only just started to recognize them myself, and then only because I have been thinking about where I want to start to focus my own service work in a very general way, because now that I have tenure (or values thereof), I want to work a little harder at carving a niche for myself, and putting my service talents where they can do the most good. I mentioned this to a friend, specifically pointing to a new project that is very much in line with things I have done in the past, and which is something I've always been interested in. And the friend, already spread thin, and in charge of a couple of fairy large initiatives, said that they really needed to make sure they were also involved in the steering of this project. And I thought, "wait. This is somewhere where I have expertise and you don't. Why exactly do you feel you should be taking a leading role on top of everything else?" And I realised that this is the environment I have seen so often before. And I felt as though my competency were in question, even though I know it wasn't, and that this colleague would consider me a member of the people who shoulder a heavy service load very well. In fact the colleague often comes to me for advice. But it's symptomatic of this whole cycle, and I wonder, if I can feel that way knowing that it's not meant to belittle my skills, how the newbies or the people who are somewhat marginalized (sometimes because of their own inaction) feel.

Like I said, no answers, just some thoughts.

No really, still alive

No really, still alive

Working on two posts, one about drinking the kool-aid and all that entails when it comes to the professoriate, the other about service and the range of approaches to it, from 'cant be arsed' to 'can't bear not to have a finger in every pie.'

Back soon, I promise.

Also, I need to report on conferences.

Also, Thursday is my 7th blogiversary, and I may be changing the look!

software blegging

Software Bleg

Yay for the help on bags ...

Now ... does anybody use Zotero and/or Scrivener? Can you use them together? I might as well start using new software for the new project and the new 'puter. Suggestions?

Girly-men teachers?

Girly-men Teachers?

Apropos of a conversation at Historiann's, this idea just struck me. I don't have time to go into it in great detail, and it might not even be original. But here it is:

The discussion of Judith Bennett's book last month focused in part on the idea of patriarchal equalibrium, and Bennett herself focuses a great deal on the consistant wage disparity between men and women. At SLAC, as at other universities all over the country (and possibly the world) -- at least where there is no union scale -- men tend to be paid more than women faculty of the same rank. I want to take that further, though. Those of us in Liberal Arts programs know that the folks in hard sciences are typically paid more than their peers in the humanities and social sciences. And hard sciences have traditionally been dominated by men.

Let's take that a step further, though. At SLAC, faculty in the (mostly male-dominated) professional schools make more than those of us in the Liberal Arts. Moreover, their teaching loads (and often service loads) are lighter, and publication requirements somewhat higher (although many of us in my school meet those higher requirements for scholarship even with our heavier teaching loads). We are 'teaching faculty' and they are 'research and professional' faculty. My question is this -- does the overt masculinization (is that a word?) of the 'research and professional' faculty that exists in terms of actual staffing lead to a de facto feminization of all faculty in the 'teaching' side? That is (partially), do even male faculty in Arts and Sciences get less respect and have they less clout because they teach and are willing to take lower salaries (because what man would do that? it's only natural that women do, but ...)?

Just a half-baked thought.

AHA bleg

AHA bleg

Um, does anybody know which airport one should fly into for AHA? Because I think I'm going after all. And also, does anybody need a roommate for the 2nd? I've never been to NYC, so am totally clueless, and also, do not have money for this trip, so any advice is good. Oh -- and I am looking into taking the train in from Newark, DE -- after I see if friends there can put me up for a night, so any advice there is good, too.

End of Semester Blues

End of Semester Blues

It's that time of year, the quiet before the storm of finals. I'm trying to tidy up all the bits and pieces of the semester, so I can get to work on a bunch of stuff for our accreditation report and for taking over as department chair next semester. Not to mention a re-vamped survey and a brand-new prep, plus the book. Oh, and Christmas cards and shopping. Meanwhile, I've been dealing with something for several months that has just been very hard. Last year at this time, I was in a place where I probably was the most happy and secure in my life than I've ever been. This year, everything is changed, but without any kind of (aaaargh -- warning! pop-psychology alert!) resolution or closure.

Professionally, my life is going very well -- I'm on the right kind of committees, I'm going to have a book out within the year, I'm giving a paper at Leeds (more on that later!), and my T&P file has made it past the first hurdle. I have colleagues I really like, and some major administrative changes at SLAC fill me with hope and make me excited about being there to help change the place for the better. And I've also still got an application in for Dream Job, because I'm not a fool, and there are real advantages to it. I don't know that I'll get an interview, but I hope so. Anyway, between the busy and the sad, I've rather been neglecting this blog. So one of my New Year's resolutions is to try to blog more often and with more purpose. And in the meantime, I'm going to leave you with something I wanted to go back and read myself, because I need to remind myself of this more often than I'd like these days:


How to do College

The Jackson Effect

The Jackson Effect

Not Peter, not Michael, but Gordon. You know that scene in The Great Escape where Richard Attenborough and Gordon Jackson are about to board the bus, and Jackson is caught out by the question out of nowhere? auf Englisch? Well, that kind of happened to me. I was talking to the Provost at SLAC, and out of nowhere, in the middle of a different conversation, he pops out with, "You're Another Damned Medievalist, aren't you?" The Hell? Apparently, a couple of people thought he was ADM.

So I don't know how far the cat is out of the bag. With luck, folks who stumble on this will respect the pseudonymity and accept that I just happen to have a nom de blog. As New Kid pointed out to me in email the other day, it's not as if people with half a brain couldn't figure it out anyway. It's just that I think my colleagues at SLAC are not so into the whole blogosphere. Guess we'll see.

In other news, I am seriously tired. This semester needs to be over.

Again with the perfume

Again with the perfume

Same woman, same perfume. And there are plenty of seats, so why sit next to me?

I ask you, gentle readers ... is there a polite way to ask someone to take their perfumed (I think it may actually be a very floral/powder spray deodorant, come to think of it) self somewhere else?

Yeah, I could move, but I always sit here and I was here first.

A suggestion to the British Library

A suggestion to the British Library

Dear BL,

In addition to all those other restrictions (with which I agree), perhaps it might also be a good thing to remind users that the heavy use of scents, perfumes, etc., can make working in the BL very uncomfortable for one's neighbors -- especially those for whom scents can trigger migraines.

Cheers,

ADM


PS -- maybe the whole world would like to think about this? I love perfume, myself. I try to make sure when I wear it that a person has to get really up close and personal to smell it, though.

Google Books = yay?

Google Books = yay?

More and more of the old books I like to use are becoming available on Google books. I like this, in that most of them cost our ILL people (hence my department) $15-$35 each. But I don't like having to be tied to my computer. And I am not looking forward to having to justify my BL trips on other grounds ("But I need the hard copies, dammit!"). Still, if you're looking for a way to quickly check some of the classics of Ortsnamen- und Personennamenkunde, you may find them on Google books...

ETA: Well, it would be a whole lot cooler if I didn't keep getting pages that said "Image Not available"

Ways in Which a T-T position has changed my life, pt 1

Ways in Which a T-T position has changed my life, pt 1

Right -- so I've only promised to write this for about a year. Obviously, the first way in which having the job I started at SLAC 3+ semesters ago is this: my blogging has decreased. Or, to be more precise, my blog reading has decreased. I can't keep up with my blogroll.

Part of this is that I somehow feel like I have more to lose, now that I'm going to be coming up for promotion in a year or so. Most of this is that scholarship is no longer a luxury that I tried to do on top of a 15-hour per term load -- it's something I have to do on top of a 4-3 load. I'm still trying to work on self-censorship, and have taken many of the most personal things private.

A different part is that I am trying to forge more friendships and solid collegial relationships at SLAC, and that eats into my blogging time. I've also been trying to maintain some old friendships and a few new ones that have grown out of my relationship with LDW. Those things eat into my time more than I expected.

But mostly? It's that I'm stuck in what's still basically a new town, still adjusting to a new college, even as its going through huge amounts of change and growing pains (mostly the good kind), still finding my feet in a new community where people all know each other ... and we're back to self-censorship. Well, that and learning how to manage a different workload while not having to look for a job. So be on the lookout for an upcoming post on ideas of risk and self-censorship coming soon to this blog -- after grading jail!

And more on Sartorial splendour

And more on sartorial splendour

This has been yet another week of busy, so I've missed some good blogging. Today I was at New Kid's, and found a typically sensible and strong essay, this time on the latest Thomas Hart Benton essay in the CHE. In it, Benton talks about the effects of dressing less casually (or as he thinks of it, more formally) on his interactions with students. New Kid responds to part of his essay with a:

Well, DUH! And I also wanted to say, Any woman professor could have told you that. Well, okay, maybe almost any is more accurate. Because while I know there are lots of women out there who teach (brilliantly and successfully) in very casual clothes, I have also had the same conversation with lots and lots of women faculty - the conversation in which we agree that in order to project a certain authority in the classroom, we dress formally for teaching.*

And those of us who feel this way have reached this conclusion long before our first post-tenure year.

Because we've HAD to figure it out - because students respond very differently to men and women teachers.

New Kid rightly points out the gender issues of professional dress, and the comment thread is packed with good and thoughtful points on gender, dress, and authority in the classroom. I realised I had such a lot to say about these things -- not particularly in the most organised way, because really, I need to drag my ass to the gym and get a ton of work done today. So apologies for the lack of careful crafting.

I teach on a campus where there are no real dress standards. I like that. I'd like to think it doesn't really make a difference what I wear, but you know, it does. Our undergraduate population comes largely from a demographic where the only people who go by 'Dr' are men. Pretty much every freshman male automatically calls female faculty 'Miss' or 'Mrs.' (hardly ever that nasty feminist 'Ms'), and the male faculty 'Dr' or 'Professor'. Why yes, this is one of the first teaching moments in any of my classes! Of course, the fact that the most influential people on our coaching staff continually refer to us (especially women faculty who don't seem to understand that we need to support our athletes by letting them slide) by our social titles doesn't help. I have to say, I find it pretty amusing that a couple of my colleagues (male and female) have received nasty emails from these folks addressed to 'Mr' or 'Mrs', yet signed, 'Coach' or 'X, Athletic Director'.

I know, I've moved quickly from student perceptions to peer perceptions. The thing is, for me, I know I can get away with teaching in jeans, if I really want to. That is, I can walk into a classroom and teach in jeans, and my authority is not all that diminished. I'm questionably fortunate in that my students frequently find me intimidating. One brand new student actually told me s/he needed to speak to me because s/he loved my class but also dreaded having to show up and participate in class discussions run by a particular barbarian chieftain who showed up in Rome in 451. I've had colleagues tell me I'm intimidating, too -- especially male colleagues. I've been accused (or complimented) for 'communicating like a man' and 'having big brass ones'. Whatever it is, and really, I think what people find intimidating is that I question them. I ask students to defend their assertions, and expect them to be able to back up what they say. And, like any good bull terrier (which I've just realised I may physically resemble in shape of nose -- if I were using bird allusions, it really would be aquiline -- and constant smile, even when going for the throat), I tend not to drop a subject in class until I've got my point across. Ok, I sometimes do go off on wild tangents, but I always come back. So maybe a bull terrier with some Golden Retriever or Irish Setter. What do I know? I'm a cat person. So ... I can maintain my classroom authority in blue jeans.

But ... I hardly ever wear jeans of any colour in the classroom. I have some nice cords that I'll wear with nice pullovers or jackets, and I don't wear suits, because that's not our campus culture -- at least not in our College. But I try to look grown up, professional, and put-together. I take myself more seriously when I show up looking tidy and with my hair and face done, and so do my students. With them, it balances the fact that I run a very relaxed classroom. It also makes it easier to enforce my 'no pajamas and slippers in class' rule. But you know, as I read New Kid's essay, I realised that my dress issues are really less about my students than they are about my peers, and far, far less about my peers in the College than they are about my peers in the professional Schools, administrators, and middle-management types. Those are the places where image is most important.

My College at SLAC is, and has been, the poor stepchild for almost its whole existence. We are seen as serving the needs of the Schools, by providing the core curriculum so that their students can go on to earn Degrees That Mean Something. To be fair, there has been a push to change that for about 10 years, but the fact that College faculty do the vast majority of teaching in terms of both personal loads (4-4 or 4-3, as opposed to 3-2 or 2-2) and the range and number of courses taught. Since I joined SLAC, publication requirements have been added, because our brethren (there are few sistren) in the Schools believe that we must raise our scholarly profile. The faculty of the Schools wear suits and ties. Casual dress for them is neatly pressed khakis, button-down shirts, and ties. They polish their shoes. I now sit on a couple of campus-wide committees. Meetings often fall on my non-teaching days. The guys in facilities have mentioned that they know when I'm teaching by what I'm wearing. They call me by my first name (as they do most of the College faculty they like), and they treat some of us as equals in a 'we're all here together to make this place work' way -- which I think is how it should be. This semester, they aren't so sure. Why? Because I'm dressing for my peers.

I mentioned that I'm on a couple campus-wide committees, right? I'm the only College rep, and often the only woman. I'm frequently the junior person (in rank, not age -- or I'd be really screwed). And I am frequently ignored. Despite the fact that I am on one committee precisely because I have more expertise in the business side of something we are dealing with, and as much or more expertise in the academic side, my contributions are (usually) politely listened to, and then dismissed. Part of this is the top-down nature of SLAC, I think, but it has only recently occurred to me that I am loaded with perceived disadvantages. I know -- it took me a year to figure this out? D'uh! I also have a feeling that I'm on these committees because of the bull terrier thing. Superdean, who has his own bull mastiff (or possibly bull in a china shop) qualities, trusts me not to do what lots of my College peers do in the same situation, i.e., just give up and stop going to the meetings. Me? I guess I'll be pulling out my old industry clothes and dressing like people in the Schools. I don't know how much it will help, but hey, I'm thinking that in this case, clothes are a medium, and the medium is the message.

Assessing Assessment

Assessing Assessment

The semester is officially over. All I can see is work piled up from here to the next apocalypse. But tonight I am filled with Chinese food and a little beer, and I'm tired. I've also been percolating some thoughts about this gig at SLAC, now that I've been there for over a year. And I'm thinking about some of the underlying assumptions for assessment and accreditation programs (and yes, for how they fit into the T&P portfolio) and how they leave me cold these days. I've also been thinking about World History again, but that's for another post.

At one point at the beginning of the semester, I thought I'd hit my SLAC groove. It lasted about ten minutes. This semester kicked my butt, and not in that good way that leaves you exhilarated. I taught 13 lecture hours this semester. Two courses were upper-division courses I'd never taught before, and for one of those I had never taken any formal coursework -- I just knew that the students seemed to want something other than had been offered in the course before. I'd have liked some input on the course, because it's a service course. As such, it makes sense to me that the course be fairly consistent no matter who teaches it. Not so much. So I made it up as I went along. Part of the course was on the history of the writing or history, the rest was on the doing of history. I think the best day in the course was when one of the students said s/he thought it was going to be one of those classes where you're not really sure how it all fits together at the time, but you find yourself drawing on in all your other courses. I really hope so. The other course was in a field I know, but the SLAC mentality seemed to have made it hard. Or maybe I just don't know how to teach Upper-division courses effectively yet. What I wanted was to divide the week between topical lectures/discussions and discussions of primary source readings. The topical part kind of went by the wayside when I saw students trying to find what I was talking about in the text. Most of what I was talking about couldn't be looked up. Except for the military history, students didn't really read the primary sources. There was, admittedly, a good bit of reading for SLAC -- all of about 100-200 pp. a week. The surveys should have been easy, but they weren't. Again, there was a problem with preparation. Students just didn't do the reading. They didn't bring notes. Several students turned in only one or two assignments out of four. Much of the time, the students hadn't prepared because they said they didn't understand the language. That is, there were unfamiliar words, and looking them up in a dictionary made no sense.

Well, that's sounding bitter. To be fair, I had some students who really did try hard, and did do all the work. They kept me sane. They also made me feel guilty, because the classes could have been so much better. And in terms of personality, sense of humor, and being a mensch? I'd say probably 75% of the students are just really there. Despite that, though, this is the first time in my teaching life where I really thought, "these people aren't me." Not one of my students showed an interest in being really good, let alone excelling. They all simply seemed to want to be good enough. Good enough means getting a D if it's a non-major class, and a C if it is. Minuses are fine. It's sort of a shock. When I taught community college, I had a lot of grade-grubbers. I had a lot of students who were there to save money and who wanted to transfer into selective universities for their last two years. My classes weren't required, and so only those with an interest took them. Here, I have great enrollment numbers. My classes are not required, but they do fulfill a requirement. And students take classes with me more than once, even when they don't have to. My evals are fine. Students say they like me and that my courses are challenging. But they don't seem to want the A. Or maybe those who do are, like me, so brought down by those who don't care that they've given up.

That was all in aid of getting me to assessment. We're doing lots of assessment things at SLAC. Everybody is, it seems. We review out courses, departments, programs, etc., and re-examine the instruments of assessment. We redefine and refine our outcomes. We are told we must measure not only our students' performance, but our own. How do we measure that? By whether or not our students are successful. We must survey them. We must find standardized tests in our fields to give exiting seniors. We cannot be objective, we are told, so we must let external criteria be our guide.

In principle, I think most of this is fine. I like collaborating and norming with my colleagues, to a point. I like it when I can bounce an idea off a colleague and have him or her tell me I'm being a hard-ass, or unreasonable, or too easy. LDW has served as an external examiner for other universities. I like the idea of having an expert not employed at SLAC looking at what I'm doing and telling me it's in line with what is being taught at other places. After all, there is no one else here who teaches what I teach. How do I know if I'm doing it right? How do I know if I'm letting my standards slip or expecting too much? Sometimes it happens. LDW told me today that he thought the essay question for the Civ final was really hard. Admittedly, he doesn't teach World History, so the idea of a very broad comparison seemed very difficult to him. I had to explain that I was looking for big-picture and not too detailed answers, rather than the kind of deep and detailed essay I'd have wanted in a Western Civ class.

On the other hand ... well, all of the assessment of us as faculty is predicated on the idea that students are here to learn. It's based on the idea that students do learn, and remember. Even though we like to cringe, because so much of assessment and accreditation seems to focus on whether students are getting value for money, it *is* also based on the idea we try to impress upon our students: what we teach is important, and a BA/BA is not just a piece of paper that means a better entry-level job. But what if that's all the students want? What if they aren't so worried about the experience, about savouring and remembering what we try to teach them? What if, as one of my students said to me, they just aren't that into it and really just didn't feel like getting the A they could have got, because all they needed to graduate was 70%? For most of my students at SLAC, that seems to be the rule. Going to SLAC is kind of like buying a Louis Vuitton purse: you pay for it so people can see you did, but really, it's not all that special (I was going to compare it to a Prada bag, but hey, at least they are really good quality leather and they are frighteningly overpriced. Schools like SLAC are more like LV -- you pay too much, but not an insane amount and can't always be sure it's not a knock-off)

All kidding aside, how do we assess places like SLAC in a way that is fair to the good faculty and to the good students? If a campus tries to push a reputation as 'selective', then how do we integrate the results for those students who came in on waivers? There are many days when I'm not so sure I taught my students history. Most days, at least I'm sure I taught them something, even if it's a few new words or a better way to write a sentence or something that will be useful in the long run, but may not be on the course description. And if they aren't, they don't get assessed. Unfortunately, I can't teach the things I'm assessed on unless I teach them the tools to survive in a college class. It's exhausting.

And soon, I will also be assessed on how well I've managed to be a scholar on top of the teaching and service. I got one article (pedagogical) submitted at the beginning of the year. I somehow got elected to an office in a professional organization. I applied for a Dream Job (search suspended) and a postdoc. I'm behind on reviews, and I still have to write a conference paper, a scholarly article, and finish negotiating a contract for a project that is scholarly, but in the way of an aid, rather than something monograph-ish. And when I get that negotiated, I've got to finish it. And then I can work on another paper and the book. In between teaching those 13 hours (only 9 next semester), plus a summer course, and a new prep every semester for the foreseeable future. I'll let you know how that goes.