Meetings

I suppose it's good that I go to meetings . . . they're opportunities to share, tell stories, learn about other people's problems so that I don't feel alone with our IT shenanigans (no, that's not the right word: not negative enough - it's IT irresponsibility or arrogance or ineptness or all of the above).

The worst story I heard today was an instructor whose course -- a course teaching students how to use MS Outlook -- could not / would not have said software loaded on to the classroom machines (or the instructor computer).  The head of IT (AKA our CIO and Assistant Vice President for Technology) said that he didn't think it was "pedagogically sound" to teach Outlook skills in a hands-on lab setting.

Right.

Sure, I think it's unethical to charge our students college tuition to learn a software package, but our college has two programs that basically do just that (Office Technology and Computer Applications - these are programs left over from the "merger" when a community college and a technical school merged to form Century).

The things you learn . . .

For those who insist that we don't . . .

. . . need to share (AKA increase revenue AKA raise taxes): the National Center on Family Homelessness just released a study that says one in 50 children is homeless in any one year.

How can we live in a country that has allowed this fact to exist?

For those who insist that we don't . . .

. . . live in a patriarchy: consider this recent article in Slate.com.

Japanese video game that simulates rape: called RapeLay, the player/perpetrator stalks and attacks a young girl on the subway. Various endings include the player/perp being stabbed by the victim or the victim becoming impregnated.

I'm sickened. I can't even bring this obscenity into my WGST course.

When you know too much

So during the fire alarm this afternoon, I sat with a former student who's finishing a law enforcement degree at the college. She's funny, has a complicated life, and likes to talk to me about a wide range of topics.

She told me about her online course this summer, American Government, where she didn't learn a single thing. How can that be? I asked. Because the course consisted of reading and taking a weekly quiz. That's it. No interaction with other students. No feedback or conversation or discussion with the professor. She spent nearly $500.00 for this "course."

What do I do with this information? I'm breaking my neck with my online course: was in the office until 10:40 tonight uploading my first batch of graded assignments: 23 students, two or three files each to upload, minimum five minutes per student -- you do the math. These numbers don't even count the time it takes to download their written work, read it, comment on it, save it with a different file name so I can distinguish it from the ungraded work.

These numbers also do not count the time spent reading discussion postings (from the whole class and in the small groups I've set up so students can peer review each others' work), making discussion postings, writing News items, commenting on the class blog, answering questions, etc. To me, a college course means students have interaction with an instructor and with material. Is that old-fashioned?

Our union thinks that all online courses are the same. They're not. And somehow something must be done. But what?

Getting ready to get back

The first task of my return after sabbatical happens before my official return.  This weekend I will again, for the fourth year, staff the Century table at Twin Cities Pride, one of the largest GLBTQ festivals in the nation.  Check out this documentary video!  

I do so in my capacity as faculty advisor to the student club, Q & S at Century.  The advisor who has been taking my place this last year is not interested.  I've managed to find three wonderful faculty volunteers and two student volunteers.  I'll be working most of the weekend myself, I think.

For the last four years, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Diversity and Multicultural Division has reserved six or eight tables for MnSCU institutions.  Century's been a regular, along with Metro State, MCTC, Bemidji, and Moorhead.  I've also seen Anoka-Ramsey, Inver Hills, and Dakota County send folks.  

All of these institutions send their Admissions staff people, the folks whose job it is to attend community festivals and events in order to promote the college and encourage new students to attend.  Our Admissions office does not.  The director believes, rightly, that the staff cannot be everywhere at once and must select which events to attend.  But the rationale is odd:  "Admissions [staff members] attend events which will have the best yield potential for Century College in terms of application and enrollment numbers."  

My question: how can an event that attracts almost 425,000 people, most of them under 40, not be the "best yield potential"?  

Backlash is Back (Did it ever leave?)

It's been a while since feminists I know have felt compelled to use the word "backlash" to talk about the current dismal and disturbing misogyny all over the place. The term felt too dated - remember Susan Faludi's book?

But now there's a fabulous article by the brilliant Katha Pollitt in The Nation that brings us up short: she calls it "Backlash Spectacular" and itemizes some of the most egregious messages our culture regularly dishes out about the female gender (teaching pole dancing to children? mass consumption of a video game that asks players to have sex with prostitutes and then kill them to earn points?), not to mention a most recent outrage: white supremacist and anti-Equal Rights Amendment activist and lunatic Phyllis Schlafley being awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Washington University. Makes you think a doctorate isn't worth much, isn't really about intellectual capability if it's awarded to someone who thinks that the Virginia Tech massacre can be blamed on the English department.

Now more than ever, feminism needs to be promoted, taught, insisted upon: the kind that Rebecca West called "the radical notion that women are people." One good source for helping us analyze media messages about many things is Media Education Foundation.