Late to the Conversation....

Dr. Heidi posted a link to Thomas H. Benton's Chronicle article about turning prospective graduate students away from the humanities. While I agree with Dr. Heidi that Benton's dismissal of emotion is problematic I would NEVER encourage anyone to go to graduate school.

The woeful state of the job market is just the most rational reason not to enter this profession. Every other reason has to do with the fact that at one point in my life I loved to learn for the sake of learning. During the MA portion of my program that love was fostered and grew. During the last four years the life has been slowly and surely sucked out of my love of learning.

Sure, I went in to this project a little naive, but everyone does. It's impossible to understand the realities of graduate school until you live them. What Benton doesn't seem to realize is that the "rhetoric of sentimentality" is not about the "love of graduate school" and does not stem from a position of naivite or privilege.

As I believe I've discussed before Ouiser and I are working class girls. Getting to this point in our lives was neither easy nor expected of us. We routinely sit on my deck and talk ourselves out of throwing our hands up and quitting. We are torn because this pursuit forces us to make painful choices regarding our family, choices no one 'privileged' would have to make. We stick with it because we are stubborn old Cajun women (one of us truly Cajun and the other adopted). We stick with it because we enjoy at least part of what we do. We are not naive. We are not privileged. We cling to 'loving' what we do because it is all we have left. We speak about it all 'sentimentally' because it is the only lie we have left to tell ourselves.

Production Line...

I finally read the Bauerlein piece and it's pretty standard fare for everyone who refuses to believe that there might already be something called Composition and that it is a valid field.

I agree with much of what Bauerlein says, but much of it is just a rehash of discussions that have already occured in Composition. Bauerlein says early on that his study and conclusions will focus on "language and literature teachers." Wow, that's great, but this article is really only about Literature teachers. (Capital L intended.)

Alright, so he plays in to the classic, and seemingly neverending, Lit/Comp divide. The larger issue with this study is the way he conflates all types of faculty, particularly adjunct factuly and graduate students. Sure, there are ways in which the two groups are the similar, but there are FUNDAMENTAL differences between adjunct and graduate student populations. Those differences change from department to department. In our department you could begin with pay. Graduate student are paid significantly less than adjunct faculty (here I think they are all called Lectureres.) The benefit to less pay, if there is one, is a lighter course load. Right now, one benefit to Grad Student status is less interference with your course. We talked about that yesterday.

Before Bauerlein is ignored completley, which would be a mistake, I need to acknowledge an important point. Bauerlein says,

The MLA Committee questions whether English and foreign language departments do, in fact, require publications for entry-level positions, but truth or falsity doesn't matter.

Bauerlin goes on to say that since graduates believe publishing matters they continue to publish. This is where there is more to say about this problem and possible solutions. This point also struck home for me. At the end of Spring Break I had to send an email turning down the opportunity to write a book chapter. I put off that decision as long as possible becuase I understood that it meant not having a significant publication on my CV. I guess only time will tell how that will affect my ability to find a job.

Carnivalesque

This section of the Teaching Carnival is good. I want to tangetially comment on Collin Brooke's response to Mark Bauerlein. Let me say first that I agree with Collin. This is not a commentary on his argument. The reliance on a contingent work force is detrimental to any University in a number of ways. However, I want to speak to a trend in our department, because, while I have no proof, I suspect it is happening elsewhere. Also, I'm reading Bauerlein's piece right now and hopefully I'll have more to say about it soon.

Okay, while I agree that the reliance on contingent workers is bad, bad, bad for the University and does affect the quality of course work, the assumption that accompanies those arguments is that the contingent workers are not good teachers. No one is overtly saying that, but too often the connection between the increase in contingent workers and the decrease in "quality of instruction" is left unexamined. When left unexamined the faulty conclusion is that contingent workers are poor instructors. To get to the root of the problem - course numbers, outside pressures, job security, assessment, etc. it is necessary to look harder and longer than someone outside of composition might.

It's no secret that there are big changes afoot in my department. Some of them I don't mind, other's impinge on my ability to design and teach my course. Formerly the attitude of this department towards graduate students was to treat us like colleagues but to give us a little more protection. Since the lecturers in our department are mostly former graduate students they received the same kind of treatment. (Please note 'Formerly') In the desire to make our courses more uniform, to simplify assessment, and more 'transparent,' the desire to allow us to design our own courses and learn from our mistakes has gone by the wayside. All of this change comes from good intention and since I'm in my dissertation writing phase (I hate making dissertation a verb) I'm taking a "keep my head down and get out" approach to the situation.

In fact most of the changes being made have not come from concerns about how graduate students design/teach their courses, but about how the Lecturers design/teach their courses. For a number of reasons, unclear expectations, mushy accountability, a rotating person of authority, the department has developed an anxiety about what goes on in the Lecturer's classroom. (Insert 'contingent labor' for Lecturer and you can see how this is a product of the argument above.) Some things about our department that influence this.

• The Associate Head, who directly oversees lecturers is a position held by Literature faculty.
• It is a position that rotates every 2-3 years. (I'm not sure about the exact number.)
• While the Associate Head works closely with the Director of Composition, there is no visible accountability to the Composition Program, even though Lecturer's mostly teach Composition courses.
  
• Lecturer's are primarily former MFA students and/or Literature graduate students.

Recently, through the CP and Small Lake's efforts, the lit graduate students successfully argued that there should be an "Assistant to the Associate Head" position that mirrored the Assistant to the Director of Composition position that I used to hold. It would allow literature students have similar experience scheduling, managing a group of employees, which would possibly give the literature students an edge on the market. The problem is that both the current Associate Head and the current Director of Composition are micromanagers. They've managed to completely undermine both positions. (Yes, that is also a different post all together.)
The result of all of this is that the Associate Head is using her assistant to do things like walk around campus and make sure that all of the Lecturers are really holding their Friday class sessions. Seriously.

I'm not saying this kind of hall monitoring is happening everywhere. What I want to say is that if we are not careful to reiterate the systemic reasons why the reliance on contingent labor leads to a lower quality of classroom instructions, the misuse of that information leads to the kind of anxiety currently circulating in our department.

Fishing Mondays

Here's an article from Stanley Fish. It's interesting, especially if you go back and read the previous column.

Piping down

It's time for me to be quiet. Not here of course, I'll always be nice and loud here. However, lately, I think I've been too vocal around the department. Really. I've just been complaining (i.e. bitching) my little heart out.

What is happening in our department is nothing that hasn't happened before other places; and, frankly, until it happens somewhere that actually pays me a salary and allows me to vote on issues, I don't care.

There is, however, something interesting about what is happening to our department. Last year, when this particular search was conducted it was because a desperation point had been reached. There was a job to do, but no one wanted to do it anymore. So, in spite of the fact, that the people who interviewed for the job were in various ways probably not the best fit. At least one of them was willing to do the job.

The problem is that very few people really knew or understood what the job really was. The job was presented as administrative when really it was more about management. This in no way implies that there weren't necessary changes to be made, there were. But, the changes needed to be gradual and they also needed to reflect an understanding of the work already done. Obviously, that hasn't really been the case; but as I said I'm done complaining about that.

None of this sounds very interesting until you think about it historically and professionally. Much of the current problem stems from an historic inability of our department to explain what does/is/should go on in the writing classroom. It was assumed that everyone not only knew, but also agreed what should be happening in the writing classroom.

Here are two examples the first of what I was taught when I first got here and the second of what the current trend is looking like.

The writing classroom is a space in which we can use the study of rhetoric to teach students how to think critically. This approach allows students to develop their own strategies for use when they are asked to produce other forms of writing. (See my post about service course.) The problem with this idea of the purpose of a writing class is that it is not very testable. In other words, there is no way to give all the students some sort of test at the end of 15 weeks that says, "Yes! They've mastered this material."

The current trend is to quantify what goes on in the writing classroom. We may still not produce an End of Subject test, but we know we will only have x amount of reading, and y amount of writing; and we will define objectives and goals until all the courses look the same. This makes sure that everyone from fellow faculty to the university at large can look at our information and think they know what goes on in a writing classroom.

The problem with the first approach is that is difficult to explain to outsiders...really to anyone. Even more importantly it's difficult to pull off well. What that means is that when you have a course taught almost exculsively by graduate students is that sometimes the course will go badly wrong. But, usually the wrongness of it all is what we learn from...both the students and the graduate instructor. The other problem with this approach that is specific to our institution is that it became insular. The running of the Composition program went back and forth between two individuals who thought that everyone else understood what they were doing.

The problem with the second approach is that although the numbers will all look pretty, there is no real way to quantify what goes on in a Writing Class. The attempt to articulate what happens in the writing class through quantifiable evidence becomes problematic when the numbers don't add up to the need. In our situation, this is also a HUGE pendulum swing. People who didn't necessarily agree with the former methods are just as outraged by the rash of changes as those who did.

The really crappy part of it all is that since those of us most affected by the changes are graduate students we are simply seen as whining, not as offering an actual critique. People think that everything will settle down when the last of us trained in the old way leave. What they don't realize is that by then, if the pendulum hasn't swung back a little, it will be too late. The Composition Program here is moving from one that thrives and is growing, to one that will stagnate and die.

This probably really isn't very interesting to anyone else. I just think it's fascinating to see the arguments of the profession, arguments that seemed sorted out and decided, play out in front of me.

Serious Doubt

It was a windy, but beautiful day here. My PWT (protected writing time) is supposed to be t/th/s/s from 7-9am. I didn't do a very good job of protecting it today. A regional two year college conference is in town. My mentor and friend from the Community College helped to organize the conference, so I volunteered to do a little time at the registration desk. Of course, then I found out the DH had an appointment and Dr. Snarky is coming to town, which meant the only good time for me to help out was around 9 this morning.

As I listened to the other folks at the reservation desk talk about grading papers and work, I realized how much I enjoyed my time teaching at the CC. I know some of that enjoyment is colored by the fact that I only taught a 2/2 load and only did it for one year. Still...I miss it.

I spent last night reading Derrida and Levinas. Today, I worked a little then finished reading a novel and thought about everything. I know that it is de rigeur to complain about dissertation writing and I've certainly done my share of it; however, up to this point, my complaints have been of the garden variety. Today, today I really doubted my ability to do this. I cannot seem to get my idea together in my head or on paper. I don't feel like I have anything to work with and I really don't think there is a "so what" to my project. In fact, I don't think there is a project to my project and I don't know where to go from here.

I know, I know. It's natural to doubt yourself during this process. But, honestly, I'm not even in the process yet. If I could get a job at a CC somewhere I think I would take it. I would walk away right now. I know the CP would hate me forever (we're supposed to do this together). I'm just not sure I can take it.

Not Where I Should Be...

Generally I do what is required of me, but today I just can't. There are too many factors at play and I just don't feel like it. It's liberating to learn it's okay not to feel like it. Don't get me wrong, if this were a life or death situation I would absolutely be there, but it's not so I'm not.

In today's New York Times there is an article about grade expectations. It's an interesting piece. It's not cutting edge journalism or anything like that, but it's nice to see the issue get some attention.

Every semester I mean to give a speech about what it takes to get an A in my class in order to underscore to the students that it probably takes more than just showing up, but I always forget. Today, I think I'll bring in that article and talk to them about what it means to get an. Maybe, I'll make them write about it. Ooooh yeah, I'm evil.

Opinion time...

The following 'Open Letter to Ninth Graders" is currently circulating on a listserv I read. What do you all think?

An Open Letter to Ninth Graders

Patrick Sullivan

Preparing our students, long before they become our students.
Dear First-Year High School Students,

I am one of the co-editors of What Is "College-Level" Writing?-a
2006 collection of essays that focuses on the difference between
high school writing and college-level writing. Because of my work
on that book, I've spent a great deal of time in the last five
years thinking about what students need to make the transition from
high school to college.

Many studies and reports in recent years have argued that there's
an important "expectations gap" between the skills students
are typically bringing to college and what college teachers like me
think students should be bringing with them to college. This letter
is an attempt to state those expectations clearly, at least from my
perspective.

I offer you my advice and encouragement as you embark on your high
school career because I think there's a lot that you can do on your
own to get ready for college. A good place to start is with some
advice from Stephen Covey's book The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People: "Begin with the end in mind." I am advising you
to set clear and specific long-term goals for yourself and then
work incrementally over a period of time to meet them. I would like
to provide you here with a number of specific goals that you can
work toward over the next four years.

Let's begin with perhaps the most fundamental of all college-
readiness skills- reading.

Reading

Reading comprehension, as measured by standardized tests like the
SAT and the ACT, is certainly an essential college-level skill.
Students in college are required to read an enormous amount of
material across a formidable range of disciplines, and college
students must be able to understand and engage with this material
thoughtfully. Reading is a foundational skill that makes success
possible in virtually all areas of your college education.

Strong reading comprehension skills, though, do not in themselves
guarantee that you are ready for college. The best college students
I've worked with over the years have had a number of other reading-
related strengths in addition to strong comprehension skills, and I
would like to briefly outline them for you here. Remember, you have
four years to work on these.

* Students who are ready for college like to read. If you don't
like to read, you are going to find college very difficult.

* Students who are ready for college have read some good books as
well as some important books while they were in high school. I'm
not suggesting that you need to follow any particular or
prescriptive reading list, like the one that literary critic E. D.
Hirsch includes, for example, in Cultural Literacy. But a high
school student who is ready for college should have some sense of
our shared intellectual and cultural history, as well as at least
some exposure to work outside the Western cultural tradition. A
high school student who is ready for college should be able to
recognize and respond in some thoughtful way to, say, a reference
in a lecture toKing Lear. Ideally, a student ready for college
would have some visceral sense of what Lear feels like as a
dramatic experience and as a point of reference in our common
heritage. The same can be said about the book of Job, Toni
Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Cervantes's Don Quixote, Willa Cather's
My Antonia, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude,
and Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory, among others.

* Students who are ready for college read for pleasure. Reading is
not something that a student who is ready for college always
associates with "work," "discomfort," "inconvenience," or "pain."
Students who are ready for college enjoy reading.

Being able to enjoy reading is often the result of a long
engagement with books and the written word that cannot be replaced
by "cramming" or taking special college preparatory classes. The
students whom I have found to be most ready for college have loved
books and loved to read. If you don't love to read, you will
probably be confused and frustrated while at college. Reading is
perhaps the most paradigmatic activity of a liberal arts education.
It is where learning begins at college. You have four years to
learn to love to read.

Writing

Strong writing skills are, of course, essential to college success.
As a longtime composition instructor, I know that there are many
things that high school students can do to become strong writers.

First of all, you should expect any piece of serious writing to
require considerable effort. Students who are ready for college
routinely plan to produce multiple drafts of essays; expect to read
and reread assigned texts; expect to think and rethink key ideas
they are exploring in their essays; and routinely ask friends,
family members, tutors, and professors for feedback about their
work. High school students who are ready for college know that good
writing does not get produced without considerable effort, and they
are willing to make that effort. Most of the time they do such work
enthusiastically.

Students who are ready for college come to college interested in
learning how to become better writers. Many of the most problematic
students I've encountered in my teaching career come to college
unable or unwilling to believe that they have anything left to
learn as writers. (I've been writing seriously now for about thirty
years, and I'm still actively looking for ways to become a better
writer.) Students should come to college with the understanding
that they have a great deal to gain from listening to their
professors as they discuss and evaluate their written work. In
fact, students who are ready for college understand that this is
where much of the most important learning in college takes place.

A whole range of behavioral and attitudinal qualities are also
essential to anyone who hopes to be a successful college-level
writer. English professor Kathleen McCormick described these
qualities memorably in an online exchange among contributors to
What Is "College-Level" Writing? Commenting on an essay by Kim
Nelson-a student whose contribution to the volume described the
process of completing a college-level essay on J. R. R. Tolkien-
McCormick wrote,

Let's begin by listing many of the skills with which Kim entered
college. I think they should be divided into two types: behavior
skills and writing skills. Behavioral skills are not exclusive to
college-level writing, but without them, it is hard to achieve
anything, and they are skills that few of us articulate as
explicitly as Kim does, so I think they deserve to be underscored:

* Work through "panic" and refuse to procrastinate.
* Pace yourself to work on assignments for an extended period of
time.
* Find others to help you (parents, teachers, friends at dinner,
tutors at the writing center).
* Recognize that a critique by a professor, while initially
disheartening, is helpful.
* Initiate repeated visits to the professor.
* Value intellectual work and collaboration and validation more
than the grade.
* Brainstorm in note form.
* "Bang out" an outline and critique it.
* Choose quotations.
* Develop a thesis.
* Transfer writing skills learned in high school to the college
situation.
* Maintain sensitivity to language use.
* Reread texts you plan to write about; underline.
* Do library research.
* Listen to multiple levels of textual analysis.
* Rewrite and revise your thesis and writing.

Thinking

I would advise you to seek out classes and learning experiences
that challenge you. Research is beginning to show us that the brain
responds in very powerful and positive ways to cognitive
challenges. Don't limit yourself to subjects or activities that are
familiar or easy.

Students who are ready for college bring with them a curiosity
about ideas and an interest in encountering new ways of looking at
the world. In fact, one of the reasons they come to college in the
first place is to expand their minds, to encounter new ideas and
perspectives, and to grow. High school students who are ready for
college have genuine curiosity about the world and the people in
it. Do you?

Listening

Listening is a vastly undervalued and underappreciated skill in our
culture. Strong listening skills (and the patience and empathy that
make listening possible) will be enormously valuable to you in all
areas of your life, in college and beyond. Listening skills will
certainly help you move toward a more open and welcoming engagement
with the world and with others.

Strong listening skills also make possible healthy, positive,
respectful human relationships. Much of college success depends on
establishing strong working relationships with professors, college
staff, and fellow students. Such relationships are built, of
course, with strong listening skills. Students who are unable to
listen are typically unable to learn, for all the obvious reasons.

Good listeners bring to any interaction with others a number of
important qualities, including patience, empathy, personal
generosity, emotional intelligence, and respect for others. Good
listeners are also able to suspend an interest in themselves and
focus instead in respectful ways on what others think and feel.
Students who are ready for college have done some of the important
personal work that makes this possible. Listening is a skill, like
many others, that improves with practice, and one can become a
better listener simply by endeavoring to be one.

"Grit"
"Grit" is another quality that is vitally important for college
readiness. Researchers who use this term suggest that it includes
self-discipline, perseverance, and passion. As psychologists Angela
Duckworth and Martin Seligman note in their recent essay "Self-
Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of
Adolescents," grit appears to be at least as important to academic
success as IQ or "smarts." In fact, all high school students should
hear what Duckworth and Seligman have to say about self-discipline:

Underachievement among American youth is often blamed on inadequate
teachers, boring textbooks, and large class sizes. We suggest
another reason for students falling short of their intellectual
potential: their failure to exercise self-discipline. . . . We
believe that many of America's children have trouble making choices
that require them to sacrifice short-term pleasure for long-term
gain, and that programs that build self-discipline may be the royal
road to building academic achievement.

Any student is capable of bringing a quality of joyfulness to their
work at college, and the same can be said for the qualities of
selfdiscipline, perseverance, and passion. Without these qualities,
students can only be considered ready to be bored, lost, angry, or
confused at college.

Attitude Toward College

Drinking, socializing, and taking reckless advantage of "freedom"
on campus lead many students to squander their time at college.
I've seen many young men and women trapped in a protracted
adolescence that often lasts well into their late teens, early
twenties, and beyond. As teachers, we want students to have a
youthful spirit (however old they may be), but we also want them to
bring maturity to the college enterprise.

Some students, usually as a result of difficult life experience,
arrive at college with such maturity. But many do not. In my
experience, mature students are often able to engage with college
in very productive ways. Those who do not bring such maturity,
however, typically cannot. Such students often find themselves
confused or angry or without any real direction.

You also need to understand that the chance to attend college is an
opportunity of incalculable value. Because many students take this
opportunity for granted, I recommend that community service be a
required part of every high school student's preparation for
college. Community service is an excellent way for you to begin
building a balanced and mature perspective on life. Such a
perspective will be invaluable to you when you attend college.

Determining Readiness

I have developed a checklist of the college-readiness skills
described in this article. You can use this practical document to
track your progress in high school and ensure that you are ready
for college by the time you graduate. Visit http://www.aaup.org/
AAUP/pubsres/academe/ to view and print the checklist.

Remember: you have four years to develop the skills that you will
need to succeed in college.

Academic Freedom

Once again Stanley Fish has managed to create a maelstrom among academics. Apparently last week he wrote about a case of a professor, Dan Rancourt, fired for giving his students 'As' on the first day and turning his physics course into something much more political. Rancourt describes this as 'academic squatting' - taking a course that already exists and turning it into something else.

This week Fish responds to some of the comments from last week. He attempts to reiterate his position on Academic Freedom. In short Fish thinks that professors should do the job they were hired to do and not hide behind "Academic Freedom" if they are not doing the job they were hired to do. It doesn't really sound so bad, particularly when Fish uses extreme activist teachers like Rancourt as an example. However, this week he also claims, by quoting and supporting a commenter, that professors use Academic Freedom as an excuse to arrive late or not engage in academic rigor.

Fish goes on to say:
So these are the two conceptions of academic freedom that are in play: academic freedom as the freedom to do the academic job (understood by reference to university norms and requirements); and academic freedom as the freedom to chart your own way, to go boldly where no man or woman has gone before, constrained only by your inner sense of what is right and true.

Honestly, I've never met anyone, even activist teacher's, who took this as a stance within the University. This is where Fish goes wrong. He ignores the need to define the "academic job" and secondly he paints the alternative as broadly absurd. The problem demonstrates itself in the reponses to Fish's two articles. The responses tend to engage with either one or the other option without questioning what is behind either.

As for Rancourt and others, I don't believe the just suddenly became "radical." A very, very brief Google search turned up Rancourt's University of Ottowa home page, which descibes him his commitment to activism. Whatever, the true issue is, it seems like the University of Ottowa knew what it was getting when it hired Rancourt and/or gave him tenure.

If you are interested I've included a link to Rancourts blog on the right. He is the "Activist Teacher."

Understanding our courses...

Today at the book fair a first year TA said, "Do we have a critical thinking course?" Without even a pause I said, "Yeah, 101 & 102." There was a round of tittering from other first-year students. I found myself giving a much condensed version of last night's rant. Really, of all the changes being made...it should be ensured that everyone teaching 101 & 102 knows they should have a critical thinking component. Grr. Arrgh.

Professional Disagreement

In order to avoid working on my prospectus, I’ve spent some time perusing other blogs or incessantly checking my Facebook page. Since she is now working in a new setting a friend (Italian at Heart)started a new blog about her teaching. I understand her joy at being in a new department, but I want to point out something.

In her blog the IaH mentioned that at her new school composition is clearly labeled as, and clearly understood to be, a service course. She also said that everyone here at her old school “was so caught up in making sure tat the course wasn’t designated ‘service,’ they really lost focus that it WAS A SERVICE COURSE!”

The IaH used to teach at the junior high level. Her experience with the requirements made of teachers and students at that level would make teaching writing seem like a service course. I mean that when the goal of a course is meeting certain benchmarks any course becomes a service course.

However, at the University teaching writing (composition) carries both a different function and a different history. The failure of this department does not lie in the desire to make sure that composition is not a service course, but the failure of the department to really explain why composition should not be seen as a service course.

There are several reasons for not thinking of composition as a service course, which I have to note does not mean that grammar or writing basics are ignored. The easiest place for me to start is to ask you to step back for a moment and imagine a general education course in mathematics. No one would expect that if you took Math 101 you were ready for Accounting 201 or Chemistry 320. Why is that? Well, because while both Accounting and Chemistry require math, they require different types of math. Math 101 just cannot do it all, which is why Accounting and Chemistry have their own beginning courses.

Since writing is such an integral part of so many disciplines it becomes easy for the history professor to say, “I can’t believe these kids can’t write. What do they learn in Composition?” In that moment the History professor forgets that History as a discipline actually asks students to write in a very different way from English. The DH and I cannot read each others papers because the way our disciplines (History & English respectively) use verbs and voice is so vastly different. I tell him to take out all the passive voice and he tells me to put it back in. The same is true of the writing in Chemistry, Dance, Theatre, etc. It boils down to the same problem as the fictional Math 101. Composition cannot teach every kind of writing.

So, what does composition teach?

Well, I believe that composition should teach critical thinking. I don’t teach my student about the rhetorical triangle in a vacuum. I teach them about the rhetorical triangle because it is a tool for them to use when reading anything – Math, History, Dance, and more importantly the assignments they receive in those courses. When they leave my composition class, they are not ready to write in any discipline; however, they are, hopefully, ready to read and understand any discipline.

Isn’t that a service to other disciplines? Why does labeling composition as a service course matter?

As I have explained there is the perception among other disciplines that if there is a section of the University teaching writing, then it is no longer their responsibility to teach the writing that is important to their field.

The history of Composition and its place within the University are an element of this discussion as well. If you are really interested in this topic you should check out the work of Eileen Schell, Nell Noddings, Gary A. Olson and Susan Miller. Historically, Composition has functioned as an underling to “English” which stood for Literature. Historically, Composition has been taught by women and graduate students. These are groups who would do such intensive work to free-up the tenured faculty to teach courses in their specialty and/or research; they would also do the work at a much cheaper rate. Keeping women in these “service” courses was one way to allow women into the academy, but not allow them to participate fully in all of its functions.

As Kenneth Burke taught us, we view the world through terministic screens. The language we use to build those screens matters. When we label one particular course subservient to others, it keeps the people who teach those courses also subservient. The movement to recognize Composition as a field was a movement to remove that subservient status. When we continue to think of Composition as a service course it is a disservice to all of those who worked long and hard to make sure that what we do in the classroom matters as much as anyone else in the field of English.

Advice....

Subscribing to a professional list-serve has often been a pain, but I'm too lazy to figure out how to unsubscribe and everyone once in a blue moon there is something interesting on there. Yesterday, someone asked people on the list if there were any job letter errors that would ensure an applicant didn't get an interview. Since I hope to go "on the market" next year, I thought this would be a good thread to follow.

Unfortunately, so far...and I'll admit I haven't waded through all the responses, the majority of advice has not been about errors but about tailoring your job letter. If a letter is too generic or boilerplate they either don't read it all or can't figure out why the candidate might be good for the position. Now, this is good advice, I'm not trying to advocate for rote letters. It's just the advice that is always given...at least around here. I'm well steeped in why I need to make the job letter count -- why I need to make sure it tells the committee why I fit their job. That's not exactly the advice that I need.

I know not all departments are like mine, but I do have to day that in spite of all my recent complaints, they do a good job of making us "marketable." I know they want us to get jobs to keep up their placement rates, but I think there is a genuine desire to help us figure out what it is that makes a position work for us. That is important, as one respondent pointed out,

"When graduate students have flubbed, it's often because their letter entirely unexceptional -- I can't see any reason to interview them over the other 30 ABDs in the pile. (And, FWIW, I think this was me when I came out of grad school!). At that point in your career, I think it's often tough to see what distinguishes you from your peers.
And yet, looking back, I can now see what defined me at that stage in my career -- and it's clearly what got me my first job. So it may help to talk with mentors and friends about what makes you "you," professionally speaking."

My letter may end up entirely unexceptional, but I think it will be for other reasons. Our faculty, at least the ones I work with, do a good job of helping us figure out 'what makes us, 'us' Unfortunately, I think part of that process happens now, where I am, while writing the dissertation. A lot of my problem is that I don't necessarily know who I am professionally. Partly, that is because I have many different interests. Writing the dissertation forces me to choose to priviledge one of those interests over another. It's not something I've ever been good at. There is one piece of advice I saw on the list which made me nervous. One person wrote about the candidate that tries to represent too broad of a field. I think that if I were start writing letters now, that would be an issue for me. My areas of interest are broad. My skills are broad. My experience is broad. When I apply for a job, I hope to bring all of those things to bear. Hopefully, I can find a way to demonstrate that without appearing vague, or unfocused.

'

At the watercooler...

Well, we don't really have a water-cooler, but my office will do.

Since my job was "simplified" late last semester, I've maintained a pretty low profile around the department. Once before the semester started I stopped by to say hello to the new DC. The other day, I commented that I hadn't seen her and I needed to stop by again so she knew I wasn't avoiding her.

Here's the deal - She is avoiding me. Really. She just walked through my office, which isn't supposed to be a pass through, looking for someone. Granted, she could have been in a hurry, but she barely even stopped to say hello. She didn't even give a reason for being in a hurrry.

Whatever.

I am not really upset by this. It's just intriguing that she doesn't seem to want to see me. Maybe she sense that their move was wrong, whatever its motivation.

It's Dr. if you're nasty

It's not exactly a great start to the day. At least for once I didn't wake up at 7:30am, the problem is I woke up at 5:15am. I took the puppy out and tried to get back to sleep for about 40 minutes before giving up to go make some coffee and oatmeal.

Then I opened the email and this article from the LA Times came through. In case you can't get to it. The article is about how "pompous" it is for Jill Biden to expect to be called Dr. Biden when she only has a PhD in Education. I understand it's historic for a second lady to keep her day job, but if you really want to get all worked up about that then really talk about it.

Don't just thrown in as an aside the paragraph about how little she'll make as an adjunct faculty member.

McClellan declined to say exactly how much Biden would earn, but said she was teaching 10 hours a week and that the range of pay for her adjunct position was $900 to $1,227 per credit hour. (That means each semester her pay could be from $9,000 to $12,270.)

Point out the fact that this "not that much amount" is what most adjunct family members LIVE ON. Or maybe that she is making that much IN SPITE of the fact that she got her PhD, IN SPITE of the fact that she has 20 years of experience.

Or, maybe we should talk about the fact that she chose to work at a community college and what that means for everyone involved. Jim McClellan, the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Northern Virginia Community College, (notice how unlike in the article I showed respect for his position by capitalizing his title --you, know like you should for anyone) said,

"She could have done anything with her time and make a difference, but she chose to teach, and teach at a community college. That says to our students that they are important and that community colleges are an important piece of the American educational system."

The article doesn't pay much attention to what McClellan says, but I like that he equates teaching with a way to make a difference. Dr. Biden did her time in school, took the exams, wrote the dissertation all of it. She deserves her title. Notice how the article includes the title of Lynne Cheney's dissertation, but not Dr. Biden's.


Don't even get me started on how undervalued the Community College system is in this country. It's a personal soap box.

Redux

Today a fellow graduate student posted a comment about Stanley Fish's article in the NYT.

If you work in the Humanities, you know Stanley Fish. If you don't work in the humanities, think of a venerated, thoroughly established professor in your field. The one who actually helped to generate "new theory" in your field. That is who Stanley Fish is to the literary world. However, it's not necessarily who Stanley Fish is to the Rhetoric and Composition world.

This article is meant mainly to provide a book review for a former student, Frank Donoghue. In doing so, it must provide yet another description of how the University is not what it was...blah, blah, blah. Although, I think that Fish does a pretty good job of not falling too far into that trap. He does what he has to because the University if the subject of the book he is reviewing. It's good to see someone other than a rhet/comp person address the adjunct situation, but neither Fish nor Donoghue provide a solution.

Fish says of adjuncts, "Humanities professors like to think that this is a temporary imbalance and talk about was of redressing it, but Donoghue insists that this development, planned by no one but now well underway, cannot be reversed." It's true. I've spoken before about adjunct teaching and my desire to avoid that avenue, but let's face it, if it gives me a job, I'll do it. In reality adjuncts are now a part of the University system, which means two things. They need to be given some job security. In order to really do that the system of tenure needs to be revised.

From Fish's review, it doesn't seem like Donoghue addresses tenure, but it's a system that clearly needs an overhaul. Just think about life outside the University and you'll see that tenure no longer fits. It was designed in a time when people mostly stayed where they were...or, they went somewhere with the intention of staying. Now, even without the pressure of the job market, people move around more, change careers, etc. Tenure is designed to make sure you stay put in a world where that is not necessarily what people want.

I don't have a solution to the current issues with tenure, but it is something I wish Fish would have at least mentioned in his article. Until people like Fish, people who benefitted from that system can see, and say publically, that it no longer works there will be no impetus to change it.

Inside Higher Ed...

I was going to say a lot of snarky things about this IHE.com article, but I realized everything I wanted to say was in the comments already. I also don't have the energy for invective right now. There is one thing I would like to bring up. Although, I was edumacated to teach rhetoric in the writing class and I think it works well, I think the impetus to critique the idea is a good one. Change is only possible when we critique what is happening. To me, it's just that the answer is NOT to go back to teaching only Literature. I don't have an alternate right now. Maybe so much time shouldn't be spent pointing out what Joseph Kugelmass got wrong (and there was much of it that was wrong) and, instead, spend that energy on questioning our own practices.

Also, I just want to point out that I have only spent two weeks reading IHE and I don't know how much longer I can stand it.

Excuse me for the messed up formatting. I'm sick and I don't want to do this again. Also, there what ended up being a pretty big, cut and paste seciton. This is all from an article titled "The Adjunctification of English" at insidehighered.com. I saw this last week when Dr. Heidi posted it; however, I didn't read it until today. Dr. Heidi's take on this was more about the poor economy and the lack to tenure-track jobs. My take is a little different. Let's begin with the opening line....

Without anyone paying much attention, professors have substantially been replaced by part timers and those off the tenure track when it comes to teaching English and writing to undergraduates.

WTF? Are you serious? Whether or not the MLA has put out a press briefing, this is not a current issue. Anyone involved in teaching composition can tell you that. However, this is continually treated as a "new" development until well down into the article there is this quotation from Cheryl Glenn.

Cheryl Glenn, the chair and a professor of English and women’s studies at Pennsylvania State University, noted that there were many similarities between the MLA’s report and a statement adopted by the writing instructors in 1989, which lamented the “enormous academic underclass” created by the use of adjuncts to teach writing, and called for programs to rely on tenured and tenure-track professors. She said it saddened her that so little progress had been made since 1989, but that the MLA had framed the issues well.

Yes, people in composition and rhetoric have been writing about this "new" problem for years. In fact one of the reasons I continued on to my PhD program was to study this problem. Over the years, my ideas shifted, but that doesn't mean this problem was solved. Go back and read some Bill Readings and Eileen Schell.

Although I am not technically an adjunct, my "Teaching Assistantship" means I occupy a very similar place in the University. In fact, for the University, it is a better place. I do the work of an adjunct, for less, pay for credits while I do it, and they get to say they provide 'experience.' One of the reasons I do not, like many of my colleagues, seek other teaching employment is because it would mean being an "adjunct" somewhere else. Not everyone has the opportunity to eschew that position, but it is important to me to stay out of that system. Until there are jobs, there will always be a cheap labor pool. While there is a cheap labor pool, Universities will use it. Who knows, when I am done here I may have to adjunct somewhere, but there is always the option to be Dr. Barista somewhere.

I want to be clear about one thing. These are my views and only that. I am not saying no one else should ever adjunct; however, if I can avoid it, I will.

Just don't get me started on the other issue here, which is why this is all a problem now that MLA noticed it, but didn't seem to be a real issue before. That is an entirely different rant. Since, I've been told I am a closet Victorianist, I should probably keep my mouth shut about that.

Admissions

I'm going to include a long cut and paste here, sorry. I'll discuss this below.

How do you encourage students to spend their summers? Are professional work experience or programs abroad viewed positively or can some become too gimmicky?
- Evan

Mr. Syverson of Lawrence: This was addressed well by one of my colleagues yesterday. Students should follow their passions and develop the aspects of their personalities and proficiencies that are most exciting to them, not the ones they think will best “package” them. Far too many students are spending far too much of their young lives attempting to do “what the colleges want to see in an applicant” in order to someday gain admission to some highly idealized (often hyper-selective) college. Loren Pope, one-time editor of the New York Times Education Section, who passed away earlier this year, spent much of his latter years promoting the concept that the quality of a student’s college education has more to do with the student’s engagement than with the specific college. Through books like “Beyond the Ivy League” and “Colleges That Change Lives” he argued that there are many wonderful colleges in the U.S. that offer an educational experience as good as (or better than) those at the highest profile colleges (albeit without the pedigree). The college search should focus on finding a college that is a good match for the student – not just the most selective place to which they might gain admission.

Mr. Brenzel of Yale: We encourage students to make use of their summers in the way they find most interesting. If they undertake a specific program, it should be because it appeals strongly to them, not because they imagine it will look best on a resume. Why? First, it is frankly impossible to know what will look best to a particular admissions committee at a particular college. Trying to outthink or outguess the admissions committee strikes me as a useless exercise, though many book authors and private consultants purvey the illusion that they can do this for you. Second, for both education and life, the best program is the one that you find most valuable for yourself at this point in your life. We also honor and value summer jobs; for many students they are necessary and for others they can be just as important a learning experience as anything else. What’s important to us in not what you chose to do for the summer, but what you got out of it.

Mr. Poch of Pomona: While unusual activities may add a great deal to a student’s experience and have a profound effect on their world view, for some it just comes across as decorative, not substantive. Is a special experience or summer expected or a minimum requirement? No.

Many of those “special” experiences reflect the educational and economic background of the family more than the curiosity or talent of the student. For example, I believe most admissions officers would assume it’s not fair to expect a student who works and contributes to family expenses to take an overseas internship. I confess I often wonder why some students who live in areas that have many social service needs unaddressed will ignore the local situation but move to another country to perform a similar social service. Is it really a service trip or is it a summer vacation built for college admission purposes? It may be both and that’s not a penalty point, but it isn’t a bonus consideration either. Is the student whose family connections provided an internship at a high-profile organization more worthy than a student who delivered pizza or tended to family farm commitments? The rest of the application will give us the answer.

It has long been understood that there are five main facets of an application: transcript, recommendations, standardized test scores, extracurriculars and essays. If a student’s transcript is in the weaker half of the applicant pool, but the remaining four facets are quite exemplary, will an elite college be willing to take a chance?
-Jonah

Mr. Poch of Pomona: The more selective the institution, the more likely the decision for admission may turn on things not so easily quantified. If the application suggests strong basic competence academically, the other qualities of a candidate become interesting and often determine the outcome. I am interested in both where a student is at the current moment as well as making a guess about where they may be in a year or two or three. Perfect records in high school don’t always suggest perfect students in college. A student who had a bump along the way may know more about how and why they learn than one who has been grinding along without a second thought. Glowing references, strong tested ability, leadership strength and a terrific interview can sometimes outweigh a transcript with a glitch or two but in highly selective environments are not likely to override a real mess of a record.

Mr. Brenzel of Yale: Weaker transcripts face tough sledding in a highly selective college environment. They don’t automatically disqualify a candidate for us, but you have to remember that we have many thousands of applicants with extremely strong transcripts who are also just as exemplary in the other ways that count.

I’m a junior in New Jersey, and I feel I’m a pretty good student. Recently, a college guidance counselor emphasized that doing community service is essential, not just for the common good, but also for college admissions. How valid is this claim? Also for competitive colleges, or just colleges in general, how highly do admission officers value honors classes or AP courses (regardless of the colleges credit policy for APs)?
-Akiva L.

Mr. Poch of Pomona: If there are honors and AP courses available, many of us would look to see them represented in the record. We are looking for course loads that suggest a level of rigor more comparable to college work. Sometimes the more interesting class or teacher may not be teaching in the honors or AP program. Tell us why you made the course choices you did and you may convince us, too.

Anticipate the questions we are likely to ask. Lay out all the pieces you know will be part of the application that you can control (essays, activities and their presentation); make some guesses about what your recommenders will say; and emphasize and then address (before we ask) those things that may not show you in the best light and tell us what you learned that may not be reflected in the record.

Mr. Brenzel of Yale: We neither privilege nor ignore community service. The thing we are looking for outside the classroom is not a series of check boxes on a resume; we’re looking instead for a high level of engagement or leadership in whatever it is that the student cares about most. For some students, community service is at the forefront of their extracurriculars, in which case we pay a lot of attention to what they have accomplished in that area. For other students, some other passion or interest holds primary sway, and we evaluate the engagement in that area. We know that very few students can fully engage more than one or two primary activities at a high level. Though it is fine for a student to have varied interests, a significant number of students make the common mistake of spreading themselves too thinly in a resume-building exercise.

With respect to programs of study, we are less concerned with particular course designations and more concerned simply to see that candidates have embraced and performed well in whatever their schools offer as a most challenging program. At the same time, we are not particularly drawn to one-dimensional students who have made their sole or primary objective in life amassing the largest number of honors or AP courses conceivable, accompanied by multiple efforts to achieve the world’s highest test scores.

Mr. Syverson of Lawrence: We seek students who have taken good advantage of their opportunities by following their passions as well as exploring new opportunities. Because of our academic rigor, though, it is important to us that students have challenged themselves academically, which probably means taking advantage of some AP classes if they are available, but does not mean taking every AP class just because it is available.

The New York Times put up a series of Question and Answers from Deans of Admissions. I found these answers interesting, not based on what is really said, but the situation at hand. As more and more universities promote service learning I wonder about the importance of service within the application process. I almost feel like these Deans aren't necessarily being honest. Sure, for students who apply in the next year or two these answers might hold; however, in the future it would not surprise me if "how you spent your summer" and "community service" become more important. There is also another aspect here that did not get covered. One thing that troubles me about service learning is that it takes for granted a clientelle. The admissions process does not seem to account for that clientelle...or, at least, based on these answers, doesn't seem to take into account students who've received these services rather than provided them. I'm not sure if that make sense. What I am trying to say is that in the future there will be a whole population of student's who've received some sort of tutoring or aid from a service learning program. I don't believe we've adequately consider how that will or will not mark them within the University. I will admit that I am not fully current on service learning issues; however, this always strikes me as a glaring hole in the conversation.

I would also like to point out that, while this panel is ostensibly diverse, it is not representative of public institutions. It seems like including UT was an attempt to include a public school, but it is a rather elite public school. The type of university that I've attended is obviously missing from this discussion, as is the community college (but I guess that is to be expected).

Keeping Up

It really is the wrong time to start this blog again, but when have I ever done anything at the correct time.

I'd like to say I'm in the middle of my comps study, but really I'm approaching the end of it. My exams are not until February, but that feels like tomorrow. There is so much to read between now and then I cannot even fathom having it done in time.

I'm hoping that the occasional diversion of posting will keep me from going completely over the edge.

Over at Rate Your Students there has been an ongoing debate between senior and junior faculty. The latests installment is here. The argument began in the comments at one of my favorite blogs - Reassigned Time. The crux of the argument was a perceived lack of gratitude and loyalty in junior faculty with tenure track positions who put themselves back on the market. At RYS the debate has devolved into whether or not junior faculty, especially those who are a part of gen-x, are guilty of perceiving themselves as special.

RYS is a fun forum, which I typically head to for a good laugh; however, I think this subject deserves more serious treatment. The Cajun Princess and I talked about it in the office yesterday. In everyone's haste to define junior faculty as lacking commitment and senior faculty as rigid and overbearing, no one takes up the underlying issues about the structure of departments and universities.

The profession has changed. The market is ridiculously tight, which means that I will take whatever job I can get...until I can find the one that I want. If departments are really that worried about keeping junior faculty they need acknowledge that the structure of reviews, tenure, and promotion needs to change. Not only is the job market tight, but the publishing market as well. A broader range of publication and scholarly work need to count towards tenure goals and/or those goals need to be readjusted. I realize those requirements differ at every institution, but there are certain goals like book publication that seem to be pretty universal. There are definitely prejudices about alternative forms of publishing that need to be addressed. I pay attention to the junior faculty at my university. I see how hard they work, what kind of work they do, and how it is or is not valued in our department. You don't have to sit on very many committees to see how senior faculty respond to the work of junior faculty.

The discussion that needs to happen isn't about generational divides and job loyalty/security. It is about the nature of the job itself.

Getting the Ball Rolling

Although I still have to fill out the official paperwork, the final nail dropped in my committee coffin yesterday. I got up the nerve to ask the last member to work with me; and, he agreed. When I sat down last week to start putting together the my exam lists everything still felt somehow unreal. Watching Dr. Chat create a folder with my name on it and put it in another folder titled “Exams” was like feeling the puzzle pieces lock together. Although it is nerve wracking—like that moment when the rollercoaster just begins to move slowly up the track, it also brought me a sense of calm and determination. I’m done agonizing over who to work with and ready to get to work.

About the agonizing, I’ve known who I should work with since last spring. I delayed asking people to be on my committee because I worried about personality conflicts and stories I heard from other students. My friends who are taking their exams this semester all counsel me cryptically to “choose your committee carefully,” without giving me any concrete advice about how to do that. It’s frustrating, because really I don’t have a choice about who I’m working with – our department just isn’t that big.

Unlike some of my friends, I don’t know exactly what my dissertation topic is, so I’ve constructed my comprehensive exam lists using the theories that I know I want to work with in my dissertation. That means I have to work with Dr. Belle (who will chair my committee) because she is passionate about one of my theory areas, Dr. Chat because he is the only one on the faculty who works with a particular theory, and Dr. Snarky because her work provides the intersection between the other two theories. I know there are personality conflicts between at least two of the members. I’m pretty sure that when it comes time to write for these folks I will be pulled in at least two different directions, but that is just the nature of the game. At some level, I have to believe that these people are adults who can figure out how to work together.

My concern now is that all my lists are theoretical, but that is a different post.