You're Doing It Wrong

I occasionally get emails which read something like this: "I am following exactly what your directions say for the quizzes and when I feel I am doing well I keep getting a <lower score than I'd like>?!? I don't know what I am doing wrong?"

 When I get emails like this, I have to fight the urge to reply with, "You are answering some of the questions incorrectly," along with a link to this article. I should add here that my students do not consist only of Millennials.

I don't always link to Vox, but when I do, it's because they've posted something worth reading. This is such a time. I love my job in academia, and I especially love teaching (well, except maybe for the physical science classes, which are populated at best by the students who the guy in this article describes). However, I have heard plenty of gloom-and-doom speeches about the state of academia in general--including from the administrators who run my own university. I suspect that there will be a  reckoning in the next few decades, and I hope that I am able to keep my career when that happens.

On Victim-Blaming

I suppose this is not entirely unrelated to the insanity at Ferguson, but it is a sort of different topic: it is intellectually dishonest to dismiss precautions, warnings, and (after the fact) lesson-drawing from one's misfortunes as "blaming the victim." Here is Dr. Budziszewski breaking down the intellectual and moral silliness which pervades most cries of "blaming the victim":

Why is it so difficult to make a few simple distinctions? The perpetrator is entirely to blame for robbery and assault. But the victim in this case is to blame for foolhardiness and indiscretion. The victim’s foolishness does not mitigate the perpetrator’s guilt for his crime. But the perpetrator’s guilt does not mitigate the victim’s blame for his folly. The perpetrator deserves our reprobation, and should suffer the full penalty of law. But the victim, who has already suffered the penalty of natural consequences, deserves our pity -- and a stern talking-to.

In his postscript, the good professor addresses what might be called the opposite fallacy, which is when the victim blames himself for something which actually might not be his fault. Actually, his advice is good general advice to at least a substantial minority, if not an outright majority, of college students today: drop out of college, get a blue collar job for a few years, and then when you have learned what you can form the school of hard knocks, return to the academy ready to earn and education of the sort attainable there.

Western Civilization and the University

So my boss sent me the proposed changes to the general requirements curriculum. This is largely because eh wants me to go to the hearing/planning meeting tomorrow and fight for keeping the 8 hours of science as being 4 hours each in two separate categories, to prevent students from just taking 8 hours of biology and skipping chemistry, physics, earth science, and physical sciences (all of which are in our department) altogether. FWIW, I think we should require 12 hours, with a sequence of 8 and then one more out of that sequence, but that's just me (and many other universities), but the next best option is to have two separate 4 hour sequences.

The biology department seems to have a desire to outright require a two-hour sequence.  This would virtually eliminate the chemistry/physics cashcows of physical science (and to a lesser extent, earth sciences) since neither class currently exists as a two-semester sequence, and most students would prefer the relatively easy intro biology courses to the relatively more difficult chemistry, physics, or even physical science counterparts. Such is inter-departmental politics.

Moving on, I noticed that among proposed changes was this gem: "3. Removal of Western Civilization as a history option in the required slot for General Studies Program; move Western Civilization to the elective area." As I understand it, this makes Western Civ an optional history class as opposed to a required one, albeit one which does still fill a requirement There is, after all, the requirement of "Any 1000-2000 level courses from the following Social Science disciplines: Anthropology, Economics, Geography, History, Leadership, Interdisciplinary Studies, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Sociology or other Social Science areas: 9 hours" with  6 of those 9 hours being either a six-hour sequence in literature or a 6-hour sequence in history. US or World history is its own 3 hour category.

Under different circumstances, I would consider protesting this change. I think that the single most important course in history for a student to take is that of Western Civ, which is not generally covered in much depth once one enters post-secondary school. American History, or the History of the US, and World History are probably next, but the former at least has been covered (in theory) by the high schools. To banish Western Civ. to the lost realm of "electives,' even "elective which fulfill a requirement," is to deprive a great many students of their cultural heritage.

With that said, I know a number of the newer history profs and lecturers: one specialized in race relations in the south, and another in Middle Eastern History*. The former currently teaches Western Civ and frequently remarks that she is having to learn it all over again, having not really studied it much in the course of gaining a doctorate in history focusing on the history of the United States. Such is not an uncommon occurrence in history or really any field. Based on her conversations with me, she is doing a reasonably good job of trying to teach the material objectively, but then again she has mostly covered Egypt, Greece, and (pre-Constantine) Rome to this point. I can only hope that the attempts at a fair presentation continue through the medieval period. The Middle Eastern History specialist remarked to me that he did not even bother to apply to any school whose mascot was "the crusaders" or "the knights" or "the templars" or (gasp) "the saints," because they would obviously have a wrongheaded approach to teaching history in general and Middle Eastern, Islamic history in particular. This latter man is actually Jewish, but decidedly un-Western, perhaps even anti-Western** (though I suppose that any course he teaches about world history outside of the west is probably a thing of beauty, as he does put lots of effort into the preparation).

Being as I am at a state (read: secular) university, and being as these are the kinds of professors who largely work here, we may be doing the poor students a favor by sparing them a cynically taught version of Western Civ. Utter ignorance of one's cultural heritage is probably preferable to complete disdain of that heritage, especially if it is manufactured disdain.


-----
*A third one is actually a convert to Catholicism, and wrote his dissertation on anti-Catholicism in the US, particularly during the mid 19th century ("Know Nothings" featured prominently). He would probably do a nice job of teaching Western Civ.

**But still a colleague and perhaps a friend no less.

TMM: A Few Thoughts On Research at the Small College Level

I thought  would have more time to write now that I am finished with graduate school. Not a lot more, mind you, but at least a little more. It turns out that being a new professor is a lot of work, even when your main responsibilities are just teaching classes. Or maybe I put a little too much effort into preparing my lecture notes: I seem to be the only one who regularly stays here until 7, 8, or even 9 at night (and I am usually here before 8 in it morning): everybody else goes home by 5. Of course, "everybody else" has tenure.

I look forward to that day, if it comes. I have a plan and a path to get there, but no assurance that it will ultimately work out. And they demand research, a minimum of three peer-reviewed publications (a bit of a challenge in my experience). This will ultimately require that I switch fields at least a little, because they don't have anything like enough money to buy the laser and other equipment I would need to stay in my own field. Ouch.

Many of the member of the tenure and promotion committee are people who did not themselves every have this research requirement (though many of them did do research). They got tenure, they got promoted, then they changed the rules to make those things more difficult to get. These are not necessarily complaints, only observations--I actually am really enjoying my job so far.

The nearest to a complaint that I have to offer is that this seems to be a national trend. I specifically targeted smaller "liberal arts"-type colleges because I did not want research to be a requirement of the job--and I am not alone in this desire to leave rigorous research behind. Not everybody wants to do the whole publish-or-perish thing: I'd wager that if not an outright majority, then at least a large minority do not want to have that hanging over their heads. There are quite a few people coming out of the big R1 universities who want to go to a smaller college without graduate students because they want to focus on teaching and teaching well, with research as a sort of side-gig or hobby. Research without pressure to publish immediately won't likely lead to cutting edge results. It may well lead to a return to "doing good science," that is, being more thorough and systematic in obtaining results.

It may be that soon there will be no such teaching positions available, outside of the community colleges and adjunct positions. And on a related note, "publish or perish" has been steadily pushing the scientific field to look for "flashy results" and not necessarily good science. Often the one can lead to the other, though much of the "good science" which comes in the wake of the "flashy results" never really makes it to publication. And at the other extreme, often the flashy results are not good science at all, are not the beginnings of good science--but they get published, so the more cynical scientists will pass them off as "good science" for as long as they can wring publications out of them. That truly is a tragedy.