Monkey on YOUR back Monday

Okay, I am setting a new precedent: Monkey on YOUR back Mondays. Yes, every Monday I am going to write people who I need to do things for me or who are waiting on things from me so they can progress in their work.

Mondays will be the day I take the monkey off my back and place it on to someone else's. Doesn't that make "answer all my email," ""move that draft on to the next person," and "ask that question I needed to ask" sound much better? Same tasks, different perspective.

Unfortunately, the gf has already learned this trick and came bearing monkeys to share this morning. Rather than affect the stance of the monkey above, I went for a different tact. We decided to put them in a nice cage in the living room, let them watch some reality TV, and decide which of us will take them on as time permits (or dictates).

So, summer is drawing to an end and the real beginning of sabbatical is starting. Another new game I have picked up now is the false plan/deadline game. Set the start date late... then if you start early, you are an overachiever!! Set your finish date late, and if you finish early, you are a SUPERSTAR! And if you finish on time, you are still pretty awesome. (I call this the Pizza Delivery approach; tell them you can deliver in 45 minutes, and when you get there in 20, you are a GOD!)

This and more lessons in future posts... right after I finish this kindle book!

The best paid laid plans

My gf came up to me in the closet as I was putting away laundry and posed the following riddle:

How do you know that Lesboprof is officially on sabbatical?

Answer?

Check the bill for the Kindle.

Yes, sports fans, last month's bill was for no less than $163, which was the cost of the **28 books** I ordered between the middle of June and the middle of July. Um, yeah. And I have to admit that none of them are books for scholarship--those I got from the library. No, instead, I have ventured into what they politely call "urban fantasy," or what I prefer to think of as kickass, sexy women who happen to be witches, shapeshifters, warewolves, vampires, and other fantastical beings. (Well, that and the new book, Denial, by terrorism scholar Jessica Stern, which I highly recommend. Be prepared that the book centers on the discussion of sexual assault and torture as experienced by Stern and others. It is a compelling story and an amazingly thoughtful reflection on the ways that violence, and denial of its effects, shape our lives.)

As for the sheer number of books, I can explain that. I have found that when I start some new urban fantasy series, many of which have 6-9 books in the series, I can buzz through 6-8 books in a week or so. And the fact that Amazon has my credit info means that I don't have to acknowledge the real cost until the bill arrives.

It is kind of hard to believe that during that same time as I was ordering and reading these books, I taught an intensive summer class, which was a new prep, no less. Well, I guess I know why my writing isn't progressing yet! And, unbeknownst to the gf, I have three new Kindle releases being delivered (and charged) next Tuesday. All of these books are part of larger series I have already read. The good news is that they are an easy and fun read.

No worries, though. I have a plan that gives me until August 1st to get my butt in gear. Any major writing that begins before that date is a bonus. I did start to review research materials and do some outlining today, which is good.

So, unless fate intervenes, I have a plan that includes 5 products (4 completed articles and a draft of a teaching case) in 5 months (August 1-January 1). And I will learn to play guitar, do several public speaking gigs, move forward on a research project, and travel a little. And, of course, do a little blogging in my spare time. Ambitious, to be sure, yet fun.

I will let you know how it goes! :-)

Teaching (about) religion: A reflection in MANY parts

Well, you know I have to wade into the discussion of the firing of the adjunct at University of Illinois. Kenneth Howell, a Catholic theologian, minister, and director of the Institute of Catholic Thought, taught "Introduction to Catholicism" in the religious studies program. A letter from a friend of a gay student in the course complained that the instructor had spoken pejoratively about homosexuality in the class many times. He cites, as an example, an email the instructor sent out to students comparing utilitarianism to the Catholic concept of Natural Moral Law, an email that explains why Catholics oppose homosexuality as a contravention of natural moral laws.

Now, Cary Nelson of the AAUP and Tenured Radical both oppose the firing (or, more accurately, the nonrenewal of his contract), and that is usually good enough for me. I am a big proponent of academic freedom for instructors, regardless of the instructors' political or social loci. I am not about supporting only people who agree with me.

I also worry when universities seem more focused on staying out of trouble--and out of court--rather than sustaining fundamental principles about student learning and the importance of diverse perspectives to quality learning communities. As one university president I met explained it, "I certainly pay attention to the university counsel, but they don't make my decisions."

That said, I worry about where the line is placed between where academic freedom of faculty ends and indoctrination of students begins. It is easy to say that as long as we don't penalize students on the basis of their opposition to my opinion, I can say whatever I want. Perhaps we go further to say that we don't use clear hate speech, like calling a student by an epithet, in class. Yet, even if we allow that students shouldn't have a right to not being made uncomfortable or challenged in their perspectives, isn't there some further standard--about endorsing and promoting racist/sexist/homophobic/anti-religious perspectives that are problematic?

I think this argument comes into stark relief in this case, as it relates to teaching (about) religion. Perhaps that is the issue--are we supposed to TEACH ABOUT religion or TEACH religion? This was not a theology class in a Div School or Seminary. It was an introductory, undergraduate religious studies course in a public university.

If I were a student in this class, as an out lesbian, a feminist, and a Jew, I would expect to be occasionally offended, disgusted, and irritated by what was said in class. I should know that going in, if I knew anything about Catholicism at all. (My biggest childhood memories are of Catholic friends telling me I was going to hell and that dead babies were in limbo--neither of which seemed very fair to me.) But I would have expected to learn about the Catholic ideas about Natural Moral Laws and the Catholic beliefs about sexuality and gender. I would not have been disappointed in Howell's class, either, as he writes:

But the more significant problem has to do with the fact that the consent criterion is not related in any way to the NATURE of the act itself. This is where Natural Moral Law (NML) objects. NML says that Morality must be a response to REALITY. In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same. How do we know this? By looking at REALITY. Men and women are complementary in their anatomy, physiology, and psychology. Men and women are not interchangeable. So, a moral sexual act has to be between persons that are fitted for that act. Consent is important but there is more than consent needed.


One example applicable to homosexual acts illustrates the problem. To the best of my knowledge, in a sexual relationship between two men, one of them tends to act as the "woman" while the other acts as the "man." In this scenario, homosexual men have been known to engage in certain types of actions for which their bodies are not fitted. I don't want to be too graphic so I won't go into details but a physician has told me that these acts are deleterious to the health of one or possibly both of the men. Yet, if the morality of the act is judged only by mutual consent, then there are clearly homosexual acts which are injurious to their health but which are consented to. Why are they injurious? Because they violate the meaning, structure, and (sometimes) health of the human body.

I shudder to imagine my conversations with this professor, as I discussed whether my hands were "fitted" to manual stimulation of my lesbian partner and why so many heterosexual young women develop urinary tract infections engaging in "natural, procreative" sexual intercourse with their new husbands. (It is so common, doctors refer to it as the honeymoon infection.) Or how his "natural" understanding of clear gender divisions is ill-informed, based on our knowledge about the high rates of intersex conditions among newborns.

Nonetheless, if I had been in the class, I would have expected to be able to discuss these ideas and explain them in a sympathetic and summary fashion on exams. All the better to critique them in the future, I think.

That said, the patronizing crap at the end of the email to students would have rightly pissed me off. He writes:

All I ask as your teacher is that you approach these questions as a thinking adult. That implies questioning what you have heard around you. Unless you have done extensive research into homosexuality and are cognizant of the history of moral thought, you are not ready to make judgments about moral truth in this matter. All I encourage is to make informed decisions.

Besides being patronizing, the closing  advocates that I use in my own life. This is the part of his email that makes me uncomfortable. Aren't there valid arguments to say that Howell was not just expressing his opinion ("This is what I believe") but proselytizing? Can we hold the instructor to a different standard in the classroom than he holds in his role at the Newman Center?
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I must go back to the issue about creating a hostile setting, though it is problematic in that it is beset with legal woes and argumentative hairsplitting. But really, what counts as hostile? What behaviors and statements are so egregious that they should be interrupted, and who gets to decide?

I had a friend in law school who took a criminal law class from an instructor who constantly made demeaning comments about women. When discussing cases, he often made snarky, sexist remarks about the women involved. He also brought up rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment more often than any other kind of criminal case, commenting frequently on the sex involved and belittling the seriousness and severity of the crimes. Students grumbled to one another and a few made some complaints to the other faculty, but everyone just sort of committed to getting through it. The final exam, however, was the coup de grace. One of the questions on the exam described a fictional case of rape in such lurid detail and in a way that was condemning and even made fun of the victim, that the women (and a few men) in the class decided they had had enough. The class went down to the Dean's office, exams in hand, and refused to complete the exam. It was a long time ago, but my memory says that the students were given a different exam and the instructor was reprimanded and changed out of criminal law to some other course.

I don't wish to equate these two examples--the sexist law professor (SLP) and the Catholic/homophobic(?) religious studies instructor (CRSI)--but can we use them for contrast? Is there any way to clearly differentiate the two? Should SLP get to be a jerk because of academic freedom protections? Does  CSRI get a pass on saying anti-gay things repeatedly because he articulating his personal Catholic faith?

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Another question for the religious studies department: Does the Catholic religious studies instructor teach the controversies? The changes in Catholic theological perspectives over time? Because there are Catholic theologians who do not embrace his interpretation of Natural Moral Laws, who offer different interpretations. There are disagreements within the Catholic church about homosexuality, the role of women and men in the church, the role of priests, etc.

I went to a presentation about Islam at a conference once, and the presenter was a young Muslim American woman. She was not a scholar on Islam, just a lifelong believer who was raised in the faith. She shared the tenets of Muslim faith and traditions with the group, which was fine, I suppose, but she purposefully ignored some of the areas where there are real disagreements between Muslims. Several people would ask questions, and she kept acting like there was only one way a "real" Muslim would answer. At one point I said, "But that is why we have fighting between Sunni and Shi'a, right, because of differences in beliefs within Islam?"

While one might teach "what the Church says" in church or bible study, aren't we asking for something more critical, more thoughtful, and more historically and intellectually grounded in our college classrooms?

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As an aside to Tenured Radical, who discusses students' complaints about a documentary she shows about "ex-gays," I have to wonder how she prepares students for it. I imagine that there are any number of young queers who take her class on Post-1968 Sexuality partly because they want to be around TR--kickass academic dyke that she is. And I would not be surprised to find that they feel hurt and betrayed by the ex-gay movie, which reinforces what they see as the larger social narratives that oppress them. So. I wonder, does TR prep the class for the movie by talking about why she is showing it? What she wants them to look for in the film? Ask them to set aside their personal reactions (pro or con) to focus on the arguments or ways sexuality is discussed?

I have also shown some pretty anti-gay stuff in the classroom. In one class on policy, I had students view two videos: It's Elementary (pro-queer) and The Gay Agenda (anti-queer). I told the students that they would not likely agree with one or both of the videos, and that they might be angered or upset by some of the things said in the videos. I explained that my agenda in class was not to argue about these arguments presented in the videos. Instead, our job was to look at HOW the arguments were presented: what pictures, messages, images, sounds, and other presentation tools were used to persuade the viewer? How effective were they? Why did the creators of the videos make the choices they did? How were the videos used to organize and advocate for change? I actually didn't get any flak from students about either of the videos. And I would use just the anti-gay one if I only had time for one video, though I would be clear to set up for students that we are watching the video to see effective political advocacy in film, not to promote the message or ideas in the film.

************

Obviously, I don't have answers for this problem of how to decide what is okay and not okay in the classroom. For myself, I work hard to try to challenges students to try on different perspectives, to pick at weaknesses and strengths of different arguments, and to engage in civil, thoughtful discussion about thorny, challenging social and political issues. I also try to model respect.

I am sure that someone from the outside could look at my classes and accuse me of indoctrinating students into a liberal or progressive mindset, advocating homosexuality as normal or even good, or promoting a belief in the existance of systemic, institutional racism. And it is true that I give my students data and information that can support these perspectives. And yet... I also discuss the critiques of these positions, and provide students with information and data (what there is that is good) from the other sides.  And I would argue that some of the students who like me best are conservative Christian students, who feel supported and encouraged by their avowedly lesbian, feminist, left-wing professor. I can live with that.
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UPDATE:
Check out the story (and the quotations of this blog entry and Tenured Radical's piece) at IHE.

Don't open that TIAA-CREF statement!!

Seriously. Don't open it. Even though my portfolio went up more than 7% in March, it lost value in the last quarter. All those contributions, and I LOST money. It is depressing.

To make matters worse, I am so close to passing an amount milestone. You know what I mean...think of those important milestones on the car odometer. Why that matters, I don't know, but psychologically, it does. And now I am slipping farther away from the milestone. How depressing.

The only way I comfort myself is by knowing this is a long haul kind of deal, and that with some luck, it will continue to go up as I work and contribute. Thank goodness I am not close to the end of my career.

So, throw away the statement and go to the pool. Trust me.

* I think the asterisk is meant to tell you that it isn't guaranteeing that these services will serve your personal good. Or that is how I read it now. : - (

Daydreaming about lesbian and gay college leadership

I just finished reading the Chronicle story about the out lesbian President of Hartwick College, Margaret L. Drugovich, who lives openly with her partner and child in the President's mansion. All in all, it was a nice profile story, describing how the College and the search firm considered her sexual orientation and how Drugovich manages her identity in public and on campus. They didn't note that she has a website describing her family and a photo album of family pictures on the college's website, which I thought was typical of smaller colleges and represented a pretty bold step in being out and open.

I was struck by the discussion about public displays of affection by Dr. Drugovich's partner, Beth Steele, in the article. Steele notes that they do not hold hands or kiss in public, because someone might be offended. That led me to conduct a search on Ms. Drugovich's age, which, it turns out is only 50. (Incidentally, it took quite a while to find her age, which surfaced only in one random local story.) I thought she might be a bit older, based on the decision about lack of PDAs and the fact that she calls Ms. Steele "doll," which I found incredibly endearing if kind of old fashioned. I have witnessed wide differences in opinions about PDAs--queer or otherwise--based on age, though other factors such as religious affiliation, geographical location (current and where one was raised), and political ideology are also influential.

As I discussed the article with my partner, we daydreamed about how we might handle life if I was a college president. We noted that not holding hands or touching publicly would be too much for anyone to expect or require of us, as we are pretty affectionate as a couple. I can also guess that, once I settled in to a Presidency and folks on campus got used to us, they might catch us sneaking a kiss or two or cuddling at some point or another.

A similar line of argument--not being too strident in one's queerness--crept in related to positive comments on Drugovich's lack of "political activism."

Dick Clapp, head of the search committee and a 1962 graduate of Hartwick, reacted by performing some due diligence. He asked people on the Ohio Wesleyan board whether Ms. Drugovich's sexual orientation had ever been an issue there. ...Board members at Ohio Wesleyan assured [the head of the search committee at Hartwick] that Ms. Drugovich was the ultimate professional. "She's not going to go out and be the spokesperson for a lesbian group," he says they told him.

Now, while I agree with Drugovich that she is the President for everyone at the college, I find the definition of professionalism as a lack of activism and outspokenness to be troublesome. And, if there had been a queer-related hate crime on her previous campus and, in her role as a faculty member or administrator, she had spoken out on these issues, she is being unprofessional? What is that about?

My reaction is also likely based on the reality that I *am* an activist who has (a) worked with LGBT groups, (b) taught LGBT studies-related courses, (c) advocated for LGBT-supportive policies on campuses where I worked, and (d) been an active supporter and advocate for LGBT faculty, staff, and students. I am a frequent spokesperson on the LGBT group. However, I need to be clear that LGBT issues aren't the only ones where I am active. I also advocate for faculty and students of color, low-income communities, and first generation students. I work on gender, race, and class issues in academic policy and practice. But I would still argue that I am very professional in my roles as faculty member and administrator, and I think the question of professionalism should be divorced from this anti-identity, anti-advocacy bias.

Now I am clear that my own style and my level of outness would be a deterrent some some schools. Honestly, that has been true for as long as I have been in academe. The higher you go up the administrative ladder, the more the question of institutional fit comes into play. All I can do is prepare myself to be the best candidate I can be and look for positions and institutions that will play to my strengths, and where my identity and personal style will not be too much of a detriment.

I am proud of Drugovich, Biddy Martin, and the other openly lesbian and gay college leaders who are paving the way for the rest of us. I hope that their meeting in August goes well, and that they consider how they will best mentor the next generation of lesbian and gay leaders.

Reluctantly learning from business texts

Okay, so I am preparing to participate in some leadership training, and I have to ask, as I peruse the required pre-training reading: Do we have to use business readings? I mean, I know that higher education is a business, and that our organizations have to deal with issues of budgets, human resources, management, etc. But the business texts are annoying to read. I don't care about how Walmart, GM, and Southwest Airlines function, and I find a pretty serious disconnect between for-profit and nonprofit organizational issues. Yes, I know I can learn something from assessing these business models, but wouldn't I learn more from reading about examples from higher education? Examples where public institutions have to function within state systems and manage multiple constituencies, and where the desired outcomes are actually the subject of as much debate as the appropriate methods for assessing these outcomes?

Where are the great higher education management theories? Where is the organizational management book specifically for higher ed? And if it exists, why am I not being asked to read it, instead of the big, annoying business texts??

I have slogged through half of one of the books, and I am certainly finding ideas that are useful to leadership questions in higher education, so I don't want to complain too loudly. I just wish the authors had written a second book just for higher education institutions. Dean Dad, where is that higher ed management book you need to write, hmmm????

To dream the improbable dream

Once again, I am inspired by Tenured Radical for another entry. She was in turn inspired by another blogger, Africanist Tim Burke, who critiqued the health care system and compared that to others' critiques of academia--specifically, teaching in higher education. The Radical takes the comparison further, identifying ways we academics regularly fail students:

My guess is that many undergraduates experience college with the same sense of powerlessness and frustration that I experienced in the failed relationship with my first PCP. How many of you have colleagues who have no scheduled office hours? Who are abrupt and peremptory with students in a way that discourages them from seeking help, or even making contact? Who then blame students for not having come to office hours? Who are often unavailable even if they have posted office hours? Who give assignments without saying what they are for or what the student is supposed to learn from them? Who give grades without any comment or instruction about what is right or wrong with the paper? Who deal with students who are not learning -- not by teaching them -- but by sending them to the writing workshop, the learning center or for tutoring by another undergraduate?

As a (soon to be former) administrator, I have been in a position to act on some of these issues. When I met with a faculty colleague who was serving as an undergraduate advisor, I was shocked when he asked me why I spent so long with my advisees. "It only takes me a few minutes to check their schedule and make sure they are taking the right courses," he explained. "What are you doing with them all that time?"

All that time, I must explain, was only 20-25 minutes, but it seemed far too long to my colleague. I told him that we discussed their plans after graduation--how to find jobs or choose grad schools, their current part-time jobs, issues with roommates and classes, possibilities for summer internships and study abroad opportunities, and any number of other challenges and opportunities facing them. He was dumbstruck. He was "doing his job," as he saw it--making sure students would graduate on time. What I was doing was something different, but something I saw as "doing my job." I then realized that no one had ever defined the job for either of us, or trained us about how to best accomplish this job. Also, we never got feedback on this job, as no one had ever evaluated the advisors in our department.

So, when I became an administrator in the department, I instituted advisor trainings and annual evaluations. The evaluations were only available to me and each advisors themselves, though I occasionally used them with the associate dean to advocate removal of an especially poor faculty advisor. As a result, faculty learned how to be good advisors, faculty felt more confident in their roles as advisors, and advising  processes improved (as reflected on the evaluations).

There are some similarities between these issues in higher education and health care. Just like many professors are not trained or even briefed about the ins and outs of teaching and advising, medical school professors and patient rights advocates have decried for years the lack of focus in medical school on the interpersonal aspects of medical practice. TR's old primary care physician likely was not trained in "what works best" in interpersonal interactions with patients. She focused on what she saw as her job: assessing symptoms, identifying illnesses, and prescribing treatment. And she did not go "above and beyond" to find out what would best serve her patients. And there were no feedback loops, no evaluations, no bonuses or benefits that provided incentive for change. Hell, even TR's choice to leave the practice could be explained away as a "difficult patient."

I think the gauntlet that TR is throwing down is actually a call for academic administrators, faculty members, students services staff members, and students to work together to identify practices that work and those that don't, provide feedback and incentives for behavior and programmatic changes, and regularly evaluate how we are doing. I don't want to be all Pollyanna about this, but I think that most faculty members I know want to do a good job. They just often don't know what the job actually is or the best ways to do it. We studied our disciplines, and we are damn good at that, but no one taught us how to be good teachers or even ehat the goals and purposes of our roles are! There are those who slack off, but most act poorly because they don't know anything better or different.

For example, let's take TR's question above about people not holding office hours. I mean, why do we even hold office hours? Supposedly, to provide students with a chance to get individual feedback  advice, and guidance from their instructors. But students don't come to them. I have found that unless I require a meeting, or a student is in especially dire straits, I won't see a student in my office during office hours. In my setting, office hours don't work, and they don't help me as an instructor, administrator, or researcher--in fact, they eat into my potential work/writing time. So, I stopped having them (my syllabi say, individual appointments as needed) and made myself available my email, phone, and Facebook. And, lo and behold, I am hearing from students. I am likely,to get an instant message on Facebook or even (if they realize I am old and not actually likely to be up at midnight) a regular email with a quick question or concern. I also learned from more experienced instructors and teaching handbooks about coming early to classrooms and staying late to take student questions and concerns.

So, one might ask, why did I spend more time with my advisees than my peers? Why did I come up with new ways for students to connect with me, when other peers are holding required office hours and failing to connect with students? It wasn't for teaching and advising awards, though I have received those. It wasn't because someone told me it was an expectation. It was because, like TR and Tim Burke say, I was that confused and failing student who didn't understand how the system worked and needed help and support. So, I became the teacher/advisor I wish I had had. But as an administrator, I worked with faculty to change our expectations of ourselves, and tried to provide faculty with the supports and information they needed to be successful... and to help our students be successful.

And I also helped students understand the larger systems of which they and faculty are a part, so that they can set their expectations accordingly and advocate to get their needs (and some of their wants) met. Patients in health care settings have every right to want their condition and treatment explained in a comprehensive, caring, and thoughtful manner, but they don't have a right to expect home visits, doctor visits that go on endlessly, and 24-hour access to their doctors in this managed care environment. Likewise, students cannot get immediate responses on a 24-7 basis, individual training on every concept in a course, and special accommodations for every issue or concern.

Faculty within departments and across universities need to clarify our ultimate goals related to student learning and student success; identify and implement best practices for teaching, advising, and service; evaluate successes and respond to failures with new approaches; and set our own expectations for faculty performance, whose accomplishment we acknowledge and reward. This process needs to come from within the faculty, with input and information from internal and external constituents, and guidance and support from administrators and faculty leaders. Of course, we know this. I'm not writing anything new--just dreaming the improbable dream.