Little bits of basketball mascot randomness

Watching all of this March Madness ball is making me a little punchy, so I will apologize up front for the strange focus of this post. But I am so amused by the Mascots for each team that it got me curious about university mascots in general.

There are two wikipedia pages with information on mascots: one lists each type of mascot (i.e., bobcat) and all the schools that use that mascot (no fewer than 15 colleges and universities claim the bobcat as their mascot); the other has an alphabetical listing of all of the names of the mascots and their schools (i.e., Cayenne — a costumed chili pepper for the Ragin' Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette). I had to look up Cayenne (at right) to see what a costumed chili pepper looked like, and he is quite freakish impressive. If you yourself bored between games, check these pages out. They are worth perusing.

Some of the mascots make sense in a very old-fashioned way. Jamestown athletes are known as the "Jimmies," student athletes at St. John's in Minnesota are known as the "Johnnies," and their brethren at St. Thomas (MN) are known as the "Tommies."

You gotta love the UC schools, who clearly went out of their way to select mascot animals that no one else wanted. UC-Santa Cruz went with the Banana Slugs, while UC-Irvine is the Anteaters. The slug is damn cute--at least this drawn version (left). The mascot version (right) is a little stranger. Another interesting mascot from the west coast is the Geoduck (pronounced "Gooey Duck") from Evergreen State. (I wouldn't know what a geoduck is if I hadn't been watching the last season of Chopped; it was one ingredient in the basket.) 

Some mascots are not what I would imagine when I thought of the school. I was surprised to see that Trinity Christian College chose the "Troll" (left) as their mascot. Seems an odd choice. He is kinda wild looking, in a Saturday morning cartoon kind of way.

Not to be outdone, the students of Webster created their own mythic mascot: a Gorlok (below). According to Wikipedia, "The Gorlok is Webster University's school mascot. It is a mythical creature that was designed by Webster staff and students through a school contest. It has the paws of a cheetah, the horns of a buffalo, and the face of a Saint Bernard dog." Lest you wonder what such a creature would look like, I have added a picture below. (The in-person mascot looks a lot more cat-like.) Too much Star Trek for the students of Webster, hmm? ("The Gorloks are attacking, captain!" "Set phasers to stun!") I have to say, between the Troll and the Gorlok, I would be shooting for the Troll.

In this day of student athlete arrests, it is somewhat foreboding to name your team the Vandals (Idaho), Bombers (Ithaca), Chokers (Grays Harbor College), and Dirtbags (Long Island State baseball). I find it ironic that only one school claimed its athletes to be Gentlemen--the men's teams from Centenary--and they changed their mascot in 2007 to the Louisiana Catahoula--a very cute dog. Their women, of course, were the "Ladies," though they share that (previous) title with the women athletes at Kenyon College (whose men were more impressively named "Lords").

The real question, of course, is: Does the mascot name bear any relationship to how well a team does in the Big Dance? You can read through the list of championship teams and play a 2-player version of rock-paper-scissors, comparing the scariness of the mascots for each team to see if that justifies the win. For example, last year's champs, the Blue Devils, do seem more threatening than the Butler Bulldogs, with the supernatural angle and all.  Clearly, alligators would maul a buckeye (acorn like a horse chestnut), as they did in the 2007 game, but it may be hard to determine if the Florida Gators should have beaten the UCLA Bruins in 2006. Those of us without zoology degrees can get a hint from the television show "Animal Face-Off," which showed a simulated encounter between an alligator and an American Black Bear in the wild. In that version (you can watch it here, if you can stand it), the bear won. Unfortunately, it seems that a mythical bear beats an alligator in basketball.

I would encourage you to review your brackets and see which threatening and/or impressive team mascot should win the game. Hey, you can't do any worse than my current brackets!

Dean for a Day

I am participating in the Pseudonym Exchange Blog, and I just did my first identity-switching post. I tackled an administrative question about student advisory committees from an interested reader in the style of my good friend, Dean Dad. I hope I do him justice, though he is far more sophisticated and thoughtful about administrative matters than I will ever be.

Check it out here.

Reflections on a national LGBTQ Higher Ed conference

Timo Elliott picture of MOMA and skyline reflection

I have to say that after three days of fantastic panels, speakers, and workshops, I am well and truly exhausted. I came back to the room to work a little, and I can't even focus. My mind is reeling from the presentations and ideas, and I find myself just wanting to chill out and reflect.

This conference is one of few that brings together faculty, administrators, queer studies scholars and researchers, LGBTQ resource center professionals, national higher education group leaders, LGBTQ activists, and student affairs staff members in one venue. It becomes clearer that this is the coalition we need to affect change on university and college campuses. In small and large groups, we have networked, problem-solved, shared best practices, and communicated about our hopes and our challenges in trying to effect change in the academy.

The plenary speakers* have been outstanding. (*I missed one, so I cannot report on that speaker, but I will discuss all of the others.) On Thursday night, Anthropologist Gil Herdt discussed the history of LGBTs in the United States, discussed the transgressive potential of current policy initiatives (DADT repeal, ENDA, DOMA repeal, etc.), and laid out a plan for advocacy and organizing for comprehensive sexual health.

Herdt's message was challenged/complemented by one of Friday's plenary speakers, Kenyon Farrow, former director of Queers for Economic Justice, who criticized the traditional single-issue organizing approach most popular among our big national queer groups on behalf of a multi-issue, diverse people. Farrow reminded the conference attendees about the needs of homeless queer youth, queers of color, working-class and unemployed queer people, and other groups we privileged academic queers can tend to forget. He shared stories of queer, homeless, youth of color in New York City whose very existence has been criminalized; of HIV educators who have been arrested for loitering or been mistaken for sex workers; of transgender people who have been arrested as sex workers simply because they were transgender and carrying condoms on their person. Among the many issues he highlighted as most pressing were: AIDS and HIV (still a challenging issue, with very high rates of infection among men who have sex with men); health care reform; homeless queer youth; economic issues more broadly; and the larger criminal justice system, including prisons.

Farrow also discussed the challenges to organizers of remembering to engage in self-care, in staying connected to and nurturing personal sources of support, and in staving off burnout. He challenged academics to reach outside the academy to other LGBTQ communities that do not have access to higher education, which might also help us stay current with the issues that matter to the many LGBTQ communities.While Farrow didn't have all the answers, he did ask a lot of the right questions for those of us interested in maintaining and growing an active, energized, multi-issue social justice movement.

Perhaps the most moving plenary speaker was Sivagami "Shiva" Subbaraman, Director of the LGBTQ Center at Georgetown University. A product of Catholic education in India, an out lesbian who had once been heterosexually married, and a practicing Hindu, Subbaraman described ways to incorporate Ignatian philosphy, upon which Jesuit practice is rooted, into both the pursuit of a queer, social justice and support for LGBTQQ students in our institutions. She discussed how an approach to facilitating discernment and flourishing in our students can lead to their develop as a whole person. This struck a chord for me, as someone who has seen LGBTQ students really struggle with their spiritual and intrinsic selves, within and apart from their LGBTQ (and other) identities. She encouraged all of us to build on our own imaginations, as an engagement with "what is" is necessary to imagine "what may be" in the communities we desire to build. She challenged listeners to reach out in our relations to others and the larger world--especially those with whom we profoundly disagree, to move from a space of tension and contradiction to an acceptance of paradox and mystery.

The final plenary offered today by Genny Beemyn and Susan Rankin, presenting on their amazing study of transgender populations. They have a book coming out in fall, The Lives of Transgender People (Columbia University Press), which is based on the results of "the first large-scale, national study of transgender people in the United States." More than 3,700 transgender people responded to the online survey, with almost 300 telephone qualitative interviews. Beemyn and Rankin were able to identify different subgroups within the transgender population, often associated with age cohorts, race and ethnicity, and labeling of oneself, that corresponded with specific experiences of identity formation, milestones, and conceptions of one's self and one's gender. Just based on the information they shared in the presentation, their findings could impact programming, policies, and practices on campuses and in communities around the country. I am eager to read the book when it is published this fall.

Tomorrow's sessions include a plenary about being a straight ally and a session on building a research infrastructure on LGBTQ issues in education by George Wimberly, the director of social justice and professional development in the American Educational Research Association.

Final takeaways from the conference (which isn't quite over) for me?

1. We need to get sexual orientation and gender identity and expression on the common application for college, along with the NSSE (National Survey of Student Engagement), so we can find out about LGBTQ students on our campuses and have some idea of the overall population from which we sample for our smaller studies. (Rankin noted that individual schools can add questions to the NSSE, so see if you can get these demographic questions added on your campus survey!)
2. For those who want to create good teaching rubrics, check out Rubistar.com. It is free and fantastic! (No, there isn't anything especially queer about it, but gotta pass on a good idea when I find it!)
3. We need to keep working across lines--disciplines, contingent and TT/Tenured faculty, student and academic affairs, faculty/staff, etc. to really effect changes on campuses, and that can only work if we try to take that approach in everything we do on campus. 
4. We are never to old to grow and learn something new. And we should make sure to laugh... a lot.

Yes, I am leaving the conference excited, happy, refreshed, and energized by all of the fantastic ideas and work going on out in academe. I couldn't have asked for more.

If all this sounded good, save the date for next year's conference: March 8-11, 2012 in San Francisco. Perhaps we really can have a meet up! Drinks are on me.

The queers are here... and they are ready to dialogue!

I have just arrived in San Francisco for the Expanding the Circle conference, a specialized conference on LGBTQ issues in higher education. The multidisciplinary conference, which starts tomorrow, covers many topics dear to my heart, including making universities more welcoming to LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff; religion and spirituality in queer communities; and queering the curriculum. Plenary speakers include folks from Queers for Economic Justice, the National Sexuality Resource Center, and feminist writer and activist Judy Grahn.

I am excited to be surrounded by so many queer folks. In fact, in the lobby when I was checking in, there were queers everywhere! Now, it may seem silly to write this in San Francisco, a city that is often considered the queer mecca. (At least, it was at one time, before towns in most states all over the country starting developing into their state's queer magnet: Durham, NC; Amherst, MA; Atlanta, GA; Seattle, WA, etc., I am talking to you!)... But there is something about going to a "boutique" queer conference in an actual boutique hotel that is intoxicating. Nothing like being surrounded by effete nancy boys, butch academic dykes, and the full range of gender/class/race/ethnicity at play.* And the damn thing hasn't started yet!

I am looking forward to meeting the other attendees and hearing the presentations. I really don't want to skip anything; there is at least one session during each time frame that is interesting to me! I haven't been able to say that at a conference in my discipline for ages. And with an attendance of 150-200 people, I am hopeful about to getting to know a number of folks here.

I have only attended a few LGBT-focused conferences in my time as an academic, and each brought with it the heady opportunity to meet and hear from the famous academic queers of the time. The first multidiscplinary/queer studies conference I attended was during my student days, and it was a blast. I couldn't afford to fly, so I drove across the country with someone I met online (to share expenses), stayed with a local grad student, and bought fast food and snacks to save on cash. I still remember the excitement of hearing famous scholars presenting at the height of their (early) fame:

• Judith Butler (incredibly smart, well-spoken, and she had great (defined) arms; she reminded me a little bit of a bartender in an old-fashioned dyke bar, which some of you will understand is a compliment, especially coming from someone who was a serious baby-dyke at the time)
• Michael Berube (smart and funny) 

The idea that I got to present my little paper at the same conference was amazing to me. I attended another small gathering hosted by CUNY's CLAGS program about the future of LGBT studies. There I got to hear from and speak with:

• Amber Hollibaugh (well-spoken and quite a presence, but she didn't look as I had imagined)
• John D'Emilio (very low key, funny, and smart)
• Ellen Lewin (old guard at this point, she was a very cool customer in facing what I considered immature castigation of women's studies)

Looking back, I am still struck by two stories: (1) D'Emilio talked about running in a marathon to bring in money for the LGBT studies program; you gotta respect that. (2) Several faculty discussed strategies to get offer LGBT-related courses. Suggestions included putting anything "queer" after the colon, so it wouldn't show in students' transcripts; getting all the queer students to sign up for a class and drop it late, so the course would make, even with a small number of students. It was kinda sad.

There don't seem to be so many queer conferences these days, especially multidisciplinary ones, so I am treasuring this experience. I hope it lives up to my expectations. And who know who I will see? I don't think I will be as star-struck as I used to be, but it is always strange to meet someone who you know only by their academic work. I can see myself thinking, "Ah, so you are Herdt, G."

I, of course, will not be out as Lesboprof to any of the other folks at the conference, but if anyone who reads this is here for the conference, I am always up for a nightcap or a cup of coffee. Drop me an email at lesboprof@gmail.com and perhaps we can meet IRL!

Whistles as I get ready to meet a famous lesbian colleague for dinner on the town.
 

* Yes, that was a gratuitous Judith Butler reference. What can I say? I am trying to get in the queer studies frame of mind.

Freeing or flogging flagships

As a denizen of big state schools, most of whom would be considered Flagship Institutions (and don't you forget to capitalize those, sir!), I am increasingly interested in two warring approaches to these venerable schools.

On one side, we have the Biddy Martin/U Michigan/screw-the-system approach: one that says that, as much is expected of the Flagship U (in terms of research dollars, educating many undergrad and graduate students, and contributing to the well-being of the state economy), much should be given to these behemoths in the way of independence and autonomy. Martin's bid to create the University of Wisconsin at Madison as a new kind of governmental entity, separate from the rest of the UW system and the Board of Regents, is seen as a slap in the face by the rest of the UW schools and the Board. But one can understand both Martin's argument and Gov. Walker's interest in setting the campus free (and further reducing state financial contributions to the campus).

On the other side of the same coin is a move by Governors and legislators in states as diverse as Connecticut and Kansas to nickle-and-dime state schools as regards their non-faculty hiring. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy "wants to require that all non-teaching hiring at the state's public colleges and universities be approved by his budget office." Why? Well, an article in the Connecticut Mirror explains:

Non-faculty staff--which includes administration, maintenance, health service, public safety, financial services and information technology staff--comprise nearly 70 percent of full-time employees at the University of Connecticut. At the Connecticut State University System and the state's 12-campus community college system, the faculty-staff ratio is closer to 50-50, according to a State Department of Higher Education report.

"We've seen a lot of growth in non-faculty. Some of it is understandable but given the track record we've seen in the last 20 years, a little more engagement on position control is worth it," said Higher Education Commissioner Michael Meotti.

They explain this added measure of reviewing every new non-teaching hire, which they swear would not be a burden or add time to the hiring process (I am laughing out loud now), as saying that patrolling non-faculty hiring would make sure faculty didn't have to be laid off (laughing even louder now).

In Kansas, the state House has passed a bill to study outsourcing government services, including campus services. Now, this isn't uncommon, as many state schools outsource janitorial services, food services, and campus bookstores. But Kansas legislators, like Rep. McLeland, want to join the move to outsource even more, like residence halls.

For example, he said, there are hotel chains that are experts in housing. Perhaps, he said, dorms could be sold or leased to them.

State Rep. Barbara Ballard [who works at University of Kansas], D-Lawrence, opposed McLeland’s amendment. She said residence halls are more than places for students to sleep. They are homes for students where they participate in programs and can receive help. “Sometimes, privatizing will not quite do that,” she said.

As someone who worked for residence life as a grad student, I am VERY clear about the ways in which dorms are NOT hotels. The idea of treating dorms like hotels is kind of nuts to me. And many institutions have found that outsourcing is not necessarily the big money-saver they had hoped it would be. But that really isn't the purpose behind this post.

The larger question here is about the relationship between state governments and their institutions of higher education. As states reduce the amount of funding they give to their public colleges and universities, some state governments are moving towards less control over these institutions, while others are moving towards greater (some might say "micromanaging") control. It is difficult to say which trend will win, and which ought to win. Not every state school can handle being released to make its own way, and the outsourcing/micromanaging trend is sure to bring its own set of unintended consequences that will show up in the paper sooner or later, such as protests over low wages for workers, poor compliance with expected standards, rising costs of contracts, divisions among university and contract workers, and failure of contract entities to work well with university systems.

The goals of both approaches are much the same: reduce costs to the taxpayers and, reportedly, maintain strong public schools. The devil is in the details... and the definitions of what we mean by "strong public schools."

Publisher extras for instructors

Okay, this is just a short post to bitch about publisher extras for instructors. I actually appreciate the supplemental materials that can come with textbooks, such as PowerPoint presentations, glossaries of terms and definitions, quizzes and testbanks, in-class exercises, etc. I seldom use them without tweaking them a little bit, but they can really help me think about the important concepts I want students to understand, new ways to help students get into the material, etc.

That said, who does the editing for these things? The PowerPoints are the worst: always incredibly ugly templates, poorly laid out on the screen, and lacking notes and other resources that make PPT lecture materials useful. One might even build in examples and questions that would break up an especially boring lecture, the way real lecturers do! Exercises can be very unclear, and quizzes and tests can include questions on the most mundane topics, completely bypassing the central topics being discussed in the chapter.

If you are going to ask authors to spend time creating these supplemental materials, make them worthwhile! Have someone edit these materials as well.

**Walks away grumbling to continue editing the PPT for class. 

University employees: Activate!

Let's hear it for the Arizona universities employees and other state employees who are participating in a federal lawsuit to maintain domestic partner health insurance benefits, charging that Governor Brewer's mean-spirited bill (House Bill 2013) to remove these benefits is discriminatory. They won the right to a hearing and an injunction from stopping the insurance in U.S. District Court, and the case will be heard by the Ninth District Court of Appeals.

The best part? The hearing is being held on February 14th: Valentine's Day! Now that is a great way to celebrate love and commitment!

In finding for the plaintiffs, the District Judge cited equal protection claims, writing, "the Ninth Circuit has recognized there is 'an inherent inequality' in allowing some employees to participate fully in the State's health plan, while expecting other employees to rely on other sources, such as private insurance or Medicaid. 'This back of the bus' treatment relegates plaintiffs to a second-class status by imposing inferior workplace treatment on them, inflicting serious constitutional and dignitary harms that after-the-fact damages cannot adequately address."

When the state tried to argue that maintaining these benefits would cost others the denial of important services because of a budget shortfall, the judge rejected the argument, writing, "Contrary to the state's suggestion, it is not equitable to lay the burden of the state's budgetary shortfall on homosexual employees, any more than on any other distinct class, such as employees with green eyes or red hair."

Lambda Legal is representing the plaintiffs in this case, which they see as very important on a national scale for determining the rights of same-sex couples. Kudos to these academics who are stepping into the limelight and taking a stand for civil rights of same-sex couples.