Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "that which we are, we are"

A lot of poetry invoked today by people who don't read enough. Sigh.


Here's the one that they are all looking for, the final stanza from Tennyson's poem, "Ulysses":

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

(photo by Ted Soqui)

The school of Fish: "sham" writing courses

Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce
Special orders, don't upset us
All we ask is that you let us
Serve it your way

The New York Times’ Stanley Fish is at it again. (See What Should Colleges Teach?) Peevitudinal hectoring. You know.

He's worried about writing ability. Even grad students, he carps, can’t write “a clean English sentence.” What’s up with that?

According to Fish, it seems, the problem is that composition classes teach “everything under the sun,” but they don't teach composition.

Years ago, her writes, he secured the lesson plans of 104 composition classes and he found that

instruction in composition was not their focus. Instead, the students spent much of their time discussing novels, movies, TV shows and essays on a variety of hot-button issues — racism, sexism, immigration, globalization.

Yep, that’s what they do. Is that a bad thing? Students have to write about something, don't they?

Fish, being Fish, adopted a bold and unpopular position and then commenced bulldozing: “unless writing courses focus exclusively on writing they are a sham, and I advised administrators to insist that all courses listed as courses in composition teach grammar and rhetoric and nothing else.”

“Nothing else,” eh? Is that even possible? Perhaps, our readers who teach composition can weigh in.

Oddly (or no?), Fish says he now has “support” from a right-wing organization:

Now I have received (indirect) support from a source that makes me slightly uncomfortable, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni …, [f]ounded by Lynne Cheney and Jerry Martin in 1995….

Yep, that Lynne Cheney, the wife of you-know-who and the author of the notorious novel Sisters. (Gosh, it’s got lesbian action. OK, but surely this is surprising coming from Cheney, that right-wing culture warrior.)

He’s only “slightly” uncomfortable?

Fish does criticize the ACTA’s willingness to “monitor academic work from the outside.” The “cure for the politicization of the classroom by some professors is not the counter-politicization urged by ACTA,” he says.

Still, he finds much in ACTA’s recent report (“What Will They Learn?”) to agree with:

With respect to science, composition, foreign language instruction and mathematics, ACTA is simply saying, Don’t slight the core of the discipline.

In essence, Fish adopts the mantra: “teach the subject matter and don’t adulterate it with substitutes.”

Got that, comp instructors?

Students are offered too many choices, too many options, says Fish (and Cheney, et al.). Instead, college instruction should focus on a coherent “core curriculum.” Fish quotes Cheney and Co.:

An “important benefit of a coherent core curriculum is its ability to foster a ‘common conversation’ among students, connecting them more closely with faculty and with each other.”

Yeah, that’s been E.D. Hirsch’s big point. Communitarians sometimes harp on this. Makes sense to me. Up to a point.

From there, Fish does part ways with the restrictive right-wingers:

The nice thing about this benefit is that it can be had no matter what the content of the core curriculum is. It could be the classics of western literature and philosophy. It could be science fiction. It could be globalization. It could be anything so long as every student took it. But whatever it is, please let it include a writing course that teaches writing and not everything under the sun….

OK, comp instructors. What do you think? Are your comp classes a “sham”?

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "everybody passes"

Here's a poem by Tony Hoagland for the first day of classes from your comrade and colleague, Rebel Girl - who is on sabbatical this fall, missing you all. Really.


Memory As a Hearing Aid

Somewhere, someone is asking a question,
and I stand squinting at the classroom
with one hand cupped behind my ear,
trying to figure out where that voice is coming from.

I might be already an old man,
attempting to recall the night
his hearing got misplaced,
front-row-center at a battle of the bands,

where a lot of leather-clad, second-rate musicians,
amped up to dinosaur proportions,
test drove their equipment through our ears.
Each time the drummer threw a tantrum,

the guitarist whirled and sprayed us with machine-gun riffs,
as if they wished that they could knock us
quite literally dead.
We called that fun in 1970,

when we weren’t sure our lives were worth surviving.
I’m here to tell you that they were,
and many of us did, despite ourselves,
though the road from there to here

is paved with dead brain cells,
parents shocked to silence,
and squad cars painting the whole neighborhood
the quaking tint and texture of red jelly.

Friends, we should have postmarks on our foreheads
to show where we have been;
we should have pointed ears, or polka-dotted skin
to show what we were thinking

when we hot-rodded over God’s front lawn,
and Death kept blinking.
But here I stand, an average-looking man
staring at a room

where someone blond in braids
with a beautiful belief in answers
is still asking questions.

Through the silence in my dead ear,
I can almost hear the future whisper
to the past: it says that this is not a test
and everybody passes.

Fluffy ruminations about the Deity

Check out Nathan Schneider’s fluffy ruminations on the “ontological argument” for God’s existence (in yesterday’s New York Times). Included: this caricature of Anselm's famous a priori reasoning:


Thomas later rejected the argument, but then Descartes revived it. Immanuel Kant is often thought to have driven a stake through its abstract heart. It's dead, and yet it isn't. It is a zombie.

What we've got here is a failure to evaluate

This morning, I visited the SOCCCD “almanac,” and I checked out some of the curious info available there.

In particular, I came across a page that presents the distribution of grades in the various divisions and schools of our two colleges. (See Grade Distribution Matrix.)

For some reason, the matrix concerns only Spring ‘06, i.e., three years ago. But that's OK. I figure that, since the population of instructors doesn't change much from year to year (yes, we've done lots of hiring recently, but do the math), it is likely that these distributions are fairly constant. And so I would bet that the '09 distributions are close to these '06 distributions.

The most commonly assigned grade: A

Well, call me Mr. Oblivion, but I was amazed by what I found. “A” is by far the most common grade awarded, followed by “B,” then “C.”

Shouldn't the grade distribution resemble a bell curve? I.e., shouldn't A's be less common than B's, which in turn are less common than C's? Shouldn't C be the most applicable grade for the hoi polloi?


In the matrix, “F” grades are twice as common as “D” grades. That makes sense to me: my guess is that this reflects the large number of students who, upon doing poorly, simply bail, thereby ensuring an F even though, had they remained, they would have had a shot at a D or C.

E.g., Liberal Arts and Humanities:

Let’s look at some of the details, focusing--for no particular reason--on Saddleback's division of Liberal Arts and IVC's comparable School of Humanities and Languages. Why the hell not?

Saddleback College:
Liberal Arts:
6,981 grades given.
Grade distribution in percentages:

A: 34
B: 24 (A&B: 58%)
C: 12
D: 4
F: 7 (D&F: 11%)

Incomplete: 1
Credit: 14
No-credit: 5

Irvine Valley College:
Humanities and Languages:
5,027 grades given.
Grade distribution in percentages:

A: 31
B: 21 (A&B: 52%)
C: 12
D: 4
F: 9 (D&F: 13%)

Incomplete: 0
Credit: 13
No-credit: 9

Gosh, Saddleback instructors sure do hand out lots of A’s! But IVC faculty manage a pretty close 2nd in the "A" giveaway sweepstakes.

"Ah," you say, "nobody's surprised when humanities instructors give away A's. What about the other areas of the colleges?"

Here, then, is the data per college:

Saddleback College:

A: 37
B: 23 (A&B: 60%)
C: 15
D: 5
F: 11 (D&F: 16%)

I: 0
C: 7
NC: 2

Irvine Valley College:

A: 35
B: 19 (A&B: 54%)
C: 13
D: 5
F: 12 (D&F: 17%)

I: 0
C: 10
NC: 6

Click on image to enlarge

When we look at the colleges as a whole, the "A" giveaway phenomenon gets worse, not better.

What we've got here is a failure to evaluate, or something like that. No way do these grades reflect the competence of actual students. Yes, yes, I know: some students do very well. They deserve their A's no matter how you cut it. But the vast majority of our students are, well, distinctly non-excellent. In truth, there should be lots of F's, D's, and C's. A's and B's should be relatively rare.

But, in fact, A's are by far the most common grade. (Note: at many private colleges, virtually all grades are A's and B's. Gradewise, compared to those institutions, community colleges look positively miserly!)

The pattern we are seeing here goes beyond "grade inflation," for instructors issue grades as though the vast "middle" of studentry were excellent and only outliers can be found on the trail down to B, then C, then D.

Preposterous!

Instructors enjoy playing "Santa Claus"?:

Tell me if I'm wrong: What we are seeing here is (a) a disinclination on the part of faculty to designate students' work "mediocre" or "average"--even when it is--and/or (b) an inclination on the part of faculty to designate students' work "excellent"--even when it isn't.

Call it the Santa factor--or the "Santa, and if not Santa, then at least not Mr. Meanie" factor.

It's everywhere!

Naturally, there are differences between areas: compare, say, the life sciences and, say, the social sciences. But these differences are not as dramatic as one might expect. Further, this perverse pattern or something nearly as odd afflicts all academic areas at our colleges.

Obviously, one would want to compare these distributions with those at other colleges. (My impression is that the teacher-as-Santa phenomenon is very common, but it is more pronounced at private colleges. For instance, at Brown University last year, a majority of undergraduate grades were A's,)

I wouldn't be surprised if we were to find pretty much a duplication of the above at other local districts. (If I find the time, I will look up the data.)

Whence giftage?

The reasons why instructors grade as they do are various and complex. It's not just the desire to play Santa (or to not play Satan). As we've noted previously, research shows that today's students expect to receive A's and B's just for showing up.

Really.

Hence, instructors who call a spade a spade pay an unceasing price in student anger and disgruntlement. That can be taxing.

And given the context of routine A giveaways, any instructor who gives A's and B's only to good students and assigns D's and F's to poor students will likely become unpopular.

Driving away students: that's no small thing. At the very least, it's bound to be demoralizing.

And then there's administrative "leadership":

Meanwhile, the community college system tacitly (explicitly?) promotes the idea that students can be fully employed, carry on a significant social life, and take a full load of courses all at the same time. After a while, students assume that doing little-to-no homework and attending half the scheduled classes is normal. Alas, that seems to be what many students are indeed assuming.

I've tried insisting that students do 6 hours of homework per class per week. Forgetaboutit.

And so our system daily promotes student decline and delusions of competence.

See also

Grade Inflation Seen Rising (Inside Higher Ed, 3/12/09)

This article reports the results of a study done by Stuart Rojstaczer, a retired Duke University professor:

Rojstaczer's findings will probably resonate with professors, many of whom regularly bemoan grade inflation and say that students are conditioned to expect good grades just for showing up, and that professors who refuse to go along get punished with harsh course evaluations. Many professors who are off the tenure track or who are pre-tenure report great fear of being punished by students (and then not rehired) if they gain a reputation for tough grading, and studies have found correlations between being an easy grader and earning good ratings at RateMyProfessors.com.…

Grade inflation—and deflation—in higher ed (DtB)

Students fail--and professor loses job (Inside Higher Ed)

Wikipedia on "grade inflation"

Wikipedia on "grades"

UCI Law school's B-day, tomorrow

In this morning’s OC Reg:

After tough birth, UCI School of Law opens Monday

What with UCI’s School of Law opening tomorrow, Gary Robbins reminds us of its “tough birth,” most notably the fubar of Chancellor Michael Drake’s choice of dean:

Chancellor Michael Drake raided Duke University in September 2007 for a high profile dean, constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky, who has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. About a week later, Chemerinsky was fired in a flap over his liberal political views. An uproar followed, leading Drake to rehire Chemerinsky, a gregarious scholar who emphasizes the word you when asking people, “Who are you doing today?” [Who?]

“(Drake) received intense pressure over a short period of time from some very influential conservatives that convinced him that I would not succeed as dean and if he went forth with me … he would not succeed in some things he had worked hard to achieve,” says Chemerinsky, 56.

“In light of that, I understood why he did what he did.”

There were some tense moments when the brouhaha occurred. But Chemerinsky says, “I adore (Drake). I would not have accepted this job if I didn’t respect and admire him so much.”

(Last Monday, Drake gave a well-received keynote address for SOCCCD’s fall “opening session.” We at the SOCCCD have wondered if Trustee Tom Fuentes was among the “influential conservatives” who sought to block C’s hire. Fuentes did not attend Drake’s address.)

Robbins notes that the controversy has faded and, since then, things have gone well:

UCI crowed about the applicant pool in April, saying in a news release that the school “has chosen its inaugural class by accepting only 4 percent of its applicants, making it the most selective of any law school in the nation.”

According to Robbins, that claim “was wildly out of context.” Still, the school really has done well:

…[T]here is no disputing that UCI fared well in recruiting founding faculty. Brian Leiter’s influential Law School Reports blog says Irvine’s law faculty ranks among the top 10 nationally in scholarly productivity. The scholars include internationally known psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, an expert on eyewitness testimony.

(Loftus is most famous for her work on memory. She’s a major critic of the notion of “repressed” or “recovered” memories. See the Jane Doe case.)

Chemerinsky’s still making with the big talk. He made a promise:

“I sincerely believe that from the moment that we first get ranked (by U.S. News and World Report) we will be ranked in the top 20. Top 25, of course.”

Meanwhile, in the city of Orange:

Fancy dining in an O.C. college dorm? Look, and drool (Robbins, OC Reg)

Earlier, we told you that Chapman University in Orange had just opened a 200,000 square-foot residence hall that’s distinctive for its 51-foot high climbing wall, the tallest of any at a California college or university. We should also have mentioned that the $46 million dorm also has a dining hall that resembles a chic Vegas-style food court and offers up dorm food that’s far from the gut-bomb goulash you can still find at many schools. The upscale dining hall, in part, is the sort of amenity that schools like Chapman are using to try to attract top students and keep them living on campus. The hall, located in the dorm quad, near the football field, is open to the public. The building will be formally named next week.

House organ grinder

"Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable."

—Finley Peter Dunne

The Lariat is making available (here) some sort of preview of its Fall Orientation Edition, set to hit newstands in a week.

Read “police strive to protect students,” “painless registration process,” and other fluffy stories that inspire the question, “What’s the difference between the Lariat and a college house organ?”

house organ n.

A periodical published by a business organization for its employees or clients. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Dear Lariat kids: we suggest leaving college and district PR to college and district professionals who are paid to make these institutions look good. (They seem pretty good at it.)

Your job? Cut through the fluff. Find out what's really going on, what students should know, if they are to be genuinely informed.

Suggestions for stories:

• Will Don Wagner be too distracted by his run for Assembly to do his job as SOCCCD board president?
• Gosh, what's it mean when one of our trustees (John Williams) is publicly spanked by the OC Grand Jury for gross incompetence, etc. re his county office? That he responds to said spankage with open defiance? That he continues to claim to be among our board's "fiscal conservatives" who believe in small and efficient government?
• Just what is the deal with ATEP? The district has sunk (and continues to sink) huge money into this property, but it remains unclear what the campus will even be!
• Given the (increasing) religious diversity of South County communities, is it appropriate for SOCCCD's Chancellor to publicly show (as re recently did) a video that assumes that everyone is a Christian?
• What are the issues raised by SOCCCD's odd circumstance--that, at a time of state-wide and county-wide draconian budget cuts, it continues to sit atop a huge shitpile of money and it's "fiscally conservative" trustees have no intention of returning any of it to taxpayers?
• Why have there been no negative political consequences for our trustees for their continued support of the despised and incompetent Raghu Mathur and their record of abject folly (historically and recently) re the colleges' accreditation?
• As a recently released survey of students and faculty (at IVC) makes clear, students haven't a CLUE of the issues that have roiled this district for more than a decade. Just why is that? How can that be overcome?
• Given the harsh economic realities of the moment, can our colleges' student governments justify jacking up textbook prices as a source of revenue?

No doubt our readers can come up with further suggestions.