Nuggetology

.....Well, it’s that time of the year when newspapers such as the New York Times collect and preserve the nuggets of wisdom dispensed at commencement speeches around the country. Here's some of that nuggetry:

Messages of Exhortation, Counsel and Congratulation:

Jessica Lange
Actress
Sarah Lawrence College

We are living in an America that in the last seven and a half years has waged an unnecessary war, established prison camps, condoned torture, employed corporate armies, eliminated the right of habeas corpus, practiced extraordinary rendition. And believe me, this is only a partial list.
…
Gavin Newsom
Mayor of San Francisco
San Francisco State University

What is the secret of all success? Winston Churchill, he said it was moving from failure to failure with enthusiasm….

Allen Weinstein
Archivist of the United States
Southern Methodist University

Begin with the Salem witchcraft trials of the 1690s. Move forward to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the early Republic, and from there to the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War. Turn then to the arbitrary political arrests of the First and Second World Wars, the many abuses of the cold war McCarthy era, and from there to the civil liberties climate in our own time. Find your conscience and hold it close.

One of the pivotal connective links from earliest repressive efforts to the present time is the pushback each received from opponents at the time: a phenomenon that the late scholar and United States Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called the “self-corrective” forces at work within American society.

These forces make difficult any and all efforts to create a thoroughly repressive climate of opinion, even during wars and pre- or post-war red scares. You will not find similar self-corrective societies in great numbers in our time. There are precious few and none as obsessively self-corrective as ours.
…
Bill Nye
Science educator
Harvey Mudd College

When you’re a little over six months into your 31st year, we will probably be over 12 billion — and on our way to 15 billion — humans on earth. Keep in mind also that half of the world’s people have never made a phone call. Their lives are agrarian and rural. Nevertheless, they know our culture and have seen what science and organized technology can do.

I’ve traveled a little, in India, China and Africa. People are walking less and driving more; we’re putting more cars on the road every week. Put roughly: if everyone on earth were to consume, drive, and especially use energy at the prodigious rate that each of us does here in the United States, we would need two more Earths. We don’t have two more Earths. We barely have one.

Clarence Thomas
Supreme Court justice
High Point University

…Most of us would do well to solve our own problems. Often, as most of us know, the real battle is conquering ourselves….

Let me first confess that I am no good at telling people what to think or how to live their lives. As those of us who take responsibility for our lives, and don’t blame others, know only so well, life has a way of humbling, if not humiliating us.

James Fallows
Author
Ursinus College

In the end, we are our habits, so take time developing good ones….

Get in the habit of being happy. We all have problems which we can’t control; what we can control is how we look at them. Get in the habit of being excited. It’s a great big world, with no excuse for being bored. It’s fun to have feuds and enemies — I’ve had my share — but break the habit of nursing grudges.

Here’s one tip: Always write angry letters to your enemies, but never mail them. ... Take every chance to tell your spouse, when you have one, and your children that you love them. When in doubt, phone your mom.
…
Rita Moreno
Actress
Mills College

…I am constantly saddened and dismayed by the way in which we have come to torture the English language. ... College students who use the term “he goes” in place of “he says” and whose sentences are riddled with “you know?” and who cannot complete a sentence without inserting the word “like” at least three times. ... My advice: Stop it this minute.
…
Sandra Day O’Connor
Former Supreme Court justice
Gettysburg College

The only job offer I received in the private sector on my graduation from Stanford Law School many years ago was a job as a legal secretary. So I started my own practice, sharing a small office with another lawyer and a shopping center in a suburb of Phoenix.

Other people who had offices in the small shopping mall repaired TVs, cleaned clothes or sold groceries. It was not a high rent district. I got walk-in business. People came in to see me about grocery bills they couldn’t collect, landlord-tenant problems and other every day matters not usually considered by the United States Supreme Court.

But I always did the very best I could with what I had. I learned about how the law affects the average citizen, and how a lawyer can help solve day-to-day problems.…

P.S.: Re Fogeys, listen up!: Stay in the know. Be hip.

My young friend Jason, evidently overcome with pity over my manifest fogeytude (his email was entitled, "Stay in the know—be hip"), sent me a list of more contemporary artists/songs. Here's four on his list, all videos. I especially liked the first one. Some kind of New York band. Never heard of 'em.

MGMT - "Time To Pretend" Music Video
Autolux - Turnstile Blues
Portishead - Machine Gun: Video
CSS - Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex

Jason also listed videos from these bands: Datarock, Cold War Kids, M.I.A. (the Brit), Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Spoon, Deathcab for Cutie, Band of Horses, M83, and Placebo.

A reader likes Jason's list, but adds: ...where's The Arcade Fire? They're surely amongst the most important bands of the decade and only a very small number of bands can try to come close to that crisp orchestral sound (+ they're fantastic live). Listen to Rebellion, Intervention or Haiti and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Fogeys, listen up! That's right, I mean you!

.....Feelin’ old? Continually weirded out because, in class, you refer to, oh, the Gulf War (“You mean the one we're in now?”), or, say, the Velvet Underground ("Never heard of 'em")—and students just stare at you like carps?
.....I know just how you feel. I get carped all the time. But look at the matter from the students' POV....
.....Here are some more-or-less contemporary bands (if 2006 is contemporary!) with some great music that, just maybe, you be missin’ out on cuz, like me, you just stopped keepin' up a long time ago. (Pace those who are way ahead of me on this.) Do check ‘em out. I think some of our students listen to this stuff. Sure hope so. It's great when you can appreciate the same things as your students.

1. Rilo Kiley: “Portions for Foxes”
.....A terrific pop song with some seriously contemporary attitude (relative to old folks like me). I'm not judgin' it. Lyrics.
(Live, 10/5/07.)



2. My Morning Jacket: “Wordless Chorus”
.....These guys make beautiful music. The lyrics are, oh, highly personal, I guess. These youngsters are as self-indulgent as we were! Lyrics.
(Live with Boston Pops, 6/9/06.)



3. Clap your hands, say Yeah: “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth”
.....A wildly terrific rock song from a couple of years ago. The singer is, well, distinctive, but no more so than, say, Dylan was. Again, the lyrics seem, um, highly personal, I guess. I'm goin' with it! Lyrics.
(Live, 12/27/06.)



4. Jack White
.....Just in case you didn't know it, Jack White (of the White Stripes) is one of the towering figures of the current era, pop-musically speaking. Really. Check out Black Math, Ball and Biscuit, Seven Nation Army, Hotel Yorba (2004), and The Raconteurs (2008). The video with Loretta Lynn (below) is mind-blowing. You won't believe your eyes and ears.

Jack White and Loretta Lynn, 5/31/06


5. Leslie Feist: "Secret Heart" (8/9/07)
.....I think this gal is considered uncool by many, maybe because she's Canadian. (Technically, I'm one, too.) Or maybe it's her tendency to get jazzy. Worst of all, I guess, is that commercial she made for Apple ("one, two, three, four"). I don't care. Sometimes (see the video below), she's just amazing.

Song for a Summer Day: If I Had a Boat

Some people wondered what Julia Roberts saw in Lyle Lovett. I never did. I always knew.

Now, sing along, won't you?

If I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat

If I were Roy Rogers
I'd sure enough be single
I couldn't bring myself to marrying old Dale
It'd just be me and trigger
We'd go riding through them movies
Then we'd buy a boat and on the sea we'd sail

(chorus)

The mystery masked man was smart
He got himself a Tonto
'Cause Tonto did the dirty work for free
But Tonto he was smarter
And one day said kemo sabe
Kiss my ass I bought a boat
I'm going out to sea

(chorus)

And if I were like lightning
I wouldn't need no sneakers
I'd come and go wherever I would please
And I'd scare 'em by the shade tree
And I'd scare 'em by the light pole
But I would not scare my pony on my boat out on the sea

And if I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat

OC Weekly consults REBEL GIRL

In today’s OC Weekly:
Lisa Alvarez’s Summer Reading List: Cowboy gunplay, High Sierra poetry, the Inland Empire and more!:

Since Oakley Hall passed away, I’ve consoled myself by reaching again for his books. Hall published more than 20 novels in a half-century writing life, most set in the West. Hall co-founded UC Irvine’s master’s-of-fine-arts fiction program (I was his student) and the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley (where I work). Warlock revisits the shootout at the O.K. Corral—but much more. A 1958 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Warlock famously inspired Thomas Pynchon. Fans of Cormac McCarthy and HBO’s Deadwood should see where it all began.

I fell hard for Alfredo Vea’s Gods Go Begging 10 years ago; today, it resonates Iraq-wise. Meet Jesse Pasodoble, a Vietnam vet criminal-defense attorney in 1990s San Francisco. He discovers yesterday’s war being fought today while solving a double murder. Vea, himself a combat vet and attorney, both fulfills and transcends multiple genres—war novel, Chicano novel, mystery—laced with magic realism, sharp humor and, somehow, hope. I taught it in my Chicano lit class and will add it to composition classes next fall.

Robert Hass’ Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005. I bought a dozen last year as gifts for friends. And that was before Hass won both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. What I like best about this poet is all here: sense of place, humanity and history—so often starting in California, in the High Sierra, then traveling to landscapes past and present, near and far.

Inlandia: A Literary Journey Through California’s Inland Empire, an anthology edited by Gayle Wattawa, features writers who also appear with me in Latinos in Lotusland (Kathleen Alcala, Michael Jaime-Becerra and Alex Espinoza) but ranges widely in its thoughtful reach, with the usual suspects (Mary Austin, Raymond Chandler, Joan Didion, M.F.K. Fisher, Carey McWilliams, John Steinbeck), some surprises (hmmm . . . Joan Baez? Norman Mailer? Calvin Trillin?) and real finds such as Katherine Saubel’s translation of the Cahuilla Indian creation story, which opens this must-have collection.

In Jim Krusoe’s latest novel, Girl Factory, the innocent and almost archetypally misguided Jonathan works at Mr. Twisty’s, a yogurt shop in the mall. He confronts the responsibilities of liberation upon discovering in the basement five naked ladies kept in suspended animation in, yes, acidophilus. In Esquire recently, Krusoe suggests this novel explores the desire to bring dead people back to life. I’m ready. Like Hall, Krusoe is a former teacher of mine, and he’s a crafter of instructively wise, funny, elegant prose. I look forward to this long-awaited novel of quotidian allegory.

THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION (aka "liberal busybodies") OFFERS BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:

UCI study on Academic Women

In this morning's Inside Higher Ed: 'Quiet Desperation' of Academic Women:

.....Interviews with 80 female faculty members at a research university — the largest qualitative study of its kind — have found that many women in careers are deeply frustrated by a system that they believe undervalues their work and denies them opportunities for a balanced life. While the study found some overt discrimination in the form of harassment or explicitly sexist remarks, many of the concerns involved more subtle “deeply entrenched inequities.”
.....While the study was conducted, with support from the National Science Foundation, at the University of California at Irvine, the report’s authors and most of those who were interviewed for the research state that they don’t believe the problems discussed are unique to Irvine.…
…
.....The article, “Gender Equity in Academia: Bad News From the Trenches, and Some Possible Solutions,” appears in the new issue of Perspectives on Politics (abstract available here)….
.....…Here are some of the highlights:

Unintended bias and outdated attitudes: Many of the women in the study described a steady stream of comments, some of them ostensibly offering support, that suggested that the older men who made them didn’t really understand how to interact with women in a professional manner. These men generally had no clue that their attitudes were either patronizing, sexist or both, the report says. One woman is quoted as describing a job interview in a top department in which an African American scholar took her aside and said, “This is a great place for people like you and me, if you know what I mean, honey.” ….

Devaluing positions once women hold them: At Irvine, as at most research universities, the last decade has seen a significant change in the number of women serving as committee chairs, department chairs, deans and administrators in a variety of capacities. And the women interviewed for the study praised this development, crediting women in various senior positions for being mentors or going to bat for their younger counterparts. But the women — across disciplines — described a pattern in which once a woman was named to a more senior position, others treated it as more service-oriented and less substantive….

Service and gender: Those interviewed reported some protection for junior faculty women, but said that among the senior faculty ranks, women were picked disproportionately for service assignments, especially those that are time-consuming. Then those same women are criticized for not doing more research, and the theoretical credit awarded service is never to be found.

Family vs. career: As in similar reports, women reported intense pressure — well beyond that faced by their male colleagues — with regard to having children, raising them, and also caring for aging parents. Many women reported strong reluctance to take advantage of policy options that might be helpful, fearful of how they would appear to male colleagues, and women reported regret and some dismay over choices they made to avoid confronting colleagues with their needs for more flexibility….
…
.....Asked for a reaction to the study, Irvine released a statement criticizing it. “Professor Monroe’s article draws attention to the persistence and toll of sex discrimination on women faculty. Unfortunately, the article cannot to be said to offer original insight into the promise and challenge of gender equity in higher education. The formulation of the problem overlooks research in a host of related issues, such as gender schemas, work-life balance, and leadership development among others,” the statement said….

NO DECLINE. Also in this morning's Inside Higher Ed:

.....Despite warnings in many recent reports that the United States is losing its edge in science and technology, the lead remains significant and U.S. investments in science remain high, according to a new report from the Rand Corporation. The study said that the United States should not be complacent, and that some other countries are stepping up, but that the idea of a significant decline having taken place is unfounded.

Historical updatery

What follows is the latest UPDATE in Dissent's Very Short History of the District's Troubles:

.....Saddleback College has been oddly quiet re its accreditation problem (its report to the Accreds is due in October). I'm told that their Accreditation task force, which includes trustee Dave Lang, doesn't even have faculty representation. Good grief.
.....Meanwhile, IVC has approached its parallel accreditation challenge with great seriousness and industry. Its focus group, which includes a cooperative Don Wagner (President of the Board), meets every two weeks or so. It has wide representation (faculty participate in a manner that honors the existing "work to contract"). The group even gave a fine and well-attended presentation of its work at an all-college meeting at the end of April.
.....It appears that the ACCJC has brought it about that someone will visit our colleges/district to scope things out. Mathur is insisting on calling this person a "consultant," but that's just obfuscation. The visitor is liable to finally arrive (the original guy was delayed by an emergency) some time this summer, which is unfortunate, since, during summer, the colleges are ghost towns.

.....Re our looming and inevitable violation of the 50% Law: we've heard almost nothing about it for some time. I'm told that a delegation went up to the state to plead for leniency and whatnot, but that profited them nothing.

.....Late in the Spring, the Faculty Association, unhappy with the district's failure to bargain the contract in good faith, called for a "work to contract," which ended up affecting the massive (and absurd) effort to hire 35 to 40 new full-time faculty (a ploy to bring instructional costs up to the 50% mark). But, owing to the usual union SNAFU, the WTC affected IVC much more than Saddleback and thus caused tensions among faculty. We seem to be getting past that now though. (Essentially, owing to fortuities and adjustments, the hires turned out OK, even at IVC.)
.....No contract yet. There is no way, of course, to approve a contract during summer anyway, owing to the usual faculty diaspora. Our 50% situation clearly calls for serious salary increases (our salaries do not compare well with those of faculty at contiguous districts), but this board just will not go there.
.....Contempt for faculty is the norm as far as the policies of this board are concerned.

.....There's been quite an administrative exodus of late, adding no doubt to "administrative instability"—one of the Accreds' worries. VC Andreea Serban bolted for the President job back in Santa Barbara (she'd only been on the job for two years). ATEP Provost Bob Kopecky was essentially canned—no doubt made a scapegoat by the wily Mathur. (Bob will return as faculty in the Fall.) VC Bob King left for greener pastures. Several IVC deans left in the course of the Fall and Spring (Feldhus, Cooper, Corum, et al.).
.....Essentially, IVC is experiencing deanlessness. It's like an experiment or something.
.....No doubt I've left somebody out. Whatever.

.....Board President Don Wagner really stepped in it at the recent Saddleback College "scholarship" event, where, in the minds of many observers (including some doners), he "politicized" the occasion by lecturing in defense of prayer. Evidently, he had just received a missive from a "church/state separation" organization suggesting that prayer at college/district events is inappropriate, and so he felt the need to rebut.
.....Don seems to lack self-control.
.....Someone posted Don's scholarship remarks on YouTube, and then the shit hit the fan. At the May board meeting, Nancy Padberg opined that Don should apologize; she challenged him to make up the loss in moola after the exodus of doners. (Don't know how many, if any, doners are actually bolting.) Lots of community members came to carp at 'im. He responded with defiance. Wrong move, Don.
.....Don doesn't apologize. He doesn't recognize his mistakes. Still, I like 'im. He's like a smart but recalcitrant little bro. Let's call 'im "Donny."

.....Trustee Tom Fuentes, who has liver cancer, received a liver transplant—which surprised everyone, since he was quite obviously a poor candidate (owing to his age, diabetes, etc.). People have muttered their suspicions in the hallway, but that's all. But I don't buy it. My theory: the Lord intervened on Tom's behalf, owing to the fellow's manifest goodness.

.....The Faculty Association (union) is gearing up for the November election, at which time they hope to unseat Lang and Fuentes (Bill Jay is a friend, and John Williams has supported faculty with regard to the contract). Late in Spring, the FA held a lunch at the Spectrum at which time its candidates spoke and spoke well.

.....Amazingly, the board continues to support Mathur, despite the ample reasons to can him. Mathur, of course, committed the massive "50%" blunder and is heavily implicated in our accreditation woes (which are grave). It is by no means obvious that both colleges will have their accreditation renewed in early 2009. If you suppose otherwise, you're just not paying attention.

.....Leaving aside IVC's Wendy Gabriella and her crew, faculty leadership seems to be disintegrating—no big deal: faculty effectiveness historically waxes and wanes. It seems that, at Saddleback College, faculty have collapsed into consternation and despair. Am I wrong?

.....On the up side: the weather's been nice, and some of us our flourishing. I sense no despair at IVC—shared governance-wise, we're doing fine—though it may exist in buckets at the administrative level. I wouldn't know.

.....Dissent the Blog is flourishing and growing in stature. Trivia, I know, but true nonetheless.

BILL O'REILLY CONTINUES TO O'REILLYize the airwaves:

The last professors

• Saddleback College president bids farewell (OC Reg)

.....Saddleback College President Richard D. McCullough, Ph.D., is retiring June 30 following a 45-year career in academia. Thirty-eight of those years were spent at Saddleback College in several capacities – during his tenure, McCullough was a professor of biological sciences, a department chair, a dean, and a vice-president – all before becoming president in 2004. McCullough will resume teaching biology and physiology in 2009 after enjoying a year off.
.....McCullough's contributions to Saddleback College are many. He led a team to build a solar observatory on the roof of the college's Math, Science, and Engineering Division building. The college's electron microscopy laboratory was designed by McCullough and was used as a model for similar programs at other colleges. He was the first chair of the college's honors program, and he served two terms as president of the Academic Senate. The college's Associated Student Government twice named McCullough the Administrator of the Year, the only time a president at Saddleback College earned this distinction.
.....As president, McCullough oversaw the major remodel of the Business and General Studies Building, causing the temporary move of thousands of students to the newly-built Village. Additionally, McCullough spearheaded the idea and construction of the Saddleback College Veterans Memorial to honor service men and women who have served the United States in times of war.
.....Throughout his years at Saddleback College, McCullough worked with thousands of colleagues and students who admired his knowledge and valued his friendship. Dr. James Wright, dean of the Division of Math, Science, and Engineering, said, "Dr. Rich McCullough has been an amazing instructor in the biological sciences, a valued colleague, a wonderful boss and trusted friend. No one cares more or has done more to make Saddleback the quality college it is than he has."….

• Fountain Valley school district to consider 'In God We Trust' (OC Reg):

.....Just a week after the city of Fountain Valley nixed a proposal to display the national motto in Council Chambers, the local school board will discuss whether to display "In God We Trust" in its meeting room.
.....The Fountain Valley School District trustees will discuss Thursday whether to put a resolution on a future agenda to display the national motto in the boardroom.
.....The resolution proposed by Ocean View School District Trustee John Briscoe states that the words "In God We Trust" be placed behind the dais in letters 6 inches or taller.
.....The motto will "have people think about our country and our governance," Briscoe said. It "belongs up there. It reminds them the basis of governance is our creator."
…
.....Briscoe said that he wants to eventually bring the resolution to the elected leaders of the Huntington Beach City School District, Huntington Beach Union High School District and the Coast Community College District.
…
.....The motto "should be on all places of governance," Briscoe said….

• ‘The Last Professors’ (Inside Higher Ed):

.....Two much-discussed trends in academe — the adoption of corporate values and the decline in the percentage of faculty jobs that are on the tenure track — are closely linked and require joint examination. That is the thesis of a new book, The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities, just published by Fordham University Press. Frank Donoghue, the author, is associate professor of English at Ohio State University. Donoghue recently responded to e-mail questions about the themes of his book.
…
Q: What are the main reasons for the erosion of the tenure-track career?

A: I believe that tenure and the kind of career it makes possible are disappearing largely for financial reasons. Opponents of tenure are less likely to make political arguments against it — except in very inflammatory cases like Ward Churchill’s — but instead are now inclined to argue that professors’ labor costs too much. The casualization of labor is the global norm, practiced by employers everywhere. Academia is one of the last workplaces to come almost completely under this management philosophy, where payment by the job replaces the traditional salary, benefits and, in the case of professors, job security. Medicine and the law are currently engaged in less acute versions of this transition from one management system to another. Among the professions, only the clergy and the officer ranks of the military seem to be immune to the erosion of tenure or its equivalent.

Q: Many advocates for adjuncts say that tenure-track (and especially tenured) professors did nothing or far too little as academe was restructured. Is this true? Why do you think this happened?

A: Certainly most tenure-track professors were oblivious as the teaching workforce was restructured, and very few predicted how dire a problem it would become. Had we identified the casualization of the teaching workforce as a problem when it began to take hold in the 1980s, we might have been able to correct it. Paul Lauter referred to the misuse of adjuncts as a “scandal” in 1991 in Canons and Contexts, and he may have been the first to use language that strong. That we could have done much about it over the past twenty years presupposes that professors set hiring policies. At most institutions, professors have a lot of input in the hiring of other professors, but not in the hiring of adjuncts, either the people themselves or the terms of their contracts. Decisions about adjunct labor have, by and large, never been made by faculty, but have instead been part of larger administrative policies.

Q: How have humanities professors fared, compared to those in other fields?

A: The liberal arts, and the humanities in particular, suffer the most because they lack any connection to sources of funding outside the university. Humanists typically don’t do consulting work, they don’t compete for large corporate or government grants, they don’t have the option of working in the private sector (and thus insisting that universities pay a competitive wage). These factors conspire to put humanists in a bad bargaining position: We depend entirely on our home institutions not only to pay us a fair salary but to determine both the kinds of work and the amount of work we have to do (publishing, teaching, service, outreach) in order to earn that salary.
…
Q: What are key steps that could be taken to restore the tenure-track professoriate?

A: The tenure-track professoriate will never be restored. Two factors seal its fate. First, the hiring of adjuncts continues to outpace the hiring of tenure-track professors by a rate of three to one. It’s silly to think we can reverse the trend toward casualization when, despite a great deal of attention and effort, we can’t even slow it down. Second, the demographics of American higher education don’t help us either. For 40 years, students have been moving away from the humanities toward vocationalism. This trend has been accompanied by an equally pronounced shift in enrollments from four-year schools (with English and History majors) to community colleges, where the humanities have never had a strong presence. Tenure-track professors don’t have a place in this new higher education universe. Much as it pains me to say it, I never considered putting a question mark at the end of my title, The Last Professors.