Lies and Damn Lies

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It seems obvious that any reform of academic culture– and any hope of restoring professional status to the adjunct majority–has to include a complete transformation of administrative culture. Here’s a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education (“4 Public-College Presidents Pass $1-Million Mark in Pay“) that illustrates not simply that universities pay their presidents too much but also that these presidents can be well compensated and practised liars.

The piece tells the story of one Jo Ann M. Gora, president of Ball State University, who apparently made a public show last year of turning down a salary increase. Meanwhile, in the backrooms, someone was having a bit of a laugh at the gullibility of the public:

Unmentioned, however, was a deferred-compensation payout of the same amount, which she received three weeks later. That payout, which had accumulated over five years, combined with other benefits to bring her 2011-12 total compensation to $984,647. Just four other public-college presidents in the nation made more than that.

I am not sure what is more amazing: that a university president could be paid a million dollars a year after years of rising tuition and shrinking numbers of full-time academic jobs or that President Gora is still president after being caught being so profoundly dishonest. That’s just a start. Graham B. Spanier, the highest paid president, “was fired in 2011 in connection with a child-sex-abuse scandal involving a former assistant football coach.” Bob’s your Uncle!

Posted in: Economics, Professional, Writing

Future Tense

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About 15 years ago those of us interested in using computers to teach– we were teaching composition or literature classes– saw ourselves as fighting against academic Luddites who refused to understand that these new communication technologies were both beneficial and inevitable. This is the future, we would say, and we should welcome it and use it to our advantage. That wasn’t the only development in our field, however.

Alongside this technology we also saw the rise of a higher education system in which the ordinary standards of professional life– established over decades– had been eroded. The tenure track academic was being replaced with the poorly paid itinerant adjunct without health care, a pension, or any job security. I’ve long believed that our technological optimism was used as a kind of trojan horse to help destroy the profession.

Times have changed. I don’t mean to suggest that there we have lost our technological optimism. We have not. I think, though, that the technological emperor has begun to seem more and more naked. Multitasking is dead. There’s been a conference on “The Dark Side of the Digital” and more and more faculty– not surprisingly, in California (see here and here)– are resisting the online dystopias. We’ve come full circle.

As I’ve said, we were overly optimistic and this new-found realism is a helpful sign; I am hoping it does not presage a new form of academic Luddite. Resisting ineffective or immature online technologies, however, is only one-half of the picture. We also need a political movement dedicated to re-professionalizing academia. If that is ever going to happen it’ll have to include a savvy understanding of online technologies.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Economics, Professional, Writing

Back to the Future

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I saw this television show once–“How Star Trek Made the Future” or something similar– that showed how all sorts of things, from cell phones to talking computers, were first popularized on the science fiction television show. Science fiction had written about these sorts of things before, but seeing them on television made them seem so possible and real that they inspired a generation of software developers and engineers.

I loved the space program in the 1960’s and I stayed up all night to listen to the moon landing. We love technology. (I say that knowing that I am not sure who is in that “we.” Americans? Men in their 50? Women? Teenagers?) The problem, or one problem anyway, is that this technology is all wrapped up in consumer capitalist culture, which is often an ugly mess, especially here in the U.S. where discarded electronics fill dump sites.

That’s what I was thinking when I read this:

Young people think they can perform two challenging tasks at once, Meyer acknowledges, but “they are deluded,” he declares. It’s difficult for anyone to properly evaluate how well his or her own mental processes are operating, he points out, because most of these processes are unconscious. And, Meyer adds, “there’s nothing magical about the brains of so-called ‘digital natives’ that keeps them from suffering the inefficiencies of multitasking. They may like to do it, they may even be addicted to it, but there’s no getting around the fact that it’s far better to focus on one task from start to finish.”

“You’ll Never Learn!” Annie Murphy Paul

The article does a good job of summarizing recent research– ongoing research– showing that the human brain is not built for multitasking. It’s dangerous to talk on the phone while driving; if you try to do two things at once– or three– you end up doing neither as well as you think. It’s especially dramatic when it comes to activities that require sustained concentration, such as learning in general or writing in particular.

I think a lot of us took that same sort of technological optimism into the classroom and promoted the idea that these kids, our students– digital natives we called them– would be capable of miraculous feats made possible by new communication technologies. As it turns out, things are more difficult than we at first imagined. I’m hoping that the next stage of change in educational technology will be more realistic.

Posted in: Writing