March 04, 2005
About SU
When I went to Colgate as the WPA in 1984, it was my first full-time academic job. I had a Ph.D. from a primarily literary department, but one that had been very flexible in accommodating my interests in language and writing. But I was possessed of only the smallest scraps of information about the field of composition and rhetoric. And I was the only compositionist in my new university.
Now, twenty-one years later, I've taken to referring to myself as an autodidact. And with regard to the field of composition and rhetoric, I am. Early into my autodidacticism, though, I realized that I was living very close to a terrific writing program. In the early days of that realization, my impression of the SU Writing Program was mainly defined by the work Louise Phelps was doing there, crafting a program that seriously drew on the expertise of part-time composition workers and that pioneered new ways to reward those workers. Gradually I became aware of other SUWP workers such as Duane Roen and Keith Gilyard. The more I learned, the more I wanted to join them. Each year I eagerly watched the job ads, hoping that Syracuse would be searching for me. But they weren't.
Finally I left Colgate for TCU. At the time it was a traumatic move, but one full of hope. At last I was going to be in a place where I wasn't the only comp/rhet worker. Indeed, those two years at TCU were a revelation to me, as I worked with Jeanette Harris, Rich Enos, Ann George, Gary Tate, Brooke Hessler, Lois Agnew, Kurt Schick, Amy Taggart, and many other wonderful scholar colleagues.
It was hard to leave TCU, but it was also easy: Syracuse finally advertised for me, and my home and partner were still in upstate New York. So I moved again, in 1999, back to the Frozen North.
I haven't ever regretted it. On the contrary, I've felt over and over that I am an amazingly fortunate person. The path hasn't been easy, but I'm living in a place I love, and my workplace is every bit as good as I'd imagined it during those years in which I stalked the SUWP.
And on days like today, when I spend the day in a swirl of fascinating colleagues, fabulous grad students, and promising future grad students, I am reminded again not only of the fact that I believe myself fortunate, but also of the reasons I do. Damn, it's good to be here. I hope lots of other people like their jobs as much as I do mine.
PostscriptAnd I get to be Lois Agnew's colleague again!
Posted by senioritis at 08:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 15, 2005
the story of The Big Day
As HBH said in an email today, "lordie pie." It's been quite a day—a blogworthy day. It was my first day back on campus since the accident (and yes, I'm willing to link back to that again). It was the first day that the doctor authorized me to drive and to go to work. So of course I did. The day was sunny and warm, so the drive was uncomplicated by snow and ice. Still, it was a 50-mile drive, very nerve-wracking. I gripped the steering wheel like an old lady who needs cataract surgery, and I actually found myself slowing down fearfully when traffic approached. Not, shall we say, my usual self.
I pulled into the parking lot and realized, "Oh, I meant to stop at Skytop and get a new parking sticker" (the old one having been destroyed in the wreck). So I turned around, feeling like a fool, and drove back to the Skytop building. But no, I drove a half mile past the Skytop building before I realized what I was doing. So I turned around again, this time getting to my destination, getting to the parking office, and getting my new sticker.
So I pull into my parking lot for the second time, stop the car, and realize, "Oh, I meant to drive around to my building and unload this crate of files for Kelly." But I just didn't have the heart to pull out of the parking lot again and go do that deed. Really, I was feeling very demoralized, wondering if at some near time someone might find me wandering around Syracuse, unable to identify myself or my destination.
So I trudged to the office, got up to the second floor, encountered Carol and Margaret in the hall, and upon being greeted by them, began crying. Really. And I'm thinking, "Oh, lord, how am I going to cope?" But Carol, god bless her, came into my office with me, sat down, and talked. And she offered to release me from all my teaching duties for the rest of the semester. Sincerely.
So I said I'd think about it, and then I went about the business of reading through my mail, delivering my poor PowerBook to The George (who was actually able to fix it!), greeting all my colleagues, filching some of Chris's and Mary Beth's dark chocolate, listening to my phone messages, getting my new long-distance access code, and just sort of getting myself grounded again. By late morning, I had figured out how best to respond to Carol's offer. My course assignments this semester are a heavily-enrolled grad class; an advanced undergrad course in style that I'm co-teaching with Tyra; and chairing the department's standing committee on the upper-division curriculum. For the grad class, I have a well-developed plan, and I also have a good sense of what needs to be done to get me and the students working shoulder to shoulder for the rest of the semester. For the upper-division committee, I also know what needs to be done. But the undergrad course was really stumping me. I'd only met with them twice before the accident, and Tyra had been carrying it solo since then. And I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by the prospect of figuring out how to insert myself into that course. Nor was it just a matter of picking up a course that was well underway; it's also an issue of how little I can work yet, and how slowly I do. I'm able to do complex intellectual work as well as I could before the accident, but at about 40% of the speed. (I'm trusting this will improve, though it's my understanding that severe concussion can take 3-12 months for complete recovery.) So it's clear to me that I couldn't successfully pick up my full load just yet.
So I proposed to Carol that she relieve me of the undergrad teaching assignment—and wonderfully, she said it would be no problem. I talked with Tyra, who's game to continue in the course solo (with me as behind-the-scenes collaborator) or with a new co-teacher. And by the end of the day, I was actually happy. I enjoyed the drive home!
Everybody everywhere always bitches about their department, about the things that go wrong. But my blog entry this evening is motivated by a day at the office in which I was really, really confronted with the very best of my very fine department. In part it's the people: Carol, Margaret, Tyra, and Dave were extremely understanding and supportive today, and really helped me figure out how to manage my re-entry into work on campus. Kristi and Lou Ann helped me get those damned files to the office. And I talked with a couple dozen other colleagues, warming myself in the glow of hugs, good wishes, and camaraderie. But in part it's a department that has a tradition of supporting its workers through illness, tragedy, and the other vagaries of life. It was wonderful to be on the receiving end of that tradition, enacted by real friends. Don't let anyone tell you that the SU Writing Program is a tough place. It's not. It's a demanding place, where one's ideas and actions are constantly scrutinized, criticized—and improved. And it's a warm, supportive place where people, and I mean lots of people, are genuinely caring of each other. I'm lucky to be here.
Thanks for listening.
Posted by senioritis at 08:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 12, 2005
Response to Summers
Here's a link to the statement issued by the presidents of Stanford, Princeton, and MIT in response to the ill-chosen and much-retracted remarks of Lord Summers.
Posted by senioritis at 02:58 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2005
When the plagiarists punish the plagiarists
It will be interesting to see whether the Chronicle's 17 December 2004 exposé of professorial plagiarism will actually spur institutions to cure their own hypocrisy about textual standards. At my institution, there's a committee at work on issues of academic integrity, but its purview is limited to the work of students. At the University of Alabama, the student newspaper is raising the issue of the double standard.
Universities pursue the issue of plagiarism for the alleged purpose of protecting academic integrity. That argument falls apart when one considers how few professors are sanctioned, much less expelled, for plagiarizing--and even for appropriating their own students' work. So one must ask what cultural work these student honor codes and plagiarism policies are actually performing.
One would hope that student newspapers' pushing the issue would have some effect; but Jesse Rosenfeld's successful McGill University battle against the imposition of Turnitin has not, to my knowledge, resulted in universities' stampede away from the plagiarism-detecting software. As in all other forms of social activism, reformation of universities' (mis)use of academic integrity codes will require concerted, organized action. And that would, in turn, require that a whole lot of people view this as a serious social issue.
Posted by senioritis at 07:33 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2005
The Complaint Department
Teaching is not just a performance for students; it does not rely solely on the teacher's talents and efforts; nor is it located solely in the connection between teacher and student. It requires setting--place--and equipment--technology. This is neither ancient Greece nor the European Middle Ages: my students do not follow me from place to place, to listen to my pearls of wisdom or to engage me in metaphysical dialectic. No, the year is 2005; I am a writing teacher; and to teach well, I need something beyond a cubbyhole crammed with desks. I do not drill my students in grammar. To teach them about writing, I need to be able to work with them in the environment in which writing now takes place: online. Instead, I have that crowded cubbyhole; several pockmarked blackboards on which one cannot make out what has been written; and an overhead projector that would have been the pride of a teacher in 1955. (This particular piece of equipment, in fact, probably was the pride of a 1955 teacher.)
What I need is space so that my students can move around and work in groups; I need overhead projection from a computer so that they can all simultaneously see a classmate's text and see it being revised before their eyes as the whole class considers the writer's options; and I need access to the Internet so that we can work with source texts. To teach writing without these things in 2005 is equivalent to a writing teacher in 1955 having to do without books, pencils, and paper. It is unbelievable to me that an expensive private university would make them available in such small quantity that teachers must quarrel with each other over these resources and that department-level administrators must endure the headaches of teachers' reasonable demands that cannot be met. Today I found myself actually having to make a case for the department's providing my own personal set of fresh overhead transparency markers, so that my students can write on those god damned plastic transparencies in class and we can put them on the 1955 projector and talk about writing. And of course they were glad to do it; transparency markers is something the department's budget actually can cover. For cryin out loud.
Do I sound angry? I am truly steamed. Because I'm an associate professor, I can usually successfully argue for better digs than I have this semester. And I have no shame in doing so. But this semester I failed. And my rage at having to teach with my hands tied my back is immense. Is it a rage at individuals, at my department? Not in the least. It is a rage at a university, an educational system, a culture, that does not recognize college writing instruction as anything beyond acculturation in linguistic norms and that therefore does not recognize the compelling need for every writing teacher, regardless of rank, all the time, to have the essential equipment for the valuable, essential task of teaching college students how to be better writers.
Posted by senioritis at 08:15 PM | Comments (4)
January 14, 2005
Donate here to the Becky Howard salary enhancement fund!
"What's 10 grand, to me?" A lot! Hey, Randy, how about directing some of that loose change my way?
Posted by senioritis at 10:46 AM | Comments (1)
January 12, 2005
Back to school
School starts for me tomorrow--or more accurately, what starts is my school duties. I'm on the college's academic standards committee this year, which means tomorrow I participate in deciding who does and does not flunk out. I did this duty years ago at Colgate, and my number came around again, so I'm doing my duty. But it is duty alone; it sure isn't how I'd ever choose to spend my time.
Posted by senioritis at 05:06 PM | Comments (2)
January 06, 2005
Night of the IMing (Brain)Dead
I've spent all day (oh, okay, most of it, with a dinnertime detour to watch Caddyshack--for the first time in my life!) IMing with Tyra as we plan our spring course, WRT 308--an upper-level undergrad course in style. Very intense experience. Lots of fun; we're putting together a pretty jazzy course that I think will actually help writers (including us teachers) with their prose style. And IM is incredibly useful for long-distance collaborative invention and analysis. Sandra and I are planning to use it (instead of schlepping back & forth between our homes, which are 4 hours apart from each other) when we start our next collaborative book (no, it appears I will NEVER finish the second solo-authored book that's needed for a shot at promotion to full prof), and my impression, from a day of IMing with Tyra, is that the format is going to be very useful for collaborative writing as well as collaborative teaching. And the silly smilies and icons help maintain a level of play that might otherwise get lost in a long day of work. Oh! Hey! My leave request for Spring 06 has been approved, and my project for that leave is to finish up the famed second solo-authored book. So verily, I will be able to stand for promotion--mere moments before I reach retirement age. What, me retire? (Picture Alfred E. Newman.) Hmm. Seems as if I'm rambling. Hence the title for this entry.
Posted by senioritis at 09:46 PM | Comments (2)