Fun With Students

Today the students in my doctoral class looked burned out.  Several were busy on their computers as I entered the class and no one was talking.  This is unusual for the group as they are a friendly and chatty bunch.  As more students arrived, each one brought in their own dour looks.  The day was rainy and chilly and that wasn't helping anyone's mood.

It was the second-to-last class of the semester; the class before Thanksgiving, and the last class where we had to discuss some serious reading.  I knew it was not going to go well.  Instead of starting off with questions on the reading, as was my original intention, I asked them all about their Thanksgiving plans.  I let them go on a while and then encouraged us to go wildly off-topic. Somehow we got onto run-ins with small critters.  One student told a hilarious family story about fat squirrels.  Some of us laughed ourselves to tears.  I let it go a little longer after that and then started the class half an hour late.

We ended up having a good discussion and a great class.

For my undergraduate class I had prepared an activity, a group discussion, and a lecture. Sometimes the group discussions bomb and sometimes they are helpful but rarely do they extend past 15-20 minutes.  We were still on the topic of childbirth and the discussion ended up taking the entire period.  It was the liveliest and most interactive discussion we've had to date and I let it go a little astray.  This became obvious when I realized we were talking about eating placentas and someone started googling how to cook them.  It was the first class where they didn't all get up to leave as soon as the period was over.  In fact several stayed after class to talk with me further.

Some days I really enjoy teaching.

Childbirth Education

We are discussing birth this week in my undergraduate class.  I show movies every once in a while to introduce a topic and today we watched The Business of Being Born.  I've shown this movie in several classes over the years, and although I can get bored with certain parts, watching the births never gets old.

My favorite part is listening to my class when the first birth occurs.  If you haven't seen the movie, it is a beautiful birth.  A woman is in a birthing pool in her living room.  Her midwife is by her side and her toddler is roaming around the room.  She is having an intense contraction but she is calm.  The room is quiet except for her slight moan and the voice of her son.  Then a baby appears.  It is so gentle and contrary to every image we have of birth that it takes you completely by surprise.

Every time I show this, the entire class let's out an "ohhh" of delight.

I have my students write down questions or topics they want to discuss from the movie for the next class.  As I was reviewing them this evening, I was struck by how many talked about the need for childbirth education. They wanted to know when and how women can learn about their options. The sad news is that most women learn childbirth when they are all ready well into their pregnancy and have already made some critical decisions (such as the doctor/midwife/practice).  I also feel, having sat through several childbirth classes for my doula training, that the options are not well presented in most cases.

While not everyone will give birth (or be with a partner giving birth) it still seems worthwhile to teach it to the masses. Why is it considered something you would only be interested in if you're pregnant? And who thinks pregnancy is the best time to learn about what your body can do?

On Teaching Doctoral Students

Sometimes I really love teaching doctoral students.  Well most of the time I really love teaching doctoral students.  This semester my doctoral class is going particularly well and it is a very welcome relief because the undergraduate class is not thrilling me.  (I normally love teaching undergraduates but this is seriously altered when my class size is 40+.)

Of course part of the love comes from having students that are really engaged in the subject; students who want to learn and are at a point in their lives when they can devote most of their time to learning.  I consider this an extreme luxury in the world of teaching.  The flip side is that when a doctoral student is not particularly engaged it sucks far worse than a disengaged undergraduate or masters' student.  Perhaps it is the expectation but I suspect it is because the stakes are so much higher.

But what is really nice about teaching doctoral students is the benefit of having them around for several years.  I only teach one undergraduate course, so I don't get repeat undergrad students. I've had a few who have worked on my research and had the opportunity to watch them develop over the span of a year or two, but these students are few and far between.  When I was teaching in the masters' program I had more interactions with those students.  I would get to know the entire cohort and even if I didn't teach them again, they were generally around and involved in the department in a way that I could watch their progress.  But our masters' program is only two years long and in the last semester most of them are away doing an internship.

In the doctoral program I have time to really get to know all of the students.  I am the doctoral coordinator so I get to meet most of them as they are applying.  I run their orientation and help them get on their feet during their first semester.  I teach a core methodology course they all have to take in their first or second year and many attend my writing group.  For some I'll serve on their dissertation committee.  Our doctoral students hang around for 3-5 years, with most of them on the 5-year plan.  This is enough time to see them really come into their own; to develop their skills; to find their voice; to become colleagues instead of students.  It is a beautiful thing to watch.

I have one student who is getting ready to graduate this spring.  She was my graduate assistant for her first two years.  She's been a student in three of my classes.  I was the chair of her program committee and am serving on her dissertation committee.  We've published together and have plans to continue some collaborations once she graduates.  I've been advising her as she has started searching for full-time employment.  I've seen her through some tough personal crisises.  I can't quite believe she is the same young woman who first showed up on my doorstep full of unrealistic dreams and expectations.

I can't quite believe she'll be gone next year.

Hot Topics

Today we discussed abortion in my undergraduate class.  I've taught this subject at both the undergraduate and graduate levels for the past 5 years.  In previous years I've always managed to avoid the pro-choice/pro-life debate.

I don't find it a useful debate for the country and I certainly don't find it a useful debate for the classroom.

This year I showed a movie (I Had An Abortion) on Tuesday.  Whenever I show a movie in class I have the students hand in three questions or topics that they want to discuss in class from the movie.  I group the questions/topics into themes and then we discuss them as a group.

While I do have control over which topics/themes I choose, it was much harder to get away from pro-choice/pro-life this time.  It is the only framework people are really given on abortion in this country.  So we addressed it to an extent but worked on finding other frameworks or issues around the topic.

What concerns me is not my students' personal stance on abortion but their general lack of knowledge on the topic, especially on legal and policy issues.  A few were not aware (until the movie) that abortion had ever been illegal.  There is a general perception that abortion is uniformly available and easy to get.  We talked a bit about issues of access, particularly around insurance and healthcare reform, and about the personhood amendment and what is happening in Mississippi.  For almost all of them this was brand new knowledge.

How can we move forward if no one is even aware of the issues?

Giving Feedback

I've been thinking about how we learn to give feedback.   Giving feedback is a critical skill in academia. We don't usually call it feedback, instead we conduct peer reviews and we grade papers. But how are we actually taught to do these things?  I remember being given opportunities to review papers as a doctoral student but no one really showed me how it was done.  As for  grading, I was taught how to develop rubrics but there was no instruction on how to provide feedback for a poorly written assignment.  I was very lucky to have mentors and editors who provided extensive and painful reviews of my work.  This not only taught me to be a better writer but I believe it taught me how to provide constructive criticism to others.

I have taught peer reviews in both my undergraduate and graduate classes.  Depending on how much time I have to devote to the topic, my instruction ranges from just providing a framework to showing effective reviews and discussing the review process.  As much as I can, I assign writing in drafts to allow for feedback before the final product is turned in.  Often I can arrange it so that each student gets feedback from me as well as from a peer.  Sometimes the peer feedback is helpful but there are many times when it is not.

Regardless of how I instruct students to do peer reviews, good reviews seem to come from good writers.  If you have spent time working on your own writing it is easier to see what is not working in someone else's writing.  If you are clueless in your own writing, it is pretty difficult to provide a meaningful critique of someone else's work.  Or perhaps it is associated with the ability to read critically.  Good writers are usually good readers and learning to read as a writer is one of the best ways to improve your own writing.

Most of my students appreciate my feedback.  They don't enjoy it in the moment but it helps them get to the next step for that particular paper and for their writing overall.  On doctoral committees I am often the one providing the most indepth feedback.  I provide feedback on both issues of design and issues of writing.  Sometimes this means I end up reading more drafts than other committee members, even when I am the outside member.  I don't like the additional workload but I'd rather help out early than have to critique a poorly written dissertation right before a defense.

Some advisors provide very little feedback.  My gut reaction is that this is not a sign of laziness or disinterest in a student.  It does take a lot of time to provide useful feedback but I find most of my colleagues are willing to invest that time in their students, especially their doctoral students.  Instead I think it comes from discomfort with the process.  This is probably a combination of not liking to tear apart someone's work (although many people are comfortable doing this in a blind review) and not knowing how to give helpful feedback.  Like students, many academics struggle with their own writing.  Technically they may have stronger writing skills than their students (although as a group academics are not known for writing well) but they struggle to put words on paper on a consistent schedule.

It is interesting to me that we spend years receiving specialized training in our field but so very little attention is paid to developing skills for the tasks we need to do on a daily basis: teach, write, review.

The Mid-Semester Blues

My students were driving me a little crazy today.  To clarify, I mean my undergraduate students.  My doctoral student writing group met today and much progress has been made.  The undergrads were a very different story.

The story may need a little context.  We are now just halfway through the semester.  We've just come back from fall break.  They have gotten 65% of their grade for the semester.  Several failed the mid-term and only a handful did well on the paper.  I'm not happy and they're not happy (well most of them are not happy and 4 of them dropped the class).

The class was much smaller today.  In addition to the 4 drops, 8 were absent and 4 came in late. One of the people who came in late also left very early.  Several others seemed to have urgent bathroom needs.  Did I mention I was not happy?

I'll admit, today's topic is not one of my favorites and the format was almost completely lecture.  I prefer discussion but there was very little of that happening today.  I realized later when I recorded the attendance that at least half of those absent were my best students (and the ones I can count on for an interesting discussion).  To be fair, I generally find my interest in teaching any class decreases considerably at the halfway mark. I think if my semester was 8 weeks long, I'd get bored at week 4.  

We have some serious issues going on in our undergraduate program.  We are working on correcting them but I'm afraid it will take a few years.  In the meantime it is brutal getting through these classes.  Our enrollment has grown so much in the last few years that we can no longer use our regular advising system.  Tomorrow we are trying out a new system where we will be advising in groups for about 6 hours straight.  Somehow I don't think my mood will improve.

In Which We Don't Go To The Beach

This morning we pulled the plug on the beach vacation.  We had been iffy on the financial prudence of the trip from the beginning and there was more than a little threat of rain for the entire time we would be there (of course now the forecast is changing).  I am fine with the decision and am hoping we can make it happen for spring break.  b, I think, is sadder.

So there is still tons of grading in front of me but also a full week of not having a reason to go into the office. We will make plans as the days go by.  Angel and a friend may come up at the end of the week for their fall break.

I spent several hours grading the first set of undergraduate papers today.  It was painful.  I know grading is always abhorrent and our students have serious writing deficits but this was particularly painful.  I tried a new assignment and it was really bad.  I think it could eventually be a good (and important) assignment but this version is quite bad.  So I am stuck figuring out grades that are fair for their lack of ability and effort but also fair for the poor quality of the assignment.

One of the (several) reasons why the assignment was bad is that it depended on peer reviews.  I believe (strongly) in draft writing for my students.  If I don't force them to write in drafts they will hand in what they wrote the night before.  With almost 50 students I can't provide feedback and grade drafts.  In fact just grading the final product is going to take upwards of three days (again, partly my own fault because of the suckitude of the assignment).  Most (if not all) of my colleagues do not give written assignments for classes of 50 and above.  So I thought I'd compromise and give one small assignment in two drafts with peer reviewers providing feedback between the drafts.  The problem with the plan is that the students don't know how to write and therefore most don't provide adequate feedback.  In fact some give quite wrong feedback.

Students, in general, don't understand the meaning of revision.  In most cases I'm finding very little difference between draft one and draft two and some very complimentary peer reviews (they have to hand the whole packet in: original, peer review and final).  So as I am reading the final products I am realizing I needed to provide several lessons: (1) on the original assignment idea (which focused on reading in my discipline); (2) on writing; (3) on giving a peer review; and (4) on revising.  None of this, of course, is possible in the time I have to teach the course content.

As found in many other universities, we have a policy for integrating writing across the curriculum. This means teaching writing isn't supposed to only happen in students' general education requirements, such as English, but instead should happen in their major as well.  The current policy has every major offering a course that focuses on writing and that course is supposed to be capped at a certain size (certainly not 50).  My course is not the course.  My course isn't even a required course in the major.  But I believe in writing so there is a lot of writing in my course but this is the only assignment that provides feedback on writing.

The problem is enrollment has increased dramatically and it is difficult for some departments (including mine) to cover these writing courses for all their majors.  The university is trying to come up with a new system but the current suggestion, in my opinion, doesn't solve the problem.  However it will probably hide it.

I believe students should graduate college knowing how to write clearly; how to organize and present their thoughts in a written format.  I know they won't learn that (a) in one or two courses only and (b) without getting feedback between drafts.  I also believe their reading comprehension and critical thinking skills should increase from their college experience.  I believe writing helps there too. This assignment has done none of the above.

I am amazed when I read Angel's drafts, not because they are perfect but because I know where his writing was in high school.  I also see the connection between his ability to think and analyze text and his increasing ability to write.  I want the same for my students.  Unfortunately in the current climate it makes more sense for me to drop the assignment completely than to make it a useful one.

Audition Week

It is the first week of classes.  Today, as I was parking my car to go and teach my first class, I overheard two drama students discussing what they would wear to auditions that evening.  It was a cute conversation (each one telling the other how great they were in their respective clothes).  I then went and taught my class but the concept of auditioning stuck with me.

My university has had a substantial increase in enrollment in the past few years and one of the undergraduate programs in our department has more than tripled since I started five years ago.  In addition to our majors and minors we also have several large departments that require our courses of their majors.  We have both online and face-to-face sections of all our classes in this program. However I only teach one undergraduate class and it is an elective.

Each year the first week of classes (also known as the add/drop period) feels more and more like an audition.  For a number of reasons students usually register for more classes then they are going to take and then drop some during the first week.  They also "shop around" attending a class or getting information from their friends and then deciding what to add and what to drop.  Some of this happens before the class even meets.  For example, my course has a cap of 50 students.  I am over-enrolled by 4 making the final count before I taught the course today 54.  However the latest student to register was number 93.  By the end of the week it may be well into the hundreds.

Students take courses for a variety of reasons with the number one being to fulfill their requirements for their major and/or minor.  Scheduling is also very important.  A class needs to fit into their schedule.  Both of these make perfect sense to me but it saddens me that a third of my class today had no interest in the subject matter.  Instead it met the first two requirements.  The third requirement for many students is level of difficulty.  There is the perception that electives are supposed to be easy.  Mine is not.

I use the first week (I teach twice a week for an hour and fifteen minutes each) to make my expectations perfectly clear and to layout the amount and type of work they will be asked to do.  In most cases, students who have no interest in the subject and are expecting an easy class are going to end up failing.  That is not a good experience for any of us and I want them to drop.  I also want the students who are either interested and/or willing to give it effort an opportunity to either stay in the class or add the class.  And so the first two classes feel like an audition.  I try to highlight both the strengths and the challenges of the class sufficiently so both groups of students can make an informed decision.

By the end of the session today my stats were: 54 registered; 44 attended; 1 walked out; 3 asked about transferring to the online section.

This year we have more students then ever along with a severe budget cut.  There simply are fewer sections, fewer electives to choose from, and restrictions on some of the courses.  I fear many will not be able to drop the course.

The Never-Ending Practicum

All semester I've been teaching a practicum with my favorite group of doctoral students.  It is my first time teaching this course and I've been pretty much winging it as I go.  In our department we have a core course in qualitative methods (which I teach) but it is an overview course and we don't have a lot of time to go deeply into any one topic.  Several of our students have done qualitative dissertations and many more indicate that they would like to do so.  Our university has several qualitative methods courses in different departments but very few cover analysis with any depth. My idea for the course was to use available qualitative datasets (one of mine and one of my colleague's) and focus exclusively on coding, analysis and writing.  Analysis and writing would be done collaboratively and the final product would be papers for submission.

It has been a fun course to teach, partly because it consists of my favorite students and one of my favorite colleagues, but also because I am a bit of a methods geek and absolutely love reading and talking and thinking about methods.  As part of the course we read an interesting book that provides narratives on both the process of conducting qualitative dissertations as well as the student-mentor relationship.  Many excellent discussions came from these readings and we explored far more than just how to analyze qualitative data.

Perhaps the most important learning outcome to have occurred was the realization that this work is intensive and takes a long time.  Several of the students are rethinking a qualitative dissertation and the others are adjusting their timeline so they can do their dissertations justice.  We have two really interesting papers in the works but are still pretty far from having final drafts.  Classes ended two weeks ago but we added a few extra sessions to try and catch up.  Today was the last of these unofficial sessions but we will continue to meet informally throughout the summer to draft the papers.

Working with engaged students is a blessing.  I hope I never take it for granted.

RBOC: I Can't Believe It's Been 10 Days Since My Last Post And All I've Got Is Another RBOC Post Edition

• Non-stop meetings have continued.  I no longer have time between meetings to prepare for meetings and I certainly don't have time to do any real work.
• I'm instituting new policies: (1) I won't schedule a meeting that is less than 2 weeks away; (2) no more than 6 meetings a week that are not directly related to my research agenda; and (3) at least half an hour between the latest possible end time of one meeting and the beginning of the next meeting.
• I did manage to do one social activity this past weekend: BB&B.  This month we read Guyland by Michael Kimmel.  Attendance was light (I'm not the only one having a hellish semester) and none of us liked the book.  However it was very interesting unpacking exactly why we didn't like about it.
• There was also a lot of pet talk.  I seemed to have assembled a group of pet-fanatic feminists.
• Next month we're discussing our first novel.
• I sometimes think my son is the most earnest young man in the world.
• I miss him.
• My classes continue to go well.  I am particularly enamoured of my undergraduate class.  This past week we discussed women's sexuality and I somehow took the conversation down the pornography road.  They were happy to go with me and suggested a field trip to Chippendales.
• Does Chippendales even exist anymore?
• The healthy lifestyle experiment has continued in full force.  While it is not about the weight, that doesn't stop us from weighing ourselves.  b has lost a gagillion pounds (by my estimates) and I have lost 3 (on a good day).  I find this most unfair.
• However the muscles are coming back and, when I'm not completely exhausted, I have a lot more energy.
• One of the reasons for the exhaustion is that our nights are filled with vomiting cats and a dog that needs to inspect all cat vomit.
• The Brute has developed a new habit of pooping in the kitchen sink.  We are not amused.
• So there you have it, after 10 days of silence you get pornography, poop and cat vomit.  

RBOC: Something's Gotta Give Edition

• It is only two weeks into the semester and I feel woefully behind.
• My classes are going great.  My undergraduate class is really into the material.  I love a class that is willing to go with you, and this group definitely is.  My doctoral class has some quirks but is coming together.  
• I always forget that no matter how many times I've taught a class and no matter how prepared I am before it starts, prepping classes takes time.  
• I may have mentioned that my undergraduate class is a service learning class this year.  This means I have fewer students but I do need to coordinate with my community partners.  I have three partners, and they are all great, but it is another thing I need to remember and prep.
• Somehow I thought it would be a good idea to write a small proposal with one of my community partners and a new doctoral student.  We fleshed out the research idea on Friday and I really want to do it (it involves interviewing teen moms and doulas, so of course I'm interested) but the deadline is three weeks away.
• I love all of my graduate students but I have more than I should.  It feels like every week I have a proposal/draft to review or a comp exam to grade.  I am trying to say no to any new requests. 
• Did I mention the big grant (the one I've been working on for over a year now), still isn't done and is due in mid-October?
• I got one paper revised and out last week and hope to get a second out by the end of next week.  I will still have one more revision before I can even start on new papers. 
• My service commitments have gone through the roof.  I am trying to accept them strategically and to drop a few as more get added.  At minimum we are supposed to be on 1 committee in our department; 1 committee in our school; and 1 committee in our university.  Very few of us fail to meet this minimum and most of us far exceed it.  I am on two departmental committees and am Doctoral Program Coordinator; I'm the chair of a committee in our school and I am on three committees in the university.
• b and I have remained true to our new healthy lifestyle.  We continue to visit the gym 6 mornings a week and I slip in a few classes 2-3 times a week.  We had our second visit with the nutritionist and our diet is on track.  We are cooking at home a lot, which is good but has created a lot more work. We both feel good but tired most of the time.  We're hoping that changes.
• So far what has "given" is my 365 Project.  I stopped taking photos the week classes started.  It was actually a bit of a relief.
• Blogging has also been hard hit.  I'm posting around once a week now and I can't keep up with reading all my bloggy friends. I don't want blogging or reading blogs to feel like a chore. The worst part is I don't think of random blog posts to write throughout the day.  I miss that.
• My book club meets next week.  I'm only a third of the way through the book (mostly because I don't like it all that much) and have a growing mound of books I want to read on my nightstand.  I'm not sure how long reading for pleasure will last.
• I've also been working my way through Friday Night Lights on Netflix.  By the end of the day I am often too tired for anything but a TV show.  I was amazed by the first season.  What I thought was a silly teen show about football was really a critical analysis of race and gender relations, class, and disability.  The second season has proven to be less critical than the first but I've been assured it gets better.  

Thoughts At The End Of Week One

The first week of classes is officially over.  As first weeks go, it was pretty sweet.  The biggest downside is that, what with our new workout schedule, I have been completely exhausted by the end of each day.  The weather has finally turned nice here in SouthLite and I really really wanted to take a bike ride last night.  However it was all I could do to find myself something to eat and crawl into bed with my latest passion (soon to be a blog post on its own).

The other issue with this semester is that it is going to be crazy busy for me and a lot of that is going to be service (not my favorite).  As I may have mentioned, I am the new Doctoral Program Coordinator in my department (yay tenure).  Of all our programs, I am most committed to the doctoral program and its students so I feel this is really worthwhile service.  I think I have already made a difference in the lives of several students and I'm hoping to have a larger impact on the program.  It is a very new, fledgling program, and needs some TLC.

Morale was fairly low among the doctoral students last year, so I suggested a once a month shindig at one of my favorite local watering holes.  The students were interested (b thinks it is somehow wrong that I'm drinking with students, but they are all well over 21) and we had our first meeting tonight.  The weather (we sat outdoors) and venue were perfect and everyone had a great time. Of course this isn't the most significant change I need to make, but sometimes the little things can go a long way.

I'm teaching two courses this semester.  This is the third time I'm teaching both of them so the preps aren't too difficult.  One is an undergraduate course in Women's Health.  I enjoy teaching this class, as it is crosslisted with the Women & Gender Studies Program and has a strong feminist bent. I usually have the joy of seeing students get the "aha" moment about women's roles and feminism in this country. This semester I have changed things up a little bit and added a service learning component. I LOVE service learning.  I really like to get students out into the real world and see what it is all about.  I've done it before with small groups of students but never an entire class. Most of the students seem really psyched about it.  I have three community partners and they will all be coming in next week to describe their agencies.  The students will then pick first and second choices for the project they want to work on.  Each agency serves either women or girls in the community and the students will get a chance to directly apply what they are learning in class.

My other course is a doctoral class in qualitative methods.  I am one of those nerds that really enjoys teaching methods.  I read about methods and think about methods quite a bit, so I enjoy the opportunity to talk about it and get really deep into it with my students.  Doctoral classes are great because they are generally small and three hours long.  We can really take our time and get into some meaty stuff.  I also like teaching methods because, in between the heady philosophy stuff, I can make it very interactive and hands on.  This year I know everyone in the course very well so it should be loads of fun.

There is a lot of political drama going on in my department and in the university this year.  I haven't been able to stay completely out of it (and it probably isn't wise to do so) but the location of my new office has afforded me some protection, for which I am really grateful.  My new office is absolutely fabulous.  It is comfortable and organized and big enough that I can have students around without feeling cramped.  Also, since it is on the other side of campus it forces me to walk a lot more during the day.

My office is also a great spot to write and I've gotten a lot of writing done this week.  This has felt wonderful because I went about two weeks without writing a word.  When I can't write on a regular basis I get kind of itchy.  It is a feeling that is hard to describe but I know it whenever it comes.  So this week has been all about scratching that itch.  I even managed to resubmit a paper today.

It was also Angel's first week of school.  Due to some financial glitches last semester he ended up waitlisted on three courses that he needed.  He only got into one of them and needed to find a back-up course.  He called to tell me he had decided on an Introduction to Feminism course.  And if that is not cool enough, he also needs to find a person he can talk to about feminism for the class. He has picked yours truly.  His first assignment is to ask me my definition of feminism and to get me to draw a picture of what a feminist looks like.  I believe he is also supposed to draw a picture and then we compare them.  How much fun is that?

Teaching Feminism

Angel is taking his first "Gender and..." course this semester. The class meets on Tuesday nights. I'm teaching my "Gender and...." course this semester. My course meets on Tuesday nights. We're in completely different fields and I'm teaching a graduate level course but we've swapped stories a few times. Its been interesting to hear his perspective--as a student, as a man, as my son. I read a draft of his final paper and enjoyed it immensely. Not only is he developing as a writer but it involved his first stint at research and he had some good insights.

Today he called to tell me something he learned in class last night that he thought I would find interesting. It seems his teacher was covering feminism and Angel was shocked to find out that feminists are portrayed negatively by much of society. She showed them clips of people describing feminists and told them a personal anecdote about being left at the table and stuck with the bill on a dinner date after disclosing she was a feminist. Angel has since then polled some of his female friends to see if they identify as feminist and has again been shocked and a bit dismayed upon hearing their reactions. Now Angel is the sole male member of the only feminist organization on his campus and is close friends with the president but I don't think he was polling those friends. I believe he was talking about his sorority sisters. He goes to a pretty conservative school so he heard some harsh reactions.

I'm not quite sure what to make of it all. Of course I am thrilled that he is enjoying the class so much; that he is interested enough to talk about it with others; and that he finds it so hard to understand why feminists have a bad rap. What I don't really get is how he managed to reach the age of 20 without learning of it before. I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing (and probably it is neither) that he's been sheltered from this knowledge his whole life. He grew up in a very liberal environment. He grew up the son of a feminist mother who hangs with a feminist crowd and honestly I've received very little flak over my lifetime on my feminist positions. So I guess he has had very few opportunities to learn about it.

It does make me think about what my students (including the undergraduate 'Women and...' course I teach in the fall) and what bells I may be ringing in their heads. The longer I teach the more I realize how much I incorrectly assume something is general knowledge. I think this happens the most when I "teach feminism."

Back In The Fray

The first week of classes is over and I must say it felt like a long one. The really good news is that someone has dropped a bit of funding into my lap. My university has a faculty training grant that supports research directly related to my area. The grant was written the year before I came to SouthLite so I was not able to be included. However this year there is some extra money so they were looking for a junior faculty member (this is the last year I can claim that title) to fund and found me.

What does it mean, you ask? I will have 30% of my salary funded this year; 15-20 hours of an RA to help me with grants; and access to statistical and grant/paper writing consultants. Basically whatever help I need getting grants written and out (short of writing them for me) will be supported by this program. Pretty cool, eh? The salary funding means I will only have to teach one course next semester.

I also get an RA from my department because I'm still junior faculty. On top of that I have 2 undergraduate research assistant this semester from internal grants that the students and I wrote last year (our university has a really great program for funding undergraduate research, which is one of the things I love about being here). So I have A LOT of paid help from students this year. This is great but also not-so-great as it means a lot of training and supervision on my part. There is a real trade-off when working with students and it can be hard to find the right balance. Next week starts the meetings with my various student teams so I'll have a better sense of how the balance will work this semester.

I'm teaching two classes this semester: one undergraduate and one doctoral. I was really excited about the undergraduate class over the summer but after the first week I'm beginning to have some doubts. I taught it last year for the first time and it took a lot of prep time. This year I've changed it a bit but mostly to make it easier on me. It also happens that my department is also offering the same course (an elective) online. As I watched the numbers over the summer, it seemed the online course was filling up and my course was at a nice reasonable size (about two thirds full). My theory was that the students who were just looking for an easy elective were opting for the online course (most students feel they are easier; this is not always the case but I fear it is in my department). This idea made me very happy because I teach the course with a very strong feminist bent (it is cross-listed with the Women & Gender Studies program) and people looking for an easy elective often don't mix well with the students who are taking it because they know it is a feminist course.

What did I find when I started teaching this week? Well to start the numbers jumped to almost maximum a day or two before the class started. This seems to be going on all over the university as we are getting a record number of late enrollments and new students are searching for any open course. It also seems that due to cut-backs other courses are closing at the last minute and students need to fill their schedules. This is not a course that is well-suited for a gap-fill. Throughout the week, students have been adding and dropping like crazy. We are also stuck in a room that is way to small so I literally feel like they are on top of me and each other. I now have 36 students, half of whom I believe are deadweight; a quarter who are conscientious students but have never been introduced to anything remotely feminist; and a quarter who are totally psyched about the course and bring strong feminist analytic abilities. To pull the class off successfully I'm going to have to keep the feminists excited and challenged; excite the conscientious without scaring them; and get at least half of the deadweight interested enough that they'll at least complete the work and engage in discussion. But what of the other half, you ask? I'm hoping one or two drop (or get dropped from excessive absence) and the rest sleep.

Mmmm. I just reread the above paragraph and realize it sounds way more pessimistic and bitter than I really feel. I do love this course and I think it will be a great experience for both me and the students but I am disappointed that what I thought was going to be an easy and fun class for me, is now going to be a major challenge. Of course students have a right to take whatever elective interests them but I hate when they take it because it fills a gap and they think it will be easy ("its about women and I'm a woman so..."). My department is struggling to move from a last chance major ("I couldn't cut it in X or Y major and this major will help me graduate the fastest") and while we're making some strides it is still prevalent.

My doctoral class is a methods class--which is really a strength for me. Teaching research methods is something I enjoy and it comes fairly easy. I co-taught this course 2 years ago with a colleague. It is really his course but he is overfunded this year, so I got to drop my large graduate intro class for this very small (8 students) methods course--major win. They're a fun and chatty group from diverse fields and I have nothing but positive expectations.

This week also brought our first faculty meeting (during which I strongly objected to something that the department chair had proposed--probably NOT the smartest thing to do the week before I put my packet in for tenure review--but it really needed an objection and everyone else was acting like they were asleep) and grading of the written half of comprehensive exams. Yesterday we did one of the oral exams for a student that has been part of my research team--she did very well and will be defending her proposal within a month--so I was very happy. I have two more oral exams in the next two weeks.

It is going to be a very busy semester.

An Anniversary--Of Sorts

Angel left today for school. As I walked to the university I realized that its been a year since I first let him go. The letting go was much easier (yeah...massive understatement) this time. I actually found it amusing when he said "I'll see you at Christmas. It will be fun."

So on the one hand I'm glad he's gone. Life is much less complicated without him here and its painful to watch how unhappy he is being home. On the other hand I feel bad being happy that he's gone.

Tomorrow is my first day of teaching, which will mark the beginning of my 4th year of teaching at my university. I'm excited to meet my students but sad to see the summer gone.

Sometimes there are no easy answers.

Living In A Black And White World

Angel came home for a night. He leaves today to visit his dad before starting back at school. He's been with his friends for the past two weeks and is rejuvenated by the experience. He told me that he and his friends watched Fistful of Quarters. They really enjoyed it. He then proceeded to tell me the entire plot. If you haven't seen the film, it is about two grown men who are battling over bragging rights for highest score on Donkey Kong. It seems there are official rules and policies and committees that sanction the highest score. This documentary paints one of the men as good and the other as evil as well as highlights corruption in the gaming world. Angel and his friends ended up hating the evil man and fantasizing about visiting the restaurant he owns in Florida just to heckle and annoy him. Angel was aware that editing of a film can skew the story but had several reasons why he was sure this was not the case with this film.

I also heard the story of an RA who was unfairly monitoring one of his friends and accusing him of dorm violations that were innocuous (having candles burning in the room) and ratting on him to the powers-that-be without first approaching his friend to discuss said violations. Angel knew this RA in other circumstances and thought him a stand-up guy but now has lost complete respect for him. Of course the violations are all true and shortly after he told me this story he proceeded to describe how he and his new roommate have designed their room for optimal beer hiding.

I believe it is a developmental phenomenon that during your late teens-early twenties it is almost impossible to see shades of gray. Perhaps it is a sort of temporary color blindness. I'm not sure why it is necessary but it certainly makes sense that this is the age we send people to fight in wars. I find the same tendencies in Pumpkin and I remember being that way myself, so it is not gender-specific. This is not to say that they are incapable of seeing shades and texture, but rather that they are initially drawn to the black and white view. And while some people never outgrow the stage, I believe for most it ends by 25.

As a teacher I've seen it in both undergraduate and masters' level classes. It creates a challenge for introducing subjects such as gender, race, and class and how they intersect with my field. Most students want the easy answer. Most want to believe that it is all a matter of individual choice. Challenging them and pushing them to see situations from other perspectives is challenging for me. Using a socratic approach can help but you have to be really skilled not to let the argument boil down into dichotomies. However there are usually older students in both my graduate and undergraduate classes and this can help pull a more balanced discussion. But am I reaching the others? I don't really know.

As a parent it is even more challenging especially in the case of Angel, where I feel the relationship is already a little fragile. I've taken to injecting a possible alternative scenario once or at the most twice in a conversation and then letting it go. I feel its my duty as his mother to point out the shades of gray but I can't make him see them. If I try I believe I'll force him deeper into his black or white stance. And I remember all to well the anger I felt when told I was "going through a phase," so that approach is definitely out. Maybe one day he will recognize it and laugh about it with me as I have recently done with my mother.

Sweet Deal

Just found out that instead of teaching an evening class with 30+ (its still growing) entry-level masters' students, I will be teaching an afternoon class with 4-5 doctoral students. I enjoy the class I'm not teaching very much but it is probably my most time-intensive class. I've taught this other class once before--and also really enjoy it--so there won't be too much new prep involved but a WHOLE lot less grading. Its shaping up to be a pretty sweet semester.

First Step

The first step in creating the tenure packet is done. The section that describes my entire research life is being sent out for external review this week. My chair has roped 6 professors from across the nation to provide a written review. At the moment I'm just happy it is off my desk.

And although I'm still crazy busy with the Challenge grant I've had to go on to Step 2. Pumpkin nominated me for our school's Outstanding Teacher Award. If I want my nomination to be considered I need to put together an award application. Basically it is everything I will need to have in the teaching section of my tenure packet. So its really a win-win situation. Best-case scenario is my teaching section is completed early AND I get the award--worst case scenario is my teaching section is completed early.

Did I mention I despise writing my teaching philosophy? I can talk about my teaching until the cows come home but if you ask me to describe my philosophy I look like a deer caught in the headlights. Truth be told I'm not too keen on describing my research philosophy either.

If I Had Time To Blog....

If I had time to blog I would tell you about my awesome students.

I have two gem classes this semester and they keep me sane and grounded. For the last two weeks I've cancelled 1 full group session in each course so I could meet with each student individually and give them feedback on their papers. Both classes had to hand in complete first drafts before Spring Break. For each student I wrote a letter (about a page or two) giving detailed feedback and encouragement as necessary. When they came to my office I gave them time to read the letter and then we discussed it. I love this process. I especially love it because these students are awesome and have come up with such interesting ideas. They have also really struggled with figuring out how to write these complex ideas into a strong argument. I enjoy reading drafts and trying to figure out exactly what the author is trying to do and then finding ways to help hir do it. But even more fun is sitting down one-on-one with a student and trying to unscramble their thought processes into a coherent argument. Over the past two weeks I've had more than a few "a-ha" moments with my students, and that, my friends, is really why I teach.

If I had time to blog I would bring you up to speed on my "healthy lifestyle" plan.

I went completely vegetarian in January. By February I had added fish back into the diet but I try to keep it to a few times a month. Mostly it comes in handy when eating out. Since January b and I have been on a diet and have been trying to eat out as little as possible. In January I stopped all alcoholic beverages. By February I had added my Guinness back in to my diet. At first I tried to keep it to once or twice a month but that has definitely fallen by the wayside. I've lost around 10-12 pounds. I fit into my clothes and, more importantly, my workouts are more comfortable and I can run without killing my knees. I look fine. I'm healthy. My goal was 5-7 additional pounds. Part of me wants to keep going but honestly I know it is just vanity. I think I'm getting too old for that kind of vanity. Now I am working hard to maintain this weight. Part of my healthy lifestyle plan was also to read literature more often. I bought 2 books at the beginning of the month and I'm only halfway through the first one.

If I had time to blog I would tell you that I went 2 straight weeks without talking to Angel and it actually felt good.

Angel went camping with his fraternity brothers over Spring Break. While he was gone I turned off my iChat, because really I only chat with him and b and b is usually right next to me. By the time he was back I forgot to turn it on and was crazy busy with this grant that I'm writing. It took me until the end of the 2nd week to figure it out. On Saturday he asked b to ask me to turn my iChat on so he could talk to me. He wanted help with a paper. I helped him and then turned it off. Through most of this empty nest process I've been keeping the phrase "a mother has to be there to be left" in my mind and I've been trying to do my part. Lately I've been thinking this is more of the motherhood=sacrifice myth. I'm finding this myth less and less appealing.

If I had time to blog I would tell you about b's boat.

b ordered a new kayak. It is something he has wanted for a very long time. He's been saving for it for months now and he ordered it 2 weeks ago. They built it for him in Canada and it has been en route for almost a week. He's been tracking it daily (really he checks several times a day but it doesn't usually move more than once a day). He likes to update his FaceBook page with its current location. Today it is in the same city as Angel's college and it should be to SouthLite tomorrow. My husband can be very silly but he is also very excited and that makes me happy.

If I had time to blog I would tell you about this big-league grant that I'm writing.

I believe I've mentioned that I use to write grants all the time. It was a major part of my job. I'm talking about big league grants that you worked on for months and then the entire office stays up all night before a deadline (for one really really big league grant the entire staff stayed awake, in the office and working nonstop for a full weekend). They were a major pain but also really exciting in a nerdy masochistic kind of way. I haven't written one of these since I came to SouthLite. I've written some small internal grants and helped with some small external grants but mostly I felt burnt from the big league. Then this grant announcement was released with an impossible deadline and everyone in the country seems to be writing for it. For reasons completely unbeknownst to me I got it in my head to write one. I've been working on it for about 2 weeks now and have been feeling the old glory and the old pain. It is definitely a love-hate relationship but it is oddly comforting to actually want to be doing this again. Of course if I weren't writing this grant I'd have time to blog.

First Classes

Last week was the first week of classes at my school. Tomorrow starts Week 2 and everyone is supposed to be in the groove already. The first week is filled with greeting people you haven't seen, asking how everyone's break was, and declaring yourself completely unready to teach. First classes are about reviewing the syllabus, making sure everyone is on the same page, and giving some kind of intro to your topic. First weeks are easy. Week 2 means actually doing the work.

I like first classes. I like the first several classes actually because to me they are mostly about forming a group. I'm teaching two classes this semester and one class covers a lot of controversial topics and challenges students' deep-seated beliefs and identities. I need them to reach a level of trust and comfort in me and in each other in order for the class to be successful. Luckily, as it is an elective, most students come really wanting to take the class. However it also draws students from all over the institution and from a diverse set of academic disciplines. This is both good and bad. Mostly good I think because it means they have a lot to teach each other.

My other class is very small with only 5 students. Both classes are graduate level and the first one has a mix of master and doctoral level students but the second class is all doctoral students and 4 of the 5 are in my program. They know each other well and already have a complex history. All of the students know me fairly well, with three of them having been in a class with me before and two are currently conducting research with me. This class is a required course and it is an area most people think of as a chore. This group particularly is not enamored with the subject matter. But I love teaching it because I am a nerd and it is a very nerdy topic. So for this class I don't need to build a group as much as turn them on to the subject. Share the love.

I've also been hearing that I'm considered a hard grader. One former student told me that she warned her friend not to take my class if she wasn't ready to write and do a lot of work. She said that I may smile a lot and be friendly but when it came to the work I was serious about it. I was rather pleased to hear that because I like to be friendly and smile and have fun with my students but the work means a lot to me. I work hard--at teaching and at scholarship--and I expect my students to do the same. I like working hard and I like challenges. I often have to tell my students that struggling is a good thing and if they're having a hard time in the class it means they're doing it right.