EMUtalk.org

This is far from my favorite topic to post about here on EMUTalk.org (or anywhere else), but here it is nonetheless: “Dear Plagiarist,” from today’s Inside Higher Ed. Leaping ahead to the conclusion for a quote from this piece:

The reason that plagiarism like yours makes professors so sad – and, yes, sometimes mad — is that it entirely defeats our attempts to educate you. We work hard to put you in a position to reach understandings that you would not otherwise be able to attain. (This is what makes a real course a course.) Cannibalizing a source like SparkNotes is not “extra research” for which you should be lauded (as you claim); on the contrary, it’s a substitute for (and the very antithesis of) the intellectual work that you were asked to do, and which your professors see as being at the heart of a liberal arts education. The opposite of academic honesty is not actually academic dishonesty; it’s dishonesty that is decidedly unacademic. To commit it is to suggest that you don’t understand, or don’t value, the kind of education for which you (or your parents) are paying so much. The problem is not so much rule breaking as point missing.

Now, I’m not sure the assignment and pedagogy discussed by the author, G. Thomas Couser, actually makes those rules or the point that clear. But that’s another matter, I suppose.

I thought this was pretty interesting:

There was a discussion in my department recently about a policy restricting the use of laptop computers; Lord only knows what some of my colleagues would think of adding Twitter to a class discussion. But I have to say I found this pretty persuasive, and it rings home with me. I was at a conference not too long ago where there was a very active and very interesting “back channel” discussion going on about panels on Twitter. It might not be that interesting to folks who weren’t there, but for people who were there, it was very cool.

Kind of an interesting little piece in the CHE: “Sartorial Study Suggests Professors Should Wear What They Want.” A quote from the beginning of the piece:

How academics dress for a lecture doesn’t affect how students perceive them — at least in the long run.

That was the conclusion of a study at North Hennepin Community College that measured students’ perception of an instructor based on what type of clothing she wore to her lectures.

The study is kind of dubious, if you ask me; even the researcher/teacher, Yasmine L. Konheim-Kalkstein, admits that it probably matters a lot about where someone teaches.

In general, professors are notoriously bad dressers, I think mainly because of either a real or cultivated eccentricity (”wow, Professor Krause never bothers to wear socks– he must be so smart!”), a lack of funds for the fancy clothes (thus the difference between faculty and the “suits”), or because they can.

The third option seems most reasonable to me: I think most professors wear whatever they want mainly because there is essentially no dress code, and this seems to be the case just about everywhere, as far as I can tell. I took a PhD seminar from a very smart professor who routinely showed up in very baggy sweat pants. I worked with a colleague at my first job who occasionally showed up to work in what I presumed were his pajamas. Honest.

Ugh, what a snarky and badly-written article on the Detroit Freep web site, “Why don’t colleges cut costs?
While families tighten belts, universities’ budgets grow.” I’m not going to pretend to understand all of the reasons why university expenses have been increasing over the last 20-odd years, but I will say this:

• Part of it is a matter of perspective; from where I am sitting, I’m seeing all kinds of cuts and budget-saving measures being imposed on faculty and staff, some of them pretty nasty.
• I am pretty sure there is a direct correlation between increases in tuition at public colleges and universities and systematic cuts from state governments. It’s a national trend, and the irony is that the same people who once complained about too much tax money going to higher education are the same ones who are complaining now about tuition increases.
• Oddly, the article doesn’t mention community colleges. I have to say that if I was just starting college, short on funds, and not entirely sure what I wanted to major in/do in college, I’d start with classes at a CC.
• EMU gets one mention in the article, which is we’re only raising tuition 3.8%, which is the lowest of any of the universities mentioned. And I think that 3.8% is probably just a hair above cost of living adjustments.

From the most recent CHE: “Lawyers’ Advice to Colleges About Internet Gossip: Educate, Don’t Regulate.”

With the proliferation of Internet sites for personal expression, colleges have become entangled in numerous high-profile scandals in recent years after students or faculty members have posted mean-spirited rumors or salacious photos online.

But the way to curb that trend is not to enforce more-restrictive speech codes or chase down the source of every anonymous rumor, several higher-education legal experts said on Wednesday during a panel session at the annual conference here of the National Association of College and University Attorneys.

Actually, what they were talking about was sites like the now defunct Juicy Campus, which published rumors and stuff about college campuses that makes EMUTalk.org look like the Wall Street Journal or something. Interesting piece nonetheless, and I think the best advice from lawyers: be open, respect free speech, don’t try to cover up. Not that EMU would be anything but open, respectful of free speech, avoiding cover-ups, etc. (cough-cough)

(With three slight updates on June 25– see below):

Susan Moeller sent around an email yesterday about a rather strange development coming out of the Board of Regents from their recent meeting; she wrote:

It was a very sad day today at Eastern Michigan University. For the first time in our history, the Board of Regents denied two faculty members, who were approved for tenure by their departments, their deans, and the Provost, tenure.

I thought Moeller was a little vague about it all in her email. So I went to look at the documents from the Board of Regents meeting, and while I didn’t spend a lot of time with it, I couldn’t find anything about folks being denied tenure. I did find some kind of weird documents though. Check the link above and you’ll see the “Faculty Tenure Appointments (Sections A and B)” (a PDF). Page 1 is boiler-plate language on tenuring 30 faculty and is dated (handwritten) June 10, and page 2 is the list of 30 faculty. Page 3 is the same boiler-plate language for 2 faculty, and page four lists those two faculty. Perhaps those are the ones who didn’t get tenure and promotion?

This is all very strange. I was on campus today, and I heard some rumors about all this that, if true, strike me as extremely problematic to say the least.

So, what do folks know? Any more rumors or theories? Feel free to post in the comments or to drop me an email.
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I just got an email from “Office of the President,” and what OotP (aka Susan Martin) is discussing is various budgeting issues. Not a lot of details about how we’re going to make our way through this year, and almost nothing about next year, but there was this little nugget:

Despite the uncertain state funding, we can meet our objectives, but not without some sacrifice and “belt tightening.” The proposal presented to the Board includes a one-year pay freeze for the 100 highest compensated Administrative/Professional staff employees as well as deferral of merit-based pay increases from July 1, 2009 to January 1, 2010 for the balance of the University’s Administrative/Professional staff. Also, a one-year pilot voluntary furlough program is being implemented. Under this Voluntary Work Schedule Adjustment Program (VWSAP), subject to management approval, employees could choose a reduced work schedule and pay while retaining their benefits. Further details of this program will be provided by Human Resources soon.

It will be interesting to see if this program is voluntary next year or not. It’s also interesting that Martin and her suits are rolling this proposal out now just a few weeks after they put the brakes on the phased retirement plan where faculty work for one semester at a time for half pay– essentially, a voluntary furlough as a way to prepare for retirement.

Sitedad has returned from a previously undisclosed trip to California– the University of California at Davis to be precise so that I could attend the annual Computers and Writing Conference. A good time was had for one and all. Davis itself is a lovely college town just outside of Sacramento; it reminded me a great deal of Ann Arbor but with good weather and more cheerful, healthy-looking people.

Interestingly, there was an article in the local Davis newspaper last week about how UC Davis (which is sort of the Michigan State of the UC system in that it opened as an “ag school”) was going to have to absorb $65 million in budget cuts for the next fiscal year. Someone I know who is in the know that the way that is hitting faculty and staff is people either are going to have to take an 8% cut to salary or take an 18 day work furlough. Which to me is another example of something I’ve heard from others: money-wise, things at EMU are kind of bad, but they are a lot worse at a lot of other universities around the country. At least for now; next year, when that fed bailout money is not there and the Michigan economy is still in the dumper, we could be in pretty bad shape.

Anyway, I also haven’t posted much because there hasn’t been much news. I did come across this article this morning that might be of interest to folks who have followed some of the recent failings of the academic publishing house giant, Elsevier: “Elsevier won’t pay for good reviews,” from Inside Higher Ed. Here’s a quote:

Elsevier officials said Monday that it was a mistake for the publishing giant’s marketing division to offer $25 Amazon gift cards to anyone who would give a new textbook five stars in a review posted on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. While those popular Web sites’ customer reviews have long been known to be something less than scientific, and prone to manipulation if an author has friends write on behalf of a new work, the idea that a major academic publisher would attempt to pay for good reviews angered some professors who received the e-mail pitch.

Elsevier officials claim the “gift card for good reviews” program was an effort from an overzealous employee, but given some of the other highjinks they’ve been involved with lately (like publishing quasi-fake academic journals), one wonders.

There was an article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed the other day about the AAUP with an EMU connection: “AAUP Says It’s Rebounding, Though Challenges Remain” includes mention of EMU’s own Howard Bunsis, who is now the National Treasurer. Here’s a quote featuring him:

Howard J. Bunsis, the group’s secretary-treasurer and a professor of accounting at Eastern Michigan University, hit the back-on-track theme in his report on the group’s finances. “We’ve turned the corner,” Mr. Bunsis said. Although the group’s investments took a major hit because of the recession, he reported, the group had a positive cash flow last year after several years’ worth of faulty accounting and budgets in the red.

He credited a campaign of streamlining and cost-watching for the change. “We were paying very high-priced CPA’s to do internal financial accounting we should have been doing,” Mr. Bunsis said. Moving that work in-house “is the main reason” for the improved financial outlook, along with an uptick in membership revenue.

Great job, Howard!

Alert EMUTalk.org reader/Ypsi Food Co-Op guy/Solar power enthusiast Dave Stenski sent me the following the other day:

I wanted to make your blog aware of a local solar power project that is getting a lot of help from EMU professor William Sverdlik and student Nik Estep .

You can see the webpage at SolarYpsi.com and watch real time graphs of power being generated at the Ypsilanti Food Cooperative at:

http://solar.ypsi.com/index.php?siteDetails=foodcoop

Nik has been doing most of the programming for the website and graphs.

We will be adding solar panels to the back of City Hall and the Cooperative’s bakery this summer. Those too will have real time graphs.

Cool stuff, and since I personally was something of a solar power enthusiast as a junior high student (no, I’m not really sure why, but yes, I think having solar panels to generate some electricity and/or to year some water would be pretty cool), I am even more enthusiastic to pass along this small but classic link between EMU and Ypsilanti. Keep up the good work, and get those solar panels on city hall!