Monthly Archives: July 2009

“Obama Student Loan Plan Wins Support in House”

Posted on July 11, 2009 by | 1 Comment

From the NYTimes: “Obama Student Loan Plan Wins Support in House.” The article is a pretty good summary, as far as I can tell, of a plan that would basically have the feds loaning money directly to students, bypassing the banks. Needless to say, the banks are not happy about this because banks make a boatload of money off of these loans.

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Posted in In the media..., Staff Life, Student Life

Elvisfest is coming this weekend

Posted on July 10, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Alas, sitedad and family are off to an undisclosed locale for the next week, one that ironically enough would probably very much appreciate the annual Michigan Elvisfest, which is taking place this weekend in Ypsilanti. My wife and son and I actually went last year and we had a lot of fun, so I’d recommend it, even if you aren’t an Elvis fan.

Who knows? Maybe next year, we can host Michael Jackson Fest….

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Posted in College Fun, Ypsilanti

Online teaching is better (maybe) and should be local

Posted on July 9, 2009 by | 3 Comments

I’ve been meaning to post about these articles for a few days now, but I have been (ironically enough) pretty busy teaching and such with my online classes.

First, from last week’s CHE comes “Online-Education Study Reaffirms Value of Good Teaching, Experts Say.” This is an article about a US Department of Education study– really, a “meta-study” in that it was a study of studies– that found online teaching to actually be more effective than traditional, face-to-face teaching. It’s an interesting result, but it doesn’t mean we should all be teaching everything online all the time; rather, maybe we should be thinking about how “what works” online might work in face-to-face courses:

“This report should not be interpreted as saying that one medium is better than another,” says Barbara Means, a director of the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International, a California research firm that conducted the project under contract with the Education Department. “This should not be interpreted as saying that computers are better than professors.”

Instead, Ms. Means says, the study offers evidence that particular kinds of online instructional techniques are effective—and some of those techniques, she suggests, could theoretically be imported into old-fashioned chalkboard classrooms. For example, the study found that in online courses, students often spend more time directly engaging with the course content than do their counterparts in traditional classrooms. But in theory, there is no reason why traditional courses could not be redesigned to increase students’ “time on task.”

In other words, it’s the instructional technique that matters, not the technology, just as Mr. Clark proposed decades ago.

Or, to put it another way: If online courses are more effective than their face-to-face counterparts, it may be because the new setting forces instructors to break out of stale teaching habits, and not necessarily because computers are an intrinsically superior medium.

The other article, “They Thought Globally, but Now Colleges Push Online Programs Locally,” is something I’ve been thinking and saying for a long time now. I think this paragraph is spot-on:

For years, some universities have dreamed of border-defying online programs that vacuum up tuition dollars far beyond local students like Mr. Kolberg. But now a growing number of institutions like Milwaukee are ramping up their efforts to attract working adults in their own backyards.

Commuter-serving urban universities can’t match the marketing muscle of faster-growing, for-profit, online colleges. What they can try to do is parlay stronger local brands, cheaper tuition, and blended programs that shift a lot of class time online into an appealing package for area adults. The kind of adults who might value coming to campus periodically but struggle to do it three times a week.

My online teaching experiences might be a little different from others in that I don’t teach classes online that would lend themselves easily to transfer. But the only students I have in my online classes who are not living in southeast Michigan are ones who have moved away and are trying to finish up their EMU degree from afar.

In any event, this is clearly the role of online teaching at EMU for all but a few unusual programs.

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Posted in EMU Technology, Faculty Life, In the media..., Student Life

Being in the office is not my idea of working

Posted on July 6, 2009 by | 3 Comments

From Inside Higher Ed: “British University Wants Faculty Members in Offices:”

Britain’s Liverpool Hope University has infuriated faculty members by saying that it expects their work days to be spent on campus and not — as many faculty members doing writing or grading do — working from home. The Times Higher reported that a new policy says that working from home should be the “exception to the norm and can be authorized only by a dean in each instance.” When faculty members have authorization to work from home, they are instructed to kee a “careful note of activity engaged in during such absences that, if required, they are able to discuss with an authorized line manager.”

This certainly seems at odds with the American idea of telecommuting and the point of online classes. All I know is that if something like this ever came to EMU (and I have a very hard time believing that this would ever come to nearly any U.S. university), lots of faculty would have to make some big-time lifestyle changes.

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Posted in Faculty Life, In the media...

Update on tenure denials by Board of Regents

Posted on July 5, 2009 by | 1 Comment

EMU-AAUP president Susan Moeller sent around an email about the recent tenure denials by the Board of Regents, and I’m torn about posting about this here.

On the one hand, this is a big deal and it’s something that people in the EMU community– not just faculty– need to be aware is going on. On the other hand, I don’t want to foster a lot of rumors/speculation about the reasons for denying these folks tenure. I mean, these are personnel matters, and this stuff should be kept confidential. Mind you, I don’t think EMUTalk.org is fueling any rumors; rather, I think the Board of Regents caused/started the rumors by taking this rather unusual action of making this a public event in the first place.

I’m of the opinion that this information ought to be out there, but I post this with this important caveat: I have no unique information/privileged knowledge here. I’ve heard lots of rumors, but no one has sent me any confidential emails or whatever saying they have real inside knowledge. I’m just passing along what Moeller wrote.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Regents, EMU-AAUP, Faculty Life

I kinda like a parade (and does anyone want to be in it next year?)

Posted on July 4, 2009 by | 5 Comments

But I didn’t love it this year– and by “it,” I mean the annual July 4 parade. I thought it was a little on the short-side, it featured too many cars with no decoration or indication at all why they were in the parade (perhaps they just got stuck in traffic), and it had too many church groups. As I overheard one person saying, “When did the Fourth of July become a religious holiday?”

A few images:

Right back at ya, Elvis
It’s as if Elvis were posing just for me! (Note the EMU construction in the background.)

Ypsilanti Underwear Shipped Worldwide

Apparently, this was an industry of sorts in Ypsilanti back in the day. Now that the auto industry has cleared out, perhaps we can rise in the underwear business again.

And then there’s this, which I think was about the weirdest float of the day:

This was a float for a church group of some sort, and the theme was Jesus/God as carpenter and also something about “building for the future and our children.” But all I saw was that rather disturbing hammer march scene in Pink Floyd’s The Wall (watch all of this on YouTube or skip ahead to about the 4 minute mark to see what I mean). My guess is that this particular group of church goers missed that movie.

Anyway, not to rehash stuff that came up last year about this time, but once again, there was no EMU presence in the parade– well, no direct presence. I am sure there were many people who are tied to EMU who were in the parade for other organizations/purposes. There are a lot of logistic reasons why the Heritage Day Parade is a little more workable for EMU schedules in terms of things like the band or athletic teams or whatever. Still, it’d be nice if EMU did something more than nothing.

So that got me to thinking: anybody interested in an EMUTalk.org float next year? Or maybe something a little broader than that, like Ypsi bloggers? Maynard, what do you think?

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Posted in College Fun, EMU Branding, EMU Images, EMUtalk.org News, Ypsilanti

EMU doesn’t have a PhD in economics, does it?

Posted on July 4, 2009 by | 4 Comments

This is quite the tangent, but I thought I’d post it here anyway: I came across an article that was published in a Tacoma, WA web site/newspaper and which I assume is based on some sort of wire service, “South Carolina governor mixes business, pleasure in ’08 Argentina trip.” The article is about the curiously self-righteous South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, the one who admitted to an affair with a woman in Argentina after his lie/excuse about going hiking by himself on the Appalachian Trail was discovered to be bogus. This article mostly recounts the ways in which Sanford traveled to Argentina to do a little state business and have a little, well, pleasure. But this is the quote that came up with my Eastern Michigan University news feed:

During his time in Buenos Aires, Sanford had an interpreter and driver selected by the U.S. Embassy and paid for by South Carolina. The interpreter was paid $100; the driver about $170, records show.

The interpreter, Ines Perrone, told The McClatchy Co.’s Washington Bureau by telephone that there was no sign of Chapur during Sanford’s official events, and that Sanford came across as a serious but warm visitor.

“With me, he was always very correct,” said Perrone, who earned a doctorate in economics from Eastern Michigan University in 2004. “I can’t say anything bad about him. He was a very correct person. He was a curious person, friendly.”

So, we don’t have a PhD in economics, do we? I assume this is some sort of reporter error….

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Posted in In the media...

“Change or Die: Scholarly E-Mail Lists, Once Vibrant, Fight for Relevance”

Posted on July 3, 2009 by | Leave a comment

I saw the headline for this article in the free version of The Chronicle of Higher Ed the other day, “Change or Die: Scholarly E-Mail Lists, Once Vibrant, Fight for Relevance,” but I didn’t read it because it didn’t seem that interesting to me. But my “Eastern Michigan University” news search turned up this aspect of the piece:

Similar changes are under way at the Linguist List, which — with about 29,000 subscribers — could be the largest single academic mailing list out there.

Helen Aristar-Dry, who has helped run the list since it began in 1990, is co-director of the Institute for Language Information and Technology at Eastern Michigan University.

“The linguist list is actually kind of a big deal in linguistics,” she said, reporting that its audience is growing each year. The list also asks its subscribers for donations to support it, and this year it exceeded its $60,000 goal by $10,000.

The list has tried to embrace new technologies as they have emerged, even as organizers kept the list going. Ms. Aristar-Dry got a grant from the National Science Foundation many years ago to set up a searchable Web archive of the lists. More recently, the organizers set up RSS feeds for the list so scholars can follow it on Google Reader, Bloglines, or other software designed to keep track of blogs and Web sites (H-Net has set up a similar service).

Like H-Net, the tenor of the Linguist List has evolved. “It used to be a discussion list, but it’s not that so much anymore,” said Ms. Aristar-Dry. “Now it’s mainly job announcements, conference announcements, and book reviews.”

“I think that community discussion has been largely replaced by the blogs,” she said.

In my own field, I’d say that e-mail lists still serve as a conversational space/role, though there is also a community of bloggers out there too. I guess it depends on the conversation. I mean, I don’t think EMUTalk.org would work very well as a mailing list, to be honest.

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Posted in Faculty Life, In the media...

“Dear Plagiarist”

Posted on July 2, 2009 by | 1 Comment

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.

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Posted in Academics, Faculty Life, In the media..., Student Life