Category Archives: Faculty Life

Here’s a sure-fire way for a professor to get fired

Posted on November 8, 2011 by | 6 Comments

As reported in The Washington Post, ”GWU medical school professor resigns; students say she didn’t teach class, gave everyone As.”  The opening paragraphs:

A George Washington University medical school professor has resigned after students complained that she never taught a required class and assigned all her students an “A’’ grade.

Venetia Orcutt resigned last month an assistant professor in George Washington’s department of physician assistant studies. She also served as chair of the department.

This is all kind of hard to believe– I am assuming there is a story behind this somewhere….

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

Meanwhile, at Southern Illinois…

Posted on November 3, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Via a Facebook “friend” (really, just someone I kinda know) comes this piece in stltoday.com, “Impending strike at SIUC could disrupt classes for 20,000.”  That’s Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and as far as I can tell, the threatened strike comes after sluggish negotiations and after working without a contract for over a year.

I’m sure there are very different issues there than there are here, but I thought there were a couple of passages that are interesting to think about as the faculty head into a negotiation year.  First, there’s this:

If they do strike, it’s unclear just how effective they’ll be. The school, like others around the nation, faces financial difficulties at a time when states are cutting back on higher education funding. And unlike many schools in the region, SIUC has not seen significant increases in enrollment and tuition dollars.

While campus strikes aren’t seen all that frequently, several strikes or threats of strikes have taken place recently at schools around the nation, including Rider University in New Jersey, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College and Central Michigan University.

And this:

Yet even when a work stoppage happens, it doesn’t tend to last long, said Richard Boris, director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College in New York.

“Faculty strikes are mostly symbolic and very short-lived and exist to jump-start conversations that have stalled,” Boris said. “The brake on every faculty strike is the harm that lost classes will bring to students.”

I’ve always been for whatever other options for a labor action rather than a strike. I think strikes are an early 20th century approach to 21st century problems, they tend to be more about symbolism than anything else, and I’m not sure how much we’ve gotten at EMU as a result of walking out versus working without a contract.  On the other hand, sometimes the number of available tactics are pretty slim.

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Posted in EMU-AAUP, Faculty Life, In the media...

Kim Schatzel named provost, vice president

Posted on November 2, 2011 by | 12 Comments

Also from Walter Kraft and on the EMU web site comes news that Kim Schatzel will be the next provost.  As I mentioned before, I didn’t see any of the provost candidates, but everyone I talked to said she was the best choice, so good for the powers that be in that choice.

One of my colleagues did a little poking around and found out that she is both on Linkedin and on Twitter, and she appears to be pretty active in both those spaces.  She recently retweeted this post about 10 reasons universities ought to be blogging to attract students, for example.  Perhaps she’ll be more active in this than our previous provost.

I wish her the best of luck, but the track record hasn’t been good.  I might be wrong about this, but I don’t think we’ve had a provost that lasted longer than three years since Ron Collins.  So she’s got to fight the odds to succeed.

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Posted in Administrator Life, EMU Events, Faculty Life

Oh no, not again….

Posted on November 1, 2011 by | 2 Comments

From “Office of the President” comes news of a University Strategic Plan.  To quote the opening lines:

I am pleased to share with you that preliminary planning to develop a five-year university strategic plan has moved forward this summer and fall.  As this process evolves over the weeks and months ahead, there will be opportunities for involvement for everyone on campus – students, faculty and staff, as well as for external constituents who are involved in our success.

Oh Lord.  There are at least five administrator buzzwords in that paragraph; can you circle them?

Then this:

The Council is aware that due to past experiences with the strategic planning process, there is some skepticism about the likelihood of completing the process, and of it being an open and campus-engaging process.  It is my firm commitment, along with that of the co-chair of the ISPC, Professor of Economics and department head Raouf Hanna, that this be a dynamic and successful effort.

Skepticism?!?  Really??

Tomorrow, we will get a look at some kind of survey, while today and tonight, we are left only with a web site.

I don’t want to be a hater here because I do think that there is a value to assessment (faculty do it all the time– it’s called grading) and I think as an institution we do owe it to the public at large to explain what it is that we do (though with the “public” being sucked out of higher education, even at places like EMU, there’s a part of me that thinks we owe them a lot less than we used to).

But I honestly don’t think there has ever been a university strategic assessed program review initiative of long-term stakeholder constituency outcomes that has ever amounted to much of anything.  And that’s not just EMU; if you want to get an angry conversation going during a cocktail party at an academic conference among faculty from a bunch of different universities, just say something like “say, how’s your program review going?”

And I should say that this announcement comes out literally the day after the latest round of “Academic Review and Continuous Improvement Cycle” stuff was due.  I’d like to be hopeful that whatever we’re doing next here is not this.  But….

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Posted in Administrator Life, Faculty Life

Congrats to the “superior” Beta Alpha Psi accountants and their leader Howard Bunsis

Posted on October 7, 2011 by | Leave a comment

A loyal EMUTalk.org reader and PR guy forwarded me this link to an EMU press release, “Dandy dozen: EMU chapter of Beta Alpha Psi recognized as “superior” by national accounting honors organization for 12th year in a row under the leadership of professor Howard Bunsis.”  Here’s a quote:

The Eastern Michigan University chapter of Beta Alpha Psi, a national accounting honors organization, has been recognized internationally as a superior chapter for the past academic year.

In a letter announcing the honor, Beta Alpha Psi president Mary Stone cited the leadership of accounting professor Howard Bunsis, faculty advisor of the EMU chapter.

“Recognition as a superior chapter is a significant accomplishment,” said Stone. “Under the leadership of Howard Bunsis, the Epsilon Omega Chapter has far exceeded the minimum requirements of Beta Alpha Psi, and has excelled in the areas of academics, professionalism and leadership.”

Dang, that Bunsis is a busy dude.  Congrats to him and his accounting student charges!

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Posted in College Fun, EMU-AAUP, Faculty Life, Student Life

“Which Core Matters More?” (featuring Mark Higbee)

Posted on September 27, 2011 by | 23 Comments

Friend of the site and fellow faculty member Mark Higbee alerted me to an article in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education that features both an interview and images of him and some of his students.  It’s called “Which Core Matters More?” and it’s behind the CHE firewall (the link here will prompt EMU-types to login to get the whole thing; if you’re on campus, it’ll just pop up).  Other than the pictures, the part featuring Higbee comes later in the article where he discusses a “Reacting to the Past” approach for teaching history.

The article claims to be about a “new” debate on the direction of general education and/or “core curriculum” in higher education, but actually, the debate is not new at all.  It boils down to the value of curriculums that see the benefits of process and “critical thinking” versus a return to the basics and specific content.  That’s a debate (generally characterized by liberals versus conservatives) that’s been around for a long long time.

My own thinking about general education is shaped by the paradox of being a writing teacher in an English department.

The one (almost) universal component in general education in this country is first year writing (e.g. “comp and rhet”):  even innovative and “cutting edge” general education curriculums (like the one at Portland State which this article discusses in some detail) require all students to satisfy freshmen writing.  The same is true at EMU.  I have complicated thoughts and feelings about this, but I generally think it is better for students to take more courses that involve writing rather than less.

On the other hand, we have a general education program now at EMU where students never have to take any literature course if they don’t want to because they can satisfy that area of the gen ed by taking courses in history, communications, philosophy, and so forth.  I don’t want to take anything away from those other areas of study since they too are obviously important.  Still, it seems reasonable to me that if we’re going to have a general education program at all, we ought to require students to take at least one literature course in order to earn a bachelors degree.

 

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

“Part-time lecturers at EMU vote on first-ever union contract”

Posted on September 15, 2011 by | 4 Comments

I heard this story on Michigan Public Radio too, and here’s a link to the annarbor.com story about the EMU administration coming to agreement with part-timers on a union and a contract.  Here’s a quote:

The contract, [Sonya Alvarado, a full-time lecturer in the English Department,] said, does three very important things for adjunct faculty: Creates an official pay scale, sets an evaluation process and mandates that contingent faculty be given longer terms of employment under certain circumstances. EMUFT secretary and part-time lecturer Zachary Jones says the new pay scale “is the strongest part of the contract.”

“Before, there was some contingent faculty getting $600 a credit hour and now the floor has been raised to $1,125 a credit hour,” Jones said. “It makes us more competitive and helps us keep talent here.”

It’s actually something they agreed to over the summer, though it is a deal/contract that I hadn’t heard much about, and I like to think I keep in touch with these things.   Anyway, I’m glad they got a deal, but it raises three questions for me:

  • What’s the difference between the lecturer’s union and this union?  Even the people are in the same group (for example, Alvarado is not a part-timer but a full time lecturer).  Have full-time lecturers (who have all kinds of things as full-time employees– TIAA/CREF, benefits, better pay, better job security, etc.) and part-time lecturers (folks who teach a class at a time here and there for a flat rate and have few benefits even under this contract) become one union?
  • How did this group get this administration (and this board) to agree to a union deal in this economic climate and with seemingly no strife with the contract?  Maybe it’s just because it is the first deal this group has formed, but it sure looks like this group has pulled off a big win.  Maybe there are things the EMU-AAUP can learn from all this.
  • And finally, what are the implications here for full-time lecturers and tenure-track faculty?  Is this a group that is fighting against the presumed wisdom that faculty-types have traditionally had, that universities ought to hire fewer part-timers and more full-time and tenure-track faculty?  Now that there will be a union that gives part-timers some rights and benefits (though nothing even close to what faculty have), will the administration use that as an excuse to not make a similar deal with the EMU-AAUP?

I think I’m all for part-timers unionizing, but I worry that this has the potential to hurt the faculty union.  Which is perhaps why the administration seemed to have raised no fuss over this deal.

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Posted in EMU-AAUP, Faculty Life, In the media...

“Everyone Should Go to College”

Posted on September 8, 2011 by | 2 Comments

One more post before I get to my day job work:  I came across this Daily Beast column “Everyone Should Go to College” by Andrew Hacker who is a professor at Queens College in the CUNY system in New York and who I know I’ve seen on Stephen Colbert.  I don’t agree with everything he says here, but I like the sentiment and tone.  For example:

Things happen at college, whether you major in medieval philosophy or fashion merchandising. Since attendance is voluntary (and should remain that way), passing tests and turning in assignments show a willingness to do things you may not like, as an investment in your future. The campus experience also leads to you seeing yourself in modern terms. Graduates tend to be more open-minded, not due to liberal professors, but because they know they’ve chosen a new kind of life.

I have been teaching for longer than I care to say, and always offer a course for entering freshmen. Moreover, I am at a public college, whose students lack the scores and records usually demanded by more selective schools. And I’ve discovered something quite elemental: all young people have knowledge-thirsty minds that can be awakened and encouraged to examine the world they inhabit.

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

The drug king pin professor

Posted on September 6, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Inside Higher Ed has a piece in it today called “The Devil Professor” that definitely made me wonder.  Here are a few clips from it:

An erstwhile associate kinesiology professor at California State University at San Bernardino remains on the lam after police raided his home last week and found a pound of methamphetamine and a cache of guns. Police are charging that Stephen Kinzey, who had been on the San Bernardino faculty for a decade, was leading a double life: teaching and researching by day; directing the local chapter of an outlaw biker gang, and its drug business, by night.

And then there’s this:

How could a full-time college professor run a drug ring on the sly without tipping his hand? Tom Barker, a professor of criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University and leading scholar on outlaw biker gangs, says it is not hard to imagine.

“It’s not uncommon for leaders or members of motorcycle gangs to hold down seemingly legitimate lives,” says Barker, even if part of their responsibility is to oversee an illegal drug business. “A college professor could easily pull it off.”

Barker says he knows of at least two other college professors who are members of outlaw biker gangs, though he would not disclose their names because he says it could cost him his life.

And people wonder how I have the time to run this site while being a professor.

It does all make me think, though.  Being a college professor is certainly a demanding job, but it is the sort of profession that does potentially lend itself to a more secret “double life.”  Though most of the folks I know who have things on the side are musicians and not drug dealing gang leaders.  At least I don’t think so.

Oh, and I presume this guy’s tenure is going to get yanked.

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Posted in Faculty Life, In the media...

It’s the little things….

Posted on August 31, 2011 by | 12 Comments

That should be "Men's Restroom"The first day of classes has come and gone in the new/old Pray-Harrold, and for the most part, things have gone reasonably well.  All of my main complaints have nothing to do with the construction but rather with the local EMU folk who have in various forms dropped the ball:  the keys (OMG, the keys, the keys!), the less than ideal computer lab stuff, “lost” furniture, some of the less than brilliant class scheduling moves, etc.  Sure, the building is still under construction and there is a lot of dust and “new construction” smell about (carpeting, plastic things, paint), but it really is totally workable and it is considerably less “stinky” now than it was.  When I asked one of my classes today what they noticed different, one student responded “it’s like there’s air moving around in here.”  Very true.

Still, there are some little things that bug me.

  • Why are apostrophes on signs so hard?  The rule is not one=man, two=men, three or more=mens. (I paraphrased/stole that from a colleague of mine).  It should be “men’s restroom;” how come no one working in signage has an English major on staff?
  • Speaking of the restrooms:  the air dryers in there sound and feel like a freakin’ jet engine, and besides being deafening loud, it more or less limits washing hands to a single file, which isn’t always terribly practical.  I might have to bring some paper towels in from home.
  • As several students and colleagues pointed out, the same old elevators don’t help moving around the building much.  Oh, and if you are new to Pray-Harrold:  there are stairs!  You don’t automatically need to take the elevator to go from floor 2 to floor 3, for example.
  • This might be my imagination, but I swear that the classroom I taught in today maintained a temperature balance by blowing warmish air out of one vent and coldish air out of the other.  It was an odd sensation.
  •  Lots of students still sitting around in the hallways, which was something that the building architects were trying to address in different ways, apparently to no avail.  Yet.  A radical idea:  benches?
  • And lots of weirdly placed/missing stuff in the move.  I was in a classroom looking at something and noticed a mini microwave and a box in a corner.  It turned out to be a colleague’s of mine who had been looking everywhere for it.

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Posted in Buildings and Grounds, Faculty Life, Pray-Harrold Renovation Pool, Staff Life