College Novels

I have been reading around in college novels, and was surprised by how much I like Owen Johnson's Stover at Yale (1911), which creates an amazingly detailed sense of period and sensibility.  It also seems an essential background to F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise (1920) -- certainly more so than Nathaniel Hawthorne's Fanshawe (1828) which Fitzgerald likely did not even know.  There is a good edition of Johnson's novel at ManyBooks.com, which I'd recommend.  Though students would certainly prefer Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2008), Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons (2005), or Brett Easton Ellis's The Rules of Attraction (1998), I think the more historical choices have a lot to teach us about the changing meaning of college.

Default: The Student Loan Documentary

Default - The Student Loan Documentary from Aurora Meneghello on Vimeo.

Improving the Graduation Rate

Graduation rates in New Jersey

Improving the college and high school graduation rate would make for a good course topic.  The statistics show that we definitely have a problem and one you can easily quantify.  

According to US New and World Report, "Thirty percent of college and university students drop out after their first year. Half never graduate, and college completion rates in the United States have been stalled for more than three decades" (see "Dropouts Loom Large for Schools").  There are many reasons why students drop out, ranging from immaturity to lack of funds (see "The Dropout Dilemma"), but all of these problems can be addressed with careful programs to help students understand the importance of a college degree.  The problem is that the University does not have the resources to address the issue and has little incentive, especially since for every drop-out there are many more students looking to get into college.  However, if we made retention more of a priority, we could probably improve graduation rates in significant ways.  

The Lumina Foundation is one organization working to improve graduation rates.  According to their website, even New Jersey -- which has perhaps the best performance of any state in high school and college graduation rates for its citizens -- sees just over a third (35%) complete a B.A. or more advanced degree.  But 20% drop out of college.  That means we could top 50% if we could just address the drop-outs or if we could get more people completing an Associate's degree to get more schooling.

One reason we should be concerned about graduation rates is global competition for jobs.  According to Lumina's website,  the United States has seen less than 40% of its population complete a BA or AA for the past 40 years.  Forty years ago, 40% meant we were the most educated country in the world.  Today, it means we are nowhere close to the top.  That means our global competitiveness is rapidly declining.


But it is not just about college.  A lot of our declines start even earlier.  "Graduation rate for US high-schoolers falls for second straight year" was a recent headline, describing a national average of only 68% graduating high school.   Even in NJ, 13% never finish high school and a significant number resort to the GED to finish that degree.  According to an analysis of these data (see "How Cutting the Teen Drop Out Rate Could Stimulate the Economy"), the drop out rate has a significant economic impact.  Drop outs earn over $9,000 less each year than graduates, so that even cutting the drop-out rate in Trenton, NJ (our state capital) by 50% would raise the earning potential of those students by over $9 million per year (according to an analysis by the Alliance for Excellent Education).  

Improving the college and high school graduation rates should be a national priority because it would benefit all Americans in terms of more jobs and better tax rates in an increasingly competitive world.  So there are many rational reasons to resist the forces of privatization that are making it increasingly difficult for most Americans to afford higher education.

History for Dollars

New York Times columnist David Brooks offers a surprisingly strong argument for studying the humanities in this age of market-driven careerism.  It is a hard case to make in the current economic climate.  As he notes: "When the going gets tough, the tough take accounting."  And none of my students last term seemed interested in defending the humanities, let alone majoring in them (unless we include "Economics" in that area).  There are many good reasons to study the humanities, as Brooks argues.  But maybe he should mention that the market for the humanities has got to get better -- and with everyone rushing to accounting, good writing and a deep understanding of human nature may just be in short supply when you graduate.

Protests Fizzle

"Protestors object proposed NJ cuts" (The Daily Targum, April 21) was the headline in The Targum, but nowhere does it tell you how many students actually protested or even how many gathered to watch.  Journalism 101 is that you always give a crowd estimate -- especially when, as in this case, you could count on your fingers and toes the number of students involved. The numbers were few and the arguments were weak.  If this is the best students can do, then I suspect there will be very little resistance to budget cuts and rising tuition in New Jersey.

Using PowerPoint 2007 for Your Presentation

For our class presentations, students should use PowerPoint slides to maximize their ability to communicate information quickly and in a compelling way while taking advantage of the technology at hand.  To get the most out of PowerPoint, you should also try to escape the traditional "text-based" slides to create at least some more engaging visual ones. We are going to work on that in class today.  For some explanation of why you should try to take advantage of the visual power of PowerPoint, I suggest you read the classic article by Cliff Atkinson titled "Five Ways to Reduce PowerPoint Overload" (PDF, 2004), which had a lot to do with getting presenters to think "beyond bullet points" and to recognize that the speaker is the most compelling channel of communication and that PowerPoint's power comes from visual elements.

PowerPoint

Let's get started by reviewing PowerPoint, which may have changed a bit since you used it last (they went the way of all Windows products, migrating to a sleeker graphical user interface that can be a challenge for users used to the old system).  Besides the basic video tutorials embedded above, you can find a host of tutorials on the web.  In fact, if you are trying to do something fancy with PowerPoint, I suggest you search YouTube or Google for tutorials -- you are bound to find something on exactly what you want to do without having to invest in a costly book.  Here are some good basic sites for those who just need an introduction or help adjusting to the new interface:

•  YouTube: PowerPoint 2007 - Get up to speed
  Designed for people used to the old PowerPoint.  Embedding is disabled or I would have shown this one above.
• YouTube: PowerPoint 2007 Demo
• PowerPoint 2007 Reference Guide
  This is the handout I presented in class.
• PowerPoint 2007 Tutorial from GulfCoast
• PowerPoint 2007 Tutorial
  A useful tutorial with pictures by topic area. Easy to navigate.
• Baycon Group Tutorial
• Create a Basic Presentation in PowerPoint
  If you are struggling just to get started, here is not a bad place to begin. Throw on a template and you are in business.
• PowerPoint Video Tutorial
• PowerPoint 2007 Effects

Graphing Numbers

To take advantage of the graphing capabilities of PowerPoint, you should all try to make your own graphical slide.  Here are some basics for doing that:

1) Find some numerical data you would like to graph.  Remember that there are some good guides to finding statistical information at our Sakai site under Resources.  You can also find some good data on the web, as we have covered in class.  

2) Decide how you want to represent the numbers.  Remember that line or bar graphs are good for making comparisons (such as graduation rates of male vs. female college athletes), while pie charts are good for showing the segments of a whole (such as the numbers of athletes by sport represented as a segment of the total athlete population at Rutgers).

3) Insert a new slide in your presentation, and you probably want to choose "Title and Content" as the theme.

4) Choose Insert-->Chart from the dialogue in the ribbon above OR simply click on the chart icon that should appear on your slide.

4) Use the dialogue box to decide on the type of chart you want (decided in step 2).

5) Then enter the values.

It's that simple!

Finding Images

In a school presentation context, you have a lot of freedom to take advantage of the images available on the web in order to enhance your presentation.  Copyright issues are over-ridden by fair use in this context -- unless you plan on publishing your presentation online or something like that.  Ideally, every slide should have an image on it to illustrate the core idea of that slide.   But if you just want to use a few meaningful images, that is fine also.

I regularly use images found online in this blog.  Since I am re-publishing those images online, which is not covered by fair use, I try to stick to the spirit of copyright, mostly by using the feature of Blogger that allows me to show images on the web by simply referencing the URL or web address.  Here is a good image I found and published earlier this term in reference to Obama's plans to expand Pell grants:

In some cases, I decide to edit and republish images, but generally only if I am using a very small portion of an image.  

However, none of the concerns of republishing on the web apply to your presentation!

There are many ways to find images. The easiest place to start is Google Images:

Use the search box to look for images that might match your presentation.  When you find them, make sure that you are seeing the best version of the image you want -- the original image.  Right click on the image and choose "Save Image As" or "Save Picture" to save the image to your computer.  Be sure to pay attention to where the image is saved, or choose "Desktop" in the save dialogue box to make finding your images later easier.

When using PowerPoint, you can also try using "Copy Image" and pasting directly into your presentation, then adjusting the size.

You can also use Print Screen to get images. For the Mac, the best one is usually "Apple key ⌘ + Shift + 4" which allows you to select exactly what you want from the screen. If you use a 3 instead of a 4 you get the whole screen. It then prints an image to the desktop called "Picture#" with the latest number.

Rutgers Day Blog

Check out the Rutgers Day blog to prepare for the April 24th festivities.  This is a great day to learn more about the University and its role in the community.

"On the banks of the old Raritan, my boys..."

Wordle image of the Rutgers alma mater

The Daily Targum had an article yesterday (see "Council urges revision to traditional U. song") regarding the explicit gender and class bias in the Rutgers alma mater, "On the Banks of the Old Raritan."  I recall that there have been periodic complaints about the traditional song, written in the late 19th century, when Rutgers (like most colleges of the time) was an all male institution.  One could probably map these complaints onto concurrent historical events to show some pattern of when this issue gets raised -- though that would not answer why it never gets resolved.  The first complaints were raised following the 1972 admission of women to all Rutgers colleges.  I remember complaints in the late 1980s (during the rise of "political correctness") and a subsequent revision of the official lyrics (mp3) to substitute "my friends" for "my boys" -- still leaving in multiple other gendered references, including "My father sent me to old Rutgers, / And resolv'd that I should be a man" (implying, perhaps, that women sent to Rutgers were supposed to get sex changes).  The Targum article suggests that the current complaint is probably fueled by the recent change in the female to male ratio at Rutgers (which, like most US colleges, seems headed for 55/45 women to men, and probably 60/40 within the coming decade if current trends continue). 

There is no question that the song does not fit the current climate.  But rather than just change the words to the old song, someone ought to just write a good contemporary song for Rutgers that might actually catch on.  After all, I do not think our alma mater is much of a living thing for people in the ways it might have been in the late 19th century.


These questions seem so trivial to me now.  I have a funny little book on my shelf called The Remick Favorite Collection of College Songs, which often are set to old fashioned sentimental and nostalgic tunes (such as Swanee River, or the Scottish song about the old Dundee that provides the music for our alma mater).  When I first sat down to think about this course, I remember picking up that book and thinking that the topic of "college songs" was something someone with a literary or musical bent might want to explore in this course.  But as we have gotten immersed in the vital issues of college funding, privatization, binge drinking on campus, the anti-academic student culture, cheating, the value of a college degree, the influence of college sports, and a host of other vital issues, I recognize that songs to alma mater seem very much beside the point, and any debate on this issue is a distraction from much more important issues that should be our focus.

Dialogues@RU

An excellent resource for those trying to get a sense of how to write a research paper is Dialogues@RU: A Journal of Undergraduate Research.  Published as a peer and faculty edited scholarly journal from 2002-2007 by the Writing Program at Rutgers, Dialogues exhibits some of the better work produced by students taking the Research in the Disciplines (355:201) course at Rutgers.  Papers published here generally received a grade of B+ or A and offer some good models for how to do the scholarly research paper.  They also show you a wide variety of ways a successful paper might be written.  We may look at a paper or two from here in class, but I urge you to check it out on your own.

Adopting a Scholar's Perspective

The whole point of writing an academic research essay in 201 might be to discover a scholar's voice and learn to write as an academic.  That might also be the most difficult part of it.  One thing I did not anticipate in teaching a course on "College!" is how the subject matter of the course might make it especially difficult for students to step outside of their perspectives as "students" and adopt a more academic or scholarly perspective.  You are "students" after all.  You see like students.  So it is a big adjustment to start seeing like academics -- though, arguably, it is the most important step you have to make to succeed at college.

Students need to step outside their student-eye-views and overcoming that narrow vision in order to succeed with their final projects.  After all, one thing I am asking you to do for the course is to identify a scholarly debate (a debate among academics), regarding some question related to higher education, and to join that debate as a scholar yourself.  But when I look at the blog postings describing the "debates" you plan to write about, I generally get instead what I would call "conflicts" or "alternatives" or "opposing choices" affecting individual students. Let me give you an example from a student blog to illustrate:

"The debate I have identified is between the [students] who are attending college and paying for [it] in loans and putting themselves in debt. The other side is the [students] who decide to forgo college and work straight out of high school avoiding debt."

This statement makes it sound like the people "debating" whether or not college is "worth it" from a purely economic point of view are high school graduates going to college and high school graduates choosing to go straight into the workforce. I don't think that way of framing the problem is going to be so productive, however, since these people do not actually debate each other.  In fact, they don't even often talk to each other.  And the reasons individual students choose go to college and other individuals do not have more to do with socio-economic background and school performance than with rational economic decision making.  If students are not debating this issue (or even thinking about it rationally), who is debating it and thinking about it? 

This writer's problem has to do with the way he is imagining the idea of a "debate" on the issue.  When I say I want you to "enter a debate," I mean a scholarly debate among academics / scholars who study and theorize about these choices -- a debate, in this case, among people in economics, higher education, government or banking who have researched the economics of paying for college in this age of higher debt burdens and bleak economic outlooks for college grads and non-grads alike.  Academics or scholars are the people most likely to debate these issues and to publish their findings.  And they are the people most likely to offer you an unbiased answer to the question.  

Academics answer the question and people in power can use the answer not just to make an individual choice for themselves but to make policy decisions that could impact the lives of many people.  The answer to the question of whether or not college is a smart choice from a purely economic perspective could be quite useful for policymakers.  It is useful to college administrators debating whether or not it is possible to raise tuition in these tough economic times.  It is useful to governors cutting funding to colleges knowing they will have to raise tuition and wondering how much the market might bear.  It is useful to people in government who want to create more incentives for college attendance in the population.


Take another example, which I have illustrated in the image at the top of this page (see above): the question of using computers and other technology in the classroom.  Using computers in the classroom directly impacts both teachers and students -- and in different, sometimes quite opposed, ways.  Teachers may see computers as a distraction (fearing that students are surfing the web or checking e-mail rather than really listening to lecture), while some might see them as a great tool for collaborative learning.  Some students might not like the expense or the novelty of classroom computing.  But the potential conflicts among teachers and students are not so important to the larger question of whether or not promoting the use of laptops in lecture halls (for example) is a good or bad thing.  

Students and teachers might have different views on the matter of using laptops in lecture, but only scholars can offer an informed perspective that can actually help to decide whether or not those laptops are valuable, and perhaps valuable enough to make them a universal requirement.  

Scholarly research can impact policy.  Based on academic research, policymakers might require all students to buy a laptop -- or provide them as a built-in cost of tuition (lowering the cost by arranging a bulk deal with the manufacturer).  Administrators might institute training for lecturers in how to put that added computing power to use in the classroom to keep students engaged and reduce the potential distraction they might represent.  Large scale decisions might be made that impact many students, so that it is no longer a question of whether or not a single student should bring his or her laptop to class but whether or not all students should have one.

Students who remain at the level where they only see issues from a student perspective will ultimately not be able to write the most promising and engaged research papers, because they do not imagine how their research might impact policy.  I call this the problem of "student perspectivalism."

I first noticed the problem of "student perspectivalism" in the Analytic Essay, where a number of you tried to defend the partying, anti-academic culture of "student life" as somehow equally important to the academic requirements of college.  Several papers were premised on the idea that you actually learn more from socializing at school than you learn from your classes -- leaving aside or even trampling over Rebekah Nathan's critique of that commonly held student notion ("Don't students come to college to learn?" she asks at one point).  The ultimate example of student perspectivalism came from a paper I shared in class with you, where the student wrote:

When you think about what college really is it breaks down into two part: the learning and education of students and the college lifestyle.  The students are playing for their part, the 'college lifestyle,' which involves having fun in the dorms, learning through experience and becoming more mature young adults and readying them for the real world.  ...  College is more than just class and learning.  It is about learning how to be on your own and be your own individual person while you gain the knowledge necessary to be a working member of society. ... This is the part of college that students are paying for...

What that student argues, essentially, is that the State, alumni, corporate donors, and the federal government pay for the educational aspects of college (because they want students to learn something that will benefit society) while students are paying for the fun part (presumably because they don't give a damn about anything else).  Leaving aside the fact that most students actually are not themselves paying for their educations -- their parents are -- this is an incredibly audacious claim and one that runs roughshod over the views of Nathan and others.  

Interestingly, Nathan is quoted extensively by the writer, but only to reference other students to validate his argument.  Quite ironic: even though Nathan is out to critique the culture of mediocrity, by pointing to it, her work is used as an index of the very issue she is trying to argue against.


I showed this paper to another director in folder review and she said, "well, if he thinks he's just paying for the parties, he's going to get what he pays for." She also said he would be much better off moving to a fun city and finding a job -- maybe as a ski instructor or lifeguard.  From a purely economic point of view, she is absolutely right, since students who party their way through college tend not to get the economic benefits of it.  So they might as well just get a job.

Consider a second example of student perspectivalism from the blogs:

"The debate that i have found is that community colleges are good in the sense that they save you money by allowing you to take the classes that you would be taking at any other school for the first two years. Community colleges give you time to figure out what you want to do with your life and what you want to major in before waisting all your money at a place that doesn't offer what you want. The other side of this argument is that it is harder for students to succeed in four year instituions when coming from a community college because there preparation and background knowledge is not the same. Students seem to struggle in courses that are required such as expositroy writing 101 which demonstrates that although you saved money it may not be helping you in the future because you may have to stay extra time to finish credits and may not get the degree in the amount of time that you would like. Another problem is that not all credits from community colleges transfer to four year institutions which was a waste of your time and money for taking classes that will only hurt you in the long run."

Here is a student writing about the viability of the "stepping stone theory" of community college, where two-year schools are used to allow more students access to a four-year degree.  That "stepping stone theory" has informed the policy of many states, including New Jersey, and affects many people.  But the student is writing about it purely from the perspective of an individual student (the presumed "you" addressed throughout, as in "community colleges give you time to figure out what you want to do with your life").  Though individual students might be making the choice between going directly to a four-year school and going first to a two-year school, it is policy-makers and academics who are debating these issues, and this student needs to engage with that debate.  After all, if the State wants more students to go to college, policies have to be put in place to make college more affordable.  Using community colleges as a stepping stone is one way, since they help to lower the tuition over four years.  That was the idea that created the articulation agreements between two-year and four-year colleges in New Jersey.  The big question is not "is community college a good choice for me or you?" but "is the stepping stone theory of community college really working to create more access to higher education and more graduates?"  The answer to the first question might lead to a single decision.  The answer to the second question could affect thousands.


Here are some things you can do to make sure you are writing from a scholarly perspective:

• Step back from the issue. Look at it from above. Examine it as an outsider -- as an academic.
• Remain objective.  Represent both sides fairly even when picking a side.
• Consider the paradigm (such as the "stepping stone theory" cited above) by which decisions are made and look for academics debating those issues.
• Look for facts, data, or statistics to back up your view. 
• Ask yourself "how many people will be affected by the answer to this question?"  If the answer is "one person," then you are not asking the right question.

President McCormick on the 2010-2011 Budget

The following message was sent today by Rutgers President Richard McCormick to all members of the Rutgers community:

Members of the Rutgers Community:

Yesterday Governor Christie presented his budget proposal for fiscal year 2010-11. The governor’s plan addresses a multi-billion-dollar structural deficit in the state budget through funding cuts in many areas, including state executive departments and aid to public schools, towns, and colleges. For example, the governor’s proposed budget reduces school aid by $819 million, municipal aid by $445 million, and aid to higher education by $173 million.

Under this proposal, Rutgers’ direct state operating aid in 2010-11 would be cut 15.1 percent and therefore would be $46.6 million lower than the university’s original appropriation for the current fiscal year. In actual dollars, Rutgers’ operating aid would be the lowest the university has received since 1994. The governor’s proposed budget also does not provide funding for the salary increases that were negotiated between Rutgers and its bargaining units last year.

In addition, the proposed state budget reduces funding for Tuition Aid Grants and the Educational Opportunity Fund and does not provide funding for incoming freshmen in the NJ STARS scholarship program.

Given the depth of the state’s fiscal crisis, these budget cuts are not a surprise. Indeed, Governor Christie made clear when he visited the New Brunswick campus last fall that the state’s fiscal problems would make a cut in higher education funding unavoidable. It will, nonetheless, be very difficult for Rutgers to absorb these proposed reductions, following so many years of state budget cuts, including the $18.5 million midyear rescission the governor announced last month.

Managing the proposed reductions will require greater efficiencies, hard choices, and shared sacrifice. We are firmly committed to preserving the academic core of the institution and to the delivery of outstanding instruction to our students, recognizing that this is made possible by the hard work of all our faculty and staff. We also know that we cannot solve the problem by transferring the burden of these cuts primarily to our students and their families. In the weeks ahead, as the state budget is deliberated and finalized in Trenton, we will formulate our responses inclusively, and with a primary focus on protecting Rutgers’ core missions and values. Beginning tomorrow, I will convene the university’s senior leadership to lay out plans to meet this challenge.

As we make difficult decisions on our campuses, Rutgers will also continue to make its case assertively in Trenton. We will inform policy makers that while public universities across America face cuts in the midst of a global recession, New Jersey is among the three states that have seen the greatest losses in state higher education appropriations per full-time equivalent student over the past five years. We will point out that funding higher education is an investment that drives economic expansion and opportunity; indeed, we are an essential part of the process of stimulating needed job growth that the governor and legislature must develop.

The governor has also proposed to merge Rutgers with Thomas Edison State College, stating that “the combination will allow new classroom-based services for students in Trenton, while leveraging the two institutions’ distance learning programming.” Under this unsolicited proposal, Rutgers also would take over the operations of the State Library and State Museum. Rutgers appreciates the confidence expressed in us by the governor’s proposal, and we will explore how these excellent institutions could be aligned with Rutgers to strengthen and enhance the missions of all. However, the task of vetting this proposal and performing due diligence will require consultation within and beyond the university community and would ultimately require approval by our boards of governors and trustees.

Rutgers’ enormous budget challenges will call on all of us to work even harder to sustain the high-quality education and cutting-edge research that our faculty provides and the supportive environment for learning and scholarship that our staff ensures. As our record numbers of applications and enrollments attest, the public has recognized the university’s success in preparing students to contribute significantly to our state and the world. The extraordinary record we have achieved in winning grants to support our research attests to our competitiveness on a global scale. In the months ahead we will all be challenged to sustain what Rutgers has become—and that can only be achieved by our working together. I ask, and I know I can count on, your help.

Richard L. McCormick

President

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Budget Slashes $175 Million from NJ Higher Ed

Christie challenges teachers union on benefits

Governor Chris Christie presented his budget on Tuesday, outlining about $1 billion of cuts to education in the State, including $175 million to higher education.  The text of his address is available online and you can see more portions of the governor's speech online at NJ.com or at Fox News.  Assembly Higher Education Chairwoman Pamela Lampitt (D-Camden) released a statement (widely quoted) following Gov. Christie’s budget speech, claiming that "he pulled the rug out from under higher education" in the State.  She writes: “Gov. Christie’s budget contains not just cuts to institutions of higher education, but global cuts to programs – like tuition aid grants and the Educational Opportunity Fund – that hit all sectors, putting the financial burden directly on middle class families and removing the prospect of a college education for thousands of New Jersey students.  These cuts also show that the governor does not see our institutions of higher education as the vital economic engines they are. These cuts will likely force staffing cuts across the board and will limit our colleges and universities’ ability to attract and produce the top-notch professionals businesses in the state and across the region have come to expect."

The New Jobless Era

I don't mean to depress you as you go away for Spring Break, but I have been thinking about the situation of higher education within the larger economy.  Right now, I just have a lot of dots, like the inflation issues I mentioned in the last post.  Another dot is represented by Don Peck's "How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America" (The Atlantic, March 2010), which is a scary but important reading for people of college age who, the author argues, are going to face a long period of declining access to jobs and declining salaries in most sectors.  The article does not specifically address how this impacts higher education.  But you have to wonder.  Will a period of declining jobs make people wonder about the value of a college degree?  Will the liberal arts go into an even steeper decline as more students rush to the few remaining areas (such as engineering and nursing) where graduates have a chance at getting a job out of college?  Will jobless college graduates be more likely to default on their loans?

Higher Education Bubble?

I finally read "Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?" (The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 22, 2009) which has relevance to anyone whose project touches on the economics of higher education -- including those writing on community colleges, online courses, privatization, and many other topics.  Published last year, as academics began to understand how the housing market's bursting bubble may have been the main contributor to the global economic downturn, it paints a scary picture of the ways in which inflation in higher education parallel the inflation in the housing market that preceded the crash.  Along the way, the authors offer useful insight into the larger economic forces driving students to community colleges, online courses, and public institutions -- and perhaps making possible greater privatization of public schools (which remain a bargain even if tuition goes up by 30% or more).

Day of Protest

As predicted, March 4th featured widespread protests to cuts in education in about 30 states, led by California and especially the students at Berkeley.  I caught some coverage of the protests that day on CNN, which had live cameras set up to observe multiple protests around the country and "to catch the action" when police used tear gas near UC Davis where students had shut down a major highway.  Reaction in the media was predictably mixed.  Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Peter Robinson saw the protests as evidence of "The Golden State's Me Generation, arguing that "The demonstrations ... demonstrated the entitlement mentality and self-absorption that has come to dominate much of higher education."  In FDL's "The Student Uprising in Caifornia," David Dayen was more sympathetic, beginning his article with: "About the only encouraging moments during the years-long budget disaster here in California have been the increasing campus radicalization against the draconian cuts to public education." Also, as predicted, things were rather quiet here in New Jersey where citizens and students have not yet recognized the economic storm that's about to hit education here as well.

"March 4 Schools" Rallies This Week

Are Americans getting ready to protest budget cuts to education?  Maybe not in New Jersey, where we have not yet seen the worst cuts (despite one of the worst state deficits) and the legislature cheered as the governor gave a speech cutting over $500 million to education in order to keep from sinking deeper into debt.  But in other states, we are likely to see a lot of marching now that Spring is here.  In anticipation of a multi-state March 4th rally to protest budget cuts to education, there have been a number of public gatherings at Berkeley, including a large dance party Friday that turned violent when some students began vandalizing a nearby building (see "Two Arrested after Berkeley Violence" in the San Francisco Examiner of February 26th).  The "March 4 Schools" rallies, which began in Arizona last year, have been heavily promoted in California by Stand up for Schools, which has more information on their website organizing not just parents and students but unions as well.  The situation in California is mirrored in a number of other states, including Arizona, where The Education Coalition of the Arizona Education Association produced a fascinating documentary (see above).  What will it take for more folks in New Jersey to join the movement?

Hazing

The topic of fraternity and sorority hazing seems to interest several students, and it might be a timely topic due to the extensive news coverage that a recent incident of alleged hazing at the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority has attracted (see, for instance, "Rutgers University sorority members deny hazing, paddling pledges" or "Sorority Hazing: Increasingly Violent, Disturbing").  With extensive news coverage comes lots of useful information, which can turn this local incident (which is likely to play out in the courts throughout the term) into a case for use in your papers.  The Targum has run a number of stories on the incident and continues to shine light on hazing with a recent front page story devoted to the 1988 death of James Callahan at Rutgers -- see "Hazing scandal lingers in campus atmosphere" by Greg Flynn.  The Callahan case was widely covered at the time and would also make for a very interesting historical investigation (using resources of Special Collections).

"State of Emergency"

As reported in Claire Heininger's "Chris Christie declares fiscal 'state of emergency,' paving way for N.J. spending cuts," the Governor's speech today should be a wake-up call for anyone who thought that the report on Education by his transition team suggested that New Jersey colleges and universities might be spared the axe.  As the story sums up, Governor Chris Christie has declared a "fiscal crisis" and "state of emergency," giving him broad powers to impose spending cuts, including to education.  According to the story, "Christie is cutting $475 million in aid to school districts" and "$62 million in aid to colleges."  How this will directly affect Rutgers is difficult to predict, but it will certainly mean even more cuts in services and greater privatization (including continued tuition increases for students).  

I recommend watching the entire speech, which is quite compelling and certainly presents the governor's situation in a sympathetic light.

Questions for the Librarian

The following are taken from student blogs where students posted questions for the librarian.  I will try to answer these after today's session.

Basics

1.      How do you check out books from the library? Do you use your Rutgers ID card or do we have to get a separate library card? (I have never needed to check out a book so far so I honestly do not know how the system works.)

You do need a Rutgers ID card to use the library.  And you need to register that card with the library so it can function as your library card.  You can do this online (see "Registering with the Rutgers Libraries") or at any RU library circulation desk.

2.      What is the return policy on books? Can we keep them out for the whole semester to work on this paper or do we have to keep renewing the books if we want to keep them for the entire semester?
You can learn everything you need to know on the "Borrowing Privileges" page.   Undergraduates can borrow materials for 28 days and can then renew them (online using My Account), so long as the materials have not been recalled.  You generally only have to pay fines if materials are recalled and not returned on time.

3.      How many people go to the library each day? Do you ever think they go there for a "social" aspect? How many people check books out each day?
The American Library Association has a good fact sheet on "Public Library Use."  It lists a survey of library use conducted by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which indicates that the main reason people go to the library is to check out materials, typically for children.  But library use varies considerably by State and location.  The most interesting (and common sense) finding was that library use mapped closely onto proximity to the library: if you live near a library you are more likely to use it.   The statistics are from 2002, but more recent surveys suggest that, in this recent economic downturn, a lot of unemployed people are using public libraries to help them find a job and to improve their skills.

4.      What is the maximum number of books one can check out?
I could not find information regarding any limits for undergraduates.  I do not think there are limits, and if there are I am sure you would not exceed them.  My own recommendation is that you try to keep checkouts to a minimum to make it easier to keep track of books and to return books on time without accruing fines.

5.      I have never been to the library here other than to just print things out from the computers so I am not sure of all that the library has to offer. How would I go about checking out a book? Is there a standard fee I need to pay or do I just use my Rutgers ID card? How long can I have a book out for? How would I search to find the specific books, articles, etc. that I need to further my research?
The best way to learn more about the libraries is to use them.  As a student, you have already paid through student fees and tuition for the right to use the library, so usage is basically free to students.  Once you graduate, you can continue to use the library as alumni.   Other questions are answered elsewhere in this list.

6.      What kinds of help can we get from the librarians in researching our topics?
The easiest way to get assistance is online at the main page where you will see an IM window open whenever reference librarians are available to assist you.  You can see other options under "Ask a Librarian."  The librarians are there to help.  If you are in the library and need help, simply stop by the Reference desk and request assistance.  Reference librarians can sometimes be in demand, so timing is everything.  But all of them enjoy helping students find resources and no question is "too dumb" for them.  Our reference librarian, Peggy, has agreed to help you individually if you are willing to visit her at Kilmer Library on Livingston campus and to write her ahead of time with specific questions she can help you with.

Searching for and Physically Locating Materials

7.      How do we look up and find books throughout the library system?
Use the IRIS system to find books at any Rutgers Library.  If the book is not at the library closest to you, you can always use "Book Delivery / Recall" to have it delivered to the library of your choice.

8.      How do you order books from other libraries if they are not at Douglass?

9.      How do you find full articles either from a magazine, book, or encyclopedia and not just excerpts or abstracts?

10.     Can I have articles delivered to me?  What are the rules for that? Is there a fee?

11.     Can I request and take out other media, such as videos?  How do I find and access them?

12.     Do you know of any books that deal with the topic of sports and schools? Is there a section that would have a lot of these types of books?

Topics and Selection

13.     How exactly do you narrow down your searches for articles to find just what you need?

14.     Where could I find any information on academics vs. college life? Do you know of any articles or anything that argues how academics play a much larger role than does college/student life in terms of what people wind up doing with the rest of their lives?

15.     How do I know which articles would be best?

16.     How do I find out if an article is scholarly (peer reviewed or fact based) or not scholarly (opinion, subjective or invalid information)?

Finding Specific Historical Facts and Local Statistics

17.     What is the best way to find specific statistics. For example, "How successful are students transferring to Rutgers?"

18.     Is there a statistic that could show the average G.P.A's of college students on scholarship and who are not on scholarship?

19.     Is there anyway I can find records of college tuition prices and how they have increased in the past few years?

20.     Is there any way I could find out how much college cost way back in the beginning of higher education?

21.     Where could I find information and statistics on the cost of higher education?

22.     Where can I find stats linked to how much a school earns from sporting events held at that school? Also is there any way to find out how many contributions to a school are related to their athletics programs?

23.     Where can I find stats related to the number of student athletes who receive athletic scholarships each year? And which schools give the most scholarships?

Primary Research and Special Collections

24.     Is there a specific section in the library about Rutgers history (specifically sports)? I want to find some information about the history of sports at Rutgers and was wondering if information would be available on that.

25.     Where would I be able to find accounts of different student protests from the past 40 years?  What would be a good way to go about finding information on this research topic? Where would I be able to find the most information?  What if no one has written a book or article on the history of Rutgers student protests?  What do I do? Where could I find different accounts of student activism, aside from protests, in state schools from the past 40 years?

MLA Citation

26.     How do you cite a quote from an audio video like YouTube?

27.     How do you write a citation (for the works cited) for a primary resource, like an interview?

On Protesting and the Culture War

Someone just sent me the speech "Winning the Culture War" by Charlton Heston.  It's a fascinating document and one that definitely makes me rethink my feelings about that great American actor and former chief spokesperson for the NRA.  It's worth a read, especially by anyone on the right who questions why students should be protesting at Berkeley or anywhere else.

Obama's Higher Education Budget

A story in today's Targum ("Obama lends support to ease college debt" -- not available online) made me recognize that the debate over the President's higher education initiative might help clarify for some students the political dimension of the issues you are addressing in the Analytic Essay assignment.  For more details on the President's proposal (which still has to make its way through the Senate), you might read Paul Basken's "Obama's Budget Makes Education a Major Exception to Austerity" in The Chronicle of Higher Education (which is a useful site for getting project ideas, by the way).  

Basically, the President is arguing that higher education is a national and state priority because of its benefit to society and the economy, and therefore society should bear more of the burden of paying for college (by raising the value of Pell grants, rather than simply under-writing loans that have to be paid back, and making Pell grants an "entitlement program," meaning a permanent part of the budget like Social Security).  

The increase in Pell grants he is proposing is rather small (about $500 each) and he has a method of paying for it (by changing the rules in the way Government under-writes student loans) that will not directly affect taxpayers, so for many on the left this is not really a strong statement that the government should do more to pay for college costs and to keep college affordable.  For example, Senator Claiborne Pell's grandson (see "A Personal Perspective on Obama's Pell Grant Infusion"), Clay Pell, said his grandfather would have been pleased by the President's call to make the grants that bear his name an entitlement that automatically increases every year, but he would also be disappointed by how little of the average college tuition these grants now cover.  

On the other side of the debate, there are those who worry about the effect on the banking industry (not a popular view by any means given the recent scandals over banking practices) or who argue that making Pell grants an entitlement may actually help to speed the increase in college costs (see also here) by making it more possible for colleges to raise tuition.  Interestingly, you will not find any politicians calling Pell grants "a government handout" these days -- at least not in public -- but you can certainly find opinions like that in the right wing blogosphere (see "We should not help the poor go to college" or "Meet the compulsive service Orwellian GIVE act") and in comments in forums (see the thread accompanying one CNN article where one comment shouts: "HOW MUCH MORE MONEY ARE WE GOING TO WASTE ON MINORITY EDUCATION BEFORE WE REALIZE THAT WE ARE ALL FREE TO BECOME AS SUCCESSFUL AS WE WANT TO BE! IT IS POLICIES LIKE THESE THAT KEEP US MINORITIES DOWN! STAND UP FOR YOURSELF, SHOW SOME PRIDE IN YOURSELF, GET AN EDUCATION NOT A GOVERNMENT HANDOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!")

So the Analytic Essay does ask students to take a stand on these issues, and likely the stand you take will be informed by your politics as by the material in front of us.  But it is important that you try to take a stand.  Make an argument.  Develop your thesis.

Confessions of a Spoilsport

A number of students are thinking of writing on the topic of "college sports," which is a perennial topic worthy of discussion and debate.  Of course, it's a broad topic that needs a bit of focus -- what question do you have about college sports, exactly?  But I think you can turn up some interesting questions and scholarship fairly quickly.  

The best place to start on the topic of "college sports" is by reading William Dowling's Confessions of a Spoilsport: My Life and Hard Times Fighting Sports Corruption at an Old Eastern University (Penn State UP 2007), which represents the most current and well-considered argument against the current college sports paradigm.  It also has the great advantage, for our class, of being written by a Rutgers faculty member about his experiences here at Rutgers University.  You may choose to disagree with Dowling, but it is essential that you engage him.  If nothing else, he will teach you just how cynical we have all become in accepting the "marketing power" of sports and the potential "revenue streams" they generate in this time of increasing privatization.  Is that really what college is about?  And do sports always give "good publicity" to a school -- and do they help attract the most academically gifted students?  Do they ever actually generate revenue or do they actually cost so much that they damage other areas of the University, especially academics? 

What about the pro-sports position?  Who represents that?  I will keep my eyes out for a good one and hope those of you interested in this topic will assist.  One thing that Dowling reveals is that the defenders of the current college sports paradigm do not typically represent their position in any transparent or honest language, and, if anything, often try to shut down debate or discussion on the topic.  One story he tells in the book, for example, is of Fraidy Reiss, whose investigation of special courses for student athletes was refused for publication by the Targum, possibly under pressure from the athletics program.  The way they have treated his own writings -- which they completely ignore or attack ad hominem -- is still another example.  So it may be hard going to find a written account of the logical (as opposed to irrational) reasons to be a sports booster.  But let's try.  

Michael Moffatt's Book in Google Books

You can read Chapter 3 from Michael Moffatt's Coming of Age in New Jersey, "A Year on Hasbrouck Fourth," at our Sakai site for the class.  But it turns out you can "preview" most of the rest of the book (but for a couple chapters) online at Google Books.  Check it out.

Moffatt's book is a valuable resource for discussing such topics as sexuality, male/female power dynamics, race, "student life" and student attitudes toward academic work.  It is especially useful for offering a historical perspective, comparing today to the 80s.  I hope students check out some of the other chapters that apply to their topics and do not rely only on the chapter we are reading together.  By the way, Moffatt also wrote the Rutgers Picture Book which is a great historical reference.

Defining a Topic

• "I'm not sure on what my concrete research topic will be, but I feel very strong about college student activity and the role that young people play in our mainstream world."
• "With all of these different ideas about what college is meant to it seems appropriate to wonder which is the right view? Or if there even exists a right view?"
• "Hey hey hey"

These were the first responses I received on the first blog post assignment.  I wondered what was happening, since none of these posts suggested a specific topic.

Looking at the syllabus, though, I realized suddenly, to my horror, that the prompt portion of my first blog assignment had somehow gotten cut off.  I will have to distribute a corrected version in class tomorrow.  Of course, I thought I was pretty clear elsewhere in the syllabus and certainly in class discussion, but I can see the misunderstanding.

Only half the class has actually visited the Sakai site at this point -- some 15 hours before class..... I dig those Sakai stats.

Simplicity Above All

As part of my course "College! The Contested Territories of Higher Education," I am going to have students keep a research and writing journal online as a blog.  There will be a minimum of 15 required posts to the blog, though I hope students will find that they want to blog more frequently and that the blog can be a useful place to store information.  I was contemplating using WordPress, which is much more attractive and favored in academic settings.  But after playing around with both Blogger and WordPress, I realized that Blogger is the simplest option available.  Besides, I am hoping that students will try out Google Docs this semester to help them write their papers, so it makes sense for them to be able to move freely from one Google app to another with only one log in.

Decision made.  Let's get blogging.