The Truth, As I See It - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Mar 1, 2005

The Truth, As I See It

Date: Mar 1, 2005

While there are specific comments you make with which I disagree, I thank you for an interesting discussion. It would be helpful if you would clarify who you mean by "we" -- it seems that a lot of the pressure to research is coming from the top-down, and a lot of it is driven by $$$. Who is "we"?

Date: Mar 1, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Jesse's Girl
"I see a problem with faculty (me included), and that is that we have an unclear picture of our place in the world. What I mean is that we have (in some instances) a very overinflated opinion of our position in the grand scheme of things or (in other, rarer instances) an underinflated opinion of ourselves and our work. I hear people say almost every day that USM should be a premier research institution, but I'm here to tell you that a premier research institution is not what the people of Mississippi want out of USM. The people of Mississippi want to see tangible results out of USM. They can watch their children graduate from college. They can follow sports teams. They can see jobs being brought into the area by development groups. What they don't understand is research. What good are journal articles to them? Or the Donne Varorium? Or a high-tech physics lab? These things are so abstract to them that they will never grasp the true value of them. To Mississippians, we really do only work about 20 hours per week, because that's how much time we spend educating their children. They don't see (and can't comprehend) the research component, and the service component is largely just a part of the job we do...nothing special or daunting. No wonder they think we're lazy. We compound this problem by airing our dirty laundry in public, citing attacks on "basic research" when the general population has no idea what "basic research" is and how it differs from "applied research" and why "applied research" is somehow worse than "basic research." Our response to the attacks we have endured is "I'll just do research and get the heck out of here." To do so, some of us cut our teaching time down to the bare minimum, holding the fewest possible office hours and striking review sessions from our schedules. If it's taking up research time, it's a waste. Add to this another problem I see, which is an unwillingness to change. We don't like change, and we resist it at every opportunity. We don't like to use technology in the classroom, because "We don't need technology! We can teach!" We don't like to update our examples or our notes, because they still work. We make little or no effort to adapt ourselves to our students' needs, because they should adapt to ours; after all, we know what is reasonable--we're the trained professionals! USM should not be a research school other than the research it takes to keep accreditation. Our mission of teaching should be of primary importance, and anyone who doesn't want to teach should start rethinking their career path, looking for a more suitable situation. I am sure that we all wish we were at a top 10 program in our respective fields. However, there are only (maybe) 300-500 positions at the top 10 schools in any given field, which means that academics numbers 501-infinity are S.O.L. We can't make our own little Harvard in Hattiesburg at the expense of the school's mission. Like it or not, we are public servants, and we serve at the whim of the IHL, who could decide to cut our sociology department or our library science department or our accounting department or our nursing school for "expense-related" reasons. So doing would relieve those faculty of their positions and, therefore, their misery at USM. We are a teaching school. We should be doing applied research. We should be serving the community. We probably shouldn't be doing much "basic research." We probably shouldn't be teaching fewer than four courses per semester. We could be a great teaching institution and fill a real need in Mississippi, educating our students with small classes and face-to-face instruction. We could make a real difference in those students' lives, and, in turn, we could derive our pleasure from their successes rather than our own journal acceptances. We could be a great little teaching school, but instead, we want to be the biggest research school in a state that cannot financially support another research school. It seems like that we don't want to be good at the one thing we could be good at and we strive to be the one thing we have little hope of being. We don't know our place in the world. We are a moth who is fighting to be a butterfly, rather than live its life as a moth. In the end, we will all die unhappy if the struggle continues."

Your low level of aspiration is beyond belief. The type of school you describe is the worst in America. There are some really outstanding schools whose mission is predominately teaching, and I would be pleased to be a student or a faculty member at those smaller teaching-oriented schools. But I'd rather go back to my first profession to earn my living - delivering newspapers - rather than deceive the citizens of Mississippi by telling them your kind of instituion would be of benefit to the taxpayers and their children. If you are a faculty member here, the moon is made of green cheese - soylant green cheese.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

"The USM faculty has done a terrific job over the years, educating many first generation college students, doing important research in the face of heavy teaching loads and miniscule funding, etc., but it has fallen short in one area.

Students are rarely told about the history of the university in society and about the ideals that though now under attack, are essentail, not just for the university itself but for the intellectual health of society. How many students have learned the importance of academic freedom, of faculty governance, of the tenure system?

Ignorant alums often are just that: ignorant of the way a first class institution should work. Perhaps its not too late for many of them?"

This is a reposting from a couple of weeks back.

How sad, Jesse's girl, that as a faculty member your aspirations for yourself, for the University, and ultimately for Mississippi are no higher than this.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

LVN--defining "we" would give away my identity, which I am loathe to do. However, I will say that when your dean asks you "How many 'A' level pubs do you anticipate having at your 3rd year review," it makes you uneasy about spending a lot of extra time on teaching, especially when you have 2 pubs that would be 'As' at U of M.

Troll Detector -- I have high aspirations. My aspirations are to feel some sense of reward from my job. I believe I would feel that sense of reward if I had a lot more time to devote to teaching rather than spending it spinning my gears searching for the elusive "breakout article." You seem to define success by where you fall in the US News Rankings, but I say that success could be defined by producing high-quality graduates in every discipline. We do not do that now. Our best can compete, but our middle half will struggle because we do not have the time to devote to them, to bring them up to standard. We have students graduating who cannot write, do college algebra, or identify a famous piece of music. They have no appreciation for art or theater, and they have relatively no idea how the periodic table of the elements is constructed. You seem to want to become better than Ole Miss. I want to be the best USM we can be. Right now, it seems to me that we are being sent a signal that we should step away from the microphone and pay attention to our students and community. What I'm not hearing is "We're about to give USM equal research funding as Ole Miss and MSU." Call me names if you wish, but you have not provided one idea to counter my claims or impressions. You always want Trolls to defend Thames. I hate Thames. I want you to have an ideological debate and/or tell me the FACTS about why I'm wrong.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

If the type of institution described by Jessie's Girl is all USM had to offer, we'd be better off simply adding a fifth year of high school to the public school curriculum.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

Jesse's Girl,

I'm having trouble deciding if your post is a cri de coeur or an attack on your colleagues, always assuming you really are a USM professor. I know few professors who aren't committed fairly equally to teaching and research. You generally and vaguely claim that some USM professors are turning their backs on their students--though I can think of almost none who have done so--and that they are resistant to change. Huh? For most of us change is a way of life. Most of us have committed ourselves to a new community after moving here from Elsewhere, and most of us are in disciplines that change over at the maximum every five years. I myself have lived in three different states and three different continents, but I don't sense that I'm all that different in resiliency from my fellow professors. Change is fine, evitable, and all that. Chaos and disruption--which we know almost daily from the administration--are not the same as change.

Jameela Lares

Date: Mar 1, 2005

I had a little eureka moment over the weekend that I thought about sharing then didn't. JG reminded me.

Do we think that lawyers aren't working when they're not in court?

That surgeons aren't working when they're not in the ER?

Why is it that people think professors aren't working when they're not in the classroom?

Without arguing about specifics, it seems to me that "teaching" is about 1/3 of the job.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

I do not, for starters, think you're a troll. I do think you've identified a critical problem, and that is that USM really does not have a clear sense of its identity and mission. The lack of a mission statement that means anything has been noted on this board several times, and discussed in depth.
I actually sympathize with your position, to the extent that I have never understood why all college instructors have to have PhD's or do research. I may be prejudiced because I love teaching and do not have a PhD myself. Also, I was taught by wonderful people who did not have PhDs either. If a person with an MA can teach two classes, why can't they teach four? (This pertains to lower division classes for the most part.) There doesn't seem to be a place for the person whose gift is teaching, at least not at the university.

What I meant by "who is 'we' " was not asking you who you are; I mean, is "we" the administration, the faculty, the particular department, or what? "We" is an awfully big word.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Jameela Lares
"Jesse's Girl,
I'm having trouble deciding if your post is a cri de coeur or an attack on your colleagues, always assuming you really are a USM professor. I know few professors who aren't committed fairly equally to teaching and research. You generally and vaguely claim that some USM professors are turning their backs on their students--though I can think of almost none who have done so--and that they are resistant to change. Huh? For most of us change is a way of life. Most of us have committed ourselves to a new community after moving here from Elsewhere, and most of us are in disciplines that change over at the maximum every five years. I myself have lived in three different states and three different continents, but I don't sense that I'm all that different in resiliency from my fellow professors. Change is fine, evitable, and all that. Chaos and disruption--which we know almost daily from the administration--are not the same as change.
Jameela Lares"

Jameela,
As always, a fine post, well said. You earned your "cherry diet coke" for the day!

Date: Mar 1, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Jameela Lares
"Jesse's Girl,
I'm having trouble deciding if your post is a cri de coeur or an attack on your colleagues, always assuming you really are a USM professor. I know few professors who aren't committed fairly equally to teaching and research. You generally and vaguely claim that some USM professors are turning their backs on their students--though I can think of almost none who have done so--and that they are resistant to change. Huh? For most of us change is a way of life. Most of us have committed ourselves to a new community after moving here from Elsewhere, and most of us are in disciplines that change over at the maximum every five years. I myself have lived in three different states and three different continents, but I don't sense that I'm all that different in resiliency from my fellow professors. Change is fine, evitable, and all that. Chaos and disruption--which we know almost daily from the administration--are not the same as change.
Jameela Lares"

Maybe I don't live in the same college as you do, and maybe things are different. I have read a number of your posts this afternoon that seem like you have some perverse desire to attack those who ask questions you don't like. I am not a Thames supporter, just someone who has a few (apparently) unpopular thoughts that have been properly put down because they don't align with the loud shouters on this board.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

Jameela, it's a cri de couer. It sounds like a person who is doing some deep re-thinking.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

Jesse's Girl, I know Professor Lares well, and have never known her to be unkind. She is a dedicated teacher and scholar. I think you are misreading her rather badly.

NB to GH: AHAA!!

Date: Mar 1, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Jesse's Girl
" Maybe I don't live in the same college as you do, and maybe things are different. I have read a number of your posts this afternoon that seem like you have some perverse desire to attack those who ask questions you don't like. I am not a Thames supporter, just someone who has a few (apparently) unpopular thoughts that have been properly put down because they don't align with the loud shouters on this board."

Jesse's Girl

Your thoughts are not completely unpopular. I believe you are sincere. I too had some question about your original intent in your post. I will accept you at face value and welcome you to our "fight".

Date: Mar 1, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Jesse's Girl
" Maybe I don't live in the same college as you do, and maybe things are different. I have read a number of your posts this afternoon that seem like you have some perverse desire to attack those who ask questions you don't like. I am not a Thames supporter, just someone who has a few (apparently) unpopular thoughts that have been properly put down because they don't align with the loud shouters on this board."

I sincerely hope that none of my desires are "perverse." I also hope that any of my students could tell you how much I delight in disagreement. Truth is a complex thing.

If I came across as strident today, or a "loud shouter," forgive me. I've just seen Gary Stringer over the weekend and am angered anew that he was forced to seek greener pastures.

In the meantime, if LVN thinks you're for real, that's as close to good-for-me as makes no difference.

Jameela Lares

Date: Mar 1, 2005

"What they don't understand is research. What good are journal articles to them? Or the Donne Varorium? Or a high-tech physics lab? These things are so abstract to them that they will never grasp the true value of them."

The question I have for you is this, JG: why must USM professors be expected to make all of this clear to the people of Hattiesburg? Why should the faculty care so much about public opinion in the fight between SFT and the faculty? Do LSU faculty have to make such things clear to the people of Baton Rouge? Texas A&M faculty and College Station? Kansas State and Manhattan? I don't uderstand what makes the poeple of Hattiesburg and South Mississippi so special in this situation. It is so terribly frustrating - do faculty at Ole Miss have to make sure that the basic "Rebel Talker" in Senatobia understands how hard they work outside of the classroom? This is just killing me....

Date: Mar 1, 2005

Jesse’s Girl
Whether you are a troll or a sincere hard working faculty member is irrelevant to the argument you present. I do not doubt your sincerity and it appears you have thought about this long and hard. Unfortunately, this does not make what you say correct. Our obligation to students is two fold, one is to relay what we know as conventional wisdom, and the second is teach our students how to think. The type of teaching you are advocating is done very well at trade schools and what is done at most junior colleges. It does have value, but it is not what universities do. I have had teachers that are the proto type of what you suggest. They are the ones with the old notes and same old tests that are in every fraternity house's files. They do not go to conferences of their peers and do not read much more than the daily paper. Once in a while there is one who does a good job because of pride or commitment, but that is the exception. Why is it that the kind of system you suggest leads to a collection of so many slugs? Because it is easy and it does not take exceptional ability. The intellectual level of the place you describe would continually decline. Morale would be low because the people there are trapped. It has a high probability of becoming unionized because faculty would have little no power other wise. Rather than a place of good teaching and education, it would become a factory with the product dropping to the lowest common denominator.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

Cossack,

I suppose that you have no use for small liberal arts colleges like Millsaps, Rhodes, Davidson, etc. At those institutions, faculty do little or none of the kinds of research you propose, yet they turn out well-educated, successful graduates. In fact, I would rather hire an average graduate of Millsaps than an average USM graduate. Millsaps does teach critical thinking skills and does give its students the knowledge needed to be successful. The other "teaching colleges" I described are similar in approach and outcome.

I see little evidence that the research done at USM is making any difference in the quality of education our students receive. Contrary to your misreading of my post, I am advocating increasing the quality of teaching by spending more time preparing for classes, etc. Adding more exercises to help teach our students to think. Challenging them to do more than memorize a list of prepared topics. This will take time away from the precious research that most faculty members cling so tightly to, but that is what I am advocating. I think we should spend less (not no) time on research and more on teaching.

I guess the faculty at small schools like the aforementioned are all slugs who are seeking the lowest common denominator while enjoying their unionized benefits.

Not meaning any more disrespect than I was given,

JG

Date: Mar 1, 2005

A very interesting thread, indeed. What seems lost to me in JG's well-thought original post is that the current administration is pushing research via the demand for grant monies.

Also, I object to the term "the people of Mississippi" which JG uses several times. There are all sorts of people in Mississippi. I will grant you that the MAJORITY may feel as you describe, but I pay taxes here as do the faculty of the university. I don't think USM ought to be strictly a teaching institution. The production of new knowledge is a major component of the whole idea of "university." And, those who do research are more likely to be more up-to-date in their teaching.

Lastly, I want to gently remind JG that our purpose ought not to be to cater to the lowest common denominator but to raise it, whether as students (as I am) or as faculty. Only about 17% of Mississippians hold a college degree. If the "people of Mississippi" had perfect knowledge of that which is best for their children's education, they wouldn't need to send them to USM or any other university. They would teach them at home. It seems to me that the problem is less that we aren't giving the "people" what they want. The problem is that the university has somehow lost the TRUST of many of the public. Teaching is a profession. The practice of any profession requires prep time, education, knowledge, service...the list goes on. Whoever it was on this thread that made the comment about surgeons, lawyers, etc. was on the money. If it's so easy to teach, why aren't the critics of the faculty doing it?

Date: Mar 1, 2005

quote:

Originally posted by: Jesse's Girl
"Cossack, I suppose that you have no use for small liberal arts colleges like Millsaps, Rhodes, Davidson, etc."

Jessie's Girl: I don't know Cossak, but I'll bet Cossak values the type of education at schools like Millsaps, Rhodes, Davidson, etc. But those were most definitely not types of schools you described in your post that described your aspiration for USM. If you had included the Millsaps/Rhodes/Davidson academic values in your post, I am confident the replies to your post would have been quite different.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

When I said this:

"We could be a great teaching institution and fill a real need in Mississippi, educating our students with small classes and face-to-face instruction. We could make a real difference in those students' lives, and, in turn, we could derive our pleasure from their successes rather than our own journal acceptances. We could be a great little teaching school, but instead, we want to be the biggest research school in a state that cannot financially support another research school. It seems like that we don't want to be good at the one thing we could be good at and we strive to be the one thing we have little hope of being."

How did you get that I wanted USM to be a trade school or community college? I said a GREAT teaching institution. Not merely a teaching institution. Not a good teaching institution. A GREAT teaching institution.

However, I believe many members of the faculty feel that their academic "manhood" is directly tied to the number of journal articles they can publish in a year.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

Disagreeing with what someone says is not a sign of disrespect. Indeed, it indicates the opposite. I take what you say serious enough to respond. The private schools you mention do well with their students. Your discussion was about USM, not a private school. I think if you survey the state supported schools who match your description of what you would prefer at USM, you will not find the same thing you find at those private schools you listed. I can list many state schools that have taken the route you suggest that do not do a very good job of educating and whose faculty resemble what I described. The difference is due to the incentives facing private schools versus public schools. If USM were a private school, the President would be gone. Private schools are market driven to a far greater extent than state schools. As the case in most privately funded endeavors, private schools who do not meet the market test are at risk of going broke

Date: Mar 1, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Cossack
"I can list many state schools that have taken the route you suggest that do not do a very good job of educating and whose faculty resemble what I described."

William & Mary is a good example of a small premier state school. I don't believe Mississippi's IHL has the foresight to allow anything like W&M to exist here.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

William and Mary is a superb undergraduate institution. However, it now has joined VPI and Virginia in becoming quasi private over the past year. William and Mary has a unique history. It is the oldest state supported school in the U.S. It has famous alumni and a great tradition. Even so, it has not been supported very well by the Virginia General Assembly. I suggest we travel up Route 17 to Christopher Newport and take a look at a school that resembles the model I suggest would happen at USM.

Date: Mar 1, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Cossack
"William and Mary is a superb undergraduate institution. However, it now has joined VPI and Virginia in becoming quasi private over the past year."

Cossack,

Regarding the W&M/UVA/VT effort that you cited, this headline article entitled Colleges Approach Autonomy appeared in February issue of the Roanoke Times: "Bills to grant Virginia's public colleges greater control of their financial and administrative affairs passed both chambers of the General Assembly by wide margins . . . At the highest level, Virginia Tech, and the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary - the three institutions leading the charge - would remain public universities but gain the right to negotiate individual flexibilities . . .Virginia Tech officials were also pleased with the 37-3 vote in the Senate and 76-22 vote in the House . . . 'I think everybody is very optimistic,' said a UVa spokeswoman . . . "what we are trying to do is strike an appropriate balance between legislative oversight and legislative meddling,' said Sen. Thomas Norment and the Senate sponsor."

Charles D. Noblin Blacksburg, Virginia

Date: Mar 2, 2005

Amen brother!

Date: Mar 2, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Jesse's Girl
"Cossack, I suppose that you have no use for small liberal arts colleges like Millsaps, Rhodes, Davidson, etc. At those institutions, faculty do little or none of the kinds of research you propose, yet they turn out well-educated, successful graduates. "

Jesse's Girl,

If I may respectfully disagree with your assertion, I googled those schools for their English faculty--the only professors I'm entirely competent to judge--and I see the same pattern of research and publication as elsewhere:

http://www.millsaps.edu/english/faculty.shtml

http://www.rhodes.edu/English/faculty.htm

http://www.davidson.edu/academic/english/faculty/index.html

Most of the professors have one or more books, several articles, and some reviews, as well as memberships in various professional organizations.

I've never seen teaching and research as mutually exclusive. In my experience, the two pursuits are complementary. Nay, they potentiate each other.

Jameela Lares

Date: Mar 2, 2005

JG,

I know that one of the most fundamental responses to the crisis and the attacks on faculty has been to focus on the kind of research that gets one out of here and into a "real" university. I also know that there are tremendous differences among faculty in different colleges at USM regarding the role of teaching. I have sympathy.

One thing that I think you might not be considering is that there is a relationship between teaching and research. I know that many of my colleagues in the LAB building often incorporate their own "basic research" into their classes, even the introductory classes. The other day I gave a lecture on race and racism, and what makes this particlar lecture effective is that I talk about my research AND field experiences as an anthropologist. The students all know, because of that, what I am telling them is real. It's not just something that appears in a textbook.

Then consider graduate education. Graduate students do research and creative activity. If their teachers, thesis directors, etc do not, how are graduate students going to learn how to do research?

If most universities were only focused on research, then the advancement of knowledge, the CREATION of knowledge would be much slower. If nobody did research, we'd have the same curriculum as univesities in the Middle Ages in Europe.

I would suggest that MOST (though not necessarily all) faculty at USM should be doing "basic/theoretical research" in order to meet the needs of South Mississippi students and communities that we serve.To do otherwise is to sell South Mississippians a cheap imitation of higher education.

Amy Young

Date: Mar 2, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Far away alum
"" How many students have learned the importance of academic freedom, of faculty governance, of the tenure system? Ignorant alums often are just that: ignorant of the way a first class institution should work. How sad, Jesse's girl, that as a faculty member your aspirations for yourself, for the University, and ultimately for Mississippi are no higher than this. "

And just why do students need to know this? Just how will that benefit them? Just how will knowing about tenure and faculty governance make the students' lives better? Just how will this knowledge help students get a job, which is what most students are in school for.

You are a very petty person to call someone ignorant just because they do not know something you don't, especially when they have no practical use for knowing it. It is not only shortsighted and insular, but also egotistical that your method of how to run an institution is the only method and the best method. The original poster did indeed have aspirations, and they were indeed lofty. They just are not YOUR aspirations!

You should stop labeling people a troll because their opinion differs from yours. That is petty, immature, and very shallow. Calling this poster a troll tells us far more about you than it does him or her.

Furthermore, any board run by the AAUP-USM should not be about only one thing: Get rid of Thames. People should be able to post other matters and opinions here without getting designated a troll in hopes that other people will ignore them.

Date: Mar 2, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Albert
"
And just why do students need to know this? Just how will that benefit them? Just how will knowing about tenure and faculty governance make the students' lives better? Just how will this knowledge help students get a job, which is what most students are in school for.
You are a very petty person to call someone ignorant just because they do not know something you don't, especially when they have no practical use for knowing it. It is not only shortsighted and insular, but also egotistical that your method of how to run an institution is the only method and the best method. The original poster did indeed have aspirations, and they were indeed lofty. They just are not YOUR aspirations!
You should stop labeling people a troll because their opinion differs from yours. That is petty, immature, and very shallow. Calling this poster a troll tells us far more about you than it does him or her.
Furthermore, any board run by the AAUP-USM should not be about only one thing: Get rid of Thames. People should be able to post other matters and opinions here without getting designated a troll in hopes that other people will ignore them.
"

Getting a university education is NOT only about getting a job. What good is it for students to understand the relationship between academic freedom, tenure, and shared governance? Good grief!

Many times each week I work with students who do not understand the nature of knowledge and how it is generated. In my classes I have to tell them about the scientific method, explaining the difference between a hypothesis, a theory and some hair-brained idea theyjust saw on the "Discovery Channel." These students really need to understand about academic freedom, free speech, and the democratic ideals of this country. They need to be able to distinguish between religious belief and scientific theory. They will be voting on things like what to teach in public schools and in state-supported universities.

The ideals of AAUP are not secret and arcane ideas. They are fundamental to the American way of life.

Without tenure, university faculty around the world have been fired or persecuted, or murdered for teaching unpopular material that happened to be factual!

This board named AAUP-USM Message board is for anyone interested in a legitimate dialogue about the fate of this university and higher education.

Amy Young

This board has been hit by trolls.

Who are YOU to dictate what this message board should be about?