University of Charleston

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

University of Charleston

I am going to make one post about the school, but I do so for a personal reason. It directly concerns one of my friends on the faculty there.

Late last fall, the University's Faculty Personnel Committee chose not to offer a three-year contract to one of the smartest, most talented, best degreed faculty on that campus. They did it for entirely religious reasons, though I am sure none of them actually realize it. Still, if a trooper pulls you over for going 80 in a 35, he is going to give you a ticket because you broke the law. Even if you were fucking around with your iphone, unaware of your violation.

I will not go into this matter in great deal, but I shall note the following. It's asinine to assume that that committee has any professional competency to judge this faculty member's candidacy. To begin, most of them do not have doctorates, much less real research degrees (Ed.D.'s don't count in academia). It is difficult enough for an academic to judge someone in their area, much less someone in a related area. But to even consider that a faculty member with an M.S. in education from Marshall (and probably the College for Undergraduate Studies) has the slightest clue about what makes a good professor in Chemistry, it's childish. No serious Ph.D. in English would ever go up to someone with an M.A. in education and ask their opinion on a matter of academic significance. Ever. So in the absence of informed judgement, in the full light of ignorance, all that committee can fall back on are teaching evaluations. Student evaluations are richly flawed instruments, beyond any reasonable measure. But at least it's a system. Let's award continuing contracts to those who meet certain standards on the evaluations (never defined, by the way). Take your personality contest and move on. Save that that's not actually how it works. Many folks with lower evaluations are awarded contracts, over those with better scores on the evaluations. Some with mediocre evaluations are denied promotion and contract, while others with lesser scores on the evaluations are retained and promoted. In short, all that they have to judge anyone on is personality. You're retained if you kiss their ass. If you do not make them feel too badly about their inferior academic preparation. If you push the stories they want pushed, instead of doing your job, like actually teaching students. It's sad, but not illegal. What they did, however, clearly was illegal.

Given that they have only personality to judge people on, that they have no real objective criteria for awarding contracts, racism, sexism, and religious discrimination regularly seeps into their contract process. Two years ago, that same committee denied a contract to a doctorally trained professor in education, who is one of the smartest people I know, because they did not like her. In their view she wasn't dynamic enough. They want flash, not quality. So they sent her packing. And while doing so failed to realize that the very things they cited in their evaluation of her work (written and oral) were violations of federal law, given that she had a protected medical condition under ADA. In this most recent case, it's more of the same. This professor was "too loud." Too "east coast." Too "brash." He "didn't fit in well here at Charleston." Folks, he's Jewish. And these were all code words that allowed them to discriminate against him based on his religious status. How many Jewish faculty members do they have now? How many African Americans?

Over the last several weeks, I have thought quite a bit about my three years at Charleston. At first, I thought much of the fault for the way things are rested with the administration. But there are hundreds of Ed Welch's around the country. Every college president is a money-grubbing corporate tool. Nearly every Provost is a water boy, like Stebbins. Lawyers are lawyers. No, the real problem at Charleston rests with its faculty. Most of them do not hold terminal degrees, and most are tied to the region because of family. So they bend over for anything the administration wants of them, without much thought. They don't care about academic quality. They care about keeping their jobs and living their nice comfortable middle class lives. And that's fine, as long as people realize it for what it is. Some have. The only Ph.D. in Business resigned last week. He's not returning. I figure some folks are smart enough to read the handwriting on the wall.

In closing, I don't really care too much about what goes down at that place anymore. E-mails find me nearly every day, wanting me to write again about this scandal or that. I just don't have the time, nor the inclination. But it still pains me to see my friends targeted because they continued to talk to me. Because they were Jewish. Or because they were disabled. Ph.D. faculty deserve standard courtesy. The Division Chair should have provided my friend with a letter of support (or non-support) once the letter was composed. Never happened. Instead, she spent her time answering a grade appeal by writing an essay about why a student deserved a "C" on his end-of-the-semester paper. (This student made a perfect score on one of the sections of his GRE, and probably has the highest LSAT score in the history of the institution). The essay was outstanding, especially compared to the high school projects that earned A's in that course. *sigh*

When Matthew left he told me the one thing I had to do was to write the letters and then meet with the faculty member before the letter went out, when you could not support, fully support, a faculty member. That takes a bit of moxie, alas.

The place will not survive. Universities close, here and there. So too will this one. They had serious financial troubles last summer (just six months ago today). As the undergraduate faculty pushes upward in size to meet the demand of the incoming classes, the problem will grow more acute. The next big program reduction shall come in Social Sciences and Humanities. Eventually they will fold the LLO's entirely into Science, Nursing and Business. IDES will be the next program to go. After I'm forgotten, and Ed's promise to this incoming class to finish the program expires, they'll close that program, leaving only COMM, Public Policy, Education, and Psychology in Humanities and Social Sciences. Policy and COMM will eventually be folded as tracks into Business. Accreditation for the Education program is nearing its end. We had given up on NCATE early last summer. The standards are just too tough. We placed our hope in second level and state accreditation. In time, that will go away too. Standards only increase, and demand greater resources. Which will not be forthcoming. Standards do not become less restrictive, nor cheaper. And the national trend is to funnel teacher education into the large publics. That will leave Psychology, which survives now only because of the commitment of two talented faculty members.

These changes will take place over the next ten years. Leave while you can.

Reading Assignments

A few worthy items:

• It's the ten-year anniversary of the Lewinsky scandal. Damian Whitworth on the fates of the actors.
  
  
• Though it's been vetted on talk radio, not many people know much about this story. Unless you listen to Michael Savage. That's your blueprint for a Republican victory in the fall. They'll soak him with accusations of racial politics, drug use, and discredited New Left liberalism. It's telling that Obama uses MLK and the Kennedys so frequently. For all this talk about hope and change and looking to the future, he has consistently tried to align himself as the standard bearer of the very establishment Old Left liberalism of the Kennedys, and the non-violent model of Dr. King. He's using the past as much as anyone, and the Republicans will tattoo him with the "failed economic policies, social anarchy, and high taxes of the liberal ascendancy." And they'll use race, though the Clintons will use it first. The reaction at Kos is predictable outrage.
  
  
• Kos himself takes a long look at the poll numbers this morning. And for Obama they are Not Good. Clinton leads 56-29 in New York. She leads Edwards 45-25 in Oklahoma (Obama in third with 19 percent). Obama trails her 50-35 in California, and 56-23 in Florida. She's going to win the nomination, unless Obama can turn this thing around quickly. He won't. But it will be ugly, and stands the chance of tearing the Democratic party in two. It's the closest thing we've seen to 1980 since....1980. As for the Republicans, things are just too close to call. McCain seems to have an advantage, but a loss today will erode his support elsewhere. If it costs him three percent in South Carolina, he could well lose that state to Huckabee. In that case, Romney probably becomes the front runner again.
  
  
• Barbara Ehrenreich (you may remember her from Nickled and Dimed) rips into Clinton for her elitist view of the Civil Rights Movement. Forget about planted debate questions. It was her single worst moment of the campaign. Hilary hit at a very sore spot with middle class African Americans and academics, who want the credit for the movement to rest with the grass roots political movement that demanded equality. They don't want to hear about religion. And (honestly) they don't want to hear much about elite leadership (white or black, including Dr. King). That's why the reaction to Clinton's remarks can't gain any traction. They stretch across two contradictory currents. First, both MLK and LBJ represented that top down, elite-led passive movement for change. They represented the authority in America, white and black. The academic community prefers the latter interpretation (that of a movement from the bottom up) and they want the story of Fanie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses, Stokley, John Lewis (then, not now), and Chuck McDew told. (I've met Moses, Lewis, and McDew. Chuck is the funniest man alive. He tells a great story about being arrested for criminal anarchy in Louisiana which, he noted, at the time had no statute of limitations. To this day he has not returned to Louisiana.) But Clinton did not dismiss these sorts of people. She backhanded Dr. King. In pretending that Dr. King fits into this latter group of people, liberal academics and middle class African Americans are saying more about how they view themselves, and their place in black America, than they are about the Clintons.
  
  
• Dude, if you're going to go into that crowd and tell them that their manufacturing jobs are not coming back to Michigan, that you're in favor of amnesty, and that you support the war, they are not going to blow smoke up your ass. Honesty helps, but it underscores why you will never get that nomination. That union crowd is populated by economic nationalists. You're not Pat Buchanan.

Morning

Wow. Last night was crazy. But today I am reborn. Some things work out for the best.

Okay. Well, I woke up to some crazy weather. Schools tend not to close out here, but there was a wave of delays and closings all throughout the valley and over to the coast. Ice. Hannah walked into my bedroom around 6:30 and told me that one of her friends texted her, that there was a two hour delay. First thought: they are playing it safe. We had a horrific accident here ten days ago. A fourteen year old girl, who was in Hannah's gym class, died in a traffic accident on her way to school. There was a bit of ice on the road. Her mother, who was driving, slide across traffic and struck another car head-on. Not wearing her seat belt, the girl was ejected from the car. The impact partially severed her brain stem. So that was my first thought. But it turned out to be a state-wide event.

Michigan votes today. I haven't had much to say about the election in weeks, obviously. I am going to stand by my prediction that Clinton survives her battle with Obama and wins the nomination. That's what I am hoping for. There's something, somewhere deep down, about Obama that troubles me. Last week this motivated Noted Sir to call me a racist (and I might add after I had stood up for nearly every black person he and I knew for MONTHS). I thought about that. But I think this has more to do with generational issues. My brand of liberalism favors cultural conservatism. My brand is dying, however. So much so, I am tempted to vote Republican this fall, after voting straight-ticket Democrat for twenty years.

So I favor established party people, not upstarts who have yet to earn their stripes. I doubt I would vote for any novice first-term Senator over Clinton. Black, white or purple. That said, she has tremendous obstacles to overcome to defeat Obama. I will have more to say about that later, but I suspect that this primary will be known, fifty years from now, as one of the dirtiest, most racist elections in history. Exceeding the Willie Horton campaign Lee Atwater waged twenty years ago.

There's an odd sort of symmetry here. Dr. King and RFK were murdered in 1968. Willie Horton in 1988. And Obama-Clinton in 2008. The Boomers continue to fight the same old battles. I'm just not convinced that Obama has a clue, just because he's not one of them.

As for the Republicans, I will stand by my now increasingly unlikely prediction that Huckabee wins that nomination. McCain seems to have the inside track. But that probably ends today, with a Romney victory. Huckabee follows up with a win in South Carolina. And Florida will be the next major test. Rudy is toast. Huck seems to be setting himself up well for a VP slot, if McCain wins the nomination (I don't think he will). On the Democratic side, I think you can take Edwards's willingness to go after Clinton as a sign that he's siding with Obama, and that he might well end up as Obama's running mate.

If those are the tickets, Obama-Edwards vs. McCain-Huckabee, you can count on a Republican landslide. The white working class vote will abandon the Democrats. Much now depends on how badly the Democrats want to win. Bill and Hilary continue to tell the party (in code) that America is not ready for a black president. Will it listen?

Friends

For Marguerite, who reasoned through the worst of it with me last night. And Hannah, who has been telling me the same thing for six months. And Lyndon, who told me "that's why I wouldn't stay there. It's time to let it go." For Alexa 's calming voice last night, and Amanda's kind words this morning.

For Anya

Who last night had the balls to stand up to the man, and say that Pantera was the greatest rock band of all time (with predictable consequences). I'd post a Pantera video, but they are a bit too raw for my tastes. So she settles with Metallica's Sandman instead.

For Everyone

Everyone needs a little Hedwig. Especially in the wicked little town.

For Joanna

Fuck You

Tonight's Theme Song.

Brought to you by Tide, and All Temperature Cheer. Nothing like a good dose of lye.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Follow Me

Noted sir: it is improbable that you will lose our bet. That said, were you to do so, I would bring you where I am now. Not quite your taste but I can promise you a marvelous time.

Funky Town

Moving there next week. Very excited. Especially about LAX. Y'all are cordially invited to watch the Blue Jays beat the living hell out of the New Jersey Community College Kitty Kats on March 1st.

Seriously -- blue bloods beating bluer bloods with sticks -- now that's entertainment!

Miss Hannah Wilkes

Just a few props out to her. She presented her undergraduate paper on General George McClellan and his ill-fated 1862 Peninsular Campaign at the national meeting of Phi Alpha Theta, held two weeks ago in New Mexico. Her paper was well received. She followed up this fine accomplishment by having another conference paper accepted. This time at the International Convention of Sigma Tau Delta (the English honorary). That meeting is in March. Congratulations, Hannah. It's a great accomplishment.

Oh, her paper examines Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road.

Christmas Vaction

Now has passed. Back to business.

A new year, in many more ways than one. Updates will follow slowly. I am thankful for all my old friends who continued to come here each day for almost a month, with nothing to read. You guys certainly need to get a life. So welcome back, in any case.

I have quite a bit to say, and I promise it will be worth your while. There's a new list of goals, and I will have something to say about that. There's a running commentary on this fascinating primary season, and I have quite a bit to say about that. There's a good personal story or two, and I have a few things to say about that.

There are quite a few stories going on at the University of Charleston, and I will have nothing to say about that. That's so 2007. I'm done with them. If you're foolish enough to waste your money there, or spend your career there, that's your business.

There will only be two posters this time around. My young master, and I.

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