Wonderful

Plans afoot to hire more MBAs next year.  Because the ones hired previously have not caused enough damage.

FEC

At Whither the U of A, Jeremy brings out one of his favourite hobby-horses, the annual Faculty Evaluation Committee process.  (Apparently, the Science FEC is meeting this week.)  Jeremy has complained about this in the past, and this comment near the end of his post nicely captures his thinking:

"The bottom line is that the current FEC system works really well from the point of view of deans and senior administrators, because it creates a self-applied whip on faculty to work harder and harder, and to produce more and more."

I have engaged in dialogue in the comments of his earlier posts on this subject, and it was clear then that the best we could hope for was to agree to disagree. I won't engage again, but I do need to commend the three commenters who have so far responded. In particular, the implication that FEC is what is required for academics to be motivated to achieve is insulting and (I believe) erroneous for the vast majority. We work hard because we want to excel, and FEC offers a reasonable reward system for those years in which we are successful.

Send Your Kids to MUN?

Macleans OnCampus has a story about the cost of education at Memorial University in Newfoundland.  Tuition averages $2550 per year, and housing costs are similarly low compared with other Canadian universities.  The low tuition is due to a commitment by the provincial government to provide a greater degree of support, not unlike what used to be the case at Alberta and other Canadian universities.  This begs the question:  why are residents of Newfoundland able to get this sort of progressive action from their government, but no one else?  And in the meantime, if you have university educations to pay for, shouldn't you be looking at this institution?

Canadian University Debt Load

Here's a recent piece from Maclean's OnCampus describing how the average graduating Canadian student actually owes more than his/her US counterpart.  It comes down to the pathetic level of student aid that is available here.  Having been educated down south, and having supported a dependent attending a Canadian university, I have to agree that we are doing a crap job of funding scholarships for our undergraduate students.

I also wonder if there is less expectation here in Canada for parents to cover their children's postsecondary costs?  I doubt it, as my understanding is that most students do not qualify for student loans on the expectation that their parents will pay for things.  Do others have different experiences?

Blogger Problem?

Biped, I saw your last two comments show up (even got e-mail alerts), then when I checked later they were gone.  I'm not sure why that is happening, but please note that I am NOT deleting it.  If I cannot figure out where the comments went, I will go so far as to include their text in a post while I am sorting this out.  I am not trying to silence you.

Know Your Enemy

Fascinating stream of comments on Jeremy's blog concerning the Gwyn Morgan gong show yesterday.  I agree with the basic contention of commenter Vox Clamantis, who posits the theory that this particular operation was meant as a wake-up call to a complacent professoriate who do not understand the need to actively counter the distortions of tools like Morgan whose wealth has given them the bully pulpit to bash liberal education.  While I also agree with other commenters that our senior administration should be playing a more active role in mounting such a defense, there is no doubt that we need to pick up our game.

Here's RATM to get your juices flowing:

Google Trending Evil?

Apropos of our current migration to gmail and associated Google apps, I found this Balloon Juice post on Google's business practices to be quite illuminating.

Can Someone Explain This...

...and not invoke the increasing contribution of administrative overhead at universities?

(Not sure the slope would be quite so steep in Canada, but certainly a similar story I would guess.)

Is That All We Are?

A little bit off-topic:  last night I went to see William Shatner at the Shaw Centre.  In general, it was a very good show, highlighting his fascinating life-story and his irrepressible can-do approach to everything.  In short, he is never afraid to try something and very publicly fall on his face.  He is also a very funny man.

What concerns me a little bit is the way he chose to end the show.  He had just concluded a discussion of his spoken word "musical" career, and wound things up with a spoken word rendition of Stompin' Tom Connors' "The Hockey Song," encouraging the audience to sing/speak along.  I guess I saw this as a fairly dismissive sort of pandering:  "Hockey is what these people care the most about, so finish up on a high note."

This show was part of a Canadian tour that will end up eventually in Montréal, and I am assuming he is going to end each show this way (though perhaps not always with an Oilers sweater with "Shatner" written on it).  And maybe it works--a lot of people there did seem to enjoy it.  However, I find myself cringing every time someone feeds the "Canadians are crazy for hockey" stereotype.  To me, it seems facile and vaguely dismissive, even when it originates from well-meaning Canadians.  Another Shatner tie-in:  I found the closing ceremonies for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics painfully embarrassing.

Maybe I'm just over-sensitive, and this is a harmless notion, but to me it seems to infantilize trivialize Canada.

Book of Possible Interest

Just recently came across The Fall of the Faculty:  The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters by Benjamim Ginsberg.  This book would appear to address the trend that we have all been observing towards a permanent administrative class and the resulting corporatization of universities.  Certainly, it is highly relevant to current doings at the U of A.  I plan to order and read it, but I'm wondering if anyone (Hello!  Anyone there?) is already familiar with it.

Wow

So, today I received an e-mail inviting me to a lecture by retired oilman Gwyn Morgan.  Here is the text of the invitation:

"Dear Colleagues:

The Office of Corporate & Foundation Relations would like to invite you to the next University of Alberta Innovative Leaders Lecture Series to be held at 4:00pm - 5.30pm on October 31, 2011 in Room L2 190 CCIS. “If universities were in business, they'd be out of business. “

Dr Gwyn Morgan C.M., F.C.A.E (Bsc. Mech Eng ’67), a nationally recognized business leader and ardent community champion, will share his views on the urgent need to improve teaching quality and align resource allocations with the needs and opportunities in the job market. Dr Morgan has been recognized as Canada’s Outstanding CEO of the Year and also as Canada’s Most Respected CEO. He has a strong belief that a corporation should be a positive social, community and environmental force. A regular contributor to the Globe and Mail, Dr Morgan is working to improve public policy in wellness and education.
This event is open to all students, faculty , staff and alumni.

Visit www.innovativeleaders.ualberta.ca for event and RSVP/registration information.

Light refreshments will be provided following the lecture.
Please share this invitation with your colleagues."

I'm sure I'm not alone in finding the content of this invitation to be patronizing in the extreme.  This right-wing corporatist affiliated with the Fraser Institute thinks he can tell the University (a) that it's business model is a failure (possibly true), (b) that there is an urgent need to improve teaching quality (based upon what?), and (c) that the job market should be the main determinant of resource allocations in advanced education.

I'll be there, but I may find it hard not to bring along some of the rotting tomatoes I was slow to harvest from my garden.  (Too busy with bad teaching, I guess.)

Update:  Does anyone know who funds the "Innovative Leaders Lecture Series?"  I would be rather upset to learn that we are using University funds to pay for this guy to come tell us about our deficiencies.

CCIS Photos

Can anyone point me to an online source of photos of the finished CCIS structure from various angles?  I am not having much luck with teh google.

OWS Continuted

To follow up on my earlier post about the pathetic handling of comments at Macleans OnCampus, here is a link that I would have liked to have included in a follow-up comment, but I have to assume that it would never make it out of moderation.  In it, the writer points out the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of elites who criticize the Occupy Wall Street protesters for not have detailed solutions ready right now.

Redford

So, what do we think about the results of this leadership race?  Good news for the province?  What about postsecondary?

Macleans OnCampus

OK, I am not very impressed with the commenting function at Macleans OnCampus.  I wanted to comment on a particularly dim post by Robyn Urback concerning the Occupy Wall Street protests.  First, my comment sat in moderation for a good 18 hours.  Then, when it appeared, the end was cut off, including a link to a much better discussion on the same topic at another site.  Next, I tried to "reply" to my original comment, with the missing information, and this seemed to evaporate entirely.

Overall, one gets the distinct whiff of a bush-league, amateurish operation.  I believe that I shall have to deprive them of my trenchant analysis henceforward.

Tsintskaro Revisited

In thinking about the Kate Bush post below, I was reminded of the first time that I encountered the Georgian folk song Tsintskaro, which she incorporated into Hello Earth:  Werner Herzog's unsettling Nosferatu the Vampyre.  In the memorable "Danse Macabre" scene towards the end of the film, Lucy wanders the town square as people "celebrate" their presumed impending death by plague.  This disturbing visual unfolds without dialogue, and with Tsintskaro playing in the background.  Truly a piece of bravura filmmaking.  Here is a short clip:

Lethbridge Makes a Correction

I see that University of Lethbridge has retracted their congratulations to conspiracy theorist Joshua Blakeny.  Good for them.

Musical Interlude

Catching up with my old New Yorker issues, I came across this article by Sasha Frere-Jones on Kate Bush.  (Sorry, it's behind the paywall, but the link includes a nice abstract.)  It's nice to see this great artist receive some renewed interest, and I don't really disagree with anything Frere-Jones says.  However, for me, the best part of the album "Hounds of Love" is the second side, a suite of songs titled "The Ninth Wave," including the spooky "Under Ice," and the transcendant "Hello Earth" (the latter featuring the eerie Georgian folk song "Tsintskaro").  After listening to that for the first time back in the 80's, I became convinced that Bush was using direct connection to the unconscious mind to make unexplainable and amazing music.

Way to Go, Lethbridge!

Wow.  Just, wow.

Enough Already!

How many times are they going to "officially open" CCIS?  It's a beautiful building (though I'm not sure I would enjoy working in its fishbowl environment). However, I grow tired of reading about all the wonderful collaborations that can happen now that we have put scientists in close proximity to each other.  One wonders how anyone managed to put together a collaboration before this edifice was erected.

Does the Cost of Pursuing Postsecondary Education Influence Choice of Majors?

Maclean's On Campus has a short blurb on the problems associated with rising tuition in Canada.  It includes the following quote:

"...higher tuition payments tend to mean higher debt loads upon graduation and debt loads put pressure on graduates to take jobs that pay and pay right away. Nothing wrong with that, except that there might be other things recent university graduates might do that could be more socially valuable than joining the corporate rat race."

Do you think this is really the case?

The Next Premier

In Alberta, it's a foregone conclusion that the Conservative Party will control the government.  With Ed Stelmach stepping down and a 6-way leadership race, we have a number of possibilities.  Polling indicates that Gary Mar is the frontrunner, trailed by Alison Redford, Doug Horner and Ted Morton.  Conventional wisdom says a Calgary-based politician should win this time (i.e., Mar, Redford, Morton, or Rick Orman), though I am surprised that Horner is not doing better on the basis of his prominent role in the Stelmach government.  Myself, I wish Peter Lougheed was were still in the mix--there's a guy who always seemed to be able to think strategically.  Anyway, the purpose of this post is to troll for comments:  who do you think is the candidate that is most likely to be supportive of the U of A and advanced education in general?

John Harvard Wept

Bit of a kerfuffle at Jeremy's place that started with a commenter complaining about the budget cuts in Arts.  Remember the quote attributed to robber baron Jay Gould:  "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."  Don't forget who is/are imposing the budget cuts, and whose mismanagement and inflated salaries made them "necessary."

Fraud Investigation at York

Here's an intriguing report on MacLean's On Campus about a fraud investigation going on at York resulting from a forensic accounting investigation.  No details have been provided regarding what unit(s) was/were involved.

Administrative Compensation

From the UofA's 2011 Financial Statement, I see that we have 5 senior administrators who receive in excess of half a million dollars in total compensation:

Indira Samarasekera (1,005.000)            
Carl Amrhein (647,000)
Lorne Babiuk (612,000)
Don Hickey (588,000)
Phyllis Clark (571,000)

You will be relieved to know that the two highest paid received overall increases of 7.4% and 8.2% relative to the previous year.  The VP(Research) got a mere 4.2% increase, while the last two going up by 6-7%.  Please bear this in mind when you are told to be grateful for the recently negotiated 1.75%/2% compensation package for AASUA members.

"Upping the Ante"

I really don't understand why the University goes with this sort of nearly pointless news story.  Wow, the province doles out $3M in cancer grants!  Is that a lot?  How does it compare to cancer research funding elsewhere?  (A guess:  probably very much on the low side.)  And how exactly is it "upping the ante"?  Is it more than in previous years?  The story does not tell us.

Pensions

Jeremy has a post about Parking Services that has devolved into a lengthy discussion about early retirement and the state of the U of A's pension fund.  Well worth perusing.

Also, Happy Canada Day, everybody.

Go Trent!

Macleans On Campus describes the latest stats on faculty salaries in Canada.  As has been discussed over at Whither the U of A, Calgary far outpaces the U of A, but even they take a back seat to a surprising winner, Trent U.  Bear in mind that this institution ranks 7th (between Wilfrid Laurier and St. F-X) on the Macleans list of "primarily undergraduate universities."  The dataset is not complete (e.g., no U of T or McGill), but it should validate the concerns of those who are watching with trepidation as the Alberta economy starts heating up (with consequent inflationary pressures).   And we're being asked to ratify 1.75%/2%.

It Taints Us All

Wow.  It's amazing how efficiently the clowns in charge are destroying the U of A brand.

Who Runs This Place, Under What Authority?

There's a lot of discussion at Jeremy's blog about how to turn GFC into a body that actually exerts some influence on how the University is run.  This prompted me to re-read the Post-Secondary Learning Act to try to decipher which body or person has what authority (e.g., BoG, GFC, Senate, President, Chancellor, etc.).  Unfortunately, I could not make much sense of it.  Perhaps I just have not had enough coffee today, but this document seems deliberately vague, almost as if it were designed to fit whatever situation certain people needed it to do.

Airing of the Grievances

I'm still not sure what to make of this grievance filed by the BoG against AASUA.  According to the Post-Secondary Learning Act, "Each academic staff association shall have the exclusive authority, on behalf of the academic staff members, to negotiate and enter into an agreement with the board of the public post-secondary institution."  Apparently, the BoG believe that by talking to CAUT, AASUA has violated that exclusivity requirement.  AASUA does not agree, and really I can't see this grievance being taken seriously by anyone who can read.  More likely, it's a shot across the bow in order to cow a historically passive organization, which may be showing signs of coming to life.

Bloggered

Wow, that was quite the outage.  Still not sure if all the posts survived.

Faculty Positions for Sale

There's been a lot of discussion on Jeremy's site on the question of a proposed new institute, to potentially be sited at South Campus, that would focus on technology commercialization and whose "professors" would not hold tenure.  This is another example of the creeping corporatism that continues to invade academia.

As usual, our neighbours to the south are ahead of us.  A particularly egregious example is this apparently successful effort by a foundation controlled by one of the Koch brothers to completely control the hiring of a position they have funded.  Are similar things in store for the U of A?  Are they already underway, and we just don't know about them?

Hey Everybody: Sustainable Teaching Is Here!

Sorry to bang on this drum again, but I just found this ridiculous.  The U of A's Centre for Teaching and Learning has sent out a memo advertising "Sustainability Curriculum and Teaching Workshops."  These include a "big picture" workshop, one to tie sustainability teaching to the academic plan, and one on pedagogies associated with sustainability.  I'm sorry, but organizing workshops about how sustainability fits into the curriculum or the academic plan is pathetically far removed from actually moving towards a sustainable campus.

More than anything else, it reminds me of a scene in the old "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, where the Golgafringans from the B-ark (the useless third of the population, consisting of haridressers, insurance salesmen, management consultants, telephone sanitizers, etc.) have crash-landed on the prehistoric planet Earth, and rather than dealing with their predicament, are filming a documentary about themselves.

Great Work, If You Can Get It

An anonymous commenter over at Whither the U of A has pointed out that President Samarasekera is on the Board of Directors for ScotiaBank.  This "supplementary professional activity" nets her something on the order of $170K per year.  This raises certain questions as to her understanding of the economic realities of your typical rank-and-file academic.  There is no doubt that the University President profession is quite a lucrative racket.

Release the Sock Puppets!

Well, I see that Whither the U of A has been visited by some trolls, who criticize the blog because the comments are mean :(.  Should we read too much into the fact that two comments of this type showed up at the ends of the comment threads for each of the last two posts?

More on the Question of Anonymity

On Whither the U of A, Piotr Rudnicki has criticized commenters who remain anonymous.  As I noted in the previous post, there are certain professional advantages to masking one's identity.  Here is an interesting article from the Guardian on Christopher Poole, 4Chan's founder, who believes very strongly that anonymity has distinct plusses in certain forums.

Why I Use a Pseudonymn

Here's what happens when an academic at a public university dares to criticize the anti-union behavior of radical right-wing republicans.

Update:  here is another discussion of the same story, by James Fallows of The Atlantic, and here is a story on a Republican prosecutor in Indiana who e-mailed some helpful suggestions to Gov. Walker about making the protesters look bad.

Update 2:  here is Krugman on the the Cronon story.

We're All Badgers Now

Here is a very interesting piece in a "point-counterpoint" style, but with both participants agreeing that unionization in academia was not a bad thing after all. That is especially surprising coming from Stanley Fish, a literary theorist whose writing I find generally distasteful.  (In particular, as his Wikipedia entry notes, Fish has stated that "ideas have no consequences," a truly repulsive assertion.)  Anyway, it's well worth a read.

Let's All Turn Off Our Lights for an Hour!

The U of A's Colloquy blog has a new post promoting activities related to "Earth Hour."  I have a lot of sympathy for these sorts of things, and certainly hold nothing against the Office of Sustainability.  Nonetheless, there is something disturbing about this sort of thing, much like the earlier dodgeball post.  It just seems to be all about image and gestures, but with no real long-term meaning to the institution or society.  I wish they would invest more effort into thinking about how to sustain the University of Alberta in the face of inept leadership and an anti-intellectual and criminally negligent government.

Twitter the U of A

Jeremy has a nice post up pointing out the true inanity of the latest triumphalist stupidity on Colloquy.  Apparently people tweeting the names of their favorite U of A professors at the poorly advertised and organized Festival of Teaching is a sign of how great things are going.

University's Compensation Proposal on Colloquy

Ha ha, on Colloquy Dru Marshall has posted an item about the (now public) latest offer in the salary negotiations between the University and AASUA.  I will not comment on the offer itself, at least for now.  Instead, I will note the hilarious aside that comments are disabled on that particular post "(b)ecause negotiations are ongoing, we cannot respond to questions or comments."

The New Provincial Budget

Well, the Government of Alberta rolled out next year's budget, and they're running a multibillion dollar deficit.  I suppose advanced education should feel fortunate that they are "only" facing a 0 percent increase, even though we all know that's going to mean another round of cuts at our poorly run university.  However, to me the bigger issue is the underlying source of the red ink:  lowered revenue.  Two directors from the Parkland Institute offered a pointed analysis of how things like rendering permanent the criminally low revised royalty scheme imposed last year have led to the present situation.  In effect, all of the services that are being starved in the budget are helping to subsidize the oil patch, when oil is going for $100/barrel.

This should be viewed in the context of what's going on down south.  There is a concerted push underway to abrogate the social contract that has been in operation for decades (a living wage, affordable education and health care, some semblance of a safety net), in order to orchestrate a massive wealth transfer to corporations and the top 1% of individuals.  As long as there is no danger of being voted out, this government will continue on its present course, and we will continue our move towards serfdom.

Colloquy (again)

Wow.  This attempt by the University to run a blog is getting embarrassing.  In its several weeks of existence, the blog has been plagued with sporadic posting, too much propaganda, and a dearth of comments.  The latter is perhaps explainable by the pathetic handling of comment moderation, with some comments taking days to show up.  News flash:  readers will quickly lose interest when confronted with these conditions.

I hope that the powers that be decide to loosen things up and run this a little more like a real blog.

It's All About the Civil War

Sorry for the hiatus--had some inescapable real-life things come up.  In the meantime, the Wisconsin protests continue, and grow, as their governor intransigently tries to force through the revocation of labor rights that have been in place for decades.  Here is a post from Balloon Juice that ties the rabid opposition to organized labor that we see in the Republican party to earlier efforts to profit economically off the unpaid labor of others (e.g., slavery and prison labor).  The maps are quite telling.

Tote that barge! Lift that bale!

In case no one has noticed, there has been a class war going on for the last 30 years (roughly since Reagan was elected), and you can guess which side is winning.  (Hint:  one side has most of the money, controls all branches of government, and literally owns the mainstream media.)  Here is a post from the American blog Balloon Juice, which captures in a few deft words the severity of this situation.  We may be a little behind the curve here in Canada, but we're fooling ourselves if we think we're not going down the same path.  Really, the issues we are encountering with the U of A are a microcosm of the larger effort to grind down the middle class and cement a large class of serfs to service the elite plutocracy.

Let's Hear It for Trains!

With the recent announcement by the Obama administration of a major new rail initiative, I'm reminded of another old post from my former blog, which I am pasting below. I hope that Canada will show similar boldness, though something tells me that we can expect nothing of the sort from this government.

Anyway, enjoy!

In the academic racket we aspire to international scholarly reputations, and with this comes the need to travel. Trips to national or international meetings to present invited lectures are common, as are various invited talks at other universities. Then there is the overseas junket, perhaps as a visiting scholar, or a plenary lecturer. All of these things need to appear on the CV, with frequency, if one is to make the case for eminence.

What all of these activities have in common is the use of air travel. Being in an older demographic, I can still remember a time when flying had a certain allure: it was not that commonly done, and the customer service allowed passengers to convince themselves that this was something truly special. Those days are long gone, replaced with the current pathetic rituals of travel--pointless security kabuki theatre, overpacked planes, arbitrary cancellation of flights, indifferent ticket and gate agents, identical terminal food franchises, etc. The horror of modern air travel acts as a disincentive to seeking the kind of international renown that demands its use. Then there is the environmental cost. Every flight of reasonable distance consumes a significant amount of each passenger's annual carbon footprint, if we were serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In the future, when (if) the recession recedes, demand for fossil fuels will rise, and production will not be able to keep pace. This is the long-predicted phenomenon of "peak oil," and the economics are clear: when there is no longer any slack between supply and demand, the price will rise steadily, even precipitously. The impact that this will have on air travel will be profound. It will simply no longer be a routine activity, because relatively few will be able to afford the cost of a ticket that is in any way pegged to the actual cost of the fuel.

As this unfolds, we will all have to reevaluate our rationales for travel, and our expectations for how that will be accomplished. One likely outcome is a resurgence in travel by rail. Back in the mid-20th century, it was still considered reasonable to expend several days to travel somewhere distant, and this was the case for those in academics as well. An invitation to speak at Yale and Dartmouth? Book it when you have time to take the train there and back. And people were forced to be more choosy about their trips; accepting every invitation would entail traveling 100% of the time.

A return to that slower-paced approach might not be so bad. As I contemplate it, I'm reminded of Ani DiFranco's poem "self evident," written in the days after 9/11. Here's an excerpt:

here's to our last drink of fossil fuels 
let us vow to get off of this sauce 
shoo away the swarms of commuter planes 
and find that train ticket we lost 
cuz once upon a time the line followed the river 
and peeked into all the backyards 
and the laundry was wavingthe graffiti was teasing usfrom brick walls and bridges 
we were rolling over ridges 
through valleys 
under stars i dream of touring like duke ellington 
in my own railroad car i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches 
in a grand station aglow with grace 
and then standing out on the platform 
and feeling the air on my face
--from "self evident" by Ani DiFranco

Sounds pretty good to me.

Brave Functionaries

Over at the U of A's "official" blog, there has not been much activity so far, with one exception.  There have been a grand total of 3 posts, nominally by three different people (though we don't really know who is writing the posts).  Two of those posts have generated a combined total of 1 comment, but the first one has a healthy comment string approaching 20 at this point.  There is a phenomenon that I have observed previously in blog comments that has made an appearance here:  the notion that using one's real name displays a level of virtue and fortitude that is lacking in those who remain completely anonymous or rely on pseudonyms.  Thus, we have the director of the University Bookstore and the executive director of "Ancillary Services" (whatever that is) at the Lister Centre making patronizing comments about people like Keyser Sose, who is actually raising important, substantive issues.  Because he is not using his real name (presumably due to a feeling of vulnerability to reprisals by the administration), they seem to think that this makes the case for devaluing what he has written.

Here's a suggestion:  stop worrying about what name someone else is using, and try actually addressing the points that are coming up.

Elevator Use

So, this morning I rode the elevator in my building to the top floor.  On the ground floor, an undergraduate student, obviously in perfect health, got on and proceeded to hit the button to go up one floor.  (Notably, the elevators are in a large, open stairwell, so taking the stairs would consist of merely turning around from the elevator bank and walking up 22 steps...something I do many times per day.)  The question that plagues me in these situations is not so much why an able-bodied student would take the elevator up one floor (or for that matter, DOWN one floor, which is also common).  The answer is laziness.  No, what I wonder is whether these students have lost all capability of feeling embarrassment.  When I was an undergraduate, I would NEVER have considered doing something like that, and I don't recall seeing many of my peers do so either.  Apart from not wanting to wait for the elevator, I would have worried about looking totally lame to my friends and coworkers.  Are the two generations really that different in how they manage their image?  It appears so.

Colloquy

Well, I tried to drop a comment at the U of A's new blog, Colloquy, but so far it has not shown up.  There was nothing especially mean in my comment, just a discussion of the significance of the name they chose for the blog.  If that's enough to disqualify my comment, then I think we can predict that this enterprise is going to be a colossal waste of time.

Interesting Piece on Technology Lock-In

One of my favorite authors, Neal Stephenson, has a piece in Slate on how the historical development of a particular technology can lead a society to a development pattern that is nonintuitive and clearly not the best solution to that particular problem.  The example he uses is rocket technology, which is enormously expensive (in its current form, to say nothing of the trillions of dollars spent in its development), and does not really provide a viable platform for actual space exploration/colonization.  Furthermore, the circumstances that permitted its development were quite specific, and one can easily imagine myriad scenarios in which this would not have come to pass.  But now, it is extremely difficult for governments or the free market to countenance alternative technologies.

When we think about the many illogical policies our University, our governments, or our society undertake, it is valuable to consider the impediments to clear thinking that arise in such situations.  It's actually quite hard to embark on radically different courses, because human nature is so predictably conservative.

Rerun: On New Students

Some time back, I tried my hand at a more generic blog whose topic was the things that made me grumpy.  It was fun, but life took over and I had to let it go into hiatus.  However, I still like some of my old posts, so I think I will periodically resurrect one that seems to still be appropriate.  Here's the first, written shortly after the annual fall arrival of the undergraduate students, who are mostly missing during the summer months.  There is always a period of adjustment by all involved, perhaps particularly in the case of those who are setting foot on campus for the first time, and display remarkable cluelessness about the mayhem they are causing with their actions.

Every fall brings thousands of new and returning students to our formerly quiet campus. Of course, that's a good thing. One of our primary purposes is the education of said students. On the other hand, the level of douchebaggery that ensues in those first few weeks of the semester never fails to floor me. Here I will focus on one particular aspect, sidewalk and hallway behavior.

How many times have I been walking across campus on the right hand side of a 10-foot wide sidewalk, and had a group of oncoming students 4 abreast approach me, leaving no room for pedestrians moving in the opposite direction? I am not a small person, so if I notice this unfolding, I look the one closest to me in the eye and lower my shoulder to convey a clear message: move or you will land on your ass. Usually they move, though I doubt the lesson has been internalized. Therefore, here it is, in short form: sidewalks are not one-way thoroughfares.

Then there is the corridor gaggle. Oftentimes between classes, I (and many hundreds of others) will be walking through a building, only to encounter a huge clot of students trying to move in both directions. As we progress through the logjam, its origins become clear: a group of clueless students parked in the middle of the crowd, talking while they make everyone go around them. I occasionally provide them with some input about their spectacularly considerate behavior, with said comments typically met with eye-rolling indicating what a buzzkill I am. Well, so what? Maybe I wanted to kill your buzz. Anyway, in short: move to a table or the quad if you want to hold a conversation.

Well, that's my vent of the week. Perhaps in the future I will comment on the tools from engineering who live next door, or the pathetic freshmen who ride the elevator up one floor to get to their lab sections. In the meantime, stay cranky.

Of Course There Are Curves

Macleans On Campus reports the latest on the Kovalyov grading dispute.  They note Dean of Science Greg Taylor's letter that the Faculty does not insist that grade distributions adhere to particular curves in its classes.  (Specifically, the letter states that "...there is no quota of As, Bs, Cs and so on in a course or across sections...")  Then, wishout fanfare, the author of the Macleans piece point out the explanation given by FSO David McNeilly for his decision to recommend the changes that were made (no C-, D+ or D grades given in the original distribution), and link to the GFC Policy Manual that includes a recommended distribution of letter grades for classes at various levels.  These are fairly blatant indications that curves are strongly "recommended," if not strictly enforced.

One has to wonder why the existence of such guidelines is being so vehemently denied.  There is value in assigning grades on a normative basis in large classes where typical distributions of student performance are likely to appear.  This imposes a common expectation for overall class GPA, without the wild variations that could appear if it were left entirely to the whim of the instructor.  For example, I know someone who graduated from the U of A in the 1980's with an Honours BSc in one of the physical sciences.  This person received a grade of "4" in a math class, which those of you who have been at the U of A long enough will recognize as one grade above "fail."  And that was the highest mark in the class.  In other words, the professor teaching this class set an arbitrary (and unrealistically high) absolute standard, and found all the students wanting.  On the other hand, I have a colleague, who is not terribly careful about writing exams, and who ended up with an average grade of 90 at the end of the term.  This was a large section, and there was no way that half the students had achieved sufficient knowledge to merit an "A," yet this was his plan.  It was overruled at the Department level, and I wholly supported that outcome.  Anything else would be patently unfair to the students in other sections whose instructors knew how to write exams that distinguished those who really understood the concepts from those who did not.  Students should not be rewarded simply because chance landed them in a class taught by an incompetent instructor.

If no one felt obligated to hew fairly close to the recommended distributions and overall class GPA, I think it is reasonable to expect an inevitable upward climb in average GPA.  Otherwise, students would undoubtedly punish the instructors who used the full range of grades when their friends were in a section with a class GPA of 3.5.  Grade inflation has seriously damaged the credibility of many institutions, and I don't think the U of A has a lot of credibility to spare right now.

Progeny

If you're like me, you have welcomed the thought of sending your academic progeny out into the world, to build careers of their own and perpetuate some small aspect of your own worldview in your particular academic discipline.  As a large and (at least historically) highly regarded institution of higher learning, the U of A should expect to populate the other universities and colleges of Canada with its graduates.  In fact, there has been a substantial push to increase our graduate enrollment over the last few years, part of the benighted "top 20 by 2020" pipe dream.

But is it ethical to take in and educate ever more graduate students at a time like this?  Despite the ticking demographic time bomb of the aging professoriate in Canadian advanced education, there do not seem to be very many opportunities for young would-be academics.  Even in the case those who are fortunate enough to secure a position, should we encourage them?  The current trend seems to be towards a dissolution of the implied social compact, in which excellent teaching and research were reciprocated with good standard of living, some job security, and an ability to focus on what one does best.  Universities seem to be constantly engaging in trickle-down economics, farming out to departments or even individual professors many of the things that they used to provide.  (A somewhat trivial, but very telling, example is shredding of old exams, which used to be done by our University, but now has to be contracted to outside vendors and paid for out of departmental operating funds.)  More and more forms are required, with no help on the faculty side, but presumably an ever increasing number of functionaries to generate them within the administrative bureaucracy.  Faculty salaries are not coming close to keeping up with the cost of living. Federal research funding is flat or perhaps decreasing slightly.  Is this going to be a good life for those who manage to crack into it?

So, my question is, what are you telling your best students, those who could compete for good jobs anywhere?  Are you encouraging them to consider academics?  Law school?  Or perhaps they should aim for administration, a field with seemingly unlimited growth potential, and no accountability.

On Mobility

I imagine part of the dynamic in the present contract negotiations is a confidence on the part of the administration that disgruntled faculty members have few options--as in, "If you don't like what we're offering, why don't you see what you can get at another university?"  This is based in part on some magical thinking about how U of A salaries compare to those of our peer institutions in Canada and the US, and perhaps partly based on a systemic disrespect for the quality of our faculty.  The former is easily addressable via Statistics Canada, but what about the latter?

My reason for suggesting that our quality is not appreciated can be seen in the University's repeated focus on recruiting "real stars" to Alberta--the clear implication is that this is something we lack.  Of course, how many stars are going to be attracted to an institution that is laying off staff and squeezing faculty salaries?  These are not the hallmarks of a vibrant academy with a bright future among the "top 20," whether in 2020 or some other time.  Instead, what I foresee if some of the less favorable scenarios come to pass is the departure of a number of our excellent faculty--stars, if you will--who are, in fact, quite movable.  These are people who have built successful careers here, raised the profile of the University, and remained despite various negatives (iffy funding commitments from a capricious government; -40 days in winter; no mountains or oceans nearby) out of loyalty or some expectation that long-term prospects for the institution are good in an oil-rich province.  These notions will be put to the test in the near future.

The fact is, there are many outstanding faculty at the U of A who receive regular inquiries from other universities, and some of whom are lost even in the best of times through either an unbeatable offer or personal reasons driving a move from Edmonton.  It will be interesting to see if there is a measurable uptick in departures among this elite group in the next couple of years.  So, my question to you, the reader:  have you recently updated your CV?  Do you actively contemplate putting yourself on the market?

First Things First

Here at the University of Alberta, we're living through some nerve-rattling times.  We have an administration that seems to alternate between ham-handed authoritarianism and duplicitous platitudes, while undoubtedly being leaned on by a borderline inept government thrown into chaos by the abdication of the Premier after a surprise attack by a fifth column on the right flank.  For academic staff, their salary for the next three years is under negotiation, and despite the U of A's mediocre compensation relative to other major universities in Canada, there is reason to believe that staff will be asked to settle for 0% cost of living increases at a time when the inflation rate in Alberta approaches 3%, though a news blackout on the negotiation means they won't find out for sure until the proposal is up for vote.  Many of us who work at the University feel powerless and completely unappreciated.

It is with this situation in mind that I have decided to create this blog--mainly as a forum for my own ramblings, but also as an opportunity for others to share their concerns or tidbits of information.  In this respect, I am inspired by Jeremy Richards' excellent blog Whither the U of A?  This is not meant to duplicate his effort, but perhaps provide an alternative forum, especially for those who are impatient about commenting.  While I completely understand Jeremy's position on comment moderation, I am reflexively free speech in my thinking, and with the veil of partial anonymity accorded by blogger, I will permit people to comment without prior inspection.  However, please note that I will always reserve the right to delete any comment that I consider defamatory or offensive.

I hope that some will choose to visit this nascent site, and offer up their insights to the rest of us.