LY #82 Fired!

Ha ha.  Not now.

Kakie Hanson 1970

Then.  I was fired from my first job as  teacher.

It was 1970 and I was a senior at Los Gatos High School where I was the editor of El Gato, the school newspaper.  There, with the very mild direction of the late Ambrose Haggard, I directed my motley crew in the biweekly construction of a newspaper.

For some reason I also got a job that fall teaching 4th Grade CCD (Roman Catholic Catechism) at St. Mary's School.  The class met for about an hour every Monday around 4:00 pm.    I don't remember how I got the job or why I thought I wanted to do it.  Nor do I remember all that much about my experiences in the classroom or what passed for my "pedagogy."  I probably was  bossy. (My hero teachers at the time were men and women who said things like, "Who told you this classroom was a democracy?")  What I do remember is that I procrastinated terribly in preparing my lessons, usually reading the chapter in the little book an hour before class started.  I also remember one little girl who spent the class reading books that sat on her lap below the desk.  I was pulled between wanting to engage her attention especially and wanting to leave her alone (I saw myself as a 4th grader in her behaviors.)

So, how did I get fired?

Well, I got a call one weekend at this time of year.  I was told that my services would no longer be required.  I wasn't told why.  I felt terrible.  I cried and begged and said that I'd been doing my best and what had happened?

At last I found out that someone, perhaps a parent of one of the children in the class, had not liked what I'd written for my holiday "Edi-Taurial" for the El Gato.  My schtick was to write a lead up into a punchline I'd stolen -- something I'd heard somewhere else.  So, for example, I'd ended my first "Edi-taurial" with the stolen punchline, "We must grab the bull by the horns and face the situation."  Stolen from where?  I forget.  It's been 43 years!

El Gato Edi-taurial, Kakie Hanson, 12/18/70

Anyway, the punchline I stole for the December 18, 1970 El Gato, was "Keep the Satyr in Saturnalia."  I talked about myself as a pagan.  So, clearly, I could not be the same person as the high school student teaching 4th grade CCD.  One was committed Roman Catholic, one was a self-confessed "pagan."   Could they share the same room at the same time?

Well, they couldn't share the same job.  Not in 1970.  What's interesting to me now is that I was so stunned that the behavior in one life, my life at school, and my behavior in another life, my life in church, had any influence on each other.  I've learned, through very helpful therapy, that this ability to believe that the separate areas of my life, like home and church, church and work, work and home -- are truly separate from each other -- is really a sign of an un-individuated self.

So.  That's the story about my first time teaching and my first time getting fired.  Not an auspicious start to a long career that will soon be ending.

LY #81 Kake and the Administrators

Continued from Friday the 13th's post.  More of  Bendnotes 4. 

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      Some weeks ago I was at lunch up at Grandview.  I sat at the buffalo's table.  The president and [the instructional dean] start talking about hunting.  I talk about folks I knew in Poky [Pocatello] who would use hunting season to collect their family's winter meat supply.  Then I ask about how the meat is prepared.  I actually asked the president if he ever sat aside any elk burgers for charming new faculty people.  He said that he would if I wanted some.  (I saw him again last week and he said, "I've put aside something for you.")  After more chit chat, I turned back to [other faculty at the table] with a smile which I hoped told them that I understood that I had been sucking up and that the choice to do so had been a conscious one based on organizational discomfort and that they should not think that I really thought them less important as humans than [the president].  At least I hoped my smile said that.

      I went to talk to the [instructional dean] about my PIP (professional improvement program.)  After we went over just what my PIP needs to look like, he and I got into an argument about women's vs. men's ways of knowing and that relationship between logics and power structures.  At one point I remember that I was sitting on the edge of my chair, cutting him off, and saying that I disagreed because of xx.  I have forgotten what it was I was saying.  But I remember (in part because I've told this story a couple of time already) that he sat back with his hand covering a big smile.  . . . A few days later as I was talking with a student about communication climate, I realized that when [the instructional dean] had told me in the fall that he had thought he'd never survive his first two years at a community college, he had been helping establish a positive communication climate for me.  I went in and told him what I had told my student and thanked him.  Was I sucking up?  I didn't experience that particular incidence as sucking up.  I experienced it as a move in establishing a relationship with one of the few people on this campus with whom I can have a good argument.

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 As I copied the first paragraph above I realize that for years I've remembered that conversation with the president as happening at the first Faculty/Administrator retreat.  Much of what exists in the Bendnotes no longer exists in memory.  Memory is an odd thing.  As you can see I'm also editing out some names.  Some of the stories in Bendnotes might also invite ire, even after two and a half decades so I've decided to leave them out.  But one of my SO F.n YOUNG colleagues has asked for copies so he'll get the unexpurgated versions.

I only have a couple more pages of Bendnotes to share and I think I'll wait until next quarter to do so.  The person who wrote them -- so self-monitoring, so terrified -- seems familiar but different from the person she became.

Tomorrow night I'll tell the story of the first teaching job I ever had which was also the first job from which I was ever fired.  Then I'll go into a no-blog zone for the Holiday holiday.
 

LY #81 Faculty view of Administration 1988

Continued from yesterday's post.  More of my conversation with Don at Buffet Flats, December 2, 1988 from Bendnotes 4.  NOTE BENE [Accuracy disclaimer]:  Please note that all discussion here about contractual issues may have been deeply flawed by the weak understanding of the person doing the reporting back then.


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      Don talked about how the president . .  has come to identify himself very closely with the organization over the past couple of years.  "It seems like the president and the school are the same thing," he said.  He told me that a month ago he had been in the president's office where [the president] had been yelling at him and shaking a finger in his face.   Don seemed amazed that he would be yelled at by the president. . . .

      . . . I said that it sounded like paternalism, but that [the president's] paternalism had helped the school over the years.  Don agreed, and in his agreement mentioned how wealthy the school was, indicating that the funding the school has achieved over the years is much due to [the president].

      But he is afraid that no real changes will be possible until a new president comes in.  I didn't ask, because I didn't have the presence of mind to do so, what that meant in terms of the negotiations.

      Don is also disgruntled with the president and administration because of the standards being set up for promotion and for appropriate use of the professional improvement time.  See, we have to agree )(through our professional improvement plans) to do 8 weeks of professional improvement work over a four year time period.   All the college people do.  Part of the current negotiations involve a fight over how those 8 weeks will be spent (professional improvement can mean going to summer school, going off on a dig, etc.  Needs to be a formal program, of sorts.)

      The administration wants to say that the 8 weeks have to be spent in blocks of 6 and 2 and 4.  Don suggest that this decision supports and aids only those faculty members who are academically oriented.  Don suggests that this decision supports and aids only those faculty members who are academically oriented.  He says that the college has four different tasks:  developmental education (beginning writing/reading, bonehead math); college preparation, vocational-technical education; and (I think the last was) community eduction.  Vo-tech people, for their professional improvement, are more likely to go away for week long programs in industries like at general motors.  If the administration decides that only 2 and 6 or 4 and 4 is appropriate, they will be constraining the work of vo-tech people, making it very difficult for them to get their professional improvement plans through the system.  According to Don, the administration legitimates this choice by saying that it's just too difficult to let people decide for themselves what the best time period is.  that it's too complicated to let some folks take a week at a time while others take 8 weeks at a time.  Interesting that the choice will be made on the side of the academic types.  Don thinks that the president wants the college to go more and more toward the purely academic.  don believes that that would be a mistake and a denial of the many roles the school needs to play.  He also told me that the president wants to get rid of the developmental courses because they don't look good (he indicated that the president wants the school to have a national reputation).

     "Like our track program."  Don was talking about his amazement about the track team.  It's the first year we've had a competitive sports program.  And, in our first year,  COCC's track team came in second, nationally, in its division.  Don was amazed, but he also seemed to be suggesting an analogy that I didn't quite follow between what's happened with the track team and what the president wants to do with the school.

      In talking with Don, I positioned myself as a good guy, concerned about the region and its needs.  I don't think this was just an act.  But you be the judge.  I find that I am just too many people these days.  I wonder what will happen if they all get together in a room at the same time.

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Tomorrow's post from Bendnotes 4:  "Kake Positions Herself as a Friend of the Administration"

LY #80 1988 Conversation with an Older Colleague

I continue with the evening of December 2, 1988, at the non-victory party at Buffet Flats as reported in Bendnotes 4.   After the brief notes on my conversation with Hal, I had a long report on my conversation with Don, a member of the Faculty Forum's bargaining committee.


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      We begin by talking about the stress of doing different kinds of labor.  I had snapped at a student in the hall the day before, caught myself, apologized, and then been called on the carpet by that student in our class.  I shared this story with Don. . .  He said that sometimes he snapped at students when they interrupted the administrative work he was doing.  I said that he could close his door.  He said that he was forced to do that sometimes but that he hated to, because it gave the impression that he was inaccessible.  I said that if he worked for a university he would have to worry about that.  (Our organizational culture at COCC, and perhaps at many community colleges, laces students first.)  He talked about having to almost have two different minds -- his administrative mind which he could cut off and cut out if a student came by, and his teaching mind.  This of course gave me the oportunity to talk about my experience of being constructed very differently by my different classes (I said that I was much more open in in interpersonal, much tougher in speech) but that I was lucky because I teach about the way communication constructs us.  As I spoke, Don smiled, and responded sometimes by saying, "Yes, I can see how that would be very hard."

      I was interpreting some of Don's responses to me as being very similar to my responses to my students.  He used support strategies and responded to my presentation of myself as challenged by my job.  I have heard that the math and science department here seems to be a paradisical organizational culture.  I began to see, by Don's supportive communication behaviors, how that culture may be constructed.

      I wanted to get some information about how the negotiations were going along.  So I began to talk about the class structure at COCC.  [Here I discuss my interactions with a friendly part timer who had developed one of the courses I was teaching but who bore me no ill will.]  

      Don talked about how they were trying to get support for the part timers, so that people who worked hard for this institution were rewarded for doing so.  He said that the administration supported their position by saying that they were already paying part timers here more than any other Oregon community college.  Don talked about the bargaining team's position that a first class institution should deal with all its employees equitably.

      I talked about how I had felt a lot of friendliness here -- that no part timers . . . had treated me, personally, like the enemy, even though they had every right to do so.  I chose this strategy to reveal to Don that I understood the ways in which economics can influence interpersonal interaction.  I wanted to create a sense of identification.  I also wanted to provoke a sense of protectiveness in him -- I was disclosing a weakness (the desire that people like me, and my own sense that other people might not think I'm ok) and I expected him to respond to that exposure of weakness by showing me that I was ok.  I hoped that he would do so by reciprocally disclosing information about how the organization worked.  This reciprocal disclosure would show me that I was ok -- trustworthy, believable, a concerned citizen.

      He did.

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I'll continue this conversation in my next post.
    

LY #79 December 1988

On December 5, 1988 I wrote Bendnotes 4, the last issue of these reports back to my friends in Utah.  Over the holiday break I realized that no one back there really cared, so I didn't continue on with the letters.  My next few posts draw from this final communique. 

Back in October I wrote a bit about the No on 8 campaign.  (For more information on Measure 8, see this report on the outcome from Balletopedia or  this article at the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest. )  One of the primary movers and shakers of the Central Oregon resistance to Measure 8 was Gene Carsey.  Gene and his partner ran the antique store Buffet Flats, located ten minutes north of town.  On  December 2, 1988, they held a Christmas Party for people who had signed the advert against Measure 8 published in the Bend Bulletin.   My next three posts will focus on two conversations I had at that event.

Map of The Funny Farm from Roadside America

Before copying the first conversation, a few words about Buffet Flats.  It was located across the street from what is now The Fun Farm.    I first visited Buffet Flats the day after my job interview in April, 1988.    At that time it was a many-roomed antique store in which the sound system, and a few television sets (including a miniature one in a large doll house) played the The Wizard of Oz on a continuous loop.  This1993 story in The Seattle Times gives you a flavor of what it was like a few years before.   Its wacky and very queer existence suggested that Bend was far more liberal than further years of experience would substantiate.  I often attended the gay-centered Saturday night dances at The Other Side, one of the outbuildings on the Buffet Flats property.   For a bit more information on the odd-ball creation of Gene Carsey and the late Mike Craven, you can see this short video from Weird TV (made before Mike's death in 2005) or the 2008 entry to Roadside America.  Reviews with a bit of "history" can be found on Yelp.  Local Photographer Jill Rosell has a 2010 photo essay on the weed overgrown site.

But enough about local lore.  Back to talking about ME!

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      I had a chat with Hal Gillespie (who is an old timer here and who works down thehall from me.)  Hal poisitions himself as a left liberal.  He is a "card carrying member of the ACLU" and is often involved in liberal causes.  He is tall and rather fat, with a round face and a gray beard.  Hal is going to Princeton next week to read for the college boards.  He said, "Bart [dean of instruction] isn't happy about it.  He doesn't like people leaving."

      I wonder why.

      Because Hal is leaving in the middle of the week and will be late getting his final grades in.

      And Hal said, "But if he was really upset, all he'd have to do is ask me to stay.  I'm obedient."

      Hmmmmm.

      I had a bit more chat with Hal about a video we were watching on MTV out at the dance area.  It was the Material Girl video, and we talked about the way is quoted "Diamonds are a Girl's Best friend."  We shared our knowledge of the 50s period of film making.  I talked about how the dancers in the Madonna video were looser in their bodies than fifties boys chorus lines.  He noted that the set screamed of the style of Hermes Pan.  I was very aware that we were positioning ourselves (I very consciously) as fellow experts in historical/aesthetics.  I did not argue when he made a couple of statements I thought weak or fallacious because I was not at that moment into argument -- I was into creating identification with a fellow worker.

LY #78 Last President's Holiday Party

Today I attended my last President's Holiday Party.  I've enjoyed this annual event almost every year of my two and a half decades.  There's always something tasty and this year seemed especially flavorful.  Among the treats were apple slices with bacon, stuffed mushrooms, various meats, nuts on each table, crab cakes, shrimp cups, Swedish meatballs, brownies, mini-creme brulee, cookies, coffee, eggnog and a few other items.  Everything was made by Sodexo, our campus food service folks ( Headquarters: ISSY-LES-MOULINEAUXStock price: SW (EPA)€71.22-1.32 (-1.82%) ).  While the meals in the cafeteria often taste rather tautologically like meals in a school cafeteria, these treats were well prepared and flavorful.

The hall was decorated by Julie Smith, the president's administrative assistant, who told me that she  got a special deal on the deep-hued poinsettia's that lined the shelf along the wall.  She also oversaw the hanging of the wreaths and the tree decorations.  She has worked very hard on the event every year of her tenancy in the big office.

The president himself, Jim Middleton, will be going on vacation in January, sailing around the Horn.  He'll be leaving the brand new VP of Instruction in charge while he's out of the country.  We'll see if the school falls apart during that time.  (I doubt it will.)

Fezziwig's dance, A Christmas Carol

This annual functions like Mr. Fezziwig's does in A Christmas Carol, as a way of making happy the working folks, though our college president doesn't have the power, as Mr. Fezziwig does, of making our service light or burdensome.  Our various rulers are more dispersed and include the State Board, our college Board, our disciplines, and the shared understanding of common practices.  Thus, Jim Middleton can't be said to have the power of Fezziwig.


And unhappily, there was no dancing.

LY #77: 1988 "Kake Gets Evaluated"

COCC Bookstore 1991 in Grandview

From the October 22, 1988 Bendnotes 3

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      Darla ___, doctorate in psych from Berkeley, ex-radical . . . with . . . a habit of touching you when she's speaking to you, attended my 1 o'clock Fundamentals class on 9/30, and my 12:30 t th Fundamentals class on 10/13.  After the Thursday class, we met down the hill at a coffee shop called the West Side Bakery.  

      When she attended my class, I introduced her and told them who she was, saying, "Now you get to see a real live tense public speaking evaluation."  I am very up front with my students about my position in the Biz -- if asked, I tell them my contract says "probationary".  I had told my T Th class that Darla would be there -- and boy, did they perform well.  On that day I was introducing the Public Speaking in Oregon project (my own idea ....) But the evaluations.  I had them write out on a piece of paper the finish of these two sentences:  "The in class evaluations were most useful when . . ."  "The in-class evaluations were not useful when . . . "*  Oh my, but they responded wonderfully!  they talked about how the evaluations were best when they were honest and included both good and bad, and not just good.  After each comment, I paraphrased.  Ah.  What a lovely class.  Lots of dialogue, lots of concern for the students.  They seemed comfortable with me.

      During our talk, the biggest advice Darla gave me was to sit down when I lectured -- that when I stood I talked too fast.  And that I should also relax, because when I am nervous I look awfully severe.

      When I shared this story with my class, I saw Rob, a large blond fellow smiling wikedly.  "Yes Rob?" I said.  "Nothing," he replied.  "Just a short joke."  "Yes?"  "I thought you were standing up!"

      That's how my students treat me.  They tease me.  

      So.  Darla seems to think I'm Okay.

 ________________________

* By "in-class" evaluations I was talking about the oral feedback I used to have students give each other right after a round of speeches was finished.  I now have all feedback given in written form for three reasons:  1) a new speaker's quite literal inability to actually hear and process feedback given right after a performance 2)  the face-threatening nature of any honest critical practice and my need to keep the speech class a "safe" place 3) student reluctance to criticize other students.

LY #76 1988 Continued: The PhD Issue

Tonight's post continues with the happenings on October 6, 1988, as recorded in my Bendnotes 3.   Last night's post was my 1988 report on a Faculty Forum meeting.  Tonight I'm typing up a couple of discussions that occurred after the meeting.

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"C. and I talked with Don after the meeting.  He gave us the story of Fred's decision to turn the school toward the PhD.   He also told us that "while I respect Ward a lot" that they don't see eye to eye -- Ward is perceived as being very close to the administration.  As we walked back to the office, C. and I shared with each other our concern about being the bad guys, the professional guns brought in to take the place of those who were good teachers but who didn't have the magic letters after their names, or who weren't committed to the PhD myth.  Although she is a Dr., she and I agree that a belief that the PhD means something about an individual's ability to teach is a belief in magic.

{By the way.  I figured out this week that little of what I learned about teaching at the U of U is useful for this job here.  The major job of a teacher here, still, is to try and teach, not to sort out the wheat from the chaff for the replication of an archaic and oppressive disciplinary society.}*

When we got back to Deschutes, we ran into Mary Monaghan, and she eased our minds by telling us that we wouldn't have been chosen if we had not been seen as potentially excellent teachers as well.  She was especially nice about me, remind me that she had supported and fought for me strongly.**

. . . So.  That's an overview of part of the political situation here.  Sometimes it's real interesting to me.  Since my depression sat in, it's mostly been really dreadful.

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*  To understand this comment, you need to know that at the University of Utah graduate students often taught one of the three "weed" courses.  A weed course is not one in which students smoke weed.  (Yeah, I know what you were  thinking.)  It was a course in which the teacher, usually a graduate student at the U Comm dept, was required to bring in a classwide GPA of no higher than 2.4 because these courses were designed to "weed out" those students who supposedly didn't have the smarts to do great work in the communication program.  Weeding was necessary because communication was one of the most popular humanities programs so their needed to be a gateway to entering.

The required C+ class GPA meant that almost every high grade (B and up) needed to be balanced with a lower grade.  If a graduate student like myself allowed a class average to slip upward toward 2.8 or, heaven forfend, a Stanford-like 3.3, then we would have been "spoken to" and threatened with the loss of the teaching assistantship.  Because I was at the U. only because I had the assistantship (which covered my tuition AND gave me enough to pay for rent and food as well) I did my job as required.  Of course, being who I am, I often told the students about the weeding I was required to do.  When one of the major departmental faculty heard about my honesty, she was very upset and told me that, "It's not a good idea to be too truthful with them."  And yes, she was someone who touted a left-wing, post-Marxist ideology.

One interesting aspect of this kind of grading requirement is that a student who might get an A in one class because they outshone the other folks, might have pulled a B or lower in another class where there were more high performers.  An undergraduate's grade in these classes had as much to do with the other students in the class as with his or her own abilities.  Thank all the powers that bee that I haven't been required to grade like this since I left the U.  Nowadays, I have a set criteria for an A which I really believe almost every student in my classes can reach if they do the work.

** Reading once again about Mary's comment about fighting for me leads me again to think that I was the second choice of the COCC hiring committee.  I wonder how I could find out for sure?

LY #75 Report on the Faculty Forum 1988 "Strike?"

COCC Library 1991 (Now Modoc)

Here is some information about the Faculty Forum from my Bendnotes 3, 10/22/88.  Remember that this is a letter written back to my fellow graduate students at the University of Utah after I moved to Oregon for my big, new job.  __________

"October 6 -- 7 - 8 am, Faculty Forum Meeting
                  -- 8:00 - 8:20  Don G. talks to C. [a hire from my year], Kake
                  -- 8:20 - 9:20 -- C. and Kake Deconstruct

Faculty Forum

      Faculty  Froum is the name given to the faculty union.  The faculty at COCC no longer belongs to any of the national teacher's labor unions.  Instead, every teacher at COCC is a member of the union automatically ($10 per paycheck goes to the union.)

      C. and I met up at Deschutes and walked over to Ochoco 5, a room in one of the sciences buildings with chairs attached to risers and tables of the elements on the walls.  It isn't odd for things to begin at 7 am around here because so many folks have to be at work at 8.  (My first class on Thursday isn't until 9:30).

       Bruce N. (the geologist) called the meeting to order.  We votes to accept the minutes.  We then voted for a new member of the College Affairs committee.  Even though there were new folks there, no explanations were given as to who the people were we were voting for and what their stands were in regards the committee.  They stood up, we looked at them, and then we wrote our votes on little slips of paper and handed them to the front.  C. and I sort of giggled about the guesswork we were doing . . .

        Then Don G. -- a clean shaven fellow with a round face, a muscular body (slightly gut spring) blow dried hair and a Dukakis-Bentson button, got up to explain the history of the negotiations.  He said that there were five major issues:  Faculty governance, professional improvement, faculty loads, contract language, and salary-and-insurance.  Those are in order of importance.  The first two issues are centered on the question of the PhD.  It seems that two years ago, President Fred got a bee up his butt about PhDs -- he decided that those sabbaticals and professional improvement plans which were directly related to producing terminal degrees were those which would get the most support.  The administration here decided that without any by-your-leave, handing it as  a fait accompli to the faculty.  Needless to say, as teachers in a community college (the job of which is to serve the community, not some disciplinary body) the profs here didn't cotton to the PhD idea.

        After discussing the main points, G. went on to give an overbiew of the history of the negotiations.  They started last February.  they originally talked to a team of familiar administrators.  Then the administration brought in a lawyer from the outside.  Things got bogged down, and everybody went away for the summer (I am not telling you all the details he told us about negotiation -- I have notes on it but you'd just be bored.)  When they cam back, they fond that president Fred still won't budge, so it looks like a mediator is coming in from Portland.  (Arbitration is illegal in Oregon.)  What's going to happen is anybody's guess.  Ten years ago there was a similar upheaval, but Fred held out and the faculty rolled over.  G. reported that Boyle has said that "Mediation won't do any good."

       It's a tense situation.  Boyle is retiring in two years.  The faculty, which has accepted Pres. Boyle's paternalism for 20 years, is afraid that the new pres will be even more difficult to work with.  There was talk at the meeting about the possibility of a strike, but someone said that it wasn't likely unless the faculty had more backbone that it did 10 years ago.  Someone mentioned that there was a new school board now which might be more supportive of the faculty.  The "ultimate authority" is the board.

      L. (a middle aged woman from nursing) asked twice during the meeting if Don wanted a vote of confidence.  He said no, that that wasn't necessary at this time.

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Tomorrow's post:  C. and Kake talk about the meeting.


     


   

LY #74 Speech Professors at Meetings . . .

 can be a real pain in the ass.  I mean, we're always critiquing what we see, either out loud or in our heads, letting our annoyance roll out through our eyeballs.  We teach this stuff so we tend to get cranky if the bare bones protocols of "how to have a productive meeting" aren't followed.   Today's Faculty Forum meeting was no exception, as I knew it wouldn't be.  I really didn't hanker to go except that I wanted to blog about it and I figured that, rather than bitching about past meetings of which I have faint memory, I should get up to speed on the haps.   Ah, there was much to be annoyed by.

First of all, the reason for the meeting is, in itself, a problem.

According to the Faculty Forum constitution,

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Section 1.  Regular Meetings

Regular meetings of the Forum shall be held at least once each term during the regular academic year.

This requirement already violates one of the key issues of productive meetings, that meetings should only be held when necessary.   According to Susan Detwiler, a non-profit management consultant, there are three reasons to hold a meeting:  to inform, discuss, and decide.  Other folks believe that meetings should NOT be held only to inform.  (That's what I've taught in my small groups class.

Another concern is that meetings have agendas with clear time limits.  While there are many places on the web where you can find this info, I'll just cut and paste these rules from Student Life at the University of the Incarnate Word (oh, how I love that name!)

1. Announce or establish time limits for potentially lengthy agenda items (apportion time in accordance to importance of items).
2. Start with and stick to the agenda; do not let people drift off onto other subjects, or tangents. 

Other aspects of the agenda to consider are these: 

Focus and time are incredibly important so that people attending the meeting don't feel as if their time is being wasted.  Here are some ideas from the wonderful Community Tool Box created by folks at the University of Kansas.  These quotes are from "Conducting Effective Meetings."

"Keep the discussion on track  If someone's going off the agenda or is speaking too long, pull 'em back in! Be gentle but firm: people respect a meeting that's run well and remember all too clearly the meetings where someone was allowed to go on and on and on.

"Watch the time!   Remember about starting and ending! Honor agenda time limits. If the group seems to want to go beyond the agreed upon time on an issue, ask for agreement from all members. A statement such as, "We've already used our allotted time for this issue. Would everyone like to continue on the topic for another ten minutes, or shall we go on to the next item on the agenda?" can be a good way to take the group's pulse on the matter."

I bring these points up because when I arrived, rudely and late at 12:20 there was a curious discussion going on.   The speaker, a faculty member, was talking about the "Diversity Committee" bringing up an issue related to promotions.  There was some back and forth in the group of teachers about why the diversity committee was getting involved in promotions.  Another faculty member (we'll call him Professor Grup because even though in his forties he dresses like an 18 year old urbanite circa 2002) started a back and forth with the speaker about whether this was because there were people who had experienced discrimination in the promotions process.  There was about six minutes (maybe 10?) of ring-around the roses about why the diversity committee was concerned with promotions when finally another faculty member said that he was ON the Diversity Committee and what they were concerned with was giving faculty points for doing what they could to promote diversity, like driving to Madras to do a class.  At this point, the chair of the Humanities department spoke up and said, "We already do that.  So it's a done deal."

Since I'd come late, I figured that my confusion was in part my own fault for walking into a discussion in progress.  But when the diversity committee member commented that the previous discussion had all been completely off track (it wasn't even on a train) then I decided that it wasn't just me.

Then, the professor giving the presentation went on to talk about some ideas he had about quantifying the promotions process.  (COCC promotions information may be found here.)  His speaking style was annoying to me because he repeated his ideas far too often for an audience of his peers.  He said, "You are all smarter than I am," over five times and "This may be a good idea, it may be garbage" over ten times.  But what capped it all was finding out, well into his discussion, that a couple of year previous there'd been a task force which had already done all this work and which through long and arduous discussion had decided that certain issues (types of service work, types of community service) could not actually be quantified.  Two members of that task force, which had met every week for two years, were in the audience and yet they did not stop him until very late in his presentation.  I wish that they'd spoken up earlier.  They were, perhaps, overly concerned with politesse and not enough concerned with keeping the meeting focused and purposeful.


So, the speaker had not done his homework.   But then, it's difficult to find out about certain historical issues.  Where on the website is the information about that previous task force made clear?  Who passes along the information?  Why was this person even on the agenda?  We are currently an institution that lacks a coherent understanding of its own history.

By the way, here is the agenda I received by email for this meeting (with names taken off to protect the innocent, as Jack Web used to say).

Announcements, various discussion items

            Dean of Health Sciences Update –

            Promotions Process discussion –

            Bobcat Orientation Debrief/Info – 

You notice there are no time limits?  This was another big problem.  At one point the speaker was told "two minutes" but he didn't get off the stage.  He kept talking and repeating himself.

Ok.  Here is my speech teacher preference.  If I were going to give advice to the speaker, it would have been,  1.  Tell the audience what your key point is"  "Last year I created a quantification of the types of items that would turn up in four areas that count for promotions."  That's an information item.  2.  Follow up with a HAND OUT of the quantification and say, "This is what I came up with.  You may agree or disagree."  3.  Brief statement of the reason for the quantification.  "Giving points to activities clarifies what counts for success and can reduce stress and modify time spent in doing activities that don't count.  4.   "Any questions?"

This would have taken three minutes, five tops.  

Instead, there was confusion, repetition, and an insult to the hard work done by a previous committee.  Ack.

At one point the person running the meeting (I'm not sure if it was the union president or someone else) said, "You have two minutes left."  But the talking professor went on for TEN EFFING MINUTES after that.  Arrrrrrrgh.  One has to be willing to tell people to STFU.  In a polite way, of course.  If done it on committees and if I, with my deep fear of conflict, can stop people at the end of a sentence and say, "We've run out of time," then ANYBODY can do it!

Really, the discussion was a pretty awful example of meeting dysfunction.  I would have hated it but because I knew I'd be blogging about meeting dysfunction, I was happy that what I'd been expecting actually occurred.  (Now, did it occur because I was expecting it?  Did I only see what I expected to see?  I'll let my readers decide.)

The reason for formal rules in meetings is to prevent this kind of confusion and craziness.  Formality is good.  It's like courtesy.  Its a way to grease the wheels of civilization and help the trains to run on time.

Was it ever thus?  Tomorrow I'm going to look over my old Bendnotes and report back.

LY #73 The Cost of Innumeracy

 Today a student decided to make-up a missed assignment.  She wasn't at her number when I made the second phone call a couple of days ago.  By making it up she changed her course grade from a D to an A-.  How could that be?  Well, the non-defensive response to criticism is worth 1/3 of a set of two communication skills assessments.  These two assessment are worth a full 30% of the course grade.  That's a chunk!  Not performing the second skill makes 30% of the course grade an "F." Two other students who missed the assignment have decided not to make it up. I don't get that.  It's a relatively easy assignment and very costly if missed.

My assumption is that innumeracy is partially to blame.  I recognize the symptoms because I myself have issues with numbers.  I have not taken a math class since my sophomore year in high school.

How is that possible?  I managed to squeak through my undergraduate years during a period when math could be replaced by language courses.  (Odd, I know, but there ya go.)

Now, I did like math when I was in grade school.  I was actually part of an SMSG (School Mathematics Study Group) core in 4th grade and learned set theory. Yes, the New Math!  As kids we called it Some Math, Some Garbage or Some Mad Scientist Goofed.

Example of an old score sheet

I really enjoyed it.  In fact, I did well with math until that ugly geometry class in high school.  The lady teacher whose name I have forgotten was rough with me -- making fun of my incompetence and slowness.  After that, I just got scared and rather than seeing math as an opportunity to expand my understanding of the world, I saw it as another opportunity to fail.

Thus, as you might imagine, when I started calculating grades as a teacher, I faced a bit of a struggle.   Before I learned to use the grading software Micrograde and its uplink called Webgrade, I used a score sheet with the grade weights calculated.  (See the facsimile.)  Then, for each student, I would add up the sums.  This way of doing things was incredibly tedious and often required careful thinking when students were close to the next score up.  It made finals week each quarter a nightmare.

And no, I've never learned to use a spreadsheet.    

Sample student Final Grade

Now I use Blackboard, of course, because the school had to get rid of the expensive but (to my mind) far more user friendly Micrograde (Webgrade).  I was one of the few people still using it.  Blackboard is okay, though, now that I'm more used to it.  The best thing about any weblinked gradebook is that the students can access their scores anytime they like.   That means they can keep track of their grades and make sure that I'm not making entry-errors.  I love sharing the responsibility there.

But sadly, there are still those who don't understand how the math works. 

LY #72 The Party of Memory

Photo under the influence

Got a bit squiffy last night on a couple of terrific dark beers at the Broken Top Bottle Shop.  I enjoyed a glass (not a pint) each of Lovely Cherry Baltic Porter from Bend Brewing and Old Rasputin Imperial Stout from North Coast Brewing.  Both smooth, rich, not too hoppy and high in alcohol content.  I had three sliders to soak up these happy brews.

The occasion was a party for the 20+ years group at COCC.  Ron Paradis held the first such party a couple of years ago when he hit that mark then didn't have time for a reprise last year.  So there we were again, the oldsters, some older than others, and some retiring sooner than others.  Many of us somewhat nonplussed at having reached our advanced years of service.

It was a pleasant couple of hours with much "how things have changed" discourse, including comments about the current crop of students and the problematic levels of chaos in upper level administration at the college.  (The perpetually sunny Ron, of course, as public representative of the college, would never critique our students or administration, rest assured.)  As we talked about students, we also recognized that some of our "they were better back then" simply has to do with our age.  But, of course, we're not the only ones to perceive a certain level of entitlement in the current youthful crop.  And the distraction associated with perpetual mediated living is now a cliche.

Hal's snowflake w. flash

When I got home I was reminded again of the passage of time as my spouse and I decorated our Christmas Tree.  Many of the decorations were presents given to us at a holiday party/house warming we hosted in 1990 a few months after he moved to Bend.  Sadly, my poor memory no longer makes all the appropriate connections between the ornaments and past friends.  But each year I recognize the pewter snowflake as a gift from Hal Gillespie, who died far too soon after that event.

If I weren't going to work in a couple of hours I'd be tempted to raise one more potent glass to the memory of all who are gone but remembered in the darkest time of year.

LY #71 Evolution of an Assignment

Our Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) for Interpersonal Communication include these:

 4.  Students will recognize that perceptions vary and demonstrate the ability to perform perception checks.
6.  Students will demonstrate active listening through the use of paraphrasing, authentic questions, and reflecting.
8.  Students will demonstrate how to respond non-defensively to criticism.
10.  Students will explain the steps of win-win conflict resolution, including the clear message format for asking for behavioral change.

Over the years I've assessed student abilities in these areas both orally and in written form.  Since the mid-nineties, I've used an interactive method of testing their abilities with active listening, the non-defensive response, and the clear or assertive message format.  In my live classes, I take students one at a time into the hall outside the classroom where I have a very brief conversation with them. While these students are being assessed, the rest of the class is meeting in groups to work on a quarter-long Team Project.

To assess their active listening, I share a real personal problem with them and then listen for them to used the appropriate skills in responding to me, primarily paraphrasing and asking authentic questions.  I don't want them to give advice, even advice hidden inside of a question, so advice-giving assures an automatic "C" in the task.

To assess their abilities in the non-defensive response to criticism, I give them the opportunity to select among a set of possible conflict situations

Conflict situations (pick one and tell Huck which you've chosen):

1. A and B are roommates.  A is upset with B for not doing the chores that have been agreed on.
2. A and B are friends.  B has borrowed three of A's tools and not returned them.
3. A and B are co-workers.  A is upset with B for not getting work done and putting their department in a bad light.
4. A and B are in a small group in a college class.  A is upset with B for not showing up to class for group meetings.
5. A and B are relational partners.  A is upset with B for forgetting their anniversary.
6. Make up your own situation and tell Huck her role.

Once they've chosen a scene, I get myself into character as the person who is upset with them.  Then I start the scene with a raised voice and accusing them of something without clarifying why.  For example, with #1, the most popular scene, I start off by hollering, "[Student Name], you are such a slob!"  After that, the student usually asks, "Why do you say that?"  After which I make up a scenario which displays a lack of commitment to a roommate chore agreement.  Then they are supposed to say something about how they understand why I would be so upset.

For most of this century I've assessed the clear message format during the same interaction as the non-defensive response, so I tell the students to reverse the roles and they use the "good" communication skills to ask me (the slob or whatever) for behavior change.

When I started teaching interpersonal online I tried to get the students to meet up outside of class to test each other on these skills.  It soooooo didn't work.  First, it was difficult to get people to meet.  Second, if a group of four people met, it was typical that two of them hadn't read and practiced the skills until the meeting so they weren't ready to be tested.  That's why I started making two phone calls to each student each quarter, one for the listening skills and one for the conflict management skills.  Sadly, I still needed to review the assignments each time I called and the switch-off in the second call from being the recipient of the critique to being the assertive member of the duo was always difficult to manage.

That's why during this, my last year, I placed the clear message format into a quiz and the past two days have simply been calling up my students and yelling at them! After a friendly greeting ritual (which Monday involved asking about their holidays)  I ask them which conflict situation they have chosen and then say, "Now I'm going to take a moment to get into character as .... your upset roommate" or " . . . your irritated coworker" or " . . . your unhappy relational partner."  Without the long, long introductory explanation the calls are much less like being a telephone solicitor.

Stillshot from Assertive Message

By the way, a couple of years ago I made two Xtranormal cartoons to help with this assignment.  (Oh, how I miss this recently deceased online tool!)  See them at my Doc Huck Youtube site:

Non-defensive response 

Assertive Message Format

#70 Creating Content is HARD!

Yeah, I guess you could read that either way.  CON-tent or con-TENT. 

I took the Thanksgiving Holiday off from this blog, though not necessarily from my classes.  I did do some work -- made a little video to say goodbye to my online classes, graded final assignments, dealt with whiny students, you know, the usual.  But, more to the point, I enjoyed time with friends and spouse and ate a lot of pie.

Enjoying my life is a high value for me.  When I did a values analysis a few months ago I rated "pleasure" well ahead of "status."  This may be one reason that I am a community college teacher.  Tonight I want to respond briefly to an article by Rob Jenkins in the November 12 Chronicle of Higher Education.  In "It's a Viable Career Path," Jenkins rails against graduate programs which take money from suckers, oops, I mean hard-working students without informing them about one of the major career avenues, community college teaching.   He goes on to celebrate the joys of working at a community college.

He notes that many university graduate program teachers are ill-informed about community colleges and see them as just a "pit-stop" in the race toward bigger and more status-filled job opportunities.  That wasn't the problem I faced.  Some folks at Utah were actually against their students getting CC jobs.  One of my professors expressed it in words to this effect:  When we spend so much time and effort on educating you, it's our investment.  That investment doesn't pay off if you go into community college teaching.  It's like we wasted our our time when we see you take that route.

In a way this makes sense.  At that time communication programs at the research universities were sometimes ranked with an algorithm that included how many articles those who had graduated from the programs published in any one year.  So, if a student went on to get a non-publishing job it DID have the power to lower the statistics for that particular department. 

I have no data to back up my belief, but I would imagine that the prejudice against CC teaching is still alive.  That's why I had to laugh at this rather Pollyannish comment about the silliness of thinking that any job outside of the research university would be thought a failure for a PhD.  "I'd like to think that, as professionals and as human beings, we've moved beyond those kinds of petty biases, especially in the face of a deepening job crisis in academe."  

I agreed with his comment, that "based on what I hear and read, the community-college environment appears to be far less stressful." For 18 of our 42 years together, my relational partner was a university professor so I got to see close up and personal what working at a small state research institution was like and the politics, even at such a minor institution, were brutal.  Not only that, but I have friends at universities and almost everything I hear about them convinces me that they are high stress environments.  There's a quote often miss-attributed to Henry Kissinger that "Academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small." 

My experience at COCC has been that while we do have plenty of politics and conflicts, they are rarely vicious.  Not never.  Rarely.  Even as department chair, I faced very few really bad situations.  Of course, the ones I did face convinced me that I never wanted to do administration again.  So I didn't apply for the dean jobs that came up. 

And now, I never will.