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.
------------
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.
----------------
I'll continue this conversation in my next post.
Showing posts with label Bendnotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bendnotes. Show all posts
Thursday, December 12, 2013
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.
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!
___________
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.
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 |
But enough about local lore. Back to talking about ME!
___________
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.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
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.
_______________
"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.
____________
* 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?
_______________
"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.
____________
* 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?
Saturday, December 7, 2013
LY #75 Report on the Faculty Forum 1988 "Strike?"
 |
| COCC Library 1991 (Now Modoc) |
"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.
____________________________________
Tomorrow's post: C. and Kake talk about the meeting.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
LY #51 Teaching in a small town
When I moved to Bend, it's population was around 20,000 people. According to the Bend Area General Plan, written in 2005, the 1990 Census for Bend counted 20,469 people within the city limits. In my Bendnotes 3 written in October, 1988, I wrote about what it meant to be a college teacher in this small town.
I was writing about a colleague who was having trouble doing research on campus because she couldn't hide the identities of the people about whom she was writing.
"Why can't [she] disguise her subjects? Cause this place is so f***ing small, that's why. You figure it out. I'm the speech department, for Burke's sake! At least, the only full time faculty.
"At least three students have mentioned that they have seen me 'running' around town. I have to assure them that I 'jog' not run. A woman faculty member told me a story about having an affair with a married man (and, I mean, is it my face which tells people they should tell me their life stories as soon as we sit down for a cup of coffee? Or is it the cowl and rosary?). She and he met only at her place until they finally decided to risk meeting each other during the day at a coffee shop out in the big-ugly mall (the Mountain View Mall -- home of GI Joe's and K-Mart). Faculty doesn't go there. So, he is there and she walks in. As soon as she walks in the owner of the joint comes out from behind the cash register and says, 'Hello Professor ______' * and shakes her hand. When she sits down, she is waited on by one of her students.
"On Saturday, when Will was in town, he and I went down to Penney's (BIG SALE) where I saw one of my older students and her son, a young fellow who, she reported to me yesterday, was amazed that she had a teacher younger than her and that her teacher had a TAIL.**
"Well, you can imagine!"
* Yes, the original letter has that blank space.
** My first four years at COCC I wore my hair short with a rat tail.
As everyone knows, Bend grew rapidly during the 1990s. By 2000, the city was up 31,560 in population, which, according to the Bend General Plan was more than three times the statewide average. According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2010 the population of Bend was 79,109.
I was writing about a colleague who was having trouble doing research on campus because she couldn't hide the identities of the people about whom she was writing.
"Why can't [she] disguise her subjects? Cause this place is so f***ing small, that's why. You figure it out. I'm the speech department, for Burke's sake! At least, the only full time faculty.
"At least three students have mentioned that they have seen me 'running' around town. I have to assure them that I 'jog' not run. A woman faculty member told me a story about having an affair with a married man (and, I mean, is it my face which tells people they should tell me their life stories as soon as we sit down for a cup of coffee? Or is it the cowl and rosary?). She and he met only at her place until they finally decided to risk meeting each other during the day at a coffee shop out in the big-ugly mall (the Mountain View Mall -- home of GI Joe's and K-Mart). Faculty doesn't go there. So, he is there and she walks in. As soon as she walks in the owner of the joint comes out from behind the cash register and says, 'Hello Professor ______' * and shakes her hand. When she sits down, she is waited on by one of her students.
"On Saturday, when Will was in town, he and I went down to Penney's (BIG SALE) where I saw one of my older students and her son, a young fellow who, she reported to me yesterday, was amazed that she had a teacher younger than her and that her teacher had a TAIL.**
"Well, you can imagine!"
* Yes, the original letter has that blank space.
** My first four years at COCC I wore my hair short with a rat tail.
As everyone knows, Bend grew rapidly during the 1990s. By 2000, the city was up 31,560 in population, which, according to the Bend General Plan was more than three times the statewide average. According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2010 the population of Bend was 79,109.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
LY #27 Notes on a No on 8 event, 1988
These notes are from Bendnotes 4, December 3, 1988. Most of this letter is about COCC politics and intense moments in teaching. But I want to finish up my chatter on queer issues with this materal.
"Background: remember that I told you I had signed or was going to sign an ad which would run in the local paper asking people to vote "no" on Proposition 8, a state proposition designed to make it legal to overthrow Governor Goldschmidt's proclamation that people who work for the executive branch of state government should not be fired because of their sexual orientation. It was called the Gay Rights proposition. Those who supported proposition 8 did to great extent because they were fundamentalist Christians or because they believed the arguments of the creators of the proposition that it called for 'special rights' for homosexuals. The No on 8 people (the group was called Oregonians for Fairness) used the image of Jerry Fallwell and the lines, "'It's not right. It's not fair. It's a witchhunt!' to try and convince Oregonians to support the bill. They didn't mention homosexuality at all. So anyway, I had heard from ---- [name given in letter] a local gay leader (owner of the antique store . . . which has the dance party every Saturday night at one of their buildings, . . . [This antique store] is 10 minutes out of town north on Highway 97.) --- had told me that Orde Pinckney had agreed to sign the petition. I then agreed to sign and gave him a list of names of my colleagues. (I did not tell my colleagues that I had done so.) He called them, got them to sign. And the ad was published over the week-end before elections.
"We lost."
Much of the rest of this last Bendnotes is about conversations I had with the COCC liberals who had signed the petition when many of us attended a post-election party at the antique store. I am saving those discussions for later posts.
I suppose this would be a good place to say that I was also on the founding board of Central Oregon chapter of PFLAG, the secretary and member at large for a year or two and spent several years as the editor of the newsletter. (Pretty much a cut and paste job.)
Finally, I want to note that "coming out" is, in some ways, a never ending process if one doesn't have a super-close fit between the culturally "understood" stereotyped signs of a particular identity. Although I have been "out" since high school, many people look at my life and assume that I am heterosexual because I am in a long-term relationship with a man and, let's face it, because I wear my hair long and chemically stressed.
"Background: remember that I told you I had signed or was going to sign an ad which would run in the local paper asking people to vote "no" on Proposition 8, a state proposition designed to make it legal to overthrow Governor Goldschmidt's proclamation that people who work for the executive branch of state government should not be fired because of their sexual orientation. It was called the Gay Rights proposition. Those who supported proposition 8 did to great extent because they were fundamentalist Christians or because they believed the arguments of the creators of the proposition that it called for 'special rights' for homosexuals. The No on 8 people (the group was called Oregonians for Fairness) used the image of Jerry Fallwell and the lines, "'It's not right. It's not fair. It's a witchhunt!' to try and convince Oregonians to support the bill. They didn't mention homosexuality at all. So anyway, I had heard from ---- [name given in letter] a local gay leader (owner of the antique store . . . which has the dance party every Saturday night at one of their buildings, . . . [This antique store] is 10 minutes out of town north on Highway 97.) --- had told me that Orde Pinckney had agreed to sign the petition. I then agreed to sign and gave him a list of names of my colleagues. (I did not tell my colleagues that I had done so.) He called them, got them to sign. And the ad was published over the week-end before elections.
"We lost."
Much of the rest of this last Bendnotes is about conversations I had with the COCC liberals who had signed the petition when many of us attended a post-election party at the antique store. I am saving those discussions for later posts.
I suppose this would be a good place to say that I was also on the founding board of Central Oregon chapter of PFLAG, the secretary and member at large for a year or two and spent several years as the editor of the newsletter. (Pretty much a cut and paste job.)
Finally, I want to note that "coming out" is, in some ways, a never ending process if one doesn't have a super-close fit between the culturally "understood" stereotyped signs of a particular identity. Although I have been "out" since high school, many people look at my life and assume that I am heterosexual because I am in a long-term relationship with a man and, let's face it, because I wear my hair long and chemically stressed.
Monday, October 7, 2013
LY#22: Marxist Guilt, 1988
In a final addition to the September Bendnotes (dated September 27) I sign off with this paragraph:
"EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA
Stay tuned next time when you'll hear about Kake and the politics of the PhD. How she found herself to be one of the elite who bought her position through an ideological construct over the long time experience of more polished teachers who do not have terminal degrees. Watch Kake battle her Marxist guilt!!! Thrill as she fights the demons of leftist conscience."
When I got my name sign on my office door in Deschutes, the blue rectangle wasn't wide enough to cover the screw-holes on either side of it. These holes marked the the name of my predecessor, a teacher with a longer name. Someone let me know that this teacher had created two of the classes I was teaching and had applied for the position but that I had been hired instead because I had the PhD.
I wasn't yet "the Man" in those days, so this discovery bothered me. In fact, it pretty much bothered me until about nine years ago when this same teacher came back to teach for COCC again and wound up walking away from the school in the middle of a quarter, leaving myself and Dr. Jon Bouknight to step into the three un-personed classes. The information I got from the students when I conducted a "talking stick" debriefing settled what was left of my itchy conscience.
I remember telling my fresh new colleague Sean Rule that the experience had changed my mind about teaching speech.
"I used to think any idiot could teach public speaking," I told him, hollering across the lawn near the Metolius Building.
And he, dear young fellow, hollered back, "No, it takes a special kind of idiot!"
"EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA
Stay tuned next time when you'll hear about Kake and the politics of the PhD. How she found herself to be one of the elite who bought her position through an ideological construct over the long time experience of more polished teachers who do not have terminal degrees. Watch Kake battle her Marxist guilt!!! Thrill as she fights the demons of leftist conscience."
When I got my name sign on my office door in Deschutes, the blue rectangle wasn't wide enough to cover the screw-holes on either side of it. These holes marked the the name of my predecessor, a teacher with a longer name. Someone let me know that this teacher had created two of the classes I was teaching and had applied for the position but that I had been hired instead because I had the PhD.
I wasn't yet "the Man" in those days, so this discovery bothered me. In fact, it pretty much bothered me until about nine years ago when this same teacher came back to teach for COCC again and wound up walking away from the school in the middle of a quarter, leaving myself and Dr. Jon Bouknight to step into the three un-personed classes. The information I got from the students when I conducted a "talking stick" debriefing settled what was left of my itchy conscience.
I remember telling my fresh new colleague Sean Rule that the experience had changed my mind about teaching speech.
"I used to think any idiot could teach public speaking," I told him, hollering across the lawn near the Metolius Building.
And he, dear young fellow, hollered back, "No, it takes a special kind of idiot!"
Saturday, October 5, 2013
LY: #20: Whiny, Pathetic, Narcissistic, Loneliness - 1988
A sad part of those 1988 Bendnotes is the shouting loneliness of the person writing them. My young self had a strange idea that these long, digressive, overwritten missives were being read. In the September 22, 1988 note she, I, write(s):
"As I enter the second week, I shall continue to keep the old eyes peeled for interesting happenstance. Since all but one of you have ignored my last set of notes, and that one merely commented that s/he thought it was well written (a sign more of my lack of style than of his/her perspicacity, I fear), I shall simply write what I think interesting."
In the following note, written in late October, has an opening more appropriate to someone who might be writing a weekly editorial, not a set of photocopied letters.
"Well gentle readers. Perhaps you have noticed the lateness of this episode. Perhaps you wondered whether or not the woman you knew had given up her attempt to reconstruct her experience in this strange new world. Perhaps you though I had abandoned you.
"But never fear. This process by which I hold back, hold off the reality of my experience by continually conceptualizing it as a construction I send to you keeps me from being truly caught up in the ineluctable substance of the moment.
"At least it did until a short while ago. . .." After that line, my use of metaphors and Monty Python references spirals out of control as I say that I've been watching too much television while I'm not at work. I also refer to an old Wayne and Shuster comedy routine about television addiction which I'm sure none of my friends had even heard of by using the line, "the gal with the golden eyeball." If I look at these old letters with the eye of my therapist I see an Enneagram 4 whose "basic desire" is "to find themselves and their significance, to create an identity out of their inner experience." (This is from Riso and Hudson's The Wisdom of the Enneagram). Or I could see someone with a "narcissistic wound," (this concept also courtesy my current therapist) who is caught up in the importance of proving she's just as important as she thinks she is. What I've also learned about myself since two decades and 1/2 ago is that I score very high in "uncertainty avoidance." Any situation that is unstable and unknown (like a brand new job) sends me into high stress mode and I see that too in these letters.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Last Year #11: Advising, continued continued
Today, advising was . . . weird and very, very easy. On my way down to Pioneer Hall, still the computer building, I saw my colleague Matt Novak who said that the morning advising had "Five students and thirty teachers." He suggested the students might have been a bit frightened by all those folks focusing on them.
And so it was during my shift. There were about 12 profs and in the first round (12:55) 5 students and in the second round (2:10) about 7 students. The only person I spoke with was a middle aged man who's wife was the one who wanted to be a student. Unfortunately she wasn't there because their child had a health emergency. I didn't know if FERPA even allowed me to talk with him as a representative for her. And I had no proof he was who he said he was. It was a complex situation and I didn't know how to handle it so I towed him to another room and another person.
So, having all those profs without students felt like a waste of resources. There was a time when students came to our offices. My friend Lilli Ann asked if I could remember when it was they took us out of our offices and put us into bulk advising. She liked it better when we saw students in our offices because we could get actual work done between advising appointments. I actually enjoy the bulk advising because I usually only see a couple of students rather than five or six. Today I saw only the guy with questions for his wife.
Then I went home home where my dumb phone got a text from the school that OSU Corvallis and Cascades had received an unspecified threat.
Back in 1988 (from Bendnotes September 22), after surviving the day when I had to take over for my sick colleague, I wanted to see the rest of the registration process.
"On Thursday morning I wandered over to Pioneer Hall (the math/computer building) to see what registration looked like. As I walked past the tables, I overheard a student complaining about me. "I went to see Miss Monaghan, but this other lady talked to me instead and . . .' the whine signified some fatal error on my part. Well, and it was only fair because I had spent some time complaining about her to [the other new teachers] the night before. She had taken almost an hour of my time. She had wanted a photography class which had a 2 hour lab the middle of Tuesday afternoon. Well, she could only take classes Tuesday and Thursday. She would not take classes before 9 (10 if she could help it) in the morning, nor would she take classes in the evening. And then she complained about the way the college scheduled the classes. My favorite of her questions was, 'What can I take for one credit on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at 1 pm' [at this point the writer shared thoughts of being very mean to the student]. Her tone told me that it was the school's fault or my fault that she couldn't make a pleasing choice. I finally started using phrases like, 'Well, you've limited your choices,' and 'you've certainly given yourself some tough rules.' If she hadn't whined, and sat in my office and stared at the schedule for minutes at a time, I wouldn't have been so aggrieved. Another individual, a young fellow, had come to my office with similar problems in scheduling, but he owned his choices, so it didn't bother me."
And so it was during my shift. There were about 12 profs and in the first round (12:55) 5 students and in the second round (2:10) about 7 students. The only person I spoke with was a middle aged man who's wife was the one who wanted to be a student. Unfortunately she wasn't there because their child had a health emergency. I didn't know if FERPA even allowed me to talk with him as a representative for her. And I had no proof he was who he said he was. It was a complex situation and I didn't know how to handle it so I towed him to another room and another person.
So, having all those profs without students felt like a waste of resources. There was a time when students came to our offices. My friend Lilli Ann asked if I could remember when it was they took us out of our offices and put us into bulk advising. She liked it better when we saw students in our offices because we could get actual work done between advising appointments. I actually enjoy the bulk advising because I usually only see a couple of students rather than five or six. Today I saw only the guy with questions for his wife.
Then I went home home where my dumb phone got a text from the school that OSU Corvallis and Cascades had received an unspecified threat.
Back in 1988 (from Bendnotes September 22), after surviving the day when I had to take over for my sick colleague, I wanted to see the rest of the registration process.
"On Thursday morning I wandered over to Pioneer Hall (the math/computer building) to see what registration looked like. As I walked past the tables, I overheard a student complaining about me. "I went to see Miss Monaghan, but this other lady talked to me instead and . . .' the whine signified some fatal error on my part. Well, and it was only fair because I had spent some time complaining about her to [the other new teachers] the night before. She had taken almost an hour of my time. She had wanted a photography class which had a 2 hour lab the middle of Tuesday afternoon. Well, she could only take classes Tuesday and Thursday. She would not take classes before 9 (10 if she could help it) in the morning, nor would she take classes in the evening. And then she complained about the way the college scheduled the classes. My favorite of her questions was, 'What can I take for one credit on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at 1 pm' [at this point the writer shared thoughts of being very mean to the student]. Her tone told me that it was the school's fault or my fault that she couldn't make a pleasing choice. I finally started using phrases like, 'Well, you've limited your choices,' and 'you've certainly given yourself some tough rules.' If she hadn't whined, and sat in my office and stared at the schedule for minutes at a time, I wouldn't have been so aggrieved. Another individual, a young fellow, had come to my office with similar problems in scheduling, but he owned his choices, so it didn't bother me."
Monday, September 23, 2013
Last Year #8: "But you ARE the man"
A few years ago Sprint ran a great commercial, satirizing certain generation's attachment to images of rebillion. An executive in a tall building in a super modern, clean office with high windows talks about his Sprint plan that doesn't tell him what to do: "I can talk when and how I want. It's my little way of 'sticking it to the man.'"
The younger man in his office (a helper? junior exec?) says "But you ARE the man."
Older man in navy blue suit says, "I know."
Younger man in brown suit says, "So you're stickin' it to yourself."
"Maybe."
This is the plight of my generation of managers and leaders. We want to keep our self images as rebels but really, if we hold any position of power, we are "the man." In spite of my tattoos and love of whisky, (and no, Google, that isn't misspelled, not if one drinks single malt scotch) I'm still a rule setter and follower in my workplace.
I recognized my own position in the power system as soon as I arrived. Here is another paragraph from my Bendnotes letter to friends at the U of U, 9/13/1988:
"At our department meeting on 9/12, Monday, I learned that last year the meeting had been attended by 7 people. This year it was attended by 21. (There's been a 20% increase in students since last year, which itself had showed {sic} a rather dramatic increase over two years previous.) I also learned that I had kicked several people out of the office I am now imperialistically inhabiting. People come by my office, look in, and say how nice it is. They admire the many shelves and the oak desk. Needless to say, this makes me more uncomfortable that happy, and I have apologized to people, a sort of 'forgive me for being an imperialist' soft of thing. Most folks don't understand this attitude. They look ahead, of course, to the day when I get booted."
I wrote this way because many of those teaching the in the UofU department of communication at that time (mid '80s) was left wing theoretically and committed to post-Marxism, post-structuralism, and the analysis of race, class, and gender. I tried my best to put the principles of those beliefs to work in my classrooms, making sure that everyone knew the rules, enforcing the rules with fairness, and not requiring students to read my mind to figure out how to earn a good grade. Nevertheless, I was and am still the one in charge of the economics of the classroom, and therefor "the man" in that circumstance. I was also a mid-level bureaucrat for four years while I was the FA&C department chair. I was charged with maintaining a system that is, in some ways -- the payment of part-timers and adjuncts, for example -- incredibly unfair.
Yet all the time there remains a part of me that believes in myself as anti-authoritarian. This is probably the same part of me that wouldn't be surprised to see a unicorn in my garden.
The younger man in his office (a helper? junior exec?) says "But you ARE the man."
Older man in navy blue suit says, "I know."
Younger man in brown suit says, "So you're stickin' it to yourself."
"Maybe."
This is the plight of my generation of managers and leaders. We want to keep our self images as rebels but really, if we hold any position of power, we are "the man." In spite of my tattoos and love of whisky, (and no, Google, that isn't misspelled, not if one drinks single malt scotch) I'm still a rule setter and follower in my workplace.
I recognized my own position in the power system as soon as I arrived. Here is another paragraph from my Bendnotes letter to friends at the U of U, 9/13/1988:
"At our department meeting on 9/12, Monday, I learned that last year the meeting had been attended by 7 people. This year it was attended by 21. (There's been a 20% increase in students since last year, which itself had showed {sic} a rather dramatic increase over two years previous.) I also learned that I had kicked several people out of the office I am now imperialistically inhabiting. People come by my office, look in, and say how nice it is. They admire the many shelves and the oak desk. Needless to say, this makes me more uncomfortable that happy, and I have apologized to people, a sort of 'forgive me for being an imperialist' soft of thing. Most folks don't understand this attitude. They look ahead, of course, to the day when I get booted."
I wrote this way because many of those teaching the in the UofU department of communication at that time (mid '80s) was left wing theoretically and committed to post-Marxism, post-structuralism, and the analysis of race, class, and gender. I tried my best to put the principles of those beliefs to work in my classrooms, making sure that everyone knew the rules, enforcing the rules with fairness, and not requiring students to read my mind to figure out how to earn a good grade. Nevertheless, I was and am still the one in charge of the economics of the classroom, and therefor "the man" in that circumstance. I was also a mid-level bureaucrat for four years while I was the FA&C department chair. I was charged with maintaining a system that is, in some ways -- the payment of part-timers and adjuncts, for example -- incredibly unfair.
Yet all the time there remains a part of me that believes in myself as anti-authoritarian. This is probably the same part of me that wouldn't be surprised to see a unicorn in my garden.
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