The 2011 Mind-Set of Faculty (Born Before 1980)
By Bruce Krajewski
As an antidote to Beloit College's annual Mindset List (the latest
version is being released this week), designed to orient faculty and
administrators to the cultural touchstones that have shaped the lives
of incoming freshmen, I hereby offer, for the benefit of students and
administrators, a similar list of characteristics of faculty members
who were born before 1980 and who teach at public institutions. Are
faculty members' mind-sets less important than students'? If you prick
our mind-sets, do they not bleed?
1. The faculty members freshmen will encounter are likely teaching
more and larger classes and doing more "service" than ever before at
the same pay or less as faculty were three or four years ago.
2. A growing percentage of faculty members rarely meet in person the
students they are teaching, thanks to absentee learning, more commonly
known as online education.
3. Freshmen will encounter some faculty members who first used
"iPhone" as a noun and a verb, as in "I will phone, I have phoned,"
etc.
4. Faculty members who have been teaching for more than a decade are
most likely indifferent to the Kardashians, celebrity-wannabe
housewives, desperate or otherwise, from any city or county on either
coast, especially the ones from New Jersey.
5. Those same faculty members are regarded by many parents,
administrators, and state legislators as lazy, inefficient, and
unaccountable. If it were not for all the work the faculty members
must do, they would have the time to live down to those expectations.
6. The faculty members freshmen will encounter in the classroom are
probably untenured and working part time, with many employed at more
than one institution and feeling loyalty to no employer.
7. Faculty members born before 1970—we have to reach back a bit
further here—are usually willing to help students learn how to pretend
to give a damn about their education, and are involved in less
absentee teaching and learning than their younger colleagues. (This
issue is addressed here.)
8. Faculty members born before 1980 said "Wii" to express the euphoria
they felt as children when sledding down a hill.
9. Faculty members born before 1980 rarely feel a need to respond
immediately to anything and have particularly "procrastinaty"
reactions to messages that students label "urgent."
10. Faculty members born before 1980 remember a world in which people
lived entire days without access to bottled water.
11. Faculty members born before 1980 (and who didn't live in Seattle)
remember a world without Starbucks, in which people made their own
coffee each morning. In those days, tap water was potable and
"barista" was not yet a word typically spoken outside of Italy.
12. Freshmen will encounter some faculty members who used to work at
institutions where faculty governance did not require the inclusion of
administrators, advisory boards, and regents in academic decisions.
13. Faculty members born before 1980 grew up during a time when "like"
represented the beginning of a simile, rather than a piece of verbal
confetti.
14. Many faculty members prefer Mae to Kanye West.
15. Faculty members who have been teaching for more than a decade
remember when C was an average grade students received in courses,
because it represented an ancient concept called "satisfactory."
16. Faculty members who have been teaching for more than a decade do
not refer to students as "customers," and to anyone as a
"stakeholder" (not even Buffy, if those faculty members even know who
Buffy is).
17. Faculty members born before 1980 remember when the word
"chancellor" referred to a short German person with a mustache. (In a
way, it usually still does.)
18. Freshmen will encounter some faculty members who can recollect a
time when sports coaches were other faculty members who were not
receiving million-dollar salaries. (See here what the world of student
athletes has become.)
19. The same faculty members can recall when stadiums were built
without sky boxes for indulged alumni, and when tailgating meant that
you were following too closely behind someone while driving on the
highway, all the while neither talking on a cellphone nor texting.
20. We (i.e., the "they" the Beloit people use to refer to anyone
older who is not "you" freshmen) never used libraries as restaurants
or coffee shops. We faced books; we did not facebook.
21. The "you" that is you will eventually become the "they" that is
us.
22. "We" never promoted Jonas Brothers-like/Palinesque abstinence
campaigns, which is why some of "you" are here, able to read this
list. You're welcome.
Bruce Krajewski is a writer and translator. He also works as a
professor of English at Texas Woman's University.
On Aug 22, 7:36 am, Chambi Chachage <chamb...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> >From: Blogger <no-re...@blogger.com>
> >To: chamb...@yahoo.com
> >Sent: Monday, August 22, 2011 7:31 AM
> >Subject: [UDADISI: Rethinking in Action] It Takes a Village Library to Educate a Girl ...
>
> >A recent article on A Professor Raise a Library in His Native Town in Zambia has reminded me of a professorial couple's initiative in Tanzania. As far back s 2009 they have been working on building a girls education centre that "will be used as a community library for everybody while focusing on girls". Let's hear from them as we follow their 'Long Walk to Readership':
>
> >"As a young girl, my parents did not like to send me to school, but my father decided to teach me reading the Bible. Through this, I was able to read at the age of five. One day I saw a magazine, which was promoting education as part of United Nations [UN] efforts to implement Universal Primary Education [UPE]. By then, I just read it and understood that a girl can study. Then I went back home I told my parents to send me to school. They refused at first and agreed later, and then I started school because there was such a magazine donated by UN efforts. In the magazine, there was Nyerere, our president giving a speech on the UPE policy. Reading gave me good news, I started self-development, and since then things had never been the same. This is a long story of mine, but currently I am doing my PhD and a University lecturer. If there were no such books, I would not be writing to you." - Aurelia N. Kamuzora, 14 October 2009
>
> >"Anybody who like to know the impact of Nyerere policies of Ujamaa and equality, I am a good case study and I like to use it to impact parents and the young girls not only in Karagwe, but also in any grassroots communities of Tanzania. The message is about the pro-poor families to invest in education, morally and social support of their children. Building schools everywhere is nothing if there is no participatory approach like what Nyerere did. I like to support the government efforts in education provision. Without Nyerere's policies of government interventions, people like us would have been somewhere else." - Aurelia N. Kamuzora, 15 October 2009
>
> >"For some of us who have been fortunate enough we have an obligation to try to give back to our communities. Aurelia (with very scant help from me) is about to complete construction of a similar, but definitely smaller, library building project in one of our villages in Karagwe. It is our hope that once the construction is done we will conduct a "book"raising event to get books, particularly the local ones" – Prof. Faustin R. Kamuzora, 20 August 2011"We started with construction and the second step will be mobilizing resources to fill it with relevant books. We are also promoting green movement where people in the village plant trees to restore Mother Nature. Also, Green Movement gives the villagers an opportunity to benefit from carbon credit of the polluters. We are doing this through Green for Education and Poverty Alleviation Trust (GEPAT). GEPAT is a purely voluntary organization that focuses on future generation and clean air. We invite
>
> anybody to contribute to our efforts, not only in Karagwe but somewhere else in Tanzania. Our activities are available at:www.gepat.co.tzThanks a lot for the story from Zambia. Our initiative in our home village is still ongoing. The "Girls Education Center" is under construction. We are currently finishing. We are working together with different donors, but our own effort is almost 50% contribution. We hope it will give an impact to some young children, especially girls. It is located in Kituntu Village, Kituntu Ward, Karagwe District and Kagera region. At the beginning it was a nightmare, but now it seems that we have been able make a change. Thank you for encouragement through the Zambian Case" - Dr. Aurelia N. Kamuzora, 21 August 2011
>
>
>
> >"These are the photos sent by one of the volunteer working with us. These volunteers are among the young children we have been supporting (sponsoring) to acquire education. He is a boy waiting for the selection to join the university. The girls are still not doing well when it comes to examination performance. We believe that with the Girls' Education Centre (GEC) which will be full of books while we will continue with role modeling, many girls with similar background like us will be motivated to perform well in their respective schools. Ultimately, they will pursue it further to universities and beyond - Dr. Aurelia N. Kamuzora, 22 August 2011"Anybody who donates a book does more than a person who donates money in Africa" – Aurelia Ngwira Kamuzora
>
> >--
> >Posted By Blogger to UDADISI: Rethinking in Action at 8/22/2011 01:15:00 PM
--
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