I am not sure what it is about October, but I have had more women in my office asking me about how I achieve work life balance. These conversations often turn into a discussion about how they want to go to graduate school, but are really perplexed about being able to “do it all.” I wish I had an easy answer.

I have lots of complaints, er comments, about this. I wish that safe, affordable child care was available for all who needed it. I also wish that better maternity and parental leave existed in the United States and elsewhere. But, it appears that these ideas are too burdensome on neoliberal economic policies and are somehow read as being anti-business. Well, this sort of attitude is anti-family.

To my students, I am able to attempt to balance my life and work thanks to a team of people that includes both of my kids, my partner, our sitter, and my in-laws. I am not embarrassed to share that we have an excel spreadsheet for each term and the columns are each of us in this team and the rows are the days of the week. Seriously, in order to get everyone to work, school, and after work/school activities—this is what it takes in my household.

I do not want to turn into the Bitch in the House, but it is a great book! And, the follow-up Bastard in the Couch is also worth reading. Be ready to negotiate and insist that your partner and you share in the joy and work of being a family.

I am one of those instructors who is more formal. I do expect and hope to get coherent email communications from students. And, I do expect that email communication is treated with the same respect as a face to face visit during my office hours. Thus, I am always a little surprised (maybe frustrated), when I get incoherent emails from students that are written like a text between friends or emails that begin with my first name and are very casual.

No where on my course syllabus do I list my first name. I sign all of my emails and Moodle messages with my title of choice: Prof. A. I even explain during the first lecture that students can refer to me as Prof. A, Dr. A or use my entire last name. There are not invitations to mispronouncing my name! I don’t even go there. This post is part rant and reminder–until an instructor says you can call me by first name–always use the professional title.

It is not surprise that voters in Arizona passed Proposition 107, which bans Affirmative Action programs in state governments, which includes public colleges and universities. For more information about the ban, please see Inside Higher Ed’s great article: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/03/arizona

My home state banned Affirmative Action years ago and the major consequence was that less minority students enrolled in the California State University (CSU) and University of California (UC) systems. The standard reasonings for banning affirmative action vary from: we are all equal now, it is unfair to qualified students, it is racist, and that it is unnecessary. These and other reasons really offer a narrow point of view. If we were to offer an Intersectional analysis to the topic, we could see how it is too easy to dismiss the importance of access and not think about the ways in which gender, race, class, immigration status, parents’ education levels all play into the educational success rates for students. Continue reading →

I am involved in a co-taught course. I lecture 4-5 times and the others professors give guest lectures during the term. I sit in the back and listen to the lectures. Occasionally, I walk around the class and it’s quite breathtaking to see the number of students on Facebook, downloading music/games/movies, and playing video games. Most of the students using laptops are taking notes or have a notes screen up and their email.

Now that I have graded more material in the term and know more students, I see a correlation between multi-tasking, er paying attention, and grades. Granted this is anecdotal and not a scientific commentary that I am offering here. The course syllabus states collegiality and this includes keeping computing to note taking. Perhaps I am a scratched CD here, but there is something to be said about being in the moment in a class and paying attention. Maybe I’m still thinking about Seth’s comment and my post on Oct 29th?! Maybe.

A few times a month, I am a guest blogger on  Equality 101. I recently posted a blog about Catching Students: http://equality101.net/?p=2061

I often post blogs that offer me the opportunity to think critically about my pedagogy in the classroom. As the entry notes, I was a Reader at one of the Advanced Placement exam sites last year. And, recently grading assignments reminded me that sometimes you can give your “A” game to students every day and some of them just are not interested. The class is an elective or is something that they are just “phoning in.” The good news is that with lots of students they will remember the material or get “caught” the next term. My class is one in the series and I hope that a lecture, article, discussion or an assignment interests them.

But, alas, it’s not always going to happen. I don’t blame them for this, and I cannot blame myself. I am only one part of the equation. Like me, they have lives outside of my classroom. But, I will show up everyday and continue to try and catch as many as I can!

One of the things that I didn’t share in my short post about the Social Media Camp Victoria #SMCV10 was all the great connections that I made. I attended the day’s events, went to lunch with a “superstar,” attended and participated in a round-table on higher ed, and moderated a panel. I also saw contacts at the event, made new friends, and left with an overall sense that I had spent the day with “my people.”

Yes, I spent the day with other like-minded people who are using social media to engage. I am not trying to sell anything. I am all about engagement online. And, I am happy to say that I made some new friends at the #SMCV10. Here I am some 9 days later and I am still reaping the benefits of the event. I saw some former students at the event and even heard from a current one that she attended the event. I really look forward to the next Social Media Camp in Victoria. Continue reading →

Today I spent my day with approximately another 460 other people at the Victoria Conference Center in downtown Victoria, BC. Simply put, it was a day well spent. The one thing that I was struck with is how some of the panels and keynotes were geared for those in business or marketing. Yet, in so many instances the sentiments are applicable to higher education. Who is our audience? What is our message? Who are we trying to serve? And, how are we using Social Media to do this? Lots of questions.

We are living in a time of a heightened need for recruitment and retention. The old means of catching students will not always be effective for the new breed of students. Particular to BC, there is more competition among the universities trying to get a smaller number of students. How is your university going to stand out?

I think that one way a university is going to stand out–is by the departments. If the students have chosen your campus, what will you do to keep them there? A common theme from today’s events: relationships matter/people matter. How does a department do this? One way is by community building and making the students feel like they are part of the community. How to do this will vary from one department to another, though.

Hi! I am migrating from Blogspot to Word Press. I’ll be re-posting some of my Blogspot posts on my WordPress site.