The new wave of student activism: the case of Oberlin
May 24, 2016 4:55 AM Subscribe
"On or about December, 2014, student character changed” The New Yorker looks at millennial politics. Nathan Heller talks to many students.
I am surprised that this article barely mentions the internet; it's a blind spot that undermines the whole premise, for me. I was in college from 1999-2003, and in graduate school (and also teaching undergraduates) from 2007-2014, and I remember very distinctly, around 2010, the moment when I realized that I was learning more about activism and ideology from the internet than I was from either the classroom or from other students. Trans* rights, in particular, was a subject that I was reading about online before I started seeing, say, the rise of discussions of preferred pronouns - or, indeed, before I'd had any more than the most passing interaction with anyone who openly identified as trans*, a fact that's frankly shocking to me now, given how dramatically things have changed in a relatively short time.
I think the internet affects contemporary student activism in a few ways - for one, activist movements can spread so much more quickly and that's an amazing thing. People talk and learn and coordinate and plan. Maybe most importantly, they learn they're not alone in their struggles. Conversations about microaggressions seem all about that and 100% enabled by the rise of the internet - you can sense such an unleashed sense of relief when one person says,'here's this small but crushing thing happened to me that I thought I was dealing with alone,' and a hundred or a thousand people rise up to say HEY YOU'RE NOT ALONE SOMETHING JUST LIKE THAT HAPPENED TO ME TOO. It's so, so, so powerful, and I can only imagine what it would have been like to be able to access that chorus of voices when I was in high school - in my mind, it's the silver lining of the social media hellscape that teenage girls, especially, are living in - as hard as the pressure of participation in that world might be, as soon as they are ready to push back against, say, the brutal gender norms of 13 year old Zach requesting NOODZ, they will find a whole lot of brilliant, incisive voices supporting them and explaining what is going on and why it's not their fault.
That said, because I am old, I do think there are snags that can arise in transition from internet to in-person activism - the main one being that (and this is hardly unique to internet activism; it's just extreme in its manifestation) the tone of internet debate is that the world is 100% on fire all the time and everything is worse than it has ever been and that level of intensity works on the internet but in real life is exhausting and unsustainable. I feel like you see this in the way that a lot of the activists are talking about self-harm and suicidal ideation - it's like the only valid excuse for ducking out is to say this is literally killing me.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 5:47 AM on May 24, 2016 [69 favorites]
I think the internet affects contemporary student activism in a few ways - for one, activist movements can spread so much more quickly and that's an amazing thing. People talk and learn and coordinate and plan. Maybe most importantly, they learn they're not alone in their struggles. Conversations about microaggressions seem all about that and 100% enabled by the rise of the internet - you can sense such an unleashed sense of relief when one person says,'here's this small but crushing thing happened to me that I thought I was dealing with alone,' and a hundred or a thousand people rise up to say HEY YOU'RE NOT ALONE SOMETHING JUST LIKE THAT HAPPENED TO ME TOO. It's so, so, so powerful, and I can only imagine what it would have been like to be able to access that chorus of voices when I was in high school - in my mind, it's the silver lining of the social media hellscape that teenage girls, especially, are living in - as hard as the pressure of participation in that world might be, as soon as they are ready to push back against, say, the brutal gender norms of 13 year old Zach requesting NOODZ, they will find a whole lot of brilliant, incisive voices supporting them and explaining what is going on and why it's not their fault.
That said, because I am old, I do think there are snags that can arise in transition from internet to in-person activism - the main one being that (and this is hardly unique to internet activism; it's just extreme in its manifestation) the tone of internet debate is that the world is 100% on fire all the time and everything is worse than it has ever been and that level of intensity works on the internet but in real life is exhausting and unsustainable. I feel like you see this in the way that a lot of the activists are talking about self-harm and suicidal ideation - it's like the only valid excuse for ducking out is to say this is literally killing me.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 5:47 AM on May 24, 2016 [69 favorites]
"Thank God I'm not in academia" -- a daily mantra
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:48 AM on May 24, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:48 AM on May 24, 2016 [14 favorites]
One of Kozol’s favorite critics, the Rutgers scholar Jasbir K. Puar, charges that intersectionality posits people whose attributes—race, class, gender, etc.—are “separable analytics,” like Legos that can be snapped apart
I don't get it, I thought intersectionality was literally the exact opposite of this: that is, intersectionality asks you to think about the fact that the condition of being black and disabled is not just the sum of "the condition of being black" and "the condition of being disabled," but rather has features that are specific to the, y'know, intersection.
posted by escabeche at 5:52 AM on May 24, 2016 [35 favorites]
I don't get it, I thought intersectionality was literally the exact opposite of this: that is, intersectionality asks you to think about the fact that the condition of being black and disabled is not just the sum of "the condition of being black" and "the condition of being disabled," but rather has features that are specific to the, y'know, intersection.
posted by escabeche at 5:52 AM on May 24, 2016 [35 favorites]
Interesting article. I think it's true that intersectionalism/anti-oppression has become more common and more noticeable on college decades in the last 5 years or so. But I went to Brown from 2003-2007, and these same or similar movements (and associated infighting) were happening there, then, too. Perhaps they were just making fewer institutional inroads (and receiving far less mainstream press attention); or perhaps movements were focused on somewhat different outcomes in light of the staggering economy. Either way, I don't think this state of society came about as late as December 2014.
Also, any discussion of the culture of millenials, and specifically current college-age youth, rings false to me without at least a nod to how many of that age group are sitting in jail or prison. This article points to Black Lives Matter as an effect, or a part cause, but totally neglects to notice that folks of color and poor folks with access to elite college institutions are bringing perspectives with them that are often deeply impacted by the fact that large swaths of their communities are incarcerated.
posted by likeatoaster at 6:00 AM on May 24, 2016 [16 favorites]
Also, any discussion of the culture of millenials, and specifically current college-age youth, rings false to me without at least a nod to how many of that age group are sitting in jail or prison. This article points to Black Lives Matter as an effect, or a part cause, but totally neglects to notice that folks of color and poor folks with access to elite college institutions are bringing perspectives with them that are often deeply impacted by the fact that large swaths of their communities are incarcerated.
posted by likeatoaster at 6:00 AM on May 24, 2016 [16 favorites]
Student demands (pdf)
These are interesting to me, because both the article and the start of the demands paint the university (not Oberlin specifically, but universities in general) as irredeemable systems that cannot be divorced for overarching power structures, but many, many of the demands are about working within that system: changing core course requirements, focusing on tenuring/hiring more diverse faculty, better student tracking, more training for faculty, upgrading buildings and facilities, etc.
There's not so much about really revamping/overturning the university experience as a whole--say, by eliminating core requirements entirely, or calling for different types of class structures that reward non-traditional learning styles, or getting rid of GPAs/grades. (See, e.g.,the one student in the article who suggests "But I understand the material, and I can give it to you in different ways. There’s professors who have openly been, like, ‘Yeah, instead of, you know, writing out this midterm, come in to my office hours, and you can just speak it,’ right? But that’s not institutionalized. I have to find that professor.”)
posted by damayanti at 6:11 AM on May 24, 2016
These are interesting to me, because both the article and the start of the demands paint the university (not Oberlin specifically, but universities in general) as irredeemable systems that cannot be divorced for overarching power structures, but many, many of the demands are about working within that system: changing core course requirements, focusing on tenuring/hiring more diverse faculty, better student tracking, more training for faculty, upgrading buildings and facilities, etc.
There's not so much about really revamping/overturning the university experience as a whole--say, by eliminating core requirements entirely, or calling for different types of class structures that reward non-traditional learning styles, or getting rid of GPAs/grades. (See, e.g.,the one student in the article who suggests "But I understand the material, and I can give it to you in different ways. There’s professors who have openly been, like, ‘Yeah, instead of, you know, writing out this midterm, come in to my office hours, and you can just speak it,’ right? But that’s not institutionalized. I have to find that professor.”)
posted by damayanti at 6:11 AM on May 24, 2016
It is weird to me that the New Yorker insists on placing the accent aigu on élite that way. It's like they're not really accepting the loan word, either because they are not willing to accept the ordinary American nature of their own élitism or because they're hoping that someday our élitism will be shipped back to France.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:20 AM on May 24, 2016 [28 favorites]
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:20 AM on May 24, 2016 [28 favorites]
I feel like you see this in the way that a lot of the activists are talking about self-harm and suicidal ideation - it's like the only valid excuse for ducking out is to say this is literally killing me
/me raises hand
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:30 AM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
/me raises hand
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:30 AM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Slightly tangential but I worked as a postdoc in UC Berkeley for a year, which famously was the home of the Free Speech Movement and anti-Vietnam protests in the late 60's. The students I talked to were generally under huge pressure - they had student loans, or had to work long part time jobs, or their parents were paying their tuition (and so didn't want to let their parents down). They knew that the the non-IT job market was going to be crappy when they graduated. They knew they'd be in competition with their fellow students for those jobs. So they just put their heads down and worked really hard and forgot about activism in most cases.
Bear in mind the demographics at Berkeley don't remotely resemble the USA as a whole. It's also a very different place to the liberal arts college in the OP. But I think it's a pressure many students in many countries are under. There have also been explicit threats against students participating in marches in various places - "don't turn up or we'll arrest you and it'll be on your record and you'll never get a job".
posted by kersplunk at 6:32 AM on May 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
Bear in mind the demographics at Berkeley don't remotely resemble the USA as a whole. It's also a very different place to the liberal arts college in the OP. But I think it's a pressure many students in many countries are under. There have also been explicit threats against students participating in marches in various places - "don't turn up or we'll arrest you and it'll be on your record and you'll never get a job".
posted by kersplunk at 6:32 AM on May 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
FTA: "...the Cat in the Cream had a music-themed mural, painted by an alumnus, that celebrated multiculturalism: it featured a turbanned snake charmer, a black man playing a saxophone, and so on. Students recently raised concerns that the mural was exoticizing. “We ended up putting drywall over it, and painting over that,”...
Yes, and this is okay that the painting was covered up. It was a coffeeshop mural, not an old world dutch masters. We can and should recognize the prevalent effects whiteness and privilege has had on everyone not that. The artifacts literally are *everywhere* and it is a massive issue affecting quite literally everyone. The concern in this article is just disbelief that our society really is as fucked up as marginalized people say it is.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:38 AM on May 24, 2016 [27 favorites]
Yes, and this is okay that the painting was covered up. It was a coffeeshop mural, not an old world dutch masters. We can and should recognize the prevalent effects whiteness and privilege has had on everyone not that. The artifacts literally are *everywhere* and it is a massive issue affecting quite literally everyone. The concern in this article is just disbelief that our society really is as fucked up as marginalized people say it is.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:38 AM on May 24, 2016 [27 favorites]
Oberlin in the mid-90s wasn't much different than how it is described in that article. Students were working through the same sorts of ideas. Similar tensions were present. One of the big differences is that now blogs and national media will pickup op-eds from student newspapers to use as some sort of example about snake people entitlement pc culture run amok. There is greater exposure via the internet and subsequently risk of harassment.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 6:41 AM on May 24, 2016 [18 favorites]
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 6:41 AM on May 24, 2016 [18 favorites]
It's like they're not really accepting the loan word
You mean they haven't accepted that English has coöpted it?
posted by rory at 6:43 AM on May 24, 2016 [34 favorites]
You mean they haven't accepted that English has coöpted it?
posted by rory at 6:43 AM on May 24, 2016 [34 favorites]
Here is the former Cat in the Cream mural.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 6:45 AM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 6:45 AM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
@pretentious illiterate and @Annika Cicada: I made a pretty easy choice to step away from the activist group that I was heavily involved with when one member started complaining to others that I wasn't as involved as I should be, completely ignoring the fact that I was in the middle of student teaching + still going to classes, taking up 60 hours a week. There's so much pressure to put 1000% of yourself into this that I think is overall more harmful than useful to movements . That kid burnt out about a year later.
posted by lownote at 6:46 AM on May 24, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by lownote at 6:46 AM on May 24, 2016 [6 favorites]
This is such a weird article. It's like, it has a lot of New Yorker-typical stuff going on - the sense that Foucault (Foucault! Surely Foucault is famous enough now among literate people that we need not bracket his ideas with various little phrases implying that he's some kind of weirdo outsider) and various sort of cod-pomo ideas are stirring up these wacky students and their stupid ideas, the note that after all, the legal system found the murder of Tamir Rice "a perfect storm of error" rather than a police murder, etc. The whole routine we go through to assure elite-with-an-accent-mark audience that kids today are just living in their stupid little bubble, etc.
But it also does seem to wrestle with some real stuff about class and intersectionality and to treat those things far more seriously than is usual in this kind of kids-today article. And it takes seriously the idea that it's okay for culture to change.
This was a good pick to post here - it's streets ahead of this general type of article.
"...the Cat in the Cream had a music-themed mural, painted by an alumnus, that celebrated multiculturalism: it featured a turbanned snake charmer, a black man playing a saxophone, and so on. Students recently raised concerns that the mural was exoticizing. “We ended up putting drywall over it, and painting over that,”...
And I think it's important to recognize that what is progressive and useful at one time in one milieu can get worn out and no longer be suitable. There's loads of stuff that I remember from my college activist years that simply would not do now. But I know, from having been there, that those things were a reasonable response to the conditions given the materials and information we had at the time. If we had more information - as one does now - we would have done differently. (This is different from other things I remember from that time, where people were all "fuck you, I am doing this activist project my way, I don't care".)
I like the idea that we can repaint the murals if we want. Take some photos, document them for posterity, note down what people wanted to achieve with that mural and let it go.
Later, the dean of arts and sciences asked to meet with him. He reported complaints that Copeland had created “a hostile and unsafe learning environment,” and that he had “verbally berated” a student—but said that it must be kept confidential which student or incidents were concerned. Then the dean asked Copeland to sign a document acknowledging that a complaint had been lodged against him.
There is this weird way that institutional evil can interact with activist culture, and I think this instantiates it.
What I have observed of the kids today (by which I mean, people, like, under 30) is that they don't have the lived memory of the Cold War, which is awesome, because they aren't scared of socialism. But there's this other side where they don't have the familiarity with the ways that it serves the interest of large institutions to keep a lot of stuff quiet and to make space for anonymous accusations. They also don't have the cultural stuff that was handed down to my generation from the sixties/seventies (my generation is the old hippies in relation to Kids Today, which is fun, because I get to reminisce) and so there's not a lot of cultural memory about, like, this same kind of thing in the New Left.
That's one thing I've run into again and again with younger folks - they feel very, very comfortable with anonymous accusations being adjudicated by unaccountable bodies, as long as the bodies are nominally acting in their interests. This is something that gives me the screaming fantods and it is one of those things where I don't just feel like it's a generational difference - it is absolutely something where young people have been sold a bill of goods.
But anyway - on the whole Kids Today seem to be doing a very good job under difficult circumstances and I think that more sympathy is usually in order.
posted by Frowner at 6:54 AM on May 24, 2016 [67 favorites]
But it also does seem to wrestle with some real stuff about class and intersectionality and to treat those things far more seriously than is usual in this kind of kids-today article. And it takes seriously the idea that it's okay for culture to change.
This was a good pick to post here - it's streets ahead of this general type of article.
"...the Cat in the Cream had a music-themed mural, painted by an alumnus, that celebrated multiculturalism: it featured a turbanned snake charmer, a black man playing a saxophone, and so on. Students recently raised concerns that the mural was exoticizing. “We ended up putting drywall over it, and painting over that,”...
And I think it's important to recognize that what is progressive and useful at one time in one milieu can get worn out and no longer be suitable. There's loads of stuff that I remember from my college activist years that simply would not do now. But I know, from having been there, that those things were a reasonable response to the conditions given the materials and information we had at the time. If we had more information - as one does now - we would have done differently. (This is different from other things I remember from that time, where people were all "fuck you, I am doing this activist project my way, I don't care".)
I like the idea that we can repaint the murals if we want. Take some photos, document them for posterity, note down what people wanted to achieve with that mural and let it go.
Later, the dean of arts and sciences asked to meet with him. He reported complaints that Copeland had created “a hostile and unsafe learning environment,” and that he had “verbally berated” a student—but said that it must be kept confidential which student or incidents were concerned. Then the dean asked Copeland to sign a document acknowledging that a complaint had been lodged against him.
There is this weird way that institutional evil can interact with activist culture, and I think this instantiates it.
What I have observed of the kids today (by which I mean, people, like, under 30) is that they don't have the lived memory of the Cold War, which is awesome, because they aren't scared of socialism. But there's this other side where they don't have the familiarity with the ways that it serves the interest of large institutions to keep a lot of stuff quiet and to make space for anonymous accusations. They also don't have the cultural stuff that was handed down to my generation from the sixties/seventies (my generation is the old hippies in relation to Kids Today, which is fun, because I get to reminisce) and so there's not a lot of cultural memory about, like, this same kind of thing in the New Left.
That's one thing I've run into again and again with younger folks - they feel very, very comfortable with anonymous accusations being adjudicated by unaccountable bodies, as long as the bodies are nominally acting in their interests. This is something that gives me the screaming fantods and it is one of those things where I don't just feel like it's a generational difference - it is absolutely something where young people have been sold a bill of goods.
But anyway - on the whole Kids Today seem to be doing a very good job under difficult circumstances and I think that more sympathy is usually in order.
posted by Frowner at 6:54 AM on May 24, 2016 [67 favorites]
And students like Eosphoros are where the inclusive-élite model gets tested. If students’ personal experiences are beside the pedagogical point, then diversity on campus serves a cosmetic role: it is a kind of tokenism.
I don't have time tho finish this article right now, but I quite liked this quote.
My gut feeling is that there is something revolutionary going on here, with the implication that things will get a bit ugly before we make it to the other side.
Diversifying the student body is a shock to a very old system. And there are a lot of competing interests to work out even among the newcomers.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 6:55 AM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
I don't have time tho finish this article right now, but I quite liked this quote.
My gut feeling is that there is something revolutionary going on here, with the implication that things will get a bit ugly before we make it to the other side.
Diversifying the student body is a shock to a very old system. And there are a lot of competing interests to work out even among the newcomers.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 6:55 AM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
That's one thing I've run into again and again with younger folks - they feel very, very comfortable with anonymous accusations being adjudicated by unaccountable bodies, as long as the bodies are nominally acting in their interests. This is something that gives me the screaming fantods and it is one of those things where I don't just feel like it's a generational difference - it is absolutely something where young people have been sold a bill of goods.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, too. Have you written any more about it? Do you know some good stuff on this set of problems and differences? Care to just expand what you've written here?
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:03 AM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, too. Have you written any more about it? Do you know some good stuff on this set of problems and differences? Care to just expand what you've written here?
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:03 AM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
I don't get it, I thought intersectionality was literally the exact opposite of this: that is, intersectionality asks you to think about the fact that the condition of being black and disabled is not just the sum of "the condition of being black" and "the condition of being disabled," but rather has features that are specific to the, y'know, intersection.
Even on the analytic side of social science the use of the word "Intersectionality" is problematic and confusing. Intersection in its traditional sense just means two lines crossing and not affecting each other. In science the word that is used to describe what activists call "intersection" is "interaction".
posted by srboisvert at 7:08 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
Even on the analytic side of social science the use of the word "Intersectionality" is problematic and confusing. Intersection in its traditional sense just means two lines crossing and not affecting each other. In science the word that is used to describe what activists call "intersection" is "interaction".
posted by srboisvert at 7:08 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
Everything is "problematic" in academia now. It's becoming meaningless.
posted by thelonius at 7:10 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 7:10 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
Also, in re the usual "but they don't pay enough attention to claaaaaaassss" thing that one hears a lot from white men professors: if you are using "paying attention to class" as a stick to beat people of color and women, you are doing it wrong.
In a way it's easy to see why students can foolishly turn a blind eye to something like a professor's anti-Semitism if she is supportive of them, because it seems like a lot of faculty have really adversarial feelings about students as a group. I feel like there's a moment when you are no longer culturally a Young (let's say anywhere from the end of your twenties to your mid-thirties, depending), and there's a kind of emotional choice you can make - you can either let yourself get out of emotional sympathy with younger people by telling yourself that your generation was different in some really foundational way (as opposed to being different in some superficial, temporal ways) or you can try to let yourself recognize and support the being-in-the-world of the kids.
It's not, in many ways, one of their stronger songs, but I often recollect a (now quite old) New Model Army song which starts out, "Today, as you listen to this song
Another 394,000 children were born into this world
They break like waves of hunger and desire upon these eroded shores
Carrying the curses of history and a history yet unwritten..."
I mean, that's what's good about humanity, that people are coming into the world wanting and needing and being and feeling, not beaten down by history, not yet wrecked by the world. I think it's easy for us, once we're the Olds, to think that because we've been beaten down by this bad old world, no one else should feel anything different.
Kozol tried everything she could think of. She divided the seminar into work groups. She started giving lectures. She asked students to write down one thing they would do to contribute to a more productive dialogue. Only one person responded. So she did what she had never done in two decades of teaching: she dissolved the course mid-semester and let students do independent study for a grade.
And see, I think that's the right thing to do. It's funny -students get accused of living in a bubble all the time, but then professors turn around and expect them to live in a bubble, free from reflection on racism-out-in-the-world, free from the actual history happening around them. Students are supposed to live in a bubble, but it's supposed to be the college's bubble.
Like, fuck that - if the state of the world is overriding typical class procedures, then it's time to make accommodations.
posted by Frowner at 7:13 AM on May 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
In a way it's easy to see why students can foolishly turn a blind eye to something like a professor's anti-Semitism if she is supportive of them, because it seems like a lot of faculty have really adversarial feelings about students as a group. I feel like there's a moment when you are no longer culturally a Young (let's say anywhere from the end of your twenties to your mid-thirties, depending), and there's a kind of emotional choice you can make - you can either let yourself get out of emotional sympathy with younger people by telling yourself that your generation was different in some really foundational way (as opposed to being different in some superficial, temporal ways) or you can try to let yourself recognize and support the being-in-the-world of the kids.
It's not, in many ways, one of their stronger songs, but I often recollect a (now quite old) New Model Army song which starts out, "Today, as you listen to this song
Another 394,000 children were born into this world
They break like waves of hunger and desire upon these eroded shores
Carrying the curses of history and a history yet unwritten..."
I mean, that's what's good about humanity, that people are coming into the world wanting and needing and being and feeling, not beaten down by history, not yet wrecked by the world. I think it's easy for us, once we're the Olds, to think that because we've been beaten down by this bad old world, no one else should feel anything different.
Kozol tried everything she could think of. She divided the seminar into work groups. She started giving lectures. She asked students to write down one thing they would do to contribute to a more productive dialogue. Only one person responded. So she did what she had never done in two decades of teaching: she dissolved the course mid-semester and let students do independent study for a grade.
And see, I think that's the right thing to do. It's funny -students get accused of living in a bubble all the time, but then professors turn around and expect them to live in a bubble, free from reflection on racism-out-in-the-world, free from the actual history happening around them. Students are supposed to live in a bubble, but it's supposed to be the college's bubble.
Like, fuck that - if the state of the world is overriding typical class procedures, then it's time to make accommodations.
posted by Frowner at 7:13 AM on May 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
That's one thing I've run into again and again with younger folks - they feel very, very comfortable with anonymous accusations being adjudicated by unaccountable bodies, as long as the bodies are nominally acting in their interests. This is something that gives me the screaming fantods and it is one of those things where I don't just feel like it's a generational difference - it is absolutely something where young people have been sold a bill of goods.
Part of this is probably how utterly corruptible and unjust the supposedly accountable systems we're supposed to give preference to are. Legal justice is demonstrably falling on many fronts - police violence, rape, crimes against people of colour. It's like, yeah, I totally understand your concerns, but it isn't like the alternatives are uncorruptable, and the broken systems we have do need some fundamental reform. There's likely some ideal middle way which neither wholeheartedly embraces nor instinctively recoils from anonymity.
posted by Dysk at 7:25 AM on May 24, 2016 [11 favorites]
Part of this is probably how utterly corruptible and unjust the supposedly accountable systems we're supposed to give preference to are. Legal justice is demonstrably falling on many fronts - police violence, rape, crimes against people of colour. It's like, yeah, I totally understand your concerns, but it isn't like the alternatives are uncorruptable, and the broken systems we have do need some fundamental reform. There's likely some ideal middle way which neither wholeheartedly embraces nor instinctively recoils from anonymity.
posted by Dysk at 7:25 AM on May 24, 2016 [11 favorites]
There's not so much about really revamping/overturning the university experience as a whole--say, by eliminating core requirements entirely, or calling for different types of class structures that reward non-traditional learning styles, or getting rid of GPAs/grades.
Not in these demands, but see a December 2014 petition that received lots of student support:
Petition for Marvin Krislov to Suspend Standard Grading System
I would really like to see the normal grading system suspended for this semester and replaced with a no-fail mercy period. Administrators should require professors to exercise complete flexibility in what students are saying they can produce academically. Require that every professor listen to what their students are saying and if that means rather than writing a paper students instead meet with their professor to simply discuss in groups their paper topics or if tests are taken collectively with professors there are ways to make sure we are learning what we are supposed to be learning in ways that are not so taxing in times like this. Students in this moment should have complete access to alternative modes of learning while we process what's happening. Basically, no student especially black students and students of color should be failing a class this semester. A "C" should be the lowest grade students can receive this semester. Professors should be required to work with students, who would otherwise be at risk of failing, to create alternate means of accessing knowledge.
posted by cnanderson at 7:34 AM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Not in these demands, but see a December 2014 petition that received lots of student support:
Petition for Marvin Krislov to Suspend Standard Grading System
I would really like to see the normal grading system suspended for this semester and replaced with a no-fail mercy period. Administrators should require professors to exercise complete flexibility in what students are saying they can produce academically. Require that every professor listen to what their students are saying and if that means rather than writing a paper students instead meet with their professor to simply discuss in groups their paper topics or if tests are taken collectively with professors there are ways to make sure we are learning what we are supposed to be learning in ways that are not so taxing in times like this. Students in this moment should have complete access to alternative modes of learning while we process what's happening. Basically, no student especially black students and students of color should be failing a class this semester. A "C" should be the lowest grade students can receive this semester. Professors should be required to work with students, who would otherwise be at risk of failing, to create alternate means of accessing knowledge.
posted by cnanderson at 7:34 AM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
And I think it's important to recognize that what is progressive and useful at one time in one milieu can get worn out and no longer be suitable.
This is so, so important. It reminds me of another discussion about covering up art. The artist who painted it during the WPA made it as a progressive attack on racism. The imagery of rich white establishments being literally built upon the backs of slave labor was a huge middle finger to "genteel plantation culture" that didn't want to admit where their wealth and power and "ease" came from (was stolen from). The imagery of land being stolen from native peoples was equally intended to be inflammatory. The artist used ancient Italian mural techniques in the painting of the project to underline the point-- she wanted to borrow from "classic" art techniques to show how often we try to bury history in order to hide from it. The whole project was designed as an attack on white supremacy. I think characterizing the mural as anything else is troubling.
But at the same time, I don't blame students who don't want to see that every day on their way to class (this mural is outside a giant lecture hall). I don't blame activists who say that the mural's day should be over, because its message is no longer functional or accessible. But I do think we should be able to look back at progressive efforts of the past and acknowledge that in their moment, they were being as radical as they knew how to be. It's just that being woke in any given historical moment is often going to look a lot like being regressive/backwards in the current context, and that it is okay to move on to better representations of where we are now.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 7:52 AM on May 24, 2016 [14 favorites]
This is so, so important. It reminds me of another discussion about covering up art. The artist who painted it during the WPA made it as a progressive attack on racism. The imagery of rich white establishments being literally built upon the backs of slave labor was a huge middle finger to "genteel plantation culture" that didn't want to admit where their wealth and power and "ease" came from (was stolen from). The imagery of land being stolen from native peoples was equally intended to be inflammatory. The artist used ancient Italian mural techniques in the painting of the project to underline the point-- she wanted to borrow from "classic" art techniques to show how often we try to bury history in order to hide from it. The whole project was designed as an attack on white supremacy. I think characterizing the mural as anything else is troubling.
But at the same time, I don't blame students who don't want to see that every day on their way to class (this mural is outside a giant lecture hall). I don't blame activists who say that the mural's day should be over, because its message is no longer functional or accessible. But I do think we should be able to look back at progressive efforts of the past and acknowledge that in their moment, they were being as radical as they knew how to be. It's just that being woke in any given historical moment is often going to look a lot like being regressive/backwards in the current context, and that it is okay to move on to better representations of where we are now.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 7:52 AM on May 24, 2016 [14 favorites]
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, too. Have you written any more about it? Do you know some good stuff on this set of problems and differences? Care to just expand what you've written here?
Sadly, my personality means that I am always capable of expanding on what I've written...
But this is just something I've observed. There's been a bunch of big internet blow-ups around here where it's been "someone [who we can't name] saw you have an interaction [that we will not describe] with a third person that the reporting person decided was [abusive/politically bad/unacceptable in some way] and told [group of people who self-selected as the internet police] and now we will put a lot of stuff out on local message boards and facebook and so on about how you are a bad person and should be shunned, but we won't tell you what for".
Now, note that this is not about sexual assault, use of racial slurs, physical violence, direct coercion, etc. Those things have been adjudicated fairly openly (and I also have my backchannel sources of information, so I kind of know a lot of the things that went down.) This is about fairly small-scale interpersonal stuff - conversations, disagreements, interactions that left someone feeling bad, problems at work or disagreements during volunteer or activist stuff. It's kind of weird, in fact, that people have been very open about "this person committed sexual assault, here is what happened" but when they are talking about "this person had an argument and I felt like they were berating the other person"-level stuff, that cannot be put out there in the world but must be kept sub rosa.
So to me, I'm like, "how can this be, we have a system where someone can accuse another person anonymously of something and I am expected to shun them....when I don't even know whether I think they did anything bad. And we don't have any community norms around this stuff! And the people who are putting out the 'shun today' information just....decided that they were the best people to do that. And we're not allowed to say anything like 'this system could easily be abused and indeed similar systems have been abused both historically and in movement circles' without ourselves getting a lot of stick from the community".
And yet when I try to explain my feelings to people younger than about thirty, they are all completely baffled. To such an extent that I think it has to be some kind of really deep-rooted epistemological difference where we perceive the world so differently that we can't even understand each other.
It's like, what's going on is that the mechanisms that we apply to sexual assault or use of slurs (where we believe the accuser absolutely as a heuristic because the situation is so grave and because even though we know that people very occasionally make that stuff up, in the overwhelming majority of instances they do not ) have been attached to every single kind of interaction.
posted by Frowner at 7:56 AM on May 24, 2016 [32 favorites]
Sadly, my personality means that I am always capable of expanding on what I've written...
But this is just something I've observed. There's been a bunch of big internet blow-ups around here where it's been "someone [who we can't name] saw you have an interaction [that we will not describe] with a third person that the reporting person decided was [abusive/politically bad/unacceptable in some way] and told [group of people who self-selected as the internet police] and now we will put a lot of stuff out on local message boards and facebook and so on about how you are a bad person and should be shunned, but we won't tell you what for".
Now, note that this is not about sexual assault, use of racial slurs, physical violence, direct coercion, etc. Those things have been adjudicated fairly openly (and I also have my backchannel sources of information, so I kind of know a lot of the things that went down.) This is about fairly small-scale interpersonal stuff - conversations, disagreements, interactions that left someone feeling bad, problems at work or disagreements during volunteer or activist stuff. It's kind of weird, in fact, that people have been very open about "this person committed sexual assault, here is what happened" but when they are talking about "this person had an argument and I felt like they were berating the other person"-level stuff, that cannot be put out there in the world but must be kept sub rosa.
So to me, I'm like, "how can this be, we have a system where someone can accuse another person anonymously of something and I am expected to shun them....when I don't even know whether I think they did anything bad. And we don't have any community norms around this stuff! And the people who are putting out the 'shun today' information just....decided that they were the best people to do that. And we're not allowed to say anything like 'this system could easily be abused and indeed similar systems have been abused both historically and in movement circles' without ourselves getting a lot of stick from the community".
And yet when I try to explain my feelings to people younger than about thirty, they are all completely baffled. To such an extent that I think it has to be some kind of really deep-rooted epistemological difference where we perceive the world so differently that we can't even understand each other.
It's like, what's going on is that the mechanisms that we apply to sexual assault or use of slurs (where we believe the accuser absolutely as a heuristic because the situation is so grave and because even though we know that people very occasionally make that stuff up, in the overwhelming majority of instances they do not ) have been attached to every single kind of interaction.
posted by Frowner at 7:56 AM on May 24, 2016 [32 favorites]
(A clarifying point - the "group of people who self-selected" have actually been a body of people who set themselves up to adjudicate this kind of thing and who do not necessarily even know the people involved. If it were "friends of the injured person", it would be rather different.)
posted by Frowner at 7:59 AM on May 24, 2016
posted by Frowner at 7:59 AM on May 24, 2016
(Nathan Heller is something of a "token Millennial ace reporter" at The New Yorker, but he's far from their best journalist or writer... Setting politics and controversy aside, I thought the article was mediocre as a piece of reporting and writing).
OH MY GAWD THE AGGRESSION MAKE IT STOP
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 8:44 AM on May 24, 2016
OH MY GAWD THE AGGRESSION MAKE IT STOP
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 8:44 AM on May 24, 2016
"But I understand the material, and I can give it to you in different ways. There’s professors who have openly been, like, ‘Yeah, instead of, you know, writing out this midterm, come in to my office hours, and you can just speak it,’ right? But that’s not institutionalized. I have to find that professor.”)
Wow that sounds like a nightmare. It's bad enough trying to convince some students whose paper or exam is clearly a failing grade according to the rubric that they really don't deserve a better grade. I can't imagine trying to deal with a student who just wants to come in and talk to you, trying to convince them they don't actually know the material as well as they think they do.
posted by straight at 8:47 AM on May 24, 2016 [10 favorites]
Wow that sounds like a nightmare. It's bad enough trying to convince some students whose paper or exam is clearly a failing grade according to the rubric that they really don't deserve a better grade. I can't imagine trying to deal with a student who just wants to come in and talk to you, trying to convince them they don't actually know the material as well as they think they do.
posted by straight at 8:47 AM on May 24, 2016 [10 favorites]
The Cat in the Cream mural was designed (and painted, with the help of two other students) by Josh Sarantitis, a talented Oberlin student in 1990. Sarantitis has gone to have a successful career as a highly sought after muralist and public installation artist, including commissions for Harvard University and for the OECD headquarters in Paris as well as a large scale project working with public school kids for the City of Philadelphia.
I find this kind of argument from authority really troubling. You seem to be saying that because Sarantitis is famous and because he has worked with Maya Angelou, his work is above any kind of political criticism, and the mere fact that anyone could possibly even think that anything could be wrong just shows the bankruptcy of their position. (I mean, he's also worked for that towering font of justice, probity and positive social change, Harvard Business School.)
First: something can be politically okay but unsuitable to a particular setting - I think that WPA mural described upthread sounds fascinating and looks intriguing, but in a school environment that after all serves students of all races, it isn't really helpful to start everyone's academic day off with "let's contemplate slavery and genocide! Black students, remember that you are here as descendants of enslaved people! Native people, let's recall that you are here as a people who have suffered genocide! And let's all recall a time when it was radical even to mention those facts." Like, that's pretty heavy when you're just trying to finish your prep for Accounting 2501. To my mind, it places an unfair burden on students of color, even though it's an interesting and historically significant piece that might be very suitable to another location [like a museum where it would appear in context for a specific purpose].
Second, I notice that none of the people who you describe as working on that 2013 mural are Japanese-American (although maybe some other people participated or were consulted). So presumably this particular mural is a great mural and everyone loves it, and that's fortunate - but if someone does make a big mural using images from someone else's culture without consulting or researching, they can easily produce a well-intentioned clunker that isn't suitable to the location or the audience.
posted by Frowner at 8:54 AM on May 24, 2016 [20 favorites]
(Also, in this setting the WPA piece primes white students to think of Black and Native students primarily as symbols of a group rather than individual fellow students - again, it's about setting and time.)
posted by Frowner at 8:56 AM on May 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 8:56 AM on May 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
This is a great post. I'd have read it in the mag anyway but appreciate its appearance and discussion here. As pieces about campus activism go, this was by far the most insightful and analytical (versus ideological) one I have yet read. It is about as well done as such a think piece can be.
It makes very clear points about the "inconsistencies" in fundamental assumptions about what and whom liberal arts institutions are for, and the ways they're linked to the replication of the class structure and the replication of their own set of values on the wider political/cultural stage. They resist critique precisely because it is threatening their foundational understandings of learning, speech, and society: ""We celebrate the idea that through disorientation and challenge we find growth." The one thing that is not as open to challenge are those grounding assumptions. That of course has good and bad results.
It also calls into question the specificity of a liberal arts education. In trying to extend itself, over the past hundred years or so since women, Jewish people, and lower-income people started wedging open the door, to addressing all learners and creating an educated/elite class facile with language and ideas, it may have sidestepped the need to reckon with questions of its own role in society and whether its educational agenda is appropriate for everyone, for anyone, or for the society we are developing. When one student says “It does not reflect the real world," the answer is: exactly - reflecting the "real world" as it is fully is something liberal arts colleges have actually never aspired to do; they've tried to hold themselves outside of the real world in order to take a critical stance on it, at least as an ideal. In the end there is an irony there, in that the only real world the liberal arts school reflects is the one in which institutional pedigree, facility with liberal-arts and social-science vocabulary, and knowledge of various canons translate into tradeable personal capital.
I also wonder about what alternative educational models might or could emerge from this crisis. Pretentious Illiterate makes a good point about the many sources of learning and co-teaching available to students now. As a 1993 liberal arts graduate, I can attest there is not really a single idea students are discussing that was not being discussed on campus and in dorms by the late 80s/early 90s (it is interesting to just read the Wikipedia entry about Oberlin to discover its own history of student protest. It's a tradition). But they do have a different degree of access to other campuses, to wider activism networks, to home communities and to idea exchange not mediated by university faculty or student clubs. Their ability to learn and debate, especially with peers and also with institutions of power, has really changed. So what kind of curriculum would reflect these changes? What would the curriculum for literature, art history, world history, look like? On what principles would learning be organized? And what role is there for campuses and campus structures, for their "cultivation of the individual" and "leadership?"
This raised a bit of an interesting maybe-irony for me, too. As we observe the breakdown of gender identity ("Latinx") how do we reconcile that with the apparent strengthening of racial/cultural identities?
Oberlin does a really good job of analyzing intersectionality in the classroom—even in discussions, people are aware of who’s talking, who’s taking up space,” Kiley Petersen, a junior, told me. “But there’s a disconnect in trying to apply these frames of intersectionality and progressive change to departments and this school as a whole.
YES. This is something I've really observed in my museum career. Museums aren't terribly unlike universities in that they're learning institutions that have at least a stated commitment to diversity and multiple perspectives. Yet recently, I have noticed that the model of "diversity" being committed to is what, in the words of one colleague, is kind of limited to "browning up the room." In other words, institutions have assumed that by simply ensuring that people of different gender, racial and ethnic backgrounds are participating in building our institutions, everything will proceed as normal and we'll have annihilated that pesky homogeneity. But what it seems they have failed to grapple with is that the very presence of people with different perspectives will act as a force to fundamentally change those institutions. It's not enough to just "be more inclusive." Being inclusive means that the culturally-based assumptions on which these institutions have been built will now be questioned, challenged, and reorganized - which is a much scarier proposition to those comfortable with the status quo, and one that has massive implications for leadership, finance, structure, and service model. Museums aim to be "transformative," but, like other institutions, their very structure resists systemic change, and there are important things at stake, collections not least. Still, it's ridiculous to assume you can expand diversity in the "checklist" sense without it also highlighting the limitations of your institutional structure. That's one thing I liked about the idea that "progress is not always upward" and especially this reflection:
American progressivism, from the Continental Congress to the college cafeteria, has functioned by embracing awkward combinations of great-sounding ideas and waiting for problems to arise
w/r/t class: As much as I agree that people can raise class as a tool to silence discussion of other oppressions, it does seem like university structure and assumptions are deeply embedded in the capitalist system, and it would be foolish to ignore that in analysis and projection of new institutional forms.
Even as I agree with a lot of the student critiques, I also wonder what time will do. The students currently enrolled have no benefit of hindsight on how this education, including its struggles, will aid them or hinder them. They are too involved in it to realize that it is formative - it is shaping them even as they critique it with a reporter and file governance petitions. The very idea of filing a governance petition is a product of this system. I had an enormously skeptical stance toward my own education while I was undergoing it, and can relate to the students who call it "a con sold them on phony premises." Twenty years later, I can point to some important contributions it made to my development that I wouldn't have otherwise had access to. I felt a bit of a pang for the the student who said she was going to go back to Chicago and be the same person she was before - she certainly will not. Even if she resumes every single feature of her pre-college life, she can't be the same person she was, she never will, because this entire experience has changed her. I hesitate to point this out, but things for student activists would have been very different, including a life in activism, had they gone to a state or community college that they had to work full-time to pay for and needed 5 or 6 years to get a degree rather than four, housed in a dorm, with food service. That was the alternative I faced when I got a liberal-arts scholarship and stepped out of my lower-income-person life into this alternate social stratum. I can't pretend things wouldn't have unfolded very differently for me without the opportunity to take part in student-driven campaigns instead of put in more retail shifts at the Gap.
The points about mental health are interesting, but it's also important to note that mental health problems on campus are not new. I graduated in 1993, and I had sought campus services treatment for depression along the way. I was immediately referred out of the campus system because the services were already overwhelmed with students needing help. I can name a large number of people who dropped out or went on leave for psychological reasons. Because I was frustrated by this experience, I researched it, and learned quite a bit about the state of student mental health in the early 1990s - it was not good, probably no better than now (there was also AIDS in the mix, adding anxiety, grief, and frightening consequences to sexual mistakes). What's new is campus investment in mental health, and that probably has more to do with colleges' increasingly competitive environment of the "amenities arms race" and parental demand than with any sudden rise in mental health issues. The difference is that in past generations, the colleges' general stance was to remain pretty aloof from caring about student mental/emotional struggles. The palpable presumption was you were there to study and ready to study, on your own, as a self-managing, healthy adult. That's never been really true for anyone in late adolescence, whether at home, in the military, or in college. The problems were just swept under the rug.
I think where the article comes down is exactly what I've been ruminating on w/r/t museums: what's going on is that the Milennials have enough generational force and access to media to "reset the frame." They can push to shift the basic assumptions of institutions, and they are doing so. They are asking about the true value of the ideal of free exchange of ideas, including confronting difficult and oppressive ideas. That's a reasonable question and it is somewhat telling that universities are doing rather poorly at coming up with compelling answers. I agree with Frowner that there can be some very concerning excesses which a culture of accusation can engender. But there is also a lot of area that is less controversial that students are asking to reframe as uncontested. Such as when one student says “We want you to say, ‘Racism is not accepted!’ ” That is worth listening to. Students are, correctly in many cases, identifying areas in which what is presented as a "controversial and provocative idea" is simply an expression of unreflective white supremacy reifying itself. Students are asking faculty and leadership to redraw the boundaries of the pale.
posted by Miko at 8:56 AM on May 24, 2016 [23 favorites]
It makes very clear points about the "inconsistencies" in fundamental assumptions about what and whom liberal arts institutions are for, and the ways they're linked to the replication of the class structure and the replication of their own set of values on the wider political/cultural stage. They resist critique precisely because it is threatening their foundational understandings of learning, speech, and society: ""We celebrate the idea that through disorientation and challenge we find growth." The one thing that is not as open to challenge are those grounding assumptions. That of course has good and bad results.
It also calls into question the specificity of a liberal arts education. In trying to extend itself, over the past hundred years or so since women, Jewish people, and lower-income people started wedging open the door, to addressing all learners and creating an educated/elite class facile with language and ideas, it may have sidestepped the need to reckon with questions of its own role in society and whether its educational agenda is appropriate for everyone, for anyone, or for the society we are developing. When one student says “It does not reflect the real world," the answer is: exactly - reflecting the "real world" as it is fully is something liberal arts colleges have actually never aspired to do; they've tried to hold themselves outside of the real world in order to take a critical stance on it, at least as an ideal. In the end there is an irony there, in that the only real world the liberal arts school reflects is the one in which institutional pedigree, facility with liberal-arts and social-science vocabulary, and knowledge of various canons translate into tradeable personal capital.
I also wonder about what alternative educational models might or could emerge from this crisis. Pretentious Illiterate makes a good point about the many sources of learning and co-teaching available to students now. As a 1993 liberal arts graduate, I can attest there is not really a single idea students are discussing that was not being discussed on campus and in dorms by the late 80s/early 90s (it is interesting to just read the Wikipedia entry about Oberlin to discover its own history of student protest. It's a tradition). But they do have a different degree of access to other campuses, to wider activism networks, to home communities and to idea exchange not mediated by university faculty or student clubs. Their ability to learn and debate, especially with peers and also with institutions of power, has really changed. So what kind of curriculum would reflect these changes? What would the curriculum for literature, art history, world history, look like? On what principles would learning be organized? And what role is there for campuses and campus structures, for their "cultivation of the individual" and "leadership?"
This raised a bit of an interesting maybe-irony for me, too. As we observe the breakdown of gender identity ("Latinx") how do we reconcile that with the apparent strengthening of racial/cultural identities?
Oberlin does a really good job of analyzing intersectionality in the classroom—even in discussions, people are aware of who’s talking, who’s taking up space,” Kiley Petersen, a junior, told me. “But there’s a disconnect in trying to apply these frames of intersectionality and progressive change to departments and this school as a whole.
YES. This is something I've really observed in my museum career. Museums aren't terribly unlike universities in that they're learning institutions that have at least a stated commitment to diversity and multiple perspectives. Yet recently, I have noticed that the model of "diversity" being committed to is what, in the words of one colleague, is kind of limited to "browning up the room." In other words, institutions have assumed that by simply ensuring that people of different gender, racial and ethnic backgrounds are participating in building our institutions, everything will proceed as normal and we'll have annihilated that pesky homogeneity. But what it seems they have failed to grapple with is that the very presence of people with different perspectives will act as a force to fundamentally change those institutions. It's not enough to just "be more inclusive." Being inclusive means that the culturally-based assumptions on which these institutions have been built will now be questioned, challenged, and reorganized - which is a much scarier proposition to those comfortable with the status quo, and one that has massive implications for leadership, finance, structure, and service model. Museums aim to be "transformative," but, like other institutions, their very structure resists systemic change, and there are important things at stake, collections not least. Still, it's ridiculous to assume you can expand diversity in the "checklist" sense without it also highlighting the limitations of your institutional structure. That's one thing I liked about the idea that "progress is not always upward" and especially this reflection:
American progressivism, from the Continental Congress to the college cafeteria, has functioned by embracing awkward combinations of great-sounding ideas and waiting for problems to arise
w/r/t class: As much as I agree that people can raise class as a tool to silence discussion of other oppressions, it does seem like university structure and assumptions are deeply embedded in the capitalist system, and it would be foolish to ignore that in analysis and projection of new institutional forms.
Even as I agree with a lot of the student critiques, I also wonder what time will do. The students currently enrolled have no benefit of hindsight on how this education, including its struggles, will aid them or hinder them. They are too involved in it to realize that it is formative - it is shaping them even as they critique it with a reporter and file governance petitions. The very idea of filing a governance petition is a product of this system. I had an enormously skeptical stance toward my own education while I was undergoing it, and can relate to the students who call it "a con sold them on phony premises." Twenty years later, I can point to some important contributions it made to my development that I wouldn't have otherwise had access to. I felt a bit of a pang for the the student who said she was going to go back to Chicago and be the same person she was before - she certainly will not. Even if she resumes every single feature of her pre-college life, she can't be the same person she was, she never will, because this entire experience has changed her. I hesitate to point this out, but things for student activists would have been very different, including a life in activism, had they gone to a state or community college that they had to work full-time to pay for and needed 5 or 6 years to get a degree rather than four, housed in a dorm, with food service. That was the alternative I faced when I got a liberal-arts scholarship and stepped out of my lower-income-person life into this alternate social stratum. I can't pretend things wouldn't have unfolded very differently for me without the opportunity to take part in student-driven campaigns instead of put in more retail shifts at the Gap.
The points about mental health are interesting, but it's also important to note that mental health problems on campus are not new. I graduated in 1993, and I had sought campus services treatment for depression along the way. I was immediately referred out of the campus system because the services were already overwhelmed with students needing help. I can name a large number of people who dropped out or went on leave for psychological reasons. Because I was frustrated by this experience, I researched it, and learned quite a bit about the state of student mental health in the early 1990s - it was not good, probably no better than now (there was also AIDS in the mix, adding anxiety, grief, and frightening consequences to sexual mistakes). What's new is campus investment in mental health, and that probably has more to do with colleges' increasingly competitive environment of the "amenities arms race" and parental demand than with any sudden rise in mental health issues. The difference is that in past generations, the colleges' general stance was to remain pretty aloof from caring about student mental/emotional struggles. The palpable presumption was you were there to study and ready to study, on your own, as a self-managing, healthy adult. That's never been really true for anyone in late adolescence, whether at home, in the military, or in college. The problems were just swept under the rug.
I think where the article comes down is exactly what I've been ruminating on w/r/t museums: what's going on is that the Milennials have enough generational force and access to media to "reset the frame." They can push to shift the basic assumptions of institutions, and they are doing so. They are asking about the true value of the ideal of free exchange of ideas, including confronting difficult and oppressive ideas. That's a reasonable question and it is somewhat telling that universities are doing rather poorly at coming up with compelling answers. I agree with Frowner that there can be some very concerning excesses which a culture of accusation can engender. But there is also a lot of area that is less controversial that students are asking to reframe as uncontested. Such as when one student says “We want you to say, ‘Racism is not accepted!’ ” That is worth listening to. Students are, correctly in many cases, identifying areas in which what is presented as a "controversial and provocative idea" is simply an expression of unreflective white supremacy reifying itself. Students are asking faculty and leadership to redraw the boundaries of the pale.
posted by Miko at 8:56 AM on May 24, 2016 [23 favorites]
> Intersection in its traditional sense just means two lines crossing and not affecting each other. In science the word that is used to describe what activists call "intersection" is "interaction".
This isn't how anyone I know uses the word, and I think you're missing some nuance when you reduce it to "interaction".
posted by l_zzie at 9:01 AM on May 24, 2016
This isn't how anyone I know uses the word, and I think you're missing some nuance when you reduce it to "interaction".
posted by l_zzie at 9:01 AM on May 24, 2016
"But I understand the material, and I can give it to you in different ways. There’s professors who have openly been, like, ‘Yeah, instead of, you know, writing out this midterm, come in to my office hours, and you can just speak it,’ right? But that’s not institutionalized. I have to find that professor.”
That professor is a damn saint. This is so, so, so much extra work for them. At a SLAC like Oberlin, maybe it's possible - but professors even at SLACs also do research; write books and articles; and participate in service to their department, school, and disciplines - and all of this is practically invisible to students. I will probably never forget when the student who skipped a third of our class sessions popped into my office at 9 AM one day to ask if I had graded his paper yet, which he turned in (late) at midnight the night before.
Students do not seem to understand that teaching is not our only job, and especially if your professors are on the tenure track but are not yet tenured, they do not have the bandwidth to change the syllabus and course requirements for each individual student. And they have trained for six, eight, twelve years, or more - they're not just making up assignments as they go along. I'm sorry, but at an institution like Oberlin, you are being trained to read and write and think critically in a certain way, and you are going to have to write papers to learn how to do that. If you understand the material, you can write about it.
The only solution is a complete overhaul of academia as a system, which frankly I am all for.
posted by sockermom at 9:15 AM on May 24, 2016 [6 favorites]
That professor is a damn saint. This is so, so, so much extra work for them. At a SLAC like Oberlin, maybe it's possible - but professors even at SLACs also do research; write books and articles; and participate in service to their department, school, and disciplines - and all of this is practically invisible to students. I will probably never forget when the student who skipped a third of our class sessions popped into my office at 9 AM one day to ask if I had graded his paper yet, which he turned in (late) at midnight the night before.
Students do not seem to understand that teaching is not our only job, and especially if your professors are on the tenure track but are not yet tenured, they do not have the bandwidth to change the syllabus and course requirements for each individual student. And they have trained for six, eight, twelve years, or more - they're not just making up assignments as they go along. I'm sorry, but at an institution like Oberlin, you are being trained to read and write and think critically in a certain way, and you are going to have to write papers to learn how to do that. If you understand the material, you can write about it.
The only solution is a complete overhaul of academia as a system, which frankly I am all for.
posted by sockermom at 9:15 AM on May 24, 2016 [6 favorites]
On further reflection, one difficult thing about the ideal of "free exchange of ideas" and "confronting difficult ideas" is that it was initially developed for an audience of highly privileged, mostly white people growing up in a conservative and capitalist milieu. I'd say yeah, those people needed to be confronted with difficult ideas, or they'd probably be able to live their whole lives without confronting any of them in any serious way ever again, and do even worse damage to everyone else as a result.
Wider representation in the student body may mean that the "difficult ideas' agenda starts to reveal itself as a prescription for the education of members of the dominant culture, one that has much less meaning and legitimacy for people whose entire lives have already been constrained and challenged by the difficult ideas of others. "Difficult ideas" are not new to many students from communities who formerly had no access to elite education - those ideas are often the very hurdles they've already surmounted to get to that institution in the first place. A lot of the handwringing op-eds about "threats" to campus "free speech" overlook or intentionally sidestep this issue that the dominant culture at large is already doing a very good job educating people about its most oppressive ideas, and universities may not be the place this needs to be replicated. They often do this through a (maybe pretended) agnosticism about what the "ideas" in question are, but it tends to seem like it's the same familiar ideas that have hammered the heads of lower classes forever.
posted by Miko at 9:17 AM on May 24, 2016 [17 favorites]
Wider representation in the student body may mean that the "difficult ideas' agenda starts to reveal itself as a prescription for the education of members of the dominant culture, one that has much less meaning and legitimacy for people whose entire lives have already been constrained and challenged by the difficult ideas of others. "Difficult ideas" are not new to many students from communities who formerly had no access to elite education - those ideas are often the very hurdles they've already surmounted to get to that institution in the first place. A lot of the handwringing op-eds about "threats" to campus "free speech" overlook or intentionally sidestep this issue that the dominant culture at large is already doing a very good job educating people about its most oppressive ideas, and universities may not be the place this needs to be replicated. They often do this through a (maybe pretended) agnosticism about what the "ideas" in question are, but it tends to seem like it's the same familiar ideas that have hammered the heads of lower classes forever.
posted by Miko at 9:17 AM on May 24, 2016 [17 favorites]
I found this interesting because, per the article's label, I'm a "builder" millennial. I went to a similar college (Reed) and did not see anywhere close to this level of activism when I was there. I was in the Math department and spent a great deal of time in the library, but I don't remember many pamphlets or other calls to actions (outside of calls to protest the invasions of Afghanistan and then Iraq). There may be a difference in that Reed is academically conservative while being politically liberal. (The mandatory humanities course finally made concessions to non dead White ancient Europeans by adding in texts from Egypt and the Epic of Gilgamesh, while dropping the only African author previously in the course, St. Augustine.) There have been multiple attempts to reform the syllabus since I left, and after 10 years, they got two works added, but one removed.
So, my predictions: this list of demands will go nowhere. Especially in terms of the professors they are demanding (to use the language of the letter) be either given tenure/tenure track and the professors they are demanding be fired. They may get some safe spaces created in a building or two, but even that is doubtful. All the other demands that actually require money will most likely be quietly ignored. (They might get a little bit of traction for the $15/hr minimum for all staff, if there is strong union activity among the staff.)
I hope I'm being too cynical about this. I hope that Oberlin, with approximately 5% of its student body being identified as Black/African American/African Caribean actually really wants to expand that percentage. But I also hope that the activists don't expect to get many of these actually accomplished. They can fight for them and I hope they do, but colleges, no matter how liberal in spirit, tend to be rather conservative in making institutional changes.
posted by Hactar at 9:22 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
So, my predictions: this list of demands will go nowhere. Especially in terms of the professors they are demanding (to use the language of the letter) be either given tenure/tenure track and the professors they are demanding be fired. They may get some safe spaces created in a building or two, but even that is doubtful. All the other demands that actually require money will most likely be quietly ignored. (They might get a little bit of traction for the $15/hr minimum for all staff, if there is strong union activity among the staff.)
I hope I'm being too cynical about this. I hope that Oberlin, with approximately 5% of its student body being identified as Black/African American/African Caribean actually really wants to expand that percentage. But I also hope that the activists don't expect to get many of these actually accomplished. They can fight for them and I hope they do, but colleges, no matter how liberal in spirit, tend to be rather conservative in making institutional changes.
posted by Hactar at 9:22 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
(And the more I think about this mural business - look, I think it's okay to ask people to look at hurtful depictions of people like them if there's a social purpose, but there has to be a specific purpose and a fairly good one.
I try to think of seeing a mural which depicted, say, queer people as ugly, degraded perverts and predators to try to express, for instance, the rhetoric that the Nazis used to justify murdering people like me, and I think that would be really upsetting. And I wouldn't feel especially great about a bunch of straight people staring at this record of how people like me have been treated. I would feel like for them even to sort of get it, they would need a lot of priming, like a museum display. I would want them to see it in a context that made clear that this was a serious matter and had historical weight. I would be extremely uncomfortable sitting in class with straight people who had just been sitting under a mural full of negative depictions of people like me, even if those negative depictions were made with good intent.
I would also be depressed to have to come to class every day after a little reminder that within living memory people like me were disposed of without a murmur. I'm sure I could learn to ignore it if the rest of the campus experience were good enough, but "you can learn to ignore this hateful depiction if you try" seems like a really sub par standard for one's college experience.
posted by Frowner at 9:22 AM on May 24, 2016 [7 favorites]
I try to think of seeing a mural which depicted, say, queer people as ugly, degraded perverts and predators to try to express, for instance, the rhetoric that the Nazis used to justify murdering people like me, and I think that would be really upsetting. And I wouldn't feel especially great about a bunch of straight people staring at this record of how people like me have been treated. I would feel like for them even to sort of get it, they would need a lot of priming, like a museum display. I would want them to see it in a context that made clear that this was a serious matter and had historical weight. I would be extremely uncomfortable sitting in class with straight people who had just been sitting under a mural full of negative depictions of people like me, even if those negative depictions were made with good intent.
I would also be depressed to have to come to class every day after a little reminder that within living memory people like me were disposed of without a murmur. I'm sure I could learn to ignore it if the rest of the campus experience were good enough, but "you can learn to ignore this hateful depiction if you try" seems like a really sub par standard for one's college experience.
posted by Frowner at 9:22 AM on May 24, 2016 [7 favorites]
From the article: "'I do think that there’s something to be said about exposing yourself to ideas other than your own, but I’ve had enough of that after my fifth year,' she said."
Have you?
posted by kevinbelt at 9:26 AM on May 24, 2016 [6 favorites]
Have you?
posted by kevinbelt at 9:26 AM on May 24, 2016 [6 favorites]
It is weird to me that the New Yorker insists on placing the accent aigu on élite that way. It's like they're not really accepting the loan word, either because they are not willing to accept the ordinary American nature of their own élitism or because they're hoping that someday our élitism will be shipped back to France.
I think the way the New Yorker's style guide holds its teacup with its pinky finger stuck out like that is kind of endearing. Bless its tiny heart.
posted by flabdablet at 9:32 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
I think the way the New Yorker's style guide holds its teacup with its pinky finger stuck out like that is kind of endearing. Bless its tiny heart.
posted by flabdablet at 9:32 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
institutions have assumed that by simply ensuring that people of different gender, racial and ethnic backgrounds are participating in building our institutions, everything will proceed as normal and we'll have annihilated that pesky homogeneity. But what it seems they have failed to grapple with is that the very presence of people with different perspectives will act as a force to fundamentally change those institutions. It's not enough to just "be more inclusive." Being inclusive means that the culturally-based assumptions on which these institutions have been built will now be questioned, challenged, and reorganized - which is a much scarier proposition to those comfortable with the status quo, and one that has massive implications for leadership, finance, structure, and service model.
It's scarier, but it's also really exciting. When you open the floodgates of an institution of ideas and let lots of new people in, you are going to be surprised, delighted, confused, upset, and forced to grow. And what is education for if not that?
posted by emjaybee at 9:38 AM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
It's scarier, but it's also really exciting. When you open the floodgates of an institution of ideas and let lots of new people in, you are going to be surprised, delighted, confused, upset, and forced to grow. And what is education for if not that?
posted by emjaybee at 9:38 AM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
All I can say about that mural is, you wouldn't have to ask me twice to cover it up. I'm glad the painter has gone on to have a successful career, but I'd have gotten sick of avoiding the gaze of potato-face guy.
Recently, my college changed one of its key traditions, which was in my experience already an extremely fun, sweet one, but also a prank on the freshmen. They did so in response to complaints about student discomfort with it. At first, like a lot of alumnae, I was angry and disappointed in the students expressing what I thought was such po-faced fragility, but then I thought: pull back. It is not the late '90s anymore and you are not the young person the tradition is for. These young women have their own needs, and they need something else to serve them. So it goes.
I am no longer someone whose opinions have to be taken into account about what students need these days. I'm comfortable with that. I'm trying to extend the same benefit of the doubt to all Kids These Days, who are being made scapegoats for so much. Sometimes it's easier than other times.
Oh but this guy:
“A student came up to me several days later and started screaming at me, saying I’m not allowed to have this opinion, because I’m a white cisgender male,” Pressman recalled. He feels that his white maleness shouldn’t be disqualifying.
I am sure he means well, and possibly I would even agree with him on the particular issue, but I will eat a bug if that student literally came up to him and "started screaming." For some people, "screaming" means "a woman disagreeing in a very clear and unapologetic tone."
posted by Countess Elena at 9:43 AM on May 24, 2016 [15 favorites]
Recently, my college changed one of its key traditions, which was in my experience already an extremely fun, sweet one, but also a prank on the freshmen. They did so in response to complaints about student discomfort with it. At first, like a lot of alumnae, I was angry and disappointed in the students expressing what I thought was such po-faced fragility, but then I thought: pull back. It is not the late '90s anymore and you are not the young person the tradition is for. These young women have their own needs, and they need something else to serve them. So it goes.
I am no longer someone whose opinions have to be taken into account about what students need these days. I'm comfortable with that. I'm trying to extend the same benefit of the doubt to all Kids These Days, who are being made scapegoats for so much. Sometimes it's easier than other times.
Oh but this guy:
“A student came up to me several days later and started screaming at me, saying I’m not allowed to have this opinion, because I’m a white cisgender male,” Pressman recalled. He feels that his white maleness shouldn’t be disqualifying.
I am sure he means well, and possibly I would even agree with him on the particular issue, but I will eat a bug if that student literally came up to him and "started screaming." For some people, "screaming" means "a woman disagreeing in a very clear and unapologetic tone."
posted by Countess Elena at 9:43 AM on May 24, 2016 [15 favorites]
I dunno, looking at that mural my reaction is that getting rid of it sends a signal that there are no important battles left to fight, which is obviously not the case. It seems really nice to me. But I'm oldish and white ... Just seems sad to remove something that took all that effort and gives some history to the room.
posted by freecellwizard at 9:45 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by freecellwizard at 9:45 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Careful there, Countess. We wouldn't want to sound shrill, would we?
posted by flabdablet at 9:46 AM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 9:46 AM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
getting rid of it sends a signal that there are no important battles left to fight, which is obviously not the case.
On the other hand, keeping it in place sends a signal that the battles worth fighting today are the very same ones it depicts, which is obviously not the case either.
posted by flabdablet at 9:47 AM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
On the other hand, keeping it in place sends a signal that the battles worth fighting today are the very same ones it depicts, which is obviously not the case either.
posted by flabdablet at 9:47 AM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
I guess I'm not sure that erasing history is necessary to move forward. I mean it's hardly the Confederate battle flag. It seems pretty obvious to be sending a message of "this is a place where we celebrate music and art from many cultures". Maybe the critique is that some elements of the mural aren't culturally accurate?
posted by freecellwizard at 9:58 AM on May 24, 2016
posted by freecellwizard at 9:58 AM on May 24, 2016
"Erasing history" means saying "there was never a mural here." No pictures, nothing. That's certainly not necessary. Why not save pictures, even post them somewhere? Replacing the mural is another thing entirely. Confederate memorial supporters often accuse their opponents of wanting to "erase history" by changing school names or moving memorials. No one wants to change history, just to change the present and, hopefully, the future.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:12 AM on May 24, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 10:12 AM on May 24, 2016 [7 favorites]
I think we should stop using the term "erasing history" for stuff like this - it's inflammatory, accusing people of 1984-style manipulation of the historical record, which is clearly not what's happening. I mean, the mural has been thoroughly documented; good pictures of it exist and aren't going anywhere. Nobody's trying to wipe out all memory of the mural by tossing that documentation down the memory hole.
posted by burden at 10:17 AM on May 24, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by burden at 10:17 AM on May 24, 2016 [11 favorites]
I didn't think the article was particularly well-written, but I'm kind of fascinated by the idea that there should be very foundational changes in the way university classrooms work in response to changes in the student population. At the moment, I suspect that the way I feel about it has a lot to do with my field of study. I'm a scientist. When I was an undergraduate there was a fixed curriculum I needed to master -- and which I did very imperfectly -- because endocrinology builds on physiology builds on biology, etc. Engineering is perhaps similar -- there's a certain set of ideas that you must master or you simply cannot do the job. The humanities are different, though, because you can engage with and manipulate ideas in so many different ways.
Should students be evaluated differently? I think maybe so, but it may not be possible without a change in how universities are funded and staffed. As discussed above, it's great when you can do oral exams (my animal biotechnology class had one, it was awesome, but there were fewer than 10 people in the class and it was the only thing the professor taught that semester). Will some curricula, such as literature, evolve to include mostly independent work with some seminar-type group discussions? Maybe that's good if the dead, white, European canon is replace with something more broadly representative of the human experience, but are we ready to completely dispose of the idea of a canon entirely? Isn't it desirable that we share some common experiences? What effect will the kind of voluntary segregation described in the article have on the student body? How will it affect the faculty? What is the purpose of the liberal arts university going forward?
So, I don't know, there's a lot to think about along after reading this. Definitely interesting food for thought!
posted by wintermind at 10:23 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Should students be evaluated differently? I think maybe so, but it may not be possible without a change in how universities are funded and staffed. As discussed above, it's great when you can do oral exams (my animal biotechnology class had one, it was awesome, but there were fewer than 10 people in the class and it was the only thing the professor taught that semester). Will some curricula, such as literature, evolve to include mostly independent work with some seminar-type group discussions? Maybe that's good if the dead, white, European canon is replace with something more broadly representative of the human experience, but are we ready to completely dispose of the idea of a canon entirely? Isn't it desirable that we share some common experiences? What effect will the kind of voluntary segregation described in the article have on the student body? How will it affect the faculty? What is the purpose of the liberal arts university going forward?
So, I don't know, there's a lot to think about along after reading this. Definitely interesting food for thought!
posted by wintermind at 10:23 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Since I'm the one who brought it up, I just wanted to be very clear: I completely understand students not wanting to see that WPA mural every day, and being upset by the daily reminder of what it represents (and represented). I just mentioned it as an example of what Frowner was talking about re: the progressive symbols and art of the past often become hurtful/retrograde in the present.
The University where the mural is located has its own Art Museum. Maybe that would be a better place for the mural, a place where history and context can be incorporated, more than the hallway of a building with a classroom in it. "This doesn't belong in this space anymore" is not the same thing as "get rid of this and forget it ever existed".
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:23 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
The University where the mural is located has its own Art Museum. Maybe that would be a better place for the mural, a place where history and context can be incorporated, more than the hallway of a building with a classroom in it. "This doesn't belong in this space anymore" is not the same thing as "get rid of this and forget it ever existed".
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:23 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
Okay, but the thing is that history gets "erased" all the time. Far more history is being made and lost than can ever be recorded. I think back on the zines and posters and comics and articles that I collected and occasionally produced during the nineties, and I am sure that almost all of them are lost to history - and frankly, the record that some of those things provided of riot grrrl, local anti-nuclear-plant activism and a bunch of other stuff seems more "historically" valuable to me than a rather anodyne coffee house mural, however nice. [and honestly however much better it was than the zines I made...]
It's great to preserve history and information and images, but it's not really a tragedy if a few of only average significance are lost. What exactly do we lose when this mural is lost, other than the fact that someone would see that mural in that coffee house? I mean, the building where I work has been steadily renovated since the 1970s, and a lot of the original weird design and color scheme is also lost. I'm sad about that, actually, but that's the breaks.
New beautiful things come and the old ones go, not one lasts - as the fellow said.
Also, what does it mean to preserve something, and to what end? Obviously, we can't preserve everything that exists currently in situ - we'd be living in the midst of some weird, static museum-world in no time. Preserving history is always about choice and location and meaning, and it seems like it's really complicated. Who is it preserved for? Why is is preserved where it is? How is it narrated and how does it work in its setting as time passes? What is lost as time passes? What new meanings emerge?
I like archives and preservation and I keep a lot of stuff, but keeping is double-edged. I always think of this Ursula Le Guin story.
posted by Frowner at 10:27 AM on May 24, 2016 [9 favorites]
It's great to preserve history and information and images, but it's not really a tragedy if a few of only average significance are lost. What exactly do we lose when this mural is lost, other than the fact that someone would see that mural in that coffee house? I mean, the building where I work has been steadily renovated since the 1970s, and a lot of the original weird design and color scheme is also lost. I'm sad about that, actually, but that's the breaks.
New beautiful things come and the old ones go, not one lasts - as the fellow said.
Also, what does it mean to preserve something, and to what end? Obviously, we can't preserve everything that exists currently in situ - we'd be living in the midst of some weird, static museum-world in no time. Preserving history is always about choice and location and meaning, and it seems like it's really complicated. Who is it preserved for? Why is is preserved where it is? How is it narrated and how does it work in its setting as time passes? What is lost as time passes? What new meanings emerge?
I like archives and preservation and I keep a lot of stuff, but keeping is double-edged. I always think of this Ursula Le Guin story.
posted by Frowner at 10:27 AM on May 24, 2016 [9 favorites]
It seems pretty obvious to be sending a message of "this is a place where we celebrate music and art from many cultures".
Obvious to whom? I confess when I looked at it I had a groaning recognition of that kind of artwork - a very community-mural, feel-goody multiculturalism very popular in th 90s. It may have a place in cities where the ideal is to inspire. But it feels old-school and tokenistic to me in a way that would seem condescending and out of place on a college campus. Like the Harvard law school seal discussion, this is not about erasing history (it has been recorded and is available to study) but about building an aesthetic atmosphere that represents the college in the best light.
posted by Miko at 10:30 AM on May 24, 2016 [7 favorites]
Obvious to whom? I confess when I looked at it I had a groaning recognition of that kind of artwork - a very community-mural, feel-goody multiculturalism very popular in th 90s. It may have a place in cities where the ideal is to inspire. But it feels old-school and tokenistic to me in a way that would seem condescending and out of place on a college campus. Like the Harvard law school seal discussion, this is not about erasing history (it has been recorded and is available to study) but about building an aesthetic atmosphere that represents the college in the best light.
posted by Miko at 10:30 AM on May 24, 2016 [7 favorites]
That mural isn't even the most tone deaf/our of touch thing on campus! That honor probably goes to the Memorial Arch in Tappan Square dedicated to the missionaries from Oberlin who died in the Boxer Rebellion.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 10:33 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 10:33 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
"a controversial structure that either symbolizes the sacrifice of missionaries killed in China or the repression wrought by American imperialism, depending on one's point of view"
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 10:37 AM on May 24, 2016
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 10:37 AM on May 24, 2016
(Another clarification: two different murals are under discussion here. I don't know that I have as many feelings about preserving the coffeehouse mural as I do about the WPA mural, which is the only example of that art style in that region of the US.)
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:38 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:38 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
More from the article: "'As a person who plans on returning to my community, I don’t want to assimilate into middle-class values. I’m going home, back to the ’hood of Chicago, to be exactly who I was before I came to Oberlin.'"
Then what was the point in going to Oberlin in the first place? Especially if it's such a white-supremacist and unaccepting place?
posted by kevinbelt at 10:53 AM on May 24, 2016
Then what was the point in going to Oberlin in the first place? Especially if it's such a white-supremacist and unaccepting place?
posted by kevinbelt at 10:53 AM on May 24, 2016
Should students be evaluated differently?
Should students even be evaluated at all, in the sense that we "evaluate" them by attaching some letter to their performance?
Our job, those of us who teach, is not and should not be to "evaluate," at least not in that way. Our job is and should be to fucking educate. Grades are an often-arbitrary-seeming quantitative judgement placed on a student's supposed mastery of the material, but they don't actually teach that student a god damned thing.
I don't see that grades perform a pedagogical function at all, other than that of carrot/stick, which, well, students aren't mules, and if you think they are, maybe find a different profession.
Anyone who has supervised people (or been supervised!) in a professional, non-academic context for more than about five minutes (sadly true of too-few people in academia) has learned that useful feedback has a specific action step.
A GRADE DOES NOT HAVE A SPECIFIC ACTION STEP.
Let's say I comment on a student's essay that I find the ideas fascinating and the evidence with which the thesis is supported to be effective, but that the lack of organization makes the argument difficult to follow.
That student now knows exactly what to do in order to make the paper better: reorganize the essay so that the argument is easier to follow.
If I am doing my job correctly, I have provided that student with the tools needed to take the appropriate action. (In this case, a reverse outline should help the student see the places where the essay's structure begins to break down.)
So, what if I write "B-" on the essay? I am telling the student something like "this was OK, but not great." But what the fuck, exactly, is the student supposed to do with that? Think "gosh, I need to do better next time?" How? What the fuck is actionable about "B-" that isn't already in the narrative comment?
Seriously, what function do undergraduate grades even perform, other than to make it easier for employers to sort applicants, and why should the university take responsibility for doing the job that HR professionals are supposed to be doing?
Oh fuck I'm ranting. Sorry.
posted by dersins at 11:20 AM on May 24, 2016 [16 favorites]
Should students even be evaluated at all, in the sense that we "evaluate" them by attaching some letter to their performance?
Our job, those of us who teach, is not and should not be to "evaluate," at least not in that way. Our job is and should be to fucking educate. Grades are an often-arbitrary-seeming quantitative judgement placed on a student's supposed mastery of the material, but they don't actually teach that student a god damned thing.
I don't see that grades perform a pedagogical function at all, other than that of carrot/stick, which, well, students aren't mules, and if you think they are, maybe find a different profession.
Anyone who has supervised people (or been supervised!) in a professional, non-academic context for more than about five minutes (sadly true of too-few people in academia) has learned that useful feedback has a specific action step.
A GRADE DOES NOT HAVE A SPECIFIC ACTION STEP.
Let's say I comment on a student's essay that I find the ideas fascinating and the evidence with which the thesis is supported to be effective, but that the lack of organization makes the argument difficult to follow.
That student now knows exactly what to do in order to make the paper better: reorganize the essay so that the argument is easier to follow.
If I am doing my job correctly, I have provided that student with the tools needed to take the appropriate action. (In this case, a reverse outline should help the student see the places where the essay's structure begins to break down.)
So, what if I write "B-" on the essay? I am telling the student something like "this was OK, but not great." But what the fuck, exactly, is the student supposed to do with that? Think "gosh, I need to do better next time?" How? What the fuck is actionable about "B-" that isn't already in the narrative comment?
Seriously, what function do undergraduate grades even perform, other than to make it easier for employers to sort applicants, and why should the university take responsibility for doing the job that HR professionals are supposed to be doing?
Oh fuck I'm ranting. Sorry.
posted by dersins at 11:20 AM on May 24, 2016 [16 favorites]
Especially if it's such a white-supremacist and unaccepting place?
That's pretty much, everywhere in the U.S., may as well go back to where you had some sense of comfort and understanding if that's what you discover you need for yourself.
what was the point in going to Oberlin in the first place?
Maybe that wasn't known beforehand and something that was learned in the process, so perhaps learning that they belonged in Chicago was ultimately the reason for going? At any rate I don't believe a question like that has a tidy answer...
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:21 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
That's pretty much, everywhere in the U.S., may as well go back to where you had some sense of comfort and understanding if that's what you discover you need for yourself.
what was the point in going to Oberlin in the first place?
Maybe that wasn't known beforehand and something that was learned in the process, so perhaps learning that they belonged in Chicago was ultimately the reason for going? At any rate I don't believe a question like that has a tidy answer...
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:21 AM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
I don't have a problem with going back to Chicago. That seems like a pretty good choice to me, not that my opinion matters. My problem is with the "to be exactly who I was" part.
posted by kevinbelt at 11:31 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by kevinbelt at 11:31 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
I thought that was a crap way to end the article. Can we cut the 20 year old some slack for her lack of hindsight re: the thing she is still in the midst of?
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 11:48 AM on May 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 11:48 AM on May 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
Speaking of modes and means of learning/assessing, I've experimented with mastery learning recently in a couple of my classes, and if you think students hate grades and find them frustrating, you haven't seen frustration until they get their 4th or 5th version of a paper back, with more extended comments and me saying 'it's much better, but it's not a good paper yet. Please rewrite as indicated.'
Many, many students like that grades are not actionable, because they can just move on to the next thing (assuming non-failing grades) rather than have to do the important, frustrating, detailed, foundational work of acquiring mastery of a skill or body of information or etc. Making them stay with something until they actually master it has driven more students to despair, in my experience, than their receiving a D or an F. I like it, however. The students learn far more, and are made to confront what learning really should be: not surface glosses of familiarity with material, but real, bone-deep, personal understanding of and fluency with a set of knowledge or skills. The only real problem is that it's easy to run out of time in a semester unit. The acquisition of mastery stubbornly refuses to conform to semester-length chunks.
One frustration that did resonate with me (in the article--mostly I'm of the opinion that Millenials get it and are really smart about some things that most olds don't get at all) is the consistent pleas of students to professors to accommodate their learning styles or whatever (don't make me write a paper, let's just have an oral exam instead), much of which comes from them having too many commercial enterprises catering to them their whole lives: I mean, if the student is the customer, then the customer is always right, right?? So as a professor, I often get students coming to me asking for me to tailor the ways I provide the services they pay for (quite different from accommodations for, e.g., learning disability and so forth), or to give them some kind of special exception, and on and on. My answers to these kinds of requests are nearly always 'no'. No, there is no extra credit work available at the end of the semester, this is where you learn that actions have consequences; no, you cannot have an oral exam instead of writing a paper, I assigned the paper because you will learn certain things that you can only learn writing a paper, by writing that paper; etc.
Maybe I'm a curmudgeon and I'm just not hip to how the kids are. But there still is a lot of the regular whining and resistance to hard work and personal growth that there always is with human beings, and the particular set of social/political circumstances of Millenials should not obfuscate the fact that much of this is just young adults learning and growing as usual. (What I do notice is a difference between the NCLB kids and the ones right before them--I can really tell if a student was born prior to ~1996. It's frighteningly obvious lately.)
posted by LooseFilter at 12:02 PM on May 24, 2016 [15 favorites]
Many, many students like that grades are not actionable, because they can just move on to the next thing (assuming non-failing grades) rather than have to do the important, frustrating, detailed, foundational work of acquiring mastery of a skill or body of information or etc. Making them stay with something until they actually master it has driven more students to despair, in my experience, than their receiving a D or an F. I like it, however. The students learn far more, and are made to confront what learning really should be: not surface glosses of familiarity with material, but real, bone-deep, personal understanding of and fluency with a set of knowledge or skills. The only real problem is that it's easy to run out of time in a semester unit. The acquisition of mastery stubbornly refuses to conform to semester-length chunks.
One frustration that did resonate with me (in the article--mostly I'm of the opinion that Millenials get it and are really smart about some things that most olds don't get at all) is the consistent pleas of students to professors to accommodate their learning styles or whatever (don't make me write a paper, let's just have an oral exam instead), much of which comes from them having too many commercial enterprises catering to them their whole lives: I mean, if the student is the customer, then the customer is always right, right?? So as a professor, I often get students coming to me asking for me to tailor the ways I provide the services they pay for (quite different from accommodations for, e.g., learning disability and so forth), or to give them some kind of special exception, and on and on. My answers to these kinds of requests are nearly always 'no'. No, there is no extra credit work available at the end of the semester, this is where you learn that actions have consequences; no, you cannot have an oral exam instead of writing a paper, I assigned the paper because you will learn certain things that you can only learn writing a paper, by writing that paper; etc.
Maybe I'm a curmudgeon and I'm just not hip to how the kids are. But there still is a lot of the regular whining and resistance to hard work and personal growth that there always is with human beings, and the particular set of social/political circumstances of Millenials should not obfuscate the fact that much of this is just young adults learning and growing as usual. (What I do notice is a difference between the NCLB kids and the ones right before them--I can really tell if a student was born prior to ~1996. It's frighteningly obvious lately.)
posted by LooseFilter at 12:02 PM on May 24, 2016 [15 favorites]
> My problem is with the "to be exactly who I was" part.
It's pretty clear the author doesn't mean "to restore my brain to the day before I went to Oberlin". Don't you think you can things without fundamentally changing your values and culture?
posted by l_zzie at 12:13 PM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
It's pretty clear the author doesn't mean "to restore my brain to the day before I went to Oberlin". Don't you think you can things without fundamentally changing your values and culture?
posted by l_zzie at 12:13 PM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
(What I do notice is a difference between the NCLB kids and the ones right before them--I can really tell if a student was born prior to ~1996. It's frighteningly obvious lately.)
What do you notice? I've often wondered how all that test-obsession was going to impact kids when they got past HS.
posted by Frowner at 12:21 PM on May 24, 2016
What do you notice? I've often wondered how all that test-obsession was going to impact kids when they got past HS.
posted by Frowner at 12:21 PM on May 24, 2016
Is there any other industry where the customer is charged so much and then expected to make no complaints or demands in return?
posted by davros42 at 12:21 PM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by davros42 at 12:21 PM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
Losefilter
the student is not a customer but rather a consumer. Few colleges need to get more and more customers but need only get enough to pay enough to consume what the school can accomodate. If you wanted to please the consumer (customer) then give them all great grades and do not require any work for those grades. My game. My rules.
posted by Postroad at 12:28 PM on May 24, 2016
the student is not a customer but rather a consumer. Few colleges need to get more and more customers but need only get enough to pay enough to consume what the school can accomodate. If you wanted to please the consumer (customer) then give them all great grades and do not require any work for those grades. My game. My rules.
posted by Postroad at 12:28 PM on May 24, 2016
the student is not a customer but rather a consumer.
Viewing every conceivable relationship through the prism of commerce is one of the things I've seen happen to society since I left school, and it makes me very sad. I blame Reagan and Thatcher, who were running the so-called Free World when this bullshit first got a foothold in the Eighties.
posted by flabdablet at 12:59 PM on May 24, 2016 [18 favorites]
Viewing every conceivable relationship through the prism of commerce is one of the things I've seen happen to society since I left school, and it makes me very sad. I blame Reagan and Thatcher, who were running the so-called Free World when this bullshit first got a foothold in the Eighties.
posted by flabdablet at 12:59 PM on May 24, 2016 [18 favorites]
...murals...
at my alma mater we just had a tombstone from the Gravity Research Foundation and no one complained, while I was there at least
posted by thelonius at 1:04 PM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
at my alma mater we just had a tombstone from the Gravity Research Foundation and no one complained, while I was there at least
posted by thelonius at 1:04 PM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
Many, many students like that grades are not actionable, because they can just move on to the next thing
Oh, believe me, I know many of them would rather just get a grade and be done with it. After all, that's how they're all-too-often conditioned to respond in high school. But I also don't care.
I mean, I sympathize with their frustration, but my job is education, not customer service. No matter what the (very) occasional student might believe to the contrary.
posted by dersins at 1:19 PM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
Oh, believe me, I know many of them would rather just get a grade and be done with it. After all, that's how they're all-too-often conditioned to respond in high school. But I also don't care.
I mean, I sympathize with their frustration, but my job is education, not customer service. No matter what the (very) occasional student might believe to the contrary.
posted by dersins at 1:19 PM on May 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
I spent a night on the Oberlin campus in 1969. The students had thrown food services off campus, and all food was prepared in communal kitchens, and students had assignments. The bathrooms were coed, and I mean that sincerely, even as liberal as I was I was surprised at people walking naked in the halls. The line up at the sinks was rainbow, and varied. The Friday night I was there, a huge quantity of LSD, allegedly stolen from a Military lab, was a campus wide event. My friend from high school, had invited me to stay, while I had a stopover before flying into Canada to visit with family, over Christmas. My Mom was working up there. I was stopped by the RCMP just over the border and my luggage was searched. It pissed me off so, I opened my suitcase and threw my stuff out onto the snow, and kicked it all about until at least one food of space, separated each item. I was polite, saying, "Let me help you with this." If you try to disassemble anything hard enough, you might eventually succeed, however Oberlin is still doing what it has been doing for a long time.
posted by Oyéah at 1:20 PM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 1:20 PM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
They move their lives to rural Ohio and perform their identities, whatever that might mean. They bear out the school’s vision. In exchange, they’re groomed for old-school entry into the liberal upper middle class. An irony surrounds the whole endeavor, and a lot of students seemed to see it.
...
"'As a person who plans on returning to my community, I don’t want to assimilate into middle-class values. I’m going home, back to the ’hood of Chicago, to be exactly who I was before I came to Oberlin.'"
This was the best thread in the article. The kids are explicitly, forcefully rejecting the values and societal frameworks that people my age thought we had to just grudgingly accept. I'm starting to recognize that I'm part of an age group (not even that much older - mid-thirties) that just thought we had to integrate into the system. College-age kids are looking at what they inherited and are saying, "no." They have the potential to go much further than we did, and break down the barriers that we thought were immutable and inherent to the playing field. And maybe this is the generational dance of progress that just happens. It's making me optimistic. I need to consciously make an effort to be inspired by this stuff, rather than reflexively dismiss.
posted by naju at 2:46 PM on May 24, 2016 [16 favorites]
...
"'As a person who plans on returning to my community, I don’t want to assimilate into middle-class values. I’m going home, back to the ’hood of Chicago, to be exactly who I was before I came to Oberlin.'"
This was the best thread in the article. The kids are explicitly, forcefully rejecting the values and societal frameworks that people my age thought we had to just grudgingly accept. I'm starting to recognize that I'm part of an age group (not even that much older - mid-thirties) that just thought we had to integrate into the system. College-age kids are looking at what they inherited and are saying, "no." They have the potential to go much further than we did, and break down the barriers that we thought were immutable and inherent to the playing field. And maybe this is the generational dance of progress that just happens. It's making me optimistic. I need to consciously make an effort to be inspired by this stuff, rather than reflexively dismiss.
posted by naju at 2:46 PM on May 24, 2016 [16 favorites]
I am powerfully fascinated by the parsing of the Builder vs Firebrand older and younger millenials. I was born in 1985, and went to a public university (in Ohio) and hung out with a lot of socialists/anarchists/progressive Democrats [incidentally a lot of us kind of-sort of looked down our noses at our friends who went to small liberal arts colleges like Antioch and Oberlin because we were very proud of keeping it real by going to our local public university and it seemed all they did was talk themselves into circles while living in safe college town bubbles].
Our political baptism was in the run-up to the Iraq War, which really brought together a lot of demographics (in my city, an interesting mix of anarchists/socialists, old hippies, social justice Catholics, and people of Middle Eastern descent) and a lot of us also had side activism going on in things like Students Against Sweatshops and various anti-free trade/globalization stuff (think all the mid-late 2000s echoes of the WTO protests, which was definitely the midwife of the Occupy movement that happened after we graduated).
I definitely feel a little bit of a gap between my college activism experience and today's activists -- and I do think the access to social media is a HUGE marker of difference, mainly because Facebook was only just coming out the last couple years of college. And while we definitely were familiar with the language of privilege, it seems to me that it's employed in really different ways among today's college students in ways I have difficulty explaining.
I'm not sure how this makes us different, because I don't necessarily agree with the article's assertion that this means people on the older side of millenial are more deferential or conservative. But I do feel like seething with impotent rage at 8 years of the Bush administration, which most of today's college activists were not of voting age during, sort of makes me wonder if your perspective as a young leftist skews differently based on whether you came of age during the Bush years vs the Obama years.
posted by mostly vowels at 3:00 PM on May 24, 2016 [9 favorites]
Our political baptism was in the run-up to the Iraq War, which really brought together a lot of demographics (in my city, an interesting mix of anarchists/socialists, old hippies, social justice Catholics, and people of Middle Eastern descent) and a lot of us also had side activism going on in things like Students Against Sweatshops and various anti-free trade/globalization stuff (think all the mid-late 2000s echoes of the WTO protests, which was definitely the midwife of the Occupy movement that happened after we graduated).
I definitely feel a little bit of a gap between my college activism experience and today's activists -- and I do think the access to social media is a HUGE marker of difference, mainly because Facebook was only just coming out the last couple years of college. And while we definitely were familiar with the language of privilege, it seems to me that it's employed in really different ways among today's college students in ways I have difficulty explaining.
I'm not sure how this makes us different, because I don't necessarily agree with the article's assertion that this means people on the older side of millenial are more deferential or conservative. But I do feel like seething with impotent rage at 8 years of the Bush administration, which most of today's college activists were not of voting age during, sort of makes me wonder if your perspective as a young leftist skews differently based on whether you came of age during the Bush years vs the Obama years.
posted by mostly vowels at 3:00 PM on May 24, 2016 [9 favorites]
This 18-22 cohort of "Firebrands" are themselves an exploited class. They are the ones having to do this social justice labor, because no-one else will do it; yet, what's happening is there's an cognitive/intellectual catch-22: these are developing minds, that haven't read Antigone yet, that haven't learned sophisticated maths and sciences and philosophy and humanities (ideally, in order to subvert these disciplines!)—and paradoxically are implicitly put into this position of having to choose and enact their political leanings in their lives. When the article's students talk about doing activist planning through midnight taking a toll on the conventional demands of 9 am coursework, that's the labor talking.
I read this psychology paper theorizing that college students undergo a process of epistemological development. Students at that point tend to start with relativistic (≈ multiplistic in the paper) thinking, and the New Yorker article illustrates this, as when one student demanded his professor not be present for the meeting, and him not seeing anything "wrong" about that whereas the professor is just aghast at this new way of relating. Or in the section about experiential authority—that's exactly this worldview difference giving tension between the students and administration/faculty. This is what the paper says:
According to Kuhn (1991), development proceeds following this sequence when new experiences are incompatible with current conceptions. Not surprisingly, epistemic sophistication closely relates to age and educational level (Schommer, 1998). For example, King and Kitchener (1994, 2002) showed that secondary school students predominantly reveal thinking referring to absolute beliefs, whereas college students evidence the use of multiplicistic or evaluativistic assumptions. Particularly students in senior college classes reveal multiplicistic thinking, which is why King and Kitchener (2002) assume a shift from absolutism to multiplicism during college. Authors agree that the most sophisticated forms of epistemic thinking (i.e., evaluativism) are usually achieved only by those with advanced educational levels (e.g., doctoral students; Hofer, 2001; King & Kitchener, 2002; Magolda, 2002). Nonetheless, considering Kuhn, Cheney, and Weinstock (2000) reporting tendencies towards absolute, multiplicistic, as well as evaluativistic thinking within the same levels of education (even among primary school students), it is noteworthy that epistemic sophistication varies widely among peers. Consequently, it becomes essential to focus not only on earlier, but also on later stages of epistemic development (e.g., multiplicism and evaluativism), especially when investi- gating epistemic beliefs in higher education.
What we have today is a different confluence of political and pedagogical interests, where real world problems appear amplified and accelerated and urgent—and though this is of no fault of professors and the admin (even as the student liason in the article appropriately denounces universities as the tool of capitalism), it should be part of their calling to adapt their education under these conditions.
posted by polymodus at 5:12 PM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
I read this psychology paper theorizing that college students undergo a process of epistemological development. Students at that point tend to start with relativistic (≈ multiplistic in the paper) thinking, and the New Yorker article illustrates this, as when one student demanded his professor not be present for the meeting, and him not seeing anything "wrong" about that whereas the professor is just aghast at this new way of relating. Or in the section about experiential authority—that's exactly this worldview difference giving tension between the students and administration/faculty. This is what the paper says:
According to Kuhn (1991), development proceeds following this sequence when new experiences are incompatible with current conceptions. Not surprisingly, epistemic sophistication closely relates to age and educational level (Schommer, 1998). For example, King and Kitchener (1994, 2002) showed that secondary school students predominantly reveal thinking referring to absolute beliefs, whereas college students evidence the use of multiplicistic or evaluativistic assumptions. Particularly students in senior college classes reveal multiplicistic thinking, which is why King and Kitchener (2002) assume a shift from absolutism to multiplicism during college. Authors agree that the most sophisticated forms of epistemic thinking (i.e., evaluativism) are usually achieved only by those with advanced educational levels (e.g., doctoral students; Hofer, 2001; King & Kitchener, 2002; Magolda, 2002). Nonetheless, considering Kuhn, Cheney, and Weinstock (2000) reporting tendencies towards absolute, multiplicistic, as well as evaluativistic thinking within the same levels of education (even among primary school students), it is noteworthy that epistemic sophistication varies widely among peers. Consequently, it becomes essential to focus not only on earlier, but also on later stages of epistemic development (e.g., multiplicism and evaluativism), especially when investi- gating epistemic beliefs in higher education.
What we have today is a different confluence of political and pedagogical interests, where real world problems appear amplified and accelerated and urgent—and though this is of no fault of professors and the admin (even as the student liason in the article appropriately denounces universities as the tool of capitalism), it should be part of their calling to adapt their education under these conditions.
posted by polymodus at 5:12 PM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Students recently raised concerns that the mural was exoticizing.
I agree, the mural was put there to serve the students, and if it's failing in that aim, it can be replaced with something that serves them better. (Although I wonder how better would be determined.)
But I find myself scratching my head over the charge of exoticizing. What does that mean -- given that the various music traditions are depicted reasonably accurately and that Oberlin clearly welcomes people from the regions whose traditions are depicted -- and where does one draw the line?
Would the mural avoid exoticizing if the background were an urban setting rather than stylized mountains? If it included a person playing an electric guitar? If it were displayed anywhere other than on a college campus?
Would a concert of music by players from the same traditions be open to the same charge?
posted by Greenie at 5:32 PM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
I agree, the mural was put there to serve the students, and if it's failing in that aim, it can be replaced with something that serves them better. (Although I wonder how better would be determined.)
But I find myself scratching my head over the charge of exoticizing. What does that mean -- given that the various music traditions are depicted reasonably accurately and that Oberlin clearly welcomes people from the regions whose traditions are depicted -- and where does one draw the line?
Would the mural avoid exoticizing if the background were an urban setting rather than stylized mountains? If it included a person playing an electric guitar? If it were displayed anywhere other than on a college campus?
Would a concert of music by players from the same traditions be open to the same charge?
posted by Greenie at 5:32 PM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Is there any other industry where the customer is charged so much and then expected to make no complaints or demands in return?
The academy is not a business. It should not be treated as such. Businesses exist to make a financial profit. The academy exists to make and spread knowledge, a goal that sometimes (or often) runs counter to financial profits. This is why tenure exists, for example: because sometimes professors have to do or say things that are controversial and difficult and that will lose money for their institutions. And this has to be ok, because it is in the service of creating and disseminating knowledge.
Unfortunately, neoliberalism has all but ruined higher education in the United States and now at faculty meetings I hear people talking like this. Our students are customers. I am valued for how much grant money I can bring in, how many citations my articles get and whether they are published in "high impact" journals (which are often, frankly, unreadable and full of shoddy research). I am not valued for my teaching. In fact, I have had multiple talking-tos because my teaching evaluations are too good. I am not supposed to spend time and effort teaching. It is not profitable. The students are already here and they're already paying and all I need to do is give them a passable class so they can get that paper with their degree stamped on it at the end of the road. Pass them all. Don't say or do anything too controversial. Focus on publishing.
Tenure is about to die. The academy is about to die. This used to be the place where people went to learn; where knowledge was created and disseminated and the hard work of questioning society and culture and our choices was de rigeur. Now, these things are not profitable, so professors - especially junior scholars - don't do them, and as a result, our students suffer. Students shouldn't necessarily get what they want, not all of the time. They are not buying a product. They are not buying a hamburger or an iPad. They are paying to push their minds and their thoughts to the edges - or, at least, they were. And that is by its very nature an uncomfortable process. They are not going to like it all of the time. They are not going to understand the why behind it sometimes. And that has to be ok.
posted by sockermom at 5:42 PM on May 24, 2016 [17 favorites]
The academy is not a business. It should not be treated as such. Businesses exist to make a financial profit. The academy exists to make and spread knowledge, a goal that sometimes (or often) runs counter to financial profits. This is why tenure exists, for example: because sometimes professors have to do or say things that are controversial and difficult and that will lose money for their institutions. And this has to be ok, because it is in the service of creating and disseminating knowledge.
Unfortunately, neoliberalism has all but ruined higher education in the United States and now at faculty meetings I hear people talking like this. Our students are customers. I am valued for how much grant money I can bring in, how many citations my articles get and whether they are published in "high impact" journals (which are often, frankly, unreadable and full of shoddy research). I am not valued for my teaching. In fact, I have had multiple talking-tos because my teaching evaluations are too good. I am not supposed to spend time and effort teaching. It is not profitable. The students are already here and they're already paying and all I need to do is give them a passable class so they can get that paper with their degree stamped on it at the end of the road. Pass them all. Don't say or do anything too controversial. Focus on publishing.
Tenure is about to die. The academy is about to die. This used to be the place where people went to learn; where knowledge was created and disseminated and the hard work of questioning society and culture and our choices was de rigeur. Now, these things are not profitable, so professors - especially junior scholars - don't do them, and as a result, our students suffer. Students shouldn't necessarily get what they want, not all of the time. They are not buying a product. They are not buying a hamburger or an iPad. They are paying to push their minds and their thoughts to the edges - or, at least, they were. And that is by its very nature an uncomfortable process. They are not going to like it all of the time. They are not going to understand the why behind it sometimes. And that has to be ok.
posted by sockermom at 5:42 PM on May 24, 2016 [17 favorites]
What do you notice? I've often wondered how all that test-obsession was going to impact kids when they got past HS.
It's still difficult to put my finger on specifically, but the nearest description I have is that they don't know how to use their brains to think with very well. My students now, mostly fully of the NCLB education regime, are just as bright, motivated, curious, incurious, lazy, etc. as they've always been. It's just that now, even the really bright ones are just mentally passive. They do not seem to know how to take initiative regarding their own learning and growth, and really lack lateral thinking skills.
The academy exists to make and spread knowledge, a goal that sometimes (or often) runs counter to financial profits.
Most definitely. My sense is that our collective, deep conditioning as consumers, and the fundamental framing of human activity as commerce-based, has led us to forget what knowledge, learning, thinking are really for (your quality of life, and ours together). Thus, all education, but especially higher education--which you have to pay for--is now just assumed to be vocational preparation and training, whose value is merely practical. The mental models that adhere to this have also become invisible of late: I recently had a conversation with a provost about authority in the academy, and this person actually said (paraphrase) "no, I'm not describing a hierarchical, business model, but somebody has to be in charge and in this university that's the president." I didn't know what to say to that.
posted by LooseFilter at 6:07 PM on May 24, 2016 [9 favorites]
It's still difficult to put my finger on specifically, but the nearest description I have is that they don't know how to use their brains to think with very well. My students now, mostly fully of the NCLB education regime, are just as bright, motivated, curious, incurious, lazy, etc. as they've always been. It's just that now, even the really bright ones are just mentally passive. They do not seem to know how to take initiative regarding their own learning and growth, and really lack lateral thinking skills.
The academy exists to make and spread knowledge, a goal that sometimes (or often) runs counter to financial profits.
Most definitely. My sense is that our collective, deep conditioning as consumers, and the fundamental framing of human activity as commerce-based, has led us to forget what knowledge, learning, thinking are really for (your quality of life, and ours together). Thus, all education, but especially higher education--which you have to pay for--is now just assumed to be vocational preparation and training, whose value is merely practical. The mental models that adhere to this have also become invisible of late: I recently had a conversation with a provost about authority in the academy, and this person actually said (paraphrase) "no, I'm not describing a hierarchical, business model, but somebody has to be in charge and in this university that's the president." I didn't know what to say to that.
posted by LooseFilter at 6:07 PM on May 24, 2016 [9 favorites]
But I find myself scratching my head over the charge of exoticizing. What does that mean
Well it's like a greatest hits of examples in one mural, but the snake charmer stood out to me most readily. It's one of the most emblematic images of exotification and orientalism. Context. Oberlin kids must cringe reading Edward Said's Orientalism with "The Snake Charmer" on the cover while they have to stare at this mural, which is a shallow paean to multiculturalism on the surface and insidiously exotifying in the most obvious and embarrassing ways, just below the surface. It's a relic of a far less enlightened 90s and deserves to be put out to pasture. And it certainly doesn't belong in an institution with professed values like this one.
posted by naju at 6:57 PM on May 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
Well it's like a greatest hits of examples in one mural, but the snake charmer stood out to me most readily. It's one of the most emblematic images of exotification and orientalism. Context. Oberlin kids must cringe reading Edward Said's Orientalism with "The Snake Charmer" on the cover while they have to stare at this mural, which is a shallow paean to multiculturalism on the surface and insidiously exotifying in the most obvious and embarrassing ways, just below the surface. It's a relic of a far less enlightened 90s and deserves to be put out to pasture. And it certainly doesn't belong in an institution with professed values like this one.
posted by naju at 6:57 PM on May 24, 2016 [8 favorites]
(What I do notice is a difference between the NCLB kids and the ones right before them--I can really tell if a student was born prior to ~1996. It's frighteningly obvious lately.)
Because they are more likely to have wrinkles and grey hair? (I was a student well into my thirties ...)
posted by jb at 7:12 PM on May 24, 2016
Because they are more likely to have wrinkles and grey hair? (I was a student well into my thirties ...)
posted by jb at 7:12 PM on May 24, 2016
I recently had a conversation with a provost about authority in the academy, and this person actually said (paraphrase) "no, I'm not describing a hierarchical, business model, but somebody has to be in charge and in this university that's the president."
One recent president actually on the record used the word "pipeline", without irony or reflexivity, regarding the production of the graduate students at that institution. No eyes were batted.
My sense is that our collective, deep conditioning as consumers, and the fundamental framing of human activity as commerce-based, has led us to forget what knowledge, learning, thinking are really for (your quality of life, and ours together).
There's a nuance to it though. If you really get young adults to open up, they absolutely will acknowledge this internal conflict. It's not that they're unaware—on reddit, some of the most popular internet comics have been about existential anxiety under a capitalist livelihood. For professors, the barrier is the power dynamic of formal, institutional education: students will censor themselves from you, as I did, so it can look as if they're unrigorous or oblivious. They shouldn't be faulted for doing that to cope.
posted by polymodus at 7:21 PM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
One recent president actually on the record used the word "pipeline", without irony or reflexivity, regarding the production of the graduate students at that institution. No eyes were batted.
My sense is that our collective, deep conditioning as consumers, and the fundamental framing of human activity as commerce-based, has led us to forget what knowledge, learning, thinking are really for (your quality of life, and ours together).
There's a nuance to it though. If you really get young adults to open up, they absolutely will acknowledge this internal conflict. It's not that they're unaware—on reddit, some of the most popular internet comics have been about existential anxiety under a capitalist livelihood. For professors, the barrier is the power dynamic of formal, institutional education: students will censor themselves from you, as I did, so it can look as if they're unrigorous or oblivious. They shouldn't be faulted for doing that to cope.
posted by polymodus at 7:21 PM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
One recent president actually on the record used the word "pipeline", without irony or reflexivity
Reflexivity is a good thing and the term should be critiqued, but I want to say that it's become pretty standard jargon when talking about a flow of anything. Even in the world of museum social justice, we talk about using early contact, paid internships, and various forms of outreach establishing a "pipeline" of people who might not otherwise have entered the cultural sector. A common critique of lack of diversity is "well, there is no pipeline." So while I agree that's business capital jargon rolling into the educational sector, the reason no one batted an eye is that it's become common parlance. I'm not saying 'don't call that out,' just saying it may be more widespread and less identified as problematic than many realize.
posted by Miko at 7:36 PM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
Reflexivity is a good thing and the term should be critiqued, but I want to say that it's become pretty standard jargon when talking about a flow of anything. Even in the world of museum social justice, we talk about using early contact, paid internships, and various forms of outreach establishing a "pipeline" of people who might not otherwise have entered the cultural sector. A common critique of lack of diversity is "well, there is no pipeline." So while I agree that's business capital jargon rolling into the educational sector, the reason no one batted an eye is that it's become common parlance. I'm not saying 'don't call that out,' just saying it may be more widespread and less identified as problematic than many realize.
posted by Miko at 7:36 PM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I think pipeline is pretty standard - talk of women exiting academia as the "leaky pipeline".
posted by peacheater at 8:27 PM on May 24, 2016
posted by peacheater at 8:27 PM on May 24, 2016
the reason no one batted an eye is that it's become common parlance. I'm not saying 'don't call that out,' just saying it may be more widespread and less identified as problematic than many realize.
Yeah, I think pipeline is pretty standard - talk of women exiting academia as the "leaky pipeline".
Indeed, the context in which the president said it was in manipulating/squeezing/parameterizing the "pipeline" to get more/better quality grad students through it. It is conventional language [for some circles], so exactly that's why I expected my University Dear Leader be more aware of the rhetoric and ideology behind it. Not even at the level of calling-out--I felt like I was being objectified, and can't believe I was alone in that visceral reaction. You have to visualize that. And of course ideology meaning the pipeline is the problem, versus the administration's narrow assumption that New Better Pipeline will fix Issues.
Might as well call it by its real name, meat grinder! I had expected a University president of that caliber to be allergic to buzzwords. That's why it piqued me at the time, and stuck with me ever since.
posted by polymodus at 9:12 PM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I think pipeline is pretty standard - talk of women exiting academia as the "leaky pipeline".
Indeed, the context in which the president said it was in manipulating/squeezing/parameterizing the "pipeline" to get more/better quality grad students through it. It is conventional language [for some circles], so exactly that's why I expected my University Dear Leader be more aware of the rhetoric and ideology behind it. Not even at the level of calling-out--I felt like I was being objectified, and can't believe I was alone in that visceral reaction. You have to visualize that. And of course ideology meaning the pipeline is the problem, versus the administration's narrow assumption that New Better Pipeline will fix Issues.
Might as well call it by its real name, meat grinder! I had expected a University president of that caliber to be allergic to buzzwords. That's why it piqued me at the time, and stuck with me ever since.
posted by polymodus at 9:12 PM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think we should stop using the term "erasing history" for stuff like this - it's inflammatory, accusing people of 1984-style manipulation of the historical record, which is clearly not what's happening. I mean, the mural has been thoroughly documented; good pictures of it exist and aren't going anywhere. Nobody's trying to wipe out all memory of the mural by tossing that documentation down the memory hole.
Yes, thank you! The question is not "should this piece be smashed into dust by a sledgehammer and scattered to the four winds?"; it's "what effect does this piece have as a visible decorative element in a public space?"
It's really onerous to assign oppressed people such a burden of constantly having to process their own historical trauma that even the design of everyday public space is supposed to serve this goal.
posted by threeants at 10:47 PM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yes, thank you! The question is not "should this piece be smashed into dust by a sledgehammer and scattered to the four winds?"; it's "what effect does this piece have as a visible decorative element in a public space?"
It's really onerous to assign oppressed people such a burden of constantly having to process their own historical trauma that even the design of everyday public space is supposed to serve this goal.
posted by threeants at 10:47 PM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Removing grading can seriously hurt students. I talked to someone attending Northeastern law school once, and the school's narrative grading system and lack of a GPA they could include on a resume had made the job search more difficult as they couldn't pass employer screening to get interviews.
posted by zymil at 2:12 AM on May 25, 2016
posted by zymil at 2:12 AM on May 25, 2016
I'm surprised that so many people seemed to think this article was critical of student protestors, or somehow critiquing their aims. What I liked so much about it was how well it depicted the conflicting perspectives of the people it wrote about, simultaneously portraying their problems and doubts as significant while showing enough of other people's positions to make it evident why this is, in fact, a struggle, and not one with an easy resolution that we're all conveniently missing out on.
It felt like both an empathetic examination of the situation and an impressively robust explanation of the dynamics at play. I follow this stuff pretty closely, and this article did a decent job of doing those dynamics justice while simultaneously making them easier to grasp. The only faction I didn't feel was given a whole lot of time is the far-left movement that holds identity politics to be a distraction from genuine organization and political progress, and that's a group I personally find fascinating (usually because they tend to find the precise intersection at which erudite academia becomes indistinguishable from really pretentious misogyny). But everything else was there.
posted by rorgy at 5:17 AM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
It felt like both an empathetic examination of the situation and an impressively robust explanation of the dynamics at play. I follow this stuff pretty closely, and this article did a decent job of doing those dynamics justice while simultaneously making them easier to grasp. The only faction I didn't feel was given a whole lot of time is the far-left movement that holds identity politics to be a distraction from genuine organization and political progress, and that's a group I personally find fascinating (usually because they tend to find the precise intersection at which erudite academia becomes indistinguishable from really pretentious misogyny). But everything else was there.
posted by rorgy at 5:17 AM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Removing grading can seriously hurt students. I talked to someone attending Northeastern law school once, and the school's narrative grading system and lack of a GPA they could include on a resume had made the job search more difficult as they couldn't pass employer screening to get interviews.
Well, you're talking about law school, which is different. I'll probably piss off some lawyers by saying this, but law school seems to resemble--and certainly plays the role of--vocational training more than a strictly academic experience.
As far as the latter is concerned, I've said this earlier in the thread, but I'll repeat it: IT SHOULD NOT BE THE ACADEMY'S JOB TO DO HR DEPARTMENTS' JOBS FOR THEM.
posted by dersins at 8:06 AM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Well, you're talking about law school, which is different. I'll probably piss off some lawyers by saying this, but law school seems to resemble--and certainly plays the role of--vocational training more than a strictly academic experience.
As far as the latter is concerned, I've said this earlier in the thread, but I'll repeat it: IT SHOULD NOT BE THE ACADEMY'S JOB TO DO HR DEPARTMENTS' JOBS FOR THEM.
posted by dersins at 8:06 AM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Indeed, the context in which the president said it was in manipulating/squeezing/parameterizing the "pipeline" to get more/better quality grad students through it...I felt like I was being objectified, and can't believe I was alone in that visceral reaction.
Is there another term you think is preferable for the concept that if we want more women in computer science we need to make investments at every stage from grade school to grad school to make the educational system better at serving girls and women? Language that you would find less objectifying than "pipeline"?
I'm in a position where that language gets used a lot and would welcome suggestions to improve it. ("Pipeline" is currently a buzzword in funding for grants that do a lot of worthwhile stuff.)
posted by straight at 8:56 AM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Is there another term you think is preferable for the concept that if we want more women in computer science we need to make investments at every stage from grade school to grad school to make the educational system better at serving girls and women? Language that you would find less objectifying than "pipeline"?
I'm in a position where that language gets used a lot and would welcome suggestions to improve it. ("Pipeline" is currently a buzzword in funding for grants that do a lot of worthwhile stuff.)
posted by straight at 8:56 AM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
law school seems to resemble--and certainly plays the role of--vocational training more than a strictly academic experience.
I think that depends on where you go. Someone told me that Yale Law was practically like studying political philosophy and that then actually practicing law was a shock because it wasn't exactly being run by high principles.
posted by thelonius at 9:49 AM on May 25, 2016
I think that depends on where you go. Someone told me that Yale Law was practically like studying political philosophy and that then actually practicing law was a shock because it wasn't exactly being run by high principles.
posted by thelonius at 9:49 AM on May 25, 2016
Probably true. Probably also true, though, that if Yale (or Harvard or Stanford or or or or) Law decided to stop giving grades their graduates would not be unduly hampered in finding employment.
In fact, if the top law schools all stopped giving grades, I feel pretty confident that law firms would manage to figure out a different way to sort job candidates, rather than simply ignoring people from those schools.
posted by dersins at 10:11 AM on May 25, 2016
In fact, if the top law schools all stopped giving grades, I feel pretty confident that law firms would manage to figure out a different way to sort job candidates, rather than simply ignoring people from those schools.
posted by dersins at 10:11 AM on May 25, 2016
IT SHOULD NOT BE THE ACADEMY'S JOB TO DO HR DEPARTMENTS' JOBS FOR THEM.
Well, they have already pushed most job training off to universities (especially grad schools--and convinced future workers to pay for it, natch), so.....
posted by LooseFilter at 10:26 AM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well, they have already pushed most job training off to universities (especially grad schools--and convinced future workers to pay for it, natch), so.....
posted by LooseFilter at 10:26 AM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
The HR problem is an interesting one. I've just been through a bunch of executive coaching and learned that the HR team isn't even doing the job - they now use software to screen and discard resumes hundreds at a time, and one of the things they search for is "GPA." I think class rank does matter, and there should be some way of showing it. That's not a defense of grades per se, but it's a significant part of the problem.
posted by Miko at 10:56 AM on May 25, 2016
posted by Miko at 10:56 AM on May 25, 2016
Tablet has an extensive article about Joy Karega, the antisemitic Oberlin professor mentioned by Joe in Australia in the first comment in this thread.
--
Karega has posted on Facebook that the CIA and Mossad are behind ISIS, Jews are responsible for 9/11 and has also spread Protocols of the Elders of Zion-style tropes, such as pictures of people like Jacob Rothschild staring down the words, “We own your news, the media, your oil, and your government.” Some of her fellow professors have condemned her for this. Others defend her.
posted by zarq at 11:39 AM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
...what has been transpiring at Oberlin represents a marriage of deliberate prejudice with empowered ignorance that has increasingly marginalized Jewish students and Jewish life on campus. It will take an administration willing to forthrightly combat misinformed stereotypes about Jews, and to confront anti-Israel activism used as an excuse to intimidate and bully Jewish students, to have any chance of changing this deteriorating climate for the better.How Oberlin Has Repeatedly Failed To Confront Anti-Semitism on Campus
--
Karega has posted on Facebook that the CIA and Mossad are behind ISIS, Jews are responsible for 9/11 and has also spread Protocols of the Elders of Zion-style tropes, such as pictures of people like Jacob Rothschild staring down the words, “We own your news, the media, your oil, and your government.” Some of her fellow professors have condemned her for this. Others defend her.
posted by zarq at 11:39 AM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Thanks for posting that, zarq. I feel like the antisemitism element of this has been downplayed or totally ignored, and shouldn't be. I think two things wind up happening -- that some of the antisemitism is coupled with criticisms of Israel, which is necessarily a fraught discussion, but one in which the left repeatedly refuses to decouple legitimate criticisms and antisemitism, even when the antisemitism is blatant. And also that intersectionality somehow has managed to overlook the Jewish experience in a lot of way, sort of shrugging it off as white people problems and therefore not really so important that it needs to be recognized or addressed.
And this is the way it can seem from the outside, but, then, from the outside, all sorts of things can seem small or unimportant. If you aren't exposed to it, it's easy to think that it doesn't happen at all, and that the microagressions experienced by Jews are nonexistent or not as valid as the microagressions experienced by other people, and that antisemitism is so rare and has so little weight behind it that it doesn't rise to the level of being worth considering.
But that's from the outside. From the inside, it's fairly constant, in small ways (such as my coworker who cannot say "Jewish women" without saying "rich Jewish women," and then shrugs and says "you know what I mean" when I give her the side eye) and in bigger ways, such as violent attacks on Jewish community centers and the Holocaust museum.
Jewishness isn't just another white ethnicity. It isn't even a white ethnicity, as there are loads of Jews of color who get to experience both racism and antisemitism, and often have their experiences as one or the other erased. But beyond that, it's a specific cultural experience with its own history of oppression -- a not insignificant history -- that continues to this day. And it's quite distressing that the left, which I am part of, has been so quick to minimize or ignore it, to leave it out of the category of human experience where the people who have the experience are the experts on their own experience, their oppression is valid, and they should be respected and listened to.
posted by maxsparber at 11:52 AM on May 25, 2016 [18 favorites]
And this is the way it can seem from the outside, but, then, from the outside, all sorts of things can seem small or unimportant. If you aren't exposed to it, it's easy to think that it doesn't happen at all, and that the microagressions experienced by Jews are nonexistent or not as valid as the microagressions experienced by other people, and that antisemitism is so rare and has so little weight behind it that it doesn't rise to the level of being worth considering.
But that's from the outside. From the inside, it's fairly constant, in small ways (such as my coworker who cannot say "Jewish women" without saying "rich Jewish women," and then shrugs and says "you know what I mean" when I give her the side eye) and in bigger ways, such as violent attacks on Jewish community centers and the Holocaust museum.
Jewishness isn't just another white ethnicity. It isn't even a white ethnicity, as there are loads of Jews of color who get to experience both racism and antisemitism, and often have their experiences as one or the other erased. But beyond that, it's a specific cultural experience with its own history of oppression -- a not insignificant history -- that continues to this day. And it's quite distressing that the left, which I am part of, has been so quick to minimize or ignore it, to leave it out of the category of human experience where the people who have the experience are the experts on their own experience, their oppression is valid, and they should be respected and listened to.
posted by maxsparber at 11:52 AM on May 25, 2016 [18 favorites]
This has been frustrating to watch play out online among alumni groups. According to Hillel, the student population is 29% Jewish. There are dissenting voices within that 29%.
Zionism and Israel/Palestine are and always have been contentious issues on campus and between alums. So much in fact that the topic is banned from the general Oberlin alum Facebook group and someone created separate group for that topic.
Karega's Facebook posts were to me undeniably antisemitic. I feel that Krislov is handling the difficult situation appropriately as he discussed in his letter this past March. As the New Yorker article highlights, it's a really fucking delicate balance between fostering political inquiry, free speech and an idea of justice among students while also fostering respect of personal history and identity. The tricky part is that Karega is also beloved by some students, who agree she is critical of Israel in class, but do not agree that she is antisemitic in class.
Some students and alums have expressed frustration over the magnitude of press about Karega's facebook posts relative to that the harassment and threats black students faced when their petition to Krislov was posted online last December. Oberlin is ~75% white, ~4% asian, ~8% hispanic and ~5% black.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 2:06 PM on May 25, 2016
Zionism and Israel/Palestine are and always have been contentious issues on campus and between alums. So much in fact that the topic is banned from the general Oberlin alum Facebook group and someone created separate group for that topic.
Karega's Facebook posts were to me undeniably antisemitic. I feel that Krislov is handling the difficult situation appropriately as he discussed in his letter this past March. As the New Yorker article highlights, it's a really fucking delicate balance between fostering political inquiry, free speech and an idea of justice among students while also fostering respect of personal history and identity. The tricky part is that Karega is also beloved by some students, who agree she is critical of Israel in class, but do not agree that she is antisemitic in class.
Some students and alums have expressed frustration over the magnitude of press about Karega's facebook posts relative to that the harassment and threats black students faced when their petition to Krislov was posted online last December. Oberlin is ~75% white, ~4% asian, ~8% hispanic and ~5% black.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 2:06 PM on May 25, 2016
And so, with spring approaching, students and faculty at one of America’s most progressive colleges felt pressured to make an awkward judgment: whether to ally themselves with the black community or whether to ally themselves with the offended Jews.
This seems to implicitly accept the proposition that one would have to choose a side based on the identity of the professor who made the posts rather than the content of the information posted. It also suggests that the black community is monolithic, and its members, without exception, supported Karega. I'd be surprised if that were true.
posted by layceepee at 3:57 PM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
This seems to implicitly accept the proposition that one would have to choose a side based on the identity of the professor who made the posts rather than the content of the information posted. It also suggests that the black community is monolithic, and its members, without exception, supported Karega. I'd be surprised if that were true.
posted by layceepee at 3:57 PM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
A typically thoughtful essay by David Schraub on racism and antisemitism at Oberlin: "If It Had Happened To Any Other Group....": Looking for the Glass
[...] I was also reflecting on the odd mirror image that has emerged: Both the Jews and the students of color contrast the innumerable hoops they have to jump through against the express-lane treatment the other group supposedly gets. Is it possible we're both right and both wrong?posted by Joe in Australia at 4:01 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
What I suspect is going on is this: When your own group faces a case of oppression or marginalization or wrong, you see every step in the process: The community which seems indifferent. The administration which seems to want to sweep it under the rug. The critics who roll their eyes at your oversensitivity, or who outright accuse you of fraud. You go through all of that, and what emerges is probably a statement that feels half-hearted and pro forma. It's maddening.
But when another group experiences a similar wrong, you don't see the process. [...]
But when another group experiences a similar wrong, you don't see the process.
That is something that I had to work hard to learn how to see. I owe that to metafilter contributors to helping me learn that skill. btw. Maybe Oberlin needs to hand out mandatory mefi handles as part of enrollment hahahahaha.
posted by Annika Cicada at 10:39 AM on May 26, 2016
That is something that I had to work hard to learn how to see. I owe that to metafilter contributors to helping me learn that skill. btw. Maybe Oberlin needs to hand out mandatory mefi handles as part of enrollment hahahahaha.
posted by Annika Cicada at 10:39 AM on May 26, 2016
It hasn't exactly been plain sailing on MeFi either, as a trans poster pointed out to me a while back. It's very, very, very hard to see your own blinders. The trouble is, that the energy spent on "why did they have it so easy" is diverting attention from real problems, to the profit of nobody but the powers that be.
There was a FPP recently about the (not really-real) issue of Irish slavery in the Americas. I think there absolutely are useful comparisons to be drawn from things like, e.g., similarities between comic depictions of people from Ireland and comic depictions of African Americans. But the people pushing the "Irish were slaves too" meme weren't actually interested in that; as far as I could see it was just the politics of envy and hatred.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:02 PM on May 26, 2016
There was a FPP recently about the (not really-real) issue of Irish slavery in the Americas. I think there absolutely are useful comparisons to be drawn from things like, e.g., similarities between comic depictions of people from Ireland and comic depictions of African Americans. But the people pushing the "Irish were slaves too" meme weren't actually interested in that; as far as I could see it was just the politics of envy and hatred.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:02 PM on May 26, 2016
For anyone still reading this who wants to know how the college is responding, here is the Spring 2016 Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Campus Climate Report: Cultivating Campus Climate: How Oberlin Meets the Challenges and Opportunities.
The specific concerns address are:
-Campus climate around race and the impact of anti-Black and other racisms
-Gender equity and sexual misconduct
-Campus climate for Jewish students, faculty, and staff
-Disability and access
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 11:09 AM on May 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
The specific concerns address are:
-Campus climate around race and the impact of anti-Black and other racisms
-Gender equity and sexual misconduct
-Campus climate for Jewish students, faculty, and staff
-Disability and access
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 11:09 AM on May 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
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posted by Joe in Australia at 5:12 AM on May 24, 2016 [10 favorites]