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photo credit: morgan childers

A professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Scott Galloway, recently sent an email that has gone viral, due largely to its unique approach in response to a student’s particularly obnoxious behavior.  The student, who remains anonymous, had arrived an hour late to class and been denied admission, and later emailed the professor to explain that he was late because he had been “sampling” different classes, the last of which was Professor Galloway’s, and that it was within his rights to explore different options at the beginning of the semester.

Galloway’s response has caught attention because of his brutal honesty in addressing what he sees as the student’s overall functional weaknesses.   In short, he takes him down a few notches.  You can read the full exchange here, but I wanted to focus on a specific piece of Galloway’s final advice:

“Getting a good job, working long hours, keeping your skills relevant, navigating the politics of an organization, finding a live/work balance…these are all really hard, xxxx. In contrast, respecting institutions, having manners, demonstrating a level of humility…these are all (relatively) easy. Get the easy stuff right xxxx. In and of themselves they will not make you successful. However, not possessing them will hold you back and you will not achieve your potential which, by virtue of you being admitted  to Stern, you must have in spades. It’s not too late xxxx…”

Opinion on the web seems split, mainly centered on Galloway’s known personality quirks.  The entire controversy, though, provides an opportunity to think about the appropriate tone and level of “honesty” in student-teacher communications.  As an adjunct at Baruch for five years, I’ve certainly felt the occasional urge to respond to particularly ridiculous requests with a similar sense of disbelief.  Galloway’s message, however, takes the impulse a step further, directly and personally addressing what he perceives to be the student’s overall failures.  His main point seems to be that, by exhibiting such a lack of decorum, the student is effectively handicapping himself, making it impossible to succeed in college or the larger world.

I find Galloway’s response generally appropriate considering the student’s rather arrogant assumption that “sampling” courses (by walking in and out of several classes mid-lecture) was a reasonable behavior.  His most memorable advice (“get your shit together”), while perhaps obscene, communicates an underlying truth.  If the student wishes to succeed in the business world, his presumed career direction, he will have to drastically adjust the attitude and expectations reflected in his brief interaction with Professor Galloway.

On the other hand, is it right to draw larger conclusions about a student’s chances of future success from one embarrassing incident?  Further, is it even within a professor’s rights or responsibilities to dole out such “advice” at all?  How can we effectively steer our students toward more appropriate and “successful” behavior without being too harsh or judgmental?

photo credit: andysternberg

Recently a Baruch undergraduate student, after listening to my advice on her Sociology 1000 paper, asked me, “So, what are you?”  I replied in the usual way, explaining that I’m a Writing Fellow at the Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute and that my role is to help students with specific writing assignments in their Sociology/Anthropology courses.

The student looked at me, still confused.  ”Yeah, but, are you a professor?  Or a student?  Or what?”  At this point I extrapolated my role even further, describing each step of the graduate school journey, regaling her with such terms as “adjuncting,” “Level III,” “dissertation committee” and, of course, “tenure-track.”  After shaking the glaze of catatonic boredom from her eyes, she asked me a follow-up question that ended up stumping me completely:  ”Should I go to graduate school?”

This brings me to the (intended) subject of this post, which is the sometimes difficult task of answering students’ questions about graduate school and academia as a career. Of course, every academic has different ideas about WHY they became an academic, with some I’m sure regretting the entire enterprise, but I think that answering these kinds of questions presents an excellent opportunity to clarify your own ideas about academia, career, your particular discipline, and even your sense of self.  Particularly for those “Level III” graduate students looking at impending job interviews, this may be a good time, as scary as it can seem, to practice formally justifying your major life decisions.

For reasons that remain unclear, lots of students ask me about graduate school.  Below are three typical student concerns, and a few ideas for how to approach them:

1.  ”Will I be able to make money?”

This question comes most often from one of Baruch’s numerous business-oriented students.  I often will engage them in a conversation about current events, particularly developments in the world of finance since say, oh, last October.  I try to honestly explain that academia is an industry like any other, subject to booms and busts, internal corruption, and strained budgets. However, in general, education is also a field with considerably more historical permanence than, for instance, day-trading.  With this question, you would do best to take a middle route.  It’s probably a bad idea to reinforce the whole teleology of the “job at the end of the college tunnel” anyway.  Say something about learning for learning’s sake, but don’t get preachy.

2.  ”Are you glad YOU went to graduate school?”

Ooh.  Hmm.  This can be a tricky one, especially if caught on a bad day.  First of all, as academics, we already have a tendency to make answers to questions like these extraordinarily complicated.  But there’s no need to confuse a student with all those shades of grey.  Here, then, is the best place for you to articulate your career goals, your internal philosophy, your academic raison d’être.  While everyone’s graduate school experience has been mixed (I can personally, nearly instantly, think of dozens of wonderful aspects it has added to my life, while simultaneously considering the many drawbacks), a student really wants to hear your honest, overall evaluation of a significant portion of your life and whether or not it was “worth it.”  Again, this is a good opportunity to justify yourself and, not unimportantly, to sound convincing while you’re doing it.  Even if you’re only convincing yourself, and barely.

3.  ”Should I go to graduate school?”

Ultimately, you can’t answer this question for a student.  Each person needs to come to these kinds of decisions on their own terms, but you can certainly give them advice as seems appropriate, without necessarily saying “yes” or “no.”  It should also be mentioned that just because a student is interested in graduate school doesn’t mean the impulse should be automatically encouraged.  Sometimes, students are just asking because they are curious.  Others are fishing for feedback, wanting to know if you think they are “smart enough” for graduate school.  Either way, these conversations collectively point to yet another process in the academic’s journey:  becoming a mentor.  Just like we had figures in our undergraduate years who pointed out the paths to us, so too must we become mentors and guides for our students.  That process of transformation, from student to teacher, is arguably lifelong.  In talking to students about graduate school and the vast range of experience that comes with it, we can begin to consider our own steps and the many reasons behind them.  At the very least, you should be able to ask yourself the question “why am I an academic?” without it sounding in your head like it’s being screamed to the gods.

Last month there was a spirited discussion on this blog after James Hoff admonished us to rethink our use of technology in the classroom. He made several excellent points about the potential downsides to using technology with our students and pointed out the danger in not encouraging students to be wary, even critical, of big-business sites like Facebook and YouTube. Although I agreed with a lot of what James wrote, I thought his responders too brought up some great points in opposition, and I found the discussion that followed in the comments thoroughly engaging. But given that almost all of that conversation tended towards the theoretical and the non-personal, I think it’s worth adding to the discussion some highlights from real-life moments in a classroom.

After teaching Writing to first-year students for over eight years, a few weeks ago I experienced a “first” in the classroom. One of my students read a paper out loud to the class in which he came out as gay. In this day and age this may not seem all that remarkable – especially considering that the younger generations seem to be more accepting and less homophobic with each year that passes. Still, in a world, a country, a state that does not give gay people the same rights that everyone else has – namely, the right to marry — and in a city where the number one insult hurled on the playground is still “faggot” (I personally heard it shouted 3 times by three different boys recently), I find my student’s decision admirably brave. In his paper he spoke about coming out to a small group of friends and family as a gay teen in North Carolina and how he eventually started posting videos on YouTube instructing other teenagers on how and when to come out.

Even though he was used to coming out online, in the classroom he was visibly nervous — his voice cracked and his hands shook as he read. Later, as we discussed the student’s essay, I was impressed when a few students in the class were able to note the irony of the situation – that the physical proximity involved in facing a handful of your peers, can be much more intimidating than divulging even the most intimate of secrets to thousands or even millions of people in the safety of cyberspace. True, my student agreed, though people may leave comments on YouTube videos, it is a different and often less intense moment of exchange than the face to face. To be sure, I have felt the reality of this in my own life as well as in my teaching. It is one of the reasons I use blogs or BlackBoard as an integral part of my course each semester. It doesn’t always work exactly how I want it to, but I use these technologies in the hopes that it will enhance face to face interaction and enrich classroom discussion, not replace it. I would argue that my student’s experiences on YouTube likely paved the way in giving him the courage to come out in person in a public way, such as he did that day in our class.

Classrooms can be intimate settings. In a discussion-based class where students are given the space to think about ideas – their own and others – and they are invited to share their questions and reflections with peers, conversation can have all the excitement of discovering a new friend or even a new romantic relationship. I have been in both positions – as a teacher and as a student- in classrooms where the group is invigorated by the level of discussion and the energy in the room is electric as the world of ideas opens up before us. As a student, I have had the same experience with online discussion as well – where everyone is online, checking the discussion board several times a day, thoroughly absorbed by the course content and what each person in the class has to contribute to the discussion. I am trying to figure out how to replicate this in my own teaching. Most of us who have been teaching for any length of time know that when a class is working well, the instructor doesn’t even need to be present – students are able to generate lively discussions all on their own and sustain them. But let’s face it, sometimes we get a class that just won’t talk. I happen to have just such a class this semester. I have struggled terribly with this incredibly taciturn group all term, trying every trick in my WAC arsenal to get them to open up and talk to each other. But often the class ends up feeling like a question and answer session rather than a group discussion. And even online our discussions don’t seem to ever pick up much momentum.

Still. One day a few weeks ago after a stilted yet somehow contentious conversation about social class in America, (we were discussing a Dorothy Allison essay in which she explores and explains her working-class identity), I went home and tried to compose, to the best of my ability, a summary of the discussion based on my memory and a few notes I had taken during the class. I typed the summary and posted it on BlackBoard and invited students to add to it or to change something if they’d felt I’d misremembered or misrepresented something they had said. No one changed or challenged a thing, but two students did make posts in which they shared some of the things they had been thinking, but had not shared in the moment. Both students explained that it had taken them some time and some distance from the conversation for them to process and articulate their thoughts. Both students made excellent, thoughtful posts that were moving and personal. And although no one else in the class responded to either of the posts (I did), I could see that their posts were heavily viewed and so I felt like their contributions enlarged the discussion in some way.

Somehow, even though my class this semester is struggling to communicate with each other face to face and via technology, I can see that both venues have value and both go a long way towards drawing our students in to a public conversation about the world around us. Becoming part of a public conversation is a process, and feeling entitled to participate fully in that conversation might take longer for some than others, but as educators, it is our duty to encourage students to participate via whatever means are at our disposal. It is when technology takes time away from students’ opportunities to engage in the conversation that I think the real dangers arise.

For those of you who can’t resist speculating on the (in)communicative futures of the facebook generation, Mark Bauerlein has an interesting opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal:

Why Gen-Y Johnny Can’t Read Nonverbal Cues: An emphasis on social networking puts younger people at a face-to-face disadvantage.

I came accross this amazing stop motion animation by the surrealist Czech artist Jan Svankmajer. This animation is the first part of a trilogy called ‘dialogue’. Svankmajer has a quite interesting and somewhat disturbing take on communication. The animation captures perfectly what communication is supposed to be: a mutual transformation process. However, it is also disturbing, because at the end of this mutual process of transformation, communication produces copy cats. The animation raises some interesting questions about communication. How much we let ourselves transformed by our communicative encounters with others? Can communication be effective if we do not allow our opinion to change as a result of our communicative encounter with others? Can communication be effective when it leads to the eradication of differences?  These questions gravitate towards two opposite ends of a spectrum. Some food for thought.

Not sure if it was @Oprah joining, #amazonfail, #pman (Moldova), or the tipping point on a meme, but the world is atwitter about Twitter.

I thought I’d share a few thoughts about how I use and perceive the service, which I joined about a year ago.

I’m not a Twitter evangelist; I don’t think it’s for everyone. If you’re using it and you don’t know why, maybe you shouldn’t be using it?

Twitter is not a platform, it’s an application that allows you to construct and dip in and out of conversations. You should @ often.

Anyone analyzing tweets only as stand alone statements will see self-absorption and “innate incoherence.” They miss the point.

Yet it’s easy to be misled by how Twitter works, because most answers to the question “What are you doing?” aren’t interesting.

But that’s not how the people I follow or I use it. Most of the people I follow instead answer the question “what are you thinking?”

If you follow interesting people who think interesting things, then it follows to think that their tweets might be interesting.

Over time your mind’s eye will learn to identify tweeters who have something relevant to say and to find yet others. Read critically.

The people I follow on Twitter aren’t necessarily my “friends.” Some people are comfortable with 100% virtual friendships. I’m not.

(I’m not raining on online friendships, I’m just saying they’re not for me).

The people who aren’t my friends whom I follow on Twitter I consider “acquaintances.” I think that’s a fairer name for what we share.

I’m willing to bore friends, but I try not to bore acquaintances, because some day, I might want them to be my friends.

I don’t — or try not to — complain about traffic or the academic #jobmarket, because, really, who’s interested in my bitching?

I bitch about traffic and the #jobmarket to my friends, and rarely think twice about confronting them when we’re hanging out.

I always think twice about confronting someone on Twitter. It’s not polite to disagree with acquaintances, though sometimes it must be done.

Mostly, though, I avoid confronting others because arguments in Twitter are unsatisfying. Neither party gets sufficiently into it.

So when I disagree with a tweet, I resolve the disagreement by reading and thinking more, writing a blog post, or talking with friends.

As a result, my tweetline offers a path into my life, reading, and thinking that’s perhaps a tad more upbeat than the real thing.

Ultimately, Twitter works for me because through it I am exposed to people that push and prod me to think and read more deeply and broadly.

I follow links from educators & historians & journalists & technologists whose judgments I respect. I learn. Hopefully, I also contribute.

“Blog to reflect, tweet to connect.” @bgblogging Claim anything more for Twitter, you’re either selling something or setting up a straw man.

As such, Twitter is not for people who have uttered the following statements:

“Twitter won’t work because it’s not profitable.” “Twitter can’t save journalism.” “Twitter encourages our worst impulses.”

Those statements are usually uttered by people with closed worldviews, with minds already made up.

Twitter, like everything else, is purposeful only if you use it with a purpose.

I am always amazed at the many ways YouTube continues to evolve and find new relevance on the world stage.  It now finds itself hosting evidence (or propaganda, depending on who you ask) of a controversial encounter between a US Naval surveillance vessel and some Chinese ships.   According to the US Navy, who released the videos taken by someone aboard the USNS  Impeccable on their official YouTube channel, the Chinese ships attempted to interfere with a routine surveillance mission in international waters.   The Chinese government claims that the US ignored international and Chinese regulations by conducting this mission, and they are most likely upset over the Impeccable’s proximity to one of their most advanced naval bases.

Now, thanks to YouTube and the Navy’s willingness to “share” their footage of the incident, we can all take a look at the “evidence” and discuss our opinions online… unless, of course, you live in China where YouTube is currently blocked by the  government.

One of the 8 videos of the encounter is embedded below, which shows someone on one of the Chinese vessels using a hook to disable the Impeccable’s sonar line.

Well, this is not exactly a post, rather a question I would like to circulate.

After our last general staff meeting, I went to the BPL workshop organized by Dusana. It was a most useful discussion we had, in the course of which, among other things, we talked about rehearsals in danger of  turning  into group therapy sessions with students. People had  brilliant ideas about balancing things out and setting aside a given amount of time in the course of each rehearsal to help students wind down. (Our own Zohra has a special technique, which we all found excellent, but, since she has the copyrights, further inquiries should be addressed to her. )

On this note, I would be curious if anybody else has a take on this. I personally find that I can relatively quickly gauge the inner dynamics of a group and vibe with them. It is the pedagogue in me who is watching the students, and  I act in the way I feel would be most productive to them. At times, I assume authority, but mostly I act like a peer who is very approachable and understanding about their issues and concerns (and, at times, they have a lot of those, related to their course, their professor, assignments, etc.). What always works is showing a great deal of respect to them. Once you grant them this respect, they will act up to it. However, besides being humane, I do not have any other more specific way of creating the atmosphere, so to say. Some people play a game, I thought about getting a bunch of fresh flowers in the rehearsal room, just to liven things up. (In my rush, I keep forgetting it, of course.)  Any other ideas? I know that professionalism is key here, but I do not think we jeopardize it by patting our students’ souls a little bit, do we?

I love this quirky little how-to clip, mostly because the audio doesn’t match up to the video, making poor Leila look like she needs her own mandated visit to the house of corrections. But I can relate to Leila and her message, and I’m willing to admit that I stumbled upon this video in a moment of desperation, when I was brainstorming different approaches to this question of encouraging solid eye contact in oral communicating.

As most of us have probably discovered by now, when we’re providing feedback on speeches, merely repeating “you need to make more eye contact” doesn’t do the trick. (And really, why should it?) Most of the speakers we work with know full well that eye contact is something they should shoot for—they’ve seen this on speech evaluation forms and read about it dutifully in their Intro to Public Speaking class way back when. But if they commit this same “offense” in every presentation they make—staring at the PP screen, or at the floor, or at their hands, or note cards—when does the practice actually come in?

And, just as importantly, how do we invigorate our own approach to this thorny delivery snag? Some days, “make more eye contact” becomes the easy go-to, that dull phrase you know you’ll probably say before the student even begins. But isn’t commenting on eye contact just another way of saying that they didn’t make a connection with their audience? If we wanted to get all Eckhart Tolle on this post, we could extend it into the idea of being fully present (which has plenty of resonances in actor training). We all know how magical it can be when someone gives really great eye—that mixture of confidence, care, and connection– but how is it best learned?

I’ve tried a few new things in my recent quest to investigate the power of the Connecting Eyes. In the classroom, I’ve become more emboldened to push away the chairs and try out some of the better eye contact exercises that I know of, forcing people to get used to going eyeball-to-eyeball. Some of these exercises transform the room into a sort of communications gym class, which is a little hard to get used to, but not a bad thing at all. Does this have more successful outcomes in student performance? Hard to tell, exactly. But it certainly increases comfort and community among the students.

And during my BPL sessions with student groups, I’ve changed my approach. Instead of allowing the students to run through their entire presentations before I provide my feedback, I now occasionally stop them mid-stream, prompting them to re-do an entire section, this time focusing on, say, sustained eye contact. I know some of you out there have run your practice sessions like this for quite a while, but I’m just now catching on to its real benefits. I had been skeptical of the logic of isolating one element and potentially distracting the speaker with it, but I’m now thinking of these sessions as true rehearsals; if they can’t “run through” their work multiple times, what are the chances that a pattern of poor delivery will be broken?

Here is the letter to the NYTimes Ethicist:

“I am a tenured professor. My provost asked me to evaluate an overseas colleague. I did so, responding in an e-mail message. The provost then contacted the colleague, quoting my report and attributing it to me. I was stunned: such evaluations are assumed to be confidential. When I complained, the provost replied, “If it’s in an e-mail, it’s public,” adding that our colleague deserves to know what is being said about him and by whom. Your opinion? J.H., NEW YORK”

What do you think? I am surprised that the provost thought that email being the mode of communication, somehow changes the fact that it is still an evaluation. Who is right?