August 12, 2009
Mr. Pickles?!
The mystery of the image, the story, the punch line: a student did not receive academic credit simply for coming to class. When she complained that she deserved credit simply because she attended each day, she was told that showing up isn’t enough. To emphasize the point, the faculty told her that Mr. Pickles, a small dog brought to class each day by fellow student, was not getting credit either! The name of the dog and the sandwich shop is Mr. Pickles. It’s a quandary not unlike this institute and its name? “Refounding Evergreen” has morphed to “Nancy’s Institute” to “NI” to “An Eye to the Future.”
Nancy’s introduction began with “Mr. Pickles” and this invitation:
“I’m asking us to consider our work at Evergreen from a values perspective.”
A discussion followed, beginning with a reframing: “We’re being asked to consider what we’re aiming toward. We’re to consider our practices in relation to our values. What’s working and what’s not?”
“But, to what end?”
“What’s the motivation?”
“It’s been a year of budget cuts, where’s the money for this coming from and why?”
“Are our curricular structures serving how we want to teach?”
“I thought this was about math, about students not learning it.”
“This is about a promise I heard the provost made as a result of being on the FAP: How are we going to function given budget cuts?”
“I’m thinking of an IBM commercial: We’re ideating.”
“We need to consider accreditation issues. How well are we doing what we say we’re doing?”
“What are our institutional values?”
“As a result of our accreditation report and transcript institute, we need to consider where we’re falling short.”
“Experience tells me we as a faculty don’t respond well to being told what to do. How could we improve our chances of accomplishing anything given that we’re a select, “by invitation” group of faculty meeting during the summer in an institute that wasn’t on the list distributed to all faculty?”
“But, we are a representative group—just consider the range in the room in relation to planning units, years of service at the college, gender balance, Tacoma, and all the “no’s.” Lots of people were asked but couldn’t make a commitment to the full two weeks.”
“This tension, precisely this tension of representation, is central to our problem at Evergreen. Who’s invited? Who needs to be to do the work effectively?”
(A foundational myth at Evergreen: We’re a “participatory democracy.” NOT. See afternoon reading, M & M #1.)
“We’ve got time at the September Symposium to present our work.”
“Let’s put it on a blog now. Announce this work publicly, and invite participation.”
August 13th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Sarah asked me to add the list of concerns / problems that seemed to emerge in the course of our discussion. Here is list that I shared at the end of the first day.
Quality control or common standards across programs (e.g. minimum requirements for credit, evaluation writing, etc.)
Lack of real breadth and integration in some academic pathways (one version is the “supermajor” problem)
Lack of attainment or demonstration of basic skills
Too little calendar flexibility (e.g. semester system might work better)
Lack of unified intellectual vision or academic mission
Too little flexibility for students with particular prerequisite requirements (e.g. science requirements for post-graduate training in medicine, language study). Our full-time programs usually offer an “all or nothing” option for getting necessary prerequisites.
Problems with self-evaluations as they appear in the transcript.
Problems with advising. We do not have enough faculty advising at key points in students’ academic careers.