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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.”