Batfort

Style reveals substance

Tag: higher ed

Bits and bobs

I had one of those days. Nothing went wrong, but nothing really went right, either. At work, every 1 task on my to-do list spawned 10 smaller sub-tasks, all vexing. Like finding a weed in a garden—a small looking little guy—and reaching down to pluck it. But instead of coming out cleanly, the roots are part of an underground network that is now disturbed. As you pull up the weed, you pull up three sets of roots that disturb the grass and the flower beds within a three-foot radius. Even when you finally get the weed out of the ground and shake the soil off its roots, you wonder if there are bits left in the ground that will grow other weeds in the future.

Somebody remarked that I describe things very well and make good analogies. That made me feel good.

 


 

This afternoon I received notification that my application was accepted to help crowd-edit Nir Eyal‘s new book, Indistractable. It’s set up as a Google doc, and a bunch of people have access to read and comment on everything from typos to high-level concepts. I’m intrigued by this idea, this crowdsource of edits.

I’ve bought in to a different kind of experiment before, where I paid a small amount to have access and provide feedback on a book while it was being written. I should be receiving a copy of the book once it’s finalized, as well. That experiment isn’t over—the book is still a WIP because the author underestimated the time it takes to write a book—but it’s been an interesting way to experience a book.

I haven’t (yet) read Nir’s first book, Hooked, I’ve read many of his articles on habit-forming technology. I appreciate that he’s taking an opposing approach to a subject that he knows well, arming people against it.

More to come on this.

 


 

In higher ed news, it appears that the Saudi Arabian government is helping their students flee from the US justice system. This is appalling, but I can’t say I’m surprised, based on my experiences working with the Saudi government and its students.

In at least four of the cases, according to the Oregonian‘s reporting, the Saudi government paid the accused students’ bail and legal fees. In the case of Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah, a Portland Community College student charged in relation to a hit-and-run that killed 15-year-old Fallon Smart in August 2016, U.S. law enforcement officials also believe the Saudis provided him with a fake passport to escape the country, likely via private plane, two weeks before his trial.

What bothers me more about this story is that I didn’t know about it before today, and I feel like I should have. Made clear in the comments section: “Thank you, IHE for finally covering this story which has been in the news elsewhere since December.”

Obviously, reading higher ed news is not an adequate source of information about higher ed. (Hindsight: DUH.)

The type of people who just want to get it done (instead of done right)

Now, there’s an academic controversy mildly storming on higher ed news sites about English Professors and how English departments are terrible at interdisciplinary work or something. I haven’t been paying attention to the details.

That’s not what interests me.

In a rebuttal, the original author uses an analogy that exemplifies a certain type of person:

Some English professors appear to feel about interdisciplinary work the way I feel about chocolate. I am among those who are skeptical that the category of bad chocolate exists. When I offer someone a bite of my Hershey’s bar, and they say they don’t like bad chocolate, I suspect they don’t really like chocolate at all.

Is it possible to have an entire category that is so good that we are unable to distinguish quality within that category? Doubtful.

Yet many people in this world act like “doing something” is the same as “doing something well.” Just like Hershey’s chocolate is the same super-refined, dense, rich, hand-milled chocolate. (Which it’s not.)

The girl who wears sloppy eye makeup, rather than the girl who build up her wrist strength blending her eyeshadow to perfection.

The music producer who slaps three notes over a beat and rhyme the same word five times, rather than Kanye or Dynamic Duo who actually produce music that is thoughtful and interesting.

The guy who add a fedora (excuse me, trilby) to an outfit with the expectation that it makes them dressed-up, rather than the guy who take the time to work out and find clothes that fits his style and his body.

These people are everywhere.

And to be fair, whenever we start something new it can be really difficult to skip directly from “doing it badly” to “high quality.” Quality is something that takes refinement, which does not come automatically.

I’ve recently gotten back in the gym, and I’m the person who barely squeaks through my reps rather than the person who finishes each set like a dancer. That’s okay. I’m learning, and I’ll get better as I get stronger.

The problem comes when you stay that way.

Always strive to get better at what you do.

Interdisciplinary studies is all well and good, but there is a difference between cross-referencing a literary work with neuroscience and half-assing research because there’s nobody to call you on your BS.

 


“I am among those who are skeptical that the category of bad k-pop exists. When I offer someone a headphone to listen to BTS, and they say they don’t like bad k-pop, I suspect they don’t really like k-pop at all.”

 

My FERPA COMPLIANCE OFFICER costume

As you know, I work in higher ed.

As you may NOT know, I like dressing up on Halloween. I especially like wearing weird costumes that are mostly inside jokes with myself.

One Halloween, I wore a blonde wig and dressed up like old-school Taylor Swift, with a country dress and shoes that didn’t quite go. I hacked my work badge so that my name was No, it’s Becky.

Another Halloween, when I was working with a bunch science PhDs, I decided to dress as one of them. I scavenged a lab coat and a pipette and lab goggles. From afar, people assumed I was a student.

This Halloween, we’re going deep into “Nobody will get this” territory. So deep, in fact, that my costume is of something that doesn’t actually exist.

It doesn’t exist, but perhaps it should.

Yay, duct tape

Behold, the FERPA Compliance Officer.

I also have a matching cop hat, aviator sunglasses, and badge. I was going to wear a fake mustache but honestly at this point I think it would be overkill.

For those of you who don’t work in academia, FERPA is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974. It “protects” the privacy of student records. If you’ve ever tried to call a university on behalf of a family member, it’s why you can’t do anything for them without a signed release.

Unlike HIPAA, which has a robust policing mechanism and serious consequences if it’s breached, FERPA is basically just a piece of paper. I’ve never heard of anyone getting in trouble for failing to follow FERPA law. FERPA is one of those things that’s used to keep outsiders out (like a mom calling to check on her kid’s grade when she’s paying the tuition bill) but to forge relationships with people who can exploit data in the name of “university business.” Because if it’s need-to-know, it’s not a breach.

If FERPA had an Office of Compliance, it would focus on low-level customer service mistakes and faculty screw ups. Like all Federal agencies, it would turn a blind eye to the systemic privacy violations that go along with things like data mining.

Because a FERPA Compliance Officer is such an absurd idea, I figured this mythical branch of law enforcement would make a great Halloween costume. Basically if a Halloween costume idea doesn’t make me laugh until I can’t breathe, I’m not interested.

I’ve been hanging on to this idea for years, and its about to make its debut.

I can’t wait.

Inside the Heart of Darkness

The other day I outed myself as working in higher ed.

Gasp! Shock! Horror!

It’s not like working in higher ed gives one leprosy or anything, but I often feel like I’m betraying my own inner convictions by working in this field. (Also, lepers get leprosy? Just when you think the English language harbours no more surprises….)

I still remember reading to Antifragile for the first time and coming across Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s turn of phrase “lecturing birds how to fly.” It is the perfect descriptor for much of what goes on in academia (the other would be an eternal debate on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin*).

The current incarnation of the ideal of the university has been corrupted by pseudo-market forces. There is an attempt to define, commodify, and quantify “learning,” but the overreach of the government into the educational system (via Federal financial aid, research funding, and other mechanisms) has created an utterly monstrous system that is divorced from any existing free marketplace of ideas.

It has taken way more time that it should have for the scales to fall from my eyes in regards to the corruption of academia, and yet inertia keeps me in academically related jobs. (The fact that academia is a funhouse-mirror parallel to business doesn’t help either–writing a resume that translates academicese into business-speak is a challenge that I’m only starting to get the hang of.)

All this is to preamble the fact that I’m in the running for yet another academic job, one that is farther inside the dense thicket of academic administration. Like, this one is basically the operations manager of the heart of darkness. It’s a job where no matter how many people would like me as a person, they’d all hate me because of my role.

This is one of those instances where doing a good job is supporting a lot of philosophies and social forces that I don’t believe in, and don’t believe are good for anyone. My unofficial motto right now is “data has no soul” and I would essentially be doing the opposite of that, in addition to materially supporting the life of the university system as we currently know it.

Realistically though, I’m actively doing those things now in my current position. I don’t actively practice what I believe — which makes me a hypocritical wagecuck and part of the reason that the self-help industry is still alive and well and aimed squarely at the alt-thinking crowd.

I don’t know what I’m going to do about this situation, but I do know that other factors might make the decision for me. There are other things I can change to make my life better and more compatible with my beliefs that don’t involve changing my immediate industry.

In fact, I may even get a better view of just how jacked up the university system is. I’m trying to leverage my experience and observations in a way that will be helpful to others, so an additional angle of approach might be helpful. Deep undercover, me.

In the meantime, I’ll to continue to work at making myself antifragile. Despite the answer I give in interviews, I do not see myself in a management position in five years. I see myself living in a little house surrounded by a meadow, publishing books for a living.

 


* And yet, if you reference that phrase, people will not understand what you mean. Classical education, bah!

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