working out salvation in fear & trembling

OPPOSITION

But look:

Don't romanticize us fine arts folk.
At least in theatre the temptation is
always strong to sentimentalize, to
equate, to equivocate, to blend and
smooth and play it safe,

rather than to confront, to juxtapose,
to take to extremes, to push the
contradictions as far as they can go,
to REALLY make fools of
ourselves. G.P____

While there is much desire to learn
there of necessity will be much
arguing, much writing, many
opinions; for opinion in
good men is but
knowledge in
the making.

Under these fantastic terrors of sect
and schism—fear of dissent, differences
in viewpoint—we wrong the earnest
and zealous thirst after knowledge
and understanding which God hath
stirred up in this city. Milton, Areopagitica

Dear Graham,

I’m juxtaposing you and Milton and turning
up the hostile, genuine & legitimate opposition
between the need for much arguing, much writing,
many opinions on the one hand and on the other
hand: terrors of sect and schism: fear of dissent,
differences in view point—& subsequent necessity
for polite if not policed political correctness.

I play to argue with myself, too—constant game of
scissors, rock, & paper. I’m wining & losing like
anything.

Representation

You guys in Fine Arts stand-for the Makers.

Us Humanities people: we stand-for the
Givers and Takers.

Folks in Hamill: guess we could call them
the Shakers.

You can improve my terms.v It’s the distinctions I
would turn way up. Once characterized, we can see
all 3 aspects as integral to each discipline.

This is cerebral modeling, not political. Every major
has it’s Mohammed-to-Howard ratios, say. Or every
disciple & practitioner. More or less Mohammed;
more or less Howard: that would be an assessment
worth assessing. Pie Charts across the Curriculum.

The Regulator

The Stream of a Common Language called COURSE
eclipses the diversity of our dialect differences & it’s
this pervasive permeate Structure of Hire Education
that collapses schola into assembly-line-study so it
feels like All The Same: syllabic agenda-driven textual
harassing quiz & exam regulating grade-gun corralling:
forcing the issue with make-it-up research & well-
documented paper-writing whether down South with the
Hamillians or up North with Graham and the Fine Artists.
It’s all One & the Same Old Same Old.

(Graham, what I just said is nonsense if no senseat all to
you swimmers swimming in the medium of industrialized
education all your so-called lives, you got no comparison,
might as well ask a fish to define wet let alone dry: it’d take
something like immaculate conception or else get hooked
and hauled into the canoe to flip-flop in air for five minutes
for my kind of foolishness to register. I don’t blame
you none at all. Ludicrous.)

.

xxxooo

Sam,

Thanks for the words. Yes. Sounds right. Helpful. Thinking about Tom Stoppard saying he writes plays so he can argue with himself. But look: Don't romanticise us fine arts folk. At least in theatre the temptation is always strong to sentimentalize, to equate, to equivocate, to blend and smooth and play it safe, rather than to confront, to juxtapose, to take to extremes, to push the contradictions as far as they can go, to REALLY make fools of ourselves. (One reason we still don't get Brecht.) And we--make that I--give into the the temptation all the time. I can hide just as well as anyone--I can hide behind my art and never, ever sting like a bee.

Keep it up.

Graham

FAH! & JENSENSUALISM &the Hard Sciences

Dear Graham,

How to think about the relationship
between FAH and Social Sciences
and Natural Sciences CREATIVELY?

What do I know?

Unilaterally, I’m always “masturbating a glitter”
as Sylvia Plath put it.

I would say:

turn up the DIFFERENCES between the 3
—way up: way, way up, way, way, way up--
ignoring the clamor of the crowd to hook-up
& connect & just-get-along. We celebrate
Diversity, yes?

Then characterize:

Freddy FAH, Sally Social Sighence
and Harry Hurry Hard walk into
a bar together…

That’s the scene.
Improvise.

Let it be a fight-club, let it play itself without
any ultimate winners & losers or dominant
pair-o-dimes: a sustainable conflict going
on & on wrangling and wrestling and
always waiting for Godot.

See what transpires in the way of Relationship
that don't rub the edges off the differences or
eclipse the battle royale.The devil’s in the
differences, true? Forever more. Got to
be room for her in the inn.

My delight that you have taken-on this administrative
task (among other things) is because you & your fine
arts colleagues are primarily CONSERVATORY-based
in VALUE: you guys are the Mohammad Ali’s of of WWC.

The Makers

The rest of us ACADEMICS =
the Howard Cosells: Give & Takers. Emendators.



You do the math.

Got to love each other & not collapse, conflate,
or confuse the space between, true?

Maybe anyone can improve my terms and
images. We could argue.

College!

xxxooo, Sam

Confession

I know this blog is limited to us FAH! faculty, but I've taken the liberty of inviting the other Division Chairs onto it: Ben Feinberg, Social Sciences; Paul Bartels, Nat. Sciences; Chris Nugent, Library. Hey, Ben started it! He let me onto Jensensual Relations, the Social Sciences Div. blog.
Graham

Is Environmental Studies the Walmart of Warren Wilson?

The title of this post--and, in fact, the post itself--is not my own. In an act of shameless appropriation, Ben Feinberg, Chair of the Social Sciences Division, has started a blog for his division called "Jensenual Relations" (great name, I must admit). On that blog, he posted a terrific examination of the relative "weight" of different departments and divisions, starting with the question of the apparent dominance of Environmental Studies over the college curriculum. With his kind permission, I've reposted it here. I think it gives us much food for thought regarding our own division and how FAH might, as Ben says, "claim some of that attention.". I offer a comment of my own, and I invite others to do the same.

Is Environmental Studies the Walmart of Warren Wilson?

We sometimes hear the statement that ENS is "a third of the college." There are many ways to divide up the college, and I am not sure what method is used to come up with this statistic, which has taken on a certain mythical status. I don't, at the moment, have access to the majors of our current or graduated students, so it could be that one third of them are ENS majors.

ENS certainly doesn't provide one-third of the student credits. Last fall (and there may be built-in differences between fall and spring semesters), ENS was the largest single provider of credits, accounting for 8.0% of college. Biology and Chemistry, two programs that provide many credits to the ENS major, accounted for another 5.5% and 6.6%, respectively. In fact, the breakdown by Division (with the top three departments within each division) looked like this:

Arts and Humanities 33.7%
HPS 6.7%, ENG 6.4%, ART 6.1%

Natural Sciences 26.8%
ENS 8.0%, CHM 6.6%, BIO 5.5%

Social Sciences 25.5%
SOC/ANT 6.3%, PSY 4.7%, ODL 3.6%

FRS, Comp I, and PED: 13.3%

Which for some reason doesn't quite add up to 100%. But its close.

(We may wish to remember that these numbers are influenced by the General Education requirements, which ensure that every student take two Natural Sciences courses [Math and Science], three Arts and Humanities [AES, HPS, LIT] and only one Social Science course while two other general education requirements can be met by courses in more than one division, but are most often met in Arts and Humanities [GI and PHI/REL].)

Anyway, ENS is the single largest program, perhaps because the great majority of Natural Science majors choose this major, and that accounts for about a third of the school. This may make it seem disproportionately significant - Arts and Humanities and Social Science programs may seem less visible because students in these areas are divided up into a number of smaller majors.

So, because of its prominence within Natural Sciences, ENS appears like the big kid on the block. Does this make it like Walmart, an entity that uses its massive size as an advantage to bully the smaller mom and pop stores?

We can see one example of this analogy at the beginning of the year, when we all gather in Canon behind tables promoting our majors. We sit and wait for students to wander by with our handouts and balloons and, in the case of Chemistry, our explosions. Suddenly there is an announcement: "All vendors that wish to sell to Walmart, immediately gather at the far end of the room." There, new students are told that they must take such-and-such course right away. It feels a little like the rest of us are being bullied. ENS also requires more credits to graduate than most other majors. And its Intro course usurps the role of languages at the school - students strangely satisfy our language (language and global issues) requirement by taking Intro to ENS, pushing students out of another possible path into the Humanities or Social Sciences. Last year, two new faculty positions were summarily granted to the behemoth without any campus-wide discussion. Could this happen without the big-box pressure?

Our ENS program appears to be thriving, and it not only provides students a great education in the natural sciences, but has helped create a niche for Warren Wilson that helps us attract new students and stay strong. It also directs attention on the major challenge facing us as humans who are busy making our planet uninhabitable. The strength of this program benefits us all.

But one could argue that ENS has also been the vehicle for the Natural Sciences to mold a united front which has given them added strength to push for resources and new faculty positions, and to become, for many the face of our academic program. How can the Social Sciences, with our numerous disparate programs, claim some of this attention?

There are a few possible answers -
1- uniting into a division should help. Perhaps we can be Costco.
2- Recognizing our place and our programs, and their place in the "sustainability" rhetoric of the college. Environmental Studies faculty recognize the importance of sustainability beyond the natural science and environmental issues their department focuses on - the environmental issues and inextricably linked to issues of social justice and economic inequality, for example. Over the years, there have been occasional efforts to make the ENS major more truly interdisciplinary, by incorporating Humanities and Social Science courses. At times this appears like tokenism, and when ENS added new faculty this year, it did so in Chemistry and Biology, not in non-science areas. But the Social Science division already has a counterpart to ENS - an interdisciplinary major that focuses broadly on global issues of sustainability. This is the Global Studies major. This major doesn't get nearly the attention of ENS, but it consistently attracts many majors, many of whom began their careers as ENS majors. If the college, and the Social Science division, recognize the role of Global Studies as a complement to the natural science ENS major - an equal component of the college's commitment to the environment and global sustainability - we would raise the profile of the Social Science academic program in ways that would benefit us all.

Does a Crow Try to Fly to Mt Mitchell ("I think I can I think I can")

On Inter, Intra, & Extra
Textual, Contexual &
Consensual Relations
among Faculties

“I think he has seen,
as no other in our time,
how inexhaustible a mine
is the language of Conversation.”

Emerson on Carlyle

“Professor F______ brought up the idea
of opening the SocSci blog to the faculty
to read--but only those in his division can
make posts or comments.

I like that idea as opposed to a completely
closed conversation, but I wonder what
others may think. Hello?” (‘Fesser P____.)

We understand nothing; our ignorance is abysmal,
the over-hanging immensity staggers us, whither
we go, what we do, who we are, we cannot even
so much as guess. We stagger and grope.

Why would I or faculty-at-large (committee of whole)
want to read stuff we weren’t allowed to respond to?
Comment on? Take issue with? Put in play?
What’s the point? To take notes?

Like listening to someone lecture
who insists no no no questions—
please. Let me finish.

“Yes, Yes, that’s a conversation we need
to have--but notnow.”

Man is insular and cannot be touched.
Every man is an infinitely repellent orb,
and holds his individual being on that
condition.

Seal IT off completely—the cross-disciplinary
fertilization-bounce-of-analogy-begging-to-
differentiate-draw-distinctions-merely-for-
the-sake-of-argument-&-anecdote-&-
local-food for thought going on
inside the new Jensensual
Relations and FAH!
blogs…

Or let it hang out.
Kick the can.

IT’s the difference between
laissez-fair & lasso fair, between
upside down flamingo & hedgehog
croquet and the hard balls & mallets
kind. Chose your magistery.

“A believer in Unity,
a seer of Unity,
I yet behold two…

Cannot I conceive
the Universe without
a contradiction?”

xxxooo, R.Waldo Emerson (Eng.Major)

I'll keep trying, Sam

Well, after setting up this blog and noticing that it hasn't gotten much play, I've neglected it. But Sam is bringing me back to to myself with his last couple of posts. And Ben Feinberg, to, with his "Jensensual Relations" Social Science Div blog (inspired by me, I must boast). Ben keeps plugging away with terrific posts--get some replies, too. So I'll keep trying.

Ben brought up the idea of opening the SocSci blog to the faculty to read--but only those in his division can make posts or comments. I like that idea as opposed to a completely closed conversation, but I wonder what others may think. Hello? Anybody there? If I can figure out how to do it, do you think it's better to let others observe any conversation that may happen here, or is it better to keep the whole thing private (limited to FAH faculty)? I like the idea of openness but what are the drawbacks? Of course, the question is relevent only if this blog becomes a forum for conversation about FAH-related issues. If it does, then would such a conversation be inhibited if we knew that "outsiders" (yikes!) were able to read it? Maybe I'll attach a poll to the blog.

Sam's recent post, "Sustainable Converse-action," is inspiring. Of course, he's been trying to promote such a conversation on faculty-l for years now--I'm in awe of his perseverance. It may be that email conversations work better than blogs like this--not really important (unless it says something important about the confidentiality aspect)--but I sure hope that we can enrich the opportunities for such conversation one way or another. Well, but multiplying the ways, I guess. As one who doesn't make it to Gladfelter often enough, that would be good.

Thinking about Ben's "Jensenual Relations" blog: The title is great, and alludes to the fact that most of the Social Science division (but not all) is housed in the asbestos-scented garden of earthly delights that is Jensen. Not true of FAH. True of H but not FA. This geographical split may indicate the oddity of merging Fine Arts with Humanities, or at least accentuate our possible distance from each other. True? If that's the case, would virtual conversation help?

I want to post here regularly as a way of thinking out loud about issues--regardless of whether anyone is reading at the moment--and soliciting reactions. Email is better for important info out to chairs and faculty, and ensuing email conversations will be good, too.

Topics to write about on future posts:

• more on reactions to course evaluations (especially online version);
• how "sustainablilty" relates to FAH and if answering that question will lead to more visibility and clout for division;
• program reviews: purpose and timing
• more on ARSE: process and instrument
• Ben F's "ENS as Walmart" question
  

Sustainable Converse-action

The New Media is the Message,
not the message.

Dear College,

In the library the other day, Ben Feinberg showed
me his newly installed Social Sciences Blog with
the same enthusiasm as Graham when he established
FAH! at the beginning of summer, for Fine Arts and
Humanities exchange.

Possibilities for collegial conversation across &
within intra-disciplines! Talk-going-on that is not
limited to 4:00 meetings, lunchroom & hallway
occasionals, professional conferences & refereed
publications, slam poetry events, after-performance
round-tables, book-club meetings, team-teaching
debates, graduation addresses, deans conferences
and self-evaluation reports, staff forums and
faculty body conventions:

But rather: the possibilities of The New Media—
Post Literate and Neo Oral, kin to cell-phone and
text messaging and of course e-mail: reviving the
the earlier tradition of Bell Letters where information
and knowledge and questions and interests and
concerns were communicated in non-thesis driven
digressive, genial conversational exchanges—back
& forth like talk but with distance & remove:
detachment & yet connection..

One inconvenience I sometimes experienced
in so small a house, the difficulty of getting
to a sufficient distance from my guest when
we began to utter the big thoughts in
big words.

You want room for your thoughts to get into
sailing trim, and run a course or two before
they make their port. The bullet of your
thought must have overcome its lateral and
ricochet motion, and fallen into its last and
steady course, before it reaches the ear of
the hearer, else it may plough out again
through the side of his head.

Also, our sentences wanted room to unfold and
form their columns in the interval. Individuals,
like nations, must have broad and natural boundaries,
even a neutral ground, between them. I have found
it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a
companion on the opposite side.

In my house we were so near that we could
not begin to hear—we could not speak low enough
to be heard, as when you throw two stones into
calm water so near that they break each other's
undulations...As the conversation began to assume
a loftier and grander tone, we gradually shoved
our chairs further apart till they touched the wall
in opposite corners, and then commonly there was
not room enough... (H.D. Thoreau)

Social Science is a closed blog like FAH! (invitation only:
takes some fooling around with google & gmail and
passwords to participate). "We'll see how it goes, closed,"
said Ben. Keep it in the family for now. Graham, too: same.

Like us (fine artists & humanitarians): there was an initial
flurry, Ben said, and then not so much; and he & I talked
low in the library about what IT meant and what IT took to
get into IT and how-IT-is that the MEDIA we swim in now is
radically different than what-IT-was and how IT might
ultimately impact school & schooling and study and scholarship
and research and publications and academic probation and
footnoting, plagiarism of course (intellectual property) and
retention and attendance policies and whether we as colleagues
were shy or lazy or indifferent or not rewarded for IT or not
tuned-in to IT’s possibilities (the media IS the instant messaging
of thought and insight and query and quip and quest and
edification--emergence of local food-for-thought and
foundation for our own intellective and affective sparking.

Anthropologically speaking, I bet IT takes a collective Mind-Set
(shared attitude, atmosphere) for this kind of collaborative and
conversational genius to grow as a local garden of delight, say.

Or it has to be "cool," maybe. Like some new sport. OR else
like old-time back porch jamming: plink plank & everyone's an
instrument in the band & we all get better and good by playing.
Or it'll come into fashion--like hair cuts or tattoos, small cars.
The Chronicle of Hire Education will begin plugging this kind of
home-groan activity and then IT'll be ok to participate.

Something like that. I need help, as usual, to make sense of this.
IT's not a matter of reason and logic. More of an
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE: what IT takes to
put us in play together: our 3 divisions,
within and without.

I’m sure anyone can improve these terms and maybe help
sustain this conversation—either in our inter-disciplinary
blogs or (better) across the curriculum on FacultyL.
What prevents? & Why? I’m just asking. Or
what’s a college for these days?

xxxooo, Sam

Good question, Ron. I take too much for granted, given that I'm asking the question of ALL faculty, not just full-timers. Also, given that a related question--and one that will be answered soon, I think, one way or another, is this: Should part-time and adjunct faculty get some kind of performance review, or at least be required to do a self-evaluation as do full-timers? What kind of oversight is necessary or desirable?

Anyway, here's a way to answer your question. You can download the ARSE form by going to the "inside" webpage (https://www.warren-wilson.edu/internal/), find the "For faculty and staff" box on the lower right side, click on "Academic Affairs", then look for the list of links on the left side of the page. Whoa! I just discovered that there a link for "Part Time Faculty Annual Report"! Imagine my surprise--shows you what I know. Anyway, you can download that one, and also download the full-time faculty ARSE form.

The fact that I didn't even know about the part-time report show both that I'm a lousy department chair and that there's very little guidance about these things. Interesting.

Hope this helps the discussion. Back to my own ARSE now!

Graham

My Annual Dean's Report

Vita at WWC

dorm painter diesel disc-er (spring field prep) asst
fire "chief" eng dept chair tennis coach NEH summer
seminar in composition athletic dept secy chair task
force for curriculum reform dean of college and
academics Lily Foundation Colorado Springs Seminar
Curriculum Development NEH Proposal Reader &
Evaluator. St Louis Workshop Presenter (work &
academics) Carnegie Mellon Summer Program for
Academic Leadership NEH summer seminary in
Literary Criticism & Theory freshman seminar coordinator
writing competency coordinator director of humanities
major local fool & self-designated fundamentalist.

Used to be the annual Dean's Report was intended
as self-study and reflection: how can I be a better
teacher if not person. These were the days of "group
dynamics." Over time (and with Spence McWilliams
insistence) it became an "instrument"--an annual
resume-update and tool for extended tenure
assessment and evaluation.

This is the difference (attitude, outlook) between
AMATEURISM and PROFESSIONALISM.

While I know there are good things to be said about
professionalism and that no one stands up in forum
to say "well, can't we be a little bit more amateurish
about this" -- I have always hated the loss of our
initial muddling-thru: what the...what the hell... spirit
as we seemed inexorably destined to become a not
so jolly Green Documental, nail-it-all-down,
litgatigation-avoidance professional place--
nothing less then the terminally degreed
need apply and everyone's a doctor.

Anyone can improve my terms and images.

I lost the zip drive that had a chunk of my Annual Dean's
Report yesterday--left it in the library computer where
I'm working these days while new windows are installed
in Jensen.

So I'm starting over from scratch. From scratch is a
good place for me to begin again, seeing as it's become
a fundamental aspect of my pedagogy. Begin again and
again finagin! Each class in a sense, starts up from old
scratch.

Origins are uncanny: mostly I can barely conceive of
their conception--every move I make, step taken,
word uttered IS a beginning seeing as it seems and
feels like a continuity, in the middle of things like
stepping hard in a puddle of water,

Origins, originating, generation begetting, starting
from scratch, zero-basing, tabula erasing, re-inventing
wheels--in the same category with Be Here Now which
is impossible because I am carried along by my agenda.

Every class a new beginning. Redundantly. I often
ask students: which would be easier to determine--
the beginning of the universe or the first time someone
(probably female: me, stereotyping for the sake of
argument) tied a neckerchief around a dog's neck?

Think about it. We can vote.
xxxooo, Sam
(to be continued)

But first... what is it, and what is it for?

As a newbie, and not officially a permanent member of the faculty, it is my role to ask, "What is an Annual Report (and Self-Evaluation), really?"

Maybe if you can tell me what it is assumed to be, it will begin to define and change itself toward something that is less of a pain in the ... as David monikered.

ARSE question (Annual Report and Self Evaluation--thanks to D. Mycoff)

Dear FAH! Folks,

I haven't posted anything on here in awhile--nor has anyone else. That's fine. But I have a question and I'm wondering if anyone's around to offer a response.

If you're like me, you've left doing your annual report (or ARSE, as David M. has it) until now--and it's like pulling my own teeth to get myself to do it. Unless, also like me, you tend to let years slip by and then try to make them up before that extended contract review time. Silly system. It's going to change, I think, and one way or another I'm implicated as Div Chair. So here's the question (2 parts; well, 3 parts really):

Is there a point to doing an Annual Report and Self Evaluation? If so, what purpose should it serve and what should it look like?

Grateful for any input. If you make it as a new post, it may become a conversation.

Thanks,

Graham

Quality Control

Dear College,

Quality Control

“Without Contraries is No Progress”

Wm Blake: Marriage of Heaven & Hell

Graham’s opening up conversation on what
it means to administer a division provokes
wonder about what constitutes healthy
habits of Organizational Being.



On the one hand: ensure every ones are
doing what they’re supposed to: students,
staff, faculty, administration.

No goldbricking. Cutting corners. Slacking.
Heading home early. Coming in late. Making
mistakes or Errors in Judgment.

Aims & Objectives

To optimize the WHOLE: educe individual &
maybe collaborative genius, encourage environ-
mental greening of local food for thought:
bumper crops, harvest gold.

Assessment:

Measure up to clearly stated job descriptions &
chains of command channeling response ability;
nail down lucid expectations in accord with
a Syllabus of the Whole, say: clear assignments,
due dates, methods of evaluation, attendance policy.
Hold my heels to fire. Who can say that isn’t a
good thing, raise your hand!

Like: Hard Balls & Mallets croquet. (HB&MC)



Can you see the analogy?




On the other hand: opposition, anti-thesis to
regulation, antagonism to consistency &
coherence: diabolically lacking in deference to
control-it, Get-R-done agenda & industrialized
measurable outcomes.

Expecting unexpected indeterminacy galore:
what does a future bring if not already
nailed down by determination and
the terms of my desire?

Like: Upside Down Flamingo & Hedgehog
Croquet (UDF&H). Can you feel the analogy?



Much failure. Little clarity. Clouds of Unknowing
Unscripted conversation: Digression, Transgression,
Trombones & Piano playing such a Hullabaloo &
Tink-a- Tank-Tunk: emerging as argument
juxtaposed against my predictable
habitatto for humania.

Accountability:

Which hand rocks
your cradle and
why and maybe
you can assess
what it costs &
how it benefits:

The Fathers of Determination on the one hand;
The Mothers of Invention on the other.

(Choose 1: no myn can serve 2 magisteries)

The Fundamentals if not the Ratios of
Quality Control, true?

Need we argue?
It's a Fine Arts & Humanities
Environmental Issue. Probably Hard &
Soft Sciences, too, if you improve my terms
and images but sustain the distinction, dichotomy,
split, schism, divided house, 2 cultures and don’t
be privileging one, or contaminate either by
measuring in the terms of the other; but
keep them like equilibrists in dynamic
and deadly lively balance: quality
control for crying out loud
it’s amazing.

Graham started this converse action:
wondering about Order in the Court.

xxxooo, Sam

Whoa, do I feel transparent!

Thanks for the response, Sam--here and in faculty-l. Yes: Advising/advice on everything: I need it, so put it out there. And you're right (I think)--it's pretty impossible not to be transparent these days. On the other hand, we may put all this stuff out there, let it hang out, and if no one reads it I guess we're not so transparent after all. We'll see.

The funny thing is, I set up this blog to be opaque to people outside Fine Arts and Humanities. Thinking we could have private conversations. Is that crazy, or just wrong? I don't think I'll change it right now, though of course we could open it up. And any halfway hacker can get in, I suppose. And anytime anyone wants to, they can paste things from here to faculty-l or anywhere else (or put them on a sandwich board in front of Gladfelter, for crying out loud). Anyway, something to think about. So good on ye for taking it to faculty-l.

And now I should zoomerang that advising questionnaire back to Gretchen--I'm one of the bad ones!

Graham

ADVISING

ADVISING

On Chairing Fine Arts & Humanities

“Transparency” is a term that used to be pejorative
signifying my true motives shining thru, no matter
how I mean to cover up and deny.

“Sam is so transparent!
You can see right thru him!”

At some point recently in Administration-Kind-of-Talk,
it has become a positive term: to cultivate transparency
in operations so that anyone can see what’s going on—
everyone more of less in on it, informed: everyone
a Howard Cosell.

It’s almost technologically impossible NOT to be
transparent these days, despite my aim to be open
or closed. Camera phones & e-mail, textual harassment,
Youtube & internet…. It’s a neo-oral age I live in,
bending each others ears as usual, but now in full view.

The Media is the Message. Look: this post ostensibly
is about ADVISING. Actually: it’s more importantly
about itself— talking across the curriculum. Transparently.

Graham posted a call for criticism on our new founded
FAH Blog (Fine Arts& Humanity)—transparently risking
his own thoughts urging us to risking our thinking regarding
the obligations of the new division chair:

SAMPLING
(Reduced & Reformatted For the Sake of Argument):

allocation of resources: understanding
needs and helping with justifications,
including information on relative urgency,
making the case that a reasonable amount
of the overall resources should go to arts
and humanities departments,

do I need to be able to articulate an over-
arching goal ("mission") for the division?
try to engage the faculty in a discussion
toward that end (who we are, what we do,
how to describe it)? Is such a discussion
even necessary?

departmental & performance reviews, what is it
that they are supposed to accomplish and how.

possibility of creating new opportunities, new
excitement, by promoting activities which get
us talking and thinking together rather than
in our own departments? How important,
really, is that task? (mainly as an end in itself
or as a means to the primary end, which is
building strong rationale for allocating more
resources to FAH?

Oversight. Is it part of my job to make sure
that others in the division are properly doing
their jobs? Am I a boss?

Finally, where do these issues fit in?
1) working to see that academics in general
(including issues of scholarship and faculty
development) and the FAH in particular
receive more prominence, both within and
outside the college;

2) aggressively working to get FAH a bigger
piece of the pie and more visibility in order
to redress a imbalance between academic
areas (that bit above about "a reasonable
amount...working to insure that small,
struggling programs don't get left behind
but instead get beefed up (if that's what
they want).

ADVISING: This right here now is a recursive
version of the concern for academic advising that
Gretchen as been working up: 360 degrees flip
IT backwards from one side of the desk to the
other. Advising. Advising. Advising.
Graham is asking for it, and the beauty of it is:
it’s possible now, committee of the whole, to
be transparent—talking amongst each other.
Up for grabs. Putting IT in play. No concern
left behind. It takes a village.

THIS right here now (the transparency going on,
morning sun splashing over the Swannanoa Range)
is more important than whatever token topic or
subject- object matter we might be using/abusing
to engage our selves with in…true? That would
be my advice but any body can improve my
terms and images.

xxxooo, Sam

On Chairing FAH!

Dear FAH folks,

First a thought: I don't know if this blog is going to do anything, but if we keep it going, I think it's best to post everything as a new post rather than as comments on other people's posts. More like a conversation.

Anyway:

This morning I wrote a private note to myself with thoughts and most questions about this business of Division Chair. I'm still trying to figure out what it means. There's a working job description, but Paula and Carol and the div chairs are supposed to get together this summer to talk about it--so things are very much in flux.

That being as it may, I'm going to post these "private thoughts" so anyone reading this can have an idea of what I'm thinking at the moment. My level of thinking is so simplistic at this point that it's a bit embarrassing, but I'm trying to look at the basics. I'm also trying to stay realistic. And, Sam, I know I'm operating firmly in the "Advancement" mode, but, well, I am.

So here's what I wrote:

THOUGHTS/WARNINGS/QUESTIONS

There is a tendency for administrators to create work to justify position--don't do that! I think a lot of "assessment" boils down to just that. Speculations on my job (before division chairs meeting as a group with Paula):

• I think my job boils down to allocation of resources: Helping those in departments get what they need to do the best job they can. Understanding needs and helping with justifications. Conveying information to Paula (and others?), including information on relative urgency.
• My job is also to make the case that a reasonable amount of the overall resources should go to arts and humanities departments, based on what we say we're trying to do and how what we're trying to do fits into the overall mission of the college.
• In order to make a coherent case for a particular department, and for the division as a whole, do I need to be able to articulate an overarching goal ("mission") for the division? And is that sufficient reason to try to engage the faculty in a discussion toward that end (who we are, what we do, how to describe it)? Is such a discussion even necessary?
• Along the same lines, how important are departmental reviews, what is it that they are supposed to accomplish and how, and what should be my attitude toward them?
• Am I missing the more important (and so far the more interesting) aspect of the job: The possibility of creating new opportunities, new excitement, by promoting activities which get us talking and thinking together rather than in our own departments? How important, really, is that task? Is it important mainly as an end in itself or as a means to the primary end, which is building strong rationale for allocating more resources to FAH? It's easy to see that the two aspects of the job support each other, but where does the majority of my limited time go?
• What about a third aspect: Oversight. Is it part of my job to make sure that others in the division are properly doing their jobs? Am I a boss? I want to think that this aspect will take care of itself, that if I understand enough of what's going on, if I am open and listening well enough, any major problems will reveal themselves without the need for "performance reviews" and that kind of thing, and that I can then bring those problems to Paula's attention. I hope I can minimize this aspect of my job so that people can get on with their teaching and planning and scholarly activities without me looking over their shoulders. Am I being naive?
• Finally, where do these issues fit in? 1) working to see that academics in general (including issues of scholarship and faculty development) and the FAH in particular receive more prominence, both within and outside the college; 2) aggressively working to get FAH a bigger piece of the pie and more visibility in order to redress a imbalance between academic areas (that bit above about "a reasonable amount..." is a bit wimpy); working to insure that small, struggling programs don't get left behind but instead get beefed up (if that's what they want).