Gun Holiday

South Carolina today became the first state to have a "tax-free gun holiday" to celebrate the Second Amendment. One of the headlines in today's newspaper is "Gun bargains this weekend." Another headline reads, "Two injured in gunfire at SC Thanksgiving parade." There is no relation between headline No. 1 and No. 2. Move on, people. Nothing to see here.

At least we don't allow guns on campus here in South Carolina like they now must at my alma mater, the University of Utah. All I can say is "Yikes." (At least you have to be 21 to get a permit. That way if you get depressed and drunk and kill yourself, at least you were legally drunk. If you think I'm being snarky here, consider that more than 50% of suicides are committed with a gun. Also consider the emotional challenges that young college-age students experience. Add guns to that mix? Not a good idea.)

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." I guess not infringing on the right to have a well regulated armed militia means we need to give tax breaks to those who buy guns.

Rivalries Gone Wild

Each year staffers at the University of Utah student newspaper "kidnap" and blindfold Cosmo the Cougar, the BYU mascot, and hide him somewhere on campus the week before the BYU/Utah football game, aka, the Holy War. They give clues each day as to his whereabouts until someone finds him.


In 1966 Sue Paterno, wife of Coach Joe Paterno (yes, he was coach way back then), and a girlfriend painted the Nittany Lion with orange paint to heat up the rivalry game with Syracuse University. The latex paint came off easily but the oil-based paint applied later by actual Orangemen had to be sandblasted off.

Which brings us to the South Carolina/Clemson rivalry. Each year USC students construct a giant Clemson Tiger and do this to their mascot:



So, what is it with all this abuse to cat mascots?

Make My Day

Sometimes a single e-mail can make your whole day. A few months ago I got this one.

I 'm a second year ph.d student at School of Education from Beijing Normal University. I am extremely interested in your research. In fact, I want to conduct a comparative research on faculty senates between U.S. and China. After reading some chapters of your thesis on The creation of faculty senates in American higher education, you can't imagine how excited I was. Because it is one of the most in-depth studies I ever read.

Anyone who has written a dissertation knows that I don't need to explain why such an email would make your day. My dissertation didn't win any awards but it's nice to know that someone, anyone, read it! (And even enjoyed it, or said he did!)

The second "make my day" email came over the weekend:

...An important goal of our group [USC chapter of The Roosevelt Institution, a non-partisan nationwide student think tank] is to keep students politically informed and to allow them to begin participating in public policy-making. In order to reach this goal, we have created a class: Effecting Change Through Public Policy, which will be taught by Dr. Charles Finocchiaro. A preliminary copy of the syllabus is attached. …We plan to have 7 different faculty members speak on their area of expertise as it relates to current issues in public policy (Healthcare, Energy/Environment, National Security, etc.)….

We are contacting you in order to request that you participate as our visiting lecturer in the area of Education Policy… We simply ask that you attend a class (we are targeting Monday, March 16) and deliver a 45 minute to 1 hour lecture, followed by a brief Q&A, on your topic of interest. Furthermore, we ask that you provide at least 1 article related to your topic prior to your lecture. This article would provide students with the background necessary to better understand your topic and allow them to ask informed questions.

Part of being a professor is becoming some sort of "expert" on something. It's one thing to submit something and have it accepted. But it's another to be sought out to do something related to your work. I've been invited to give a couple of other talks this year and each time it's gratifying to think you actually know something that someone else might want to hear. (I put "expert" in scare quotes because I must admit I don't quite feel like an "expert.")

But in this case it is particularly gratifying to be sought out by students. It reminds me of the earliest Medieval universities, such as the University of Bologna (founded 1088), where students ran the show, electing the rector (who was a student!), picking the professors and creating the curriculum. Under their system the professor was beholden to the students for his pay, for permission to marry, or even to leave town for the weekend!

Did I become a professor just so I could wear the cool robes?

Today was the investiture of Harris Pastides as the 28th president of the University of South Carolina. Or, in other words, another excuse for me to don my academic regalia. The ceremony had all the pomp and circumstance you might expect. I've had a few opportunities to wear this in the past year. When I officially graduated with the Ph.D. degree from Penn State in August 2007, of course, but also for University of South Carolina graduations as well. (A special thanks to Mom and Dad for the robes.  What a graduation gift!)

At investitures or inaugurations other colleges are invited to send a representative. These representatives proceed into the room in the order of their founding. So, the representative from Harvard came first (1636), then William & Mary would have been next (1693) but they didn't have a representative, then Yale (1702), et cetera. Some colleges probably ask someone locally to represent them. The faculty, then the deans, the other administrative officers, the trustees, and then the president. There were speeches, including a great keynote from the dean of Yale School of Music (Pastides earned his Ph.D. at Yale), the official "charge" by the chairman of the trustees to the new president, the installation ceremony, a speech by Pastides himself, and so on.

But, to me, the ceremony is more than just the ceremony itself. Like the other times I've donned my regalia, I found that as much the event served me as a reminder of what it is that got me interested in pursuing this career. It renewed my energy for and commitment to what I hoped to accomplish as a professor. There's something wonderful about the collegiality of being amongst a group of people who have a similar passion. For example, I happened to get in line next to Walter Edgar, a prominent historian of the South and had a wonderful conversation as we waited to process into the Koger Center. Also, there's the "name that regalia" that faculty play as they see other professors' regalia.

For me, there's something about wearing the ancient robes, seeing the University Mace, the symbols, the pageantry, that makes you feel connected to the history and purposes of the university.

So, in the end, I still have to wonder if I became a professor just so I could put on the cool robes a few times a year...

Pastides Palooza, Pizza, and Peruvian Protesters

Now, say that five times fast. If you master that, try: "Pedro Pérez Pereira, pobre pintor portugués, pinta preciosos paisajes por poca plata para poder pasear por París" or "Tres tristes tigres trigaban en un trigal." But I digress.

Today is the official investiture of Harris Pastides as the 28th president of the University of South Carolina. Instead of a fancy dinner with donors and politicians on the eve of his inauguration, he choose to hold a get-together with students with pizza and live music. "Pastides Palooza." Good idea. He also choose to use student government funds to pay for the event at a time when student governments funds for student groups are frozen due to university budget cuts. Perhaps not such a good idea, at least from the perceptions of students.

The symbolic power of the first decision is diluted by the symbolic power of the second, at least from the perspective of students. If the administration had simply footed the bill no one would have said much about.

Speaking of "saying much about it" there was a lot of scuttlebutt around campus about how students were going to protest Pastides Palooza. My students have graduate assistantships in student government and residence life and other such student affairs offices and they told me of the "possible protests." This came up in my class on "comparative and international higher education" on Tuesday after we talked about the role of students in university governance in Latin America.

I gave the history of the student voice in Latin American higher education and showed how, while some note/lament that it is on the decline, it is still alive. For example, in México students shut down la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (the largest university in the Americas) in 1999-2000 for nine months over tuition hikes. We watched two videos of protests by students in Perú. ("What was life like before YouTube, daddy?")

The first took place just before I went to Lima in May. The rector of la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (founded in 1551, it is considered the "dean of the Americas") agreed to a land-swap with the city of Lima so the city could build a bypass next to the University. This necessitated the tearing down of the wall around the campus perimeter. How did the students feel about this?



And then in August students from various universities joined together to protest against the government's unwillingness to enforce the "medio pasaje" laws that guarantee students the right to half-price bus fare. (Why is the important? Dorms are practically unheard of in Latin American universities; students often live far from campus.)



It's not hard to understand why San Marcos suspended classes today in light of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation being held in Lima. If students protest land swaps and bus fare with such tenacity, what might they have to say about the visit of Presidente Bush?

And the protests at the University of South Carolina?

A handful of students showed up holding posters.

Professor Bueller's Day Off

They tell me that one of the biggest benefits of the professorial life is the "flexibility." A professor has a a great deal of latitude in organizing his or her work schedule. Other than showing up to class on time (or at least close to on time) and attending required meetings (e.g., departmental meetings, faculty senate meetings, the grand investiture of your new president, et cetera) you have a great deal of flexibility in organizing how you do your work. This is why we get the complaint of the "professor mowing his lawn at 3 o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon." (By the way, why is it always "3 on a Tuesday afternoon"?) That professor may have worked last Saturday, been part of a panel the night before for International Education Week, or been up late grading papers. Oh, wait...that was my week.

I say "they tell me" because I have my big to-do list and just try to make progress on it as many hours as I can stay awake per week. I need to take a break and get some perspective more often.

So I did just that yesterday. After dropping the kids off, I headed to Books-a-Million and bought a book I've been waiting for, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and sat and read it (excellent so far, more on it later), then caught a movie ("Role Models"—some good "mind candy"), read some more, got in a little workout at the gym, and then was going to take the kids to see the women's basketball rivalry game—USC vs. Clemson but that didn't work out (which is OK because apparently it didn't work out for the players either). If it had been warmer I probably would have taken in a game of golf instead, something I have done exactly once since moving here fifteen months ago.

So, the question is whether yesterday's breather will fuel today's work. We'll see...

College Costs too Much? Don't Blame Me

College is pricey. And the price will just keep going up. That much is for sure.

Unfortunately (for me anyway), professor salaries won't. Adjusted for inflation, college professors have, on average, received a .25% salary increase since 1986. In that same time period doctors have received a 34% raise, lawyers an 18% raise, and engineers a 5% raise. Again, professors have received a one fourth of one-percent raise, meaning they are not even keeping up with inflation.

In the public eye, faculty salaries seem to loom large as the reason tuition keeps going up, according to a recent story in the Chronicle of Higher Education. That may be due to the few high profile (e.g., certain "celebrity professor") cases that get reported in the media. However, for their long hours—professors work 55 hours per week on average—faculty generally don't make what you might expect.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) wonders why faculty salaries continue to lag. They ask, "Where are the priorities?" in their most recent report on the subject. But you might expect such a question from the group representing faculty interests.

As you might expect, faculty in certain disciplines make more than others. It's very simple: if that professor could ply his or her trade outside of academe and make more, he or she will make a higher salary as a professor than others. (These are disciplines you might expect: medicine, law, engineering, business. No, education is not one of them. Nor are most of the social sciences or humanities.) It also depends on where you teach: certain universities pay more than others. Again, no big surprise.

Please don't take this post as a "complaint." It's not. It's just fair warning that when you send your son or daughter off to college to not blame me for the bill! Of course, most professors didn't get into college teaching for the money. To us, we consider the price tag on our Ph.D.s to be "priceless."

Professor-in-Chief

I figured that if I'm going to post something about President-elect Obama on my blog about "being a professor" it should be relevant. (The photo is of him delivering the commencement address at Wesleyan University in May, stepping in for Sen. Ted Kennedy, who had diagnosed with a brain tumor.) Professor Obama did teach for a time at the University of Chicago Law School, after all.

The last post generated lots of discussion, even if that's not reflected in the modest number of comments. I talked with friends and family members, from various political persuasions, about the election and the issues both in person and over e-mail. Good for us—all of us, that is. I hope others did too.

I haven't posted in more than a week but it's not for a lack of ideas, just a lack of time. If I could blog while driving that would have been great since I drove to Jacksonville (with a great stop to visit friends in Georgia, thanks Joel and Amelia!) for one conference, then to St. Petersburg for another, and then all the way back. Whew.

I had Al Gore to keep me company and I'd like to write about that (about his book specifically, not audio books generally, in case you were wondering). I'd like to write about the conferences I attended—that's kind of an interesting thing we professors do. I'd like to talk about taking my students to D.C. last month, especially in light of the recent election and the possible policy changes that may be in store for higher education (among many other areas). (Speaking of which, we met with Sen. Kennedy's aid for higher education policy.) And then there's the question about whether professors are liberal (again, in light of the election) and what that means for students. I could write about today's news that NASULGC (say that five times, fast) is changing its acronym to APLU, mostly so I could introduce the this little piece of historical trivia: the American Sociological Association used to be known as the American Sociological Society. (How many students would change their major to sociology just so they could go to the "ASS" conference?)

I could even write about the funny robes that Obama is wearing in the photos. There's just oh-so-many-things to write about...

Anyone out there interested in any of these topics? What about you, Professor-in-Chief?

A sensible (if not sexy) pre-Election Day idea

You know who you support for president and why. You also probably know who you support in your state legislative race, for Congress, for county commission, and town dog-catcher. But do you know why your friends and family support their candidate?

I think a major problem we have in our country is a lack of understanding of the "other side." You either know that Barack Obama will renew our country to greatness or that John McCain will be the courageous leader our nation needs. At night you either watch Keith Olbermann or Sean Hannity, comfortable in knowing that "your guy" has it right and the "other guy" is nuts.

We want a leader who works in a "bipartisan" way. But we use that term as a catchphrase without practicing it ourselves. How many of us really understand "the other side"? Why does our neighbor or friend or family member support "their" side?

Here's a great idea I couldn't resist passing along. It's not a "sexy" idea but it is certainly a sensible one. Phil Noble in an op-ed in The State newspaper last week suggested the following:

I am encouraging everyone — Obama and McCain supporters — to find someone who thinks differently and bet a barbecue dinner on the election. It will be good for the country. It will be good for our state.

Now, to be clear, Noble is an Obama supporter. He is president of the South Carolina New Democrats and was heavily involved in Obama's S.C. campaign. But regardless of your political persuasion, Noble's suggestion makes all kind of sense. He continues:

Back to the Palmetto state and that bar-b-que dinner. Tough elections about big issues are part of what makes us special as South Carolinians and Americans. So, no matter who you support today, find someone that supports the other guy and bet them a bar-b-que dinner on the race. And, when it's all over and the winner is clear, enjoy your dinner, settle your bet, and then talk to your friend about the future and how we can make it better.

He's talking to his fellow South Carolinians but his advice applies no matter where you live, no matter how blue, red, or yellow your state is. I hope you will take his challenge. You certainly know someone who disagrees with your choice for president (or dog-catcher). We are so taken with the scintillating and the scandalous (that is, the "sexy") from the day's news that we no longer sit down to talk about the "sensible."

The nation will only emerge victorious (regardless of which candidate wins) if citizens like us are willing to engage with each other in meaningful, purposeful dialogue. It's becoming a lost art in this country. Can we reclaim it?

Stud

If there were ever a writer to emulate, it would be Studs Terkel. The guy could write. Seriously write.

I say could write because I woke up to the sad news this morning that he died yesterday.

If you've never read a word by Studs—and there a lot of words to read—I would suggest starting with Working. Then take your pick. (He wrote his last book on death because he was "curious" about it.) Anyone who wishes to become a better writer could learn a lot from Studs and how he practiced his craft. More importantly, anyone who wishes to learn something about the "human condition" (something some professors aim to do), would do well to learn from him as well.

There are others who can tell you much more about him than I ever could. Like Roger Ebert, another great writer (and fellow Chicagoan). He's posted his own memories as well as an essay from last year, when Studs turned 95.

I remember a great interview that Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes a few years ago. I found a plethora of Studs Terkel clips but not the one I wanted. This short one gives you a sense of the man.



Thanks, Studs.