The ethics of reporting

Because of certain events in our University, I was asked what is the responsibility of faculty to report? For example, if you hear a rumor, or a student has shared something in confidence – what should you do with this information? This is not exactly obvious, and I don't think we have a good policy or guidelines. Here is what I think, and please don't take it as the official University's line.

All information about intimidation, harassment, or inappropriate behavior should be immediately reported to me or to the Dean. Such behavior can be by faculty, staff, students; it can be related to sexual harassment, or racial, or gender, or other forms of prejudice, or just random. Every faculty and staff member is representing an institution, and should care about its well-being. It does not matter if you heard it in confidence, or indirectly, or believe it was exaggerated. If you hear something remotely credible and did not do anything, you accept a part of responsibility for what may or may not be another ugly story. Not reporting is condoning. University's administration has a responsibility to investigate, and to take actions, but it won't do anything until it knows something. Do not assume that if something was conveyed to you as a common knowledge it is a common knowledge.

Now, if you hear that so and so is not a fair teacher, or is weird, or dishonest, you do not have the same ethical obligation to report. It often makes sense to bring someone else's attention to the problem, but it really up to you who to talk to and if you want to talk at all. People's personal and professional weaknesses may be just as annoying or even damaging our community. However, if there is no harassment, intimidation, or inappropriate behavior, it remains squarely within your own common sense judgment to decide what to do with this information. As many of my colleagues have realized, I am generally nosy and like to know what's going on. But none of you have an ethical or professional obligation to indulge me on this. It is perfectly fine to keep the information confidential; you will not be responsible for doing so.

And the third class of information is when someone makes a mistake on the job. Those in general should not be reported, unless one of these conditions is true:

1. It was a repeating error, a part of a pattern;
   
2. It had costly consequences, in money or time, or reputation;
   
3. You have a suggestion on how to prevent such mistakes in the future.
   

How do you distinguish between these kinds of things? One good way would be applying the Denver Post headline test. Compare these two headlines:

• A UNC professor threatens a student with violence
  
• A UNC professor loses a paper and gives an unfair "C"
  

Which one you think is more realistic? If your story is more like the second, it is probably up to you to report or not report it. If it more like the first, you have little choice but to report. Another way to figure it out is to imagine yourself or your child to be in the place of the alleged victim. Are you simply upset or enraged? If it is the latter, report, if the former, it is entirely up to you.

One way that is not so effective is asking whether we can be sued over this. First, most people don't have a good idea of what is and what is not a credible court case material. There are many myths and fears about being sued, but the University has a Council, let him decide those things. It is generally not very easy to bring a credible case to court without a specific damage or injury. And we are not in a very damaging business. Second, people litigate over so many things; it would be just paralyzing to always think about the threats of legal nature. The focus should be on us – are we doing right, honorable, reasonable things or not? If yes, the law is likely to be on our side.

The fine art of teaching

Mean	What you see here is distribution of mean student evaluations for our School faculty in the Spring of 2009. Each line is one faculty member, so if she or he taught more than one courses, those are averaged. Not a perfect indicator, but it shows we can really be proud. The waited mean for the whole School is 4.35 on a 5-point scale. We do have some awesome teachers, and students really appreciate what we do. The more student evaluations I read the clearer it becomes; it is not about being nice or amusing anymore. Some of the nicest people get the lowest scores sometimes, although being angry with students usually tends to lower the scores. But our students learn to appreciate those instructors who teach them something. Naturally, my eye is wondering to the outliers at the bottom of the list. What went wrong, and what can I do to help? My biggest concern is about people who have done it for a while, and still cannot get decent evaluations from students. I believe, this is an issue with just the level of effort. When students see a poorly prepared syllabus, no rubrics, a grading system that seem to change every week, or a professor reading a textbook aloud in class – they have little respect for the instructor. Not putting enough time into thinking through one's class is probably the biggest contributors to the low scores. And it does not matter how much experience you have, and how much you can improvise – homework is essential. In fact, I believe people who are more improvisational in their teaching, have more difficulties relating to our students as time progresses. This is because we all compete against each other in the eyes of our students. Once they see a well-designed course, which is well-paced, relevant, and engaging, going back to a long lecture with questionable relevance is very hard. A variety and density of instructional methods also seems to be important. Our students are future teachers, so they are not impressed by the same activity repeated again and again. Nor are they convinced by endless small group discussions without a clear focus. Long stories about one's life and teaching experience are clearly irritating. Time needs to be compressed, and used wisely. I am less concerned about one-time low scores; we all have classes that don't go well, one in a while. Nor am I worried about new people getting lower scores. It does take time to adjust and to find your own teaching voice and style – this is true even for those who already had successful college teaching experience elsewhere. This is a different university with its unique culture, and we are dealing with some very sophisticated students. We talk about teaching, and there is always an opportunity to learn more. My real worry is about people who seem to be stuck in one place and cannot get out of it. Sometimes it is simply laziness. To be honest, I don't know how some people I know and used to know fill their days. Anything they do seems to be done on the fly, without much thought and preparation. And it is not like they are preoccupied with grants or research or service. Producing evidence of a 40-hour work week is a challenge for them. For these people, working at home seems to be difficult. I recommend coming to the office 5 days a week, and spending 8 hours there – you'd be amazed how much can be accomplished. Sometimes it is anger. Once you get angry at students who are not smart enough or honest enough for you, it is very-very difficult to improve as a teacher. Every failure will serve as an evidence of how spoiled, stupid, unfair, and dishonest your students are. This is a dead-end, because think of it: if all students were bright, capable, prepared, and proficient, why would they need us? A teacher who is angry with his students is like a doctor, complaining how sick his patients are, and how nice it would be to treat healthy people! Anyway, I just wanted to say how well we really do overall, and how proud I am to be among such wonderful teachers. Also wanted to tell everyone, I pay close attention to the evals, understand the problems, and am here to help should you ask for it. Heaven knows I have had my own share of teaching problems, and - my students will probably say - I still have them. If there was a good way to rank, I would probably be somewhere in the middle among my colleagues, and certainly not at the top. I can help by facilitating conversations, by putting people in touch with each other, and of course, by sharing the few tricks of my own.
5.00
4.98
4.96
4.94
4.91
4.90
4.89
4.86
4.85
4.85
4.83
4.76
4.66
4.66
4.61
4.57
4.56
4.53
4.46
4.38
4.33
4.27
4.24
4.21
4.07
4.05
4.01
3.90
3.78
3.56
3.38
3.31
3.09
2.00

 

About blogs

OK, I have been doing it for three years. My first blog was published on July 2, 2006; I have 123 entries since then. Did not keep track from the start, but in the last 6 months, the site had 836 Visits with 478 Absolute Unique Visitors, and 1,189 Page views. Here is a little stats table thanks to Google Analytics:

Count of visits from this visitor including current	Visits that were the visitor's nth visit	Percentage of all visits
1 times	475.00	56.82%
2 times	77.00	9.21%
3 times	37.00	4.43%
4 times	28.00	3.35%
5 times	20.00	2.39%
6 times	17.00	2.03%
7 times	15.00	1.79%
8 times	13.00	1.56%
9-14 times	46.00	5.50%
15-25 times	27.00	3.23%
26-50 times	32.00	3.83%
51-100 times	49.00	5.86%

What does it mean, exactly? Even though I don't get many comments, at least some people read it, which is already a good sign.

The plan was to keep a journal of things that I learned, and make my thought process a little more visible. At first, it included both ruminations about our own institution, and about all things educational. Then I created another blog on wider educational issues, and focused this one on what is of interest, mostly, to people with whom I work directly. But every week, I struggle with the same choice: what is interesting and amusing to me, may or may not be as equally amusing to others. That's the central tension of blogging as a new medium. Your old paper journal was never read by anyone else, so it did not mind being a little self-centered and narcissistic. The blog, however, is read by other people, and it becomes annoying if focused on the author entirely. However, it is not exactly a newspaper article, and must maintain a strong personal voice.

For example, last week, I spent a chunk of time working on two different grants, and of course, learned something new about that. I've also learned a lesson about how a small technical error at the beginning of the process can lead to a tense argument, misunderstanding, and to an unnecessary problem. I suppose, my conclusion could be like one of the two:

• Projects, like children, disproportionally depend on early stages of their development. A right onset can go a long way in ensuring the project will grow strong and succeed.
  
• People must not get annoyed with each other without first investigating the origin of their disagreement.
  

That has been, more or less, my formula. I take a case, and draw a conclusion – either a purely managerial one, or one with a human dimension. The blog entries become either a sermon or a short management article. But I always feel uneasy about the sermons, and am never sure if the management pieces are of interest to anyone.

So, if you're reading it in the middle of the summer, please give me some feedback – comment here, e-mail, or just tell me. Should I keep going? Why are you reading it? Is the blog helpful? Should I change it? Ger rid of sermons? Get rid of management? Keep both?

A reminder: Comments are moderated to protect the site from spam. All legitimate comments will appear, just after a short delay. Thanks!

Cataloging trouble

The Catalog working group, of which I was a member, just finished its tasks of redesigning the University catalogs. The group was great to work with; it was UNC at its best – willing to change, innovative, informal, and deeply caring about students. I think we made a lot of progress, and 2010/11 catalogs will be much more user-friendly, and easier to navigate. I am still wondering why a simple question – Which courses do I need to take? – requires such a complicated answer. We have the Catalogs, check-sheets in various offices, four-year plans, and a whole host of advisers who interpret the mysterious written word of the catalogs for students. The paradox is, by trying to make college easier, we make it a lot more complicated than it has to be. To off-set this complexity, we spend a whole lot of resources trying to explain the complexity away. Here are some examples:

• As one of our group members noted, the Catalog reflects the logic of program creators, not of program users. For example, faculty members divide courses in core and supporting, major and Liberal Arts Core, within the main discipline and in other disciplines. But very few of these categories matter to students; they simply need to know which courses they have to take for sure, and with which they have some choices. They also want to know which courses can be more useful for the future, which are easier to get into, which are fun, and which require too much work. It becomes a simple conflict of categorization. It's like going to a pharmacy and finding the medicine arranged by price rather than by the kind of trouble you might be experiencing.
  
• If we leave students to their own devices, their rate of error in planning the coursework would be very high. We then require them to see an advisor to get a PIN, so they can register. But getting to see an advisor is another obstacle, another hoop to jump through. Most of the advisors on campus are faculty, who are not here all the time. Every year, many of them are new, and have their own trouble reading and understanding of the catalog. As a result, in an effort to reduce errors, we introduce a whole new layer of complexity which generates new errors and more frustrations.
  
• The whole Liberal Arts Core idea is very old and venerable, and designed with the best intentions. Ideally, it should give every student a broad education, and allow easier transfer to another institution. However, people have been messing with the LAC for years. For example, when they simply wanted to expand the major, certain LAC courses became "Specified required LAC courses." This move, of course, defies the purpose of choice and transferability. Instead of calling it what it is – a larger major – these programs just add a level of confusion. Moreover, some of the major courses proper also satisfy the LAC requirements, and therefore can be double-counted. So the two categories overlap significantly, and make figuring them out very difficult. The LAC list itself is a maze of categories, subcategories, and rules.
  
• Then, of course, the State of Colorado requires the majors be different than teacher education programs (PTEPS). It comes from an obscure ideological stance requiring teachers to know enough content. Therefore, we list PTEP courses as a different set of courses, further confusing students. And of course, the difference between PTEP and major courses makes no sense, and the two categories overlap also. In some majors, some of methods PTEP courses are also counted as major courses, and in others, they are not.
  

It is not only that these things are difficult to explain to an 18-year old, who is fresh out of high school. What strikes me as absurd that we need to explain these things at all. They truly don't care, and should not care about these categories. What makes it complicated for students is that they also have no idea how often courses are offered, how hard is it to get in them, and which courses are "stacked," which means some are pre-requisites for others, and cannot be taken just at any time. Here are my conclusions/recommendations:

1. Advising is supposed to be important, and it connects students to faculty on a more personal level. But if much of it s spent on explaining the same catalog mysteries over and over again, perhaps it is not what we hope it is. We need to make another, more radical step in making the catalog easy to understand by purging the categories relevant to program creation. Maybe we should ask students for help.
   
2. Students need to have easy access to the same data faculty have access to: history of course offerings, how full do they tend to be in the past, as well as the schedule as it is being developed. Last year, I copied advanced schedules from the report portal and e-mailed it to two thousand teacher education students. Many were very grateful, because it allowed them to plan better. But why is this information hidden from them in the first place?
   
3. We need to learn to build logic models of student scheduling. Following the many complicated rules associated with course choices is better done by a computer than by a human mind. One simple step toward this: we already have a degree check feature in Ursa. However, there is no way for students to run their mock 4-year pan through the degree check, and see if they would graduate with a given set of courses. So if we allowed them to build a 4-year plan, and run through a pretend graduation, it would eliminate a lot of errors, and reduce the burden of advising.
   
4. In all out programs, we need to keep only those choices that make sense, and eliminate all of those choices that are only there to support the idea of choice. Many of the choices we announce are unobtainable because courses listed there are never offered, or limited to majors. In other cases, choices serve no discernable reason to exist, or are results of turf wars and turf peace-making. If we eliminate those, it will probably reduce the choices by 2/3. And when we keep the choice, we need to be able clearly explain what are advantages of each option, and what are implications of choosing one option over another.
   

 

The Spreadsheet fallacy

Perhaps people don't remember it, but VisiCalc, which was Excel's forefather, was one of the crucial forces to unleash the personal computer revolution. Excel is great; it allows running infinite number of scenarios quickly, make patterns and ratios visible, and generally, it is a good way of making a solid argument.

However, the whole idea of numbers came about when people started to deal with large quantities of essentially the same or very similar things, like bushels of grain, heads of sheep, or buckets of beer. Almost none of the hunting-gathering societies generally count beyond 3 or 4, because if you had 10 arrows, they were all different, and you remembered them all individually. If you saw a herd of animals, that's what you called it, and there was no need to count them. If you don't deal with identical things, you cannot count them. Or rather, they have to be identical in at least one practically important aspect. For example, you cannot count loafs of bread, if they are very different in size. I mean you can try, but won't be happy with outcomes, because you may end up with more loafs but less bread. So, the sameness of things you're counting is the most fundamental assumption of mathematics.

Here is where the Spreadsheet fallacy comes in. Excel spreadsheets are so compelling that people are tempted to count apples and oranges as pieces of fruit, but then make conclusions about their average skin-thickness. For example, we have some classes that are real classes, and other classes that are independent studies, and still others that are checkpoint courses (which are not classes at all, but tricks to make our registrar database keep the information we need). We have classes for each people are getting paid, and classes that are done as service. Some classes are methods, while others are theory; still others are tutoring classes. Some classes are co-taught by different content specialists, while others are co-taught because it is easier to have one large class than 4 smaller ones. These all require different enrollment caps, different forms of compensation, different rooms, etc. When you put all of these things into one spreadsheet, you must assume that 1 credit=1 credit, and 1 instructor=1instructor. But the basic assumption of sameness, of the consistent unit of measurement just does not work. If the only source of your information about reality is the numbers in the spreadsheet, you may see phantoms rather than the reality. By trying to be objective, you may actually become less objectives. Numbers are only good when they measure something real.

We receive a lot of spreadsheet reports from the University. I am always impressed with their authors' Excel skills, but can rarely see the raw data that goes into the calculations. In more than one occasion, I discovered that the input included numbers that cannot even be added together, because they compare incomparable things. Thank god, most of these reports have been inconsequential so far. However, when some actual decisions and policies can be made based on the Spreadsheet fallacy, remember the rule:

SHOW ME THE RAW DATA!

The limitations of grapevine

We all rely on informal information exchanges; I have written about it before. Here is another story that shows what are the strengths and the limitations of the grapevine as an information channel. In Spring, I have received several informal reports about one of our adjunct faculty having problems in interaction with students, with work ethic, and perhaps with competence. We are not obligated to provide work to any part-timers, and actually have a large reserve pool. My plan was to check on the rumors, and if they prove to be correct, look for someone else to hire.
We have collected student feedback from a series of surveys, so there was actually some data to verify the story. What I discovered is that just one unhappy student was the source of all the reports I received. Imagine how it works: this one student has several classes, and voices the same concern with several instructors. She may pose it in a way that implies other students were also treated badly. The instructors all tell me that there is something I should know about. Of course, they don't mention the student's name, because of confidentiality of the initial conversation, and because the source may have strengthen her case by implying it is a larger problem. Because the story changes with each transmission, soon it sounds like three different stories. Moreover, faculty talk among each other, and a person who have heard it from another faculty, tells me about the problem in yet another form. Considering that I actually receive an astonishingly small number of complaints, three or four comments about the same person sound like a lot.
From the students' comments, it transpires that we perhaps did not provide clear enough instructions and expectations to this new part time faculty. Not only am I no longer sure if there is a personnel problem in the first place; it may have been our program's problem. I am now thinking it may have been only a small personnel problem, which is easier and fairer to solve by providing a little more training and support to the instructor, rather than rushing to replace her or him with someone else. The new person may have other problems, after all. And who does not?
The grapevine is a great way to alert about a possible problem. It is not really good at determining cause or the extent of the problem, nor is it a good helper in making any decision. This blog is more of a note to self, because I don't want to discourage people from sharing what they know with me or with each other. This is how we improve, and develop our professional community.

Pushing back

Here is a story from last week that really made me feel good. I noticed that when we get graduates licensure applications, we make a hard copy, send the original to the State, then scan the copy into our digital archive, and then shred the hard copy. This seemed to me like a redundant process, because our copier that makes hard copies can also be used as a scanner. So, I figured, we can save a step by scanning the originals, and then simply uploading these copies to the digital archive. Three people are involved in the process: Vicky, Marissa and Lynette. Vicky did not like my idea right away, Lynette had a lot of doubts, and Marissa did not say anything, but I could tell she did not like it either. They thought it would actually be longer to scan everything right away. But I pushed hard, because I like new solutions, and because it just made sense to me to skip a step and save a little paper. After some discussion, we agreed that they will try the new process I developed (and I had to work out a few technical kinks; probably two hours worth of work).

They did try it, timed themselves, and have proven that the new process takes twice as much time as the old one. Lynette had the killer argument: the new process takes a lot of concentration, and at her busy front desk station she is likely to make more errors. Vicky and Lynette broke the news to me at the end of the day, so I was forced to retreat, and acknowledge that I was wrong. Licensure is very time-sensitive, because graduates need to get jobs, and every day of delay may affect someone's job prospects. The paper, however, is cheap. The illogical process actually works better, and reduces the time in limbo, when a particular record is inaccessible (there is a time gap between scanning and indexing). The possibility of an error is a big thing: we learned the hard way how costly such errors can be.

But what made me really happy and proud was the fact that they did not give up, and kept pushing back, because they could prove the point. A school director has a lot of administrative power over staff, and it is not easy to have a culture where people feel comfortable defending their ideas, and telling the boss he is wrong. In part, we have it just because who these people are: Vicky, Karon, Marita and Lynette all have many years of experience, and a good common and professional sense. They know what they are talking about. But I also felt like I was doing something right, because our little debate did happen, and because I was wrong this time. The last thing I want to do is to make staff's work more difficult.

We did improve a little part of it though, reducing one step where Marissa has to look up every applicant in Ursa. We tricked our SIMS database into generating ready cover sheets for majority of applicants.

The Russian trip

OK, we did it. A group of 17 Americans went to Moscow, then to Novosibirsk, and Saint Petersburg. We did have a conference, of course, and actually it worked well despite the language barrier. But for most people, it was also an adventure, an experience, and an event.

Can't speak for others, but here is my impression. It is rather interesting to see my own country through the eyes of my American friends. It does look a little different, a bit more exotic, and somewhat less explainable. The country has changed so much since I left it in 1991. Even though I have been back almost every year since 1996, it does feel like a different country. It is very familiar, and yet strange.

I just had to remind myself that every time I go to Russia, it is a holiday: I don't have to work, I see old friends and family, I get to be nostalgic. Vodka, banya, shashlyk, sightseeing – this is not real life, not everyday experience of a typical Russian. It is tempting to just come back, but I probably never will return for good. Like a transplanted tree, I have too many roots here, I like my job too much to abandon it. Our kids are here, one of them is married to an American, and neither will consider going back to Russia permanently. But it is fun to visit, and I would like to be more involved with Russian education. We do have much to learn from each other, and I hope we will. I was very happy to see how well my Russian and American friends got along with each other, considering all the cultural differences and the history of Cold War. I always believed Russians are much closer to Americans than to Asians or to Europeans, and this is just more evidence. Both cultures have a strong egalitarian streak, both value directness and openness in relationships. Both countries have revolutionary experience and can be mistrustful of governments and politicians, which they compensate by excessive believe in personal encounters. There are many profound differences, of course, about which I will write separately one day.

Just before my flight back to the States, I had some three hours to kill in Moscow, between 6 and 9 AM. I just walked the streets. Moscow is a beautiful city in the early morning. Muscovites are not early risers, and the streets were sunny and almost empty. The city is just incredibly varied – from ancient churches to Stalin's high-rises, to ultra-modern contemporary buildings. All of it is almost randomly thrown together, and yet there is some common sense to it. Anyway, it is hard to ex-plain, but I had the most wonderful walk through the city – from Belorusskiy Tran Station to Barrikadnaya Metro Station. Here is my exact rout, with some photographs which you can repeat, thanks to Google's magic. It is just hard to explain, but this was a wonderful walk.

A couple of links to our own pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uncoeducation/ and http://picasaweb.google.com/eugene.sheehan/Russia2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCNa79ff-nJmNaQ&feat=email#

What I have learned in kindergarten

Robert Fulghum wrote a book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten in 1989. It was one of the very first books I read in English some 15 years ago, and liked it very much. It taught me appreciate the uniquely Anglo-Saxon gift for simplifying complex ideas; something most European philosophers usually lack (the Germans, the Russians, and the French in particular). Here is his original list of things you really need to know. What I learned last week reminded me of this book, because it was so basic, something everyone already knows, and we just need reminders once in a while. It also occurred to me that I am fascinated with technocratic solutions to complex logistical problems. However, even more complicated human problems usually need simple, kindergarten solutions. And they work as best as it is possible. So, here is my list, which does not apply to any particular case or situation. This is simply a list of things for me to remember:

1. If you are really mad at someone, ask, why are you so mad? If the person you're mad at is not evil, there is no reason to be that angry. If the scope of your anger does not match the offense against you, you have a problem.
   
2. When you screw up, apologize, and try to be sincere. An apology goes a long way. Remember, South Africa managed to escape a horrendous civil war through the some simple acts of apology.
   
3. When someone is wrong, and has offended you, do not assume you are automatically right. As Anton Chekhov said, "Чужими грехами свят не будешь"(Someone else's sins won't make you a saint). Victimhood in does not make one a better human being; the opposite is often true. So, apologize back, and try to be sincere.
   
4. A conflict between two people hurts everyone else in the group; it is not a private or personal mater. We have a stake at having a decent, cohesive community, and will not tolerate on-going conflicts regardless of its cause.
   
5. Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy? You cannot be both.
   
6. Allow others to save face. There is no benefit in cornering someone who has done wrong to you.
   
7. What you are trying to say is not important. How other people perceive your message is important. If you don't know the latter, make an effort to find out.
   
8. What do you want?,- ask yourself often. You will find out very soon, that what you feel like doing is not at all what you need to be doing to achieve what you want.

Chronophages

This word does not exist in English, but it does in French and in Russian (although it is still a very obscure word). According to André Maurois, Henry de Montherlant made it up in French. A chronophage, literally, means the devourer of time. Here is an example: someone puts together a large meeting, invites many people, only to accomplish a very modest task that can be accomplished by a couple of e-mails. People gather only to find out that there is nothing really to talk about, there is no plan, no proposal, just a general talk. Or, someone send you a request to participate in a survey of some kind, and it is not clear what it is for, and the questions seem to be haphazard. Or someone puts together a public panel only to provide legitimacy to a proposal that is actually developed, and really does not need any input. Or, an official calls a meeting and lectures for an hour. A chronophage will present a small problem to be a large one, therefore demanding that people pay attention to it.

Don't get me wrong: I welcome and embrace nterruptions. I love when faculty drop by to talk about things that are on their mind. It is an interruption, but almost always a welcome one. I learn something, and I am able to answer questions, and ask questions. This is how we know what is going on, and how people are doing and feeling. That is not at all a problem. I also always see a student who dropped by, because it is important for us to maintain an open, welcoming office. It is also very important to meet face to face to solve complex problems, hence my deep appreciation for a good slowtalk.

The problem is when someone eats your time without regard for you or for others. A chronophage does not value you or your time. I missed an important phone call, just because three or four chronophages ate a few hours of my time this week. A really good person got upset with me, because I did not return his call in two days, and it was urgent.

Why do they do it? Well, I have a theory. A chronophage derives the self-worth from eating other people's time. It is really a childish need for constant attention. A chronophage perceives the time that he takes as a tribute, paid to him by others. It is a tax, an obligation, a sign of respect. Eating other people's time sustains this person's illusion of importance. And because people will start to avoid the chronophage, he will feel threatened and insecure. The chronophage gets hungry for time. To fix that, he will devise more and more complicated ways of eating other people's time. And the more authority he has, the easier it is to do, and the more difficult it is for us to resist him.

Therefore, I proclaim a holy war against the chronophages. Resist! Fight back! Do not get eaten alive! When asked to do something, to meet or to answer, ask why, who needs it, and what would be likely outcomes. Ignore salesmen! Doubly ignore salesmen who pretend not to be one! Always ask if there is a plan or a proposal. Ask to send you something first. Ask what it is about. A noble cause does not always indicate a worthy project. A lofty title may disguise a dog and pony show. You are the master of your own time. Someone might need it more than the chronophage.

Well, let's just say, it was a busy week, maybe a little more than usual.

Tinkering with the machine and crap shoveling

There is a side of our enterprise I like to call the machine: calendars, schedules, catalogs, web site, handbooks, policies, routines, and tasks. Those things do not directly affect what is going on in classrooms. However, when the machine is faltering, it can create a lot of problems. For example, students and faculty get confused or frustrated. In rare occasions, a poorly designed policy or procedure can have serious negative effects on people's lives. Thank god, this is an exception; otherwise we'd be in trouble, for the machine is faltering all the time.

When I just came to UNC, one of my aims was to simplify and fix the machine. Naively, I thought it could be done in a year or two, and then we all will have more time for the task of radical improvements of our programs. But the machine needs fixing all the time! I find myself tinkering with it again and again. For example, just in the last two weeks, I was helping to re-re-revise the student teaching handbook for the umpteenth time. And then just yesterday, I realized that the Diverse Experience form is not there. It is mentioned on the website, was discussed many times in many forums, and yet is not to be found in any of the student teaching handbooks. Besides, faculty found more need for revisions of what we have just revised last Fall. Fundamentally, those two factors cause a lot of machine maintenance: improvements and errors. Let's just say we want to revise the exit survey for students, common for three programs. Who can do it? Program coordinators are very busy this time of year. Our staff members are very knowledgeable and hard working, but they don't know all the nuances of the data we need to get. So, I am trying to do it almost solo. But, all projects done solo are bound to have errors, – both technical and of judgment, – because there is no one to check what I do. Carolyn and I will help each other when we can, but it is not the same as a deliberate, involved process of working with the entire faculty that is really needed. The choice is to let this little piece of machinery idle (skip the survey this year), or do it in the imperfect fashion. In other words, the option is to put the duct tape on it, which I did.

In addition, our machine is a part of even bigger machine of the University, which adds a layer of complexity. Who needs to know? Who gets to decide? How will it jive with the rest of the University? Here is another example. In December, I took large part of the Winter break time to revise the licensure parts of our catalog. It needed to be done badly, for no one could find anything in the catalog. However, we got only a few days for proofreading, and we simply missed the licensure part. Quite by accident, I discovered on Thursday that those changes were omitted. This is long past deadline, so I had to send some panicking e-mails, and the catalog people agreed to make the changes. However, every time you revise the catalog, other errors are introduced. For instance, Art Music and PE PTEP programs disappeared – inadvertently, of course. So, I had to put them back in. But the catalog is going off to the printer on Monday, so I did not have the time to consult with those programs, and I probably gotten these programs wrong, too. They will probably be mad at me, because the errors would be ultimately caused by my initiative to revise. So, we're virtually guaranteed that this piece of the machine will need another fix next year. Continuous improvement or continuous tinkering?

This tinkering work is absolutely endless. There is always something to fix, a process to improve, a form or a handbook to rewrite. It is fun at times, because sometimes I get to solve real problems, and find some new solutions. For example, on Wednesday and Thursday, I finally found a way to track our graduate admissions, something that eluded us forever, and costs us a lot of labor. However, it is one thing to find a solution, and quite another to make it work. Someone has to have it on their calendars, instructions need to be written, people trained, etc. Anyway, tinkering is mostly fun, but just in the last week got a little bit frustrating, and tedious.

And of course, quite independently of my tinkering, we were exposed to a case of irrational bureaucratic whim. Those of you in the School probably know what I mean, for those outside, it is not important. Tinkering with the machine – I embrace if not always enjoy. I understand why we have to do it. Shoveling crap is something else entirely. Here is my highly scientific definition of crap shoveling: dealing with unnecessary problems resulted from someone else's arbitrary decisions. So if I appeared cranky for this last week or two, now you know why. My apologies anyway, if I neglected or offended you in any way. I'll lighten up next week, promise.

Student complaints

It's been busy in the last couple of weeks. Two trips, several ceremonies, search, a couple of new projects – all of these worked out just fine. Things are going really well for me, and I want to believe, for the School. Yet problems that don't have a good resolution are on my mind, as always. Certain problems just don't have a clear cut solution, no matter how creative you are, or how hard you think, or how much you know. One of them is student complaints.

I am very fortunate to receive very few of those, but when I do, it is never clear what to do about them. Students who come forward to complain always have a mixture of motives and interests. They are always concerned about the quality of instruction, and almost always bring up valid criticism of someone's instruction. However, a student who complains before the end of the semester always has another motive – an attempt to get a higher grade. Even if they don't realize it, objectively speaking, they have a conflict of interest. The complainer is not a disinterested bystander reporting some problems out of JUST the moral duty. Students are often overestimate the influence an administrator can exert over faculty teaching. Or rather, they do not really know what they want to be done.

When I convey the sense of complaint to the instructor in question, everyone without an exception is hurt. A student complaint violates both trust and authority embedded in the teacher-student relationship. "Why didn't they talk to me?" – is usually the first reaction. And then, inevitably "This is simply not true." And almost always: "Let me tell you about this student." It is very hard to be in a position of power, and to sense the imbalance of power. You think, if I am open and honest with students, they should feel free to criticize me openly, to bring their concerns to me. But again, the objective situation of power imbalance makes this relationship look different from the other side. Power is one-way mirror: if you have it, all you see is the benevolent you. If you don't, you see the other, big, powerful, and scary. Therefore, I cannot simply turn away complainers and send them back to those against whom they complain. Even when students complain against a faculty from a different School, and even listening to them may look like invasion of someone else's turf, turning complainers away just is not a good option. There is no growth without knowledge of problems.

In those complaints, there are exaggerations, misinterpretations, although very rarely outright lies. Knowing that, I always try to check the facts with the instructor, and provide an opportunity to tell his or her side of the story. But – and it is a big and important but – the very fact of checking is already offensive to the instructor. The implied response is always "How dare you to even admit a possibility that the student is right, and I am wrong? Whose side are you on anyway?" No matter how much I tell that I am not inclined to believe student complaints, especially if they do not reoccur, faculty always feel offended and maybe even harassed. No one likes to be accused, and everyone feels the right to confront one's accuser. But because of the power situation above, it is often impossible. This is not a court of law.

And as I noted on another occasion, different perspectives can lead to different version of the same story both being true. To explain why someone would see the story differently, you almost have to evoke the moral argument: the other person is biased, unfair, and manipulative. That is where "let me tell you about this student" argument comes from. People in general have a hard time separating facts from their interpretation, and interpretation from the source. Yet how do you go about doing our everyday business without knowing each other's business? How do we improve if we do not get to reflect on our students' concerns and perceptions?

I hope you all see now how tricky this can get, how many layers of meanings can be revealed, and how many conflicting interests and considerations are at work. I wish I had an answer, but have some rules for dealing with student complaints:

• Ask if the student tried to bring it up with the instructor, and if not, why.
  
• Ask for details – what exactly was said? Can you show me your assignment? Can you show me your syllabus? Do you have your paper with you? What exactly happened? How many times, etc.
  
• Ask what the student wants to be done (learned that from Eugene), and when they want intervention. It is important, because to intervene before grades are in is to disclose the student identity to the faculty. There should be some cost to the complainer: to prepare evidence, to risk confrontation, or other unpleasantness, etc. If you make complaining "free" it encourages frivolous complaints.
  
• If the student wants to wait till the class is over, encourage to use evaluation forms. Inform about the grade appeal process.
  
• Inform about the scope and limits of my own authority. For example, I cannot tell an instructor to change someone's grade, but I can ask to develop a better grading system.
  
• Write an e-mail which focuses on facts, and send it to the instructor – immediately or after the end of semester, with or without student's name depending on what the student wants.
  

This is basically it. We have no policy or procedure on dealing with student complaints. In most cases, it just stays between me and the instructor. I don't know how to follow up, or how to make sure basic standards of good teaching are followed. Sometimes I keep a copy of the correspondence, but no one ever sees it. Maybe this how it should be, but it just strikes me as a lost opportunity. Ultimately, we must create a culture where our students are our allies, our sounding boards, and our critics and helpers. But we do not want to open the floodgate of ridiculous complaints whose only aim is to manipulate the system and get a better grade. What we really need to encourage is not complaints, but a steady flow of feedback from students about what and how we teach. They have many professors, and can see and compare; they usually know what works and what does not, what is a waste of time, and what is valuable. Faculty members do not have the time to visit each other's classes, so a lot of discoveries, tricks, and tips are not shared. But our students see it all – the good, the bad and the ugly. I don't want to see just the ugly; I want to see the good, and make sure everyone else learns from it.

The question of the day is this: how do we use our students' knowledge of college instruction to improve our teaching? How do we do it outside of the framework of complaining?

The Great Wall of Thanks

In my last blog, I was wondering about how exposure to different information affects how we view and evaluate each other. The resolution was this: "Note for self: create more opportunities and spaces for faculty to talk about their work to each other." And of course, this does not affect faculty only. We also have five full time staff people, five work-studies, and several GA's working with us. And although staff members work in close proximity to each other, they do not necessarily know everything about each other's work. The challenge is to improve the horizontal sharing of information for all of us. It will help to be aware of the things that are going on in our School, and also to appreciate better each other's work.

The problem is with information competition. The information space is overloaded already. I am very conscious of this, hence the weekly updates: I try to filter information, and only include something important, and do it only once a week. Otherwise, people will not read my e-mails. Even the weekly updates are probably read by no more than three quarters of our School (although I try to enforce it gently, by making fun of people who missed an important bit of news included in an Update). By the way, they all are archived in W:\STE Documents\Weekly updates (the link will only work for PC's); there are now 79 updates.

But back to the main point: Too much information is just as bad as too little information. If I start including in the updates long lists of things that I know people have been working on, no one will read them. Moreover, it creates a lot of work for me, which I am not anxious to take on.

The solution I want to try uses the strengths of the internet-enhanced social network technologies. Twitter.com has been a remarkable new tool, and receives a lot of attention, as well as much scorn. US Senators twitter from the chambers; kids twitter in class. Eyewitnesses of the Mumbai attacks broke the news through Twitter. Just check out the latest news about Twitter to gauge the scope of the phenomenon. Basically, Twitter is a mini-blog that allows people upload short blurbs of 140 characters – from their computers or cell phones. Others can follow the twitter as often as they like. I tried to create one for myself – and it is a waste of time, because my days are not so interesting, and no one wants to follow my adventures anyway. My attempts to convince my kids to twitter failed. Svetlana and I would like to follow their pursuits closely, but they won't bother to update. So, I am probably going to close my account.

However, this technology maybe just right for what I am trying to achieve with horizontal information sharing. Therefore, I created another Twitter account which we will share. Anyone associated with us can use the same login "uncste" and the same password "steunc" (Sorry, they cannot be identical to each other). The account is called The Great Wall of Thanks. When you know about something special done by one of us, just open that bookmark, and type a very short blurb. It won't let you go over 140 characters. Moreover you can subscribe to an RSS feed, which is basically a subscription service that will provide all this information to your Outlook or Entourage, or just t the browser without any effort. You can ignore it, or read it, or skim it. This augments or replaces informal conversations more typical of earlier, simpler times, when you ate lunch with your colleagues, or went out for a drink with them. Many people don't have the time or opportunity for these kinds of things anymore. Those who live farther away from campus are at a special disadvantage: it does seem silly to drive here for an hour just to catch up on gossip, or tell people about what you did last week. However, we can still keep up with each other through other means.

Of course, no one has any idea if this is going to work. Not many people have much patience for another on-line gadget. But Twitter is so simple to use, and I think we clearly have the need to be updated: I just hope people will give it a try. Check it out: I put a few notes there already for everyone to see. Sorry if I forgot anyone; it just what occurred to me today in the afternoon.

To submit and read:

• Click here: Twitter.com
  
• User name: uncste, Password: steunc
  
• Add to Favorites or Bookmarks
  

To subscribe:

• click here
  
• Click on "Subscribe to this feed"
  

 

Candy in the box

Two full days: that is how long it took me to do evaluations this year. It is a tense time of the year, because of the spring fatigue and the evaluations. I am called to judge my friends and colleagues, with whom I work every day. No one likes to be judged, because no one else knows better how hard one worked and how much one has accomplished. The easy way for me would be to rubber-stump the results of peer evaluations and be done with that. It is a temptation, of course, but it does not work. The reason for several levels of review is exactly to ensure that sometimes I can disagree with faculty, and the Dean can disagree with either or both of previous evaluations. This is because we have different information, and develop different view on things, so our assessments average into something fairer than one person is capable of producing.

One thing I noticed this year is that faculty members do not always know the extent and the nature of work that a program coordinator performs. Much of this work is unglamorous; it does not attract much attention, and does not place one in the spotlight. I know more about these things, just because much of it interacts with me and the School office. So, I have an idea of how much time, effort, and creativity it takes, for example, to figure out a schedule, to hire a new part time faculty, or respond to one of many student crises. But we rarely have time to talk about this at our meetings, so people who do not talk a lot about what they do may not be recognized enough. Note for self: create more opportunities and spaces for faculty to talk about their work to each other. Highlight people's accomplishments and achievements more often, even though they are not as sexy as a new book or a new grant.

The general rule is this: no one can know everything; our information access is always limited. Because of this, there is a grown-up version of what psychologists call egocentrism. I quote from the Wikipedia article linked here: "if a child sees that there is candy in a box, he assumes that someone else walking into the room also knows that there is candy in that box. He implicitly reasons that "since I know it, you should too"." We supposedly grow out of it in adulthood, but not completely. It is hard to remember that the work I did with person A or person B maybe completely unknown to the rest of the faculty. This applies, by the way, both accomplishments and shortcomings. So, you find yourself wondering: why on Earth would they make that judgment? The more often than not answer is: they don't know what you know, and they know what you don't know. Another version of the same explanation is: they don't have the same objectives as you may have, so they think differently.

Of course, in the peer evaluation process, people put together their dossiers, and present what they accomplished. But here, again, the same adult egocentrism works in its subtle ways. The way most people present their work includes many assumptions about others' knowledge that are often false. And this also goes in both directions: you may simply mention something, assuming everyone will immediately recognize what an accomplishment it is, and they may have little idea about it. Or, you hype your accomplishments too much, or go into too much detail, or embellish them just a little, and your readers lose confidence in what they see. As a result, they underestimate your real achievements. And of course, we don't know what is real. If the outcomes of scholarship and teaching are more or less measurable in principle, service is entirely different. The number of committees one serves on is not a good criterion. Keeping track of one's hours seems embarrassing. Some people tend to seek high-profile service commitments, while others do low-profile things that just needed to be done. Some people create enormous value to the group through informal channels, without ever forming a committee. Others do a lot of good, just not for this School. How do you measure and compare any of it? And almost everyone believes that their service is the hardest, the most needed, and the most important. That's because every one of you have the most abundant, excessive knowledge of only one person – yourself.

It gets more interesting when people discover that faculty, or the director, or the Dean disagree with them on their self-assessment. If you forget about the information asymmetry, the only possible explanation is value-laden – those people are mean to me, don't like me, or not too smart. But if you think about it, this is not too far from the child's "since I know it, you should too." And if you start entertaining the emotional explanations, then your own lenses as an evaluator also get skewed, so a little vicious game of retaliation may creep in, unnoticed.

We're not in danger of corrupting the process; far from it. Most people do a lot of good work, and most people approach each other's records very fairly. We improved the whole process enormously, thanks to the faculty of this School. We have a lot of trust and respect for each other. Just to make sure we keep it that way, and make it better, I would like to remind everyone about the egocentrism and information asymmetry. If you see that candy in the box, it does not mean others see it. Nor does it mean that if you tell them about your candy in your box they will necessarily imagine it the same way.

How to lose $240,000 in 30 days

On Jan 14, which is actually 36 days ago (30 just sounds better in the title), I sent this e-mail to one of UNC administrators:

If we "supersize" our Elementary PB cohorts to 30 people in each, can we also pay instructors a little bit more for the large classes? For example, if we assume 25 students is the maximum normal size, then each student is 4% of the load. So, we would like to add at least 4% on top of maximum pay ($1500 per credit) for each student above 25. 26 people would be 1560 per credit, 30 people will be 1800 per credit. We will use a similar formula to increase coordinator's stipend. […] I know it is complicated to keep track of, but extra 15 people will bring in an extra quarter million. It is definitely cheaper than opening a new cohort. We seem to have enough qualified candidates.

For those of you who don't know, the math works like this: the program is 48 credits, at $340 per credit. This means each additional student would bring in $16,320. 15 additional students would generate $244,800. If we paid the instructors a little extra, it would cost us $2,880, plus perhaps $2000 more for coordination, total of $4880. The university is tax-exempt, so we would clear $239,920 in one year. Keeping in mind that the University is expecting a $2.9 million shortfall, this would not be a bad little something, all at a price of saying "sure." The catch is – we needed the permission quickly. To manage the increase, we would have to make sure most instructors are OK to teach the larger classes, we'd need to extend the official deadline, and make sure the admission process is still rigorous and fair, and people still have the time to apply. We cannot hold admission decisions, because students won't be able to meet the priority deadline for financial aid. It is entirely too late now, and I still have not received a decision. I did remind, and was told – this decision needs to be made at a higher level. And yes, of course, I did make a point this was time-sensitive. So, I scratched this one from my to-do list. We have other things to do, and this particular program is already successful, large, and gives more than enough work to its coordinator and our off-campus program manager.

Of course, the story is more complicated than that. The University is trying to make its operations more orderly and more equitable. For example, the increase of pay for off-campus classes has been discussed last year, and it was decided that there would not be a difference between on- and off-campus compensation, because it creates negative incentives for faculty to teach on-campus. I actually was in favor of it then, but this is a different proposal – not a blank increase, but a formula for oversized classes. This proposal has a clear rule attached to it.

As the Provost rightfully noted at our recent meeting, you cannot have two different accounting systems, one with large incentives, and another with small, or no incentives at all. I agree, and have written about this in June of 2008. So, there is a valid hesitation to just let people to do whatever they want, and to make separate deals with every unit on campus. There has to be a clear chain of authority, and the interests of the entire campus must be protected above those of each individual unit. I understand all this, but still, the answer should not and cannot include decisions that lose us all a lot of money, and let's not forget, deny 15 potential students access to education they need. Yes, we need a better, more orderly, more equitable system. Yes, the University s entitled to the lion's share of the profits we help generate. But you cannot innovate or grow if the decision-making channels are shut down. A new set of regulations should be firmly in place before the old chaotic system is yanked from under our feet.

And the financial emergency is not an excuse. Many economists believe that the Great depression was significantly compounded by the Federal Government trying to cut spending, raise taxes and retreat to protectionism. The same psychology is at work at our level. If you're in charge of an institution and it is facing financial problems, your first instinct might be to clamp down. You confiscate extra cash from all the units sitting on it, so you can allow them to operate more or less normally, no keep their own people employed, to avoid cancelling searches, etc. You try to normalize the cash flow back to the central office, so resources are not being horded and stashed away in hundreds of different accounts. It is, you figure, a small price to pay for making it through the emergency with minimal losses. I am not sure if I won't be doing something similar if I were in their position. But you cannot lose quarter a million dollars in 30 days, no matter what. Small decision or indecisions have large consequences. A time of crisis is the time to unleash people's initiative and creativity; it is the time of experiments and bold moves. You have to be very cautious when the times are good, and take risks when the times are not so good. To be agile and flexible, the institution needs to trust its people to have good intentions and to make good decisions. The last thing you want to do is to freeze up initiative.

On the future of higher education

There are at least three paradoxes inherent in the current higher education system:

1. Professors give grades to students, and grades are the main way of evaluating students work. However, if you give everyone poor grades, it reflects badly on your own teaching. Therefore, professors evaluate themselves, and this is a conflict of interest. In the K-12 world, state tests at least partially address this issue; nothing like this exists in higher education. Let's call this the paradox of the fox guarding the chicken coop.
   
2. Most universities outside of Ivy League depend on enrollments to maintain their budgets. They also are supposed to be selective and maintain high academic standards. Most reconcile this conflict by admitting a lot of unprepared freshmen, and then either helping them to achieve, or making them drop after the first year. Nevertheless, it is a conflict of interest. If you charge someone money, and that someone can take one's money elsewhere, you will eventually lower your demands. This is the race to the bottom paradox.
   
3. Universities charge students per seat time (per credit), so students pay for out attempts to teach, not for actual help with learning we are able to provide. It is very difficult to demonstrate that there is a direct relation between seat time and competency. Students have no say in how much help and what kind of help they need from us (see a related blog "Till When?"). But because higher education consists of relatively independent courses, bundling them makes very little sense. More teaching does not mean better learning, because learning depends on the level of effort by students. And what we have is a system that encourages a lot of teaching, and not enough learning. Unlike any other industry in the world, colleges brag about low student-professor ratios. Just imagine a company advertising that their bicycles are better, because it uses twice as many people to put them together. So, there is a perverse incentive for universities to become less and less efficient. It is the boutique paradox: a boutique store can charge more than Wal-Mart, but it can never become larger than Wal-Mart. Many middle-rank universities are trying to catch up with harvards of the realm, not realizing how self-defeating such a strategy is. In the meanwhile, the bottom-feeders whose names I will not name, flooded the market with cheap diplomas of suspicious quality.
   

In my mind, the reform of higher education can be sketched out. First, we need to develop an impartial assessment system which does not rely on instructors. Bar exams in medicine and law are probably the best available models for now. I don't see why something like that cannot be implemented in all other fields. Universities should also measure the level of incoming freshmen, and then report to the public on the value added, not on the final results. In other words, it is important to see how much your students have grown, not how you are able to attract the best high school graduates. The value-added measures can be clearly laid out with respect to the cost of tuition, so people can make rational choices about which university to attend. This will put an end to the practice of selling the brand, where people pay hundreds of thousands of extra dollars just to have a big name on their diploma. I would also legally ban employers from asking what university an applicant has graduated from. This is none of their business; they should not discriminate on the grounds that have nothing to do with competency.

Second, we should control the cost of higher education by charging students more if they require more help, and charge less if they can do more of learning on their own. Students should be able to determine what kind of help they need: a semester-long class, a shorter overview, individual tutoring, or none at all. This would create an incentive for every student to work harder, and for universities to stop wasteful teaching. Of course, for this to work, assessment should be divorced from instruction: you cannot have the same people teaching and evaluating the results of teaching. The State of Colorado made a feeble attempt to implement something like that, by requiring colleges to allow students to test out of courses. I still know of no student that did, and it is mostly because there is no fee per test a university can charge, and because you would take the exam with the same professor whose class you claim not to need at all.

Third, the nation's faculty should put a stop to the racket of publishing houses. Most textbooks contain little original research or even original ideas. They can be created by volunteers (like Wikipedia or Wiki Books) and cost nothing to students. We just need to organize; and perhaps AAUP can lead the effort.

These are ideas that maybe a little too radical for most people to accept or even to consider. And I am certainly not saying we should start some crazy experiment next month. If I learned something on my job, it is that the bigger the change, the more careful you must be while implementing it. It would take years of experimenting and discussion. However, we must realize, time is not on our side. In the long-term perspective, we will not move forward without addressing these paradoxes. As the cost of higher education is rising, and competition is getting stronger, something's got to give. Not today, not within next 10 years, but eventually the higher education system will have to reinvent itself.

Being a student

This semester, I am a student again. I am taking GER 202, Intermediate German II. This is a hopeless attempt to remember the language I have studied in school quarter a century ago, and has not used much since. So, I am sitting there, with my long beard, amongst a bunch of 19 year olds, who speak and understand the language so much better than I ever will. Just today I was trying to give a presentation on the brochure I created in German. It was very embarrassing; I turned red like borscht, and mumbled something incomprehensible. The kids were polite, and the instructor was wonderfully encouraging. Yet it was really hard and somehow emotionally very difficult. Now, I have no stage fright, and am OK with public presentations. Nor do I have any desire to be perfect at everything I do. It's just my German is very weak, and I found myself in a class that is two years ahead of me. This happened to me when I first learned English, too. However this is not about learning languages (although this process has some unique emotional qualities). We all had these experiences; they come with being a student, from struggling to learn in a public space. To be a student means to subject yourself to judgments of others, and to run a risk of exposing your own incompetence. It also contains the risk of comparing yourself to others in the room, and perhaps finding yourself at the very bottom of the ranking order.

Most of us forget or repress these memories, which is why I highly recommend that all my colleagues occasionally experiment on themselves. Take a class in a subject where you know you're not that good at. Take a math class if you're a math-phobic. Take a technology course if that is where you are not as strong. It is easy to forget how it is to be a student, still easier to forget how to be a poor student. I always try to be decent to students, but like any teacher, I will sometimes be irritated by someone's incompetence, inability to perform the easiest task. And if we go real deep, that irritation is probably an outward manifestation of my own insecurities projected onto others. The more you identify with a struggling student, the more irritated you may become. Of course, everyone knows by now, I am a fan of Freud.

We always have those students at the bottom, who are painfully aware of their position. I am not sure if one can be compassionate to them without experiencing something similar: embarrassment, denial, lack of self-efficacy. We struggle to overcome and hide vulnerabilities, and yet those maybe the best gift we have as teachers. Thinking about it, all the great teachers I knew are very aware of their own limitations, which probably what makes them able to relate to a struggling student.

Don't get me wrong – Deutsch ist Spaß. German is a lot of fun, and I enjoy those classes immensely. Thanks to the Board of Trustees for the free credit. I am just curious and puzzled about the peculiar mixture of pleasure and pain that is called learning.

On laziness and long-term perspective

My brother Konstantin is an engineer, a creative mind, and a pub philosopher. He likes to tell people that all progress in the world comes from laziness. What he means is that most people dislike routine and monotonous work. But some individuals hate routine and monotonous work with such a passion that they will spend more time trying to find a way out of doing this work than the actual work would have taken. Let's call it laziness, although I suppose it is not a common usage. I must confess I am lazy, which may or may not be a good thing for the School I am trying to lead.

Looking for ways to reduce work feels like a creative activity; it is fun, and definitely beats doing the actual work it is trying to improve. For example, if I have to do the same operation in word processing more than 3 or four times in a row, my mind immediately starts looking for ways to make the machine do the repetition. What would have taken most people half an hour to do, may take me an hour or more: 59 minutes to figure out a solution (like writing a macro), and then 1 minute to run it. There is a chance I will face the same issue again, and then this time will pay off. But there is also a good chance that this was a unique problem, and the solution will never be used again and is thus wasted. I remember hundreds of these things I figured out once, and then never used again. My kids always give me a hard time about this particular obsession: "Oh, Dad, not another shortcut!"

In the last three weeks, I found myself trying to streamline and simplify several of our operations: graduate admissions, scheduling, placements, doctoral program policies, collecting data for the DPS project, etc. These efforts include talking to people, understanding their work, asking for their suggestions and for critique of possible solutions, working on technical issues, looking for resources, etc. This took probably 20% of all my work time, plus some homework. And I am not convinced it is all time well-spent. Actually, some of my little projects turned out to be duds. For example, I really liked the idea of matching cooperating teachers and teacher candidates via a social network website for the purposes of student teaching placements. I spent perhaps 4-6 hours investigating it, playing with the sites, writing it up, and explaining to various people, only to realize that the organization culture barriers are too high for this solution to work. Too many players, too many unanswered questions. Another example of waste: we archived a part of our SIMS database last Fall to make it faster. However, this created a major reporting problem, which we did not see at the time. So, on Friday, I spent about two hours undoing damage from my own mistake. And then, of course, it is unclear whether our new way of processing graduate admissions will work better than before. I think it will save us hundreds of hours every year, but there is no way to anticipate how many new problems it will create. For example, the Graduate School is suddenly concerned about us having our separate on-line application (it never bothered them when we had four different additional paper applications).

Like my brother, I really enjoy this, and do not get upset when something is not working. However, I just re-read my earlier blogs, and realized that I may have gone too far. After all, a School Director is not an efficiency expert. While I designing new ways of improving our operations, what do I miss? For example, we slowed down our work on curriculum improvement. This maybe just a result of working out kinks of already implemented, or maybe because I quit pushing? We have such complex, multilayered set of programs and procedures that it is hard to keep a clear sight of priorities, and how they should be structuring my own work day. I will see to the grad admissions puzzle being solved, just because so much time and energy has been invested already. But we really have fixed the most urgent operational problems, and managed to create a few new programs and cohorts. It is time we begin a serious conversation about the long-term goals. We tried a couple of times to do it before, but perhaps the time was not right. We had too many immediate pressing needs such as accreditation, catching up on educational technologies, maintaining and revising existing program, etc., etc., etc. But now we should start to take on the long-term perspective seriously. I don't want to rush or force this conversation. It just occurred to me as I was fixing the database on Friday that while it is fun, we may have bigger game to catch.

Flipcharts and Brainstorming

In the last few months, I have found myself at a table with a few other people, a flipchart stand with markers beside us. We were either brainstorming or prioritizing, or doing something like that. Everyone probably has done something like that. And many have wondered why this inevitably fails to produce anything worthwhile: new ideas, good analysis, or workable solutions. These brainstorming sessions make people feel included, and may generate some buy-in, but ultimately, they fail to produce any good ideas.

Why? – It is very simple. First, people need time to think. If you ask them to think on the spot, they are unlikely to produce good ideas. Second, in a group of people who often don't know each other well, one is unlikely to feel safe enough to propose a truly creative idea. The inner censor starts working; we want to be accepted, not weird on non-conformist. Third, even when an interesting idea does emerge, the person who is taking notes usually ignores is, simply because she or he is thinking about presenting it to a larger group, so the internal censor works again. Those who volunteer take notes often want to make an impression on the large group. Fourth, the teammates are very unlikely to offer support for a truly unusual idea. They will support ideas with which they already agree, and these, by definition, are common-place thoughts. To accept something new, one also needs time, and a new idea needs to be critiqued, and considered at length before it can be accepted. Fifth, the meeting organizers will then summarize ideas presented on all flipcharts. The way you do it is by retaining ideas that are common across all groups, and ignoring the outlying, weird, and improbably suggestions. Once you sift through all generated output through these five filters, you are almost guaranteed to find a list of trivial points well known before your meeting ever took place. So, you waste time of many smart people only to receive a bunch of platitudes in the end.

Why do organizations – from the Governor's office to this university - keep doing it? Mostly, of course, to produce the warm feeling of collaboration, to make the invited individuals feel a part of the common project. Yet it is very dangerous, because everyone leaves with a vague feeling of failure. I mean, everyone can look back at the flipcharts, and see they contain nothing but trivialities. They may also be a little grateful for being asked to contribute. However, the balance is usually negative. You go through these exercises a few times, and you become a cynic. A cynic's buy-in is not worth much.

Small group work is very effective for critiquing a possible idea or a solution. To imagine how things can go wrong, and what unintended consequences are – for these tasks the groups are indispensible. We had some wonderful discussions in which people did come up with good ideas, but only when there was no expectation to do so. A multitude of voices and opinions is also helpful in outlining a scope of possible solutions. All of together know more than each person individually. The genuinely new ideas almost always come from one person, and it is a job of a leader to encourage those ideas to come forward, and then to be discussed, and vetted by all affected and interested. People don't want to be ignored when decisions are made. But the flipcharts and group brainstorming is a path to guaranteed mediocrity.

Hard times ahead

I am back from vacation and glad to find all things in decent shape. We are ready for the next semester. It is nice to see colleagues trickling back into McKee: just as smart, dependable, and funny but not as tired as in December.

That was the good news. The bad news is that we still have not received any money from last academic year's Extended Studies revenues. Again, we are flying blind financially. Our Dean is in the same position, and so is the entire University. This encourages hoarding behavior. For example, the Provost is holding back our money, because he does not know what is going to happen to the University budget. As for the Dean, I can see him tightening his fist for the same reason. Because no one knows how much money we have, everyone assumes the worst. Colorado is one of the states that are required by their constitutions to balance budgets. This means that if tax revenues drop significantly, we might be required to return money to the State. Last time it happened in 2002, and the university took drastic measures: cancelled searches, implemented a hiring freeze, eliminated travel budgets, cancelled salary raises, etc.

We worked really hard to earn the off-campus revenues. Over the last three years, we virtually doubled the revenues while providing much needed services to the community. The assumption was always that at least a small fraction of the money could be used for our travel funds, program development, technology, furniture, etc. Now I am told that everything we earned can be taken away from us. Although I understand the nervous administrators above me, it is still very hard to accept such a turn of events even as a possibility. Instead of being invited to solve the shared problem as partners, we are treated like peons: the people above know better. Instead of engaging our brains, and our knowledge of the details at the ground level, we are being ignored and dismissed.

The truth is, the people at the bottom of the pyramid can both save money and make more money. To do that, we need to be able to count on a certain portion of these savings and earnings. Otherwise, we have absolutely no incentive to be creative about either savings or earning. The confiscation policy will kill the goose that lays golden eggs.

No one knows the extent of the budget shortfall. It can be negligible, or huge. But what is the best way of dealing with uncertainty? Perhaps it can be done best by trying to operate as normal as possible, by honoring previous commitments, and by developing plans B and C. The worst way is to cause panic, to make every unit hoard its resources, and to damage long-term expansion plans.

Perhaps this is an imperfect analogy, but it works: The Great Depression could have been another short-term recession, if not for Hoover's stupid idea that that was a good time to balance budget. What the feds are doing now is to provide a large stimulus to the economy, even if it means bigger deficits. I know we have nowhere to borrow from, but we need to keep people working and thinking creatively, not to freeze all activity just to wait the crisis out. The solution is simple: honor the previous agreements, distribute the money to the units, then come back to us and ask to pitch in to solve the shortfall if it becomes a reality. We may even give most of this money back. Or better else, STE will lend money to the University, at a moderate interest.