Nudging and Sasha’s challenge

Subtle economic pressures often have large consequences. For example, the high cost of healthcare is, in part, a result of incentive for doctors to deliver more treatments. Individual doctors may not be aware of succumbing to such pressures, yet the aggregate effect is real. A book called Nudge
is about influences on our choices.

Here is an example from our little corner of the world. Teacher education institutions rely on part-time instructors for a significant part of their instruction. UNC actually relies less than many other schools, and we tend to have long-term, proven adjuncts. The existence of full-time and part-time faculty nudges us to use more part-timers for student teaching supervision, and rely more on full-time faculty for teaching other classes. Why? – it is partly a function of the cost: part-timers cost less, and every semester, we have a large cohort of student teachers. It is partly a matter of qualification: many former teachers and principals make very good supervisors, but teaching classes requires narrower, deeper expertise. It is partly a matter of flexibility: student teaching supervision is easy to break into smaller pieces (we pay $400 for supervising one student teacher), while full-time faculty's workload is normally expressed in 3-credit chunks.

In many ways, the division of labor is quite natural. However, it creates some unintended consequences. Some full-time faculty members have little opportunity to get out to the field, and to check how much their classroom teaching is still connected to the reality of K-12 schools. The strength of a teacher education program critically depends on the level of constant interaction of theory and practice. And although each individual instructor swears to know everything there is to know about real schools, the aggregated and accumulated effect of the disconnect may be larger than one person can notice. See our students in action on a regular basis may just spur more innovation in our own teaching.

As long as we notice and understand the negative nudging, it can be remedied with conscious counter-nudging. Here is my challenge: let's commit every faculty member, full time and part-time, to supervising at least one student teacher every semester. The School can pay a small overload (the same $400) per each student teacher, so the scheme remains cost-neutral. If we agree to this as a matter of policy, no immediate results may be apparent. However, in the long run, we would create a significant factor to keep our programs healthy. I will definitely joint the others, and supervise a one student teacher each semester.

Just to make it clear: the proposal does not save us any money; none at all. It is not a matter of cost saving, but simply a matter of counter-acting a negative nudge. We don't have to be passive in the face of economic pressures.

What is easy and what is hard

As I was writing my annual report for faculty and for the Dean, I thought about things that are easy and difficult for me to do, and why they are simple or complicated.

Organizing information flows is easy. Perhaps I have a particular gift for visualizing how information flows from people to documents to computers. I usually can see right away where there is too much information, and too little; where it is not converted into another form properly, and what can be cut or collected/processed automatically. As much as NCATE report writing is a chore, I really had fun playing with all the data flows, data presentation formats, files, folders, websites. It's like a puzzle, which is not that hard to solve.

Making personnel decisions is difficult. Hiring, firing, evaluating, praising, reprimanding – I don't know if anyone is born with the natural ability like that, but it is hard for me. First, because the information is never objective or complete. It comes to me already strongly colored with human emotions, people's webs of relationships, past grudges and deals. I am always so acutely aware of my own imperfections when I have to pass a judgment on someone else. Not just a passing remark, but a serious, consequential decision that can affect someone's life, hurt one's feelings, or make someone happy. I am always torn between what I believe are the interests of the School and the college, and those of individual people.

Computers are easy. They have a hard, predictable logic. If something does not work, it is not because the machine is mad at me, or that I am stupid. I know there is a solution, even if I have to ask an expert. If it is really screwed up, you just kill the computer and create an exact clone of the old one minus the bugs. People are difficult: their hard drives cannot be reformatted; it is never clear what drives them anyway. They are all different, so each needs a different kind of work and enjoyment. The redeeming quality of people that they have the amazing capacity to self-repair. They adapt, they think, they are able to make peace, to forgive and forget. But there are no solutions, and no experts to call.

Doing things myself is easy; delegating is difficult. To delegate, I need to first see if a task is repeatable, and will likely be re-occurring again and again in the future. Otherwise, the investment in training someone else to do it won't pay off. Then I need to see if I myself understand the process, because teaching someone requires more than intuitive knowledge. Third, delegating implies asking someone to add it to his or her responsibilities, which is not always possible, and sometimes may backfire. Then I need to figure out if the new task is within the person's general level of skills, or slightly above. If it is too difficult, training may take too long, and be frustrating for both of us.

Structural changes are easy: changing or adding courses, reformatting courses, reshuffling coursework, improving individual assignments, instruments, data collection processes. Deep curriculum and pedagogy reforms are difficult. We don't really have an abundance of new ideas, we disagree on what should work. The institutional assumptions are very strong (try to avoid using concepts such as credit hour, a class, a field of expertise, the distinction between liberal arts core and major, and pedagogy areas; the distinction between class work, field work, and home work).

Easy things are pliable like clay; they usually require nothing but an idea, willingness to get your hands dirty, and to work. Hard things are hard like stone; you need to chisel away at them, have patience and right tools. But if you let your clay to dry, and if it get fired in the oven of human conflict, it becomes hard like a stone.

Genchi Genbutsu

Genchi Genbutsu is a Japanese management technique. It roughly translates as "go and see for yourself." It addresses the simple fact that when a problem is reported to the management, it is by necessity simplified, and made abstract. When a manager who has not been on the factory floor for a long time develops a solution, it does not work. The Genchi Gembutsu principle invites them to go on site and see the problem and potential solutions in context.

We sometimes have solutions offered to us from above that show little knowledge of what is going on closer to the ground. For example, the problem is we have too many changes in schedule; those are hard to track and errors slip in. A solution is to document every change in schedule, with someone responsible signing on every change. But that just shows that whoever thought of it does not know the context in which schedules are developed, and why they change. It is not only top managers that manage to misunderstand the Gemba (the Japanese term for "the place" in this case 'the place where it actually happens' - Wikipedia). Faculty often create rules and programs that are very hard to implement for the academic support staff. Most faculty members never "go and see" what is going on in the world of the support staff. The financial services think they know how to fix the problems on the academic side of the house, and the feeling is mutual. I am probably also guilty of imagining Gemba rather than actually knowing it. Solutions for someone else always look more obvious and easier to come by. One's own world always look more complicated and somehow more nuanced.

This is where our reliance on assessment may be flawed. Classroom assessment is always a form of abstraction; data is only possible when much of context is ignored. Anything with a number is an abstraction. My talks with students always bring different kind of information that the numerous surveys and assessment data we collect. It is not necessarily more complete information; it is biased and skewed by the sample. However, when you just see or talk with someone, many hidden complexities are always revealed. If you want to improve and move forward – yes, collect the data, but don't forget Genchi Genbutsu.

What’s moving us?

I am an unsentimental guy, or at least trying to act like one. But all said and done, only a few things are really moving. And the English expression "this is so moving" has a wonderful double meaning. To move somewhere, one needs to be moved emotionally.

Last December, our students and faculty collected and wrapped some 1000 gifts, I packages of 3-4 items. I was told yesterday that many parents who picked the gifts up to give to their children broke down crying. What were they crying about? If you are a parent and had not been able to afford a little gift for your child, you'd know. We have no fewer than 500 homeless children in Greeley, and about 10,000 on free lunch – not on reduced lunch, on free lunch. In comparison, the imperfections of curriculum, or inadequacy of faculty evaluation system all look… not small, but not very moving. That we also collected some food for homeless kids to take home in backpacks is moving – it is moving me to try to do more, for it was really a drop in a bucket.

A few month ago, a student came to me and said that her program changed her life – and not only because it is designed for working adults like her, and because all instructors have been knowledgeable and kind. It also so happened that she did not have a room to stay for a couple of weeks, and an anonymous donor paid for her motel. The donor did want to be named, and simply said he was helped in a similar way many years ago, and now is simply returning the debt. This story also moves – moves me to remember the debts I owe to many people.

I am also moved by small, almost invisible things – a kind word to a student beyond the job duties, by a question asked of a colleague about his family, by all small acts of kindness, but also by the acts of ingenuity, humor, persistence, and just an effort to do one's best within the given circumstances. Oh, man, that was really syrupy. Sorry about that; this is the last sentimental thing you'll hear from me ever.

My ideal community

In my ideal community, every person, of every size and shape, with whatever strengths and deficiencies, is able to find a place fitting his talents and needs. The ideal community creates a special place for every member, which fits her shape perfectly, like a cocoon. The person's rough edges are met with softness; his baby spots are protected by harder covers. The community does not stop looking until such a place is found. If someone is hurting, or unhappy, it does not seek to expel; it is busy looking for a new place within itself where one is happy, and is not hurting others. The ideal community does not expel; it is endlessly accommodating. It looks for all the good things each member may have, and wonders how they can be put to a good use.

It does not judge, but rather is amused by the weird things people do sometimes. It marvels at wonderful things people do all the time. The weirdoes are collected like rare stamps or coins – if they were printed with an error, so much better! The ideal community can take any amount of anger; it is eternally patient and endlessly forgiving. It may correct and guide, but will not try to alter anyone's inner being. People are just what they are. The ideal community does not believe in evil – it does not have a use for such a category. It admits the limits of mutual understanding – people are sometimes enigmatic, even to themselves. It embraces ignorance about each other's intentions or motives. Yet it is generous with interpretations; it always assumes benign intentions, even when consequences are disastrous.

The ideal community does not like pride and arrogance, no matter how justified. It does not support righteousness, but rather treats it like any other human folly – tolerated, but not cherished; a cause for amusement, not for admiration. The strongest must share their strength with the weakest as a matter of course, without asking. The strong are graceful, while the weak are grateful. It knows no pariahs and no outsiders. With each new member, it reshapes itself to make room for the new people. It values neither its identity, nor its ideals. People are more important than both.

It speaks with a thousand voices, which are not harmonious, not merging into one, but still recognizing each other as different and distinct. It does not seek agreement; it merely strives to hear the polyphony of human voices. To hear is more important than to be heard. It is a connoisseur of the human drama; it follows twists and turns of people's stories, and abhors clean, logical endings. It finds pleasure in stories, and likes to hear new variations of the same story. It knows how to forget and likes to keep many versions of its history. The ideal community is suspicious of agreement, it does not believe in consensus. Its members agree to act together if necessary, without agreeing to think the same thing. They all try to take in other voices; to internalize the discord of the larger discourse.

The community is not preoccupied with itself – it is open to the world, and has a purpose larger than itself, and its own happiness. It treats change as just another story, like a chrysalis enjoys becoming a butterfly: hurts a little, but it gives it a new life.

Such an ideal community is a utopian dream; it simply does not exist. It cannot exist, nor should it exist. Yet dreaming has huge health benefit. Research definitely shows that much (Source: none). In real life, communities cannot be too tolerant, for excessive tolerance hurts its members and its purpose. It cannot be endlessly forgiving, because it consists of real people who may or may not be able to forgive and forget. People's weaknesses may become too much of a burden for the rest to carry. Real communities have a specific purpose, and cannot afford be endlessly flexible. With dreaming, it is important to wake up.

Asking for the impossible

I had to apologize to Eugene today about asking him to do something that was impossible to do. It did sound reasonable when I asked; and I used all the right reasons – the interest of our students, the big picture, the right thing, etc. However, one glitch: it was impossible for him to do. Had I pushed myself a little further, I could have realized that myself, and avoid putting him in a position where he has to reject a reasonable request.

I find myself in his shoes quite often, and should have known better. Often one of my colleagues is completely right about something, knows she or he is right, and is asking me to do something – something that affects a third party. And sometimes I simply cannot do it. Why not? – usually, there is no good way of making a decision without hurting someone. Often, there is no way of saying what I want to say – the norms of collegiality, the relationships, may make it impossible; literally unpronounceable. What I have learned (partly from experience, and partly from Eugene), is to ask "OK, you're right, but what do you want me to do about it, exactly?" Or, "Give me a good line with which I can approach your colleague 'A' to say what you want me to say."

We all have to stop asking for the impossible. It is easy to say that someone else must keep their promises, be fired, dismissed, replaced, limited, or reprimanded – say it behind one's back. But how would you say it to one's face? How would you do it, exactly? How do you think the other party is going to react? Does the person you're asking to do something capable, or equipped to do what you ask? Would you be able to do what you're asking for? And if you think yes – why do you think other people are as capable and resourceful as you believe you are?

Just being right or righteous does not give you the right to insist something should be done the way you see it. The world is way too complex for that. People who are in the wrong must always have a face-saving option. No one should be humiliated. Everyone should be given a second and a third chance. Everyone can be forgiven and helped. We have to keep in mind the long-term consequences of our actions. We must keep in mind precedents we set.

NCATE worries

Carolyn and I sat down to review the NCATE report we need to produce by May1. Even though the new process we're piloting seems to be simpler, there is a long list of documents and materials we need to produce. How long? - Exactly 54 categories, some if which require a few different documents; see below. Some of it we have, some we know where to get, and a few need work. And of course, there is the report itself, which runs about 45 pages and addresses the six NCATE standards.

Is this a useful exercise? Perhaps it did force us to collect and consider data. However, we used to collect a lot of useless data, just for the sake of compliance. We have a much better, cleaner system now. I just with NCATE, the national organization, would be more logical in their accreditation approach. For example, it has a standard on candidate's knowledge, skills, and dispositions, and then another one on the assessment system. But the only way to know your candidates know anything is to show some assessment instruments and data – exactly the same you need to show that you have an assessment system. Then they have the standard on field experiences – but those are also ways of ensuring our candidates learn, and we assess those as a part of the assessment system. Then there is a separate standard on diversity – which should really be an integral part of the standard on knowledge, skills, and dispositions. It just makes very little sense. Compare, for example, exhibits #7, 26, and 29. They ask for the catalog twice, etc. etc.

Anyway, we will produce the stuff; and we will get the national recognition. It probably will take a little more work than we expected. I will have to take some significant time away from running the everyday business of the School to do that. This is fine. I just wish the effort would be a little more meaningful in terms of the actual outcome. My worry is not about the amount of work, or the possible outcome; it is more about the usefulness of it all.

1. Links to unit catalogs and other printed documents describing general education, specialty/content studies, and professional studies
   
2. Syllabi for professional education courses
   
3. Conceptual framework(s)
   
4. Findings of other national accreditation associations related to the preparation of education professionals (e.g., ASHA, NASM, APA, CACREP)
   
5. State program review documents and state findings. (Some of these documents may be available in AIMS.)
   
6. Title II reports submitted to the state for the previous three years (Beginning with the 2010 annual report, Title II reports should be attached to Part C of the annual report and will be available to BOE teams in AIMS.)
   
7. Key assessments and scoring guides used by faculty to assess candidate learning against standards and the outcomes identified in the unit's conceptual framework for programs not included in the national program review process or a similar state process
   
8. Data tables and summaries that show how teacher candidates (both initial and advanced) have performed on key assessments over the past three years for programs not included in the national program review process or a similar state process
   
9. Samples of candidate work (e.g., portfolios at different proficiency levels)
   
10. Follow-up studies of graduates and data tables of results
    
11. Employer feedback on graduates and summaries of the results
    
12. List of candidate dispositions, including fairness and the belief that all students can learn, and related assessments, scoring guides, and data
    
13. Description of the unit's assessment system in detail including the requirements and key assessments used at transition points
    
14. Data from key assessments used at entry to programs
    
15. Procedures for ensuring that key assessments of candidate performance and evaluations of unit operations are fair, accurate, consistent, and free of bias
    
16. Policies and procedures that ensure that data are regularly collected, compiled, aggregated, summarized, analyzed, and used to make improvements
    
17. Samples of candidate assessment data disaggregated by alternate route, off-campus, and distance learning programs
    
18. Policies for handling student complaints
    
19. File of student complaints and the unit's response (This information should be available during the onsite visit.)
    
20. Examples of changes made to courses, programs, and the unit in response to data gathered from the assessment system
    
21. Memoranda of understanding, contracts, and/or other documents that demonstrate partnerships with schools
    
22. Criteria for the selection of school faculty (e.g., cooperating teachers, internship supervisors)
    
23. Documentation of the preparation of school faculty for their roles (e.g., orientation and other meetings)
    
24. Descriptions of field experiences and clinical practice requirements in programs for initial and advanced teacher candidates and other school professionals
    
25. Guidelines for student teaching and internships
    
26. Assessments and scoring rubrics/criteria used in field experiences and clinical practice for initial and advanced teacher candidates and other school professionals (These assessments may be included in program review documents or the exhibits for Standard 1. Cross reference as appropriate.)
    
27. Proficiencies related to diversity that candidates are expected to develop
    
28. Curriculum components that address diversity proficiencies (This might be a matrix that shows diversity components in required courses.)
    
29. Assessment instruments, scoring guides, and data related to diversity (These assessments may be included in program review documents or the exhibits for Standard 1. Cross reference as appropriate.)
    
30. Data table on faculty demographics (see example attached to NCATE's list of exhibits)
    
31. Policies and practices for recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty
    
32. Data table on student demographics (see example attached to NCATE's list of exhibits)
    
33. Policies and practices for recruiting and retaining diverse candidates
    
34. Data table on demographics of P-12 students in schools used for clinical practice (see example attached to NCATE's list of exhibits)
    
35. Policies, practices, and/or procedures that facilitate candidate experiences with students from diverse groups
    
36. Data table on faculty qualifications (This table can be compiled in the online template from data submitted for national program reviews or compiled in Excel, Word, or another format and uploaded as an exhibit. The information requested for this table is attached to NCATE's list of exhibits.)
    
37. Licensure information on school faculty (e.g., cooperating teachers, internship supervisors)
    
38. Samples of faculty scholarly activities
    
39. Summary of service and collaborative activities engaged in by faculty with the professional community (e.g., grants, evaluations, task force participation, provision of professional development, offering courses, etc.)
    
40. Promotion and tenure policies and procedures
    
41. Samples of forms used in faculty evaluation and summaries of the results
    
42. Opportunities for professional development activities provided by the unit
    
43. Policies on governance and operations of the unit
    
44. Organizational chart or description of the unit governance structure
    
45. Unit policies on student services such as counseling and advising
    
46. Recruiting and admission policies for candidates
    
47. Academic calendars, catalogs, unit publications, grading policies, and unit advertising
    
48. Unit budget, with provisions for assessment, technology, and professional development
    
49. Budgets of comparable units with clinical components on campus or similar units at other campuses
    
50. Faculty workload policies
    
51. Summary of faculty workloads
    
52. List of facilities, including computer labs and curriculum resource centers
    
53. Description of library resources
    
54. Description of resources for distance learning, if applicable

Rank and File

The Academia has a tension between its strong egalitarian instinct and the academic rank. On one hand, once you're hooded, you join a community of equals; you have proven your worth. On the other hand, just like with any other job, it takes years and years to learn how to be a good university professor. And because those jobs are not trivial, and demand a lot of effort and experience, the hood itself does not guarantee one is good at it yet. It does not guarantee one knows one's limits.

In some universities, rank is very important – full professors run the show and often enjoy tangible privileges, such as better schedules, easier loads, etc. Our School is a lot more egalitarian place – we agreed that seniority should not create privilege, and we are supposed to rotate all burdens and perks. The UNC's policy is also quite egalitarian: assistant professors can vote on promotion to full professor. It is a real strength, because we are more inclusive, and junior faculty are less likely to feel alienated or excluded from decision-making (That's my hope anyway, and junior faculty may feel differently). However, I now realize there is also a weakness to this system. We don't have a good mechanism of making qualification decisions: who can and who cannot teach certain courses; who should start advising doctoral students when; who can define what a program's philosophy should be? I am certainly not in a position to make many of those decisions. We have a pecking order spelled out in our Charter, but it does not always work as we have more inter-disciplinary programs, and as course prefixes make less and less sense as turf markers.

I think we make reasonably good decisions most of the time. But sometimes I hear people questioning each other's qualifications – in private, of course. And regardless of whether I agree or disagree with those judgments, there does not seem to be a clear way of resolving such conflicting claims. It looks like more senior faculty should have more say in it, but how do we make it a reasonably fair and reasonably transparent process without hurting each other's feelings needlessly? Do we create a committee? Do I solicit informal opinions? How do we resolve disagreements? How do we remain rational, and above personal likes-dislikes? How do we help people grow, rather than create permanent divisions between more and less powerful?

Perhaps we should have adjudicating committees, consisting of at least three people: the program coordinator, and the two most senior professors with the appropriate expertise? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Appreciation

I lack the opportunity, and maybe skills to tell how much I appreciate and value every one of my colleagues. But I do appreciate, and notice a lot of good things, even though I sometimes fail to acknowledge every one. When I walk the hallways and look into someone's classroom, I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude to all of you who stand there and teach all these students, day in and a day out. When students trickle in with their problems, and I see one of our staff members talking to them, helping figure out problems, listening to each individual story – I have the same feeling. You all are really needed, and I am very much humbled by what you all can accomplish. When someone steps in quietly, and picks up a task, just because it is needed to be done – I know I am in the right place, and with the right people.

No profound truths this time, just a report on the internal life of your Director.

Perpetual tweaking

Here is quote from a preview of an interesting study by Steven Farr on effective teachers:

[Great teachers are] perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness. For example, when Farr called up teachers who were making remarkable gains and asked to visit their classrooms, he noticed he'd get a similar response from all of them: "They'd say, 'You're welcome to come, but I have to warn you—I am in the middle of just blowing up my classroom structure and changing my reading workshop because I think it's not working as well as it could.' When you hear that over and over, and you don't hear that from other teachers, you start to form a hypothesis." Great teachers, he concluded, constantly reevaluate what they are doing (Ripley, 2009)

This is very true. Many of my colleagues are excellent teachers, and I know they are tweaking their courses all the time. On the other hand, when someone has the same syllabus as ten years ago, I get really suspicious about the quality of that person's teaching. It is not a perfect indicator, but is a very good proxy. It takes years to get one particular course just right, and by the time you get it right, either students change, or the content needs updating, or you just get bored doing the same thing over and over again. The one negative side effect of it is the organizational and curricular drift. But it is a different issue, and no one should ever feel embarrassed at constant tweaking of one's classes. It is not an implicit admission that you failed before. You just learned something new and are refusing to settle on something less than your best.

It also occurred to me the same principle works in management. We have been changing a lot of things around here for a long time, in some cases again and again. At the beginning, I thought naively that there will be a point when we clean up all the inefficiencies, waste of time, and boring work. Well, it is not happening. As soon as we solve one problem, we either have to struggle with a new one we created, or suddenly someone sees an even better way of doing the same thing. Just for one example: When I came here first three and half years ago, almost the first thing I did was to cut down the number of paper forms, and put them all on-line. It makes sense: if a student needs to come and get a form, and then bring it back – that's two trips rather than one. If we have a form that has no consequences, it should not exist at all. Then we converted many of those forms into on-line surveys, so that the data can be just downloaded as a spreadsheet. No trips to us for the student, and no keying in the data for us. Now I stumbled on a way of sending these forms directly to someone's computer as an e-mail but with all required information already included (here is an example). This eliminates the downloading step. And there does not seem to be an end to it. Our wonderful staff is very patient with me, and they have to learn something new all the time – sometimes only to switch to something else again. I guess this blog is an attempt to justify myself (aren't they all?), to show that I am not a moron who cannot make up his mind about office processes. It is what we have to do. OK, we revised some programs three times in two years (you all know which), so what?

But back to teaching: How do we cultivate that urge for perpetual tweaking in our own students? It is probably only possible when you do it yourself, and are open and intentional about it. We need to invite students into our teaching labs, so they not only see how we teach, but also how we think about our teaching, and how often one needs to tweak. Let's go tweaking! But don't forget that sometimes we need radical change, too. That involves a different kind of learning, needs to be done carefully and for a good reason.

Planned Abandonment

Late Peter Drucker, a management consultant of all management consultants, liked to ask his clients, "What should you stop doing?" He believed it is easier to invent new things to do than to abandon your practices even when they stop being useful. So true, so true.

The week before classes begin is one of those windows of opportunity when we can rethink what we do, rewrite syllabi, and redefine processes. This time, we had a little project on re-inventing student teaching placement process – for the third time, I believe. It works just fine, and thanks to Marita, there has never been a student that is not placed. But it takes a long time and effort, causes some students frustration, and is generally not as efficient as we would like it to be. Mainly, it is because we rely on other people's willingness to help, their effectiveness and professionalism.

Anyway, the ideas on what else can be done are easy to come by. For example, we decided to send a questionnaire to many secondary schools, asking them in general, how many student teachers they might be willing to take in the semester. We also decided on a more rigid calendar and shorter deadlines for both the students and the districts. So far so good, right? Only later did we realize there are actually things we can stop doing altogether, which will free our time for things that really need doing. A certain percent of our student teachers actually have confirmed placements. They either have a connection through the social network, or have an explicit invitation from a teacher and a principal from a previous experience to come back for student teaching. In certain fields, coordinators know all eligible teachers really well, and will arrange placements informally long in advance. Students maybe from a small town, and the only school there wants to help them to student teach. I don't know how many of out students fit that category – probably between 10 and 25%. But we used to treat them like everyone else: send us your information, your resume, your writing sample, and which school you want to go to, and then we forward that info, receive a confirmation, etc. Well, what service are we providing to them, exactly? None really; we simply pass through some information both ways, sometimes through several levels of approval. All we really need is a word from a school principal that the student is properly placed with an experienced teacher. How do we get that confirmation is not really that important.

Anyway, we created a one page worth of rules, and will let students opt out of the centralized placement. Considering that some universities rely exclusively on self-placement (which is just not right), we should have come with the idea a long time ago. Why didn't we? – Because Drucker was right; it is much easier to start doing something else than to stop doing something.

As we start the new semester, I want to challenge everyone to stop doing something; just one thing. Here is a list of ideas, maybe they can help:

1. Stop roll calling. Send a sign-in sheet around your class instead.
   
2. Stop reminding students to do things. Have a calendar on-line in your Blackboard, and teach them to pay attention to it.
   
3. Stop thanking people for sending you an e-mail. If it did not bounce, they got it, and will be thankful for your "Thanks!" email to not come at all.
   
4. Stop typing the same comments to hundreds of different students. Learn t use Building Blocks in Word (Alt+F3).
   
5. Stop teaching something they already know. Join the TTT Project!
   
6. Stop enforcing all rules except those absolutely necessary.
   
7. Stop doing tedious things – this is why we have all the work study students! If you are work study and happen to read this (which is highly unlikely), stop checking news on face book!
   
8. Stop reading hundreds of e-mails. Learn to use Google Forms.
   
9. Stop fighting technology – if you cannot figure it out in 20 minutes, ask someone for help.
   
10. Stop doing everything that benefits no one.

The Panopticon Project

This week, at the Secondary Coordinating Council meeting, we came up with a great idea. I called it the Panopticon Project. It is a bit of a joke. Panopticon is a kind of a prison building, where everyone is visible to the guards, and no one knows when one is being watched. Michelle Foucault, in Discipline and Punish has famously used it to illustrate the gentle oppression of the modern age. But to improve, we have to make things visible – not to the guards, but to each other.

We were just talking about the data on program quality, frustrated at how the data is not reliable, how it is hard to read, how hard is it to get the information across the academic turf boundaries, and how it always comes so late to do anything about it. So we thought it would be so great if you can just see instantly what is taught in every class (without reading a 20-page syllabus), and what students have learned. So, we came up with an idea that I think is going to work really well for us. It is simple, the technology is there, and it is fun.

Imagine that in every class, students are asked to complete a short survey "Ten things I have learned in this class," and the results of it become immediately available for viewing. The instructors will have to agree, of course, on what the ten main things are, and students will have to agree to be honest and objective. But this would provide a great snapshot of program design, expose gaps and overlaps, provide a glimpse of overall quality, and a constant feedback loop to program coordinators, administrators, and faculty. OK, let's just imagine a web page like this. I even piloted the technology (that's how excited I got!), so click on those two live links to see how it might look like (Sidorkin-007 :survey; results). Feel free to enter a few test answers, and see how the results update.

Secondary PTEP

Course	Spring 10 (Instructor, section)	Summer 10	Fall 10
STEP 161
EDF 366	Sidorkin-007 :survey; results Bartelheim-001:survey; results Trainor-003:survey; results Allen-002:survey; results Allen-009:survey; results
ET 249
STEP 262
EDSE 360
PSY 349
STEP 363
Methods	EED 402 Kraver: survey; results THEA 385 Schuttler: survey; results FL 341 SOSC 341, etc…
EDRD 340
ET 349
STEP 464

 

Of course, we would have to overcome anxieties, our traditions of secrecy, and assume a certain amount of data contamination. However, it would allow us to learn quickly, and to change quickly. For example, in the next semester, we will realize that there needs to be a set of different questions we want to ask, or that we need to change some of our methods and assignments. If I see students learned about the law better in Wayne's class than in mine, I will come and ask him how he does it. I think a tiny bit of public pressure is also needed for us to work on constant improvements. The Council members Mary Schuttler and Jeri Kraver agreed to pilot it in the Spring semester, and I am hoping Social Foundations faculty would be able to pilot all EDF 366 and 370 courses as well.

I am sick and tired of bad data, of bad standards written by people who know nothing about the real life; I am tired of compliance for the sake of compliance; I can't waste anymore of my time on instruments and measures that are not that useful. I want us to move to the Google age.

Confessions of a micromanager

Micromanagement is a bad thing. How on earth did I end up editing a bunch of handbooks and surveys, and answering dozens of emails a day about technical bugs? - Surely NOT because I like to do everything myself, and not because I don't trust my colleagues and staff. Here is my story this semester:

Much of my summer prep work went into grant writing. I found myself late in August scrambling to change the data collection systems for our PTEP programs. Because I was scrambling, I did not really have time to talk to coordinators and staff about what has changed, and how the new processes work. Delegation of responsibilities requires time for discussion, and training people, especially if a new technology is involved. None of that happened. The result of it is that we had many organizational and technological glitches (if you discuss a change a lot, and test extensively, less of this happens). But remember, I did not inform and train other people to help with those glitches, so I ended up doing a lot of trouble shooting myself: no one knew how to help. This creates a vicious cycle: I run around and plug the holes, and therefore have no time to catch up on information and training. The end of the semester came unexpectedly (who knew, right?), and I find myself in the same position again: rewriting the handbooks for the next semester, no time to talk to others. Besides, a couple of unplanned problems came up, some very time consuming, others less so. But again, they always do come up and should be time-budgeted for.

Could this be avoided? I am not so sure. The cost of delaying the changes is also high. I think our new data collection system is a lot better than the old one; it will eventually become much better, when the kinks are worked out. It is almost completely paperless, gives us much better data much faster, and involves significantly less work for students, cooperating teachers, and supervisors. I also learned that if you delay a change for a semester, it ends up being delayed for three years. Why? - Because if you don't do it during Summer, you surely will miss December, and then something may come up in the next Summer. And those are really two windows of opportunity for implementing changes. However, in Summer, very few faculty are around. In December, they all run around looking exhausted, and will shoot without a warning if I call a meeting. The world we live in gives no time to improve things, because we're too busy doing things that need to be improved.

The lesson I've learned is that getting involved in just one too many projects may have a chain-reaction effect on a whole number of other projects. I also learned that one may become an involuntary micromanager. Just need to get a grip and start planning how to get from under this one.

For those of you who do not know, the new system is pretty simple. All PTEP programs (we still need to convert two more) collect the following data:

1. Work Sample portfolio through http://iwebfolio.com; they all have rubrics that collect evaluation data. We also figured out a way for students to feed data back to iwebfolio, and scan and upload needed documents (mainly, the Diverse Field Experience, and the last lesson observation form).
   
2. Standardized lesson observation form: those are short, make sense to us, and incorporate different content knowledge areas.
   
3. On-line Final Evaluation modules for cooperating teachers and supervisors, AND Exit Surveys for graduates; both on http://uncsurvey.org.
   

It is not surprising, given our numbers, that many technical and communication bugs need to be eliminated for this simple scheme to work. That's been my project for almost the entire semester.

Scarcity and decision-making

It is easy to be a leader in the times of abundance; it is less fun in the times of scarcity. For example, when we had few faculty members, there were plenty of classes to go around – for anyone who wanted an overload, or a summer class, or a convenient schedule. There was enough left for adjunct faculty, who provide an essential safety network for us without any meaningful commitments from us (I am not sure if everyone understands what an important part of our operations these people are). Of course, the abundance of opportunities created scarcity of people – we did not really have enough to serve on committees, to oversee classes, to pay close attention to curriculum. Now we have more people which is wonderful, but fewer classes. That brings an essential problem of all human groups: how do you divide goodies when we don't have enough for everyone?

It is my job to manage this process, somehow. What I really don't want to happen is for me to become a ruler who bestows favors to a few, at the expense of many. That would be an awful deal for everyone, including the few and the many. This is why we designed a set of rules, which are about as specific as can be expected. They can never cover all the circumstances, however, and are by necessity quite flexible. The Charter gives the Director much power in assigning classes. (The same could be found in the BOT policy manual: deans and directors are expected to play a large role in assigning work). This was something the initial Charter committee clearly understood, and that is what the faculty members voted for. It was clear to everyone that dividing up the goodies cannot be a matter of simple democratic voting. It does not work like that, because of the issues such as competency are involved. Those cannot be discussed publically without a lot of people being hurt. It is also impractical to subject hundreds of small decisions to the democratic deliberations.

OK, I am stuck with these powers I don't really want. I wish a computer could just do that, but no algorithm has been invented for these kinds of things. What can serve as system of checks and balances? What I figured out over the years is this: if I am asked how a decision was made, I have to have a rational explanation, consistent with the rules spelled out in the Charter. It does not matter that I am actually very rarely asked; it is simply an application of the defensibility criterion, a way of talking to myself, if you like. Can a reasonable person listen to my explanation, and if not agree, at least find it reasonable?

My colleagues vary to a great degree in what and how they are asking. Some will go to a great length to negotiate a two-day a week schedule, classes at only certain times, and maximum allowable overloads. Others are so shy, they never ask for anything, so I have to pry out of them what it is they want. Some will insist on seniority rights, even though they are not in the Charter. Others will argue fiercely for what they perceive is the best interest of their program or area. It is all good – I always say yes and will not question the reasons as long as the request does not conflict with someone else's interests. My practice is to try to follow the rules, to have a good story to back up a decision, to look for compromises, and never bring the conflicting parties face-to-face. I wish those little decisions could be transparent, but they cannot be: these stories are both exceedingly boring and potentially hurtful. What a paradox, but it is true.

Is this working? I think so, but then again, maybe I am wrong; please let me know if it does not work for you. Should we develop a more formal process? Should there be a committee overseeing staffing? We still have very few conflicts like that, which is quite surprising. We still have a lot of options in comparison to other institutions; we still were not force to make many hard choices. The situation of true scarcity may or may not confront us, but it is a good idea to think ahead – how would we handle it if it arises?

A week’s worth of life

I looked through my calendar, and ransacked my memory, with a single question in mind – was it worth it? Which portion of the week did I spend doing something good, which portion did I enjoy, and which was wasted or drudgery? Ah, I wish there was a calculus of life, and the minutes and hours were easy to separate into the good and bad baskets.

For example, on Monday, I spent an hour training Early Childhood students how to pass the PLACE test. Was it good? I enjoyed helping these students very much, because this is something they need, and I was actually able to help a little. But then, the test itself seems to be ill-conceived, and hardly meaningful. So, in the grander scheme of things, both the students, and I probably wasted our time. But then again, is watching a movie, or hiking a waste of one's life? If you go so far as to say something like that, what is life itself, if not enjoyable waste of time?

Then there are completely wasteful activities, which irritate us all, for they are neither enjoyable nor useful to anyone in particular. For example, we submitted all required paperwork for our new position in Colorado Springs, but someone from a higher office wanted me to submit the organizational chart of our School, with all the position numbers listed. Not just a list of faculty – they have that – no, an organization chart. As a result, I have to spend maybe another hour or two fishing for this information, playing with graphics, etc. – all of this, I am pretty sure, for no particular reason, just because someone has the power to require me to do so. But then again, maybe that person had a good reason to ask, and I just fail to imagine the reason? It's like that every time. We never know fully the value or significance of our actions, although we can certainly guess. But this impossibility of full knowledge is both frustrating, and what makes life so delicious.

It is about to snow. Svetlana and I have bought some food, some plum wine, and are going to hunker down, and survive the winter. She's buying some cookies, and I sit in the car and watch snowflakes fall down from the sky.

Snow falls, snow falls;
To the white stars in a blizzard
The geranium flowers reach
Beyond the window sash.

Snow falls, and all's in tumult
All around, the world takes flight:
The back door's unstable staircase
And a crossroads in the night.

Snow falls, snow falls,
as though it's not flakes
but in a patched coat
the sky descends to earth.

As though it is like a fool
From the uppermost landing
Stealthily, playing hide and seek,
The sky descends from the attic.

Because life does not wait,
Before you know it, it's Yuletide.
But a short span,
And look, there's the new year.

Snow falls, extremely thick    
And in synch, with the same steps,
In that tempo, with that sloth*
Or with that same quickness,
Time passes, perhaps?

Perhaps, year after year,
People follow how snow falls
Or like words in a poem,
Perhaps time passes...

Snow falls, snow falls,
Snow falls, and all is tumult:
A whitened pedestrian,
Surprised plants,
The turn of an intersection...

Boris Pasternak, 1957, not sure whose translation

Tired

Sometime in the middle of this week, it suddenly became clear to me that I feel very tired. Not sure why this is the case; maybe because I did not get a real vacation for longer than a week in about 15 years? Maybe it is this weird virus that is going around? Not flu, but something like that. Does not make you very sick, but makes you tired?

I then realized that many people around me are in the same position – they look a bit tired, sound somewhat overworked. Not to mention that a lot of people are actually sick with all kinds of flus, colds, and bronchitis. Honestly, I felt some remorse for my endless pushes to do more, to do it better, and faster. There were several push-backs, when different people either told me to bug off, or to slow down, or to leave them alone. Sometimes, it was told directly (which I always appreciate), and sometimes indirectly (which is OK, too, but make sure I get the message, because I don't always get it). But something was going on for the last couple of months – maybe the solar flares, maybe the virus – which made many of us just tired. It also does not help when the economy collapses, and all you hear is bad news. Even though it is somewhet becoming better, people we know and don't know have a lot of troubles.

We came a long way since the Fall of 2006. We did a lot of changes, revisions, improvements, reorganizations. And it was always fun and not overwhelming – not to me anyway. Maybe we just hit a wall in terms of how much and how fast people can do and what level of change they can tolerate? But if it is true, how do you slow down? Our students can't wait: classes, curriculum revision, scheduling, reporting calendars are all going as usual. The relentless machinery of the university life is still churning its wheels. There are e-mails to answer, papers to grade, books to write.

But let's just agree to find some time for ourselves. Take a weekend as weekend – no work. Postpone a project that can be postponed. Take it easy for a while, will ya? I will try to do the same. For the next month, I therefore ban all e-mails marked as High Importance, with the goddamned red exclamation mark! There is nothing that important.

The structure of change

The world around us is changing fast, faster than ever before. Just a few things: the State budget is heading to a cliff; a perfect storm for teacher education is brewing; the technology revolution has really started to affect education. Yet our University like most others, does not seem to be able to change. We definitely improve our programs, and the organization is improving. But all of it is happening at such a slow pace that the world seems to be hurling past us. Whatever improvements we manage to accomplish are just nibbling at the edges; they are neither revolutionary, nor profound. Universities are sitting on a large stock of human capital: some of the most educated and creative minds in the nation. Yet they seem to unable to use those minds for fostering innovation. The rate of innovation in private business world is many times higher than in higher education. We all remember the first PC's with blue screens and no mouse. Some people may remember Gopher. We now have vastly superior computers plus iPhone, Kindle, iPod, plus Google, FaceBook, Wikipedia, and many others. Even old technologies like cars manage significant improvements every few years. They are safer, more efficient, and more comfortable now than just five years ago. Yet our classrooms look and feel just like they did in 1950-s, with only slight and uncertain improvements.

Part of this is the institutional culture. Whenever a faculty committee is asked to think about a new or revised program or procedure, it meets once a month for an hour each time. It always takes a year to design a change. And because we are used to collaboration, the committee will agree on something most acceptable to all – which virtually guarantees only minor changes. I just served on two of these: we spent a great deal of time, talked a lot of smart talk, but accomplished something very modest, none of it is game-changing.

The University bureaucracy is no faster either. We revise curriculum once a year, because of the arbitrary deadline the printer imposes on us to change catalogs. Memos can sit on various administrators' desks for months and months. And not just ordinary memos – a new and promising program we designed was just recently approved, although we submitted it in March. What is more important that bringing new programs and attracting new students to this campus? Apparently, there is. We think in terms of years; the world thinks in terms of days. Universities are really pathetic where it comes to change.

Innovation, like anything else, needs a special support structure. For example, our university has nothing like an R&D unit. No one is really expected to come up with new ideas, or support new ides as a part of his or her job. There is absolutely no process for submitting new ideas – no place to send them, and no one to consider their merits. There are no incentives for individual people or groups of faculty and staff to work on innovations. Why take the risk, if you need to play it safe to get tenure? There is no chance for any of us ever get rich and famous from a brilliant idea, because the University is vigilantly egalitarian and jealously hierarchical. We need to change that and provide specific, tangible rewards for groups of entrepreneurial faculty, as well as recognition and support.

Empowerment and discontent

All democratic systems of governance share a paradox. If you hold strong beliefs, you will be surprised and upset when your particular view does not emerge victorious. A fallacy is at work here: if I live in a democracy, things should go my way. But this is not true, of course. Democracy is about sharing the space with other people, who may also have strong beliefs, different from yours, and whose opinion may prevail.

It is the same with faculty governance at universities, only complicated by having a specific power-sharing agreement between faculty and administration. When things are not going your way, you may think this is because the administration is usurping faculty's power. However, administrators intervene in decision-making for different reasons: sometimes, they just want to pursue larger interest of the organization, and sometimes, they interfere against one group of faculty on behalf of another group. There may also be a selfish or egotistical interest of an administrator at work. The difficulty is to figure out which is which, considering that we normally cannot read each others' minds.

Here is my story: last spring, I ventured to revise the annual evaluation guidelines, mainly because of request by different faculty to clarify certain things. I was also concerned that there seems to be a lack of reliability in our evaluations. When I proposed the revision to the whole faculty, members of the Evaluations Committee asked to take the feedback from the faculty and prepare the proposal for the vote. However, they disagreed with the entire proposal, with the exception of one clause. So far so good, no harm done, and we have always found a way to disagree without any animosity. The committee said what it felt, with best of intentions. However, I became worrying about the integrity of the process. Intuitively, it did not felt right, because the proposal was meant for the whole faculty, and yet it got considered by a very small group. I started checking with the Robert's rules, and found that yes, indeed, a pending proposal cannot be amended without the proposer's consent. That makes sense, doesn't it?

In other words, this is not about my proposal – which is, I must say, represents a fairly minor change of a very minor part of our work. The change itself does not merit much airtime. This is about the integrity of faculty governance process. We cannot decide things by consensus at all times, although we should when possible. We cannot allow some of us to have the implied veto power over our decisions, even if it is presented (and honestly thought of) as consensus-seeking. We cannot act because of "anonymous faculty concerns," because it is not clear what the concerns are and how many people have them. Short of an actual vote, we would never know that.

Of course, the conditions of the voting process itself are also important, which is why Robert's rules have all of these subsidiary motions that allow an assembly not only to make decisions, but also decide how each decision will be made. We would really be better off if everyone knew at least the basic rules. That would put us all into a more equitable position, and allow people to argue for or against certain ideas, without the democratic discontent. The dictatorship of mutually agreed rules is the only alternative to a dictatorship of individuals.

The First Snow

This morning, I woke up to the unmistakably different light that fills the room after a snowy night. You don't have to look down on the ground to know – it was snowing. In Western Siberia where I grew up, the first snow is a bigger deal. We have long, rainy and cold autumns, and the first snow ends it all, usually abruptly and irreversibly. Snow paints over the messy and imperfect picture of the last year, and primes the canvas for something new. The world is white like a sheet of paper waiting for a poem to be written on it. I love snow, and the first snow especially. It is nostalgic, poignant, and hopeful. We went to Boulder, and walked on Pearl Street. The leaves were caught in the early snow, still green but down on the brick pavement. They smelled like freshly pickled cucumbers, maybe because the salt on the street. We ate a little sushi and had some hot sake befitting the weather. Then we went to the Borders on 29^th street; I read The New Yorker, while Svetlana browsed art books and journals.

What makes a good day, a day worth living? Is it what we are able to accomplish? Or is it what we were able to experience and to enjoy? With our jobs, there isn't really a border between work and leisure anymore. What I read in The New Yorker may show up as an idea useful for my job. At work, my experiences are often as enjoyable as today. We don't work to live anymore, nor do we live to work, I hope. The art of living well has something to do with finding pleasure and beauty in both work and leisure. I am certainly still have to master it, so don't ask me for advice on how. But some people – very few – find something enjoyable and entertaining in almost anything they do. Every day is the first snow day to them. That is what we all should try to achieve.

How to save UNC

We are less than two years away from the financial cliff, created by convergence of the Colorado TABOR law and the recession. While the Feds have bailed us out this year and the next year, in the year 2010/11, we can lose $14 million of our $44 million, according to President Norton. This is not a time for gradual measures or slow change. We need to learn radical thinking very fast, so we have the time to prepare.

Here is how we can make up for lost state subsidies. The most disruptive competitive strategy is to cut the cost of your commodity or service. It allows stealing many customers from your competition. If we charge students only half of current tuition, a well-publicized campaign could recruit 8000 new freshmen and transfers, who would otherwise go to other universities. It would bring about $20 million dollars.

How can we add 8000 students to the campus that can barely accommodate 12000 students? When students come to campus, they pay for the college experience as much as they pay for actual teaching services. But this can be made an optional service. We will make a deal with a special category of students (let's call them riders): you get to pay only half of regular tuition, and get your degree, under one condition: you cannot come to classes. Dozens of regular on-campus students (let's say "cameramen" and "camerawomen") will be hired to take their regular classes with digital cameras, film every class, and then upload the films on a server on the same day. The riders will organize in groups, following one of these student workers, watch every class, do all the assignments, and participate in a limited way through the Blackboard. The riders would have to be self-directed learners, but their experience would not be much different from a regular on-campus student that does not say much in class. Our faculty won't have to deal with technology at all, but will be paid extra to grade the extra assignments and answer the riders' questions. Or they will be given a choice to hire an adjunct to help with those activities. This is not exactly on-line teaching, because faculty won't need to learn new skills or redesign their courses, but not exactly face-to-face experience either. It might actually be not only cheaper, but better than a typical on-line course. We learn from observing others as much as we learn from participating in activities. The "cameramen" would also act as peer advisers to their rider group, helping to figure out classes and homework, and maybe even film an occasional homecoming or a dorm party.

If we do something like that, there is no time for pilots, or trying it small scale. We need the economy of scale – developing and testing of technological solutions, financial arrangements, and practical procedures would be expensive. The cost can only be justified by going all the way right away. We cannot have several administrative groups and Senate committees studying the issue for a few month, and different units figuring out their parts. We'd need a direct and urgent conversation with the campus community; we need a wide-spread buy-in. We also need a coordinating center with a small team of faculty, administrators and IT types entirely dedicated to the project, with adequate resources. We need a leap of faith. There is no better time for innovation that a good crisis. No crisis should be wasted.

Do I want to be doing all this running around, planning, advertising, tweaking hundreds of classes, taking the risk without knowing if it is going to work? No, I don't. However, I also don't want to have a meeting about which colleague we are going to let go, which classes will have to double in size, and how many unpaid overloads we will are going to teach. You have to decide which of the two a lesser evil – working on something new is or firing friends?

 

Solar flares and chicken soup

I have absolutely no idea why this happens, and therefore choose to attribute it to solar flares. It maybe a particular influence of the planets, which is as good a theory as any. But it definitely happens in specific times, which have little to do with season. Sometimes it happens in the spring, and we think it's the cabin fever. In other times, we find another good explanation, like stress of such and such event. However, this is utterly inexplicable, so I will go with the solar flares.

Many different people would just get very nervous, and over-react. I am not only talking about things I refer to, however vaguely, in my last two blogs. In the last month, I had to deal with a dozen different, unconnected small crises. For some reason, students complained remarkably more than usual, completely uncharacteristic for the beginning of a semester. Several people got into conflicts, in some cases with no previous history of it. A simple question would result in people getting angry or upset. Rumors that are normally ignored, would suddenly gain currency. I must admit, my own actions do not seem terribly wise either, so I am not immune to the solar flares. Although speaking objectively, I could not have caused all of these little crises. It was just a difficult month, for me and for many people I know. Solar flares, definitely solar flares. My computer's hard drive fried, too.

But some people obviously are immune – they are happy, not noticing any tensions, and just going on about their business as usual. About others, I just don't know; please tell me so we can run some statistical analysis. Was the time from the end of August to now hard for you? Were you nervous? Anxious? Did people seem a little less sensible and pleasant than usual?

What are we supposed to learn from this? Simply put, we don't always know why something happens. Err, make it – we rarely know why something happens. We know very little about the social dynamics; there is no good theory, and little in a way of predicting and affecting it. We don't know how small events can sometimes cause large consequences, and why human groups sometimes become more anxious and agitated. The cure is very simple: like a seasonal flu, it will go away. When you are sick with flu, you may feel so bad; you think you're going to die. But we, of course, know that it will pass, and this is not really the end. In fact, you did not know about how influenza usually ends, you could really get scared and hurt yourself by applying drastic measures. Bu we know better: it's just feels yucky for a while, but it will go away. Chicken soup, some rest, and it will be over.

La Comédie humaine

La Comédie humaine is a collection of inter-related novels and short stories by Honoré de Balzac, a 19^th century French novelist. It is actually not funny (the title probably refers to Dante's Divine Comedy), but is richly amusing in showing how people can behave in different circumstances. It's a parade of characters and stories. In the last couple of weeks, I felt like Balzac, wondering about the way people think, act, and make decisions. I was particularly interested in how a coincidence of smaller events, half-understood and half-misstated phrases, accumulated tensions, and undefined relationships can all conspire together to create drama. The world of humans is truly unpredictable, and prone to disruptions. Whatever peace, whatever community we create together, is always fragile and in need of defense, maintenance, and constant restoration. And when people become closer to each other, it does not necessarily mean their relationships necessarily improve or become stable. Rather, the opposite is true: it is easy to be civil and generous with a stranger, with whom you have no overlapping interest or common affairs, and whose actions you don't need to understand. Once you become closer, and interact for a longer period of time, the Other comes into your scrutiny, and you are forced to make conclusions about his motives. The Distant Other is easier to like than the Close Other. I was always struck by the radical and pointed challenge of "Love thy neighbor," as opposed to asking to love the stranger, the traveler, and the distant.

Most people judge too quickly, because by nature, humans are story-tellers. If we know a little, have an incomplete picture, our brains just go on autopilot to construct the missing pieces into a coherent story. We MUST make sense, otherwise we are miserable. That story then takes on a life of its own, especially if it is emotionally charger. Do you ever become caught in a vicious cycle when the more you think about something, the madder you get? It's because no new information is coming in, and your mind keeps refining the story it has created, making it more coherent, more logical, and nastier. Once constructed, it becomes a framework for interpreting all the consequent interactions with the Other. The new events tend to strengthen the old frameworks, because they already come into a coherent narrative. Suspending one's judgment is perhaps one of the most difficult skills to master, hence the other most radical advice ever give to humanity: "Do not judge." Why? Because the initial story that you make up might be just wrong; it may or may not be accurate. Of course, we need to judge, but we also need to learn to not judge, or change our minds. If I learned one thing on this job, it is how easy for a misunderstanding to perpetuate, multiply, grow, and create a conflict.

Evaluation Anxieties

For some reason, whenever we talk about the annual evaluation process, some people get anxious. I am not exactly sure why; for me this is just another project of constant improving processes and procedures. Perhaps the anxiety is there because of some history before me, maybe because in general, people do not like to be judged and evaluated. Maybe I failed to explain my intentions.

A simple efficiency is the only agenda I have. The level of rigor we have is just fine, which last year's results have shown. We have a well functioning system already, and I'd be happy to keep it as is. But last year, several faculty came to me with questions – what do you mean by this and that, and maybe we should clarify certain things, and they did not know something. So, last March, I dutifully pulled out the Evaluation guidelines file and started to write some definitions – what does it mean to have a paper in print or accepted, or in revision, etc. Then I read the whole document, and gradually found more and more things to clarify, so it is easier to read, and faster to evaluate. This is something I do all the time – if I see something can be done better, I will suggest another form or another process. Can you see me getting engrossed in the document? That's what happened. We have a growing School, and it just takes too much of faculty time and my time to look through thick dossiers, especially if they are poorly organized. Several people suggested that it is easier to read dossiers that are identically ordered, and where the most important information is summarized. Anyway, I felt like I am doing a good service to the School, and I was not quite ready to hear that at least some people think I am trying to impose something on them. Why would I want that?

This is a faculty decision, and there is simply no way for me to implement any of the changes. We do have faculty governance, remember, which is a democratic system. In fact, we will go through the proposal item by item, and discuss their respective merits. We are a community of scholars, and have always had open and honest conversations; our disagreements have never produced personal animosity in the past. We value rational argument and respect evidence. Whenever there is an objection, we will put each specific item to a vote, and use a secret ballot to decide, so there is no pressure of any kind. That is how we did it the last two times, and this is how we will do it again. If something passes, it passes, if not – so be it. I am certainly not about to lose my sleep over a few hours of work that may not turn out to be useful. We really have larger fish to fry, and cannot afford to spend too much time – and emotions – on this routine process.

How to tell a good meeting from a bad one

My calendar for this week shows 19 meetings, one of which I skipped, totaling about 17 hours. If we assume a 40 hour work week (mine is a bit longer), it is close to half of the work week, if you include a number of unscheduled ones. Some thoughts on meetings:

• A lot of meetings are actually fun, when you get to meet people from other areas and units. Hanging out with a lot of smart people is one of the main benefits of our jobs.


• A meeting can also be an opportunity to take a break, and just rest a little. They are never as intense as working alone.


• Whoever is chairing it may or may not be effective at making it a social occasion, and put everyone at ease. But it is an important dimension of any meeting. We are social apes, and need to be comfortable with each other when there is a common task.
• A meeting is useful when there is a specific, practical issue that needs to be resolved. When a committee is created without an urgent need, it produces bad meetings, where people are not sure why they are there, but are too embarrassed to ask.
• Scheduling a meeting sometimes takes longer than the meeting itself. If only people used their calendars and kept them up to date, we won't have a problem, and would save hours and hours for more productive work. This is where technology really- really helps.


• Getting people together to convey information to them is a complete and utter waste of time, unless the information is confidential. If you want to share information, write what you want to say, and send it to me, and stop wasting my time on useless meetings! Remember, writing was invented for these exact purposes. A meeting is only needed when you want active input from other people, when you want a discussion, or want to see their reactions. No conversation – no meeting. If you must talk rather than write, record a vide and send it to me.


• I never take any paper with me other than doodling paper, because no meeting has ever resulted in more than half a page of actionable items. Those can be scribbled on the back of the doodling paper.
• The best meetings have a small group of people; they last only half an hour, an each comes out of it with a list of things to do.


• The best of the best meetings are those that solve a specific problem, and make everyone's lives easier.
• The worst of the worst are meetings where people talk about generic problems, without ever hoping to solve them.
• Larger group meetings are sometimes inevitable. They are very good for getting complex feedback, a reaction on a specific plan or proposal. Large groups of people are great at imagining how things can go wrong and what could be some unintended consequences. Groups over 10 are terrible at coming up with new ideas, and at working through a plan or a program of some sort. Why? Because the most banal ideas always win, and best proposals get ignored. Large meetings are for critical input, not for productive one.


• As a colleague commented recently, I am a bottom line thinker. Therefore, I enjoy meetings that actually have the bottom line visible, so it can be discussed. A gathering where agendas of people are unclear is a fancy dance of power interests – sometimes interesting, but always pointless.

Administrative pests

In the last couple of weeks, I have been greatly irritated by various administrative pests we have in this Universities – forms, practices, and rules that eat more time and resources than they save and produce. I am probably becoming a pain in the butt for various departments and units for asking them to reconsider how they run their business. No, I am pretty sure of that.

Here is one example, just bear with me. To travel to a conference, a faculty member must submit the Travel Authorization form, along with a conference program. There can be up to five people signing this document: the traveler, School director, the Dean, SPARC or grant administrators, if these money are involved, and in some cases, VP for finance. These people must approve in advance things like the 2^nd bag fee. The only reason we even have this form is that some 10 years ago there was an embarrassing case of travel abuse. But we are still so scared; every trip must be obsessively authorized in advance, and then the reimbursement is authorized yet again, just to confirm that the first authorization is still valid.

Then when you come back, you must submit all receipts, of course, and complete another form – it has to be signed by hand, by all the same people again, in sequence – by sending the hard copy from one office to the next. In up to seven moves through campus mail, at least two people handle these forms – the administrative assistant, and whoever is signing it. Each of them can be on vacation, or too busy. Each of them can put the forms in a wrong place and then forget about them. The traveler, who needs the money, will eventually come to Karon who originates this entire paper stream. Karon will start calling through the 3-7 offices, trying to find out where the papers are. All of this takes literally thousands of work hours every year, and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, for no particular benefit. Remember some of the people involved are highly paid individuals, and administrative assistants, although they are not highly paid, still spend a lot of time on mindless activities instead of working with students, faculty, and keeping us on track.

When we reimburse travel for routine things like field supervision trips, we must use two different accounts, because many years ago someone thought it would be interesting to see how much money student teaching really costs. They were never able to do that (we still don't know how much it costs), but we are stuck with the two accounts. Now, if you supervise several students for different field experiences, you must submit two different reimbursement forms to two different admin assistants.

And I can give you at least a dozen examples of pests: pointless paperwork, unnecessary irritations and hoops we make each other jump through. Why? - Because no one is really paying attention to these things. Faculty are very powerful on campus, but they don't see the underlying organizational grid, and just want to see things done. Administrators like me are highly compartmentalized, and can barely keep up with our own operations, partly because we're inundated with the pests. We are not in a position to address campus-wide systemic problems. And when we do, we get a cold shower from other administrators who suspect we are invading their turf. Administrative assistants see most of the pests, but they lack voice and power to demand change.

Amongst all the frustration, my week had a great highlight. After years of enforcing it, we were able to abolish the TB test requirement. After a letter from CDHE, and our own investigation, we realized that none of the largest school districts we work with require the test anymore. They all abandoned the requirement over the years, but forgot to tell us, and we forgot to ask. Every year, 11 hundred students or so line up with their $30 in hand to get a TB test, and bring us a copy. Each student does it 2-4 times over the PTEP program. Dead, abolished, nevermore! Nothing gives me more satisfaction than killing administrative pests like this. I can kill them all day, every day.

Doomsday scenarios

Chinghiz Aitmatov once made fun of Muscovites' obsession with weather forecasts. Considering that Moscow's climate is really mild, and nothing dramatic ever happens, it is a really funny quirk. Americans, similarly, love various end-of-days stories. Hollywood keeps pumping out movies about comets hitting the Earth, aliens invading, robots taking over, etc., etc. My son Gleb pointed out that Germans, Russians, and Japanese do not make apocalyptic movies, perhaps because they have major catastrophes in the living memory, and Americans have not.

The same tendency makes American media exaggerate the extent of various economic crises, like this one. Someone not familiar with this American obsession with crises may think the end of days is very near. In fact, we're talking about a relatively small recession, and a minor increase of public debt and unemployment. All the stimulus spending are nowhere near to what the U.S. had to spend during and right after the WWII, and the U.S. levels of debts are still lower than those of Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and 25 other countries.

At our recent leadership meeting, we discussed a (somewhat remote) possibility of a 10% budget cut. Of course, we should do that as good managers, but I just found it funny how dramatic our discussion sometimes becomes. Just like those Muscovites dropping everything to listen to a TV forecaster telling about 30% chances of light rain, as if their life depends on it. I think it is more of a subconscious wish for an adventure rather than an expression of actual fear.

In a very stable, very secure environment, small differences tend to become larger than life conflicts, petty differences take place of serious drama. People know they are in the middle of a storm in a tea cup. They long for a real challenge, a big adventure, and perhaps for the doomsday. Fortunately, or unfortunately, it is very unlikely to come, and we should not worry too much, even if it is tempting to worry.

The swine flu semester

There is a small chance that the swine flu will come back in the Fall, and we will have to close campus for some time. It would be great to have a plan B, so we don't panic, and students can complete their courses as scheduled. Here is a very short plan; I think it will work.

1. Try to use Blackboard as a course supplement, if you do not do it yet. It could be as simple as putting your syllabus file up. But if you have a shelf and it is active, it will take you less time to get up to speed, and students will be used to having an active shell for your course. But you NEED to know the basic tools available in Blackboard – threaded discussion, announcements, e-mail, grade book, and chat room.
   
2. If campus closes, send an e-mail to your students, reassuring them that things are going to work out. If you need a few days to rework the course, say so, and tell them when to check back for the new plan. Make sure the new plan is doable, equitable, and as rigorous as your regular class. There is nothing wrong with asking students if the new plan looks OK to them. In fact, they may have a lot of suggestions you have not thought about.
   
3. Think of a plan B for your courses; even if it is very vague and all in your head. A vague plan is better than no plan. Some tips for developing one.
   
   1. One error common to on-line newbies is the attempt to mimic what is going on in f2f classroom in the on-line environment. For example, if you had a discussion, you try to do a chat room; if you normally have students work on projects, you ask them to do the same in the virtual world. A much better approach is to step back, think what your regular project or activity was trying to accomplish, and then create an equivalent from available on-line tools. For example, if you expect students to teach a mini-lesson to their own class, and then have others discuss and critique it – what does this accomplish? What do you want them to learn? Break it down by very specific elements. For example, students may be learning to explain math concepts to children. Ask them to write three ways of explaining what fractions are. Each should have a mental image or a manipulative. If the objective is to learn timing, have an assignment for students to tape themselves speaking (audio or video), then listen with stop-watch and reflect on their own timing. These are just examples. If you start slicing learning objectives thinly, every single one of them can be accomplished with an activity that does not require presence in the class. Just avoid the mimicking error. Here is a tool, somewhat helpful: http://fm.iowa.uiowa.edu/fmi/xsl/tgi/data_entry.xsl?-db=tgi_data&-lay=Layout01&-view
      
   2. If you're explaining and demonstrating a lot in class, consider either taping yourself and putting the video on YouTube, or using hundreds of teaching clips already existing there. Here is one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEV9C7Ld1Bw, on using the long division. Here is a 1^st grade lesson in Social Studies, on Holidays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqmxJ2WnX8Y. Here is one on numbers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2bkXs_Mu0E&feature=channel. You might think that you're so brilliant that no one else can explain it just the right way. That is probably true… However, check the YouTube first!
      
   3. Another most common error in on-line teaching is monotony. Instructors can't think of anything, so they ask students to read a chapter, comment on it, and then maybe comment on each other's comments. Then they read another chapter, and do the same over and over again. Instructional variety is important, and to avoid monotony, do the same thing as with error #1: slice your learning objectives a little thinner, and you will see many more possibilities. For example, instead of asking to "comment" or "reflect," consider "find a flaw in the argument," or "give your own example of the concept or theory," or "think of an exception to the rule," or "will this work in another setting?"
      
   4. Be careful with evaluation of student work, especially if you had to quickly redesign the class. It takes a long time to develop and calibrate a good instrument, and students know that as well. Remember, we're working mostly with teachers; they do learn something about teaching, and apply what they know to us. If there is a bottom line knowledge set or a product you must see for students to pass the class, just say so. For example, you can say: OK, we will change the grading policy because of the flu, and I am not yet sure how it will look, but you all need to know that I cannot pass you without an acceptable thematic unit; I cannot give you an A without an outstanding thematic unit… Or something like that. In a situation of changing plans, simple accumulation of points is not a good indicator of a grade; a clear understanding of the bottom line will works better.
      
4. And if something like campus closure happens, remember, it is an opportunity to create a sense of community in our programs. It is the best time to show your human side, to be compassionate, and understanding. We are here not to enforce rules, but to help our students learn. Our authority comes from what we know and what we can do, not from the ability to give grades.
   
5. The most difficult courses are those with field components, but again, there are always solutions. We can waive some field hours (within the state law limits), we can substitute some of them for meaningful virtual experiences, and we can always give students incompletes, if needed.