In my March 29th post, “On Group Think and Catastrophe,” I reproduced a very pointed argument made at our local APSCUF-KU Meet and Discuss table made by former APSCUF-KU Vice President, Ken Ehrensal.  His argument called out KU Administration budget officials’ problematic use of “worst-case-scenario” logic, in particular, the logic of a budget catastrophe.  Here is an exert from that post:

Second, Ehrensal argued that the budget presentations given by Ken Long, Assistant VP of Administration and Finance, assume every catastrophic scenario.  For example, KU’s budget projections assume a 2.5% annual increase in tuition.  However, the Chancellor has been talking about a 4% increase.  If the Chancellor’s numbers hold, our “budget crisis” will be cut in half.  Long also built-in a 3.5% increase in salary for all union employees (including faculty).  However, all contracts are up for negotiation this year.  New contracts for all university unions will be in place starting July 2011.  If the salary increases are lower than 3.5%, the “budget crisis” could be cut in half (I didn’t write down the percentage that Ehrensal was working with).  Further, Long built-in to h

is analysis that the PA Legislature will not fix the problem with PSERS (PA State Employee Retirement System).  Failure to fix the problem, while possible, is not likely.  In short, the budget presentations represent a catastrophic scenario…not a likely scenario.

Despite our best efforts at the table, the administration continued to use these “catastrophic” budget projections in its presentation to faculty, staff, KU’s Board of Trustees, the Chancellor of PASSHE, and, of course, the media.  Just about every local news story about Kutztown administration’s move to retrench faculty and staff was willing to print the administration’s story of a dire budget crisis without question.  I personally reached out to a few reporters, pointed them to this blog, emailed them, and spoke to them on the phone about the problems with the Kutztown administration’s argument.  But, frankly, the adminstration’s narrative was compelling, especially since it seemed to echo that of the broader “economic crisis” narrative in the U.S. today.  In some ways, I can understand why our arguments, Ehrensal’s arguments in particular, did not gain traction.  It’s not easy to swim against the current of a dominant cultural narrative, especially when that narrative takes the form of a torrential downpour.

But just because a cultural narrative is compelling doesn’t mean that it’s accurate or true.  As a scholar and teacher of rhetoric you are taught to be very critical of cultural narratives that seem to “sweep people up” into them.  Such narratives are the ones that allow governments, businesses, con-men, and cult leaders get masses of people to do things that in “normal” times they would never do.

Well, that’s where we are folks.  KU’s administration has used the “catastrophe” narrative to cut jobs, removed fired administrators and staff from their offices with police escorts, reorganize programs, eliminate majors, all under the cover of media reports that reaffirmed what many people feared: “there’s nothing we can do.”  Well, the narrative hasn’t held.  As a matter of fact, in turned out that Ehrensal underestimated the degree to which KU’s administration was padding its numbers in order to create the appearance of crisis.  Here’s and article from yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer:

Pa. system approves 4.5% hike in college tuition

Undergraduate tuition at Pennsylvania’s state-owned colleges will increase $250, or 4.5 percent, under a $1.5 billion budget approved Thursday by the system’s board of governors.

Annual tuition for full-time resident undergraduates beginning this fall will be $5,804, which the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education said was the lowest among all four-year colleges and universities in the state. The system said it would receive $503.4 million in state and federal funding to support the current-year operating budget.

Resident graduate school tuition in 2010-11 will be $6,966, an increase of $300. Nonresident graduate tuition will increase $480, to $11,146. - Inquirer staff

You with me here?  Recall Ehrensal’s argument:

For example, KU’s budget projections assume a 2.5% annual increase in tuition.  However, the Chancellor has been talking about a 4% increase.  If the Chancellor’s numbers hold, our “budget crisis” will be cut in half.

Put simply, KU’s “budget crisis” has just been trimmed over 50% without a single faculty member losing her or his job, no program consolidation, no outsourcing of vehicles (yes, KU is now outsourcing to Enterprise Rent-a-Car at a cost of $41 a day.  I have heard, but haven’t yet confirmed that this is a PASSHE initiative).  So, there’s half your budget crisis.  It also looks like the PA Legislature is going to resolve the “crisis” in PSERS.  That “crisis” was supposedly going to put KU back by around $6 million.  Assuming that crisis have been averted, as predicted by Ehrensal, that cuts the “crisis” back even further.  You still following?

What this basically means is that KU’s administration and the administration at other PASSHE universities are not simply carrying out German-style austerity measures.  They are restructuring the State University system under the cover of the “budget crisis.”  As if citizens of the Commonwealth haven’t already experienced more than their share of “belt-tightening.”  Now, KU’s administration is given us all a spooky story right before bed in order to decrease citizens access to higher eduction–the very thing we’re told that is required to lift us out of this downturn.  Unjust desserts for the majority once again.

On Wednesday, the same day that Chancellor Cavanaugh met with faculty and announced that the AASCB accreditation mandate was lifted, the Chancellor also met with KU students.  Click here to read the Reading Eagle story on the meeting.

Hey all…I’m back from San Francisco and getting ready for next week’s Composition Conference for Student Writers.  And now…the latest vlog:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3nogLw5Zpo&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b]

The article “Backers of ’21st Century Skills’ Take Flak,” in this week’s Education Week, reports on some of the critics of the call for “21st Century Skills”–that is, “information, media, and technology skills.”  The article begins:

The phrase “21st-century skills” is everywhere in education policy discussions these days, from faculty lounges to the highest echelons of the U.S. education system.

Broadly speaking, it refers to a push for schools to teach critical-thinking, analytical, and technology skills, in addition to the “soft skills” of creativity, collaboration, and communication that some experts argue will be in high demand as the world increasingly shifts to a global, entrepreneurial, and service-based workplace.

But now a group of researchers, historians, and policymakers from across the political spectrum are raising a red flag about the agenda as embodied by the Tucson, Ariz.-based Partnership for 21st Century Skills, or P21, the leading advocacy group for 21st-century skills.

Unless states that sign on to the movement ensure that all students are also taught a body of explicit, well-sequenced content, a focus on skills will not help students develop higher-order critical-thinking abilities, they said at a panel discussion here in the nation’s capital last week.

Check out the full article here.

OK…so, I wrote a book review for Blue Angel: A Novel (P.S.) for my “visual bookshelf” on facebook (didya follow dat).  And that review has got me thinking about a whole range of issues…including proposing a paper for the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference @ Michigan State in October (deadline is coming up, so I’ve got to decide quickly whether or not to propose a paper…hence this entry).  In addition to the issues I raise in the review, there are a whole range of issues having to deal with creative non-fiction and it’s role in truth-telling.I’m not going to try and tackle all of that in this post, but to give you an idea what I mean by that I have been thinking a lot about Don Delillo’s Libra.  Libra is a historical novel that focuses on the Kennedy assasination (I am being reductive, yes).  When I read that text for a class back in grad school, I considered it the best history and explanation of the Kennedy assassination that I had ever read.  A lot of that had to do with the ways in which narrative allows for multiple agencies and threads…even truthS.  So, that’s on my mind.Also on my mind are several essays I read recently arguing for rethinking the faculty-student relationship prohibition.  I remember the first one being by Laura Kipnis in The Thomson Reader, which I was considering for a class (that essay was one of the reasons I chose not to adopt the text).  Anyway, to put it bluntly…I find the arguments raised in these essays infuriating.  And yet, they all seem to follow a similar logic–be they written by cultural critic or legal scholar. So, that’s what I’ve got to work with…and will be working with over the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime, here’s the review I wrote (for those of you who are not stalking my Visual Bookshelf on facebook :

Review of Blue Angel: A Novel, by Francine Prose

OK…Some context. For the past couple of years I have been going full-throttle at work (Kutztown University). We’ve rebuilt our union, organized for a strike, held a vote of no confidence against our university’s president (and were successful in getting some major agreements once the administration finally sat down with us). This past summer I moved and this fall my wife and I had a baby. In short, I was pooped and looking forward recharging and just getting some down time.

 The past couple of semesters have also been fraught with some “scandals” on our campus (academics, surprise, surprise). In one case, it was one of those faculty-student-behind-closed-doors kind of things. That one really pushed me over the edge. You see, there is no greater sin–yes, I’ll use the word sin–than for a faculty member to violate what I see as a “sacred” trust. In short, you don’t sleep with your students. You especially don’t sleep with students who are currently enrolled in your class. When such a case was brought to my (and many other faculty members’) attention by students it cut deep. You see, in my book, once a faculty member does that, they shouldn’t be teaching. At the very least, they should not be allowed to continue on where they are currently teaching. Harsh? Perhaps. But, that’s how I am wired as a professional. The power relationships between teachers and students, the psychology of pedagogy, and the consequences of carrying on a sexual relationship with a student were issues that my fellow graduate students and I at Syracuse and Miami were thoroughly briefed and instructed on when we took on our first teaching assignments. These issues are so second nature to me by now that they feel hard-wired. In any case, I’ve had this pit in my stomach this past semester because of the issue of a particular faculty member’s transgressions. I had hoped that once the issue was reported (as it was) that the process would work. That all the evidence would lead to a necessary conclusion. Good bye. But it didn’t. The process failed. And I had to get my mind (and stomach) away from that garbage for a while.

 So, what does all this have to do with Francine Prose’s novel Blue Angel? Way too much as it turns out. You see my wife’s family and I do a polyanna for Christmas (you know, “secret santa”). I put a range of “academic novels” on my list as a way to get some perspective on academic trials and tribulations. If you’ve read Richard Russo’s Straight Man or Jane Smiley’s Moo, you know that there are some great academic satires out there–most of them written about English departments since that’s where most creative writers are housed. That kind of satire was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to read over break. So, I searched for other “academic novels” that I hadn’t read or even heard of. I didn’t spend a lot of time reading reviews or anything–back covers were enough for me; I wanted to be surprised.

 My list included David Lodge’s A Small Place, James Hynes’s A Lecturer’s Tale, and Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe. And it also included Francine Prose’s Blue Angel. [I also suggested these books to my ENG 502 students as some good "break" reading] My polyanna couldn’t find the first three in the bookstore. He did, however, find Blue Angel. So, that’s where I would begin. On the day after Christmas I dug in and looked forward to my little literary vacation. As fate would have it, Blue Angel was not going to be a vacation. It was going to take me right back, smack dab in the middle of the faculty-student-behind-closed-doors all over again. Another chance to revisit the issue. Yes, Blue Angel is about a English department faculty member who “falls in love” with one of his students. Theodore Swenson is not only the faculty member in question, he is the narrator. So, we get to inside the head of this man as he “falls in love with,” or “is seduced by,” or “is manipulated by” (all incarnations included in the novel) a young, gothic-esque student with facial piercings (believe me, you hear about them a lot in the novel). Yes, it’s a story of a fall from “grace” (although given the pathetic nature of Swenson, it’s not a very far fall). Unlike the real world, however, Swenson DOES fall. The Administration at his college DOES pursue charges against him and fires him. The system worked (despite Swenson’s repeated chastising of the Women’s Alliance and political correctness). Unlike the real world, the system worked. There was clear wrong-doing and the university fired the faculty member, his wife left him, and his daughter (the same age as the student he sleeps with) is outraged. Again, this is fiction.

The thing is, I had no sympathy for this character. None. I found his internal dramas pathetic. His indecision annoying. His lack of critical consciousness shameful. And his willingness to paint himself as a victim embarrassing. Perhaps some of those faculty members who have chosen to sleep with their students might have insight into Prose’s portrayal of her adulterer narrator. I’ll leave it to them to make that case. I, however, found it infuriating–a kind of anti-feminist, pro-old boys story about their Paradise Lost. The student in question, Angela Argo, is also positioned not only as the instigator (that little temptress) but as a cunning manipulator who crafted Swenson’s downfall. We even get Eve imagery…like the Garden of Eden and the Apple…not exactly a soft touch here.

In short, there is so much I want to say about this novel (I’ll add more), not so much for its literary achievement, as for allowing me to revisit the real in a fictional form.

 For now, I’ve got to log off. More to come!

It’s been quite a day! The final panels are now in session. We have at least 154 people registered (I say at least because I think there is another list floating around in the conference rooms). Not only have the panels been well-attended, the registration room has been alive with discussion, laughter, and story-telling all day. We’ve even begun talking about next year’s conference. Not to mention the weather is absolutely beautiful–the first real spring day of the year–and students and faculty are still coming to see panels. A good day.

OK, this is a quick one…a little discursive bit harvested from a facebook site “Kutztown University Needs to Change.” This site was created by a couple of students who decided it was better to organize than just sit around and complain.  A noble idea, no?  One might even call it active citizenship.  As of this post, that facebook group has 1,118 members.  Not bad for a week old…ahh, digital activism.

Anyway, a couple of days ago a Kutztown University administrator joined the group and has been responding pretty regularly to the students…mostly in the form of “you need to understand how the university works.”  One of his posts from earlier today is my nugget for today:

Just some suggestions. Before you go asking for changes on your main points, you need to make sure that you understand where the University is now, that you are being reasonable and rational in your approach, and that you aren’t asking for wants and desires rather than just needs. Wants and desires are the things you’d like to have if possible, needs are those things that are required out of necessity. For example, I want and desire a new Harley, but I don’t need it to get to work (and my wife won’t let me have one anyway). So, if I base my whole outlook on getting that Harley, I will be disappointed, even though I can still get to work. It is similar with this University. We aren’t Harvard or Yale. We don’t have a gigantic endowment. Our tuition and fees are low compared to Penn Sate and surrounding State public schools. Therefore, sometimes we are only going to be able to give what is needed, not what is wanted or desired.

“We are only going to be able to give what is needed, not what is wanted or desired.”  Nice move.  Notice the movement in this argument…the movement suggests that the space of needs is narrow.   And, I would argue, the administration is best positioned to determine what are needs and what are desires.  KU is positioned next to Harvard and Yale to frame “endowments” and to Penn State and “surrounding state public schools” to frame “tuition.”  Interesting.  One could wonder, justly I think, what can actually be changed?  That is, we are both NOT privileged ivy league schools.  And, “we” are GENEROUS with our tuition.

I am too tired at the moment to really work this though…but this is another piece to the argument that is being worked out locally.  One of the little pieces I am working on right now is called “Shut up and Teach!”  Perhaps, the nugget above is a piece of reasonable neoliberal discipline?  Echoes of the World Bank at moments.  More, so much more to write.