The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Good afternoon from Sarlat!

Keeping up with puzzles but not the computer. QBwH and a 2fer for today.

Enjoying reading everyone's posts.

Au revior...

The last few months have been impossible for me, in terms of getting significant research done, and May is not looking much better - although things should change dramatically for the better in June.

May goals:

• Make progress on paper #1 with colleagues - it would be great to get this off by the end of the month, but that will be up to my colleagues
• Make progress on paper #2 with colleagues - this one is sort of in limbo
• Make progress on paper #3 with colleague - R&R, due in June
• Make progress on book project #1 - contract in sight, just need to respond to some reviewer comments
• Make progress on book project #2 with colleague

Stretch goals:

• Apply for a small grant (or two)
• Get the ball rolling on a new empirical article

Killing a King by Dan Ephron, about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, is a great read that gives a lot of good insight as to how we got to this point.

From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman also jumps out at me as a good one for students, although I haven't read it in years and don't know how it holds up.

QuoteIn announcing the change, M.I.T.'s president, Sally Kornbluth, said diversity statements constituted a form of compelled speech that do not work.

If they don't work, they wouldn't have to be abolished. Problem is they do work in selecting faculty.

Meetings are stealing most of the work day, so just T1ing today.

Student started the semester by missing 7 of the first 16 class meetings. This is a studio art class that meets for 6 hours per week. My suggestion was for them to withdraw, the class has an attendance requirement, but student insisted that they would make up all of the missed time and now that they weren't having car trouble they would be in class. The attendance policy is in the syllabus and I also post it in the course announcements because I don't want anyone to be caught by surprise.

I let Stu know I would be happy to open up the painting studio whenever they wanted to come in and make up time, Stu looks at me like I've grown three heads. No, they'll do it at home. Okay, most students have a very difficult time oil painting at home since it can be very messy, you need a good amount of space, and you need ventilation, but fine. Stu then spends the next class trying to get me to cover all of the material from the first part of the semester. Even when I am helping other students Stu keeps hovering and trying to ask questions. I let Stu know that I'll be happy to help them catch up during office hours, I'll even come meet them up at the studio so I can demo, Stu doesn't care for that option either.

Fast forward, Stu has sporadic attendance and then after the withdraw date passes Stu disappears for almost four weeks. I email two more times with no response so I assume they are just done. I get an email this week with pictures of all the "make up" work Stu has been doing from home. It's all terrible, of course, bad enough that even if they were making it to class their grade would not be a passing one.

I let Stu know that even if they make the rest of the classes there is no way they are going to pass. Stu responds "You mean to tell me that even though I made up all the work you are going to fail me?" Yes, that is correct, please refer back to the course policies as per the syllabus, and as posted in the course announcements.

Stu's mother then calls and leaves a message on my office phone, she wants to know why I couldn't just open a virtual meeting during class so her student wouldn't fall behind. Stu is always working hard, everyone else helps him out, why can't you be more accommodating, etc. Fortunately the chair backs me up and has stepped in. We absolutely are not talking to the mother. Stu has been here for a while, they are in their early 20s, btw.

Stu will be on academic probation after this semester (despite "working hard" they are below a 2.0) and in order to get the failing grade off of their transcript they will need to take the class again. Guess who is the only faculty that teaches this class?

Good morning!

Got the pangram and dragged myself to genius.  Yesterday we needed bee buddy for cheetah, emcee.  I needed husband help for enhance(ment).  Ugh!

No luck on LB again.

Looks like his thyroid is a little off, so we'll see what the other blood tests show.  Thanks again for the good wishes!

Cathwen, did your daughter and her wife get back okay? How's their car? I guess that all might still be in process.

Happy solving!

I had never heard of Unfrosted! It does sound fun.  I will put it on the list, thanks!

This past weekend we needed some levity so picked Game Night (2018), Joy Ride (2023).  Both were a lot of fun and outrageous in their own ways.  I think I preferred Game Night just a wee bit more.  That one is about a murder mystery game night gone awry and is a dark comedy.  My husband preferred Joy Ride a little more.  That one is about four women who travel to China to find one's birth mother and of course have a bunch of adventures along the way.  That is a pretty raunchy drama comedy.  They both had us laughing and served their purposes well.  I think we gave them both 7/10.

Quote from: secundem_artem on May 06, 2024, 07:34:54 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 06, 2024, 05:23:19 PMAbsolutely loved Unfrosted.  Cannot understand why the critics, or anybody for that matter, don't like it.

Agreed.  I thought it was an absolute hoot.  Seeing Hugh Grant as Tony the Tiger but shirtless and wearing face paint and viking horns and leading a protest.....  The allusion wasn't very subtle but I thought it was hilarious. 

But then again, I thought the 3 Stooges and the Marx Brothers were high art. 

And for those of you north of the 49th parallel and old enough to remember, I absolutely loved Wayne & Shuster back in the day. Some sample W&S humor:

"That's not Ojibway writing saying Ma Day in Oh Sha Wa.  It says Made in Oshawa." 

Also -

A Roman centurion walks into a bar.  "I'll have a martinus."

"Don't you mean martini?" asks the barkeep.

Says the Centurion "When I want 2, I'll ask for 2.  What's the matter don't you speak plain Latin???"

Still cracks me up

Both Stooges & Marx Bros were brilliant, as were Laurel and Hardy.

Quote from: spork on Today at 01:54:54 AMNice to see MIT formally abandoning this meaningless fad. Its institutional practices -- e.g., no legacy admits, no sports scholarships -- already did far more for diversity than anything done by Ivy League universities.

Right--requirements for diversity statements are really about saying the right things, making the right gestures, nodding one's head at the right time--the sort of thing that goes under the term "virtue signaling."  Like so much of what has come to be identified with DEI, it creates strife and confusion and makes people feel threatened, without appearing to do much practical good in the process.  The institutional practices that actually show results are where the emphasis needs to be.

To put it another way--a candidate who doesn't much care about diversity, or about treating others right in general, but has a mastery of the stereotyped jargon expected in a diversity statement, can cynically say the expected things and check that box.  A candidate who actually has the strong sense of ethics and fairness that DEI is supposed to be all about in principle, but who isn't familiar with or comfortable with the jargon, can end up being written off as somebody who can't be trusted in diversity matters.