The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Quote from: apl68 on April 17, 2024, 06:33:19 AMA class valedictorian choosing the occasion to weigh in on a tremendously emotive and polarizing issue to a captive audience--however keenly the student may personally feel about it--creates a no-win situation for all involved.  It's an abuse of the student's position.

I'd also say USC's valedictorian-selection process is a logical no-win end point of the everyone gets a trophy/failure is to be avoided at all costs mentality. Makes me glad that I went to the trade school down the river from Harvard that, unlike Harvard, doesn't do valedictorians, honorary degrees, or legacy admissions.

Good morning!

QB yesterday, last words polio and tiptop. Today I have two words to go, but am struggling to find them.

LB: flower-riverbank also. No luck today so far.

Middle Daughter leaves today—it's been a lovely visit, although short. Chatting with Grandson in France every day has also been great. He's having a wonderful time.

Happy puzzling!

A class valedictorian choosing the occasion to weigh in on a tremendously emotive and polarizing issue to a captive audience--however keenly the student may personally feel about it--creates a no-win situation for all involved.  It's an abuse of the student's position.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 17, 2024, 05:59:27 AM

Quote from: RatGuy on April 17, 2024, 05:53:47 AMIt also may be that many students just don't know my name. At all. The student who prompted my post earlier attends maybe 50% of classes and is struggling mightily. Maybe I should ask "what's my name" on the final exam.

That's areal thing. Years ago, I had students in two lab sections answer a multiple choice survey. One question was "Who was your TA?" The choices were "Alice" and "Bob", neither of which were non-binary, gender-fluid, or anything of the sort. A few students picked "I don't know."

Having to actually remember a prof's name; that takes it to a whole other level.

I wonder why that is?  Is it simply a symptom of lack of engagement?  Is it due to a tendency of youths to outsource their memories to their phones? 

If you have students who keep asking for extra credit and bonus opportunities, I guess you could use "What is my name" and "What is your TA's name" for those.

Morning!

QBwSBB, last word piccolo. LB got a nudge for flower-riverbank.

Happy solving!

Quote from: Langue_doc on April 16, 2024, 01:39:04 PM

QuoteNPR Suspends Editor Whose Essay Criticized the Broadcaster
Uri Berliner, a senior business editor at NPR, said the public radio network's liberal bias had tainted its coverage of important stories.

Uri Berliner's article in The Free Press. Toward the end of the article, Berliner writes:

QuoteRace and identity became paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace. Journalists were required to ask everyone we interviewed their race, gender, and ethnicity (among other questions), and had to enter it in a centralized tracking system. We were given unconscious bias training sessions. A growing DEI staff offered regular meetings imploring us to "start talking about race." Monthly dialogues were offered for "women of color" and "men of color." Nonbinary people of color were included, too.

These initiatives, bolstered by a $1 million grant from the NPR Foundation, came from management, from the top down. Crucially, they were in sync culturally with what was happening at the grassroots—among producers, reporters, and other staffers. Most visible was a burgeoning number of employee resource (or affinity) groups based on identity.

They included MGIPOC (Marginalized Genders and Intersex People of Color mentorship program); Mi Gente (Latinx employees at NPR); NPR Noir (black employees at NPR); Southwest Asians and North Africans at NPR; Ummah (for Muslim-identifying employees); Women, Gender-Expansive, and Transgender People in Technology Throughout Public Media; Khevre (Jewish heritage and culture at NPR); and NPR Pride (LGBTQIA employees at NPR).

All this reflected a broader movement in the culture of people clustering together based on ideology or a characteristic of birth. If, as NPR's internal website suggested, the groups were simply a "great way to meet like-minded colleagues" and "help new employees feel included," it would have been one thing.

But the role and standing of affinity groups, including those outside NPR, were more than that. They became a priority for NPR's union, SAG-AFTRA—an item in collective bargaining. The current contract, in a section on DEI, requires NPR management to "keep up to date with current language and style guidance from journalism affinity groups" and to inform employees if language differs from the diktats of those groups. In such a case, the dispute could go before the DEI Accountability Committee.

In essence, this means the NPR union, of which I am a dues-paying member, has ensured that advocacy groups are given a seat at the table in determining the terms and vocabulary of our news coverage.

Conflicts between workers and bosses, between labor and management, are common in workplaces. NPR has had its share. But what's notable is the extent to which people at every level of NPR have comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview.

And this, I believe, is the most damaging development at NPR: the absence of viewpoint diversity.

Isn't that the point of DEI... to make sure there IS viewpoint diversity?

Quote from: ciao_yall on April 16, 2024, 07:02:26 PM

Quote from: apl68 on April 16, 2024, 07:32:11 AMAnother locally-owned trailer bears the brand name "Momentum."  Given its size and three slide-outs, it seems quite well-named.  Once you get it going, it must be a challenge to stop!

Wait... people name their trailers? Like boats?

My late named her boat "Done Shoppin'"

No, these are the brand and model names of the trailers.  I've never personally known any owner to name their trailer, but I understand it happens.  John Steinbeck named his trailer "Rocinante."

Quote from: apl68 on April 16, 2024, 07:32:11 AMAnother locally-owned trailer bears the brand name "Momentum."  Given its size and three slide-outs, it seems quite well-named.  Once you get it going, it must be a challenge to stop!

Wait... people name their trailers? Like boats?

My late aunt named her boat "Done Shoppin'"

I'm down to 3 people still enrolled in my developmental Comp I co-req class (started at 8).  Only 2 of them have a chance at passing the Comp I. 

Neither of those 2 showed up to class yesterday.

On the other hand, a woman who dropped the class 2+ weeks ago did show up, so I guess there's that. (I sent her home and went to my office to hang out until the Comp I class started later in the morning.)

Somebody backed into my car while I was at work yesterday and didn't leave a note. The security cameras are disconnected because of all the construction near the parking lots.  I probably have several thousand dollars' worth of damage.  Yahoos.