falling hammers

Music: Ray Wylie Hubbard: A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There is No C) (2010)

Political showman and state senator Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio successfully had his "conceal-and-carry" bill appended to a higher education budget bill, which passed today. It appears this bill is a done deal. Another bill passed that forgoes parental permission for paddling in public schools, too. The ominous parallels. Ominous. Parallels.

As I reported in February, in keeping with the observations of Barry Brummett, the proposed legislation has been misreported---and in part because of Wentworth's own rhetoric. The conceal-and-carry permissions only extend to those Texas citizens who already have a conceal-and-carry license, which are not available to most undergraduates (who are not old enough). Still, Wentworth is portraying this a bill to help students arm themselves against the next crazed rampage. Nope. Most of the students who will be able to legally pack heat would be graduate students. Yes, this begs the question, but I isn't gonna ask that one.

These bills were just a part of a larger storm of educational politics in Texas. UT President Bill Powers gave an interesting speech on Monday that announced things will need to change at UT, while holding steadfast to "flagship" policy written into the Texas constitution. Unquestionably Powers' speech was designed toward two ends: (1) to "rally" the base---powerful alums and faculty and such---and let them know there's a "war goin' on" and to let "us" know that he will not let Texas politics dismantle the "first class" status of UT; and (2) to deploy the politically savvy suggestion that UT is already down with a program of reform, as if to take the wind out of the sails of the more anti-intellectual crowd (four of whom were appointed by Perry to the regency recently). The rhetoric of the university administration is usually fairly restrained, so I find the UT president's recent verbosity something to take note of.

Although I would stop short of saying UT educational politics is transparent, the fact is that the system's numbers are fairly, well, transparent. Salaries of every state employee are freely available, and budgetary numbers are not difficult to find. Some years ago, preparing for the worst, the UT administration started trimming and cutting and making a war chest. Anticipating cuts, 15% of the budget has been trimmed in anticipation of what the legislature will do (and this based on a "heads-up" Perry issued some years ago in a series of memos). Currently this anticipation is in keeping with the senate bill, which hovers around %16.1 . . . but the worry is the house bill, which is suggesting around 20%. Word on the beat is that legislators will not settle on a budget by the May 20th deadline, and thus will hurl into a special session—incurring more nail biting. Educational policy wonks are saying the delay may be good for UT, in the end, as it will give time for people to get upset about their kid's educational cut-backs and inspire phone-calls and such.

I'm not sure, however, what to make of all this hubbub. Given the rather dire things that are happening to friends across the country (my field, Communication Studies, is solidly a land-grant/state school kind of department), it's easy to imagine all sorts of apocalyptic scenarios. When I started this gig in higher education, I came to the conclusion that apocalyptic rhetoric was grafted into the university as such; I've never not known of coming doom as an educator. When I started graduate school, my department was in danger of dissolution---the dark mood started then. I confess I just wrote it off as part of the culture; it's certainly a part of disciplinarity.

But, having now become a "partner" in this particular academic firm, I'm taking the time to look up from my work and get a lay of the land---I'm trying to get a sense of the bigger picture in academe. As an assistant professor, my job was to keep my head down, to teach and to research. As I did this job longer, my responsibilities increased: now I'm trying to help others become teacher-scholars, and so the investment is more, well, more invested. And when you start worrying about the welfare of your students, you start thinking about the institutional environment and structures. I'm still not so jaded as to discourage students from going to graduate school. I still believe "service fields" like Communication Studies and Rhetoric and Composition will always have a place at the educational table because we teach basic literacies---literacies that are vital for civil society. I am, however, almost prepared to join Team Chicken-Little.

If Texas is seen as a symptom---and for all sorts of reasons, this state often is---then the current battles between the university system and the legislature and politicians should be troubling. For me, the trouble is not that the university has moved over to the business model; that one is a done deal. It's lamentable, but unless you work for Hampshire College, it's done-gone happened. The trouble is what kind of model is being pushed through, "accountability" and "outcome based" stuff, measuring teaching effectiveness in terms of degrees granted and how much money professors bring in to the institution, trying to double enrollments by requiring online courses, and so forth.

Today I had a former student---from 2006---visiting me during office hours to ask if I would write her a letter of recommendation for law school. She works for a non-profit, non-partisan child-advocacy lobbying group working to help disadvantaged youth. She said she decided to go to law school because she wants to work on policy, and right now she doesn't have the credentials. She said our class together was inspirational, and that's why she thought of me as a potential letter writer. The basic problem with the bottom-line models advocated by non-educator politicians is this: how do you quantify this kind of passion? My class didn't motivate this young person to pursue a life of public service. I know this. But the class did encourage her to think about issues in ways that connect to values, public-belonging, and . . . well, nothing that can be quantified.

More importantly: this former student thought it was important to drive three hours to have a face-to-face meeting, in "real space." She could have just emailed the request. That she did not tells us something about education. Online is fine, but only as a supplement. When we eliminate bodies-in-space from education entirely, we're not educating the whole.