It is difficult and embarrassing to make a correction when you publish a mistake in a newspaper. But, at least, errors in print are not written in stone.
So, what do you do when a monument includes a misspelled word?
For example, a neat plaque tastefully positioned under one of the trees along the sidewalk at the King Street entrance to the Snyder Hall reads:
IN LOVING MEMORY
PAUL M. SAAB
FOREVER GREATFUL
THE SISTERS OF SIGMA SIGMA SIGMA SORORITY
&
THE BROTHERS OF THETA XI FRATERNITY
APRIL 22, 2002
It is wonderful that the students remembered their professor so fondly. It would have been even better if they had remembered how to spell “grateful.”
As I gaze at this sign, I cannot help shuddering in dread that it will catch the eye of a visiting dignitary with an ingrained obsession for engraved glitches. I further imagine that shocked observer as being the presiding member of an evaluating committee from some big accrediting organization. Uh-oh….
Let’s assume the misspelling connotes reverence for a “great-hearted” and magnanimous individual who deserves to be remembered with full honor.
I suppose that I should take a deep breath and forget-about-it.
Does anyone but an English teacher worry about such trivia? Yet, typos, especially typos engraved for posterity, stick in my mind: I cannot help it.
Another pet-peeve I’ve been unable to forget involves the strange structure between Snyder Hall and Knutti Hall, where I teach most of my classes.
I refer to the anonymous orange-yellow storage-shack (or whatever it is) that stands along High Street, blocking the view of the green-houses connected to the Institute for Environmental Studies Renewable Energy Site.
When I step out of Knutti Hall, there it is, in all its enigmatic shabbiness.
But what is it, anyway?
The yellowish paint curling on the wood sidewalls appears to have been peeling since the Vietnam War. The building itself looks like a relic from the era preceding the War Between the States, as old as West Virginia.
One of the upper-windows is broken, and shards of glass lie scattered on the ground. Peering into the clouded window panes beside the locked front door, all I can see is a clutter even worse than the one on my desk.
You may have noticed the spanking fresh billboard-maps that have popped up recently to helpfully identify everything from parking places to the new buildings on West Campus to that pedagogical landmark, the “Little House,” which has an arrow and a dot, identified on the side panel as Number 12, between White Hall, Number 23, and Human Resources, Number 8.
(If there is a mystical meaning to the numbering system, I do not know it.)
But the guide-maps do not identify the broken-down painted wood structure. It has no name, nor number, nor any identifiable reason for its existence.
Some years ago, as I recall, there were plans to remodel the old joint as a lounge for students and professors, to drink coffee and share perspectives outside of a classroom. Now that we have the Bistro in the Rams Den, an alternative meeting place seems less necessary than it probably used to be.
But what was the building intended for in the first place? And how will it fit into campus beautification? One of these days, it may be deconstructed.
It could be all-but-erased from the collective memory of our campus.
Between my office and the faculty parking lot behind the library, within a radius of less than one square block, this shack is one of a variety of intriguing signs and puzzling sights. I enjoy the changing landscape.
Still, the letters identifying the Robert c. Byrd Science building shall endure, undaunted, chiseled in concrete with the lower-case middle initial intact!
Correcting THAT typo would take more effort than I would care to consider. All I offer, in consolation, is one of Shakespeare’s best-known sonnets:
“Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power….”
Eternity evidently lasts longer than any of us would wish to remember.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Battle Pay for Adjuncts
Whatever else is required for General Studies, English will be required.
The reason is simple. English rules the world. English rules, totally.
Originally, the Seven Liberal Arts included Grammar and Rhetoric.
Today, it might prove quite embarrassing how many Shepherd grads lack grammatical competence, not to mention effective rhetorical style.
The last chance for many students is in general studies English courses.
Granted: a basic knowledge of history is essential. In addition, I am grateful for the undegrad course I took in biology, where I first heard about DNA.
And, frankly, I just cannot comprehend how a liberal arts school can fail to require a rigorous introductory course in philosophy for all students.
It also makes no sense to send business and political science majors into the world while lacking knowledge of either Spanish or French or German, not to mention Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic. Just consider the added earning potential these grads could have had if they were fluent in another language!
But the sole requirement for success in our time is mastery of English.
The dirty little secret, of course, is that the vast majority of required English courses are taught by adjunct faculty, hired one class-section at a time.
For a one-semester course, an adjunct with a master’s degree earns $1600.
If that same adjunct teaches, as many do, a full load of four courses in both fall and spring semester, the total yearly salary earned would be $12,800.
Forget about health insurance or other benefits. Adjuncts do not qualify.
This reliance on adjuncts brings obvious benefits to the institution.
The tuition money collected from each student in the class-room remains the same whether the instructor is an adjunct or a tenure-track professor. But the margin of profit expands exponentially by slashing labor-costs.
Besides, English courses are an academic cash-machine. They do not require expensive laboratories or specially designed studios.
All that English instructors must do is to read books and grade papers.
How many papers do English adjuncts grade? In the typical English 101, each student hands in six papers and two revisions. So, for a class of 25, the instructor must read about 200 papers each semester.
How many papers for a full load of four courses? Well, you get the idea.
And, remember, the pay is less than students earn at their part-time jobs.
Why do adjuncts accept these terms? Many simply love to teach and often do as good a job, or even better, compared to their tenure-track colleagues.
But, the adjunct system relies on exploitation. The instructors suffer the most, obviously, since they do not receive fair pay for their work. The students and their parents would probably be shocked if they realized how little these professors were earning despite the rising tuition rates. Finally, the university as a whole is undermined by being built on a foundation of gypsy scholars who are the academic equivalent of migrant farm workers.
Shepherd is not the only institution that leans on adjuncts. The same adjunct scandal-that-is-not- a-scandal runs coast-to-coast, in departments of English from Yale to Berkeley. Reliance on adjuncts has become business as usual.
If proposed curriculum reforms become a reality, there could be a newly revised general studies program and fewer hours required for graduation. Then, the dependence on adjunct faculty might be significantly alleviated.
But, for now, it only seems fair that adjunct professors should receive battle pay for doing their bit in the trenches at the front lines of higher education.
The reason is simple. English rules the world. English rules, totally.
Originally, the Seven Liberal Arts included Grammar and Rhetoric.
Today, it might prove quite embarrassing how many Shepherd grads lack grammatical competence, not to mention effective rhetorical style.
The last chance for many students is in general studies English courses.
Granted: a basic knowledge of history is essential. In addition, I am grateful for the undegrad course I took in biology, where I first heard about DNA.
And, frankly, I just cannot comprehend how a liberal arts school can fail to require a rigorous introductory course in philosophy for all students.
It also makes no sense to send business and political science majors into the world while lacking knowledge of either Spanish or French or German, not to mention Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic. Just consider the added earning potential these grads could have had if they were fluent in another language!
But the sole requirement for success in our time is mastery of English.
The dirty little secret, of course, is that the vast majority of required English courses are taught by adjunct faculty, hired one class-section at a time.
For a one-semester course, an adjunct with a master’s degree earns $1600.
If that same adjunct teaches, as many do, a full load of four courses in both fall and spring semester, the total yearly salary earned would be $12,800.
Forget about health insurance or other benefits. Adjuncts do not qualify.
This reliance on adjuncts brings obvious benefits to the institution.
The tuition money collected from each student in the class-room remains the same whether the instructor is an adjunct or a tenure-track professor. But the margin of profit expands exponentially by slashing labor-costs.
Besides, English courses are an academic cash-machine. They do not require expensive laboratories or specially designed studios.
All that English instructors must do is to read books and grade papers.
How many papers do English adjuncts grade? In the typical English 101, each student hands in six papers and two revisions. So, for a class of 25, the instructor must read about 200 papers each semester.
How many papers for a full load of four courses? Well, you get the idea.
And, remember, the pay is less than students earn at their part-time jobs.
Why do adjuncts accept these terms? Many simply love to teach and often do as good a job, or even better, compared to their tenure-track colleagues.
But, the adjunct system relies on exploitation. The instructors suffer the most, obviously, since they do not receive fair pay for their work. The students and their parents would probably be shocked if they realized how little these professors were earning despite the rising tuition rates. Finally, the university as a whole is undermined by being built on a foundation of gypsy scholars who are the academic equivalent of migrant farm workers.
Shepherd is not the only institution that leans on adjuncts. The same adjunct scandal-that-is-not- a-scandal runs coast-to-coast, in departments of English from Yale to Berkeley. Reliance on adjuncts has become business as usual.
If proposed curriculum reforms become a reality, there could be a newly revised general studies program and fewer hours required for graduation. Then, the dependence on adjunct faculty might be significantly alleviated.
But, for now, it only seems fair that adjunct professors should receive battle pay for doing their bit in the trenches at the front lines of higher education.
Credibility is All
In journalism, credibility is everything.
With rare exceptions, journalists do not need doctorates. They do not belong to professional organizations such as those for lawyers and doctors. Journalists can be sued for libel, but they cannot be disbarred for misrepresentation or stripped of their license for malpractice.
There is no such thing as a license to practice journalism. You do not even need a bachelor’s degree to become a journalist, although it a long time since high school dropouts could hope to snag a job at the copy desk of a daily newspaper and work their way up to become the managing editor.
For now, it is hard for anyone to snag any kind of job at a daily newspaper.
Ten years ago, I could confidently assure a student who graduated from Shepherd with a major in English and a minor in journalism that it would be possible to find some kind of job as a beginning reporter.
Those were the nostalgic days of yore when journalism students could not only find jobs but keep them. One such Shepherd grad, for example, shared her experience as a newly hired reporter for The North Virginia Daily.
Her editor assigned her a story requiring an interview from a local official. She made an appointment, showed up on time, asked the questions she had prepared and took copious notes. But, for some reason, the subject of the story seemed surly and preoccupied, barely able to take the time to talk.
As she left, the reporter realized she had forgotten to ask how to spell the individual’s name and neglected to verify the person’s title.
Rather than go back and bother the source again, she simply looked up the office number on the directory in the lobby of the building, copied the name and title of the person listed, and used that information in her story.
Unfortunately, the name on the office directory belonged to somebody who had retired a few weeks before. The same job now belonged to another person with very different name. Ooops…..
Her editor did not fire her. But it was a close call.
The former student wrote to me so that I could share her learning experience with students coming after her. Yes, you do need to verify the correctly spelled name and the accurate title of the individual quoted in your story.
Whether you are writing for The Picket or The New York Times, the standards of credibility apply to every article, even if there is no governing board to enforce professional practices. Credibility counts.
Beginning jobs in journalism are now harder to find than the snows of yesteryear. Nevertheless, enrollment in journalism schools has burgeoned beyond expectations. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, there are more than 200,000 students currently enrolled in graduate programs in journalism, an increase of 35 percent in the past ten years.
Many of those students are clearly hoping to make careers in the new media rather than in the fast fading field of print journalism. Still, certain truths remain valid even as the technology changes before our eyes.
As a journalist, your credibility defines who you are.
With rare exceptions, journalists do not need doctorates. They do not belong to professional organizations such as those for lawyers and doctors. Journalists can be sued for libel, but they cannot be disbarred for misrepresentation or stripped of their license for malpractice.
There is no such thing as a license to practice journalism. You do not even need a bachelor’s degree to become a journalist, although it a long time since high school dropouts could hope to snag a job at the copy desk of a daily newspaper and work their way up to become the managing editor.
For now, it is hard for anyone to snag any kind of job at a daily newspaper.
Ten years ago, I could confidently assure a student who graduated from Shepherd with a major in English and a minor in journalism that it would be possible to find some kind of job as a beginning reporter.
Those were the nostalgic days of yore when journalism students could not only find jobs but keep them. One such Shepherd grad, for example, shared her experience as a newly hired reporter for The North Virginia Daily.
Her editor assigned her a story requiring an interview from a local official. She made an appointment, showed up on time, asked the questions she had prepared and took copious notes. But, for some reason, the subject of the story seemed surly and preoccupied, barely able to take the time to talk.
As she left, the reporter realized she had forgotten to ask how to spell the individual’s name and neglected to verify the person’s title.
Rather than go back and bother the source again, she simply looked up the office number on the directory in the lobby of the building, copied the name and title of the person listed, and used that information in her story.
Unfortunately, the name on the office directory belonged to somebody who had retired a few weeks before. The same job now belonged to another person with very different name. Ooops…..
Her editor did not fire her. But it was a close call.
The former student wrote to me so that I could share her learning experience with students coming after her. Yes, you do need to verify the correctly spelled name and the accurate title of the individual quoted in your story.
Whether you are writing for The Picket or The New York Times, the standards of credibility apply to every article, even if there is no governing board to enforce professional practices. Credibility counts.
Beginning jobs in journalism are now harder to find than the snows of yesteryear. Nevertheless, enrollment in journalism schools has burgeoned beyond expectations. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, there are more than 200,000 students currently enrolled in graduate programs in journalism, an increase of 35 percent in the past ten years.
Many of those students are clearly hoping to make careers in the new media rather than in the fast fading field of print journalism. Still, certain truths remain valid even as the technology changes before our eyes.
As a journalist, your credibility defines who you are.
Where is the News from Iran?
Iran is not Iraq. By now, I hope, we have learned that much.
In the months leading up to, and for years after, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, I cannot estimate how many talking heads on television -- reporters, pundits, government officials – mixed up the two names.
No, Senator, Baghdad is not the capital of Iran.
Yes, the vast majority of Iraqi people are Arabs, but most Iranians are not.
Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but he never had any nuclear weapons.
The Iranian rulers may be a bunch of pious buffoons, but they are probably closer to building an atomic bomb than the Iraqis ever were.
So, what does this topic have to do with The Picket? Good question.
Clearly, it would be unrealistic to expect a student newspaper to cover international affairs in competition with the professional press corps.
Not altogether incidentally, even leading news organizations have not had reporters on the ground in Iran since the disputed elections of last summer. Journalists disappeared, willingly or otherwise, during the popular uprising in the streets of Teheran and subsequent crackdown by the ruling theocracy.
Canadian/Iranian filmmaker and Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari has been held in solitary confinement in an Iranian dungeon for months.
The New York Times has been covering news from Iran with datelines from Beirut, Lebanon, and Toronto, Canada: as if reporting on Beijing from Paris.
Up-to-the minute news from Iran is, nevertheless, available from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard online at http://tehranbureau.com/
From the Teheran Bureau, you can learn how “massively fraudulent” the election of June 12, 2009, seems to have been.
The “Supreme Leader” of Iran has commanded the populace to accept the election results re-electing the current president by a majority of about eleven million votes over his nearest rival.
Yeah, the Ayatollah-in-Chief told the faithful, maybe the powers-that-be could have stolen, say, even a million votes -- but not eleven million!
The actual tally seems to have been reversed so that the eleven million margin landed in the column of the status quo rather than the opposition.
As for the Iranian protestors who took to the streets: they have been jailed, beaten, and, allegedly sexually violated by official Islamic rape-squads.
The Teheran Bureau also informs its readers how the repression of the mullahs has backfired to such an extent that their ruling legitimacy is evidently shot for good.
Even many conservative Iranians are outraged by the outrages.
The government has indicted alleged agitators in Stalinist-style show-trials to cause shame and intimidation in the public at large, as well.
Yet that television show did not make it through the season, according to the Teheran Bureau, because the target audience received it with sheer derision.
Nor has the governing apparatus been able to squelch dissent. Brave citizens of Teheran are still going up to their roofs at night to cry out Allah-hu-akbar!
Their slogan, taken directly from the 1979 revolution, simply seems to declare the greatness of the deity. Thus, there would appear to be no legal justification for arresting these exalted souls for subversive activity.
But, of course, the protestors’ real meaning is Down with the Dictator!
The Teheran News Bureau has also called on its supporters to express their international protest against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he addresses the United Nations in New York City on Sept. 23, 2009.
Still, what does any of that have to do with The Picket and its readers?
Should The Picket be interviewing faculty and students on campus who may have traveled or lived or still have family in Iran?
Are there professors in the departments of history and social science who could be interviewed to add to our understanding of recent events?
Last year, the Common Reading program selected Persepolis as the book to be read and discussed. There were a lot of classes assigned to read the book and many informative forums offered to the public.
Does that mean that the topic of Iran has become old news?
Not at all.
In the months leading up to, and for years after, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, I cannot estimate how many talking heads on television -- reporters, pundits, government officials – mixed up the two names.
No, Senator, Baghdad is not the capital of Iran.
Yes, the vast majority of Iraqi people are Arabs, but most Iranians are not.
Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but he never had any nuclear weapons.
The Iranian rulers may be a bunch of pious buffoons, but they are probably closer to building an atomic bomb than the Iraqis ever were.
So, what does this topic have to do with The Picket? Good question.
Clearly, it would be unrealistic to expect a student newspaper to cover international affairs in competition with the professional press corps.
Not altogether incidentally, even leading news organizations have not had reporters on the ground in Iran since the disputed elections of last summer. Journalists disappeared, willingly or otherwise, during the popular uprising in the streets of Teheran and subsequent crackdown by the ruling theocracy.
Canadian/Iranian filmmaker and Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari has been held in solitary confinement in an Iranian dungeon for months.
The New York Times has been covering news from Iran with datelines from Beirut, Lebanon, and Toronto, Canada: as if reporting on Beijing from Paris.
Up-to-the minute news from Iran is, nevertheless, available from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard online at http://tehranbureau.com/
From the Teheran Bureau, you can learn how “massively fraudulent” the election of June 12, 2009, seems to have been.
The “Supreme Leader” of Iran has commanded the populace to accept the election results re-electing the current president by a majority of about eleven million votes over his nearest rival.
Yeah, the Ayatollah-in-Chief told the faithful, maybe the powers-that-be could have stolen, say, even a million votes -- but not eleven million!
The actual tally seems to have been reversed so that the eleven million margin landed in the column of the status quo rather than the opposition.
As for the Iranian protestors who took to the streets: they have been jailed, beaten, and, allegedly sexually violated by official Islamic rape-squads.
The Teheran Bureau also informs its readers how the repression of the mullahs has backfired to such an extent that their ruling legitimacy is evidently shot for good.
Even many conservative Iranians are outraged by the outrages.
The government has indicted alleged agitators in Stalinist-style show-trials to cause shame and intimidation in the public at large, as well.
Yet that television show did not make it through the season, according to the Teheran Bureau, because the target audience received it with sheer derision.
Nor has the governing apparatus been able to squelch dissent. Brave citizens of Teheran are still going up to their roofs at night to cry out Allah-hu-akbar!
Their slogan, taken directly from the 1979 revolution, simply seems to declare the greatness of the deity. Thus, there would appear to be no legal justification for arresting these exalted souls for subversive activity.
But, of course, the protestors’ real meaning is Down with the Dictator!
The Teheran News Bureau has also called on its supporters to express their international protest against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he addresses the United Nations in New York City on Sept. 23, 2009.
Still, what does any of that have to do with The Picket and its readers?
Should The Picket be interviewing faculty and students on campus who may have traveled or lived or still have family in Iran?
Are there professors in the departments of history and social science who could be interviewed to add to our understanding of recent events?
Last year, the Common Reading program selected Persepolis as the book to be read and discussed. There were a lot of classes assigned to read the book and many informative forums offered to the public.
Does that mean that the topic of Iran has become old news?
Not at all.
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