This is a rather odd post for a blog which typically addresses national and international issues. This blog is about my own university, Chico State, in California, which has worked very hard to qualify for federal money to be a “Hispanic Serving Institution.” This is a good thing, as California is rapidly changing ethnic composition as California has always done in the last 200 years. The idea is that Chico State will get extra money if it can attract and serve at least 25% full time “Hispanic” students (in California this typically means students who have a family history in Mexico, or Central America who are typically referred to as Chicano or Latino).…
Category: Blogs by Tony
The Fallacy of “Workforce Ready” in Public Education
The United States was set back on its heels in the 1930s by the Great Depression. As a result, the United States charged the high schools with making the children “workforce ready.” The hope was that the schools could train children for the workforce of tomorrow—i.e. the 1940s—when the manufacturing base of the United States would be revitalized, and prosperity would return. I this context, children were kept in school longer (and out of the workforce), with the idea that they would be able to recreate the successful societies that the planners knew—the cities of the pre-Depression 1920s.…
Here is Why You Should Not Listen to Popular Music–But Will Anyway!
One of my favorite sociological essays is Teodor Adorno’s 1941 “On Popular Music.” Adorno didn’t much like the popular music he heard on the radio in Los Angeles, and said so. He found it simplistic, monotonous, limited and manipulative. With an emphasis on manipulative. For besides being a classically trained musician, Adorno was also a leading critic of capitalism, and especially its need for endless consumption so that large corporations could generate profits.…
The Problem With “Teaching Like You Do in America” While Abroad
What are the limits to globalization? Does it apply to the university systems of the world, or is one university system just about the same as every other?
My experience is that at least for sociology, it is not “always just the same. I have taught abroad in Tanzania and Germany, and in each place, I ran up against different cultural expectations about what a university education involves. Recently, Palgrave Communications published my article explaining why it is in fact difficult to teach abroad.…
More Drama at Chico State: Bullies, Bullying, Administrative Power, Incivility, Cheese Cubes, and Cookies!
The meeting about shared governance at Chico State that Julie attended and reported on here at Ethnography.com “Shared Governance or Managed Dissent,” in the form of a letter from California State University Chancellor Timothy White has run into a brick wall. The dispute has turned into an argument over the meaning of the word “civility,” and almost incidentally, the nature of bullying.Not a good frame work for addressing problems raised by the Academic Senate!…
Civility is Why Administrators are Paid the Big Bucks!
The other day, Julie wrote “Shared Governance or Managed Dissent at Chico State.” This is of course a local story for those of us writing at Ethnography.com but perhaps other places can learn something from the turmoil that Chico State is going through.
Her description of the academic Senate meeting is about how adminstrators tried to manage restive faculty and staff, by asking them for civility in the interest of unity.…
Globalization and Mlitary Honor: The Dedication of a Statue of the Hmong General Vang Pao in California
I stopped by the dedication of the new statue of the Hmong General Vang Pao at the Chico City Hall near my university on Saturday. General Vang Pao led the Hmong forces which were allied with the United States during the “Secret War” that the CIA conducted in the country of Laos between about 1960 and 1975. Several hundred thousand Lao Hmong were brought to the United States between 1975 and about 1995 in acknowledgment of their status of as American allies during the Secret War.”…
Is There Humor Hiding in the Translations of Bourdieu or Weber?
There’s an interesting discussion about how to translate Bourdieu from French to English at the Scatterplot blog. In English at least (I don’t read French), the translations of Bourdieu often seem circular and confusing. What Steve Valsey seems to be asking is, is this really necessary? His answer is no, and he offers a translation of Bourdieu’s definition of habitus in more “standard” English. As one of he commenters on the blog notes, similar questions can be asked of Bible translators.…
One Year After the Death of Marc Thompson
One year ago today, Marc Thompson, Chico, California area activist, student of sociology, was found murdered in a burning car in a remote area outside the small town of Oroville, California where he had grown up. The murder shocked and saddened the many people who knew and loved Marc in the area. The story is here.
Among the many shocked and saddened was Julie Withers who blogs here.…
Who is the Greater Threat to Reading in the Academy? Aggrieved Students, or Budget-cutting Administrators?
Aggrieved students find books dangerous; neoliberal administrators say they’re useless. I’d take the former any day
Corey Robin is a political science department chair from New York. He finds that bottom-line focused higher education administrators to be a greater risk to an educated society than aggrieved students. He has a provocative essay in Salon “Higher Education’s Real Censors What We’re Missing in the Debate over Trigger Warnings and Coddled Students.”…
Basic Human Decency and Death by Hanging in Britain’s Colonies
Every once in awhile, I’ll revisit George Orwell. Last week it was for “Shooting an Elephant,” when I lectured here in Thailand about the nature of ethics and state/political power. The essay is great for teaching about the nature of state power, in this case using 1920s Burma where Orwell himself served as a British colonial police officer for several years.
But shooting rogue elephants peacefully eating by the side of the road was not the only thing that Orwell wrote about, or was called to do.…
How are the Minds of PhD Students “Disciplined” by Graduate School?
Thinking about getting a PhD? Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt is the book to read. Already getting a PhD, ditto. Already have a PhD? You should also read this book, even though it was published way back in 2000, and relies on data from the 1980s and 1990s. It applies to today as well—little has changed. What is more, it gives an insight not only to how graduate schools seeks to shape and discipline a conservative cadre of future professors, the principles can also be applied to the pursuit of tenure for people who have made it that far.…