Education – Ethnography.com

“Certain esoteric rites” for The Ethnographer

Posted on January 19, 2019April 3, 2022 by Christina Lauren Quigley

There need be no explanation for most occupations– but ethnographer? At least one of Argentina’s beloved poets would not have asked what I do if we’d met at a cocktail party, so I’d told him I was an ethnographer. It’s 1969, an assortment of olives and cheese crumbles between us, I swirl my dram glass nervously, to be conversing with the great Jorge Luis Borges, who seems to perceive the troubling nakedness under Ethnography’s cloak of neat dichotomies, authoritative conclusions, and its lone hero.…

We’ve Always Done It This Way

Posted on February 1, 2016February 2, 2016 by Julie Garza-Withers

I wrote the post below during my last semester as an adjunct instructor at a rural community college. I resurrect it here because Warren Waren over at Racism Review just published “Institutional Racism: Comparing Oscar Nominations with Higher Education Faculty.” It’s a must-read, especially for anti-racist White academics serving on hiring committees, as faculty and EEO representatives at PWIs (Predominantly White Institutions). Inspired by the recent hashtag campaigns #OscarsSoWhite and #OscarsStillSoWhite, Waren draws deft comparison between the Oscars academy (94% white) and academe (“15% of the enrolled student population at America’s colleges, but only 5.5% of all full-time faculty are black.”).

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Me & Tony Talk About the Corporatization of Higher Ed on Facebook

Posted on December 26, 2015January 31, 2016 by Julie Garza-Withers

I like the “On this day” app on facebook. I don’t teach anymore but I’m reminded of things I taught or read and what I thought about them, it’s good to reflect now that I’m an official “post-ac” (that’s a former academic, mostly adjuncts, who got fed up with the b.s. and left academia for greener pastures).

In today’s facebook feed I was reminded of an article I read in 2010, “What do we mean by leadership in an academic institution?”…

Student Housing and Ethnic Segregation at Chico State

Posted on November 5, 2015November 5, 2015 by Tony Waters

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).…

The Fallacy of “Workforce Ready” in Public Education

Posted on October 17, 2015October 19, 2015 by Tony Waters

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.…

The Problem With “Teaching Like You Do in America” While Abroad

Posted on October 3, 2015October 3, 2015 by Tony Waters

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!

Posted on October 1, 2015October 1, 2015 by Tony Waters

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!…

It’s Not How Many Times You Fall….

Posted on September 27, 2015September 28, 2015 by Marianne Paiva

I began writing my dissertation in 2003 or so. My first year in graduate school at Kansas State University, I had the good fortune of enrolling in Dr. Robert K. Schaeffer’s graduate Social Change course. When Dr. Schaeffer assigned the requisite term paper due in every graduate level course I have ever taken, he gave me the best advice I could get: every paper you write in your classes should in some way contribute to your dissertation.…

Civility is Why Administrators are Paid the Big Bucks!

Posted on September 16, 2015September 16, 2015 by Tony Waters

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.…

Shared Governance or Managed Dissent at Chico State?

Posted on September 4, 2015February 24, 2016 by Julie Garza-Withers

The demand for civility effectively outlaws a range of intellectual, literary, and political forms; satire is not civil, caricature is not civil, hyperbole and aesthetic mockery are not civil nor is polemic. Ultimately, the call for civility is a demand that you not express anger; and if it was enforced it would suggest that there is nothing to be angry about in the world.” –Michael Meranze

Finding parking near Chico State is a pain in the ass.…

Who is the Greater Threat to Reading in the Academy? Aggrieved Students, or Budget-cutting Administrators?

Posted on August 31, 2015August 30, 2015 by Tony Waters

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.”…

The Tattooed Professor Has Some New Year’s Resolutions for Academics

Posted on August 26, 2015February 24, 2016 by Julie Garza-Withers

The Tattooed Professor (AKA Kevin Gannon) has some New Year’s resolutions for academics and they’re so good, we wanted to tell you about it. We like the Tattooed Professor here at e.com, we think he’s cool and provocative; I like him because he is direct, something we working class people value. This time, the Tattooed Prof offers some kind words for you professors beginning your academic year. He wants you to be mindful and committed to a “better academe” because lord knows, higher education is fraught at the moment.…