Today is the first day of Fall Semester classes at my institution, and the heralded the return of professors needing their LCD projectors activated for their classes and students desperately scrambling about the campus in near futile efforts to arrive at their classes on time. The summer was slow, but today is a stark reminder of the nature of the regular academic session.
I find myself reflecting on the nature of librarianship as we serve as the stewards of the university's knowledge systems. We maintain the very systems that allow for other scholars to conduct their work and we preserve that knowledge once it has been "found." It is a noteworthy shame that so many of our colleagues do not collaborate with us more in the educational endeavors of higher education. We librarians can do much to facilitate student success BESIDES finding books on shelves. We are the stewards of knowledge and as such know the best ways to access it.
As always, the first day back is a busy, but it is a busy that we do not mind as we librarians have returned to what we do best - helping others with their information and knowledge needs. It is far more preferable to being in committee meetings under the weight of university bureaucracy, perhaps one the last vestiges of feudalism in the known world.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Mediocrity and the Road Most Taken
It occurred to me in the past few months that many institutions of higher learning operate under a culture of mediocrity. Now I am not going to be pointing any fingers, but it is not hard to tell which institutions are included in this general criteria. One may even be the place you are in now...
I came upon this notion after the results of my last annual evaluation, one in which I scored rather high. The fact that I scored high did not result a call for congratulation by the administration, but instead raised a red-flag in that I did score high in the face of the majority that scored average. It was explained to me by my director that if a supervisor turns in an evaluation that exceeds the basic average, the administration frowns and demands written proof of why such an evaluation has been written. Such written proof was provided in the forms of e-mails and unsolicited faculty letters heaping laud on my work.
Later, my director explained the mechanics of the evaluations. She said that administration expected everyone to score average, and score average, you just have to show up to work and just basically do a minimal effort at you job!! Those people that exceed the average must prove why as this in turn makes everyone else look bad.
A culture of mediocrity.... Just what we need for the status quo to remained unchanged and progress to be limited.
I came upon this notion after the results of my last annual evaluation, one in which I scored rather high. The fact that I scored high did not result a call for congratulation by the administration, but instead raised a red-flag in that I did score high in the face of the majority that scored average. It was explained to me by my director that if a supervisor turns in an evaluation that exceeds the basic average, the administration frowns and demands written proof of why such an evaluation has been written. Such written proof was provided in the forms of e-mails and unsolicited faculty letters heaping laud on my work.
Later, my director explained the mechanics of the evaluations. She said that administration expected everyone to score average, and score average, you just have to show up to work and just basically do a minimal effort at you job!! Those people that exceed the average must prove why as this in turn makes everyone else look bad.
A culture of mediocrity.... Just what we need for the status quo to remained unchanged and progress to be limited.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Road to Employment....
My Director asked today, "Have you read any of the Chronicle?" No, I say. "Well, you need to read this article. It's about why NOT to go to humanities grad school." Her exact words I can't recall, but you get the idea.
So, off I go reading this article. (By the way, you can find it here and it worth every second of your time to read.) I said to myself as I read the article, "This was me like five years ago!" Unbelievable! I was a star-struck grad student working on my masters in history with great aspirations of getting my Ph.D. and becoming a professor. So, when the first go around of applications I sent out came back, it was nearly a unanimous NO, aside from one acceptance with NO FUNDING. I was extremely distraught!
By this time I had secured a full time job with with a state institution (I have been full time temporary for years) and this opened the door to free education. So, I bided my time by going to Archival Science school and waited for the next application season to begin. Ha! I got in another Ph.D. program, but with NO FUNDING!! Some decisions had to be made.
First, I got a whole ton of rental information mailed to me about where I was potentially going to live. Not good - way expensive. In addition, the first realization that I would NEVER find a job entered my mind. "What if I spend like 50 to 75 thousand for a degree and never get a job in like 10 years?" Something was wrong with that equation. Lucky for me, I had a Plan B.
Plan B was library science school. I had been working in a library for years at this point and applied to library school on a whim. I got in! I called them and ask if I could defer my admission one year and they said yes! Well, that year was up and I needed to get in, so I went to library school. Librarianship was my second career choice, but it was almost a certain bet that I would get a job upon graduation....within six months of graduation anway. (Took me three, actually.)
So, here I am, the cynical librarian that you see before you now! Grad school in the humanities was a course for self-destruction, a collision course with a moon, so to speak, and I was able to divert my flight path in time to avoid oblivion. I still consider myself an historian as much as I do a librarian, though there will never be a time when I will be history professor it seems.
Universities are too much about vocations and not about knowledge and the love of learning anymore, hence the decline of the humanities. I am glad I changed course when I did because being a librarian is a great job...a job with benefits...and not just an adjunct posting.
So, off I go reading this article. (By the way, you can find it here and it worth every second of your time to read.) I said to myself as I read the article, "This was me like five years ago!" Unbelievable! I was a star-struck grad student working on my masters in history with great aspirations of getting my Ph.D. and becoming a professor. So, when the first go around of applications I sent out came back, it was nearly a unanimous NO, aside from one acceptance with NO FUNDING. I was extremely distraught!
By this time I had secured a full time job with with a state institution (I have been full time temporary for years) and this opened the door to free education. So, I bided my time by going to Archival Science school and waited for the next application season to begin. Ha! I got in another Ph.D. program, but with NO FUNDING!! Some decisions had to be made.
First, I got a whole ton of rental information mailed to me about where I was potentially going to live. Not good - way expensive. In addition, the first realization that I would NEVER find a job entered my mind. "What if I spend like 50 to 75 thousand for a degree and never get a job in like 10 years?" Something was wrong with that equation. Lucky for me, I had a Plan B.
Plan B was library science school. I had been working in a library for years at this point and applied to library school on a whim. I got in! I called them and ask if I could defer my admission one year and they said yes! Well, that year was up and I needed to get in, so I went to library school. Librarianship was my second career choice, but it was almost a certain bet that I would get a job upon graduation....within six months of graduation anway. (Took me three, actually.)
So, here I am, the cynical librarian that you see before you now! Grad school in the humanities was a course for self-destruction, a collision course with a moon, so to speak, and I was able to divert my flight path in time to avoid oblivion. I still consider myself an historian as much as I do a librarian, though there will never be a time when I will be history professor it seems.
Universities are too much about vocations and not about knowledge and the love of learning anymore, hence the decline of the humanities. I am glad I changed course when I did because being a librarian is a great job...a job with benefits...and not just an adjunct posting.
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