A Return to School...

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.

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.

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.

Higher Education an Entitlement? Ha!

While watching the presidential debate last night, it occurred to me that both candidates support an education idea that is slowing brining this nation to ruin - the idea that higher education should be available for all. This is total nonsense.

Once, the United States represented the zenith of industrial achievement, both in terms of industrial output and the wealth of knowledge created by skilled labor. Such is not the case any longer as the frivolous idea of everyone being able to go to college has eroded our industrial base. No longer do people want to learn a skilled trade and enter industry - they want their worthless MBAs or accounting degrees. They want their computer science degrees and masters of arts in the humanities. While all these are well and good, if everyone has them, who the hell does the damned work in the industrial sectors? Once, those degrees meant something as a sign of status and elitism, but if everyone has one, that levels the field. No wonder bachelors degrees are viewed as near-worthless documents.

This nation has been transformed from a skilled labor nation to a service nation. Without heavy industry, this nation is doomed, and the idea that everyone can go to college is destroying this nation! The middle-class quest for education is ruining this state! One reason factories are shipped overseas is because people don't want to work there any more! When parents tell their children they are going to college to get an education (more like a vocation) so they don't have to work in the factory like they did, it is no wonder the work ethic of the United States has been brought down!

Higher education is NOT an entitlement. When it is, what will there be left?

Education for All?

I was reminded of my last letter to the editor last night as I wrote again to the editor of the local newspaper. Back then I was living in Tennessee and I argued for the creation of a state lottery. The lottery was designed to provide higher education access to students that would otherwise not be able to afford it. A lofty dream then when I was a graduate student in history; now, having spent considerable time on the "other side" of the desk as a professor, I see the complete error of that opinion.

Higher education should not be for all. Some people are not cut out to go to university and have no business being there. The results of lottery-financed students are the watering down of education, overcrowding of classrooms, over taxation of already strained teaching faculty, and worst of all, the erosion of the ideals of enlightened thought! Our universities (the ones that are glutted with lottery-financed students) have become breeding grounds for mediocrity!!

Some people were not meant for college...period. Vocational jobs require workers as well and the delusion that someone of substandard ability can achieve in a university classroom is wholly without merit while they could succeed in other, less academically challenging, environments. Call me an elitist if you will, but universities are symbolic of the elite. They have been for millennia!!

I say take lottery money and put it to use in the universities by increasing staff and faculty wages, buying new resources and equipment, and expanding areas of study. The last thing needed are more substandard students clogging the hallowed hallways of learning.

Faculty and Librarian Collaboration?

The grand failure of librarian/faculty collaboration in my institution has come to fruition at last! Of late, an English instructor has given out an assignment that requires students to cite at least three critical essays about an author's play in their paper. Of four given plays, my library and its extended resources can only provide information on three of them. Student's come to me day in and out seeking information about the one play for which there is no information, save one article. This is my lot...

If only the instructor had bothered to consult with us on the assignment, we could have avoided this dreadful situation. But alas, after years of repeated attempts to gain access to assignments before hand, we still have nothing. Students come to the library seeking information that cannot be provided for assignments that cannot be completed.

We are not sure what the problem is with faculty not wishing to share their assignments with us before they are given out. Is it that it will indicate their ignorance of what is actually available in the library? Perhaps, but it certainly would save them the trouble of having students say that they cannot find enough sources because there is nothing available!

Academic Hiring...

Last week I had the opportunity to observe the presentations of several candidates that were being interviewed to fill the newly created position of Coordinate of the Writing and Learning Center. Let me tell you about my experiences.

First, in typical academic administrator fashion, the announcement that everyone was welcome to attend the first presentation was made at 10am when the candidate was presenting at 10am. It seemed to me that the admins did not want anyone coming. So, I missed the first person. However, I was able to make the others.

No keep in mind, these people were interviewing to lead a new Learning Commons system and none but ONE actually talked about it! It was quite odd. Finally, the last person seemed to have a vision of what to do, had the desire to do it, and was not only my pick, but also the director's choice.

Ultimately, the search committee picked the first person because she was "doctorally prepared," but had never had a real job outside of being a teaching assistant while in grad school! And she is going to be the Coordinator of the entire Writing and Learning Center?

This proves beyond all doubt that degrees count more than experience in academic settings. Now don't get me wrong - I understand the value of degrees, but experience MUST count for something. Knowing how to apply that degree is also valuable.

What a world...