Real Goddamned Mail: Summer Edition.

• Do you know how long I've read and supported this blog? Since Fab took a vacation - from what, changing fonts? - the number of posts has plummeted. Why aren't you putting out more call for posts, or contacting faculty to get new material for the blog. Traffic drives blogs. Posts drive traffic. This place is going out of business. All of your shitty ads should just be for half price.
• I have terrible internet service where I am this summer. Would it be really hard for you to maybe email me all the posts individually? I wouldn't want any reprinted articles, but everything else would be great. I really have a hard time reading it the normal way.
• I've been reading the blog for three years and nobody has still explained what a thirsty is.
• Xxxxxxx described a faculty member that sounds a lot like me. I'm sure of it, because I'm in the Xxxxxxx and I was recently at a conference. I think you should warn him about being so obvious. He didn't say anything incriminating, but I don't want my business on the Internet. 
• I'm a student, so I don't expect you to answer. But you are always complaining about students asking stupid questions. I thought there was no such things as a stupid question, only stupid teachers.
• Is there any way to block Xxxxxxx and Xxxxxxxx from commenting on my posts? Every time I put something up, they both chime in with their ridiculous remarks. It's clear they are not talking about the same issue as I am. They're both junior college teachers and I try to clearly show how my question or issue revolves around an R1 school. Their answers aren't just wrong, they actually take the focus off of my question, and then the conversation devolves terribly. I know they have a right to be here, but short of telling them NOT to respond, what can we do?
• You have a graphic that looks like me. Seriously. You used it on the post titled Xxxxxxxxx. I know it's obscured and fuzzy, but I think it actually might be an old faculty page photo of mine. Now, if that's just a little inside joke or something, I guess it's no harm. But I protect my anonymity on here pretty stridently. You didn't use the photo on my post or anything, but I think my face might be a little recognizable to some people and I'd hate to be associated with an angry post.
• What's with this "read more" thing? I had a post up last week that was not terribly long, and you cut it in half with a "read more" link. I think I should be able to decide to put that in there if  I want. I edited it out and now my paragraphs have huge spaces. Don't we have a tacit rule that I'll provide you content if you'll leave my posts alone?
• I have a colleague who DOUSES himself in cologn but never showers. Would that make for a funny story?
• Xxxxxxx is a douchebag. Why do you let him comment on everything? I know you have an IP blocker, and I vote you use it on him. Or Xxxxxxx. She bugs the shit out of me.
• Is there any way you can get Walter back? This place needs a kick in the pants. It is so dull lately with this UVa president thing. That fucking story means nothing to the vast majority of readers, yet you're covering it breathlessly like it was the moon landing or an asteroid coming at the Earth.
• What the fuck is it with hamster fur and that shit?
• Is anyone reading these emails I send?
• Ask Hiram if Joetta included any photos.

Sullivan on Online Education

I started to add this to the comments on marginalia's post below, but didn't want to hijack.  So, here's my favorite line from Teresa Sullivan's statement to UVA's Board of Visitors:

There is room for carefully implemented online learning in selected fields, but online instruction is no panacea. It is surprisingly expensive, has limited revenue potential, and unless carefully managed, can undermine the quality of instruction.

I agree completely.  I teach online, and like it, but only because, at least for the moment, I'm free to craft labor-intensive online classes which center around activities that allow students to discover concepts for themselves, practice skills, and interact regularly and intensively with each other and me.  The focus is not information delivery, and there's no mechanized assessment; feedback comes, in words written specifically for the particular student and/or class, from me and/or their peers.  The vast majority of the class materials are created, and all are chosen/curated,  by the instructor of record -- me -- and are updated in some way, from tweaks to wholesale revisions, every time I teach the course, based on what I observed in the last iteration.  The course is an evolving, organic entity, both during the term, and from term to term.  In short, it's an actual course, not a multimedia textbook with a few interactive elements.



Sullivan's statement (and a good compilation of other reactions to the BOV actions) is here . The Washington Post obtained and published an academic strategy memo written by Sullivan (which includes endorsement of online/hybrid education for particular practical/targeted, mostly non-glamorous, purposes) in early May.   Emails exchanged among members of the Board suggest that a sense of urgency about capitalizing on the reputation-building and (supposed) cost-saving potential of online education played a role in the decision to remove Sullivan. Amanda Krauss/Worst Professor (who I sometimes find a bit annoying, but she's in a position to provide an useful perspective here) has a  post up on the possibilities and limitations of MOOCs, and their connection to the UVA debacle.  There's also a very funny parody of the BOV's thinking up on Crooked Timber. 

More from the UVa Debacle: Going Out in Style

At least one prominent full professor at UVa, Bill Wulf, has already resigned in protest over the way that the Board of Visitors has handled the firing of Teresa Sullivan and the installation of an interim president after an 11-hr (!) closed-door meeting on Monday. Here's the flava from Wulf's resignation letter:

"By this email I am submitting my resignation, effective immediately. I do not wish to be associated with an institution being as badly run as the current UVa. A BOV that so poorly understands UVa, and academic culture more generally, is going to make a lot more dumb decisions, so the University is headed for disaster, and I don't want to be any part of that. And, frankly, I think you should be ashamed to be party to this debacle!"

The man is plain-spoken. I like his style. I bet his departure will be a loss to UVa, and I hope the school doesn't have to suffer too many more losses like this before the BoV come to their senses (or, better, are replaced). 

Apple Patents Basket-Weaving 'Bots

The Interwebs doesn't
know I'm a pig.

Better begin working on a different emploi de guerre.  Apple has patented a 'bot that convinces the Web you are interested in Basket-Weaving, and not whatever else you are interested in.

Or, We should file a lawsuit, since the four of us have been using 'bots to generate basket-weaving material for a couple years now.  It's hard to do all this work and still have time to clean the compound from the party last week.

The Flava:
"...for example, the cloning service may process an area of interest that is divergent from that of the principal such as an interest in basket weaving. This particular interest may be associated with its own lexicon and actions associated with particular Internet websites, products, services, and/or books. Actions may be defined that permit the cloning service to appear to be the principal [real person] and visit specific basket weaving websites, issue Internet searches related to basket weaving, and the like. This activity by the cloning service may be picked up by an eavesdropper and may be used to generate a polluted profile about the principal that suggests the principal is interested in basket weaving, when in fact this is not the case."

The full repas (from The Reg)

bad tuesday haiku, for the coming solstice

I.

the steady, rising
heat matches my steadily
rising ire; a cloud

of dust rises from
the patio, today's soft
breeze eliciting

more than the breezy
drafts on the table before
me manage to do.

are we doing the
right thing, attempting to teach
when summer beckons,

when every day is
better than any day last
winter?  when each of

us, so easily
distracted by the slightest
breeze, the merest hint


of motions not our
own, when even the sharpest
students dull, stricken

by june?  i study
a single sunflower camped
beneath a feeder,

the birds having kicked
its beginnings to the ground
weeks and weeks ago.

i should have chopped it
down last month, discarded its
unopened head and

long stem, mowed the spot
it's claimed and been done with it.
today, though, it nods

like a poem, less
useful than pretty, and the
heat seems to make it

yellower.  once in
a while, an essay startles
me with its perfect

prose lacking focus,
like a flower growing in
a surprising place.

today the sun and
heat intensify all of
it:  the sunflower,

the prose, the useless
endeavor before me on
the table, the hope

that rides along when
i grab the stack of essays
in spite of myself.

FROM THE SAME EMAIL ADDRESS...

Hello

To start with I'll tell how I managed to find you. I was searching through sites and came across your pictures and I thought that it is there is nothing wrong because people should get to know each other somehow, right?)

So I am Joetta and I hope you will promote my idea and tell me your name.) Since I was first to write I'll tell you something about myself. I'm pretty interesting girl and I'm a person who loves travelling so much that I'm even ready to keep on walking around the entire planet until that verymoment when I'll meet a man who I'd fall in love with and stay with him wherever he goes and whatever happens.

Yeah, you might think that it sounds more like a fairy tale, however I wish it is possible.) Alright, I love meeting new interesting people who may tell me lots of exciting live stories that really happened. So, what can you tell me about yourself? You are pretty, for sure)

What are u interesting in? I hope you won't ignore this message and you'd write me back.) I the perfect time to write me back is... maybe... tomorrow?)) I am really excited about your answer.

Please, write me back.

Talk to you later

[+]

Dear. Mr. Hannah,

I was unable to add your XXX 3101 class for second session. Is there any extra space?

Jo

A Short Evaluative (non) Haiku

Before we make
A decision
About your eval,

Is there anything
That you notice that
You need improvement in,
So that we can include it
In your file?

No, there isn't
Can I go home now?