This is the letter I sent to all my undergrads enrolled in my course this fall.

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Dear EDU 110 Students:

Welcome to EDU 110.  I hope you’re all looking forward to this class and a great fall quarter.  I know I am.  I’m excited to meet all of you.

You may have heard about the UC-wide walkout this Thursday 9/24, which is our first day of class.  The walkout is to protest a number of developments that result in a lower-quality experience for all of us:  higher student fees, staff and instructor layoffs, program cuts, faculty furloughs, and a general lack of responsiveness to how the UC is supposed to work by both the California State Legistlature and the UC Office of the President.  All of this while both positions and salary levels for top administrators have been skyrocketing.

Our first class meets at noon on Thursday, the exact same time as a Walkout Rally begins in the Quad on our campus.  UC campuses across the state will be holding rallies at the same time.  Due to the need for as many people to show up to the rally as possible (media coverage will be there), we will hold class for 10 minutes, just to pass out the syllabus and say hi to all of you.  Then your TAs and I will invite as many of you as want to come with us to go together to the Rally in the Quad.  If you want to go straight to the Rally at noon and not come to class, that’s okay too.  You can download the syllabus from Smartsite, under “Resources”.  Class will resume normally with a full introduction to the course, going over the syllabus, course policies, first lecture, etc on Tuesday the 29th.

The Chancellor, the Provost, various other administrators, and even media outlets have tried to portray this upcoming event as faculty striking against students by not teaching classes.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Yes, my salary is being cut, and I’m angry about it.  But mostly, I feel bad for you.  As students you are asked to pay more for less.  Courses are being cut, class sizes are increasing, faculty are cranky from being over-worked and under-paid, and you’re getting stuck with the bill.

This isn’t fair, and I know how you feel.  When I was a UC undergrad (I went to Irvine 1990-1994), fees more than doubled from the time I started as a freshman until I graduated four years later.  Financial aid didn’t keep pace with the increases, and I almost had to drop out.  If things don’t change now, fees for you will go up approximately 30% by next fall.  I don’t want you to have the same kind of stress that I did, year after year, worrying about how you and your family can possibly pay for this.

So, please, don’t listen to administrators who are trying to pit students against faculty.  This isn’t true of my colleagues, and it certainly isn’t true for me.  I love my job, I love teaching, and I care deeply about all of you.  Divide and conquer is a strategy that will only work if we allow ourselves to be divided.  This Walkout is a thing we are all doing together.

If you choose to come to class to say hi and pick up the syllabus, I will see you on Thursday.  If you want to go straight to the Walkout Rally at noon, I will see you on Tuesday.  Regardless, it will be a great course.

Warmly,

Professor Ching

I have made my peace with the fact that people go camping for very different reasons.  Some people go camping to connect with nature and their families, experience peace and quiet, get exercise in the form of hiking/kayaking/etc, and to immerse themselves in natural beauty.  Other people go camping to spend however many days partying, drinking, playing loud music at all hours, and making a huge mess.  The problem arises when people with these vastly different goals end up camping within close proximity to one another, particularly in bear country, as we experienced this past week. We had a very dramatic bear incident, and it was entirely due to the negligence of fellow campers.

So, note to campers:

(1) Bear lockers are there for a reason.  Put any and all of your food, or anything else that bears might think is food, in the bear locker.   I know that this takes a little more responsibility than you might want to have while camping (if you belong to that second group), but for the general safety of yourself and everyone around you, suck it up already.

(2) Given the importance of putting all your food in the bear locker, it’s a good idea not to get so falling-down-drunk that you can’t keep track of what you’ve put away and what you haven’t.  It’s really fairly counterproductive to drunkenly put away your cooler but leave your (full) garbage bag out!

(3) When the very persistent bear who found your garbage bag the night before returns the following evening while everyone is still out and about, and tries to make his way through your neighbors’ campsite to get to yours, don’t just sit back and guffaw, “A bear?  Where?  Hey, there’s a bear over there!  Huh huh huh huh!!” This is rude and unhelpful, particularly while said neighbors are scrambling to get their small children into the car where they might be safe.

There were two upsides of this harrowing adventure, however, one of which is that both the kids were so impressed by the Park Ranger who eventually showed up to chase away the bear, that they have now decided on Forestry and Park Service as their future careers.  The other is that KC got to be Honorary Junior Ranger, when, of all the adults milling around and staring at the bear, the burly Park Ranger picked KC to follow him with the flashlight while chasing the bear up the hill, wielding a slingshot and yelling “Go Bear! Go Bear!” at the top of his lungs.  When KC later asked me why the ranger thought he was the mostly likely candidate, there were a variety of answers I could have chosen:

(a) You were obviously the bravest, most intrepid, and most capable person there.

(b) You were the only man in the immediate area with small children, and thus were likely motivated by the desire to do whatever you could to avoid them being eaten.

(c) Given that many of the rest of the adults standing around were foreign tourists saying some form of “Oooo! Bear!” in other languages, you were the one mostly likely to understand English and be able to follow directions.

The correct answer is A, of course.  Ahem.

Other than the bear incident, it was a nice trip.  And we all have a great story to tell.

But seriously, people, use the damn bear lockers.

This weekend I got asked to be on the opening panel at the conference we hosted here, Computers and Writing 2009.  The conference theme was Ubiquitous Computing, and the majority of the people in the field study technology use in writing classes in higher education (although there are some more broad themes).  So I was supposed to be representing “The K-12 Perspective.”  Kind of a tall order for five minutes.

But, interestingly enough, I think that the thoughts I threw together the night before (yes, literally.  grad students, do as I say, not as I do…) managed to do a good job of describing the things I really care about right now and am working on.  So here it is.

When I was young and growing up in So Cal, my mother used to subscribe to Sunset Magazine. Every month it would come, presenting a treasure trove of modern light-filled interiors, Mediterranean meals served outdoors, gardens, relaxing covered patios, and swimming pools. So each month I’d wait until my mother had clipped whatever recipes she wanted, and then I’d snatch the issues and study the pages like a map to the future I wanted for myself, folding the page corners and storing them away in my mind. Some teenage girls are obsessed with Bride’s Magazine, I was obsessed with Sunset.

And now, twenty or so years later, after a great deal of frustration and angst, failing at and/or pulling out of one house-buying scenario after another, we finally have a deal on a house that comes pretty darn close to my adolescent fantasies. Escrow closes and we move in next month. Welcome to my California Dream:

Front of House (ignore the ugly trailer in the carport--it's not staying)

Living room with sliders

Living room different angle

Covered patio and pool!

Another pool picture (because you can't have just one)

My whole life I’ve wanted to own a house with a pool and a covered patio with ample space for outdoor dining and entertaining. And, for anyone reading who was familiar with the house we owned in Illinois, this one has that same hip mid-century modern vibe too. I feel as though I’ve somehow gotten so much of what I wanted as a girl, and that I’ve regained a large piece of what we loved and left behind two years ago to come out here.

Stay tuned for pictures of what it looks like with furniture inside, pictures of kids playing in the pool, party pictures, etc. Oh, and my better half would want me to say that there will also likely be many pictures of us both covered in dust/dirt/paint/etc from gardening and home improvement projects. I can’t wait.

People often ask me how the university, and my department in general, is being hit by the budget crisis. I think people assume that because tenure-track academics tend to have more job security than other careers (although various Assistant Professors I know who are scared to death it’s going to be really hard to get tenure now would argue with me), that we aren’t being hit.

Well, we are. Like in any other sector of the economy, we’re being asked to do more with less. Bigger class sizes, fewer buyouts, less travel, less discretionary spending, higher expenses for just about everything. Most new construction on campus, except for those that have endowment funding, has been halted. Most new hires have also been frozen, and the ones that were previously guaranteed and are going forward this year are taking on this bizarre new tone, wherein people are fighting over the positions like packs of wild dogs.

Everyone wants to see their own field of influence grow, and everyone wants more colleagues to play with (and to take some of the load off their own shoulders). I’m certainly guilty of this kind of wishful thinking myself. But you know there’s trouble when every search you hear about on campus has people describing their co-workers as less friendly and more like this:

Would you like to see this face sitting across from you at a faculty meeting? Everyone’s feeling the crunch of scarce resources, and I think the search I’m involved with personally has been pretty civil, so far. But the year isn’t over yet. I wonder how much fuzzy fur I’ll see sticking out from under the regalia at graduation this year.

We’re sick of renting, and we’re looking into buying a house again. (Didn’t we do this last year?) But “sick of renting” is not exactly the best reason. Stuff is cheaper now, but what if it gets cheaper still? What really concerns me is if anything we buy will hold value. So if anyone out there has a crystal ball or something that can see into the future and let me know if the housing market has really bottomed out, I’d appreciate it. Oh, and the folks in Washington DC might also like to know. But you can tell me first.

Students in my grad class and constructivist education colleague-type people will find this hilarious. Everyone else is probably saying “wtf?” It’s okay. Picture a bunch of really geeky people laughing out loud, then go visit the failblog (warning: occasionally nsfw), and I’m sure you’ll find something there that will make you laugh too.

Scaffolding Fail

A few people have asked me what is up with my blog (or lack thereof, actually). The short answer is that Winter Quarter sucks. The long answer is also that Winter Quarter sucks, but I’ll elaborate.

I’m teaching a 90-student undergraduate class right now (Educational Psychology: Learning, Human Development, and Schools). I actually like it very much. Undergrads at my current university seem so much more earnest and engaged than where I was before. But it also satisfies a writing requirement and a GE, so there are certain workload issues that I can’t change. I have two TAs, who are both awesome, but I can’t exactly offload everything on to them.

I’m also teaching a graduate seminar on Collaborative Learning, which is pretty much one of the things I’m known for, so I can’t slack on that either. I’ve gotten so many great mentoring relationships out of that class from teaching it last year, so I definitely want that to continue with this year’s group. Faculty are only as good as their grad students.

I’m also the Director of Undergraduate Programs, a position that started last summer. We have an undergraduate minor in the School of Education that I’m in charge of. Some of what I spend my time doing has to do with curriculum design, vision for the future, student welfare, instructional quality, and TA development, and I like all of that. But I also have to deal with resource management (particularly fun now with the budget crisis), hiring and reappointment (or not, again thanks to funding cuts), committee meetings, course scheduling, enrollment targets, etc, and those are the things that make my hair stand on end. Administration in academia is sometimes thought of as the Dark Side of The Force. I’m feeling distinctly shades-of-grey at this point.

I’m also Chair of the Faculty this year. This is a rotating service job that I agreed to take on before I got offered the Undergrad Director position, and I said (foolishly) that I’d do both. It might be easy enough to just convene the occasional meeting and call for a few votes here and there, but there are actually some big issues we’re dealing with this year involving faculty welfare and shared governance, so I can’t really phone in that job either.

And as if all that weren’t enough, I’m also chairing a dissertation, chairing a masters thesis, trying to edit a book and a journal special issue, and trying to write three articles (all three of which seem to get pushed to the back of the line on a regular basis).

I used to say that I was “just keeping my head above water” when I got really swamped. This quarter, I feel like my head is completely underwater, and I barely manage to bob up every once in a while for the tiny second it takes to gasp a breath so I don’t die. There are only three more weeks left in this quarter, so I’m holding my breath for Spring Break. The blog will be back, but not until I have time to think meaningfully about anything other than how behind I am.

This year my New Year’s resolutions are as follows:

(1) Lose 15 pounds. Ideally by summer.

(2) Compost. A trip to the Smith & Hawken in Roseville to pick up this little number is definitely in order.

(3) Eat more produce. I’m hoping this one will facilitate both 1 and 2, actually.

I thought about calling in queer (or at least sympathetic) tomorrow, but I have a very gay-friendly and supportive department already, so I’m not sure the point needs to be made locally, plus tomorrow was the only day that I could get a very busy group of committee members together for a meeting, so I’m going to work. But in lieu of calling in straight-but-not-narrow, I thought I’d take this opportunity to call in “educated” on some prevalent conservative arguments in favor of discrimination.

(1) Gays are psychologically sick, and gay families are not healthy environments for children.

In fact, the American Psychological Association took homosexuality out of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual nearly two decades ago, because there were no conclusive research studies that showed homosexuality impeding other normal social functioning, except insofar as gays experience increased stress from discrimination. (As a comparison, Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder isn’t considered a problem because it’s outside the norms of what most people do, but because, for example, needing to flip every light switch ten times in every room as you enter and leave makes it nearly impossible to get anything else done.) As for the question of gay families, over one hundred rigorous longitudinal and cross-sectional studies have demonstrated that gay people are often more devoted parents than straight parents, that children raised by gay parents are no more likely than the rest of the population to be gay themselves (i.e., 10%), and that gay families are no more likely to be disfunctional than the rest of the population. As with gays as individuals, the only consistently negative characteristic to be found in gay families is increased stress from discrimination. If you have lots of free time and want to read all these research studies, many of them are archived here at the APA website.

(2) Homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, and so-called gay people can choose to be straight, either through religious or other means.

Neuroscience suggests otherwise. Several research studies demonstrate that the brains of gays and lesbians look different from their same-sex counterparts, in terms of both structure and functional activation, with the gay male brain more resembling that of straight females and the lesbian brain more resembling that of straight males. Scientists hypothesize that these differences are too profound to be the result of behavioral shaping (as with cerebral cortex or muscular cortex changes that result from learning or sports practice, for example), and it is far more likely that the differences are present since birth.

(3) Homosexuality is an aberration, and its presence in Western society is caused by the erosion of traditional values.

Again, science says otherwise. Not only is same-sex mating behavior to be found among numerous species in the animal kingdom, homosexuality is well-documented throughout human history. (See Louis Crompton’s Homosexuality and Civilization for a very thorough treatment.) From an evolutionary perspective, it makes a great deal of sense, particularly in times of overpopulation or scarcity, to have adult members of a population whose sexual activity will not result in offspring, but who are otherwise of sound mind and body, so that they may contribute to the well-being of the rest of the population and their offspring, even engaging in nurturing of young themselves. (So why do we want to prevent gay people from adopting children again? See #1.)

(4) The Bible says it’s wrong.

I saved this one for last on purpose. Most people making this argument point to the destruction of Sodom (Genesis) and rules for cleanliness and purity (Leviticus) in the Old Testament, or the letters of the apostle Paul in the New Testament. As for the first instance, when the Angels of God visit Lot’s house in Sodom, Lot’s neighbors beat down his door and demand that he send the angel visitors out to them to be the subjects of a public orgy and gang rape. (Yeah, that’s right.  Look it up.  Interesting how so many toss-off references to this story leave out that little detail, isn’t it?)  So what was the Sin of Sodom, really? Same-sex coupling? Or profligate sexual violence? It’s an open question, but I think the latter is more likely (and arguably more deserving of having the whole town blown to smithereens). As for the other two, the concerns of both the rules in Leviticus and the apostle Paul have to be understood within their historical contexts. In both cases, homosexual behavior among men often occurred in the broader society as part of pagan rituals (see #3), and as such falls under the category of idolatry, which the Bible clearly says is wrong. Plus, there are plenty of other things the Bible says is wrong that modern Christians choose to blatantly ignore, such as eating shellfish and socializing with menstruating women. Finally, I’d like to end with what the Bible says is right: “He has shown thee, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of thee. But to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” (Micah 6:8)

So there you have it. Four widely-touted conservative assertions easily refuted by science, science, science, and some very basic Biblical exegesis. Seriously, speaking truth to power will only win so much of the battle here. We also have to speak education to ignorance.