After an hour of debate, the faculty of Felician University adopted the following statement, sponsored by Richard Burnor (Philosophy), James Smith (Counseling Psychology), and myself (Philosophy), as amended by Joshua Bornstein (Education):
In view of today’s social and political unrest and the renewed indications of bias and discrimination that have recently arisen in the United States and around the world, the faculty of Felician University wish to affirm the following:
In keeping with the Franciscan mission and the Christian and humanistic values of this institution, the faculty of Felician University unequivocally stand for the equal and intrinsic moral value of all human beings, regardless of race, religion, culture and ethnic background, country of origin, immigration status, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability. We furthermore recommit ourselves to fair and unbiased, nondiscriminatory practices in all that we do at this institution and in our own personal behaviors. To any who today feel themselves to be more vulnerable and less respected or cared for, we stand with and for you.
May God graciously bless and protect all peoples in this New Year.
The vote was 46 in favor, 19 opposed. It was touch and go there for awhile.
Here’s a message I wrote for my Phil/Crim 380 students, “Philosophical Issues in Criminal Justice,” while waiting for their final papers. I wrote it after one student emailed me to ask where the readings were located–nine days after the official end of the semester:
Remember that you’re supposed to come to class on Tuesday the 20th (3:15) and hand in a hard copy of the paper.
I would like to think that by now you all know where the readings for the class are located. You might want to use some of your own research skills before sending me an email asking where they are. An email of that kind basically says: “I haven’t done anything in this class so far, so why start now?” It’s a good question, but it’s not mine to answer.
Honestly, if the work I got from this bunch of students is any indication of the future of American law enforcement, American law enforcement has no future (feel free to take a look for yourself by clicking the link at the top). My only hope is that the antecedent of the preceding conditional is false–not that I’d bet on it. Continue reading →
Readers of this blog know that I’ve been running a series of events on law enforcement issues at Felician. Here’s an event I didn’t run:
12:28 pm: Due to the receipt of an alleged, anonymous threat of a shooting on the Rutherford Campus Residence Halls have been secured. -more
12:29 pm: Police and extra security in place. Classes continue, buses run. We’ll keep you apprised. Carry your ID.
2:28 pm: If you receive any calls from media sources, please refer them to me at my extension that is listed below. If you have additional questions or concerns please contact your dean or Vice President.
9:07 pm: Felician took immediate action in consultation with law enforcement. Classes are in session, campus is open.
I’ve previously mentioned the adjunct session we’re doing at the Felician Institute conference in a few weeks, with Michelle Ciurria and Derek Bowman presenting. Derek Bowman alerts me to the fact that he’s posted a two paragraph precis of his presentation on his website, which I’ve cut and pasted below the fold. I have a complex set of agreements and disagreements with Derek’s way of putting things, but I’ll reserve comment for later, and for now, simply invite comment from others. I’m hoping to invite presenters to the conference to post their papers on the Institute’s website. More on that when I hear back from them.
A wonderful development, from Texas: concealed carry weapons now are permitted in the university classroom, with the predictable ass-covering maneuvers by university administrators, hoping in advance both to pre-empt the student who goes berserk when you “trigger” him by saying the wrong thing, and to cover the university’s ass in case the worst case scenario actually materializes (“we told you someone would go berserk and shoot you if you taught that controversial material”).
I just got out of a faculty meeting in which one of the faculty from the Dept of Communications gave a short presentation on a problem he said he’s recently encountered. The problem is as follows. Some of our students come from non-English-speaking households. Obviously, they can speak English in a functional way, but they feel more comfortable writing in their native languages, especially if they have to do so for credit. When assigned writing assignments for class, some students in this situation will write the paper in their native language (say, Spanish), translate the paper into English via an online translation app (e.g., Google Translate), and then submit the translated version of the paper for credit without disclosing what they’ve done.
If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been lately, aside from teaching and grading I’ve been immersed in a series of mandatory Title IX online training courses at my University. Each module–there are four* of them–consists of a couple of dozen questions plus explanatory gloss. You’re obliged to give an answer to each question in order to proceed to the next question; you’re obliged to reach the end of the training module in order to be remain employed at the University; and having done so, you’re explicitly obliged to indicate your assent to the contents of each module as well.
Here’s one of the questions, under the heading “Constant Consent.” It’s a yes/no question. This is the sum total of the question-prompt.
Allie was kissing her date at the end of their evening together. If Allie chose to make out with him, did his having sex with her count as rape?
Now, there’s a paradigm of a well-constructed test question.
The answer turns out to be: YES, i.e., he raped her. Here is the official explanation.
Consent can be revoked at any time, and when Allie told him to stop she was explicitly ending her consent. Having sex with someone when you do not have their consent is rape, and her rapist could be expelled from his school and convicted in a court of law.
She told him to stop? I didn’t catch that. Evidently, much of the drama here seems to be happening off-stage.
So let’s take this step by step: Allie was kissing her date. From kissing, they consensually went to “making out” (ex hypothesi, there’s a subtle distinction). Then, without further elaboration, we’re told that they ended up having sex. Nothing is said in the initial prompt about whether or not the sex was consensual. The omission is then construed in the answer (which is not visible until after you’ve answered the question) to mean that Allie explicitly told the date to stop, and that he didn’t stop. Evidently, “constant consent” not only means that Allie has to indicate consent at each step of the sexual encounter, but that questions about sexual encounters can be written in such a way that if consent isn’t mentioned one way or another, we’re to infer that consent was explicitly denied and flouted.
The question is whether I can revoke my consent to take this online training.
The answer is: NO. Here is the explanation.
Consent cannot be revoked at any time. Once you’re employed, you’ve consented to everything that your employer wants to impose on you, no matter how ridiculous. Failure to take the compulsory training module will result in termination of employment.
In other words, revocation of consent would be a kiss of death for my further employment prospects. Pretty sexy.
*Correction, November 15, 2015: I had originally written “three,” but there are four. [Correction, March 24, 2016: Felician admin recently scolded me for missing the fifth.]
Postscript, November 16, 2015: As promised, an item from the harassment module of my training:
Watch your language: Tolerance does not mean you need to compromise your ethics. You may disagree with choices others make, but express your opinion respectfully. Don’t post critical comments on social media sites, spread rumors or call people names.
As we all know, critical comments are the equivalent of rumors or insults. For this reason, and with all due respect, no more critical comments will be allowed at Policy of Truth, especially if they are critical of me, Irfan “the Oppressed” Khawaja. Anyone who criticizes me will be asked to apologize, grovel, abase themselves, resign from any position they hold anywhere, and be reminded of the PTSD I suffer from my past-life Jungian experiences as a result of the Partition of India and Pakistan (in 1947, two decades before I was born). And then they’ll be asked to send me a check to cover my therapy co-pays for the rest of my life (ht: Jason Brennan at BHL).
Here’s a contribution to the adjunct debate from the Chronicle of Higher Educationby an adjunct who has more or less been forced out of the field for financial and logistical reasons. Read it if you feel so inclined, but there’s a quiz afterwards.
And here’s your quiz–multiple choice, with the option of a short answer in the combox. Which of the following is, morally speaking, the fitting and appropriate response to this essay?
(A) Gratification that one more deluded, incompetent, and unqualified adjunct is leaving the field. (Jason Brennan: “This person took my advice. She got another job that pays better, rather than trying to pursue a job for which she lacks the minimal qualifications. Good for her.”)
(B) Mortification at how badly adjuncts are treated by the field, and head-shaking regret at how bad things are out there for deserving people.
The case for (A) focuses on in the fact that the author holds an M.Ed degree (rather than an MA or a PhD), wants to teach at the college level, but can’t find a full-time job. The argument suggests that all college-level teaching requires that the would-be instructor possess a terminal degree, presumably a Ph.D. or at least an Ed.D. Since the author lacks both, her complaints should summarily be dismissed as whining. She should be happy to have left the field, and we should be glad that she’s gone.
The case for (B) presupposes that the article accurately recounts the author’s experiences as an adjunct, and assumes ex hypothesi that she is a good teacher. The presumption is justified by the fact that people in the author’s predicament do exist; even if the author herself turns out to be misrepresenting her experiences, what she says can stand in for those whose experiences are correctly described by her essay.
Assuming all that, the case for (B) focuses on the fact that she’s ill-paid and ill-treated. It’s not clear that anyone in particular is to blame for her being ill-paid, but it’s lamentable that she is, and (B) laments that. It is clear that particular individuals are to blame for her being ill-treated, which is what motivates the “mortification” to which (B) alludes.
As you’ve probably guessed, I regard (B) as the correct answer. Like this author, I’ve taught at community colleges (Mercer, Middlesex, and Western Monmouth Community Colleges, all in central Jersey). I’ve also worked closely, for more than a decade, with writing instructors who have credentials comparable to hers. I don’t see any legitimate pedagogical or academic reasons against hiring an exceptional (or just plain motivated and competent) person with an M.Ed on a full-time basis to teach intro-level literature courses, or to teach English composition on a full-time basis (if that’s done within the English Department). Granted, the author says she doesn’t like teaching English composition, but I’m a full-timer and there are classes in our curriculum that I don’t like teaching, either (Intro Philosophy, Philosophy of Education). You can’t always get the schedule you want. If English composition is all there was, English composition would have to do.
Faculty positions aside, I also don’t see any good reason against hiring an M.Ed to teach on a full-time basis as a tutor (or some equivalent) in a college or university Writing Center. Once hired, of course, I assume she’d get a full-time salary and benefits package. People tend to forget what a thankless job it is to teach writing at that level–and how crucially necessary. Thankless: It’s like teaching ESL, but to native English speakers. Necessary: it’s like teaching ESL, but to native English speakers. It’s also a job that most faculty regard as beneath them, even as they freak out about their students’ illiteracy and wonder why the idiots can’t write. “Go to the Writing Center!” mutters the harried Associate Professor at the hapless illiterate in his office, longing to get back to that paper he’s writing for Phil Review. Yeah, I get it, superstar. Just pray that someone is there. And while you’re at it, pray that someone put a line in the budget to pay whoever’s there.
The truth is, the average faculty member neither knows where the Writing Center is, nor knows who staffs it–nor cares. The Writing Center is, to paraphrase Mike Rowe, a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it. Somehow it seems to come as a surprise to the “real faculty” that those someones ought also to get paid. Granted, maybe the money isn’t there to hire such people where the author lives or has sought work. In that case, our author is back at square 1: she’s got to find other employment. Option (B) acknowledges that possibility–without treating it as something to celebrate.
If you think the right answer is (A), I’d love to hear why. But if your academic career consists of going from one R1 school to another, and you’ve never taught at a community college, and you’ve never taught students at a lower-tier institution, and you’ve never done sustained work with M.Ed’s in a Writing Center, then I’m not sure why anyone who’s spent the last decade doing that (as I have) should take your advice at face value. But I’m always open to persuasion.
Are ya happy? Are ya satisfied? How long can ya stand the heat?
The awards ceremony took place in Weimar on Friday (28.08.2015), on the 216th anniversary of Goethe’s birth. This year’s motto was “The Spirit of History.”
The recipients of Germany’s official decoration, Sadik Al-Azm, Neil MacGregor and Eva Sopher, are international figures who have close ties to the country and contribute to intercultural understanding, in the spirit of the Goethe-Institut.
The Syrian philosopher Sadik Al-Azm, one of the most recognized intellectuals in the Arab world, is a strong advocate of freedom of speech and democracy. He aims to strengthen understanding between the Arab-Islamic world and Europe. Due to the conflict in Syria, he obtained political asylum in Germany three years ago.
Another item:
“For decades, the Syrian philosopher Sadik Al-Azm has actively advocated the right to freedom of speech and for the rule of law and democracy while also championing understanding between the Arab-Islamic world and Western Europe”, the Goethe Institute’s website reads. Most recently, his contribution “The Shari’a from a Secular Perspective” appeared in the volume “Rechtskulturen im Übergang/Legal Cultures in Transition” (ed. by Werner Gephart, Raja Sakrani and Jenny Hellmann) of the Center’s publication series.
Al Azm is essentially the grandfather of the Arab Spring. (Here’s a more recent piece by Al Azm on Syria in the Boston Review. This piece is worth reading as well, on Arab reactions to 9/11. And here’s a translation we did of one of his Arabic-language essays back in 2011 for Reason Papers.) At any rate, he’s certainly been a major source of inspiration for my own intercultural approach to philosophical understanding. Mabrouk!
