Spring Break

Scene: College classroom; nine bright-eyed, first-year grad students sit around a large square table, waiting for their professor (Dr. X) to arrive. Class begins in five minutes, and the usual chatter is occurring.

Student 1: So, Student 2, what are you doing for spring break?

Student 2: Oh, I'm going to go hiking at _______ National Park and do some camping. What about you?

Student 1: I'm going to ________ City. It will be so nice to get away for awhile and relax!

(Enter Dr. X, who has apparently heard the previous exchange.)

Dr. X (sounding horrified): I can't believe any of you are actually taking a spring break! Spring break is the time when you get lots of work done.

Stunned silence hangs over the room like a shroud. Students 1-9 have been totally schooled...and are seriously wondering why they decided to come to grad school in the first place.
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This IS a true story, and I was one of those nine bright-eyed first-years who was terrified by Dr. X's admission (there were also other reasons to be terrified of Dr. X), and I did not in the least understand his reaction.

Eight years later, I have more sympathy for his position. I'm especially giddy about this week off from my students, who are lovely and motivated, but, in the tradition of students everywhere, expect me to know things and to teach them, which gets exhausting from time to time. I also have some interesting research projects I'm working on and taxes to do, so this week off from teaching will allow me to get a lot done, thankfully.

That being said, however, I still don't agree with Dr. X's tactics. Despite what graduate programs may want, the fact is that first-years are finding their way within the discipline, and are probably not churning out papers in their first year. Additionally, the transition to graduate school can be really tough, especially for those who recently got their bachelor's degrees, and having some time off is probably psychologically healthy. Lastly, I think one of the biggest lessons to be learned in grad school is how to be productive without deadlines breathing down your back all the time. So, if students are getting their required work done, who cares when they do it? And if they want to take a spring break, more power to them!

Ultimately, this discussion comes down to a larger problem in the top R1 institutions - the illusion that professors are constantly working (or at least should be). Yes, there is always more that could be getting done. But (and I know this may shock people), there is life outside academia, and I'll bet those that take periodic breaks (like weekends and evenings) may actually be more productive since their brains get to rest every now and then.

Enjoy your Spring Break, whatever you're choosing to do with it!

Candy and Social Change

One of the administrative assistants in the office has some leftover Valentine hearts on her desk.* I noticed today that in addition to the typical "Be Mine" and "Cutie Pie" messages, there was a message I have never before seen: "Email Me." I wasn't able to find a picture of the same heart online, but I did find this, which includes a white "Chill Out" heart.**

I'm beginning to think that we could learn a lot about cultural practices and technological change from analyzing candy. Does this fall under the sociology of culture? The sociology of food?

*In the interest of full disclosure, Valentine heart messages have been a subject of some fascination to me since 8th grade, when I gave each of my teachers at the private evangelical school I attended a plastic bag filled with Valentine hearts. I came to see that this had been a terrible mistake when my Bible teacher (yes, my Bible teacher) read the messages out loud at the beginning of class. Of course I hadn't checked the messages in each bag, and so the whole thing was a big embarrassment. Just another data point on my list of unintentionally/intentionally cruel things that happened to me at that school, but that's a post for another day.

**As a side note, I have no idea what the subtext involved in giving someone a "Chill Out" heart would be. Chill out and leave me alone, you crazy person - I don't love you? Chill out b/c Valentine's Day is so last year? Chill out because we live in the north and it's freaking cold out there? Chill out because we live in south Florida and need to get into the air conditioning?

My Civic Duty

Tonight I attended a "get to know the candidates" forum for the position of Village Trustee in my new community. Now that I'm out of graduate school, I feel this sudden urge to shuck off the last vestiges of my cocoon and spread my wings. I'll leave it to you to decide whether a community meeting was the best venue for this...

My thoughts upon returning from the meeting:

1. It's interesting to observe status differences emerging in a room with a high proportion of Ph.D.s in attendance. It's somewhat like grad school, but surprisingly, fewer people seemed to be flaunting their intelligence. There was also a good deal of talk about specific status characteristics by the candidates, for those of you up on the SCT literature.

2. I fail to understand how the two "parties" differ.* It appears that everyone is for handicap accessibility, "open" government (whatever that means), implementing a planning committee, fiscal responsibility, etc., etc. What they did NOT mention was how their plan was different from the other guys, but I suspect that's because the plans are not all that different.

3. Re. 2: Which means that this election will probably end up a popularity contest by default. I don't think any of the people running want it to turn out this way (they all seem to genuinely care about the community), but there was little differentiation over the substantive issues. In this particular popularity contest, the vote will come down to the ex-Wall Street guy, amusing retiree, and "stay-at-home mom" (who is so involved in the community I doubt she has much time at home) in one party and the woman who walks/jogs in the neighborhood wearing a jester hat, the woman with a cold who did a good job convincing me she's qualified (especially once she recovers from said cold), and the college professor who is probably a great lecturer, but who should put on a different hat when talking to a group of her peers in the other.

I'm not exactly sure how to decide on this. I would welcome suggestions, but right now the jester hat is honestly in the lead.**

*Parties appears in quotes above because the two parties in our village are new to me: the Community Party and the Open Government Party. Both sound pretty good, hunh? I like community (I am a sociologist after all), and I like open government (it's much preferable to that dodgy closed government that we all can't abide). Give me Democrat and Republican - it's SO much easier to navigate. I'd even be content with Green and Independent.

**The jester hat is really cool - she brought it for show and tell. Each section is a different color and it looks like it's made out of felt. WAY neato.

Musings on Facebook

Today I got my first Facebook Friend Request from a previous student. Up until now my friends (i.e., a couple strong ties mixed up with a whole bunch of weak ties), have consisted primarily of high school, college, and grad school friends, mixed with some much-needed friends connected in no way what-so-ever to academics.

I always realized that my students were probably on Facebook, and that they could easily look me up. I just didn't think any of them would actually want to be my friend on Facebook - and I certainly did not think it appropriate to be Facebook friends while one of my students was enrolled in one of my classes.*

So now I've taken the plunge and accepted the friend request from my former student. It's a new day.

*Upon retrospect, I think my feeling on this is kind of interesting. Even though Facebook exists in virtual reality, I automatically transferred the taboos against teacher/student fraternizing in the real world to the virtual world. Hmm...

Ah! The vague scent of skunk.

You know those weekends that are really, really good? When you go hiking in the snow to see a beautiful, frozen waterfall? When you go out for sinfully delicious ice cream? When going grocery shopping doesn't seem so bad after all of that?

And then your dog plays with a skunk at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday night. Brilliant!

There's Lol Cats and then there's this...

For Christmas, my cat-obsessed friend purchased a page-a-day calendar for me and my husband. The theme is "bad cats."

My husband and I have yet to see the humor in most of the pages, but today's picture went from "pretty lame," to "downright disturbing." I leave you with this (I apologize for the blurriness):

Ethics in the Classroom

I'm teaching sociology of education this semester at an elite institution. An important component in all my classes is social inequality. This is no less the case in soc. of ed., but it's different this time.

Teaching race and ethnicity at the same institution last semester, I was not uncomfortable teaching about inequality - it comes with the turf in a class like that, and I had a lot of minority students in my class who already understood structural inequality from personal experience.

This semester is different. This semester I am teaching conflict theory to a room full of elites, and I think that is beginning to dawn on them. You can't read Collins' discussion of functionalism and conflict theory and miss his point that students who attend elite institutions often get elite jobs.

I know that I'm not teaching this material differently than I would have at my last institution (a large state school that was not academically elite, although you could make an argument about athletic elitism). However, I realize there's a change inside me. There's a part of me that really wants them to get that they are privileged. That yes, they worked hard to get where they are, but that 1) for many of them, they had significant advantages in getting here,* and 2) that their degrees are going to be valued to a much greater extent than the majority of college graduates.

I have never felt that my job in the classroom was to be an activist, and I certainly don't include activism in my courses, but that's what I feel like right now. And I'm wondering 1) if anyone else has felt the same way from time to time, and 2) what you've done about it.

*To help them get this, I pull out the "sociology of me," and mention that it is no great surprise that I have a Ph.D., given that my father is an M.D., and my mother has a B.S.