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Today brings absolutely required reading from Victor Davis Hanson of National Review Magazine for anyone associated with or even remotely caring about our North American system of higher education:

Since expensive faculty members are often not replaced by similar permanent professors upon retirement, some 52 percent of the teaching faculty is not tenured or even on a tenure track. This trend, which is occurring not just at CSU but across the nation, is poorly reported — surprising, given its illiberal nature. The new horde of outsourced part-timers, many equipped with Ph.D.s, can be paid at a far cheaper per-course rate, often without benefits or employment protection. CSU has come to resemble ancient Sparta: absolute equality and privilege for the depopulated peers inside the system, rampant exploitation for the growing mass of helots outside it. Few worry that students cannot find their adjunct instructors for a meeting during office hours, or that those who increasingly do the teaching have no input in the governance of the university.

One of the more Orwellian aspects of the contemporary university is loud support from faculty members for such liberal causes as diversity, multiculturalism, and “social justice,” even as they embrace these decidedly unfair employment practices. The administration’s apparently cynical logic is undeniably brilliant: Full-time faculty, with tenure and generous benefits, will expend their critical energy yammering in abstractions about universal oppression without even questioning the concrete and immediate exploitation at home. It is almost as if savvy college administrators knew that the more their faculty mouth “Bush lied, thousands died” or show the propaganda film Jenin, Jenin on campus, the more they can ignore an outsourced Bill Smith who drops in, all but invisible, to teach two night classes, each paying about a quarter of what a full professor would receive for the same work.

Go read the full text here.

Rana Rants

I was once told by a former colleague, back in the dark ages after my academic job went unexpectedly down the tubes, that I seemed angry. Actually, it sounded more like he was accusing me of being angry. He seemed to question whether anger was an appropriate response and thought I was just looking to blame other people for my incredibly, ridiculously painful loss. Yes, they had treated me shabbily, he pointed out, but being so upset -- wasn't that a sign of poor judgment? Suing them?

During the conversation, a small thought ran through my mind about whether he was angry that I had refused to come back after being let go and cover his class so he could do whatever stimulating and fun academic thing he had lined up for himself that term. He likely would say I was projecting anger onto him because of my own anger or whatever. After all, he was still employed, which meant he had no need to project or act out in any petty way, hey? Um-hmm.

This morning, I was reading Frogs and Ravens, where I pop in once in a while. Rana was recently dumped from her job without notice. Then, realizing they made a big mistake, they asked her to come back to "help out" because they, well, they screwed themselves when they let her go. I'm going to quote a small bit of Rana's thought on this, but if you want to read one of the best angry rants I've ever read, that is, by the way, entirely justified, go read the rest of her post (warning to the overly sensitive: she used the F word *gasp*):

You know that expression of polite agreement she wears on her face when you say how much you appreciate her coming out to "help out," when you tell her that she is "just awesome" and "amazing" and so on? She is making that face to avoid either screaming at you or laughing hysterically. Your credibility as people who care about her is pretty much shot at this point, so stop trying to fake it....

Oh, and while you're at it, it's really cowardly to not tell any of the other staff or faculty what happened, and to use her temporary return as an excuse to pretend like she is "leaving soon" as if it were some sort of voluntary decision on her part instead of being honest and telling them that she'd already "left" and that it was entirely involuntary and unexpected by her. Furthermore, it is either an act of incredible stupidity or astonishingly bad taste or amazing cruelty to tempt her out of her temporary office with an offer of free food, without bothering to tell her that the food was for a party to celebrate the departure of another employee for a better-paying job.

Through your insensitivity, you've just guaranteed that there is no way in hell she's ever coming back after she gets her paycheck, it being poor and insufficient compensation for putting up with these truckloads of crap.

Rana, gawd, really, what they did completely sucks, and you have every right to vent. The part about the party reminded me of something I had forgotten about my own experience at the tail end of my academic life. Before I found out I actually was losing my job, I got an invitation to a going away party. A fellow colleague asked me who was leaving, but I said I wasn't sure. Later, I realized it was me. Needless to say, I didn't attend their party.

Your bit about people not really knowing what happened to you is very similar to my experience too. My former employer kept things pretty tightly under wraps. You wouldn't believe how many people, after seeing me in public, said something like, "Oh, I had heard you left the province." Many knew nothing about what actually had happened. Some silently thought (or hoped) I had caused my own doom.

Suing an organization or feeling angry and betrayed after being quite unexpectedly let go is not abnormal behavior, even as much as some who remain in power would like to believe. On the other hand, for those in power who commit acts of betrayal or stand by and watch them happen without intervening, blaming the victim is a tried-and-true method of assuaging their own conscious or unconscious feelings of guilt. Rant on, Rana. I, myself, probably haven't ranted enough.

Harvard Blues

Someone e-mailed me a link to this Washington Post article about women in academia and the Harvard experience:

"I really couldn't go on, I just couldn't," she says. "I remember sitting at home, saying, 'I can't do this anymore. I can't live like this.' It was the low point of my entire life. Finally I overcame it by saying, 'I really want to do this science, I'm going to fix it.' It was an anger kind of thing."

So she started comparing notes with other women at MIT and found it wasn't just her.

She was angry. She had a right to feel angry, and so does anyone who experiences discrimination, violence, or other kinds of intrusive acts, especially by people who ostensibly are one's colleagues. I was happy to see that the women were trying to help each other out by talking through what they have experienced and taking a strong, responsible, and proactive stance. Ignoring problems just tends to make them worse or perpetuate them.

I could spout oceans about women's experiences in academia. How about this: one time, I delivered an invited presentation to members of my academic department at the time regarding a topic about which I had some recent experience. After giving the presentation, one of the faculty members pulled me aside in the hallway and asked me to meet him in his office. I did. He started out with, "Just who do you think you are, young lady?" and somewhere in there added a, "Do you know who I am?" I let him go on far too long.

Why did he do this? I suppose he thought he should have been doing the presenting. I listened quietly to him, thanked him for his opinion, and left. At this point in my life, I wouldn't thank him for his opinion. Did he do this because I am a woman? I don't know. He certainly wouldn't have called a man "young lady." Perhaps he did this to young men, too.

Of course, we will never know about a professor's chronic behaviour or a pernicious workplace problem unless, like the women at Harvard, colleagues communicate with each other more transparently. Sometimes I wonder whether young men presently in academia experience the same kinds of situations and, more importantly, whether they'd ever tell. Gender discrimination does exist, but real power mongers feed off more than just the women within their sphere of influence.

Academics' stories would be stories worth telling for sure, regardless of people's gender or age, as a first step towards limiting abuse of power and increasing the value of integrity, dignity, and mutual respect as minimum standards for behaviour in all academic relationships.

Harassment Can Be Subtle And Cumulative

I recently wrote a short post about the case of Prof. Jean Cobbs, who was dismissed from her post at Virginia State University. Today, Dr. Carey Stronach has published an article alleging and describing some of the events that happened to Dr. Cobbs while at VSU, some of which are excerpted here:

• In 1994, when Dr. Cobbs was working on the reaccreditation study for the Social Work program, the provost ordered the secretaries who would normally type the study, not to provide typing support to Dr. Cobbs. Cobbs wound up paying a typist out of her own pocket. When she sent the typed report to the printers for duplication the University administration canceled the purchase order. Also, the VSU administration refused to pay Dr. Cobbs overtime for her work on the self-study report.
•  In November 1995, one month after riding on the Republican float in the VSU homecoming parade (the only African-American to do so), Dr. Cobbs was fired from the position of director of the social work program.
• Beginning in 1994, Dr. Cobbs began receiving "Unsatisfactory" performance ratings (as opposed to the "Outstanding" ratings she had received previously). She was placed in post-tenure review, under which she could have been dismissed. However, the post-tenure review committee ruled unanimously in her favor, but the VSU administration never acknowledged that finding.
• In April 1996, Dr. Cobbs (a tenured full professor) was given a terminal contract by the VSU administration. A close friend in the community, (ironically, the president of the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans), who knows former Governor George Allen well, contacted then-Governor Allen and, working through the Attorney General's office, forced the VSU administration to replace the terminal contract with one respecting her tenured status.
• In a secret meeting held without Dr. Cobbs' knowledge, the VSU administration banned the Alpha Delta Mu social work honor society from the campus. (Dr. Cobbs founded and served as faculty adviser to this chapter.) No reason has ever been given for this action.
• On March 2, 1997, one of the militant separatist faculty members (a large man almost twice Dr. Cobbs' size) physically assaulted her in the campus dining hall. No disciplinary action has ever been taken against her assailant.
• Dr. Cobbs has systematically been denied fair cost-of-living raises since 1994. In 1998 she received zero salary increase. In the other years since 1994 she has received a 1.2% increase or less. The university averages were about 5% for each year.
• Dr. Cobbs has been called "crazy" and "a traitor to her race" by militant faculty, and has been told to "watch your politics" by the chair of another department a few days after she attended a reception for Oliver North.
• Many acts of petty harassment have been committed against Dr. Cobbs. Her department chair refused to provide her with a computer (from grant money brought to VSU by Dr. Cobbs - computers were provided to every other faculty member in the department except Dr. Cobbs), then even refused to provide a new ribbon for the printer on her old computer, has given her the worst teaching schedule in the department (in the least desirable classrooms on campus), refused to order desk copies of textbooks for her classes, and refused to process routine travel requests for Dr. Cobbs.

The case of Dr. Cobbs appears to involve a number of issues, including political bias and race. However, irrespective of the reason why some of these events might have happened, the point is that events like this shouldn't happen for any reason. Acts like the ones alleged regarding Dr. Cobbs are the kinds of subtle acts of harassment that can happen to people in any workplace, especially academia.

When some of these kinds of acts are looked at, individually they might not seem horrific or even extraordinary. However, cumulatively, these kinds of acts make for a hostile work environment and can be very distressing for the target of the acts. In my opinion, harassment in an academic environment is not always secret, which is also why mobbing can occur so easily in environments that are highly dependent on peer review and judgments of merit.

Like I said in my earlier post, if these allegations are accurate, I really do feel very sorry for Dr. Cobbs.

Here's a great quotation to keep in mind that I found on the mobbing site (linked above):

All truth passes through 3 stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer

VSU Prof Termination

PRINCETON, NJ -- 7 April 2005 -- The National Association of Scholars today strongly condemned the dismissal of Professor Jean Cobbs, a tenured professor of Sociology at Virginia State University, where she has taught for 33 years.  Although the action was announced as "for cause" by VSU President Eddie N. Moore, Jr., no particular allegations of misconduct or negligence against Professor Cobbs were specified. Evidently, she was also dismissed without recourse to the procedures or policies ordinarily applicable to faculty liable to termination.

The rest of the press release from the National Association of Scholars is worth reading. If what the NAS is saying is accurate, then I truly feel very sorry for Professor Cobbs. There's really no place for personal agendas, vindictiveness, or vendettas in institutions of higher learning. Of course, that doesn't mean they don't occur.

Sexual Harassment

Queen's University has posted an excellent online resource regarding sexual harassment at universities in its Queen's Human Rights Bulletin. Although the resource focuses on sexual harassment in an academic setting, some of the cases discussed might have similarities with non-academic work settings, as well, and provide good Q & A's for consideration.

Discrimination In Academic Hiring

Here's an excerpt from a new study done by one Canadian and two American researchers on political and religious bias in academia:

A multivariate analysis finds that, even after taking into account the effects of professional accomplishment, along with many other individual characteristics, conservatives and Republicans teach at lower quality schools than do liberals and Democrats. This suggests that complaints of ideologically-based discrimination in academic advancement deserve serious consideration and further study. The analysis finds similar effects based on gender and religiosity, i.e., women and practicing Christians teach at lower quality schools than their professional accomplishments would predict.
- from "Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty," Stanley Rothman (Smith College), S. Robert Lichter (Center of Media and Public Affairs, Neil Nevitte (U of Toronto)

Critics are claiming that political and religious biases in hiring are not relevant. I would point out that the people who think bias of any kind is not relevant are probably the very same people who have given little or no thought to their own biases and how those affect others in life, in hiring, and especially in teaching.

My question about the issue of discrimination in academia: If this study shows bias against conservative and Christian scholars, perhaps it is an underestimation of actual bias, as it cannot account for all the scholars who were not hired into positions because of their political or religious affiliations.

According to Inside Higher Ed,

The liberal percentage was at its highest in English literature (88 percent), followed by performing arts and psychology (both 84 percent), fine arts (83 percent), political science (81 percent).

Other fields have more balance. The liberal-conservative split is 61-29 in education, 55-39 in economics, 53-47 in nursing, 51-19 in engineering, and 49-39 in business.

Psychology at 84%...yikes...although I'm not really surprised. In view of these stats, I'm thinking about what it means to be a female, Catholic psychologist with center-right political leanings. I'm thinking about my experiences working in a mainstream academic psychology department...I'm thinking about my experiences working in a male-dominated Roman Catholic College. It certainly gives one pause....

Suing Academia

Look! That's me up there, giving academia a wake-up call!

Actually, I'll be honest. That's not me. I don't know whose picture this is -- it's been circulating around the net, and one of my regular readers sent it to me. I thought the pic was pretty funny and then realized that it could be an excellent representation of what it's like for a female academic to sue a Catholic college.

Regular readers will know that I have a lawsuit pending against my former employer. I also filed a duty of fair representation claim against the union at the college. The lawsuit refers to precontractual representations, and the labour relations claim involves rather serious matters that happened to me while at the college.

Anyway, because I have two separate processes going on, the college apparently has seen fit to attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed. So, on March 10, we'll be going to court to discuss whether my lawsuit can continue. I'll keep you posted. At least I'm not the only person to have gone through this kind of proceeding.

It turns out that the hearing will probably cost about $5000. That's probably equivalent to my daughter's tuition for next year. Ironically, if I were still employed at the college, I'd be able to apply to a unique scholarship fund set aside especially for faculty members' children and spouses. How nice for them.

UPDATE: In the spirit of Jasper's comment below, I add my own quotation: Listen.

Administrators Want To Win At Any Cost?

A lot of academic blogs have been picking up the story of the students who are blogging about how their university is being administered with their, as I call it, campus protest blog monster. I've been following their situation, and their most recent post really illustrates just how far some campus administrators will go -- just how much money they'll spend -- in order to win a battle that they morally lost long ago:

Besides hiring one of the most expensive law firms in Syracuse to file suit against us, they've spent more than "$3000 to have hard drives replaced with new ones, re-imaged, and the old ones shipped back here from one of our abroad programs (kenya?) because they suspect some of the posts are coming from there...."

How do I know this? I received an anonymous letter yesterday detailing the expenses and lengths that President Dan "Sullen" Sullivan, Cissy "Convert to Christianity!" Petty and the rest of their cronies in the SLU administration have gone to uncover the identities of those at Take Back Our Campus. [Link]

The students' experience might cause some with even longer experience in academia to reflect upon memories about the kinds of academic administrators who refuse to address student or faculty concerns, interpreting any inquiry, question, or critique as a veritable threat to their very administration. These kinds of administrators will gladly pay thousands out of contingency funds in order to win, at all costs, a case over a perfectly exaggerated threat that they, themselves, have escalated. In doing so, these kinds of administrators ensure that students and others will rise to the administration's own hysterics, pettiness, and over-controlling obstinance.

The students make a doubly interesting point about ostensibly Christian administrators who insist on accessing the legal process in order to deal with their own faculty and student concerns, bludgeoning them with legal process, refusing to negotiate in good faith, and bleeding their bank accounts dry. Not that I would have any experience with that, by the way.

Pride goeth before the fall. What this university thinks it gains through legal wrangling and winning their judicial proof of self-righteousness, they lose, likely have already lost, in terms of national and international reputation. Some people will see the administration as pushy, defensive, and rigid -- not to mention way too arrogant and high-handed. Why don't they try to address the problems about which the students are complaining? Of course, that would require some overt exercise of interpersonal social skills. Okay, how about a sense of humour and a little magnanimity?  Honour?

I suggest the administration try to exit the situation much more gracefully. Even if they beat the students in court, those students will always have their stories to tell -- and now there's an international media waiting to hear them. Even if the university succeeds in shutting down their blog, the story's archived all over the web, and future students (or their parents) might already be turned off by how the administrations exercises its stated beliefs and values.

So, in many ways, I suppose the students have already won. Administrators, here's your cue in this scene: exeunt.

Campus Protest Blog Monster

What happens when students are fed up about how a university administration is running their campus? They blog about it, the administration bans campus access to the blog, and the blog  mushrooms in popularity. Now the apparent problems at St. Lawrence University are international news. I hadn't even heard of St. Lawrence university before today, and, believe me, not all publicity is good publicity, particularly in the world of attracting student registrations.

Blogs are like the hydra: for every one head you cut off, two grow back.

Academic Freedom? Not For Students

You know those freedoms and rights we believe that we have in North American society? I mean the ones like freedom of thought and belief, speech, you know, those. We have them, but sometimes they are curtailed for some people in their places of work.

On the other hand, at post-secondary institutions that uphold principles of academic freedom, these rights are meant to be upheld. How would you like to be dismissed from a graduate program at a university because your personal beliefs did not suit the goals of the program? Possible? Yes. Go read the rest of the story at FIRE's site.

If you can be dismissed for your beliefs at a university, I wonder what will happen in Catholic institutions in Canada whose faculty do not follow the recently adopted principles of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, which includes the following kinds of stipulations. Note the one regarding hiring:

the local bishop has responsibility for overseeing how Catholic universities in his diocese apply the ordinances; that Catholic colleges and universities provide     courses on Roman Catholic theology and tradition; and that professors are recruited based, along with their talent and expertise, on "their integrity of doctrine and probity of life" and moral character. [Link]

Many Catholic institutions say that they encourage ecumenical hirings and admissions, especially in area of theology; however, will they really be able to do so in practice now? I suppose the ordinances are good, as long as they aren't used to prop up any vendettas for dismissal of someone. Of course, that is how some places work: new rules, new dismissals.

University Rankings: 3

I continue to be astonished at how many people have been accessing my University Rankings post that I put up recently. Given that the post has become so popular, I have added some information to it that (1) will give people something else to think about when they are considering what school to attend and (2) will educate people about an important, but seriously overlooked, aspect of choosing a university: how universities treat their academic staff.  As I say in my updates, pooring working conditions for academic staff and mean poor study conditions for students. You can read the complete post updates here. Of course, you also can read other posts of mine about post-secondary education under the University Life category, which is located at right.

More Education, No Tuition, Continued Debt

Can't find a job after you graduate from certain programs at the Université Sainte-Anne? If you can prove it, they'll let you come back and study in another program for free (sans coverage for books and housing, of course)

Et qui n’obtiennent pas un emploi dans leur domaine avant la rentrée de septembre suivant l’obtention de leur diplôme peuvent revenir étudier gratuitement (1) à l’Université Sainte-Anne dans le programme de leur choix (2;3) au niveau collégial ou au premier cycle universitaire, pour une durée et valeur égales à la durée et à la valeur de leurs études préalables à l’Université Sainte-Anne.

I have a much, much better idea. If the Université Sainte-Anne is so confident in its job-placement rate, why not just offer a money-back guarantee? 

[Via CBC, who has an interesting chart showing a comparison of national tuition rates here.]

University Rankings: 2

There has been a lot of talk over the past few years about university rankings done by media and international researchers. Many people I've read discredit the value of university rankings like those of Macleans magazine, claiming that they do not really measure the heart and soul of what a campus is all about.

A short while ago, I published a post about a Chinese study that ranked universities all over the world. Since that time, many people have accessed that post online. Unlike newspapers and other forms of media, which pull their stories from the net or archive them for a fee, blog content stays on perpetually (and free) until the blogger removes it.

Since I published the university rankings post, people have been accessing it in increasing numbers everyday, particularly as university application deadlines loom. While universities can argue that these ranking systems don't mean much, based on my blog stats, they seem to mean something to many. At this time of the year, when people are making applications to universities all over Canada, administrators should avoid taking for granted what applicants likely take quite seriously.

UPDATE: See new information posted to the original university rankings post here.

Public Employee Conflict of Interest

The effects conflict of interest can have in a workplace are insidious and far-reaching, and they can occur in a variety of different ways. For example, I once sat in the office of a public health employee who was talking to a client about booking an appointment. The employee was telling the person on the other end of the phone that no appointments were available for months but that the client could come to see that person in their private practice, if they wanted to pay privately for the service. Then the public employee got off the phone, looked at me, and said, "You didn't hear that."

The employee didn't want me to spread the news that public and private service was being booked out of this very publicly funded office and that the employee was making a tidy personal sum doing so -- or so I surmised, based on that employee's overt insistence that I not tell. For some people, it's difficult to resist the fruit of the poisoned tree, seeing the benefits of raking in a publicly funded salary while seeing a few (or many) private people on the side. Some moonlight only at night or on the weekends. Some are more brazen, scooting between public and private office during the work day, serving two masters -- the public and Mammon -- at the same time.

This kind of conflict of interest is particularly loathsome, in my opinion, because public employees who do so often are taking advantage of public service staff shortages or institutional service-delivery problems to line their own pockets. In other cases, public agencies do not want to provide certain types of service but will allow their employees to provide those services privately, which I also find to be a conflict of interest. You can't serve two masters, and, inevitably, the energy you put into your private work will affect the energy you have to expend in your public work, given that you're continually burning that candle at both ends.

Plus, issues of service or practice liability arise as well as ethical conflicts. In addition, there is the reasoning that these public employees could be putting their extra energies into offering additional, unique, or specialized services in conjunction with their educational or research institutions, sharing their talents and skills with the public for a fee that goes back to the agency the person works for, thereby supporting and enhancing that public agency, instead of turning a personal profit for themselves. That's why public employees have salaries paid for by the public purse -- they don't work on commission and are employed to use their knowledge in the interests of the public, including patients, students, post-docs, and others.

Other conflict of interest scenarios are equally loathsome to me, including double-dipping, manipulation of grant/hiring criteria for personal or nepotistic benefit, and one that is highlighted in today's L.A. Times -- being paid by corporations to give advice or speak on behalf of private-industry products, while simultaneously being an officer of a public agency employed to research or evaluate those products.

Today, L.A. Times staff writer David Willman reported on the National Institute of Health's laudable decision to ban federal health researchers from accepting consulting fees and stock options from drug companies. In an effort to improve ethics and research practice, the NIH is taking a bold move to clean up potential and actual conflict of interest in health research.

Conflict of interest in health and mental health research, education, and practice is a very serious matter, in part because we want the recommendations that public researchers to make to be free of the profiteering and bias inherent in corporate marketing strategies. In other words, we want our health and mental health researchers to recommend products and treatments on the merits of their empirical effectiveness, not on the basis of bribes, incentives, or personal gain. We want to be able to trust that what they're telling us is the truth. If they have a position of authority like that, then they must behave in an ethical or trustworthy and transparent manner -- anything less could lead to disastrous consequences.

Let me illustrate.

If I were to conduct research on a particular drug and that research were funded by a drug company that could directly profited from favourable outcomes in my research, you might see how interested a company would be in shining up to me and showing me the merits of their products and services. If I accept, say one-hundred thousand dollars from that company to act as a consultant, am I really then going to turn around and tell the public that they company's products are worthless, ineffective, or even harmful? Perhaps I might still do it, but would they retain me as a consultant? Probably not. No company wants to pay for bad advertising.

Nevertheless, what if the recommendations they've influenced me to make are harmful to the public? What if people die or lose their livelihoods because of the harm a moonlighting public employee caused out of personal self-interest and gain? It's one thing to make a bad recommendation based on the best available evidence. It's quite another to do it because you're profiteering.

Receiving funding from a particular company to do research on their product does not necessitate that research findings and recommendations will be biased. However, the risk certainly is there, which is why corporate funding of a study can cast a pall of suspicion over whether the findings are even worth considering. Direct corporate funding of a public agency research project might seem quite obviously to be a conflict of interest, but what if corporations fund or retain the services of the researcher directly instead?

In other words, some companies don't fund research projects but fund the researcher via a consulting fee or some other benefit, such as stock options, free use of a condo in the Cayman Islands, new computers or something equally attractive. In turn, the researcher recommends your company's drugs or products or services to others at conventions or elsewhere without revealing that the researcher is on the company's payroll or unique benefits list? It's difficult not to see that type of personal benefit as more than just conflict of interest, as an out-and-out bribe. Instead of being scientists, these researchers become corporate carpet-baggers.

Taking on private payments for your research work while remaining in the public service marks the difference between being a scientist and being a marketer: the opinion of the former exceeds that of the latter, assuming the former is free from conflict of interest. However, for public employees who become affiliates of particular drug companies, instead of being a public officer or advocate for health, they risk becoming sales agents, brokers for various products, by which they realize personal financial gain. In this way, publicly employed researchers (as well as other kinds of public employees) can funnel thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars, into their own pockets. It's hard to imagine that such public employees retain objectivity, when they're acting like walking advertisements by crossing the streams between public interest and private gain.

On the other hand, in general, even publicly awarded scientific research funding isn't as objective of a process as I would like to see. Currently, small circles of scientists review each other's projects and indicate which ones are worthy of funding. One might do well to have a small group of peers who don't mind reviewing your work favourably, only so you can return the favour on the next round of grant reviews. Government bureaucrats in charge of granting agencies depend on the opinions of these peer reviewers, just like physicians and drug companies depend on the work and recommendations of health researchers about which drugs are safe and effective.  You might think peer reviews are better if they are blind in both directions; however, so people's work is so esoteric or notable, that it becomes obvious whose grant application must be sitting in front of you.

In terms of university-based research, it likely would be much better if governments funded universities rather than individual researchers, so that they support the infrastructure for doing research rather than the research itself. Governments can have particular interests, just like
corporations can, and we would do well to free our academic researchers from that kind of political influence. In addition, researchers would also be free to investigate, not just what their peers see as important, but in other areas outside the reach of the immediate canon, accepted paradigm, or peer-sanctioned theory, possibly leading to brilliant or unexpected findings. Staying within established, peer-reviewed areas can be responsible, but it also can be extremely limiting. 

Universities could receive funding based on well-developed governmental criteria for disseminating funds, including criteria related to demonstrated excellence in research as well as teaching and other services to students. Secondary benefit, of course, would trickle off from strong researchers to students and even new researchers at that university, as well, a welcome bonus for everyone. Governments might be better able to demonstrate more concrete accountability for how they spend their post-secondary dollars, and real meaning might return to the words "tenure," "academic freedom," and "merit increment."

Regarding corporate or political influence, in comparison to public employee self-interesting, it's quite easy to spot a money trail when corporate or governmental interests directly support research. It's much harder to spot a money trail when it consists of colleagues, ostensibly following the established guidelines and procedures of public agencies, but actually in a mutual back-scratching circle, ensuring that certain researchers or colleagues obtain grant monies or positions as they become available or are especially created. Really, there might be nothing easier than manipulating academic peer-review processes for granting and hiring, if you have enough to gain personally and have a few colleagues with mutual interests to help you do it.  Academia appears rife with trysts and corruption.

One might argue that direct corporate funding of research projects constitutes less conflict of interest because it is more transparent and obvious. When the public can't see how much money is being directed into the personal bank accounts and estates of researchers or can't see the personal benefit public employees can garner through securing of positions or other benefits -- when the public can't directly or easily see the personal gain, the temptation might be even greater for those public employees to let their palms be greased or go along with unethical conduct. The same is true for other kinds of funding, not just in health research; however, in health and mental health research, the practice seems particularly despicable. 

Really the only constant guide to proper behavior in this context is one's own conscience, much like in the movie Unfaithful, when the wife says, "No one will know" and the husband replies, "We'll know." If you have a well-developed conscience, conflict of interest will bother you. The tensions are inescapable, although money, paycheques, and benefits for many are a soothing and pleasurable balm.

If drug companies want to put money into truly independent research, it might be better to have them all contribute to a pool of funding to be given out in double-blind fashion to support research -- companies won't know to which project their money is going, and researchers won't know who is contributing to their projects. However, in no case should people on the public payroll be working for private interests, whether their own or someone else's. People on the public payroll are there to work for the public and in the interests of the public's well-being. "Entrepreneurship" in the public service is a euphemism for creativity and initiative -- it doesn't mean entering into private contracts to line one's own pockets.

It's surprising how much the dignity of public service can become eroded. Rather than being content to work for and in the interests of the public as "officers" of the public service, instead some public servants blur the lines between their office and private entrepreneurship. That blurring can easily occur in public health and mental health institutions, public universities, and government offices, where the very people who have status, power, and influence because of their jobs wield that to make hay through private service delivery, consulting, or other contract work with private or public individuals or organizations.  Even in my own business, who do I seem to compete against the most? Employees of public institutions who have their own businesses on the side.  Of course, in Saskatchewan, some people have practically made an institution out of having government services and employees compete with private industry. Why dip when you can double-dip?

What's also nasty about public-employee moonlighting, double-dipping, and taking personal gifts or payments is that the actions of these people contribute to an ongoing underestimation of how many service providers are actually required to deliver service in the region or consult to a particular industry. In other words, it indirectly contributes to unemployment -- why hire brokers to sell a product when the distinguished doctor, professor, or researcher will do it for you? Why do business with private agencies when the head of the government's public service will work for you on the side? In addition, these practices stifle the creativity and fresh ideas that can come with new people entering your marketplace or institution. These practices create very big fish in very small ponds and maximize the effect of cliques on teaching, research, and professional practice. These practices can actually limit the number of voices and experts in a field. Once the big fish are present, they can make it horrifyingly difficult for little fish to survive, their existence becoming chancy, even capricious.

In addition, allowing public service employees to moonlight limits the entrepreneurship of people outside of the public service and concentrates wealth in fewer people. It also restricts the positive benefit of having more practitioners who can consult with each other in a free exchange of ideas. This likely doesn't happen as much with primary health service in Canada because the public pays practitioners directly for all of those services anyway, so there's little incentive to up-charge privately and a very big penalty for doing it.  However, it certainly can happen quite easily with alternate health services. Any place a service is available publicly as well as privately, there is an opportunity for public employee double-dipping and moonlighting in practice or research.

In my opinion, public employees shouldn't ever moonlight and open themselves up to private influence and corruption. There are a myriad of ways to disseminate skills and knowledge, for example through conferencing and mutual consulting, without having public employees paid privately for those kinds of activities. Public employees -- including researchers, practitioners, and educators -- have salaries, benefits, and, quite often, excellent job security. That's enough. They should be expected to share their knowledge publicly when required, not for personal gain, and they should leave entrepreneurship to private entrepreneurs, keeping the integrity of the public service intact. Having strong ethical rules and penalties for public employees around conflict of interest means everybody wins, public and private sectors alike.

University Rankings

If you just can't get enough of Macleans-type rankings, here are the top 500 universities in the world, according to scholars at the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Go look up all your former schools...I did. I seemed to start out pretty high but went lower and lower after that. Hey, I wonder if that means my BA has more intrinsic value than my PhD? Some would say that's just obviously true anyway ; )

As for Western Canadian schools, UBC comes in at 36, U of A at about 100, and U of S at about 200. As a parent about to send a youngster off to college, I'm looking carefully at these kinds of numbers, and they seem to augment my gut feelings.

UPDATE: If you're looking for American college rankings, go here.

This particular post has become extremely popular, with many people accessing it everyday, and it now ranks fourth in Google for searches on Canadian university rankings, after Macleans, Yahoo, and Contact Singapore. While university rankings are, I believe, very important to consider when you are applying for school or an academic job, I would like to encourage you to consider another, typically overlooked but crucially important aspect of university life.

One important consideration in terms of university rankings that rarely is considered in national and international surveys of education quality is how secure and happy the faculty at any particular university are in their employment. It is very important to try to understand how well a college or university treats its academic staff because the relationship between a college/university employer and any one of its academic staff members can have serious and far-reaching implications for students, as well.

Many people are unaware that profs are not necessarily full-time, tenured faculty. The reality is that an increasing number of university "professors" in Canada are actually part-time lecturers working for little more than you might make as a clerk in a non-unionized store or coffee shop (without tips). These people are not necessarily bad teachers -- in fact, many have a life-long devotion to teaching in their area of study. However, they often lack important teaching and research supports to do their jobs, and they might be less available due to limited office hours, space, marking assistance, or the need to run between various schools to make a living. Many times, they are overworked, stressed, and have limited influence over processes within the academy.

Therefore, it really is best both for students and faculty to attend schools that treat their employees well and have cultivated a respectful, equitable, and healthy work environment for students and employees. To compare Canadian schools in terms of employment benefits check out CAUT's comparison of collective-agreement benefits for member colleges and universities. A warning...some of the information in the chart needs to be updated, as some of the listed benefits have actually decreased substantially rather than increased:

Unfortunately, as contract academic staff issues are pursued with greater vigour, employers are responding with considerable vehemence. Claiming a need for “flexibility”, some employers’ starting proposals include the elimination of all previously-negotiated posting, hiring and job security language. This kind of division makes it extremely difficult to make any meaningful progress in negotiations. Western made some progress, winning right of first refusal and multi-year contracts. But it was a struggle. Employers also do their best to capitalize on divisions between full and part-time faculty, refusing to negotiate improvements for part-timers while offering improvements to full-time terms and conditions, for example. It is important for faculty associations to resist these kinds of tactics. [Link]

Regrettably, some unions are not resisting these kinds of tactics, and some contingent faculty in Canada have lost seniority and other job-security benefits outright in trade-offs at negotiation time. In unions containing both contingent and tenured faculty, contingent faculty, who are often (but not always) in the minority, can see their job security bargained away in favour of more attractive benefits for tenured faculty (e.g., professional expense increases, free tuition for their children, travel, etc.). In colleges and universities where contingent faculty are in the majority, they may be afraid to use their "power in numbers" due to individuals' fear of not being rehired in the next academic year if they previously participated in a contingent-faculty coup.

Therefore, before you decide to study at or take a job based on the rank of a university, you might consider where that school ranks in terms of proportion and treatment of contingent faculty (e.g., sessionals, lecturers, term, adjuncts). Poor working conditions for faculty can make for poor study conditions for students. To learn more about many schools in Canada with regard to this issue, you can start with the CAUT material I have linked to here, but you also might consider talking with full-time and contingent faculty at the school where you would like to study in order to learn more about that school's philosophy. For some additional perspective on why this is such a serious issue, you might also read this post, this site, this site, as well as the sites listed here. In case you're thinking of going to a Canadian free university, you might consider reading this, keeping in mind the current working conditions for contract academic staff all over Canada. If you want to know more about college and university rankings, in general, read this.

Not Really A Post-Doc, Is It?

If you're aware of the very sad state of affairs vis-a-vis unemployment and underemployment amongst people with PhD's in North America, you might be interested in reading this article, published in what is touted as being a new rival to the Chronicle for Higher Education. After reading the article, I thought to myself that it seemed like a work-for-welfare program, academy style.

Via Academic Game

When Profs Abuse Their Power

I recently received a news release about a professor who allegedly tried to make a student see a therapist for having pro-American views. Here's an excerpt:

Foothill College Republicans
For Immediate Release
December 02, 2004

Arab Student Pushed to see Therapist by Professor After Submitting Pro-American Essay

LOS ALTOS HILLS, CA -Dec 02, 2004. Yesterday, Foothill College Political-Science Professor Joseph Woolcock tried to intimidate student Ahmad Al-Qloushi into seeing a therapist because of a Pro-American essay he wrote in Woolcock's class. The thesis of Al-Qloushi's essay is that the US constitution was a very progressive document, which has contributed to freedom beyond America's borders...."This is not an isolated case," said Cori Jenab, Vice- President of Foothill College Republicans. "Foothill's faculty has disrespected students because of their political and religious beliefs in the past."

This seems like a pretty scary situation, if it's true. I have seen professors abuse their power. My belief is that abuse of power by an academic is a heinous act that must not be ignored. The more widely publicized academic abuses of power are, the less they will be tolerated, and the less they will occur.

Dark secrecy keeps abusive systems in power, but spotlights correct all of that, especially when they shine directly into a professor's office.

Postscript: Professor Woolcock reportedly has filed a grievance against the student for mentioning his name in the media. It seems to me that the media is a good place to talk about issues that colleges refuse to talk about in private.

Postscript 2: Here's another interesting perspective on the issue.

More on Dr. Comrades

Here's an excerpt from The Economist regarding political bias and university faculties:

Academia is simultaneously both the part of America that is most obsessed with diversity, and the least diverse part of the country. On the one hand, colleges bend over backwards to hire minority professors and recruit minority students, aided by an ever-burgeoning bureaucracy of "diversity officers". Yet, when it comes to politics, they are not just indifferent to diversity, but downright allergic to it....

In 1978, Justice Lewis Powell argued that diversity is vital to a university's educational mission, to promote the atmosphere of “speculation, experiment and creation” that is essential to their identities. The more diverse the body, the more robust the exchange of ideas....

Bias in universities is hard to correct because it is usually not overt: it has to do with prejudice about which topics are worth studying and what values are worth holding. Stephen Balch, the president of the conservative National Association of Scholars, argues that university faculties suffer from the same political problems as the "small republics" described in Federalist 10: a motivated majority within the faculty finds it easy to monopolise decision-making and squeeze out minorities.

The article discusses diversity in terms of racial minorities but also in terms of politicial minorities, i.e., scholars who do not have the same kinds of political opinions as the majority of the faculty in their department or larger workplace.

Read the rest here.

Leaning Tower of Ivory

Lots, and I do mean lots, of discussion about a politically left bias in universities has occurred, particularly over the past year. Daniel Klein, of Santa Clara University, and Charlotta Stern, of the University of Stockholm, have been empirically studying the political views of academics in the United States. They found a distinct left bias in American universities. They've posted their pre-publication paper, in which they conclude that there is little ideological diversity in the social sciences.

I wonder how Canadian universities would fare? I suspect the left-bias is quite strong, here. The only thing, however, is that the left-right continuum in Canada does not presuppose capitalism as the basic organizing system of the economy as the American left-right does. It would be interesting to see this survey replicated here.

You might also want to check out Daniel Klein and Eric Chiang's very interesting paper, entitled The Social Science Citation Index: A Black Box—with an Ideological Bias?

Wow. These researchers are thinking outside the tower!

[Via Milt's File]

The Impact of Losing A Good Teacher

Becky has an interesting post on her site about her experience losing a good teacher when she was younger. Here's an excerpt that caught my eye:

I was only 18 when all of this happened. Ms. Hearn was an amazing teacher -- in fact, she's one of the reasons why I want to teach. After all this crap went down, I was -- how you say? -- disillusioned (to say the least). I was on the verge of graduating, and one of my most influential teachers was ousted 3 years before her 30-year retirement -- all because of some policy that the school board wanted to enforce (while conveniently forgetting to follow their own procedures).

Administrations do their deeds for a lot of reasons, but when those deeds involve the word "ousted," you can be sure someone got hurt.

I won't use the word "ousted" for what happened to me -- at least not until the whole thing has gone before the courts and the labour relations process, as well -- and my situation certainly didn't involve the question of anything illegal, on my part, as was alleged in the case of Becky's teacher. However, Becky's post reminded me of something very important that I learned when I "left" my recent academic position:

When good teachers suddenly leave, students miss them and are affected by the loss.

When many of my students heard I was leaving, their reactions were so touching and so sad. Really, at the time, I could barely respond to them because responding, on my part, inevitably would have brought about a huge flood of tears, for my career, for opportunities lost, for the gigantic well of regret I felt at no longer being able to work with these amazing and wonderful people with whom I conversed on a daily basis. In a word, I was choked. What good would it have done for me to weep all over them? They felt bad enough already, and I could see that.

I remember the day that one of my very brightest students came to my office and, excitedly, asked me to supervise her honours thesis.  I had to tell her that, not only would I not be able to work with her, but also that I was leaving. All the angels in heaven saw the look on her face that day, and they'll never forget it. Neither will I.

Some of my students wrote a letter/petition and handed it in, but it was, largely, ignored by anyone who probably should have cared about them and about me. Some students asked me what they could do, feeling upset and helpless about my leaving. Some approached higher-ups or wrote letters. Their caring and open support of me was so amazing and so warm. I remain grateful for their words and actions, even today. In fact, of all the things that might seem to be great about our educational system, the real greatness remains the students.

The most important task of any administrator is to be a responsible steward of the institution, which includes being a responsible steward for students and their needs. Maybe you think great teachers come along everyday and are a dime a dozen. They don't, and they aren't. Of all the things I might be, good or bad, I will say, without hesitation, that I was a good teacher, not because I say so but because my students said so. They learned from me, and I, in turn, learned from them on a daily basis. I miss that. Also, my mother was a great teacher and administrator, and I take no small pride in honouring that lineage in my own teaching practice.

All this points to why, when we talk, especially in academia, about positions and hirings, we must remember that, fundamentally, we're talking about people. I remember reminding a rather prominent man-of-the-cloth that I am a person, not a position, shortly before I left my last job. I see him around sometimes -- a lot, actually -- but he rarely speaks to me now, I suppose, that I no longer am in a position requiring him do that. Sadly, I'll never be in academia again.

Reflecting on Becky's post, I'll just say that, when we hurt teachers, we hurt their students, too, and that's a crying shame...one that I've had all too much experience with myself. Becky got hers, though, saying what she said to that administrator, whilst shaking his hand, no less. You see, the great thing about students is that they're educated, and they learn to see right through, in Becky's words, "monkey-court" administrations, who are a disgrace to their own alma mater.

Academic Scandal Anyone?

Someone came to my blog today looking for "academic scandal."

HA!

I can only wonder what the heck they were looking for.

I'll tell ya what. If there's something you want to know, just ask. All you have to do is ask.

In the mean time, peruse Professors Who Blog, where you'll find links to quite a variety of academic behavior and insights, just not the local variety.

Dr. Comrades

If you attend or work at a university, you should read Kate's post, and the article to which she links. I've read a lot of posts like this in the past year, and they're all interesting food for thought. In fact, several months ago, I started keeping a small file on left-wing bias at universities, and that file is not nearly so small any more. I think I'm going to post on this soon. In the mean time, go read Kate.

After All, What Are Friends For?

Huh.

I came across a former colleague of mine who knew about the lawsuit I'd filed. This person-whom-I-previously-considered- to-be-a-friend insisted on telling me

1. that I should drop my lawsuit

2. that I'm nothing more than a file in some insurance company's cabinet

3. that nobody really cares about what happens to me, and I should just give up

4. that the lawsuit's not hurting anybody but me

5. that none of the people who did anything will be affected at all by the lawsuit, and they don't even think about it or me

What a pal, hey? Don't you just love that special and unique kind of intimidation interpersonal support? And check out the assumption: that my lawsuit is all about hurting "them" and not about addressing (and righting) what happened to me.

Golly. Imagine. Me. Filing a lawsuit for some genuinely important reason. I'm such an insufferable gadfly. Really.

Looking Forward to Academia?

Copyright the artist. Used by permission.

My teen's vision of what university will be like, drawn on some notepaper she got from a Canadian campus. Hmmm.... Scary.

Have to do something about that. Kids who have academic parents sometimes see more than you want them to see.

Usually young people don't feel this way at least until grad school. I guess she got an early education.

BTW, according to her, the heads are random grade 12s, but I think one of them is me. I hope it's not a family picture!

/psychologizing

I Feel So Vindicated

From Anne Marie Owens, of the National Post, reporting on a recent study by Dr. David Sharp of the University of Southern Mississippi:

"The greater her education, the less productive a woman will be at housework, according to a rating system that takes in typical chores including the number of shirts ironed, of dishes washed, of floors vacuumed.

The explanation is due to what researchers call "the morale effect," which essentially means women with higher levels of education, particularly those who are also employed outside the home, are more likely to be disheartened by the drudgery of household chores and disengage from those tasks...."

"....For stay-at-home wives, for example, researchers found a 1% increase in formal education translates into a 0.66% decrease in housework productivity. For dual-earner wives, a 1% increase in formal education translates into a 1.76% decrease in housework productivity.

Dr. Sharp's study found that even when researchers controlled for variable factors such as the number of hours available to spend on housework or the amount of outside help deployed to assist in housework, the data continued to show a negative relationship between education and productivity." [Link]

Let's see...last I counted, I had, um, sixteen years of post-secondary education, so, inversely speaking...now I know why I'm so utterly inefficient when it comes to household chores. Housework is very unrewarding!

By the way, I don't buy shirts that need to be ironed (not when we have that lovely thing called steam)....I'd rather be thinking and reading about stuff like this:

"Senior government sources told The Canadian Press that Ottawa's surplus - which was projected to come in at only $1.9 billion for the fiscal year that ended March 31 - will instead top $8 billion." [Link] Gak!

I remember my seventh grade teacher laughing at me -- laughing right out loud -- when I told him that my future hubby and I would be splitting chores equally. Who's laughing now, Mr. D?

Spread the Word

A Mystery

So, somebody totally spammed me using my old university e-mail address. They signed me up (with a password and everything) to Travel Savings Alerts, to be delivered to my in-box on a regular basis. Maybe they were sending me a "get out of Dodge" kind of message. It reminded me of that one academic interviewer who asked me "why aren't you applying for jobs outside the province?"

I suppose signing up your evil clone double to spamming or annoying sales callers seems like a cool idea, but I wonder if the dodo-brain who did that realizes that you can track ip addresses and servers....

Love One Another

The following is an excerpt from a letter apparently sent to the new president of St. Thomas University in Houston, Texas and then published online. The writer of the letter is a Catholic priest with a history of working in academia.

          When I heard the announcement that a career
          military man and the president of the American
          War College was becoming the president of the
          University of St Thomas, I was saddened. Admittedly,
          over the years I have a growing sense of the evil of
          militarism and warfare. I am sickened that each day
          is violated by the violence and degradation of war.
          I am conscious that monstrous amounts of resources
          are spent on militarism that could be spent on
          development. I believe that the realities of warfare
          and militarism are a violation of the teaching of Jesus
          and his Father's plan. Thus, I am concerned that the
          person who is the chief representative and executive
          of a Catholic University that aspires to be one of the
          outstanding Catholic universities in the United States
          is closely identified with those objective evils....
          [Link]

This letter caught my attention because, at first, I thought it was to Dr. Ivany, formerly of the University of Saskatchewan. It's not. The letter apparently was written to Retired Major General Dr. Robert Ivany, the new president of St. Thomas. I'll provide you with a little background before discussing the priest's comments.

          The recently retired commandant of the U.S. Army War
          College, Dr. Ivany brings 34 years of experience as a
          U.S. Army officer and a Ph.D. in modern European
          history to serve the University of St. Thomas. He has
          taught European history to cadets at West Point and
          directed one of the nation's best-known degree
          granting institutions for the education of strategic
          leaders, the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.
          He and his wife, Marianne, actively serve the Catholic
          Church as lay leaders. The Army honored them with
          the Aaron and Hur Award Chaplain Branch. [Link]

Dr. Ivany clearly has had an impressively distinguished career, even in comparison with administrative peers across many other colleges and universities. He also is reported to be a dedicated Catholic, an important precursor to working at a number of, but not all, Catholic academic and non-academic institutions. He competed for the position against eight finalists and is the first married president for this particular college, as compared, I suppose, to past presidents who were priests. A board member was quoted as saying:

          "In the course of the interview, he
          remembered every name of the people
          who were interviewing him," Strake said.
          "When he looks at you, you are the only
          person in the whole world as far as he's
          concerned. That was impressive." [Link]

This quotation made me think of the new president as having at least a couple of qualities that are exceptionally rare amongst high-level administrators: genuine presentation of self and real interest in other people as more than pawns in their personal ambition-game. In addition, the new president has a bushel-load of experience, awards, and talents that any university likely would value. Apparently, however, the priest who wrote the above-quoted letter to Dr. Ivany was not as impressed with his qualifications for the job.

I was stunned when I read the letter, particularly the first paragraph. The priest-writer seems to believe

1. warfare is evil
2. militarism is evil
3. too much money is spent on militarism
4. war violates the teachings of Christ and God the Father
5. the new St. Thomas University president is closely identified with an objective evil.

First of all, his writing is a little cagey because he uses the word militarism rather than "military." Rather than criticising the military, specifically, the priest targets

mil·i·ta·rism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ml-t-rzm)
n.
1. Glorification of the ideals of a professional military class.
2. Predominance of the armed forces in the administration or policy of the state.
3. A policy in which military preparedness is of primary importance to a state. [Link]

In some ways, the letter seems incredibly unfair because it appears to presuppose that, if a person is in the military, the person also promotes militarism. The two -- military and militarism -- are different. However, even if we are to believe that this priest is denouncing only militarism and not "the military," we cannot ignore the fact that he identifies war with evil. Later in the letter, he acknowleges that the Catholic church has a "just war" teaching but nevertheless pursues the idea that war is evil and, quoting Pope John Paul II, a "defeat for humanity."

I have to agree with the Pope that war is a defeat for humanity. On the other hand, so are the daily evils we do to each other one-on-one. What about ordinary people who are callous, cruel, abusive, dismissive, lying, cheating soul-destroyers? What about abusive or callous or manipulative or self-congratulatory or vow-violating priests? From a Catholic perspective, sin is bad; sin, in separating us from God, is a defeat for humanity and the individual human soul. Thank God, literally, for forgiveness and mercy. However, I doubt the Pope meant his words to be interpreted as a denouncing of the Catholic Church's teaching on Just War.

It's easy to say that war is bad -- that's practically a no-brainer. It's also easy to say that we should never have war, especially when we make that statement from the undeniable comfort of many North American offices and homes. I suspect that the priest-writer of the letter has more-than-adequate creature comforts, judging by the standard of living most North American priests enjoy, even (or especially) those who have taken a vow of poverty.

Any way you look at it, peace is a better option than war. However, we can't be naive. There's the imaginative peace of the flower children and the fear-dominated peace of people ruled by a tyrant. The priest doesn't make this distinction, instead using the word "peace" much more broadly (and vaguely). Would that he, at least, had defined peace as the peace of Christ.

Clearly, the priest doesn't want war, but that doesn't mean all war is evil. Later in the letter, he reveals his political leanings when he describes the current war as offensive (again not specifying if he means the Iraq war, the war on terror, or both).

Rather than privately and publicly decrying Dr. Ivany's much-deserved and celebrated appointment to St. Thomas University, I would suggest that the priest-writer take direction from Jesus's words. Yes, as the priest wrote in his letter, Jesus said that peacemakers are blessed. However, let's look at a passage that perhaps is both more pertinent and more specific to this situation. Let's look at Matthew 8:5-12. In this passage, a Roman Centurion asks Jesus to heal his servant:

          "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter
          under my roof; only say the word and
          my servant will be healed. For I too am
          a person subject to authority, with soldiers
          subject to me. And I say to one, 'Go,' and
          he goes; and to another, 'Come here,' and
          he comes; and to my slave, 'Do this,' and
          he does it."

Jesus responded to the request:

          "When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and
          said to those following him, "Amen, I say to
          you, in no one in Israel have I found such
          faith. I say to you, many will come from the
          east and the west, and will recline with
          Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in
          the kingdom of heaven, but the children of
          the kingdom will be driven out into the outer
          darkness, where there will be wailing and
          grinding of teeth." And Jesus said to the
          centurion, "You may go; as you have
          believed, let it be done for you." And at that
          very hour (his) servant was healed."

Let's contrast this with what Jesus says when he saves the adulteress from being stoned:

          "Woman, where are they? Has no one
          condemned you?" She replied, "No one,
          sir." Then Jesus said, "Neither do I
          condemn you. Go, (and) from now on
          do not sin any more." (John 8:10-11)

He doesn't condemn her, but he tells her to sin no more. Interestingly, he doesn't tell the Centurion not to "sin no more," just because he is a military officer. Instead, he admires the Centurion's faith, even above some "children of the kingdom." This passage is so centrally important to Catholic belief that it is the source for a specific line in the Roman liturgy, "Only say the word, and I shall be healed."

Faith matters.

All of us have jobs to do in life, and some of those jobs can be extremely difficult, such as military jobs. Many of us, I'm sure, wish that we would never have a war with anyone, but wishes are not reality, and if we don't wage war with others, certainly others will wage it with us. Shall we all be perfect pacifists, letting others run over our nation and take control of us? Where would the world be now if we had turned the other cheek to the Nazi's? Sometimes duties are grim but necessary.

Jesus preached peace, but he also said there is no greater love than to lay down your life for another. He did so by suffering the passion, giving his life in the way his father determined so that God could forgive us, despite what humans did to Jesus (and do to each other). We earthly souls can give our lives for others in many ways, serving and even making huge sacrifices for others, but we need faith. People in the military put themselves in harm's way on a daily basis, ready to lay their lives down for any one of us when needed. For that, I am grateful, and I will not call them or their work generically evil.

I'm wondering whether the priest-writer's feelings about Dr. Ivany's appointment would have been different if the priest wasn't so opposed to the policies of the present American government. Alternatively, perhaps the priest-writer was just really upset that a priest didn't get the job of president -- at least a couple had been in the running. That's a touchy issue at Catholic academic institutions -- whether the president is a priest or a layperson.

We are all sinners, and we know that God is kind and merciful to the ungrateful and wicked (Luke 6:35-36). Thank God. Jesus looked at the Centurion's faith, not his job or his position. The Centurion's job wasn't any more inherently evil that any other -- believe me, you can work at any position in any organization and positively skewer people with your words and behavior in the most evil and Machiavellian manner. Killing people is bad -- perhaps you think it is the worst of Catholic sins; yet, destroying people's self-esteem, faith, confidence, love or lives in other manners is also evil.

Mother Teresa said the greatest sin is a lack of love. I believe that, and I see very little love in the priest's letter. Imagine being new to a job, as Dr. Ivany is, and being greeted like that. While the priest was saddened by Dr. Ivany's hiring, I daily am saddened by the need to remind priests that they have a primary responsibility to act with love and compassion toward others. When will some of these priests get it? Then, again, they're really no better than any of us. I should stop having such high expectations of them, despite Catholic tradition having carved that into me.

I'll just add that, in my cultural heritage, my last name means soldier, although I could only hope to have the faith of the Centurion.

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12)

The Pang

I had The Pang yesterday. It was, in a word, disturbing because I couldn't really do anything about it; yet, it was unmistakeably present.

The Pang is that feeling I'd get around about this time every summer just before going back to teaching. The feeling is a mix of awareness that the summer is coming to a close and excitement about the upcoming fall. New faces, new classes -- I'd start checking over my syllabi to make sure everything was in order and start calling to see if my books had arrived at the bookstore. I'd make sure my office was straightened up and stack the first week's lesson plans neatly on my desk, ready. 

I'd simultaneously love and dread the pang. After all, the pang meant that fall wasn't too far away, but it also meant a return to that place I loved so very much -- the university. I was sorry to get the pang this year because I'm not returning to teaching.  This year, the rush of excitement was hollow, like a bloom that dies before fully opening.

I don't love the university anymore. What was once a place of discovery and promise now seems like the wreckage of Max Yasgur's farm once everyone went home after Woodstock. When I see young people going off to campus for the first time, I note their excitement, tinged with some apprehension, which they would be wise to heed. Unlike years past, I now see something very different in post-secondary education than I ever did before.  I'd tell you what that difference is but, now that my current book has been launched into production, I've decided to write a new one on just that topic.

Still, it's the idea of learning that continues to excite me. I'm not happy, it seems, unless some puzzle or enigma is buzzing around my brain. I miss sharing that love for learning with my students the most. Just to torture myself, I suppose, I watched To Sir With Love tonight and couldn't help but marvel at how Thackeray accomplished that crucial goal of student engagement. He captured their minds and imaginations, helping them to live with respect for themselves and each other. I believe that is what I miss the most about teaching: the feeling of mutual respect present while learning together in a classroom.  My mother was a teacher, and she was the person to instill in me the belief that mutual respect was the foundation for learning together.

I'm wondering if I'll have to live with The Pang all my life. Perhaps after studying and teaching in the university system for so long, you never become free of that eager anticipation, that September to September cycle. For now, The Pang grips me with its meaty fist much like a colleague of mine once did while shouting something into my face.  The Pang throws my emotions into a chaotic turmoil, like that time someone ripped all the drawers out of my orderly desk, dumping, heaving, trashing everything into a horrible, tangled pile on the floor, carnage with a powerful message: you're not wanted here.

The university is not what it seems, and it is even less of what you imagine in dreams. Go there and learn, then graduate and leave. Never forget to leave. You'll likely be much happier in the long run.

The Lecturer's Tale

Did you read Graeme Hamilton's article in the National Post Saturday about academic scandal and intrigue? Apparently, Ms. Gabrielle Gourdeau, a former lecturer at Laval University, published a short-story collection in 2001. In one of the stories, she wrote about a professor whom she described as "social-climbing," "careerist," and "pig-headed." Apparently, she also made comments about the professor's sex life and other nasty habits of preoccupation.

Interesting. Sounds like much of academia, based on what I've seen. It may be called the Ivory Tower but, believe me, the whiteness of the ivory is far from representing anything even remotely virginal. In academia, you really can get screwed.

According to Hamilton, Gourdeau's administrative head reacted strongly when he thought he saw himself as being the model for the pig-headed protagonist in one of her stories. Rather than keeping this to himself, he filed a libel suit against Gourdeau, claiming that "his reputation would be tarnished if it became known that he considered himself the model for Ms. Gourdeau's professor."

Let's see: he thought he was the social-climbing, careerist, pig-headed model for the story's character and was worried others would find out, so he filed a public lawsuit...what, so he could announce that to everyone? This guy gives me clouds in my