The authoritarian mindset is hard to break. Here are things I would like to express to leadership in our department but don’t think I will be allowed to. I despair of being comprehensible, although I consider these things simple, so I’ll note them for the future. They are things are to save the department, whose leadership does not realize how far to the edge they’ve pushed things. Stakes are existential.
1. Former graduate student off record: faculty in power effectively empower the harassers and abandon the harassed majority; this is why students become unhappy and fail/leave and why the atmosphere is so bad. Ending this pattern is what would stabilize the department, and improve recruitment/retention/success.
1a. I notice that the general situation also affects all of faculty not in power, since we are as alienated, excluded, and set upon each other, as the graduate students. Faculty not in power fail, leave, or struggle in ways that parallel those of the graduate students. Only a serious culture change will stop this, and things have come to a breaking point or crossroads. We have to turn a corner or risk program closure. Unity, transparency, inclusion, non-harassment, and strategic planning are needed.
2. Undergraduates are worried about program closure, they can smell it coming. A very good undergraduate gives an analysis of problems: it all has to do with the language requirement, which is taught in a punitive way that alienates everyone. They suggest we allow those who teach these courses to de-emphasize scores on automated homework and exams, and add fun, interactive activities engaging that create joy, spark interest, truly teach, and also raise grades. This would lighten the atmosphere for all and have a ripple effect. The student points out that everyone has to do the language requirement, so half the university goes through us. Since we torture or at least bore the students with automated activities and the instructor largely is sidelined by a machine, that’s the impression we give of our discipline to the university at large. This student is right. Pain in the first three semesters causes trouble in the rest of the program, but also ripples laterally through the majors in other departments. It’s a serious problem but it has a simple fix: trust the instructors, allow them to assign fun, educational, grade-raising activities, and back them up in their assessment of students. Then instructors will be able to assign points for strengths, not just take points away for errors.
In sum, the lack of backup of instructors forces them to rely on automation so students cannot claim grades were uneven or that courses did not prepare them for exams. As a result, there is mind-dulling, automated homework and then students consult ChatGPT to do the picky, automated exams. This student said all the instructors and professors they had were great, and the only problem with the classes the instructors taught was that they were hampered from teaching more creatively by the fact that 95% of each grade is determined by automated material. I despair, however, of getting this across to leadership at all. The automation means there is no room for grade complaints, and leadership likes this.
In other institutions there’s a director of lower division who is not just a senior instructor, they’re a professor with advanced training in language acquisition. So they help design exams and assignments, and suggest practical and fair ways to grade responses to open-ended questions. And back up the instructors on grading, so that all complaints don’t have to be fielded by an already busy chair. That is why I want to hire such a person. But nobody understands me, they think I want to hire a BOSS for these people. No, I want to hire a resource, a resource person very many departments have, I did not invent the role. But nobody understands what I am saying. This is the authoritarian mindset and we might lose our programs to it.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 