As it turns out this journaling project has been reasonably challenging for me. Observing students is difficult, when I don't have any real interaction with them. I see students at working out at Dixon, at Java II and in the MU. I see students walking around campus, in restaurants, at the movie theatre, at the grocery store. It is a college town, I can't really go anywhere without seeing students. Yet I feel like seeing students in these superficial situations doesn't give me any real chance to make meaningful observations. I do work with biology TA's for an hour every week. But they are grad students, and while observing them is valuable, it is only one part of a small of the college student experience.
One of the things I've keep coming back to in this journal is the idea that I still don?t feel like I understand what is going on with students at OSU. Yet a conversation during class last week showed me that I am not the only one who feels this way. Several others in my cohort including those who have a lot of student interaction feel the same way. This makes me look at this question differently. Maybe understanding the student experience is not really possible. Maybe its only something you can understand while you are an undergrad. Yet I'm sure the campus climate has changed a lot at my undergrad institution in the year and a half since I graduated. So do think it is important to try to understand student experience at your university, I'm just not at all sure its achievable.
This text term, I will be teaching a study skills class, as an internship opportunity. I'm really excited for the challenge teaching is going to provide, but I'm also excited to get to work with 20 students on a meaningful basis. I will be spending 2 hours a week with them, for 10 weeks. This will allow for a LOT of observation; it's a big chance to see some of the student issues unique to OSU.
I went to see the OSU main stage musical, "Pirates of Penzance" this week with two others from my cohort. I got there early and I sat on a bench waiting for my friends to arrive. I was sort of overwhelmed. The theatre holds about 400 people and the show was sold out. For some reason, there was actually rather long line to get into the theatre, for people who already had tickets. I felt a little displaced honestly. It is a college theatre, I felt as though I should have a sense or belonging. But its not my theatre, and I don't really think it ever will be, not the way the Norton Clapp theatre at UPS belongs to me. Or more accurately, I belong to it. So for some reason I felt small and disconnected watching people mill past me at the OSU theatre. I wonder how often students new to OSU feel this way. I would assume it's quite often.
Its been interesting to watch attitudes on campus change as the weather gets cold and dreary and the term draws to a close. Tension and anxiety are so palpable you could cut them with a knife. Last week, I looked around our Monday class, Theory, right before class started. I was surprised to see how tired and limp everyone look. We are generally a pretty happy rambunctious group, but there was zero energy in the room. I assume this is happening all over campus during week 8.
I know that adjusting to a term system was difficult for me after a semester school. I wonder how difficult the transition is if you are coming from high school? I bet the difference is pretty startling. I think in freshmen classes, the week 8, 9, and 10 tension must be off the charts. I wonder if it gets easier?
I know this has been all over the place, but I a trying to make sense of some of the things I have been feeling for the last 8 weeks. I know for the most part, there are no answers to these questions. It seems to me that for now, just asking the questions is enough.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Swimming: its just like riding a bike
A few weeks ago, I swam laps for the first time in about 6 years. I was on swim team for a few years in middle school, but other than splashing around a little bit now and then I haven’t really swam seriously since then. However, last week I was working out in the room in Dixon that looks out over the pool, and I felt a wave of longing. I remembered what gliding through the water felt like, and I knew I had to go for a swim. A few days and a trip to buy a pair of goggles later, I was in the pool.
The reason I’m talking about this is that getting in the water took me back. For that split second every time my head was under water, nothing else exited. I felt like I could be 15 years old or 23, there was no difference as I slipped through the water. For me, swimming is one of those skill sets I think I will never lose, I feel like it was yesterday, not 6 years ago that I last swam. So I started thinking about other things in my life that are automatic. What are the things I can do so well, that I never doubt them? Well my list is surprisingly small. I count swimming, singing, reading aloud, writing and acting among them. I think at different points in my life this list will change and grow. And its different now than it was at 18.
Not unlike taking a 30 minute walk, swimming was 30 minutes in the water alone with my thoughts. So while I was in the pool, I thought about the things I knew and didn’t know at the age of 18. When I decided to go to a private school I took out loans to do so. At the age of 18, I didn’t really understand what this meant. I got that I would have to pay them back. I understood money. I’d had a summer job for several years, and had a little money in the bank. But I did not understand the enormous consequences of taking out a total of 30 thousand dollars in loans. In fact, it was really not until this last year that I truly comprehended it. And I haven’t even had to make any payments yet.
Only this week I found out that I have a credit card associated with the bank account I opened my freshman year of college. I had no idea. I’m not sure how this slipped by me. I think that we need to be aware of this, that while they are on their way to being competent young adults, a lot of freshmen have absolutely no experience in a lot of real life matters. I’m not suggesting that they are babies, or that we should treat them that way, but instead that we simply need to be aware that many college students may need a little extra guidance.
I wonder how this happens at a big school. I have been fixating over the last few weeks about the differences between different types of schools, but in particular, large public school versus small liberal arts school. In Programs and Functions, we have had a number of guests from different school from around the area come to speak to us about their job and their school. Finally this week we had someone come from a small private school: Linfield. As he spoke about his college, I thought “this could literally be Puget Sound he is talking about.” And it was both affirming for me to hear it, and educational for the rest of my cohort to think about the differences. There are only three of us out of 20 from school like Puget Sound or Linfield. Those numbers are reasonably surprising to me.
I talked to my sister this week about this. She went to a small private school in Ohio, Wittenberg University. I really wasn’t aware of this until now, but Wittenberg is very similar in mission and demographic to Puget Sound right down to the size, just over 2000. It literally knocks me off balance every time that I remember that OSU is ten times as large. My sister I and talked about the pros and cons of little schools and big schools. Large schools may have more resources, but small school can pay more individual attention. Large schools offer more subjects, but at small schools you can get one on one interaction with professors in your classes. The list goes on and on. For me, I think it’s important to remember that just because a small school was right for me, doesn’t mean it is the right choice for everyone.
So now I will go back to my train of thought when I was in the swimming pool. What are the things that freshman know? What are the automatic things they know how to do? How far out of their comfort zone are they willing to go? What are the things that they don’t know? I think these things are different for every single person. Making choices in live is always a combination of doing what you are good at, and talking the plunge into something more difficult.
Once I got in the pool, the strokes came back to me, and I was immediately kicking up and down my lane (the “slow” lane). But getting back in the pool after so long was not an easy decision. I wondered if the skill would still be there. And this time it was.
The reason I’m talking about this is that getting in the water took me back. For that split second every time my head was under water, nothing else exited. I felt like I could be 15 years old or 23, there was no difference as I slipped through the water. For me, swimming is one of those skill sets I think I will never lose, I feel like it was yesterday, not 6 years ago that I last swam. So I started thinking about other things in my life that are automatic. What are the things I can do so well, that I never doubt them? Well my list is surprisingly small. I count swimming, singing, reading aloud, writing and acting among them. I think at different points in my life this list will change and grow. And its different now than it was at 18.
Not unlike taking a 30 minute walk, swimming was 30 minutes in the water alone with my thoughts. So while I was in the pool, I thought about the things I knew and didn’t know at the age of 18. When I decided to go to a private school I took out loans to do so. At the age of 18, I didn’t really understand what this meant. I got that I would have to pay them back. I understood money. I’d had a summer job for several years, and had a little money in the bank. But I did not understand the enormous consequences of taking out a total of 30 thousand dollars in loans. In fact, it was really not until this last year that I truly comprehended it. And I haven’t even had to make any payments yet.
Only this week I found out that I have a credit card associated with the bank account I opened my freshman year of college. I had no idea. I’m not sure how this slipped by me. I think that we need to be aware of this, that while they are on their way to being competent young adults, a lot of freshmen have absolutely no experience in a lot of real life matters. I’m not suggesting that they are babies, or that we should treat them that way, but instead that we simply need to be aware that many college students may need a little extra guidance.
I wonder how this happens at a big school. I have been fixating over the last few weeks about the differences between different types of schools, but in particular, large public school versus small liberal arts school. In Programs and Functions, we have had a number of guests from different school from around the area come to speak to us about their job and their school. Finally this week we had someone come from a small private school: Linfield. As he spoke about his college, I thought “this could literally be Puget Sound he is talking about.” And it was both affirming for me to hear it, and educational for the rest of my cohort to think about the differences. There are only three of us out of 20 from school like Puget Sound or Linfield. Those numbers are reasonably surprising to me.
I talked to my sister this week about this. She went to a small private school in Ohio, Wittenberg University. I really wasn’t aware of this until now, but Wittenberg is very similar in mission and demographic to Puget Sound right down to the size, just over 2000. It literally knocks me off balance every time that I remember that OSU is ten times as large. My sister I and talked about the pros and cons of little schools and big schools. Large schools may have more resources, but small school can pay more individual attention. Large schools offer more subjects, but at small schools you can get one on one interaction with professors in your classes. The list goes on and on. For me, I think it’s important to remember that just because a small school was right for me, doesn’t mean it is the right choice for everyone.
So now I will go back to my train of thought when I was in the swimming pool. What are the things that freshman know? What are the automatic things they know how to do? How far out of their comfort zone are they willing to go? What are the things that they don’t know? I think these things are different for every single person. Making choices in live is always a combination of doing what you are good at, and talking the plunge into something more difficult.
Once I got in the pool, the strokes came back to me, and I was immediately kicking up and down my lane (the “slow” lane). But getting back in the pool after so long was not an easy decision. I wondered if the skill would still be there. And this time it was.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Sickness and Health
One of the things on my mind recently has been health. I had a terrible cold two weeks ago and had to miss Monday’s class. I am the first person in the cohort to get this sick, and there was a huge discussion about it in my absence. While I know for an undergrad, missing one class is not usually an international incident it still gets me thinking.
In college attendance is a tricky thing. In high school, attendance is clearly mandatory but in college its often not. There may be participation points associated with being present, or the class is structured in such a way that presence is necessary. But I think a lot of first year students are totally baffled by the idea that they are actually paying to be in class, but no one can force you to attend.
However, illness is a big issue, especially with the paranoia surrounding H1N1. When I was sick, I would blow my nose in public, and get a combination looks of fear and sympathy from people. When I had to go to the store to buy soup and cold medicine, the cashier assumed it was for someone else sick in my home, and I let her believe that, because I didn’t want her to treat me differently. In fact, I actually think she thought I had a sick child at home, but that is maybe beyond the point, while it does feed into my earlier musings about assumptions.
But what are we telling/doing for sick students? The OSU health center website suggests that an ill student living in a residence hall should leave and go home until they are well, if possible. While I understand that the majority of OSU students are from the state of Oregon, I wonder how many are within comfortable distance to go home to their parent’s house if they are ill? And if you are more than maybe 20 minutes away, would you really want to drive? Or even travel? While I understand that residence halls are incubation for sick students this seems unreasonable.
Another interesting thing that has come to my attention is the biology department’s policy about missing lab. Beginning this year, no makeup labs are allowed: unless the student is sick. This raises an interesting problem. Clearly if a student is seriously ill and needs to rest, we don’t want them in class. If they are this sick, we also probably don’t want their germs in class either. However, this leaves us with a trust system. A cold is not something you need a doctors note for, but how do we determine if students are really “sick enough” to miss lab? We just have to trust student’s judgment, I suppose. But there is an element of mistrust surrounding this issue still for some reason.
All this talking about illness has me thinking about an incident my freshman year of college. Someone in my residence hall had scarlet fever, which is something I thought people only got in “Little House on the Prairie.” At the same time, I was sick in my dorm room bed for a few days with just a regular garden variety fever and missed class. And a miscommunication with a friend led to my entire math class thinking I also had scarlet fever. The culmination of this was my RA knocking on my door and telling me she was the worst RA ever for not knowing one of her residents had scarlet fever. This was the first I had heard of it. And I was effectively Typhoid Mary for a few days until it got around that I had never in fact had scarlet fever. Now it’s a funny anecdote that comes up with my college friends from time to time, “Hey, Char, remember when the whole school thought you had scarlet fever?” But really it is a representation of the negatives effects assumptions about illness can have on people.
So how should a campus respond to sickness? Overreacting clearly is not helpful, but keeping students informed and healthy is important, and necessary. Yet striking the right balance between the two is difficult. My big sister is teaching in Bulgaria currently and the school she teaches at is closed for a week because of the number of H1N1 cases in Sofia. So I do understand that this flu season is clearly not a laughing matter, yet people are also overreacting. I’m not sure what I think the administration at OSU should be doing to keep people calm and informed. I’m just not sure its happening currently.
In college attendance is a tricky thing. In high school, attendance is clearly mandatory but in college its often not. There may be participation points associated with being present, or the class is structured in such a way that presence is necessary. But I think a lot of first year students are totally baffled by the idea that they are actually paying to be in class, but no one can force you to attend.
However, illness is a big issue, especially with the paranoia surrounding H1N1. When I was sick, I would blow my nose in public, and get a combination looks of fear and sympathy from people. When I had to go to the store to buy soup and cold medicine, the cashier assumed it was for someone else sick in my home, and I let her believe that, because I didn’t want her to treat me differently. In fact, I actually think she thought I had a sick child at home, but that is maybe beyond the point, while it does feed into my earlier musings about assumptions.
But what are we telling/doing for sick students? The OSU health center website suggests that an ill student living in a residence hall should leave and go home until they are well, if possible. While I understand that the majority of OSU students are from the state of Oregon, I wonder how many are within comfortable distance to go home to their parent’s house if they are ill? And if you are more than maybe 20 minutes away, would you really want to drive? Or even travel? While I understand that residence halls are incubation for sick students this seems unreasonable.
Another interesting thing that has come to my attention is the biology department’s policy about missing lab. Beginning this year, no makeup labs are allowed: unless the student is sick. This raises an interesting problem. Clearly if a student is seriously ill and needs to rest, we don’t want them in class. If they are this sick, we also probably don’t want their germs in class either. However, this leaves us with a trust system. A cold is not something you need a doctors note for, but how do we determine if students are really “sick enough” to miss lab? We just have to trust student’s judgment, I suppose. But there is an element of mistrust surrounding this issue still for some reason.
All this talking about illness has me thinking about an incident my freshman year of college. Someone in my residence hall had scarlet fever, which is something I thought people only got in “Little House on the Prairie.” At the same time, I was sick in my dorm room bed for a few days with just a regular garden variety fever and missed class. And a miscommunication with a friend led to my entire math class thinking I also had scarlet fever. The culmination of this was my RA knocking on my door and telling me she was the worst RA ever for not knowing one of her residents had scarlet fever. This was the first I had heard of it. And I was effectively Typhoid Mary for a few days until it got around that I had never in fact had scarlet fever. Now it’s a funny anecdote that comes up with my college friends from time to time, “Hey, Char, remember when the whole school thought you had scarlet fever?” But really it is a representation of the negatives effects assumptions about illness can have on people.
So how should a campus respond to sickness? Overreacting clearly is not helpful, but keeping students informed and healthy is important, and necessary. Yet striking the right balance between the two is difficult. My big sister is teaching in Bulgaria currently and the school she teaches at is closed for a week because of the number of H1N1 cases in Sofia. So I do understand that this flu season is clearly not a laughing matter, yet people are also overreacting. I’m not sure what I think the administration at OSU should be doing to keep people calm and informed. I’m just not sure its happening currently.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
"My Name is Rachel Corrie"
Last week, I went to see “My Name is Rachel Corrie” produced by the OSU theatre department. Again, like the Laramie Project, this is a play with a strong tie to student affairs. “My Name is Rachel Corrie” is a one woman show complied from the emails, journals, and letters of Rachel Corrie. She was a student at Evergreen State Collge who went to Palestine to do peaceful protesting, and was killed by a bulldozer in 2003 in Gaza.
I can see exactly why OSU chose to do these two plays, “The Laramie Project,” and “My name is Rachel Corrie” in addition to their regular season. Both plays deal with subject matter that is very important for any college campus. Both Rachel Corrie and Matthew Shepherd were university students at the time of their deaths, and this kind of tragedy hugely affects campuses, and in their cases, the world. While the circumstances of their lives and their tragic deaths are very different, both called attention to a world wide issue, and each of them left an unexpected legacy.
The structure of these two plays is in some ways opposite. “The Laramie Project” is taken from the words of everyone except Matthew Shepard, “My Name is Rachel Corrie” is taken entirely from Rachel’s own words. Additionally, “The Laramie Project” begins with Matthew’s death, and “My Name is Rachel Corrie” ends with Rachel’s death. Because "My name is Rachel Corries" ends with Rachel’s death, the play itself does not explore the reaction of Evergreen students, or the reaction of the world. Yet her death must have had a profound impact. Instead, the play shows how a young woman like Rachel felt compelled to put herself in a dangerous situation: to help others.
Through the play, in her own words, the character of Rachel speaks of feeling lost in life, until she took a class at Evergreen that encouraged her to get involved in the community. From there the path to the Gaza strip seemed to clearly open itself up to her. This is the piece of her story that caused me to want to write about the play for my journal this week. I think so many college students are constantly looking for this moment, when their world simply lines itself up, and the path is clear.
Of course, I understand that the play is taken from only some of Rachel Corries words, and of course, only those thoughts, experiences and feeling she was willing to put down on paper. But even when she was in Palestine, she didn’t seem to feel any fear for herself, or for her own life. Instead, she wanted to know how she was ever supposed to find any meaning in life after she left Palestine. She talked of going to France, or going home to Olympia, but imagined she would be racked by guilt. I think this is a reasonably common feeling. I think that most young people who have some kind of life changing event such as serving in the Peace Corps have survivor’s guilt, or readjustment shock. It seems immeasurably sad to me that she didn’t ever get to leave; she never got the chance to see how this experience would affect the rest of her life.
In some ways I am stuck on Rachel Corrie’s story because I feel that it could have been mine. I could have made the choices she made. But I felt that my calling was working with the homeless through AmeriCorps, not peaceful protesting in Palestine. I feel aligned with Rachel Corrie, with all young people who feel a need to change the world in their own small way.
I find myself having to keep using the terminology of “being called.” When I was in high school I read Barbra Kingsolver’s “Poisonwood Bible” and was fascinated with the tragedies it told of Africa. It was my first experience with these horrors, they had never occurred to me before. In some ways it is a miracle that I’ve never signed up to go do work in Africa. I think that’s fine. I don’t regret my choices. I’m not placing any value judgment on any of these things. I don’t think every one who wants to make a difference need to go the Gaza strip. And I don’t think that is the message of “My Name is Rachel Corrie.” I don’t think Rachel Corrie herself would pass any judgment in this way either, I just think this happened to be her calling.
Now I have to come back to student affairs. All of this is great you may say, but what does it have to do with observations of student experiences? I think that every thoughtful student addresses this issue at some point, wanting to know how they are called to make a difference in the world. So what are universities doing to help students with these moments? How are we encouraging our youth to be global citizens? Who in my life helped me pursue volunteerism? Who in Rachel Corrie’s life helped her decide that activism was her life’s purpose?
While Rachel Corrie’s life was sadly cut short, she lived according to her values, which has to be respected. Yet, she was just a girl, and I’m not idealizing her, nor is the play. However, she has become an example of what following your heart can look like. Yes, it’s sad that she was killed by a bulldozer, it’s a huge tragedy. But the way she lived her life should be an inspiration to anyone, college students and beyond. And if we don’t learn something form this, that would be the real tragedy.
I can see exactly why OSU chose to do these two plays, “The Laramie Project,” and “My name is Rachel Corrie” in addition to their regular season. Both plays deal with subject matter that is very important for any college campus. Both Rachel Corrie and Matthew Shepherd were university students at the time of their deaths, and this kind of tragedy hugely affects campuses, and in their cases, the world. While the circumstances of their lives and their tragic deaths are very different, both called attention to a world wide issue, and each of them left an unexpected legacy.
The structure of these two plays is in some ways opposite. “The Laramie Project” is taken from the words of everyone except Matthew Shepard, “My Name is Rachel Corrie” is taken entirely from Rachel’s own words. Additionally, “The Laramie Project” begins with Matthew’s death, and “My Name is Rachel Corrie” ends with Rachel’s death. Because "My name is Rachel Corries" ends with Rachel’s death, the play itself does not explore the reaction of Evergreen students, or the reaction of the world. Yet her death must have had a profound impact. Instead, the play shows how a young woman like Rachel felt compelled to put herself in a dangerous situation: to help others.
Through the play, in her own words, the character of Rachel speaks of feeling lost in life, until she took a class at Evergreen that encouraged her to get involved in the community. From there the path to the Gaza strip seemed to clearly open itself up to her. This is the piece of her story that caused me to want to write about the play for my journal this week. I think so many college students are constantly looking for this moment, when their world simply lines itself up, and the path is clear.
Of course, I understand that the play is taken from only some of Rachel Corries words, and of course, only those thoughts, experiences and feeling she was willing to put down on paper. But even when she was in Palestine, she didn’t seem to feel any fear for herself, or for her own life. Instead, she wanted to know how she was ever supposed to find any meaning in life after she left Palestine. She talked of going to France, or going home to Olympia, but imagined she would be racked by guilt. I think this is a reasonably common feeling. I think that most young people who have some kind of life changing event such as serving in the Peace Corps have survivor’s guilt, or readjustment shock. It seems immeasurably sad to me that she didn’t ever get to leave; she never got the chance to see how this experience would affect the rest of her life.
In some ways I am stuck on Rachel Corrie’s story because I feel that it could have been mine. I could have made the choices she made. But I felt that my calling was working with the homeless through AmeriCorps, not peaceful protesting in Palestine. I feel aligned with Rachel Corrie, with all young people who feel a need to change the world in their own small way.
I find myself having to keep using the terminology of “being called.” When I was in high school I read Barbra Kingsolver’s “Poisonwood Bible” and was fascinated with the tragedies it told of Africa. It was my first experience with these horrors, they had never occurred to me before. In some ways it is a miracle that I’ve never signed up to go do work in Africa. I think that’s fine. I don’t regret my choices. I’m not placing any value judgment on any of these things. I don’t think every one who wants to make a difference need to go the Gaza strip. And I don’t think that is the message of “My Name is Rachel Corrie.” I don’t think Rachel Corrie herself would pass any judgment in this way either, I just think this happened to be her calling.
Now I have to come back to student affairs. All of this is great you may say, but what does it have to do with observations of student experiences? I think that every thoughtful student addresses this issue at some point, wanting to know how they are called to make a difference in the world. So what are universities doing to help students with these moments? How are we encouraging our youth to be global citizens? Who in my life helped me pursue volunteerism? Who in Rachel Corrie’s life helped her decide that activism was her life’s purpose?
While Rachel Corrie’s life was sadly cut short, she lived according to her values, which has to be respected. Yet, she was just a girl, and I’m not idealizing her, nor is the play. However, she has become an example of what following your heart can look like. Yes, it’s sad that she was killed by a bulldozer, it’s a huge tragedy. But the way she lived her life should be an inspiration to anyone, college students and beyond. And if we don’t learn something form this, that would be the real tragedy.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Campus Climate: I need a thermometer
This week, I have a lot of questions about how to gauge a campus climate. OSU is now my school, but I don’t feel very connected to it. I feel connected to the CSSA program, and to my job, but I don’t have a lot of contact with students in general. I really have no idea what is going on with the undergraduates. I don’t spend a lot of time on campus. I don’t really have reason to.
This week I specifically spent some time on campus, both in the library and in a coffee shop, Java II. I was surprised to find how loud the library was on a Sunday afternoon. I went with a two hour window of time, hoping to get a lot of work done, but was seriously distracted by a group of exceedingly loud young men in the quiet section. I was surprised by this level of disrespect.
You can see a lot of different things in the library, people studying alone, in pairs, in small groups. But it occurs to me that anything I observe on campus is just a tiny window into someone’s life. Students are involved in a huge number of things, and observing them in one activity sheds no light into the rest of their lives. I see students working out at Dixon, but what else are they doing? What clubs are they in? What classes are they taking? I have no idea.
So this leads me to the issue of balance. How do we know what kind of balance students have in their lives, when we don’t know what they are doing? Even the biology TA’s I work with, I only see a tiny portion. I spend an hour with them once a week, and know what issues they are facing with their labs, but what do I really know?
Something I was discussing this week with my mentor in the CSSA program is this issue of accountability. Student affairs as a profession is pushing students to live balanced lives, with a healthy level of all activities. Yet we are student affairs professionals are not always setting a good example. As grad students, especially, we are expected to do a lot. Part time or full time jobs, part time or full time classes, and we are still expected to live “balanced” lives. I’m not entirely sure how to do this, and in that case how do we encourage students do the same?
I think that I need to continue to purposefully spend more time on campus to observe, but that creates an imbalance in my own life. I still think that no matter how much observing I do, I will only be seeing a small part of student experience. I’m really not sure how to see more than a small sliver of the whole. I do have a game plan. I will start reading the Barometer, going to events, and have my powers of observation turned on whenever I am on campus. But will this be enough? It will have to be a good start,I guess, but it won't solve the whole problem of me feeling disconnected from the pulse of OSU.
This week I specifically spent some time on campus, both in the library and in a coffee shop, Java II. I was surprised to find how loud the library was on a Sunday afternoon. I went with a two hour window of time, hoping to get a lot of work done, but was seriously distracted by a group of exceedingly loud young men in the quiet section. I was surprised by this level of disrespect.
You can see a lot of different things in the library, people studying alone, in pairs, in small groups. But it occurs to me that anything I observe on campus is just a tiny window into someone’s life. Students are involved in a huge number of things, and observing them in one activity sheds no light into the rest of their lives. I see students working out at Dixon, but what else are they doing? What clubs are they in? What classes are they taking? I have no idea.
So this leads me to the issue of balance. How do we know what kind of balance students have in their lives, when we don’t know what they are doing? Even the biology TA’s I work with, I only see a tiny portion. I spend an hour with them once a week, and know what issues they are facing with their labs, but what do I really know?
Something I was discussing this week with my mentor in the CSSA program is this issue of accountability. Student affairs as a profession is pushing students to live balanced lives, with a healthy level of all activities. Yet we are student affairs professionals are not always setting a good example. As grad students, especially, we are expected to do a lot. Part time or full time jobs, part time or full time classes, and we are still expected to live “balanced” lives. I’m not entirely sure how to do this, and in that case how do we encourage students do the same?
I think that I need to continue to purposefully spend more time on campus to observe, but that creates an imbalance in my own life. I still think that no matter how much observing I do, I will only be seeing a small part of student experience. I’m really not sure how to see more than a small sliver of the whole. I do have a game plan. I will start reading the Barometer, going to events, and have my powers of observation turned on whenever I am on campus. But will this be enough? It will have to be a good start,I guess, but it won't solve the whole problem of me feeling disconnected from the pulse of OSU.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The Laramie Project: 10 years later
I finally went to my first play in Oregon. Can you believe it took me over a month to figure out where on campus the theatre even is? However, this is not my typical review, but third in my weekly journal series. It is theatre looked at through the lens of student affairs.
Last week I went to "The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later" produced in the main stage theatre on the OSU campus as a staged reading. This was the follow up to the play The Laramie Project. Both the original Laramie Project and the new epilogue are a very unique theatrical experience. The Laramie Project was produced as a reaction to the tragic death of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. He was brutally beaten by two young men and left tied to a fence half dead for four days before he was found, and his death attracted massive national attention to hate crimes, and to the town of Laramie, Wyoming.
OSU was one of over 100 theatres to produce a staged reading of this new play, on October 12, the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death. The Laramie Project is the intersection of my two passions: theatre and student affairs. Much of the discussion of the Laramie Project is around Matthew Shepard as student at the University of Wyoming. The play raises a lot of questions. How does a university respond to such an enormous tragedy? What does a horrific hate crime do to the perception of a small town and the university housed in it? How do students and professors and community move on? The Laramie Project posed some of these questions. In the days of the media coverage surrounding Matthew Shepard's death, a theatre company went to Laramie and conducted hundreds of interviews with the people of the town, the local sheriff, professors and students at the university and Matthew Sheppard's friends and family. The play is taken from these interviews, literally from the words of these people. Because of that, it is a very special theatre experience.
"The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later" is just what it says. The same theatre company members went back to Laramie and re-interviewed all the people they'd talked to 10 years earlier. Many real life people recur as characters in both plays. The police officer who found Matthew Shepard shares that experience the first time around and in the follow up discusses how dramatically her life was changed by it. A university professor shares her thoughts on the changes in the school itself in the intervening years. In this way, these people feel familiar. We as the audience get to see their journey.
While I've been setting up the context, I think the thing I want to discuss here is how this play impacts college campuses and what the effect of having it preformed on ours might be. A lot of the epilogue discuses the idea that the town of Laramie wants to move on. One of the ways they are doing this is claiming that Matthew Shepard's death was not related to him being gay, but was a truly a robbery. Yet the play shows a variety of view points. It truly does its best to show every person as just that, a real person. In this follow up, the company members were able to interview both of the men serving time for Matthew Shepard's murder. And one of the strengths here, is that neither of these plays are trying to prove anything, no agenda to push other that honest and through investigation of the reaction to a nation tragedy. And the two murderers are not painted as two dimensional criminals, but as troubled young men with a lot of life factors leading them up to one truly terrible act. Nor does the play attempt to exonerate either of them from their actions.
Yet in the interest of moving on from this that has me interested. The play does not go in depth into the university's grieving process, and importantly to my lens here, student affairs role in it. One man interviewed states that he is openly gay, and almost left Laramie because of Matthew Shepard's death. But he met the man who is still his partner at Mathew Shepard's memorial service and the two of them still live in Laramie. He works in a non specified department of student affairs at the university. He called student affairs a safe cocoon and indicated that the rest of the town and the university itself is still not as accepting. This is the root of the discussion, this idea that nothing has changed.
In "10 years later" they discuss the 10 year coverage of the incident in the town's newspaper. An editorial in the paper stated that "Laramie is a town, not a project" and this attitude is reflected through out. Yet how do they move on from something that put them on the map in the worst way possible? What does a new college freshman do, when starting at a new college in a new town, when the only thing people ever know of their home town is this tragedy? The town is ready to move on, but have they healed?
So this brings me back to OSU. An article in the Barometer a few weeks ago stated that we were the only university in the state of Oregon doing this staged reading. While nothing I read indicated any kind of selection process for which theatres could take part in the staged readings, the article expressed disappointment that no other universities in Oregon took part. I'm inclined to think there was some kind of process. Surely more than 100 theatres all over the world, would want to take part in this event. Strictly as a play, the Laramie Project has a lot of prestige. The interview structure is interesting and the play itself is moving. So why are no more theatres involved? A part of me thinks that my alma mater, Puget Sound would have had a huge support for this play if they'd taken part. They didn't, for whatever reason.
The main stage theatre that this happened in at OSU holds 360 people. It was 95 percent full; I was disappointed that there were not more students or faculty or staff or community members interested. Maybe it wasn't well publicized. But maybe people don't remember what happened. Without the play, I wouldn't know. I was 12 years old 11 years ago; I had no idea when it happened. If I hadn't had a chance to see the Laramie Project when I was in college I might have had no interested in seeing this follow up to it. Most of the students at OSU may not have any idea who Matthew Shepard was or what the importance of the Laramie Project is. But is this good and natural, or is it cause for concern?
Maybe it's just that we as a nation are ready to move on. I'm just worried that we are moving on because we don't want to dwell on tragedy, or that we don't remember. I wish that we were moving on because we have recovered, and healed. Laramie just happens to be the place this happened, and this university could be any university. This is why I am concerned that this event didn't get more attention. How can we move on from a tragedy we haven't recognized? Laramie could be any town and that is part of the tragedy of it.
Last week I went to "The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later" produced in the main stage theatre on the OSU campus as a staged reading. This was the follow up to the play The Laramie Project. Both the original Laramie Project and the new epilogue are a very unique theatrical experience. The Laramie Project was produced as a reaction to the tragic death of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. He was brutally beaten by two young men and left tied to a fence half dead for four days before he was found, and his death attracted massive national attention to hate crimes, and to the town of Laramie, Wyoming.
OSU was one of over 100 theatres to produce a staged reading of this new play, on October 12, the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death. The Laramie Project is the intersection of my two passions: theatre and student affairs. Much of the discussion of the Laramie Project is around Matthew Shepard as student at the University of Wyoming. The play raises a lot of questions. How does a university respond to such an enormous tragedy? What does a horrific hate crime do to the perception of a small town and the university housed in it? How do students and professors and community move on? The Laramie Project posed some of these questions. In the days of the media coverage surrounding Matthew Shepard's death, a theatre company went to Laramie and conducted hundreds of interviews with the people of the town, the local sheriff, professors and students at the university and Matthew Sheppard's friends and family. The play is taken from these interviews, literally from the words of these people. Because of that, it is a very special theatre experience.
"The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later" is just what it says. The same theatre company members went back to Laramie and re-interviewed all the people they'd talked to 10 years earlier. Many real life people recur as characters in both plays. The police officer who found Matthew Shepard shares that experience the first time around and in the follow up discusses how dramatically her life was changed by it. A university professor shares her thoughts on the changes in the school itself in the intervening years. In this way, these people feel familiar. We as the audience get to see their journey.
While I've been setting up the context, I think the thing I want to discuss here is how this play impacts college campuses and what the effect of having it preformed on ours might be. A lot of the epilogue discuses the idea that the town of Laramie wants to move on. One of the ways they are doing this is claiming that Matthew Shepard's death was not related to him being gay, but was a truly a robbery. Yet the play shows a variety of view points. It truly does its best to show every person as just that, a real person. In this follow up, the company members were able to interview both of the men serving time for Matthew Shepard's murder. And one of the strengths here, is that neither of these plays are trying to prove anything, no agenda to push other that honest and through investigation of the reaction to a nation tragedy. And the two murderers are not painted as two dimensional criminals, but as troubled young men with a lot of life factors leading them up to one truly terrible act. Nor does the play attempt to exonerate either of them from their actions.
Yet in the interest of moving on from this that has me interested. The play does not go in depth into the university's grieving process, and importantly to my lens here, student affairs role in it. One man interviewed states that he is openly gay, and almost left Laramie because of Matthew Shepard's death. But he met the man who is still his partner at Mathew Shepard's memorial service and the two of them still live in Laramie. He works in a non specified department of student affairs at the university. He called student affairs a safe cocoon and indicated that the rest of the town and the university itself is still not as accepting. This is the root of the discussion, this idea that nothing has changed.
In "10 years later" they discuss the 10 year coverage of the incident in the town's newspaper. An editorial in the paper stated that "Laramie is a town, not a project" and this attitude is reflected through out. Yet how do they move on from something that put them on the map in the worst way possible? What does a new college freshman do, when starting at a new college in a new town, when the only thing people ever know of their home town is this tragedy? The town is ready to move on, but have they healed?
So this brings me back to OSU. An article in the Barometer a few weeks ago stated that we were the only university in the state of Oregon doing this staged reading. While nothing I read indicated any kind of selection process for which theatres could take part in the staged readings, the article expressed disappointment that no other universities in Oregon took part. I'm inclined to think there was some kind of process. Surely more than 100 theatres all over the world, would want to take part in this event. Strictly as a play, the Laramie Project has a lot of prestige. The interview structure is interesting and the play itself is moving. So why are no more theatres involved? A part of me thinks that my alma mater, Puget Sound would have had a huge support for this play if they'd taken part. They didn't, for whatever reason.
The main stage theatre that this happened in at OSU holds 360 people. It was 95 percent full; I was disappointed that there were not more students or faculty or staff or community members interested. Maybe it wasn't well publicized. But maybe people don't remember what happened. Without the play, I wouldn't know. I was 12 years old 11 years ago; I had no idea when it happened. If I hadn't had a chance to see the Laramie Project when I was in college I might have had no interested in seeing this follow up to it. Most of the students at OSU may not have any idea who Matthew Shepard was or what the importance of the Laramie Project is. But is this good and natural, or is it cause for concern?
Maybe it's just that we as a nation are ready to move on. I'm just worried that we are moving on because we don't want to dwell on tragedy, or that we don't remember. I wish that we were moving on because we have recovered, and healed. Laramie just happens to be the place this happened, and this university could be any university. This is why I am concerned that this event didn't get more attention. How can we move on from a tragedy we haven't recognized? Laramie could be any town and that is part of the tragedy of it.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Small Fish in a Big Pond
This week for my second journal I've been thinking about students at a big university, as I've now found myself. I went to a small private liberal arts school, of about 2 thousand. I am now at a huge public University of over 20 thousand. At Puget Sound, my largest class was probably 50, (and I only ever had one class this large, and ironically it was a biology lecture) my smallest class was about 8. I'd say that most classes were around 20 students. This creates a special environment where all of my professors know my name, and I got a lot of individual attention. When the class is that small, as a student, you are very responsible. Responsible for being present, responsible for having done all the work and always having an opinion. And while this small environment was prefect for me, it may not be what everyone is looking for.
During the first week of class I didn’t send a lot of time on campus if I wasn’t in class, at work, or studying for class. This was my second week of school and I felt a little less overwhelmed by classes, and I spent some time on campus during the day. I spent some time observing other students. And there are so many of them. I can't help but feel very anonymous on the OSU campus. I rarely see people I know, and when I do its considerably exciting. At Puget Sound, I couldn't go anywhere with out seeing everyone I knew. And even if I didn't know names I knew faces. And I miss that. I think that the anonymity of a big school could be both exhilarating and terrifying. But maybe it gets smaller? I'm not sure.
This week, for my assistantship, I sat in on a biology 211 lecture. There are two lectures, with a total of over 1000 students enrolled in the class. This is half the size of my undergraduate institution! The lecture I went to had 600 students registered. I'm not sure how many seats the auditorium in Miliam holds or how many were actually there. But 600 students. I sat in the upper balcony very far from the professor. There is no one up there to monitor what the students are doing. One of the biology TA's I work with was observing form the upper balcony, but he didn't seem to be there in a disciplinary function. From where I was sitting I could see about 4 open laptops. And of the two screens I could see, one was following along with the black board presentation and one was playing some kind of game. Right in view of everyone around him! The student sitting directly next to me was taking notes and following the lecture, but also texting on his phone. While I clearly know all of these things are issues, I've never experienced any of them before. I am only one year out of college; I expected to still have a good sense of the "student experience." But some combination of the extra 20,000 students at OSU and the 5 years that now separate me from a college freshman leave me feeling clueless. Student trends move fast. And as an aside (but on the same point) spell check does not recognize "texting" as a word. With the technology college students have in their lives, their lives move at lightning speed. How do I even attempt to keep up?
Sitting in on the lecture leads me directly back to where I was last week: assumptions. During the lecture the professor gave a quiz question and gave the class permission to speak to their neighbor. The question was based on the lecture I had just heard, but I hadn't really been paying attention to the biology. I'd been absorbing the environment, the professor's style of lecture, and what the students around me where doing. The young man next to me asked me what I thought about the quiz question, assuming I was a student. I truly had no idea at all, so I threw the question back to the young man. What do you think the answer is? And he said "E." I told him I thought that might be right (still having zero idea) and finally he talked himself in the right answer, which was "D." I didn't tell him I wasn't in the class because it was unnecessary, but it was rather humorous to bluff my way through a biology question.
I know part of the reason we have so many school in the US, is that every school is not right for every person. Yet I continue to feel like I’m on another planet, as far as being a student goes. And I’m hugely glad to be experiencing something different, if I’m going to work in student affairs, I should be aware of all types of institutions and how the affect the students.
In the coming weeks I plan to investigate what some of the issues students at a big school face might be. Currently I have no idea. I plan to do a little sleuthing. If I spend some more time on campus, and go to more campus activities, and I think some things should start revealing themselves to me. What is it that makes OSU special? And what kind of educational experience can an undergraduate student really expect to get here? I’m ready to find some more questions and answers.
During the first week of class I didn’t send a lot of time on campus if I wasn’t in class, at work, or studying for class. This was my second week of school and I felt a little less overwhelmed by classes, and I spent some time on campus during the day. I spent some time observing other students. And there are so many of them. I can't help but feel very anonymous on the OSU campus. I rarely see people I know, and when I do its considerably exciting. At Puget Sound, I couldn't go anywhere with out seeing everyone I knew. And even if I didn't know names I knew faces. And I miss that. I think that the anonymity of a big school could be both exhilarating and terrifying. But maybe it gets smaller? I'm not sure.
This week, for my assistantship, I sat in on a biology 211 lecture. There are two lectures, with a total of over 1000 students enrolled in the class. This is half the size of my undergraduate institution! The lecture I went to had 600 students registered. I'm not sure how many seats the auditorium in Miliam holds or how many were actually there. But 600 students. I sat in the upper balcony very far from the professor. There is no one up there to monitor what the students are doing. One of the biology TA's I work with was observing form the upper balcony, but he didn't seem to be there in a disciplinary function. From where I was sitting I could see about 4 open laptops. And of the two screens I could see, one was following along with the black board presentation and one was playing some kind of game. Right in view of everyone around him! The student sitting directly next to me was taking notes and following the lecture, but also texting on his phone. While I clearly know all of these things are issues, I've never experienced any of them before. I am only one year out of college; I expected to still have a good sense of the "student experience." But some combination of the extra 20,000 students at OSU and the 5 years that now separate me from a college freshman leave me feeling clueless. Student trends move fast. And as an aside (but on the same point) spell check does not recognize "texting" as a word. With the technology college students have in their lives, their lives move at lightning speed. How do I even attempt to keep up?
Sitting in on the lecture leads me directly back to where I was last week: assumptions. During the lecture the professor gave a quiz question and gave the class permission to speak to their neighbor. The question was based on the lecture I had just heard, but I hadn't really been paying attention to the biology. I'd been absorbing the environment, the professor's style of lecture, and what the students around me where doing. The young man next to me asked me what I thought about the quiz question, assuming I was a student. I truly had no idea at all, so I threw the question back to the young man. What do you think the answer is? And he said "E." I told him I thought that might be right (still having zero idea) and finally he talked himself in the right answer, which was "D." I didn't tell him I wasn't in the class because it was unnecessary, but it was rather humorous to bluff my way through a biology question.
I know part of the reason we have so many school in the US, is that every school is not right for every person. Yet I continue to feel like I’m on another planet, as far as being a student goes. And I’m hugely glad to be experiencing something different, if I’m going to work in student affairs, I should be aware of all types of institutions and how the affect the students.
In the coming weeks I plan to investigate what some of the issues students at a big school face might be. Currently I have no idea. I plan to do a little sleuthing. If I spend some more time on campus, and go to more campus activities, and I think some things should start revealing themselves to me. What is it that makes OSU special? And what kind of educational experience can an undergraduate student really expect to get here? I’m ready to find some more questions and answers.
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