Meet the new boss …

August 29, 2015August 29, 2015 / Steve Hill / Leave a comment

While reading the back-to-school posts of fellow blogging academics Chuck Ryback and Rachel Ida Buff this week, I realized I was hesitant about my own writing because I hadn’t yet figured out which question I was trying to answer. Then, an attitude common to each of their blogs — a readily apparent, fierce dedication to serving students — pointed the way like Scott Walker directing billionaire donors to the pork barrel.

Just who is it I’m working for?

Same as the old boss. (YouTube video)

Ask any dedicated teacher and you’ll know the answer for the rest of us. The idea that it’s all about the students becomes such a mantra that it can appear as no more than lip service, but the most committed among UW System faculty make clear, over and over, that our calling is to help students become well-rounded, capable citizens who think critically.

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Learning to Be Brave: Back to School Edition (reblog)

August 26, 2015September 13, 2015 / Steve Hill / Leave a comment

Here’s another worthy blog to follow that I discovered today. I’m still working on my own back-to-school piece, doing my best to take part in the kind of creative transformation that Rachel Ida Buff talks about in her post. She’s got the right idea: participation in “new blogs and organizations, protests and alliances and relationships” that are “a form of public education, keeping the faith in a time of war.”

This post came to me via Facebook share. I didn’t bookmark it, and in using Google later to track down Dr. Buff’s post, I discovered coverage of her other activism: this link to her testimony at the Joint Finance Committee, an opinion piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and more. An associate professor of history at UW-Milwaukee, she’s doing the kind of speaking out that I think we all — but especially my UW system colleagues — can admire and aspire to.

atlasofadifficult

The author, practicing.

I did not become a college professor because I am particularly brave. I started a Masters’ program in American Studies at the University of Minnesota twenty-five years ago, thinking that it would enable me to teach community college, to piece together what the writer Jackie Regales calls “A Patchwork Life” of writing and teaching. I stayed on for my PhD because I fell in love with the work of university teaching.

You could describe me as opinionated. And I am quick on my feet, a quality that has proven quite useful in the classroom. But learning to be brave came later.

It is strange to have to point this out, but bookishness is the defining quality of most of the people who wind up working in classrooms and libraries. We like to read, which means we spend a lot of time doing that: quietly, by…

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A reblog of sorts … Chuck Rybak’s “UW Struggle: The Impractical Dream”

August 23, 2015August 23, 2015 / Steve Hill / Leave a comment

I like that UW-Green Bay’s Chuck Rybak, an associate professor of English, writes in a way that appears to channel anger and outrage into passionate, strong, clear argument. Maybe he’s not at all an angry guy and I’m just reading my own resentment into some of his work. He’s clearly, however, a hell of a writer and among those I respect for telling a story that needs to be told, over and over, until the people of Wisconsin are convinced that we need to do something about our so-called leaders.

I believe the rest of us in the UW system also need to work harder to find ways to make similar messages heard. Although we should be as civil as is useful and warranted, this isn’t necessarily about playing nice. Unfortunately, so many of the people who should be reading this kind of blog are probably the last people who do, and they probably aren’t going to until most of the rest of the state is practically up in arms. The best way to make that happen is to remind others of the incredible damage we’re allowing various miscreants to do.

Public education, and public higher education, is not only a great achievement, it is one of the most amazing human achievements in all of our history. If there’s anyone out there in Wisconsin who cares, and happens to read this, know that supporting this system, this public good, is easy. Let’s try to remember the infinite rewards within our reach for what seems like such minimal effort. If that’s not practical, then I don’t know what is. It’s more than practical. It really is miraculous. — Chuck Rybak on Sad Iron

Normally I just share these posts on Facebook, but I’m convinced that part of what we need to do as leaders in education is network with, encourage, and work together with others who are speaking out. Even something as simple as giving a post like this a second home on another blog may bring a few more readers and maybe even help change a mind or two.

Dr. Rybak gave me permission to reblog his latest post, which I then found I couldn’t do because his “reblog” button isn’t active. But you can read it by clicking on the illustration below. And it’s not a bad thing to share it further.

Democracy Inaction: Video of Seawall Stonewall

August 19, 2015August 19, 2015 / Steve Hill / Leave a comment

Whether or not you’ve been following the story of the downtown Stevens Point seawall, this video is instructive. I’ve argued that there was a clear mandate from citizens attending the July 20 Stevens Point Common Council meeting about this issue, and the video below is a very accurate summary of how things went.

(Mike Richards video)

As I’ve noted before, not a soul who spoke — and there were a dozen — thought this was a fair assessment, including those who don’t live in the former floodplain and aren’t being assessed. Continue reading →

Airfare tips for Australia winterim, part III: When to purchase

August 11, 2015August 11, 2015 / Steve Hill / Leave a comment

It only takes a bit of searching around the web to realize how complex purchasing an airline ticket can become. A final aspect I’ll deal with, at least for the time being, is when to purchase tickets.

If we really wanted to save on airfare, we’d have to schedule our Australia class in September. (hopper.com on Chicago-Sydney flights)

In a nutshell, check for flight deals on Tuesdays (because airlines post sales on Mondays) and plan on buying soon to be safe. But keep in mind that prices could go down, according to some reports, and always remember that you’re dealing with a business with lots of data but which is still difficult to predict.