University Affairs

This guest post is brought to you by University Affairs’ web editor Tara Siebarth:

At the end of this month, over 6,000 academics will make their way to Fredericton, New Brunswick, to attend the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, known to most simply as Congress. This year it is being co-hosted by the University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University.

Organized by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Congress brings together scholars, students, practitioners and policy makers in a different city each year to share ideas, discuss today’s complex issues and enrich their research.

University Affairs will be hosting the Career Corner sessions, which offer career advice and tips to grad students, new faculty members and postdocs. Here are a few of the sessions we have planned:

I’ve got an academic job offer, now what?

Monday, May 30 at 10 a.m.

How do you negotiate that first academic position? How do you make your asks without creating tensions before you even start your new job? These are the kinds of questions graduate faculty often hear from their students who have just been offered academic jobs. Robert Summerby-Murray (dean of arts and social sciences at Dalhousie University) will offer insight and suggestions in negotiating the terms of a first job and managing expectations from both sides of the table.

NSSE at UNB Fredericton: What we have learned so far

Monday, May 30 at 1 p.m.

This session, hosted by David Kilfoil, an educational analyst at the UNB Centre for Enhanced Teaching and Learning, will present what UNB has learned in the last few years working with the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) data at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. He will provide some examples of initiatives the institution has undertaken to respond to what they’ve discovered about the students (like a student engagement wiki, designed for faculty to share thoughts and ideas).

Yes, there is life after graduate school

Tuesday, May 31 at 9:30 a.m.

This session, hosted by career coach Jo VanEvery, will explore career possibilities, what package of skills/experience/ education you might need and how to identify and fill any holes in your CV before hitting the job market. This session will be followed by a 1-hour CV clinic. Get you CV critiqued by a professional career coach and receive tips on how to properly sell yourself on paper.

A virtual learning experience

Tuesday, May 31 at 2 p.m.

Fellow blogger Adam Chapnick will provide future instructors with a sense of what they might expect during their first online teaching experience. Seasoned online instructors will also have the opportunity to share and compare their experiences.

Check the delegate guide for the full program, as well as where the sessions will be held.

Of course, there are also several other interesting sessions to attend, some of which you might see me at, furiously taking notes, like the Big Thinking lectures, with talks by Chief Shawn Atleo, former Governor General Michaëlle Jean, and many other well-known scholars.

Every association in attendance (there will be over 70) will also be holding sessions relevant to scholars in their field. Here are a couple I will be attending – stop by and say hello!

• Graduate student concerns panel

Saturday, May 28 at 2:15 p.m., hosted by the Canadian Association for Theatre Research

• Academic blogging: a space between teaching and publishing

Sunday, May 29 at 1:30 p.m., hosted by the Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing

• Beyond grad school, how to prepare for the academic job market

Tuesday, May 31 at 11:45 a.m., hosted by the Canadian Historical Association

Want to keep up to date on all that Congress has to offer? Download the Congress 2011 iPhone app. It lists all of the major events, as well as the latest #congress11 tweets.

Having spent most of this week at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Carleton University, I fell into a bit of a reverie while on my way to Congress yesterday, musing about how the social sciences and humanities inform so much of the human endeavour.

I was riding the bus (urban studies, geography); passed by Parliament Hill and the shops of Bank Street (political science, economics, law, public administration, history, business administration); saw children playing in a school yard (education, recreation); glanced at the mix of other passengers (sociology, linguistics, demography); and contemplated their habits, and the devices and reading materials they were using (anthropology, religious studies, communication, literature). I’ve left lots out, but you get the idea.

It seems to me the “value proposition” of research in the social sciences and humanities is fairly obvious, but I also understand that the case needs to be made nonetheless.

Academic leaders are, of course, aware of this. They feel the pressure from government and funding agencies to demonstrate that their funding does make a difference. And they also understand that each time they call for increased funding, there will be more accountability expected.

At a session of Congress yesterday (“Capturing the Impacts of Publicly Funded Social Sciences and Humanities Research,” sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), SSHRC president Chad Gaffield said we need do better at  ”tell[ing] the story of our contributions to Canada.”

What followed was a lengthy discussion by three panellists about the types of metrics that might be used to measure research outcomes. It’s not an easy task. Claire Donovan, a research fellow at the Australian National University, opined that “this kind of value can’t be measured by simple metrics,” adding that meaningful impact assessments must strive to measure the wider social, economic and cultural value of the research.

York University vice-president for research, Stan Shapson, summed it up thus: “If we don’t collect the data, we’re going to be left out [of the innovation agenda]. We must measure, no matter how complex it is. We don’t have a choice.”

Beyond metrics, the research community is looking at other ways to increase the impact of their work, speaking nowadays of “knowledge mobilization” and a more collaborative, two-way flow of knowledge with community partners, NGOs and other players.

Despite all this, I do think the general public understands the value of social sciences and humanities research at a certain abstract level. (Although far from scientific, nearly three-quarters of respondents to a recent poll on the Globe and Mail site said the social sciences and arts are underfunded and “as important as science and technology.”)

Yet, we also need to recognize that there is a subset of people who find great delight in mocking this type of research. I was horrified, for instance, to read on the same Globe and Mail website the comments in response to an article this past Monday about the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences asking the federal government to increase SSHRC funding.

Such as this comment: “Social sciences? people watchers. Waste of money, no need for social engineers or their stupid ideas like political correctness, fire the lot.” Or this: “I don’t see any difference between these pseudo scientists and habitual welfare recipients. Why can’t these ‘educated’ people stand on their own feet by earning through their research. They can’t, because most of their ‘research’ are garbage [sic].”

It would be easy to dismiss these people as cranks, but we must assume this is their sincere view, which is troubling. I wonder, when did it become fashionable to be so aggressively proud of one’s ignorance? And how is it that these online comment forums have spawned such rudeness and incivility? Any philosopher out there willing to offer a theory? Or psychologist, communication theorist, sociologist?

It would be a great topic for research.

Demography is destiny, and Canadian universities are destined to have dropping enrolments and empty classrooms in the next 10 years. That was the prediction of David Foot, author of the bestselling Boom, Bust and Echo. Dr. Foot, a well-known demographer and professor of economics at the University of Toronto, delivered a highly entertaining and thought-provoking talk this morning on “Workplace Trends in the New Millennium” at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Carleton University.

Dr. Foot explained that as the “echo” generation (the children of the baby boomers) works its way through the education system, there are far fewer young children in its wake. Thus, school boards had to start closing elementary schools in the late 1990s as the echo generation passed through and these boards are now facing the same dilemma with secondary schools. In another 10 years or so, universities will be next.

“What happened at elementary schools yesterday is happening at high schools today and will happen at universities tomorrow,” he said. “Enrolments are about to decline.”

This has huge implications for universities, particularly as the federal government pours $2 billion through its Knowledge Infrastructure Program into university and college buildings. “Are you going to build new infrastructure to sit empty in 10 years?” he asked.

The priority, he said, should be on addressing the deferred maintenance of all those university buildings built during the 1970s – refurbishing them, retrofitting them and making them more energy-efficient. (The Canadian Association of University Business Officers estimates the amount of deferred maintenance at Canadian universities conservatively at around $5 billion.)

One way to boost enrolment is to look to foreign students, and our neighbours to the south are a good place to start. Because of a higher fertility rate, the U.S. has a higher percentage of young children than does Canada. “PSE [postsecondary education] will grow there for the next 20 years, guaranteed,” said Dr. Foot.

But an even better bet is Mexico, which has a far greater proportion of young children. “How many in your departments speak Spanish?” asked Dr. Foot.

Don’t bother looking to Europe, he said, where the demographic decline is even more pronounced than in Canada. The exception: Turkey, which will become the most populous country in Europe within 20 years. Another good target: India, which continues to have a high fertility rate.

Dr. Foot’s talk was full of all sorts of other interesting observations, including this interesting tidbit: on average, professors in the social sciences and humanities in Canada are considerably older than those in the natural sciences, engineering and applied sciences. He had no explanation for this, but figured university planners should at least be made aware of it.

There was more on Dr. Foot’s observations in an article in today’s Globe and Mail.

Gary Poole is a tireless advocate for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) because he thinks it will improve how academics teach and how students learn. We’ve made good progress in Canada in terms of SoTL, he says, but not good enough. He admits he’s getting a bit impatient.

Dr. Poole, director of the Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth at the University of British Columbia and a past-president of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, shared his views in a keynote address this morning at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Carleton University.

There is no single agreed-upon definition of SoTL, but it is generally understood to be scholarly research into teaching practices that advance student learning. It applies to any academic discipline – it is not restricted to the faculty of education – but it is not necessarily informed by the type of research commonly associated with your own particular discipline.

Richard Gale, quoted in a 2005 University Affairs article, says for it to be properly constituted as scholarship, SoTL must go beyond simple tips and observations of what works for you in your own classroom. It must be a formal, systematic process of inquiry that provides evidence of what works and why, and that evidence must be disseminated, critically reviewed and built upon.

SoTL holds huge potential to improve teaching, said Dr. Poole, and the movement has blossomed in Canada over the past five to six years. For example, a quick search of the web sites of university teaching support centres will find numerous references to SoTL. Likewise, SoTL is starting to make its way into the language used in tenure and promotion policies at many institutions.

Nationally, the STLHE is launching the Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning this September; and internationally, the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning – founded in 2004 – has held two of its annual conferences in Canada (Edmonton in 2008 and Vancouver in 2005).

But, “we’ve started to bump up against a ceiling” in terms SoTL in Canada, and we must break through that, said Dr. Poole. “There is the danger we could get complacent and self-satisfied.”

Among the challenges he identified:

• The lack of a national infrastructure to promote and advocate for SoTL
• A lack of tri-council funding for this type of research
• At the institutional level, there is a lack of understanding regarding the potential benefits of SoTL
• At the departmental level, there are language barriers and differing research paradigms across disciplines.

For SoTL to succeed, Dr. Poole continued, funding structures must be put in place nationally and institutionally; tenure and promotion language around SoTL must be shared and adopted; and the value of SoTL for institutions, scholars and students must be proven and promoted.

“I believe SoTL will continue to grow and have increasing impact on our practice, our careers and our student learning,” he said, “but only if we persevere through these challenges.”

Do educators take their role as public intellectuals seriously? At a session this morning of Congress (the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa), the question wasn’t answered directly but the clear implication was no, particularly when it comes to educators using their positions to push for social change, to raise awareness of social inequities and to shape the public discourse.

Carolyn Shields, formerly a professor of educational administration at the University of British Columbia and now a professor of educational leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said there are many within the field who are critical of educational leaders and administrators for their timidity in speaking out on controversial public issues.

However, such public activism is obviously not without risk and requires courage, she noted. One need look no further than the examples of academics Henry Giroux, Ward Churchill and others who have been sanctioned for their activism and critical views, or the public criticism heaped on those academics who spoke out in support of William Ayers during last fall’s U.S. election campaign.

The session, “A Call for Engagement: Educational Leaders as Activists and Public Intellectuals,” was co-sponsored by the Canadian Society for the Study of Education and the Canadian Association for the Study of Educational Administration.

Quoting Edward Said, Dr. Shields said the role of public intellectual “has an edge to it and cannot be played without a sense of being someone whose place it is publicly to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma … whose raison d’être is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug.”

Academics are commonly held up as the epitome of the public intellectual, yet some believe academics should not range too far from their narrow disciplinary expertise. Stanley Fish, for example, commented earlier this year in the New York Times that academics should “aim low and stick to [their] academic knitting.”

This was not a view held by Dr. Shields and the other panelists. Erica Mohan, a doctoral candidate at UBC and fellow speaker, affirmed that educators and school leaders are public intellectuals and need to raise awareness of social issues and address controversial topics.

But how does one go about acting in the role of public intellectual, particularly when political discourse seems so polarized? “We need to facilitate the debate, encounter people, engage in dialogue and discussion,” said Dr. Shields. “I don’t know any other way to do it.”

I’ll be blogging most of next week from the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa. The 62-page delegate’s guide is pretty daunting – and that covers only a small fraction of the more than 4,000 sessions on offer from dozens of academic associations.

One session I was certainly intrigued by was a planned talk by William Ayers. He’s a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, but most will know him from last fall’s U.S. presidential campaign when Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin tried to link him to Barack Obama, claiming Mr. Obama was “palling around with terrorists.” Mr. Ayers was one of the founders of the Weather Underground, whose members took credit for bombings to protest the Vietnam War four decades ago.

Mr. Ayers was invited to Ottawa by the Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE). His talk, scheduled for May 23, was entitled “Bridges and Borders: Democratic Education in a Time of Crisis.”

But that’s not to be. The Ottawa Citizen reported yesterday that Mr. Ayers was denied an entry visa. He was also denied entry to Canada this past January, when he was scheduled to give a talk at the University of Toronto.

More from the Citizen article:

Nathalie Des Rosiers, president of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences and an expert in constitutional law at the University of Ottawa, said she understands Ayers was barred through discretionary application of a piece of immigration legislation, but she has no details about the case.

Occasionally, a scholar will require a visa to come to Canada, but usually only those who live in nations where this is a requirement – not the United States, said Des Rosiers.

“Certainly we foster free speech,” she said. “We invite people from all over the world.”

Carol Miles, the program chair at the CSSE, said Mr. Ayes has offered to deliver his Monday lecture by video conference, but I’ve heard no confirmation on whether that will happen.

Update, May 22, 12:20 p.m.: the Ottawa Citizen has a follow-up story on Ayers today. Apparently his Canadian lawyer warned him he would be turned away at the airport.

University Affairs web editor Phillip Todd has pushed me to start tweeting on Twitter (http://twitter.com/Margin_Notes), particularly during the upcoming Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Ottawa.

(You can see my latest tweets on the right-hand side of this page by scrolling down a bit. As well, you can follow all tweets related to Congress by going to our Careers page and scrolling down to “Who’s saying what at Congress.”)

I’m not exactly what you’d consider an early adopter of technology, but I’m no Luddite and do get the idea of social media (I’m blogging, right?). But I do wonder where this all is leading.

Like most other sentient beings, I have e-mail, and my inbox is constantly overflowing. I also have an RSS feed aggregator where I attempt to keep track of all those interesting blogs that I’ve bookmarked. I’m also on Facebook, although I really haven’t done much with it – I just don’t have the inclination to start amassing all those virtual friends.

And now, with Twitter, I can follow the scattered thoughts of dozens – or hundreds! – of people, most of whom I don’t know.

It’s not so much the utility I’m questioning, but the time element. Where in an eight-hour working day am I supposed to fit all this in? Keeping track of and engaging in social media is a portion of my job, but it is emphatically not supposed to be my entire job. Yeah, I know that sounds soooo 20^th century, but I’m certain most people feel the same way.

I was thinking about this all recently as I read an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the challenges universities face in using social media for student recruitment. Recruitment offices must contend not only with blogs and Facebook, but also Flickr, YouTube, iTunesU and now Twitter, to name the obvious suspects. As the article states: “As technology evolves, colleges feel pressure to be present in every possible way.”

I feel your pain.

But there was an eye-opening little tidbit in the story that made me stop and think. According to a recent survey by the Art & Science Group, a higher-education consulting firm, roughly one-quarter of students became more interested in a college after visiting social-networking sites. Not bad. However, 88 percent said the same about actual, in-the-flesh campus visits.

Among those quoted in the article was Bruce J. Poch, vice president and dean of admissions at Pomona College in Claremont, California. Referring to social media, he said: “There’s some version of this that is going to be crucial.” The rest he calls faddism. But how do you know which is which?

Mr. Poch says he is going to watch social-media pioneers for now and see what patterns emerge. “I don’t know whether it’s lazy or wise,” he says. “Maybe somewhere in between.”

Thoughts, anyone? (Of the Twitter variety or otherwise.)