Off with their Headings?

A New Book Purchase and a Website/Podcast Recommendation

During a recent visit to the campus bookstore, I picked up a copy of D. Peter MacLeod’s Northern Armageddon: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the Making of the American Revolution. I had seen MacLeod’s book recently profiled on John Fea’s website, The Way of Improvement Leads Home. (If you aren’t a regular visitor to John’s site, then I highly recommend checking it out along with the podcast.)

On Reading Northern Armageddon

I’m currently about a quarter of the way through Northern Armageddon and I’m enjoying a great deal. I was apprehensive about reading a battle history. Calling MacLeod’s book a battle history does a great disservice to it because it is certainly more than your typical battle history. Yes, I’m learning a great deal about Canada, Quebec, and the Seven Years’ War. However, one of the most enjoyable aspects of MacLeod’s work is how the author weaves into the narrative many different voices and perspectives, especially from the point of view of civilians caught up in the siege of Quebec.

Northern Armageddon currently occupies a position on my nightstand because it is my bedtime reading. Over the years, especially since slogging through readings for my PhD comprehensive exams, I’ve come to have a fraught relationship with bedtime reading. There have only been a few nonfiction or academic books that I’ve been able to read as bedtime reading. I have a lot of books to read. And I am notoriously bad at devoting time to reading. I always feel I should be doing something else. So far, Northern Armageddon is one of those books and that I read at night and fly through with relatively decent speed when I get a chance to read it.

Even with Fea’s author profile of MacLeod, I needed a kick in the pants to pick up a copy of Northern Armageddon. I didn’t need this kick out of a need for additional confirmation of the value of the work, but because I needed to be pushed over the edge to make an impulse buy at the campus bookstore. This extra kick was especially needed for making a purchase that would likely be something I read at night.

Headings: Good or Bad?

As I stood in the bookstore looking at online reviews of Northern Armageddon, I zeroed in on one review from Publishers Weekly. The review noted that “to include so many perspectives, [MacLeod] had to chop chapters into small subsections, hindering a smooth narrative.” Believe it or not, it is that one line that kicked me over the edge. I wanted to see how these “chop chapters” and “small subsections” worked as an aid to the reader.

I find that the subject headings utilized throughout the chapters are beneficial to me as a reader. The headings keep me on pace. It gives me confidence to pick the book up again after time passes between reading it. It makes reading less of a chore. The headings also help to understand the contend better because I know what is coming next. The Publishers Weekly review implies there is something wrong with structuring chapters via headings. The review almost insinuates that the use of headings is an easy way out for organizing a book with many different strands of historical perspectives and voices. MacLeod’s book is organized at both the macro and micro levels. At the sentence level, MacLeod’s writing isn’t absent of topic sentences or transitions. I find that the subheadings included in each chapter are a welcomed aid and not a hindrance.

(Lack of) Headings in My Own Writing

I think a lot about using headings in my writing. Mostly, I think about not using them. I’ve been with my partner for several years and she has read many drafts of my writing. A standard recommendation she makes is to use subject headings in my writing, even if only part of the drafting phase. I don’t think I’ve ever seriously taken up that advice. I’ve always felt that using subject headings equaled bad writing. I’ve felt headings are a cheap and easy way out of doing the hard work of figuring out organization, even if the headings are removed in the final version of a piece of writing.

A Change in Attitude Towards Headings

However, I have to admit my perspective is changing on headings and exploring that subtle shift is one reason I wanted to read Northern Armageddon. One reasons I’m open to exploring such shifts in my attitude towards reading is the discussion of the differences between academic and public writing. These discussions frequently occurring between historians on Twitter and elsewhere. (BTW: Get with it literature scholars. We need to have these discussions, too.) I’ve also been thinking more about using headings in my writings for Pedagogy and American Literature Studies (PALS). Over at PALS we’ve had discussions about how best to showcase our content. Our posts are longer than the typical blog post, frequently venturing towards the length of a short articles. The length of these pieces can make for difficult online reading. Given the length and medium of the writing on PALS, we’ve often discussed how and why we use headings and images in order to create a smoother reading experience for site visitors. The conundrum of balancing content and form was an a significant concern in writing and presenting my recent post on Hamilton, which was nearly 2,500 words. My Hamilton post ended up with a significant use of headings throughout the piece.

I’ve also been thinking about what books I’ve recently read cover-to-cover and enjoyed. Two books come to mind from my summer reading. As part of my work on the Moravians, I’ve recently read Craig D. Atwood’s Community of the Cross: Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem and Katherine Carté Engel’s Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America. Both of these books make use of subject headings within the chapters, certainly not to the degree of Northern Armageddon. The headings in the books by Atwood and Engel were used frequently enough to be a great aid to this reader.

What is Your Take?

Do you use headings in drafting your writing or producing the final product? Is there some time between the emergence of online writing and the use of subject headings? Do you think certain fields are friendlier to the idea of using headings? I’d love to hear your take on these questions!

Revolution, Marketing, & the Legacy of the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies

I’ve been working on a project examining poetry at the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies since the fall of 2014. Of course, when I began this exploration I had many questions. I had the big research questions.

And I also had logistical questions: Was there an archival record? Where was this archival record?

Looking for an archival record of the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies naturally led me to the potential of exploring materials related to Moravian College. Was there a connection? Did they have materials? Information on the webpages for the library and the school archives seemed to indicate an avenue of pursuit, but it wasn’t screaming “hey, look here! Hey, start here!” Additionally, there was the issue of access. Library websites made it clear that there was not a full-time archivist available.

Eventually, I sorted out my archive questions out and have since spent a lot of time at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem.

The connection between the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies and Moravian College wasn’t exactly clear when I began exploring this project in the fall of 2014. On the surface, however, that connection seems to be clearer today. Sort of. Or, at least, the connection Moravian College wants to make to the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies and a revolutionary past has become clearer.

Moravian College’s embracing of its historic past is interesting to me as someone involved in higher education. My composition classes in the spring of 2015 and the fall of 2015 addressed on higher education. In class we frequently explored the marketing of colleges. Together we took a critical eye to the marketing rhetoric of colleges and universities. One of my classes in the spring of 2015 was a dual enrollment class. We often focused on Lehigh Valley colleges and universities since many of the students were going to schools in the area. A local focus also made sense since we could frequently use local media coverage of area schools as a jumping off point for discussion. The online presence of Moravian College was something we explored often.

The above paragraph is an attempt to build my ethos. I remember what the website for Moravian College looked like a year or so ago. It certainly doesn’t look like it does at this moment. Just trust me: it was a rather typical website of a small liberal arts college in a nice community. When I began initially exploring the website of Moravian College in the fall of 2014, there wasn’t anything distinctive about it. It was what one expected from the website of a small liberal arts college in a bucolic setting.

Last fall, I found myself again visiting the webpage of Moravian College. Things had changed.

Navigating to Moravian College’s website forces the viewer to confront immediately a revolutionary past. It isn’t subtle.

When a viewer of the website scrolls down, the call to “Be a Little Revolutionary” recedes and they’re confronted with a very short history of the origins of Moravian College.

The “16-year-old girl” mentioned in the short history blurb is Countess Benigna von Zinzendorf, daughter of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf.

Taking ownership of that “revolutionary” claim.

When I visited the Moravian Archives in the fall of 2015, I noticed that the streetlights surrounding the campus of Moravian College featured flags proclaiming their motto for all to see. “Be a Little Revolutionary” is a marketing campaign that seems to be everywhere. Again, these streetlight flags were not something that I saw present in the summer of 2015 when I first visited the Moravian Archives.

wow much revolution such colonial past wow

The new list of best places to work in the Lehigh Valley came out recently and there was a profile of the award winners in the local newspaper. Each workplace profiled is listed with a little bit of information, including the founding date. The local paper, The Morning Call, lists the founding of Moravian College as 1742 and in another article, featuring factoids, lists the claim of “the sixth oldest college in America and the first school to educate women.”

Competition for students is difficult. I understand the drive of colleges and universities to undertake attention-grabbing ad campaigns and to develop buzz phrases for marketing purposes. I do know that the history of education in American, especially women’s education, is complicated. It is far too nuanced for sloganeering. I’ve not delved too far beyond the #18C in tracing the connection between the schools. It is certainly much more complicated than what a marketing campaign tries to make it. This use of the idea of revolution, The Revolution, and a historical past is driven by marketing. It is a clever and organized campaign.

#Brand

This isn’t an all-inclusive post about the history of the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies and it isn’t a post about the history of Moravian College. It is a post drawing attention to branding and marketing of higher education today. I think this post is a starting point for highlighting the collapsing and simplification of a rather complex historical past, not just of the boarding school and Moravian College, but also American history and the history of women’s education in the United States.

Ending 24/7 Finals Culture

Finals time is here again and with it, at many schools, comes 24/7 study culture. Student lounges and campus buildings give up the late regular semester hours and throw the doors open to a 24/7 study atmosphere. The apparatus of the university goes into overdrive as food courts and libraries are kept open. All the while students scramble for space at the various tables across campus.

The 24/7 mode of finals has to stop because it isn’t healthy. And we, of all people, should know better.

As educators, scholars, and researchers we should know that the 24/7 finals culture isn’t good for students. Read Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education with enough regularity and you’ll see plenty of content focused on work and life balance. As educators in higher education we know that letting our work overrule us is bad for our work, our health (both mental and physical), our relationships, and myriad of other individual factors.

Throughout the semester many of us extol the virtues of working and researching in chunks. Many of us teach writing as a process. Our bible of graduate school was Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day. We subscribe to the slow and steady wins the race pace of Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks with its methodical chipping away at an article over a period of time. (Side note: Wendy Laura Belcher deserves props for including a section on mental and physical wellbeing in her book.)

Still, we are complicit in the 24/7 finals culture just as much as the midnight-make-your-own-waffle-bars and 24/7 library hours that normalize such a culture. Our courses cram everything into the syllabus. Massive projects, papers, and exams on the last day of class that are then followed by final exams. For some students the message of accepting 24/7 final culture isn’t only codified in the syllabus, but it is made clear in messages that students should work every day of Thanksgiving break, except for the day of the actual day of Thanksgiving. The messaging is the same for fall breaks, Easter Breaks, spring breaks, and so on.

And why shouldn’t they receive that message about working all the time? For every column in an academic newspaper about work and life balance there are pieces extolling the virtues of working on a day off or a holiday. And let’s not even say anything about the comments to such pieces. As humans we should know better and as educators we should know even better. Cramming isn’t learning. The diminishing returns on learning that occur when students cram is steep. All-nighters to finish a paper or a project don’t represent true learning or intellectual pursuit.

While students are bombarded with the messaging of 24/7 finals culture there are voices on many campuses trying to push back. Student health centers, mental health centers, and wellbeing centers share messages of rest, extol the virtues of self-care, and showcase the diminishing returns of cramming. With the increased focus on the role mental and physical health on campuses, we should be mindful of these messages. This is especially the case given the large number of academics that have struggled with depression and mental health issues in graduate school or in their current positions. The connection between physical and health and depression is well known. Sleep deprivation, not eating right, not socializing, and not exercising are triggers to bouts of depression. The 24/7 finals culture is a perfect cocktail to exacerbate the triggers for depression.

As educators we have a great deal of power to shape the approach to work that students develop and within our small circle of control our own syllabi represent a great place to start. We can choose to not have projects due on the last day of class. We can make the decision not to have an exam on the last day of class and a final exam a few days later. We can schedule and stagger heavy reading loads during the semester. We can make substantial changes to our approach and still maintain the academic rigor we desire. We do not have to be beholden to the academic calendar of midterm exam weeks and where school breaks fall. And, at a smaller scale, we don’t have to assign due dates for submission of assignments that cap at 11:59 PM.

In many cases we have little control of shaping the culture of our campus, but when it comes to modeling healthy modes of academic work we do have an opportunity to do so. And we should certainly make use of that opportunity.

Not your typical University Commerical

The genre conventions for a 30 second TV spot used by major colleges and universities, especial R1 institutions with bigtime sports, are rather conventional. Nondescript inspiring music accompanies well-known images of the campus, vague highlights of award-winning research faculty (often in science and technology), and students often enjoying life far from the classroom. And there are sports.

Last night I saw a university commercial that exploded nearly all of these well-known higher education advertising conventions. This commercial for the University of Minnesota aired during their game against the University of Michigan:

The Minnesota commercial features Keith Mayes, a scholar of 20C African American history, at Minnesota. It is clear from the opening words that this commercial is going to do something different. The commercial opens right up with a big, bold claim. It is certainly a claim familiar to many scholars of American history and life, but it lays a foundation for an argument largely unfamiliar to the general public. This is not going to be your typical university commercial. It is going to have substance. It is going to have an argument. It is going to keep going on this line. And it is going to pack a punch in 30 seconds.

Given my usual audience I’m not going to go into detail with this advertisement. Watch it yourself.

This particular ad from the University of Minnesota is from a series of similar ads. Many of them feature tough issues ranging from global warming and the environment to medical research. However, for me at least, this one stands out for how it focuses attention on teaching while it also highlights race, social justice issues, and the achievement gap. And, of course, the humanities, especially our relationship to history, has a prominent role.

I think this commercial will resonate with many of you.

The University of Minnesota did a good thing for all of us, especially humanities scholars at bigtime research and sports institutions. The ad provides an example to help ask the question to departments, school divisions, and administration of why the PR department doesn’t create advertisements like this.

I think the ad also raises a larger question. The work done by Mayes represents a nexus of history and curriculum development designed to ensure the long-term academic success of minority students. We often advocate for the ability of the humanities to do relevant cultural work that matters today.

I am not a fan of “the humanities matter argument” because it rings as a rather vapid platitude. I think the best way to defend or justify the humanities is to not talk about it, but do it. But how many of us in the humanities do scholarship that could be featured in a commercial like this one? I think that is question we need to grapple with and not rely simply on the claim that humanities matter.
PS: I watched last night’s game on my Xbox via the ESPN ap. The world of commercials works differently in that context. I do not know if this commercial was broadcast on cable or satellite feeds. However, millions of people have cut the cable and watch ESPN online. I still imagine a significant population saw this advertisement.

There is No Hope of Tenure

If you follow me on Twitter, than you know that I’ve recently started a VAP position. It is renewable for up to three years. That is good, especially after adjuncting for the past year. The pay is better. The benefits are better. The resources are better. The creature comforts are good. However, at the end of the day, it is still a contractual position. Yes, it is for the year and I don’t have to worry about receiving a contract for the spring. I’ll be paid during the summer, too. But things happen way above our pay grades. Multi-year jobs used to come with the sense that they were an assured longer-term position. Short of disasters in the classroom, one could expect to reach that full allotment of the multiple years, but now so much is in flux with higher education. I would never count on anything in higher education anymore.

I’ll be going on the job market for the fall. It has nothing to do with the position that I currently hold. It is all about the system. I can’t afford not to do go on the market again. There is no longer the luxury of taking a year off in a multi-year position and focusing on publications and other professionalization activities. Time is running out and we can’t bank on much in higher education anymore. However, I can bank on getting older. I can bank on my PhD getting stale. I can bank on having only limited opportunities to solve the two-body problem. I can bank on continued economic strain.

The silly season of hiring, though small in numbers, is already here. It has been here since the summer. We don’t have to wait for the MLA Job List to come out. We run by the fiscal year now, not the academic calendar. However, there is an uptick in listings on various sites now that the academic year has started. More will come. That more is, of course, relative since there really aren’t that many jobs to be had. We all know that.

In academic job postings for this week, I saw an advertisement for a tenure-track position in the University of Wisconsin system. I think it is clear based on the reaction of faculty in the University of Wisconsin system and commentators on higher education that tenure in Wisconsin is dead. If not dead, then tenure in Wisconsin is certainly dying. It isn’t just the loss of tenure in Wisconsin that matters. The real danger of Wisconsin is that Scott Walker has provided a model for reducing public universities and tenure than can be adopted in all 50 states.

I can’t read that job ad for the tenure-track position in the University of Wisconsin system and believe it. Even though the ad claims this is a tenure-track position, there is no tenure. If there is no tenure in Wisconsin, then there certainly can be no tenure anywhere. If there is tenure now, then there is no guarantee that it will exist by the time a person is at a 1 or 3 year review, let alone the 6 or so years to come up for tenure. Do you want to bet on any of that happening? I certainly don’t.

Having recently moved, I have no cable or internet in my apartment. I packed lightly and didn’t even take my trusty radio that I bought when I was in high school. I did bring my Xbox. But DRM is a pain without the internet. On a whim, just as I was going to hop in the car, I grabbed my DVD of Band of Brothers. I’ve been watching that as I’ve unpacked and set up my apartment. I was struck by the dialogue between two characters in one of the early episodes, Lieutenant Speirs and Albert Blithe. The conversation between Speirs and Blithe occurs in the days after the D-Day. Speirs is the soldier that is unafraid; Blithe is experiencing the emotional effects of combat and is frightened. The dialogue between the two, I think, has a lot to add to our feelings about tenure, the lack of it, and what can be done about it.

Capt. Ronald Speirs: What’s your name, trooper?

Pvt. Albert Blithe: Blithe, sir. Albert Blithe.

Capt. Ronald Speirs: You know why you hid in that ditch, Blithe?

Pvt. Albert Blithe: I was scared.

Capt. Ronald Speirs: We’re all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there’s still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to function as a soldier’s supposed to function. Without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends on it.

For Speirs “accept[ing] that you’re already dead” is tied directly to “function[ing] as a soldier is supposed to function.” Albert Blithe is afraid, just like many early career academics. The argument early on in academia is to put your head down, don’t make any waves and survive until you get tenure. I think what Speirs offers is a viable alternative to that line of thinking. Give up that hope of tenure and one can function not only better, but actually survive. Given the circumstances facing higher education, putting one’s head down to survive is clearly not working and it isn’t going to work. The early career academic thinks there is still hope of tenure. What if there is no hope, specifically of tenure and we operate under the assumption? If we overlay what Speirs has to say about being a functioning soldier on to higher education, then I think we can get somewhere. Instead of hope and death, think about what Speirs says if we swap out those words for tenure.

Of course, it is problematic to make this comparison between tenure and war, especially when Speirs observes that a well-functioning solider does so “without mercy, without compassion, and without remorse.” One of the arguments for the benefits of tenure is that people can than advocate and stick their necks out for other people, for causes, and for ideals. If we act with no hope of tenure, then can’t we, maybe, act now with mercy and compassion to others, our values, and our ideals? And, more importantly, act with the mercy and compassion that our fields and students need right now?

If you aren’t into Band of Brothers, and are troubled by the war metaphor, I think the same line of thinking about acting like there is no tenure can be achieved by thinking that “there is no spoon.” I imagine I could have written about the Matrix, but I’ve never seen it and I’m more familiar with Band of Brothers. What I know about the Matrix and the spoon is largely second-hand from memes and the internet, but it seems the idea could fit, too.

I am still thinking about my “no hope” comparison and one thing in the back of my mind as I parse through these ideas is the issue of publication, especially after reading Megan Kate Nelson’s two recent (and excellent and awesome) posts about leaving academia. I recommend that you read them: here and here. They are honest and sincere and we need those voices that are willing to share such stories. I’m unsure about how to balance my ideas from Band of Brothers with Nelson’s recommendation here:

And fourth, if you are a graduate student or an adjunct, Do Not Publish Too Much. One article, maybe two. If you’ve already written a book, keep the manuscript in your desk drawer until you have a tenure-track job. Then pull it out, polish it, and send it to presses.

Under my Band of Brother’s metaphor this doesn’t matter because we are acting like tenure doesn’t exist and that there is no hope. However, Nelson’s point is about being hired in the first place, let alone getting tenure. As she notes:

I was an adjunct with two books. In the rigid world of academic hiring, I didn’t make sense to any search committee out there. I was too experienced for assistant professorships, and there was no way any dean would approve hiring an adjunct with tenure. I had published too much, and I had made myself unhireable.

Clearly my Band of Brothers comparison only goes so far and needs more fleshing out. Maybe there is an asterisk for the publishing issue that Nelson raises. Clearly, I need to think more about these intersections. However, I think my comparison holds up on a host of other issues related to academia. There is no reason to be fearful and not function as an ally, an advocate, or an innovative teacher or public scholar / intellectual. The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re not getting tenure, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to function as a teacher, scholar, or a public intellectual’s supposed to function: With mercy, with compassion, without regret. All of higher education depends on it.