The Perils of the Admission Process

There was an interesting article in The Chronicle this week about precarious undergraduate admissions, and Vanderbilt was among the universities mentioned. It seems that the newly constructed Commons at Vanderbilt, where all freshman will be housed, is placing some extra pressure on the admissions staff to fill it to capacity…at precisely 1550 students. Vanderbilt is going the route of making less initial offers and then making the difference up (if need be) through students on the waiting list. It will probably work out, but what are other schools doing?

The article states that only about a third of the institutions in the country even have waiting lists, and most don’t draw heavily from them. Schools without waiting lists are probably forced to over offer admission to students in the hope that all of them don’t accept. I can tell you from personal experience that when the “over offer” backfires and most everyone accepts, you end up with problems that cause more than just admission staffers to sprout a few extra grey hairs.

I’m not sure what the remedy is to the admissions crisis that some schools have, but we are in an era where students are more prepared and qualified than ever before, and many deserve to be admitted. The answer may lie in asking “Mr. and Mrs. Big-Time-Donor” to lay down money for some namesake residence halls on many campuses.

- Landon Clark

New Potential for GI Bill

I think I have blogged before concerning learning about the GI Bill in Dr. Doyle’s class last fall. My dad earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees due to the GI Bill after he served in World War II. The GI Bill has been in the news lately (see op-ed in The New York Times, blurb in The Chronicle of Higher Education, and CNN). It seems a hot topic for this year’s hopeful presidential candidates. While I will not get involved in the he said-he said politics in this blog, the basic debate is over whether to expand the money available through the Bill to veterans who have served at least three years since 2001. I think we can all agree that the cost of college, including tuition, books, and travel, has increased since the 1940s.

An argument I heard on CNN for why not to increase the money to military members wanting to go back to school is that the opportunity for higher education will discourage them from remaining active in uniform.  However, I also heard on CNN that the annual cost of the GI Bill expenditures with the proposed expansion will equal the cost of only one week of war in Iraq. 

I think the country owes a college education to our new veterans. College costs more now than it did immediately following World War II, so our government leaders should adjust the Bill to cover today’s expenses.

-Teresa Bagamery Clark

Congratulations on Graduating From High School!?!?

My little brother, the youngest of my family’s five kids, graduated from high school this past weekend.  We went to the same high school, and not a lot has changed about the ceremony since I went through it.  The school gym was decorated in the exact same way.  The principal, while a different person, gave the exact same speech: solemn occasion, dignified event, respectful of others, and so on.  What was also the same was my brother’s reaction to the whole of the proceedings.  What were we celebrating? What had we really accomplished?  I realize that’s a very biased point-of-view coming from two people who have always excelled in school, but everyone else seemed to be having such a good time; they were all so excited about something.  What that was, we didn’t get.

The class valedictorian and salutatorian both graduated with a perfect GPAs and gave two of the most boring speeches I’ve ever heard.  Names were read rapid fire without any hint of personality or thought.  No music.  No fanfare.  No awards.  No recognition.  He had won the English department award, but that was given two weeks before.  All my little brother could figure that he was celebrating was not having his mediocre AP Government teacher anymore, or that he wasn’t going to see a lot of people he considered his friends for another ten years, if ever.  He was celebrating leaving one place for another.

I don’t mean to belittle high school graduation as an achievement worth celebrating.  I have tutored and taught dozens of students who had to fight and struggle to reach that day, and their families were ecstatic to be there and watch them get that diploma.  They were, of course, prevented from making any sort of outburst of pride and celebration by security guards as their children crossed the stage and shook the superintendent’s hand.  Perhaps other people’s experiences are different, but if a day of celebration and recognition is reduced to an extended roll call in a sweltering gym, then our collective opinion was, what is the point?

Graduation should be a party.  Music. Trophies. Punch and Cake.  High-fives, maybe?  What I remember most about my graduation was the speech the principal gave us about how “this day was not for us, but for our families.”  Not for us?  If it’s not for us, then why do we need to even show up.  I would love to have those two hours of my life back; and to not have been forced to listen to four speeches about how I was like a boat, a banana, an onion, and a race car.  I’m a graduate.  How about some streamers and a door prize?

–Luke Webb

When I Grow Up

When I meet new people, one of the first bits of information that the person introducing me shares is that I am working on my doctorate at Vanderbilt. I smile and brim with confidence, naturally, while awaiting the common question. I don’t like the question, not the first part and not the second part, for it is most often a two-parter. Perhaps you have heard it as well: “What are you going to do with that…teach?”

I suppose the easy answer is, “yes.” However, for me, what I am going to do seems much more vague. I have tried to “teach,” and either my classes were canceled due to low registration or I lacked the correct 18 graduate hours to profess my knowledge. Thus, I do answer that indeed I would like to teach, but then I feel the need to elaborate on how I want to move up, I want to work in administration, I want to write and publish, and I want to consult. I wonder if those who have asked really want to know all of that. My career plans just don’t fit well into one title, one department, or one word.

The easier question to answer is one I have only heard a couple of times, including once on a plane ride between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh: “Oh, so you’re going to be a school principal?” Um, no. (Note: I am in the higher education track.)

-Teresa Bagamery Clark

Cultivating a borderless classroom?

Last week at the REMS conference, Dr. Prem Kumar Rajaram gave a lecture on borders and border practices that has continued to bounce around in my mind ever since.

We typically think of borders as places or lines located at a particular in space and time where certain people are allowed to cross and others are not. Dr. Rajaram challenged us to think instead of a border as something that is practiced or performed; something that is not finite or static, but that is moveable, dynamic or changeable. “The sense of the border,” he said, “can exist within the nation state…and the subject of the border is human life.”

As he spoke, I began to consider the way teachers “practice the border” in the classroom. To what extent do we reinforce differences among students based on our perceptions of who is “in” and who is “out,” and how might our border practices embrace inclusive possibilities rather than solidify exclusionary habits?

We often speak about multicultural curricula and methods for affirming students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds in school. But Dr. Rajaram’s talk hit at something deeper than that: what borders do we perceive between ourselves and our students, or between students from different backgrounds? If we see these barriers and divisions – whether perceived or real – in our classrooms, how do we respond to them?

- Rachel Bowers

Reassurance to the New Cohort

When some of my cohort members enjoyed the pleasure of meeting the new Ed. D. cohort earlier this month, we tried our best to answer their questions and address their concerns. One question someone asked me was whether anyone had dropped out of our cohort. I must admit I was taken aback by this question, because no one has. We have kept one another going this past year through all the projects and papers. Another concern I heard from a new student was regarding the amount of reading. This has been a challenge, as sometimes my days just are not long enough to fit in all the articles and books, but I always make a valiant effort. Read everything you can, and more importantly, be able to talk about what you read; yes, even if that means perusing (gasp!) when time is tight so that you at least get the author’s main points and ideas.

Beginning a doctoral program can be as challenging as a marathon and as scary as surgery. Commiting to three years of study takes drive and endurance, but fear of the unknown (what will my classes be like? how will I get everything done?) can creep up late at night when you are trying to finish that paper or read those articles. Remember, it is a doctoral program, so it is going to be hard. This is what you signed up for. You may think, “what have I gotten myself into?” Just feel assured that others have done it, we are doing it, and you will be ok.

-Teresa Bagamery Clark

Eye on the Tam

One of the reasons I decided to pursue my doctorate was for the awesome outfit you get to wear when you are done. I simply cannot wait to get my tam! My cohort has just started discussing what our regalia will look like in two years. As a native Pittsburgher, I am thrilled at the coincidence that Vanderbilt’s school colors are black and gold. For education, the color is light blue. The doctoral robes come in a variety of ways depending on how elaborate you want to go and how much money you want to spend.  It will not be long now before I get a snazzy outfit of my own, and I feel as though I may never take it off. 

-Teresa Bagamery Clark

Applied Stats in 8 Hours

The 2010 Ed.D. cohort just finished its second weekend of quantitative methods with Dr. Doyle, and although the subject matter is fairly difficult, I think we all feel like we’re close to “getting it.” Dr. Doyle told us on Saturday that what he had taught up to that point (T-scores, ANOVA, Chi-squares, and other assorted jumbles of letters and Greek symbols) would normally have taken him about a month to get through. Since our cohort meets on weekends, we didn’t have a month…we had about eight hours. A month of material filtered down into a few hours of lecture and another few hours in the lab with SPSS. We’re “getting it,” although it be in the form of 100 mph fastballs.

The best thing about the course so far is that we are not having to do the computations by hand, but instead through SPSS. This is great, but we’re all having to learn SPSS at the same time. It’s all working thus far, as we’re finally learning what all those little tables in our articles mean.

Although I might be having more trouble with statistics than most people in my class, I do have some advice for future cohorts: Audit a stats course now. It will probably help you out a great deal when you begin your second year in the Ed.D. program.

-Landon Clark

Defining terms: Race, ethnicity and migration in the EU

For the past several days, I have been listening to professors from universities in the European Union and the United States discuss issues of race, ethnicity and migration in our respective cultural settings. It has been fascinating to see the paradigms we all bring to the table, and the ways in which these ways of thinking interact. In particular, it has been interesting to consider the loaded terms we use to describe these issues, and how our definitions conflict.

Yesterday, several Dutch professors explained the term “black schools” as it is used here in the Netherlands. The term does not refer to schools who primarily serve students of a dark skin color. Rather, it is used to describe schools that are performing poorly and that frequently educate students of Moroccan or Turkish origin (the two most prominent immigrant groups in the Netherlands).

Dutch professors also explained how a person is defined as “Dutch.” For people in the Netherlands, someone is Dutch only when BOTH of their parents were born in the Netherlands. Contrast that to US policy that allows some first-generation immigrants to become citizens.

The way we name things and people has a powerful impact on the way we think about and treat them, both at the policy and personal level. Much of what I’ve heard here has me thinking about the way these labels affect students in public schools, in particular.

- Rachel Bowers

Previous: Coming Soon: Blogging from Utrecht, Netherlands

We’re Second Year Now…Throw Us A Caboni!

Since I’m knee deep in statistics reading at the moment, I thought I would take a break to discuss my thoughts on the second Ed.D. summer class for the higher education folks. As we begin our second year, we’re finally getting into more classes focused on our respective areas, and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve enjoyed learning more about K-12 education over the past year, but since my wife and I don’t have a child to be left behind, I’m ready to learn how to manage colleges and universities (where the kids are still a bit whiny, but on the whole, much lower maintenance). That’s where Caboni comes in.

We’re still about two weeks away from our class with Dr. Caboni, but I’ve already heard marvelous things about the class and the man behind the bow-tie. We’ll apparently be reading The Chronicle quite a bit (which is rock awesome), and if my friend in the 2009 cohort is correct, the class is a bit of an epiphany for college administrators. My wife and I are excited about the class, even if it is only to get some break from stats. So if Dr. Caboni reads this, I want him to know that we’re all ready…and we also expect to see the seersucker come out at least once over the summer.

- Landon C. Clark