The Professor's Pitch
reminds me why I really enjoyed teaching in Taiwan: the office of the university instructor, the professor still has enough dignity there that I did not have to "pitch" myself to undergraduates.
Instead of having to live by the advertising jingo, "We are here for you," professors can still tell students in Taiwan "You are here to learn." Learning may or may not take place there, but for the teacher, from the point of view of work conditions, one had to suffer less the humiliations of the popularity contest. At Bard, professors and instructors underwent the ritual humiliation of holding forth during a shopping around period when students could circulate freely between departmental displays, held in different classrooms and sign up for classes while grilling a particular teacher about requirements, topics covered, etc. It all seemed innocent and ad hoc enough: the friendly exchanges, the handwritten sign up sheets. Then the untenured faculty discovered that the Dean was actually evaluating them by course enrollments -- so they learned to pitch, pitch and pitch. The tenured faculty, worried about inadequate enrollments pitched as well.
We all have to display the high spirits of the salesman as we remembered the ABC's of American academia -- "always be closing."
No one seems to mind: we accept this as our fate. We have no choice but to be constantly "selling." It's the inescapable logic of measurement, rationality and evaluation.
Instead of having to live by the advertising jingo, "We are here for you," professors can still tell students in Taiwan "You are here to learn." Learning may or may not take place there, but for the teacher, from the point of view of work conditions, one had to suffer less the humiliations of the popularity contest. At Bard, professors and instructors underwent the ritual humiliation of holding forth during a shopping around period when students could circulate freely between departmental displays, held in different classrooms and sign up for classes while grilling a particular teacher about requirements, topics covered, etc. It all seemed innocent and ad hoc enough: the friendly exchanges, the handwritten sign up sheets. Then the untenured faculty discovered that the Dean was actually evaluating them by course enrollments -- so they learned to pitch, pitch and pitch. The tenured faculty, worried about inadequate enrollments pitched as well.
We all have to display the high spirits of the salesman as we remembered the ABC's of American academia -- "always be closing."
No one seems to mind: we accept this as our fate. We have no choice but to be constantly "selling." It's the inescapable logic of measurement, rationality and evaluation.
3 Comments:
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right on - well said. but what is being sold? is it, as silly sites like rate my prof dot com suggest, the cuteness, the "hotness" of the prof? is it how funny they can be? or how "cool" the class is? not even those students who are shopping around for an easy time can really believe that this is the way the place should be run...
Here is what "shopping around" in the university system creates: we all HAVE to be sold on the idea that we have to be selling ourselves, that no form of life or knowledge or expertise will be free of having to parade itself before a potential client.
What the Bard scenario can be likened to is the old red light district of Amsterday -- with ladies showing "this is what you can get." Of course this was very deceptive, but with the university sell it is the same thing -- what you think you're getting is an instructor who is wiling to please, whether that means s/he is cool or "hot" it boils down to the expectation of a kind of transaction that will take place here.
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