Rapid Reaction to Carleton's Rapid Reactions

I got two emails this morning from Carleton--results of a survey of the students about their experience last spring and a memo about an extension of the tenure clock.  Overall, I continue to be most impressed with Carleton's reactions to this crisis.  Committing early to going online this fall was huge--providing clarity and sanity while giving profs a chance to try to give a better online experience than they could with the sudden transition in March.

So, here are some of my reactions to the latest stuff, starting with the survey.   A random sample of 5000 students were chosen, almost 35% responded in May and June, which meant that the survey was put together quickly in April and early May.  Well done.



The students generally thought things went well--the tech, instructor support (although the comments reveal, as always, more than a few profs are not terrific at that whole empathy, communications, mastering tech stuff), and communications from the university.  A minority thought that support from peers went well.  Significant numbers (30-45%) cited as issues instructor limitations with tech, access to reliable internet, access to library resources.  They seemed to dislike most Kaltura, which is the system used to create (and I guess watch) videos (lectures).  That is helpful as I have been wondering how to do the video stuff this fall, and my first Kaltura experience was not that great.  I have a secret weapon in the video battle, so I think I can do a mix of things.  I was surprised to find students found the internal to the learning system BigBlueButton teleconferencing system to be more useful than Zoom (MsTeams was mostly disliked).  So glad I did not and will not have final exams--they seemed most problematic.  I use final papers.

One of the interesting findings is that students are conflicted--some want asynchronous and some want blended.  Few undergrads and almost 30% of grad students want synchronous.  I may have to re-think my plans for next winter when I teach a large-ish grad seminar.  I was talking to a pal over zoom yesterday, and I realized that maybe doing a mix of taped lectures and synchronous discussion makes the most sense for a grad seminar.  These results support that instinct.

The memo gives folks a year on their tenure clock if they want it.  That is all it does.  It is good, but this crisis is probably more than a year long.  Most folks lost much of the winter/spring of 2020, their summer is pretty disrupted, and, given the failure to figure out K-12, many tenure-track folks will have a hard time teaching, researching, and doing everything else in the next academic year--2020-21.  I wonder if a year is enough.  I also wonder about the gendered effects of this disruption as women are getting hit harder than men in general.  Women still are the primary care providers for kids and elderly parents, and with day care and school disrupted and with elder care being high stakes these days, we already have plenty of evidence that this is affecting women more than men--submission rates at journals were an early canary in this coal mine.

How to deal with this?  I don't know except maybe there should serious messaging from the top that tenure standards will be relaxed over the next few years to take into account the crisis.  This thing is going to create disruptions in research for quite a while--making it hard to do fieldwork, making it hard to present work and get feedback (yes, there are online conferences, but generally fewer opportunities), making it hard to write with kids in the house, more work to prepare online classes, etc.  The balance of workload has shifted, so it may be necessary to have reviewers, committees, and others involved in tenure processes to lower their expectations for the next few years.

Finally, one other thing happened last week--the CU President sent around an email to indicate that Carleton will be largely, if not entirely, online in the winter.  Again, this gives us lots of notice to prepare accordingly.

While we can quibble about some stuff, and I do wonder about what is happening to the sessions/adjuncts/temp faculty, compared to other places, Carleton is doing a very good job.  Of course, that is like being the tallest oompa loompa or the smartest Trump.  But in this case, I think the difference is real and meaningful.  I am sure we all will have complaints (changing the learning system next summer as we all figure the ins and outs of the current one this year is not great), but my general sense is the school is playing a bad hand pretty well.