Friday, January 19, 2018

Wyoming Public Media Disappoints Yet Again

I’m disappointed to hear that Wyoming Public Media has dropped On Point for a second installment of the BBC because by the time On Point hits the airwaves its “content is rendered obsolete.” Seriously… That’s your rationale?!

I’ve never listened to On Point and thought to myself, “Wow, what they’re talking about there is totally obsolete now.” I’d rather have a bit of slightly dated in-depth discussion than more redundant, late-breaking news—which can be too new and often inaccurate itself. And, for the record, I’m OK with hearing news from the BBC, that’s valuable to me as well, but not twice a day. I suppose no one ever considered simply switching the two program slots? I will also argue that given how easy it is to find the BBC news in so many public radio offerings (not to mention satellite radio), it’s not as if you’re bringing something really unique to your Wyoming listeners, and I’m sure On Point isn’t nearly as ubiquitous as BBC broadcasts.

Between the all-too-often dead-air SNAFUs common with Wyoming Public Media at any given time and now the dropping of On Point, I make no promises about my continued support come the spring fund-raising campaign.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

A Small Front Account from the Cola Wars

In the movie Pulp Fiction, Uma Thurman’s character, Mia Wallace, declares that you can learn a lot about a person by the choice they make when given only two choices; such as The Beatles or Elvis. She then proceeds to ask Vincent Vega (John Travolta) with her video camera rolling what his choices would be when it comes to The Partridge Family or The Brady Bunch. On Rich Man, Poor Man which character does he prefer, Peter Strauss or Nick Nolte. How does he say “thank you” in a language other than English. 

Over the years, I’ve considered this fictional character’s philosophy and have come up with a few either-this-or-that questions of my own to ask anyone I might encounter. At the top of my list of questions has to do with one’s choice when it comes to carbonated drinks (soda, pop, soda pop, etc.)—in particular, Coke or Pepsi.

Since my college days at Arizona State, I have been a Coke fan. And, it was Charlie Ochoa, a chemistry major who lived a couple doors down in our dorm, who pointed out to me that Coke was made from all natural products back then. I can still remember the list of ingredients: carbonated water, sugar, caramel coloring, caffeine and phosphoric acid.

Not that I’ve ever been a huge consumer of such drinks, but there have been a few times in my life when an entire six-pack of Coke was vanquished in the course of a week.

From the 1980s on, Pepsi has always come across as flat and too sugary for my palette.

Several years ago, my place of employment—Northwest College—sold its soul to Pepsi; meaning only Pepsi products were permitted on campus. I’m sure Pepsi made the school an offer they couldn’t refuse. When all of that went down, I found it very disturbing because it felt so autocratic. It seemed to me that when one was enrolled in college, they should have choices. When they’re in jail, not so much. I was convinced that even on a small college campus, there was room for both brands of carmel-colored sugar-water.

I would imagine that shortly after Pepsi became the only choice on campus, several Coke lovers were converted to Pepsi. But as you may have guessed, not me. With no Coke available anywhere at the college, I preferred nothing (or at least water) over Pepsi.

As it turned out, I wasn’t such a Coke fan after all. Although I occasionally purchased it and kept a small cache of it stocked in my office refrigerator, I couldn’t maintain the energy that was required of such behavior. In the end, I simply learned to go without.

After so many years of abstaining from Pepsi, a strange thing happened… When I finally had the opportunity to have a Coke, it overpowered me with its sweetness to where if I drank an entire 12-ounce can, I felt a little sickly. As a result, I started making other choices that weren’t loaded with sugar—even when Coke was available.

I can’t say I’ve consciously sworn off soft drinks completely, but I can tell you it’s been several months since I even had a taste of Coke or any other drink that’s carbonated and loaded with sugar.

So, instead of cursing Northwest College and Pepsi as I once did, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them instead. I’m sure my dentist approves.

Sunday, January 07, 2018

On Pesky Emails, Cranky Faculty, and Whac-A-Mole

It’s been a fabulous Christmas break, but ready or not, the Spring semester is nearly here. And with the semester’s approach is the inevitable barrage of email to my school account. It’s probably safe to assume that almost everyone hates junk email—a.k.a. “spam.” But, worse than spam from some unknown bookseller or “get-rich-quick” scheme coming from Africa is the spam that is generated by one’s own workplace—especially if it keeps on popping up in the inbox like Whac-a-Mole—the popular arcade game.

At some point in time over the last two years, some administrative folk at my workplace—Northwest College—decided that faculty needed to have their syllabi posted on the college web site as soon as the previous semester was over. And from the end of one semester up until the beginning of the next semester—would you believe all summer long or throughout the Christmas break—email reminders all too often informing me and others that our syllabi haven’t been posted yet. Talk about being treated like a student—a student attending a students-at-risk school.

The other morning I had three of them from the office of academic affairs. The first one came at 6:58 a.m. Can you believe that—sending reminders out at 6:58 a.m. about missing syllabi? And then my questions… Is this not an illustration of academic bean-counting? Is this typical administrative on-the-job behavior? Surely if one is awake at that hour and would prefer to hit the ground running, aren’t there other administrative concerns that are more pressing than sending out harassing and irritating reminders about syllabi? Hell, I’d respect them more if I knew they were up all night gambling.

I’m sure administrative-types would argue with me in the language that they use: “Please remember that posting syllabi in a timely manner allows students to make educated decisions when selecting courses to enroll in during any given semester.” Such language is certainly well-intended, but really in all the years I’ve taught, I’ve never—repeat never—have had a student ask me (in person or email), “How come your syllabus isn’t posted for class.” Not even a week before classes begin. Maybe this kind of scenario is common at Stanford or Yale, but not so much at a junior college in Wyoming.

And if I can drive my point home a bit more, I’m reminded of the first day of class for any given semester when a syllabus hard copy is passed out to every student. After the class meets, it isn’t uncommon to find a handful of the syllabus left behind on the empty desks. 

This new priority in getting syllabi posted “timely” at Northwest College has a history, albeit short. When weekly notices were sent out with an attached Excel file (if you can believe it) of all the culprits starting last spring for the upcoming fall semester, faculty started getting prickly. In one email response to the entire faculty and the Academic Affairs Office, a faculty member shot out a lengthy response that including the following paragraph:

I realize this will come across as snarky, but I honestly don’t know how else to put it. I find it frustrating and puzzling that I am expected to have materials ready four months in advance. Quite honestly, if I was sitting around with the kind of time to put material together this early, I probably would have done it already. In addition to expecting me to have materials ready four months before something is supposed to occur, using a “wall of shame” mechanism such as these messages is just insulting to me.

Over the years, I’ve found myself playing around with the idea of applying for some kind of admin job to finish out my years of employment, but when this kind of administrative song-and-dance goes down, I’m unable to take the idea any further.