The Salty Professor

There is growing concern about student loan debt in America. It is a real concern. We should be fucking concerned. The current number being bandied about is 1.7 trillion dollars. Yeah. With a fucking T. Which rhymes with B which stands for bullshit.

It isn’t bullshit that this is the amount of money that is owed. That is the reported number. I believe it. I believe in math. However, it is hard to know exactly how much of that money is interest and how many people who racked up that debt actually earned a degree. We do know that students who don’t graduate end up defaulting on the student loans at triple the rate of those who did graduate AND we know that unless you die, student debt is forever.

You could take out billions in loans and default, declare bankruptcy, fuck all the small businesses who did the work for you and only pay them pennies on the dollars they are owed even though they paid their employees the full amount, walk away, and then do it over and over again. And again. And AGAIN. AND you could be rewarded for all of that by becoming the president. BUT, if you take out 20K in student loans for a degree you didn’t earn, you will have to have your wages garnished, your tax returned seized, all while the interest racks up and that 20K becomes 50 or 60 in no time.

I do think that people who take out loans should pay them back. I do. I think if you take out loans for a business, or for a degree, you owe that money back. I am OK with that. There is some nuance to it thought and that needs to be considered.

Some of those people who took out loans for degrees they didn’t earn, actually didn’t even go to class and yet, they still owe the money. That is like applying for a car loan but you never finalize the loan, sign your name, or pick it up from the dealership but still somehow you owe the money even though they sold that car to someone else.

When I first started teaching, professors could, have students removed from classes if they didn’t participate after two consecutive weeks. Now, the rule is, and this is a federal rule, not just the rule at my school, if the student doesn’t participate in week one, the student is dropped. There is no financial aid distributed and it is a no harm no foul situation.

However, if the student shows up and naps in the back row of class OR posts one word to one discussion in an online course, that student is “active” and is enrolled for the rest of the term. The money is distributed and that is that. Even if the student never shows up again, the student can’t be dropped.

It is different if a student shows up for half the classes, doesn’t put in effort and doesn’t pass. That is an object lesson. The student needed to get kicked in the wallet on that one. However, if I student ghosts after day one, the student isn’t really enrolled in the class and the money should be returned. We are not required to marry the people we ghost after one bad date, so why do we make sure the student suffers this pain?

It could be that the student is scamming the system by collecting student loan checks for two years and fucking off with the money without knowing that the money will be owed back no matter what. Some students do get cost of living loans and some students get refunds. I get it. Some of them steal. That is a scam. Fuck those fuckers. Still, it is more likely that the student assumed by not showing up, there would be a drop and so the student didn't do anything. If you stopped showing up to work, you would expect to be fired. Same principle here.

The real insidious thing about it is that the schools collect the money but don’t have to do any of the work and THAT is the main reason why this law isn’t changing. Colleges and universities rake in tons of money from the federal government in financial aid. Some schools survive on tuition money alone. If they drop a student who quit attending after one third of the class was complete and had to give back 66 percent of the money, that would be bad for bottom lines. So, instead of doing the ethical thing, they do nothing. Fucking NOTHING.

Last term I had six students who didn’t pass the course. Five of them submitted two assignments total. One of them only submitted one. The college collected that money and even though I’ve pushed and begged to have the students dropped, I was told, “not to get too worked up about it.”

Really? Fuck you. Fuck that. I am worked up about it because in 10 years, that student is going to plan on using a tax refund for something, but there will be no joy at that person’s house, because that money will be taken to repay for a class, he probably thought he dropped. AND if he wants to take out a loan to help cover the costs of anything, or buy a car, or a house, that will not happen because his credit is ruined.

Education should not be a fucking business built on the back of predatory loans.

It is a fucking right.

There has been a lot of talk recently at my university about adding a dress code. Keep in mind I work at a university, for adults, not a prep-school on the CW network. Still, apparently, the president, who always wears an ill-fitting suit, wishes we all took after him and “dressed the part.” I don’t know what part it is, but if it means swamp ass and pit stains in early September or late April when the buildings start to cook and the AC doesn’t work, then I guess I don’t want to look that part at all.

I’ve worked at this particular school for 12 years now and at no point have I ever seen any of my colleagues wear anything that was untoward. There was one guy who wore nothing but sweat pants and a sweatshirt for about a year, but that said more about his state of mind than his fashion sense. After he ended his toxic relationship, he started wearing jeans and button-down shirts again. In retrospect, it was a call for help. Sorry man. I thought you wanted to be with that person. Glad you didn’t though. She is awful.

Even if we were paid enough that we could all afford brand new suits and fancy pants, which we are not, none of it matters. We were not hired because of how we looked, we were hired because of what is in your heads AND most importantly, how well we help our students get that information in their heads. It doesn’t matter how we dress.

What matters is our creativity, our ingenuity, our mastery of the material, our ability to make something boring fun or to make something challenging, if not easy, easy enough to understand. What we say matters. What we do matters. What we look like, simply does not. Our clothes can, and should represent who we are. I’m a jeans and t-shirt guy. There are likely suit and tie people and tie-dyed dress people and wearing what makes us comfortable, affords us a level of comfort that passes on to the students. You know, the people who matter here.

Honestly, for the most part, we don’t pay any attention to what anyone at work with is wearing. I mean, the year of sweat pants thing was noticeable because it was different. If he showed up on day one dressed that way, we wouldn't have cared. Unless someone shows up dressed like a furry, no one should really pay it any mind. Although, that would be fucking amazing if someone started to teach dressed as a racoon. That would make people come to class, on time, and excited to learn about physics.

Really, though, and let’s be honest, this isn’t about men. It all comes down to the fact that the president is uncomfortable with the bodies of the women on campus. He didn’t care about sweatpants McGee nor would he care if I showed up in parachute pants and did a whole dance routine a ’la M.C. Hammer. This is not about the way we all look. It is about the way women look. It is my contention that his old white man conservative repression stresses him out when a woman shows some ankle, so a bra strap makes him have a fit. He says he doesn’t think “jeans are professional” but what he means is, “I can see a bit of your bare lower back above the waist of your jeans and that make want to leer.”

Dude. Get over yourself. You are not a hormonal 12-year-old. The Mike Pencification of women’s bodies has to stop. If you seriously can’t handle seeing an armpit, then maybe you shouldn't be in charge of higher education. People are not dressed a certain way for you. It isn't about you.

You don't seem to have any problem with the women on the volleyball team wearing skintight pants that are affectionately known as bun huggers. If you want to worry about a dress code maybe fix that one. Maybe get them in regular shorts and have them wear their underwear underneath their uniform.

Could it be you don't care about that because you actually love seeing those women's bodies are on display? Could it be that you don't see them as scholars and athletes but you see them as entertainment? The difference between them and the woman in the Math department with thigh high boots and a short skirt is that you can't openly ogle her without being called a creep but you can stare for hours at the women jumping up and down in tight shirts and pants.

There are a lot of lazy as fuck colleagues of mine who like to claim they have academic freedom when it comes to using the same, boring, 50-year-old, bullshit lessons because they can say whatever they want inside their own classrooms.

I guess, if we squint, we can see that as academic freedom. Really, what academic freedom means is that a faculty member is allowed to use h/i/er (a generic pronoun I like to use to represent her, his, and their), personal expertise to teach the subject. They are allowed to express opinions, if they are labeled as such, and, most importantly, they can have an open and honest debate about everything and anything.

Academia is a place where ideas bloom and grow and other flowering metaphors. So, clearly something old, boring, and dusty as fuck, isn’t flowery and new, but OK. If you want to pretend that is worth protecting, then fine, use your tenure and your bullshit to claim academic freedom is under attack. Reasonable people can agree that teachers should adapt to meet the students needs AND they should innovate.

However, because lazy, dusty, fucking fuckers cry academic freedom over bullshit like being asked to update material, or about being ‘forced” to use a universal syllabus template for accessibility and consistency purposes or any other myriad things they complain about to resist change and remain lazy, boring, and dusty, when the real issue arises, people don’t listen.

In Florida, Academic Freedom is under attack. Well, it isn't just in Florida. Anywhere that white assholes are desperately clinging to power, Academic Freedom is under attack, but Florida has really found a way to not just attack it, but kill it for good.

That asshole governor doesn’t like being called an asshole so with is Stop WOKE Act (I am not making that up), he claims that faculty of state-run colleges and universities, who are in fact state employees can’t, legally, say anything untoward against the government. Of course, law suits have been filed, but the person who is defending the laws, Chuck Cooper, says, “professors [can] not offer—or espouse, I should say, and endorse—viewpoints that are contrary to the states.”

When a judge asked him, “Could a legislature prohibit professors from saying anything negative about a current gubernatorial administration?”

Cooper replied: “I think, your honor, yes, because in the classroom the professor’s speech is the government’s speech and the government can restrict professors on a content-wide basis and restrict them from offering viewpoints.”

Let. That. Sink. In.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

The Department of Education defines a degree mill as a school that has fake accreditation and where the students do not have to do any work. That is certainly true.

However, insiders, that is me, and a lot of other folks who do the work in higher ed agree that a degree mill is a place where the fix is in from the moment the student walks on campus. They find it sick to know that regardless of performance, as long as the student has a pulse and is in good standing with one or twenty student loan services (this is the real key, students=$$$), that student will graduate with a legitimate degree even though the student will not have learned a fucking thing.

It is gross. I hate it. Blech.

I have a confession to make…

I accidentally got a job at a degree mill. I didn't mean to. I was looking to pick up some summer teaching. Teaching full-time doesn't pay all the bills and sometimes, we get sick of teaching the same few classes over and over, so, while we don't want to leave our full-time teaching posts, we pick up adjunct jobs at other schools.

So, I saw this ad for an adjunct job at a BIG school. This is one of those schools that is so big that it will survive the coming edpocalypse without so much as a blink. When the small, liberal arts schools fail, and shut down these mammoth, too-big-to-fail schools will roll on until there is just one monster Hydra University. It is an online job so I didn't have to commute. It pays better than what I would make doing overload work at my current job. Most importantly for me, the school is a non-profit and accredited, so I wasn't going to be doing garbage…or so I thought. I did my training and was impressed. I mean, they use an online learning management system designed by sadists. Still, it wasn't the end of the world. I've used it before. It isn't my full-time job. I could suffer for a few hours per day of this bullshit. No problem. I signed the contract. I read the text. I whistled a merry tune.

Then, I saw the course shell.

I have zero ability to change anything. I can't alter the due dates to meet my schedule. I can't close the discussions after they are graded. I can't even change the late policy. OK. So, I guess this is all about quality control. They need to be sure folks are doing it "right" so OK. I can give good, thoughtful feedback and do some teaching on the back end. Individualized learning is awesome anyway. Then, I saw the rubrics. They are already filled out with approved written feedback and they only have three levels. The student either gets all the points, most of the points, or NONE of the points. Really? Really? Who would EVER give a student a zero unless there was a missing assignment? No one who isn't a total fuckhead, that's who. I am not, for the record, a total fuckhead.

Thus, even when my students totally miss the point, like swing and miss, I have to mark that middle row on the grading rubric. That means, as long as the student turns in something, even if it is crappy and has a grammar error in every sentence, the student will earn a C. The school is accredited because every week the faculty clicks the pre-made rubric and thus the students get regular, substantive feedback. Also, as long as they submit something, the students will pass. The retention and graduation rates put me through the roof. Student satisfaction must be sky high because when asked if they like the place and if they feel the teacher was engaged, students will say yes. After all, how could they not?

I can't change the system. It is a massive school with lots of lawyers and I assume, one or twenty lobbyists as well. For now, I am taking detailed notes. I have videos and screenshots. I am building a file that I will send to the DOE and the regional accrediting body. They will likely not give a shit, but I give a shit and it is all I can do. I am not going to walk away from the students I currently have. I can't quit on them. That isn't fair. They can still learn some good stuff. I will fight the good fight within the virtual confines of my classroom. I will give different feedback. I will push them to do better. I will make audio comments or video comments and I meet with them and I try, and try, and try, to get them to learn. To be better. I will explain that while they are going to pass, that isn't the point. Grades are pointless if they don't learn anything.

I know there will be students who care. I know there is some great information they can take from my class. I can do the work. The extra work. I can be the shining light in the degree-milled darkness. I will work hard because I care.

#educationisaright, but it must be earned.

So, I have several degrees. This isn't a humble brag. It is what is required to teach in Higher Ed. I did the work. I earned the degrees. I was a student over and over and I learned and I learned so that I could, one day, like say, today, impart my knowledge to a student who wishes to learn from me. Maybe not me per se but someone like me. Someone who is an expert in a particular field who can help people become better at something.

This is the job I do. This is the job I just did ten minutes before I sat down to write this. I have a student who is riding the struggle bus at the moment with this unit's concepts. To help out, I've spoken to her, met with her virtually, chatted with her on the phone, and today, replied with a detailed email.

I have the privilege to do my job, but I worked my ass off and made huge mistakes along the way and now, here I am, in the Ivory Tower, trying to take it apart bit by bit so that it can be built again, stronger than before.

I teach. That is what I do. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I am a professor who doesn't profess. I teach. I like to actually find out what my students need and I work with them to crack the code. Does it take more time? Yeah. It does. Is it the right thing to do? I mean, I guess it depends on each person who sits on my side of the desk, but I think this is the job.

A few things drive me crazy about my colleagues. OK. Way more than a few. I wrote a whole book about it because my list is so long. I should say ONE of the things that drives me crazy is when one of them says to a student "You should know this already."

For those who have never been insulted with this bullshit line, here is what it sounds like.

Student: Um...Professor Fuckhead, I am really struggling with subject/verb agreement. You keep telling me that I am doing it wrong, but I just don't really get what you are saying. Professor Fuckhead: That was something you should have learned in elementary school at best or middle school at worst. I don't have time for that. I'm not teaching you English, I'm teaching you how to write effectively.

Yeah, so, Professor Fuckhead isn't wrong about a lot of that, BUT, he should take a few minutes to help out. He totally has the time. The class only meets 2.5 hours per week. All kinds of fucking time. Beside, the fact remains the student doesn't know it and s/he/y is asking for help. So, it is Fuckhead's fucking job to help. I'm not suggesting that Fuckhead needs to set up private tutoring sessions for this struggling student, but the internet is vast and the resources are free.

If it were me, I would say something like:

Page 22 in the free handbook I send you all on day one of the class should give you a lot of insight. Also, Grammar Girl has some excellent videos and resources that can help you refresh your skills. Let's look at a few instances in your writing where you are doing it wrong and then you can look at the resources and you can try to find the others in your paper. I'm not going to fix them for you, but I will show you how you can fix them.

I didn't shame the student. I didn't put up a wall. I didn't do the work for h/er/m either. I gave some help. I showed the student how to fix the problem and shared some resources because, yes, the student should know this already. This is college BUT s/he/y is struggling.

I know I can pass the course I am teaching. That is sort of the point of getting all the degrees. At some point, someone with more degrees than me took a moment to explain things to me that I didn't know even if I "should" have known it.

The world is big and our brains are stuffed with a lot of shit. I know that Brian May is both a rock god AND an astrophysicist. Is that helpful? No. Could I have used that mental space to remember something someone taught me when I was 9? Maybe.

Instead, I listened to Queen and then I asked a question of someone who knew more than me and while I was told on many occasions by Professor Fuckhead that I should know that already, thankfully, I had plenty of teachers who decided to take five minutes to help me out. Seems only right that I pay that forward.

Hello fellow Tumblrs.

I wanted to let you know that I have a book coming out in September. It is called Academic Inferno. It is part one of the Academic Divine Comedy where I take you on my trip through Academia. The first part, takes you on my trip through Adjunct Hell.

You can get access to the advanced reader copy here.

Also, if you love to read Tumblr, but wish there was an audio version too. You can listen to the Salty Professor here.

Brilliance doesn't automatically mean one will earn a degree. I know lots of smart people who failed out of college, or who simply didn't go. I know, unfortunately, lots of really, really dumb people who have graduated from college.

College isn't perfect. It is a system and people game it. Back in "the day" whenever that was, people stole the answer sheets or cheated off a neighbor's test. That was bullshit. Why cheat? College isn't a requirement is it? Unlike K-12 school, no one "has" to go to school. So, why the fuck would you come to school to cheat?

Just don't come. If you don't like what we are doing here, don't come. I don't want to eat squid, so I'm not going to a seafood place and be angry that I can't have a veggie burger.

Teachers don't like cheaters in general and they think the value of the degrees should mean something and so, to avoid this kind of cheating, teachers started giving out papers. There isn't a "right" answer on a paper or essay test. Each person has to write s/hi/er (this is a generic pronoun I use. I also use s/he/y and s/he/m) own answers and be judged on s/hi/er own ability to know the material or write a really good bullshit essay.

That was useful and it worked, but we don't really do long-hand essays anymore. Papers are typed. Notes are typed. Walk into a classroom right now and 99 percent of the people are typing notes on laptop, or tablet, or are recording the lecture so a talk to text software program will write them up later. I don't like this option by the way, not because that isn't' useful or super cool, but because like taking a picture of the notes on the board, it is too passive. Recording it and typing it up later is a great idea.

Technology has its place. I prefer to type. I love me some spell check. I am not trying to be that grumpy old man who hates all technology, but...

We have come to the point in time where the AI doesn't just dictate, with typos, it now writes "original" thoughts. I recently noticed that one student's email had one voice and s/hi/er academic posts had a different one. Sure, people code switch all the time, but when I asked s/he/m about it, s/he/y dodged the question, but suddenly s/hi/er academic voice as a little more raw. Yeah, the grade was lower, but the "real" person afforded me with the opportunity to engage in a real, meaningful, conversation.

It isn't all the student's fault. We've been told for decades now that education is a way to get trained to do a job, not a place to think big thoughts and grow. Thus, anything that isn't in the major is "a waste of money" and a scam. I totally disagree, of course. If I thought that were true, I would quit tomorrow and go back to farming.

I think education should train a person to do something. People who have a degree in say, history, should be historians. However, s/he/y shouldn't only learn history. A robust education allows people to do so much more. It gives people a place to talk about bit ideas and get lost in thought.

Unfortunately, today, because of the commodification of education people just want to rush through it. They have been convinced it is "just a piece of paper" that has less value than a take out menu. Instead of taking notes on Henry IV while reading it, a person can just ask a chat bot to write up a synopsis of it and later, a paper. Odds are, and I am just being honest here, that AI paper will likely earn a passing grade but the person will not have enjoyed any of Falstaff's jokes and, for me, that is the real crime.

Professors profess.

Look, I am not a fan of the "sage on the stage" kind of professor who stands up in front of a class and talks and talks and talks for the full length of class and then walks out at the appointed hour feeling smug and self-satisfied that the students' thirst for knowledge has been quenched. It has not. They have taken notes at best and slept through the thing at worst. Why would they come if they could just get the same boring shit on YouTube for free? They can even speed up the player to make it less miserable. I put most lectures online for this very reason. If you can listen to me talk about why you should never not use a double negative in double speed and you can follow along, you should. You know you best. I know this stuff. You know you. You know how to learn. Odds are, you know that you don't learn by being talked AT.

Higher education is full of people who are never wrong.

Well, it is full of people who think they are never wrong. They are wrong, all the fucking time. They are wrong to think that preaching is going to make anyone learn. If preaching worked, no religious based school would ever lose a student to unwed pregnancy.

Some things need a lecture. I get it. Some things need to be said plainly and in a certain order. I get it. However, there is a way to say all that and have it be fun. When I show students how to do MLA or APA citations, after about 15 minutes of hearing my own droning voice, I get sick of me and want me to shut up so I turn it into an activity. They do it as a team. They write it on the board. They move around.

It is effective. It works. I've seen the results.

I had the privilege of being present at the graduation ceremony for the 2024 class from the university where I work. Parents whistled.

Children cheered.

Everyone was full of joy.

Yet, the "executive board" and the "guest speaker" took up over half of the proceedings talking about themselves instead of the students. At one point, I thought I slipped into another universe and was at a corporate retreat.

Hey. Fucko. It isn't about you. We see you with your robe and your hat and your hoods (yeah, higher ed, organized religion, hate groups, and cults share a lot of the same lingo. Its a problem) up on stage. That is enough. You get to be in every single fucking picture. Isn't that enough?

It isn't about you. It is about the students, parents, and support team who helped get them there. Even we, the teachers, who sat with those students in class, for weeks, or years, got to know them and helped them achieve their goals know, it isn't about us. Not anymore.

Not ever. Really. The university has been around for way longer than I've been around and will be around for centuries. I am just one part of the overall picture. I can sit and clap and be happy for the graduates because I didn't go into this job to be a star. I do the work so that once a year, I can sweat my balls off, dressed in a robe, wearing a hood, and a funny hat, because I ultimately get to witness the fruits of our collective labor blossom. Yeah. Fruit blossoms. I know it seems like a mixed metaphor but it isn't.

So, if you famous enough or important enough or an alumni of some school and you are ever asked to do a commencement address make sure you make the speech short, less than five minutes and make sure it mentions the students over and over and make sure you remind them how fucking awesome they are. OR better yet, turn it down by saying, "It isn't about me."

Today I saw another small, liberal arts college, this time in New York, closed its doors. It made me sad. I am the product of a small, liberal arts college. I was a poor kid whose bootstraps were made of loans and grants and help from professors. One of them bought me books when I was too broke to afford them. I can never repay her. There is no amount of money that could repay her kindness. She was the first person who told me I could be a visionary. She should know. She is one.

Is it the fault of the school for being poorly run? Maybe. It could be. Some schools are run by assholes who failed up so spectacularly that they get to the top, and can’t do anything but fuck it up for everyone.

Could it also be that it is cool to shit on education now?

Hmmmm.

Maybe the elite fucks who have liberal arts educations keep shitting on liberal arts education so that the “little people” will not earn degrees and challenge them for their jobs. A sure fire way to keep people down is to convince them that they want to be down.

The #HLC Higher Ground conference came to a tragic end yesterday as the hopes and dreams of this educator were dashed on the rocks of bullshit. Yeah. The bullshit was so hard, it became rock-like.

It turns out that plenty of people went to the conference to fuck off and go catch one of the myriad sports teams in the Chicagoland area instead of actually coming there to learn about trends in higher ed or about assessment or accreditation as was the fucking point of the thing.

Of course, others used it as an opportunity to pad a CV (which is college for resume), with the line "attended HLC conference." Someone actually said that to me. "You can put this on your CV. You were here." Right. I can, but should I? I mean isn't "attended HLC conference" the equivalent of saying, "held down chair in room full of people?" I am not going to write, "successfully rode the Blue Line from the airport with luggage" or "ate overpriced breakfast without spilling coffee on crotch" on my CV, but I guess I could.

My CV actually could have "presented at two conferences" because that would be true. It is a HUGE big fucking deal to stand in a room of like-minded educators and share wisdom with them and most importantly, engage in conversation with them. Both times I presented, I talked for 15-20 minutes MAX and then I opened up the floor to conversation which lasted well past the appointed time. I showed people how to do things and they asked questions. It was sort of like, and this is going to blow your mind, teaching. Some people came to present which looks even BETTER on the CV. There are CV points and attending is worth 2, but presenting is worth 5 (not spilling coffee on your crotch is worth 1).

Unfortunately, only two of the 15 sessions I went to felt like I was learning anything at all. The rest could have been an email. Like, for real. They could have emailed the slide decks and I could have read them, and got all the information because they fucking read off fucking slide decks.

Slide Deck is the name of my zydeco band. I play punk accordion and slowly read the lyrics while they are projected on a white screen in black words, one line at a time, with no animation. #slidedeck

I would argue though for those of us who went to this conference with the thought in mind that we would learn something important to take back to our campuses, we were all profoundly disappointed. It turns out the conference exists as a sort of educational fight club. People who don't get to go, imagine what it could be. People who get to go, know it is bullshit, but they don't tell. They just got a free trip to America's Second City with the number one pizza. Don't fuck it up for the rest of us. You don't talk about HLC because if you do, everyone is in on the secret that it is a huge waste of time and money and if you do tell, someone will likely kick your ass.

DAY 1: The Keynote that kicked it off was essentially a TED talk and it was really great. Talk about innovative. Talk about boundary pushing. Is this what the whole conference is going to be? Wow.

Day 2: Sad trombone.

There is clearly some great information here and there are some well intentioned people here, but it seems that most people who present at education conferences have either forgotten that talking AT a room full of people while showing black words on a white page is not a way to connect or engage the listeners OR they are just not good at teaching. I hope it isn’t the latter, but honestly, if I conducted my classes the way most people at this conference present, I would be pulled into the Dean’s office and my Rate My Professor rating would be full of 1 stars with the hashtag #BAF attached. I am not sure if kids use BAF as a hashtag for boring as fuck. Let’s pretend they do.

Day 3 looks promising. The sun is rising over the river. Chicago. Hope springs eternal.