Just A Couple Items (to Keep Me From Doing Hwk)
I need to finish some homework that is, in fact, due this afternoon, but before I turn myself to that work, I wanted to make some comments on a couple of things I've read today.
Yesterday I was looking through a local weekly paper, and found an article of some interest. It's a small and free weekly, with mostly entertainment stuff around the city, but also does a decent job of picking up some issues off the radar of the daily papers called The Other Paper. In this week's issue the paper discussed plans by The Ohio State University to amend rules for faculty/student relations. Here's a link in cace anyone wants it http://www.theotherpaper.com/substory2.html Currently, while sexual relations between faculty and students are frowned upon, they are not actually forbidden. Rules state that the interactions are not banned so long as the faculty member does not grade that student's work. What is shocking to me, is that there has been a marked increase of these sorts of incidents in the past few years the article's sources stated. Now, lest anyone think it's all naive undergrads, it's not. As one might expect, it's mostly graduate students, and this is not far from tales I have heard told from my parents, and well, someone I know who has dones something close to this. Approximately 25% of grad students have these sorts of interactions with faculty! 25%! Most of them happen also to be international students who are afraid to end the relationships for fear of losing their visas. I'd also posit, but the article doesn't state this, that most of the students are female, and the professors male. Maybe that's my feminist bias, but I still think it's a relatively safe assumption to make.
So, the university is now considering that they will change this rule to an outright ban. (yes, just considering, welcome to bureaucracy at its finest, ladies and germs) Some members of a task force at the university are pro-change. There are, however, some who note that these are consensual relations between adults. The adults part of that statement is true. What those people are discounting is that the interaction is almost akin to sexual harassment. What you have is an inseparable power dynamic tied to the sex. If your advisor wants sex, can you say no? Do you say no? Do you take the chance in ending something, if you've let it start, that maybe (s)he won't let you get pass your candidacy exam? It's difficult to imagine that one's work could be wholly separated from one's advisor, who is the most likely person for a grad student to have relations with faculty wise. Not to mention, this all assumes that relations are open, and my guess is that they are not. Fraternizing in that way is still frowned upon enough that many people might hide it, and thus only discuss it when the problem has become tremendously untenable. This scenario would explain what happens with international students. They're far from home, looking for conections, find them at the university, and then in the end fear to lose the work they've done by going against someone of authority.
My end point in all this is that, true, two adults are saying yes, but they are not of equal standing inside a university system. If the university wants to remain a place for strong research and production of solid scholarship, then it needs to clearly make the stand. It needs to ban sexual relations between faculty and students. Only by doing this, and following the leads of several other universities, can they be serious about the commitment to academic knowledge rather than the kind that comes from unlawful carnage.
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On another Note: Scooter Libby's defense funding.
I find it extremely curious that so much money is rallying around Lewis Libby (aka Scooter Libby) for his defense in the upcoming lawsuit. The word is that good old Scooter won't be facing trial til post the mid-term elections, bring the Repubs a sigh of relief. This means he won't be hanging over them so much, but hey, it also means they have more time to raise money to get him off the hook.
In the NYT today ( http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/politics/03cnd-libby.html?hp&ex=1139029200&en=f6a168b605a085b5&ei=5094&partner=homepage) Libby was noted to have a legal defense fun of approx. $2mil already, and he's got about a year o9r more to raise the other $4 mil to make up the total $6 mil for a good defense, or so the the head of the RNC stated. Even more intriguing than the mass of funds he's already got, are the people on the fund's steering commitee: The fund's steering committee is composed of several prominent Republicans, a few Democrats and several friends of Mr. Libby. It includes three former Republican senators, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming and Spencer Abraham of Michigan; two former Republican presidential candidates, Jack F. Kemp and Steve Forbes; and Prof. Bernard Lewis of Princeton and Prof. Francis Fukuyama of Johns Hopkins . Fascinating group, no? I can't decide if I feel bad for Scooter now, with that motley group behind him.
In any case... I really do have hwk to attend to. Homework is far less interesting than any of these things. Far less entertaining as well. But! Before I go, here are some gems from those geniuses who write into McSweeney's and manage to be put online:
A List of Less Powerful Industry Lobbying Groups ;D !
A List of Terrifying Bioengineered Animal-Snack Hybrids Not Mentioned as Potential Threats During the State of the Union Address! :D
Yesterday I was looking through a local weekly paper, and found an article of some interest. It's a small and free weekly, with mostly entertainment stuff around the city, but also does a decent job of picking up some issues off the radar of the daily papers called The Other Paper. In this week's issue the paper discussed plans by The Ohio State University to amend rules for faculty/student relations. Here's a link in cace anyone wants it http://www.theotherpaper.com/substory2.html Currently, while sexual relations between faculty and students are frowned upon, they are not actually forbidden. Rules state that the interactions are not banned so long as the faculty member does not grade that student's work. What is shocking to me, is that there has been a marked increase of these sorts of incidents in the past few years the article's sources stated. Now, lest anyone think it's all naive undergrads, it's not. As one might expect, it's mostly graduate students, and this is not far from tales I have heard told from my parents, and well, someone I know who has dones something close to this. Approximately 25% of grad students have these sorts of interactions with faculty! 25%! Most of them happen also to be international students who are afraid to end the relationships for fear of losing their visas. I'd also posit, but the article doesn't state this, that most of the students are female, and the professors male. Maybe that's my feminist bias, but I still think it's a relatively safe assumption to make.
So, the university is now considering that they will change this rule to an outright ban. (yes, just considering, welcome to bureaucracy at its finest, ladies and germs) Some members of a task force at the university are pro-change. There are, however, some who note that these are consensual relations between adults. The adults part of that statement is true. What those people are discounting is that the interaction is almost akin to sexual harassment. What you have is an inseparable power dynamic tied to the sex. If your advisor wants sex, can you say no? Do you say no? Do you take the chance in ending something, if you've let it start, that maybe (s)he won't let you get pass your candidacy exam? It's difficult to imagine that one's work could be wholly separated from one's advisor, who is the most likely person for a grad student to have relations with faculty wise. Not to mention, this all assumes that relations are open, and my guess is that they are not. Fraternizing in that way is still frowned upon enough that many people might hide it, and thus only discuss it when the problem has become tremendously untenable. This scenario would explain what happens with international students. They're far from home, looking for conections, find them at the university, and then in the end fear to lose the work they've done by going against someone of authority.
My end point in all this is that, true, two adults are saying yes, but they are not of equal standing inside a university system. If the university wants to remain a place for strong research and production of solid scholarship, then it needs to clearly make the stand. It needs to ban sexual relations between faculty and students. Only by doing this, and following the leads of several other universities, can they be serious about the commitment to academic knowledge rather than the kind that comes from unlawful carnage.
-------------------------------------------------
On another Note: Scooter Libby's defense funding.
I find it extremely curious that so much money is rallying around Lewis Libby (aka Scooter Libby) for his defense in the upcoming lawsuit. The word is that good old Scooter won't be facing trial til post the mid-term elections, bring the Repubs a sigh of relief. This means he won't be hanging over them so much, but hey, it also means they have more time to raise money to get him off the hook.
In the NYT today ( http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/politics/03cnd-libby.html?hp&ex=1139029200&en=f6a168b605a085b5&ei=5094&partner=homepage) Libby was noted to have a legal defense fun of approx. $2mil already, and he's got about a year o9r more to raise the other $4 mil to make up the total $6 mil for a good defense, or so the the head of the RNC stated. Even more intriguing than the mass of funds he's already got, are the people on the fund's steering commitee: The fund's steering committee is composed of several prominent Republicans, a few Democrats and several friends of Mr. Libby. It includes three former Republican senators, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming and Spencer Abraham of Michigan; two former Republican presidential candidates, Jack F. Kemp and Steve Forbes; and Prof. Bernard Lewis of Princeton and Prof. Francis Fukuyama of Johns Hopkins . Fascinating group, no? I can't decide if I feel bad for Scooter now, with that motley group behind him.
In any case... I really do have hwk to attend to. Homework is far less interesting than any of these things. Far less entertaining as well. But! Before I go, here are some gems from those geniuses who write into McSweeney's and manage to be put online:
A List of Less Powerful Industry Lobbying Groups ;D !
A List of Terrifying Bioengineered Animal-Snack Hybrids Not Mentioned as Potential Threats During the State of the Union Address! :D