Professor Pope

The final Friday of the fall semester, I received an email.  “Professor Pope,” it read, “I am a business reporter for the Associated Press who is writing a story on work stoppages and furloughs due to the current economic situation.  Would you be interested in being interviewed for this story?”

My jaw dropped a notch and my forehead crinkled.  Half formed questions flooded my brain — The Associated Press — THE Associated Press?  Why Me?  What would they ask me?  What would I say?  Would I get into trouble if I did it?  My immediate reaction was to just say “sure”.  I was still smarting from all the furlough news; this would be a could chance to explain what was going on and how, I thought, we’d gotten into this mess.  People needed to understand the plight of the professors!  (although I joke when I say that — there are lots of people who make less money than I do or have no job at all — I do feel that a lot of people don’t really get what we do on a daily basis).  I’ll also admit that there was ego involved in my desire to do the interview.  It was the Associated Press!  That’s a big deal!  It could run in all sorts of outlets all over the country!  The biggest publication I had ever been interviewed for was the student paper.  But I hesitated before replying with an affirmative email.  I wasn’t sure if the university would approve or how much that mattered (again, I had never done this before).  I could see the story now:  “SCANDAL — University fires employee for speaking to the press”.  That, of course, is silly, but I tend to over imagine these things.  I also was nervous about the interview itself.  Would a hard-boiled, cynical reporter paint me as a whiny, pampered academic liberal elite schmuck?  Maybe I should just delete the email.

But I didn’t delete it, nor did I immediately respond with a “yes”.  Instead, I rushed down the hall to a colleague and told him about the request.  He told me two things.  One, check with the dean.  He thought it would be a good idea to give her a heads up about this and that she’d have no problem with me doing the interview.  Second, he said I’d do a great job with it, so I should call the reporter.  I followed his advice and spoke to my dean, who was also very supportive.  I emailed the AP reporter back and said I’d do it.

She called from her 212 area code the next day and we spoke for about 30 minutes.  I could hear her typing away feverishly as we spoke.  I imagined some vast newsroom in a high rise office building in New York, frantic with reporters making deadlines.  It was a wonderful conversation.  Prompted by her questions,  I talked about our furlough situation, how it came about, what effect it would have on my family and our financial situation, and the steps the university is taking to minimize its effect on students.  I tried to represent myself and my university honestly.  To me, the story seemed to have a “man on the street” sort of angle.  There weren’t any questions about policy.  I wasn’t asked to give my opinion about the university or the state’s financial crisis.  She just wanted to know what sort of issues I was facing as someone in higher education who was being furloughed.  The experience was very positive.

A few days later, the reporter contacted me again about having my photo taken for the story, which prompted even more irrational worries on my part — should I dress “like a professor” or wear something else?  Should we take the photo at the university or would the university get upset?  What’s my best side?.  Those questions all proved moot, as the editor decided to go with some other photo.  There was an additional email exchange as I answered some follow up questions, then the interview process was over.

The article ran on the wire December 30th.  It was picked up, apparently, by a bunch of outlets.  My in-laws called to say the article ran in the Dallas Morning News.  A colleague at the University of Miami saw it in the Miami Herald.  College friends saw it in the Savannah paper.  Yesterday, I found out it ran in the Charlotte Observer and was posted on the MSNBC website.  My family thinks I am famous.  I just think it’s pretty cool.  More people have read that article than anything I’ve actually written.  This may very well be my fifteen minutes, but I hope not.

One of the most interesting things about the entire process was how the reporter found me — Twitter.  I put out some tweets about the furloughs and she was able to find them.  Those led to this blog, which led her to contact me directly.  During our conversation she admitted she didn’t know if I’d do the interview after reading my thoughts on The Nightly News, but I laughed and told her I just liked the pictures.  Apparently, she started using Twitter to track down interview subjects and story leads after Hurricane Ike resulted in gas shortages in various spots all over the country.  She’s able to pick a geographical diversity of people without actually flying to Des Moines or Scarsdale, which helps broaden the story.  Since the people are tweeting about the topic at hand, she explained, they are usually articulate and willing to talk.  After all, they are already talking about it in a very public space.  I thought that was very cool — a traditional media structure using a new media platform to write better stories.  I also had to take a step back and say “people are actually reading these tweets and blog posts?”

Here’s the story on MSNBC.
So, are you?  Did anyone else see the story in another outlet?

I just wanted to take a few minutes and wish my wonderful, beautiful wife a happy 7th wedding anniversary.  I am lucky to have you.

I took my daughter back to the hometown this past weekend to give my wife a break and to visit with family.  We stayed at my brothers.  Both nights, after the kids were in bed, he and I stayed up fairly late (well, late for two fathers of very young children) talking about the current dismal financial state of well, everyone.  Given the furloughs at my institution and the very real possibility that things could get worse after the start of the year, I’ve begun to think about Contingency Plans.  Now, I don’t think I will get laid off or anything.  And, as much as I grouse about the furloughs, I am grateful to have a job at all.  But it never hurts to think about these things.

So what would I do? This is assuming I would leave higher ed and be something other than a professor.  I don’t want to do that, but it’s an interesting thought experiment.  What could I do?  To be honest, I am not sure.  I have an advanced degree, but in an area most don’t understand and that has little direct cache outside of academia — it’s not like I am an business professor or even someone who is in educational leadership.  Those sorts of folks could easily move into private business or back into school districts easily.  Nor am I an “expert” in anything that could easily translate into consulting, like educational technology.  The closest I come to anything like that is my work in ethics.

So I’d have to broaden my thinking a bit — to get entrepreneurial in how I think about my skill set, how I would market myself, or what I would do.  In terms of skill set, I write well.  I also think I have the ability to take complex ideas and explain them in simple and relevant terms (that’s the philosophy teacher skill set).  Those are pretty general, though.

I would also like a job that’s challenging and intellectually stimulating.  One of the best parts about being a professor is I get to think, teach, and write about things that interest me.  I’d find it hard to be happy in any job that didn’t have me working on problems I thought were important. I am interested in philosophy, education, books, literature, geek stuff, travel, and art — roughly in that order (although the geek stuff slides up and down depending on my mood).  It would be interesting to take the entrepreneurial thinking literally and see how all of these things could combine into some sort of business.  My mind has a picture of store that’s part bookstore, part art gallery, part coffeehouse, and runs educational seminars for kids and adults.  I have no idea what that would actually look like, where it could work, and how I’d support my family doing that sort of thing, but it sounds cool.

What does everyone think?  Any experience transitioning out of higher ed?  Does my “part everything” store make any sense?  The alternative is to join my brother on his pineapple farm. . .

I received a phone call last Saturday from an old friend.  He had read my “Nine Days” post and wanted to check in, to see how things were going given what is happening at my university.  I was, in a real sense, touched.  It meant a lot to me that he called just to check in.  The phone call also prompted more thoughts on the furlough.  Honestly, I am a little nervous about sharing some of these publicly, but I can’t be honest about myself and my experiences unless I do.  I also think there’s a teachable moment here.  My friends not in higher education and my students who don’t know exactly what’s happening “on the other side of the desk” can hopefully learn something.  That’s why I do what I do.

As I alluded to in my earlier post, one of the reason the furlough stings so much is that I felt higher ed is supposed to be insulated from economic vicissitudes.  Such insulation was one of the things I bought with my 10 years of post-secondary education and student loans.  There were many times in graduate school where I looked at my college friends who were earning good salaries and thought “What the hell am I doing?  I am wasting years of earning potential.”  I consoled myself with a dedication to a certain type of life, which ostensibly included a high degree of security.  Obviously, that was naivete on my part.

We also did this to ourselves.  By “we” I mean the state of South Carolina.  Over the last two years, we have moved to a revenue stream based more and more on sales taxes.  This had it’s positive reasons — less reliance on local property taxes for K-12 school funding, shifting a higher percentage of the tax burden to tourists — and negative ones — reducing the tax burden of wealthy coastal landowners as property taxes were phased out.  But, as my freshmen were quick to point out when we discuss school finance, sales taxes are much less consistent than other forms of tax revenue.  Any economic downturn affects sales taxes quicker and more severely than other tax streams, which is why our revenue estimates keep getting lower and lower as people spend less and less money.  We’re also done some less than smart things within the sales tax structure, like eliminating the sales tax on many grocery items and giving sales tax holidays for things like guns.  That’s right — guns.  Over Thanksgiving weekend we had no sales taxes on the purchase of firearms.  The $50 you saved on the purchase of your Mossburg came out of my paycheck.  Thanks for that.

Third, there seems to be internal division within my university over the proper attitude of sacrifice one ought to have toward these furloughs.  Ideas are floating around that the university could do a few small but meaningful things that wouldn’t cost much or any money, yet would make the situation a little more palatable.  Two of the oft-repeated ones are to waive the fee for faculty and staff to use the fitness center and to waive or relax parking fees and restrictions.  Those suggestions, however, are often met with derision from those who claim we shouldn’t be asking for anything in a time when all are being asked to sacrifice.  A colleague who suggested such things had Kennedy paraphrased back to him — “Ask not what the university can do for you. . .”  I have little to no knowledge of the inner workings of university finance, but if my fitness center fee were waived, that would be an extra $17.50 per paycheck.  It’s not a lot, but considering what is going to come OUT of my paycheck with the furlough days, it would soften the blow a bit.

There are three other issues I also want to talk about — the furlough and its effect on students, the furlough and its effect on tenure and promotion, and the future of university employment.  But those, I think, are separate posts.  Maybe even several separate posts.

Finally, I want to acknowledge that there are other people who are worse off that I am.  I was watching The Sports Reporters last Sunday morning and I heard Mich Albom say “we’re in the Depression of our time”.  This may be hyperbole (he was talking about the Yankees and the CC Sabathia deal), but it’s difficult to argue that things are more that tough — we’re in dire economic straits.  Hundreds of thousands of people have been or will be laid off, including employees of The University of South Carolina.  I try to keep things in perspective and be grateful for what I do have — a job and, most importantly, and loving and supportive family.

My brother is awesome.  He’s a successful entrepreneur, a good father, and a smart guy.  He also thinks of his big brother when he’s putting together comic book conventions, which is how I ended up with a signed copy of a graphic novel I never heard of — The Nightly News.

One blurb on the back describes The Nightly News (TNN) as “Network meets Fight Club“.  That description is pretty apt.  An organization composed of people who have been unjustly ruined by the media begins to kill newspeople.  This organzation is led by “The Voice”, who delievers his commands via cassette tape.  My general assessment is that TNN is very good stuff — provocative and thoughtful — but easily misunderstood.  (Again, like Fight Club).  First and foremost, it’s a suspensful, twisty story.  Second, it’s a story that makes you think and doesn’t give you pat answers.  Third, it’s done in a visually arresting way.  Like the story, the graphics are provocative and challenging, mixing drawing, graphic design elements, and text in a way that both mirrors and subverts the media it seeks to portray.  I think TNN pushes the comics medium in a new direction.

I also found the material in the back of the novel to be very interesting.  First, there is a reference list which includes Chomsky, McChesney, and Gatto.  Second, there are pages of footnotes which are both informative and entertaining.  You learn a lot about the comic and about Hickman while reading them.  Finally, there are Hickman’s suggestions on breaking into the comics industry.  He’s a South Carolina guy, so it’s interesting to see a local make it big.  His thoughts on professionalism and creativity struck a chord with me, to the point where I want to make them a post of their own.

To sum up:  Read The Nightly News.

You go into a job like mine for a number of reasons.  To have a constant stream of intellectual stimulation was a primary motivation for me.  I wanted to think and read and write and teach about things I was interested in.  Teaching was another reason.  I was powerfully affected by a number of teachers; I wanted to do the same for others who were searching.  I wanted to help people grow.  And while I certainly wasn’t thinking too much about job stability when I entered graduate school, as I got married and began to think about things with a longer time horizon, the stability of the position began to become more appealing.  After I landed a tenure track gig, and especially after I got tenure, I could weather the economic storms with some degree of shelter.  I wasn’t going to get rich, but I’d have a reasonably high quality of life and not have to worry about getting laid off.

It turns out that such stability may have been exaggerated.  No, I am not getting laid off.  That may come, if the South Carolina economy does what everyone thinks its going to in 2009 — sink like a lead weight (14% unemployment is expected by summer).  Now, though, I’ve been served with a nine day furlough.  Last week, it was set at six, but today they added three more.  This represents almost 4% of my salary.  While there are some slight upsides to the way it’s implemented — they just take a small amount of every paycheck, instead of making me take all of the days at once — it’s not good.

I collect comics.  I have, on an off, since I was 11 or so.  It started with some random G.I. Joe issues which coincided nicely with all those toys I kept loosing, but the first comic I ever really remember buying for myself was Amazing Spider Man 298.  Collectors will note that this is Todd McFarlane’s first issue, which makes it valuable.  I didn’t know or care about any of that, however, when I bought it off the spinner rack at convienience store named “The Pantry” just up the street from my grandmother’s house.  That was in 1988.  I tried to buy all the Spider Man I could find after that, a feat that was made easier when Two Guy’s Comics opened in Conway, right next to my dad’s office.  Sometimes I would walk all the way from West Conway Middle to the comic store, a trek of 4 miles, to hang out and get my comics.  Come to think of it, I probably annoyed the crap out of the two brothers that ran the place.

My high school years, and the zenith of my collecting phase, coincided with the rise of The Speculator and, in general, a transition to a very crappy period in comics.  It’s sort of like what Lester Bangs tells young William Miller in Almost Famous — too bad you missed it kid, but you get to hear the death rattle.  Sure, good stuff was happening.  McFarlane was drawing AMS.  Some guy named Jim Lee started drawing Uncanny X-Men.  Robin got blown up by the Joker due to a phone-in vote.  McFarlane gave way to Eric Larsen because he got his own Spider-Man book and, later, started Image.  Venom went from being a cool enemy with a nice backstory that tied it into Spider history to some sort of anti-hero.  Somehow everthing got sat on it’s ear and Rob Liefield became popular.  Yet, truth be told, I have more Eric Larsen Spider-Man books than McFarlane Spider-Man books.  I probably have more Liefield X-Men than Jim-Lee X-Men.  Which probably explains why I think The 40 Worst Rob Liefied Drawings is so amusing.

(And I still haven’t gone to the comic shop in Fort Milll to fill in my AMS lag, dammit).

A few weeks ago, I joined a 21 Day Challenge sponsored by the university’s fitness center. I had to pick three goals and stick with them for 21 days, with the hopes that these goals would become habits if I stuck to them. I did fairly well with my original three: I never ate fast food, I wrote every day but two, and exercised for every day but three. Most of those “not” days were due to a weekend trip my family took. I was pretty happy with myself. But, of course, those things didn’t really stick. While I still haven’t had any fast food, I haven’t been exercising every day nor have I written every day (which explains the fall-off in blog posting). So much for habit formation.

So I have decided to engage in another 21-Day Challenge. If I start tomorrow, I will finish up in time for New Year’s Eve, which will lead to some New Year’s Resolutions I’ve been kicking around. What I can’t determine is if I need three new goals or, since I fell off the exercise and personal development wagon, I should just do those again. Here are the ideas I’m kicking around:

1. Diet Goal: The old goal was “No Fast Food” which stuck. I haven’t had any nor do I have any real desire to eat any. So my new goal is “No Candy”. I have a big sweet tooth and, more that occasionally, will grab a candy bar or something from the snack machine at the office or from Above Board on game nights. No more of that.
2. Exercise Goal: The old goal was 20 minutes per day, 7 days per week. This wasn’t hard to meet when I was able to work in some gym time or a walk during my day, but became really hard when I had to do it at home. I am considering something like a minute per week goal — 150 minutes per week is 30 minutes a day/5 days a week. This way, if I go 30 minutes on the treadmill, it counts a little more. I have also begun taking a yoga class at the fitness center, so that’s 45 minutes per week right there (and is AWESOME to boot!). That seems easier to manage, but it’s more bookkeeping. Thoughts?
3. Personal Development goal: The old goal was to write a paragraph every day. I met that goal fairly well during the 21 days. I did blog posts, some private journal entries, and some scholarship. But it all went in the toilet once Thanksgiving broke my stride. Should I get back to the paragraph per day, or should I aim for a words per week (similar to the exercise thing)? Right now, I think the paragraph per day will work better. I didn’t find it too hard to meet that goal last time. I will also add that I will read 20 pages of something every day. Maybe that way I will finally finish Walking the Bible.

So, to sum up, here are my new goals:

1. Diet: No Candy
2. Exercise: 150 minutes per week
3. Personal: Write one paragraph every day; Read 20 pages every day.

Let me get this out of the way:  No new episodes until January 20th!  What the hell!

Okay, I am calmer now.  Whew.  Last night’s episode was a first for the show on many levels — the first cliffhanger, the first episode to directly incorporate events and characters from earlier episodes, and the first to make me curse out loud at the end.

Quick Summary: Loeb leads a team that is using the device tested in “The Equation” to steal safe deposit boxes by walking through walls.  One team member gets stuck in the wall.  Loeb kills him before leaving.  Upon investigation, Olvia seems to remember the dead man, but it turns out her memories are John Scott’s (Scott and the dead guy were in the Marines together).  Walter discovers the phasing leaves the body radioactive.  At first, there appears to be no connection between the boxes, but after a bar conversation in which Olivia recites the box numbers to Peter (she can memorize numbers instantly), he remembers that Walter recites those same numbers every night to help him go to sleep.  It turns out those boxes are Walters, though he does not remember where all of them are or what is in them.  Meanwhile, we learn that Massive Dynamic has reached a dead end in extracting Scott’s memories, but they have figured out that some of them may be in Olivia’s mind.  We also see Mr. Jones making strange requests of his attoney while in his German prison, including a request for Olivia.  It all comes together in the last few minutes, after one of Loeb’s henchmen is captured.  Years ago, Walter constructed a time machine//teleportation device in order to retrieve a scientist in order to cure Peter of a rare disease.  Peter recovered and Walter hid the machine in safe deposit boxes.  Loeb assembles the machine in Little Hill and zaps Mr. Jones out of his prison cell.  Meanwhile, Olivia is captured by men who are presumably working for Jones.

What We Learned:

1. The cryptic message of “Little Hill” delivered to Mr. Jones in the earlier episode was the location where Loeb was supposed to set up the teleporter.
2. The Equation lead to a device that allows one to phase through matter.
3. Olivia has inherited at least some of Scott’s memories; Massive Dynamic wants them.

Questions:

1. The big one is, of course, what will happen to Olivia?  Why does Mr. Jones want her?  Is it connected to Massive Dynamic wanting her for John Scott’s memories?
2. What was the deal with Peter’s mysterious childhood illness?  What was up with Peter’s childhood generally?  Walter keeps referring to it in cryptic terms.
3. What was the powder Walter took when Peter and Olivia barged in on his hotel room?  He seemed very agitated before the powder, very focused and calm after.

More nice character bits in this episode.  Peter flirts with Olivia a bit when they go to the bar.  Walter looks very sad when he talks about Peter’s childhood illness.  I also thought Walter’s instruction of Asterid on how to brush the cow was pretty funny.

Favorite Line:  Lots of good ones.  Peter’s comment to the hardware store clerk (”You don’t need to call the police, you know.”) after Walter inqures about a saw capable of cutting through flesh and bone was spot on.  I also enjoyed “Ms. Dunham, are you tripping right now?” from Walter.

Again, I failed to notice the Observer.  Did anyone else see him?  Was there anything else about this episode that I missed or stood out to you?

Lots more questions in this episode, with mysteries that both advance and confound the plot. Whereas the initial episodes all seemed to stand alone, we are now seeing a lot more continuity between episodes, with events and characters beginning to reoccur. While I liked this episode overall, the fact that it asked more questions than it answered — the main plot seemed like a mere vehicle to bring up more mysteries — left me a little unenthusiastic.

Quick Summary: After a corporate presentation, a man gets attacked by one, then a swarm of butterflies with razor sharp wings.  To avoid them, he jumps from the window, plummeting to his death.  The camera pans back to reveal the Massive Dynamic building.  The Fringe team is called in; Walter remarks that the body possesses lacerations that seem to have come from the inside out.  Olivia also sees John Scott in the crowd of onlookers.  Later, she gets an email from Scott with an address.  The address is a spooky basement holding a box of toads.  The Massive Dynamic employee was given a powerful, toad-derived hallucinogen that caused his body to damage itself.  Meanwhile, Peter gets a call from an old friend.  The two meet and obviously have some romantic history; she tells him that, if she can find him, then others can as well.   She also has injuries from an abusive boyfriend, whom Peter knows.  Peter tracks the two down and confronts the boyfriend.  Later, we see the boyfriend telling another mysterious figure that Peter Bishop is back in town.  While Peter is off involving himself in domestic issues, Olivia asks Walter to help her get rid of these John Scott visions, which involves going back into the sensory deprivation tank.  Reluctantly, he agrees.  There, Olivia is able to walk through Scott’s memories, where she swears he notices her, even as Walter assures her that’s not possible.  Scott’s memories unlock the case, as Olivia sees the MD employee selling secrets to Scott and two other men.  Upon getting out of the tank, Olivia is able to track down one of them.  This strange Spanish gentlemen promises to tell her secrets about Massive Dynamic in exchange for protection.  Olivia confronts Nina Sharp, but Spanish guy is killed by the same hallucinogen that began the episode.  Nice symmetry.

What We Learned: Many more questions than answers this week.

1. Walter gets an erection when he has to pee.  File this under “TOO MUCH INFORMATION”.
2. Peter definitely has some criminal, shady past in Boston.
3. Olivia needs a vacation.

Questions:

1. Was Spanish guy right?  That is, is The Pattern all just some urban legend designed to cover up Massive Dynamic using the world as it’s laboratory?
2. What sort of trouble dogs Peter’s past?  Who was the woman he met with?
3. Why is Olivia getting emails from dead people?  How can Scott see her in his memories in her head?  (That was confusing to type).
4. How compromised is Broyles, if at all?  Is he covering up for Massive Dynamic?

My pet theory is that, regarding question 3, Scott is still semi-alive and frozen by Massive Dynamic.  So he exists in the “ghost network” and is thus able to communicate with Olivia.  He may have been a double undercover agent who pretended to be a traitor and working with the bio-terrorists in order to really find out what Massive Dynamic was up to.

Favorite line:  I will actually have to go with Walter’s bit about putting Olivia in the tank not like basting a turkey.  Far less creepy than the, um, line I mentioned earlier and appropriate for an episode that aired Thanksgiving week.