Higher Education | MUSEUM FATIGUE

College Was Already Remote Education

October 17, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

I’ve been trying to tack down this education-related pandemic frustration that has been bugging me. This fall colleges have been trying to figure out how to approximate a normal educational experience for students (and normal tuition-dollar revenue) despite the drastic difference of online/remote learning or limited physically-displaced and masked in-person engagements. College management and educators—sometimes working together or other times working at cross-purposes—both agree they want education to continue and universities to survive the unknowns of a pandemic economy. So […]

Categories: Debt, Higher Education, Uncategorized • Tags: Debt, higher education, pandemic, student debt, student loans

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This School’s COVID-19 Video Has Filled Me With Dread

July 22, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

After watching this video I feel even worse about the upcoming semester. I am overcome with dread. I’m sure this school designed this video to make their students feel confident about the fall, but it’s a joke. It could have been made by The Onion or SNL. What is left behind in the quest to deal technically with the problem of a poorly managed pandemic is pretty much everything that makes teaching and learning in person valuable at all. No […]

Categories: Higher Education, Mythologies, pandemic, Uncategorized • Tags: COVID-19, pandemic

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Why I Have a Strict Attendance Policy in My College Classroom

February 28, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

In recent months I have been at a number of meetings on campus where negative comments have been made by some about professors who have strict attendance policies in our college classrooms. The comments I have heard suggest that the speakers consider strict attendance policies for our college students as inflexible, unreasonable and, invoking the nuclear option of argumentation, incompatible with this generation of students. Once again, yesterday, comments along these lines were made in a meeting I attended, and […]

Categories: Higher Education • Tags: absences, attendance

Have Mobile Phones In the Classroom Reached Their Calculator Moment?

February 9, 2015 by Museum Fatigue

Last week, while reviewing our class syllabus on the first day, I made a decision to do a little experiment. Rather than make the announcement that mobile phones should be turned off during class, I did the opposite. I told my visual anthropology class that unrestricted use of mobile phones in class would be allowed this semester. Allowing all students to use their devices freely at all times seems very counterintuitive. In fact, even now I am concerned that in […]

Categories: Education, Higher Education, Teaching, Technology • Tags: calculator, classroom experience, iPhone, mobile phone, technology, TI-35

Need Help Writing College Essays? 论文写作专家

August 8, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

No, I’m not running an essay writing service. I am, however, happy to see that I have career choices. Yesterday while enjoying a walk through the University of Toronto campus I noticed hundreds of fliers taped up on information boards and utility poles advertising the professional essay writing services. These were special, however, because they were entirely in Chinese (in both simplified and complex character versions) clearly targeting a specific client base. Most interesting to me was that even the […]

Categories: Consumption, Education, Fakes and Forgeries, Higher Education • Tags: cheating, college, 论文写作专家，essay writing

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Class Lectures: The Content of the Form

January 26, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

I just reviewed course evaluations from last semester. Overall they were quite positive and some had some useful feedback. My favorite comment: “The teaching style was my favorite. I’ve never seen anybody draw and write such illegible things that end up making me understand exactly what is being said. It’s quite funny to me.” It just so happens that I have an image from the class to which I think this student was referring. I am a firm believer that […]

Categories: Higher Education, Teaching • Tags: course evaluations, Hamine University, student evaluations

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Master “The Double Tap” for Success on Assignments

December 14, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

“In those moments when you’re not sure the undead are really dead dead, don’t get all stingy with your bullets. I mean, one more clean shot to the head and this lady could have avoided becoming a human happy meal. Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda.”—Zombieland (2009) It always seems to be at the end of the semester when a good portion of students finally get around to visiting me during office hours, asking about their scores and inquiring about tactics to be […]

Categories: Assignments, Higher Education, How To, Introduction to Anthropology • Tags: "double tap", assignments, final exam, midterm exam, success, test taking, Zombieland

Channel C: Cross-Cultural Chinese College Conversations

November 3, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

I’m pretty impressed by a project at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, called Channel C. Apparently the brainchild of some Chinese students at UW, the “channel” is a series of short videos that discuss questions across the differences between Chinese students and mainstream American college life. Some topics include common stereotypes of Chinese students such as “Why Chinese Students Don’t Party?!” while others are more concerned with pointing out the unquestioned assumptions of parochial Americans such as “Why Chinese Students […]

Categories: China, Higher Education • Tags: American Born Chinese, American students, Channel C, Chinese Americans, Chinese Students, College Life, University of Wisconsin

Mystery Object #5: Totem of Emergency Protection +1

October 2, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

Today while leaving campus, as I have each day for ten years, I noticed a new addition to the campus topography. Just at the south edge of campus, between two dorms, was a giant dark brown pole with a big blue light on top. Along the side of the pole, written in large letters was “Emergency & Information.” The pole is called a Code Blue Emergency phone and is one of the fine fear abatement products produced by a company […]

Categories: Discipline, Higher Education, Mystery Objects, Mythologies • Tags: fear, Michel de Certeau, neighborhood, sacred object, safety

Would the Authentic University Please Speak Up!

August 31, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

What does it mean when a university faculty takes a symbolic vote, but the administration “won’t take an official position?” What does it mean when so many universities’ advertising, their senior officials’ speeches, and their mission statements are filled with words like “community,” “responsibility,” “integrity,” “morality,” “truth” or “service”, but then their institutions appear to duck and cover when our public discussion most needs their participation? It is a display of caution over conviction. It marks the ascendancy of marketing […]

Categories: Higher Education, Liberal Arts, Politics • Tags: Augsburg, corporate culture, current-events, faculty, leadership, marketing, Marriage Amendment, St. Olaf