Archive for the 'Pasadena City College' Category

Yves Magloe, 1967-2010

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 25, 2010
in Pasadena City College
. 8 Comments

I returned to campus this week and to the very sad news of the death of Yves Magloe, my colleague in the English department. Yves was a local cause celebré in 2006, when he was briefly fired by the Pasadena City College administration after a nervous breakdown. I blogged about it here and here, and was privileged to play a small part in the campaign for his reinstatement. That campaign received national coverage in the mental health and higher education communities.

Yves and I hadn’t met before his dismissal, battle with the board, and eventual rehiring. We did have a few nice chats after his return, and spoke of what it was like to serve as a faculty member while battling mental illness. Yves and I were, to the best of my knowledge, the only two full-time faculty members at the college to have spoken publicly about our struggles. And now Yves is gone, due to causes that I am told were related to his battle against his illness. I know few other details. There is a simple memorial to him here.

I note that both Yves and I were born in May of 1967, two days apart and on opposite sides of the world. Our paths led both of us to Pasadena City College; our battles against our inner demons both became known to our campus community. And Yves didn’t make it.

I grieve his loss.

Reprint: Giving Thanks for the CC

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 22, 2010
in Pasadena City College
. 5 Comments

This post originally appeared in August 2005. As we start yet another semester today, I thought it appropriate to reprint.

Jonathan Dresner sends me this link to a Jay Mathews piece in the Washington Post in praise of community colleges:  The Workhorse of Higher Education.

It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been over eleven years since I was hired for a full-time position here at Pasadena City College.   I still remember the date of my first-level interview, April 8, 1994.  It was a Friday afternoon, and it was the day that Kurt Cobain’s death was announced; I was listening to KROQ (LA’s alternative-rock station) and heard the news just as I was pulling into the parking lot here at the school.  I was a moderate Nirvana fan, but couldn’t help but consider this tragic news to be a "bad omen".  I have no idea what I ended up saying during the interview, but within days I was called back for a "second-level" meeting with the committee, and on April 20, was offered the job.

I’ll never forget the reaction of my dissertation chair when I told him I was accepting a tenure-track post here at PCC.  "You’re a fool if you take it, Hugo", he said.  By ‘94, I was about half-way through my dissertation.  I was giving papers at medieval history conferences, and was enjoying the feeling of being "groomed" by my distinguished adviser.   In that same spring of 1994, my adviser told me I was "one or two years away" from successfully competing on the academic job market for a position at a four-year research institution.  He was very upset that I wasn’t willing to wait for a chance at a university job.  Frankly, our relationship was never quite the same after I came to teach at the community college.  He was very helpful as I finished my dissertation (with my teaching load at PCC, it took me until early 1999), and gave me a warm handshake at my doctoral hooding ceremony.  But he was clearly disappointed that I wasn’t willing to put research first.

Unlike many of my colleagues, I’ve never taken a class at a community college.  I knew plenty about community colleges growing up; my mother taught for three decades at Monterey Peninsula College (MPC). But even as I saw how much she loved her work there, I also had a bit of prejudice against the system.  My high school teachers made it clear that the best and the brightest did not go to community colleges, and there was no question that there was (and I think still is) an unfortunate stigma in some circles related to "JCs."  I’m afraid I internalized that stigma even as I was proud of my mother’s work.   The summer after my junior year, I’m sorry to admit I even paid the much higher fees to take summer classes at UC rather than enroll in a community college. 

In graduate school, however, my goals shifted.  Though I liked research well enough, I loved my time as a teaching assistant.  (I still remember my first section, in the spring quarter of 1991; I was not quite 24, and so terrified I threw up before meeting my first class.)  I quickly realized that it was teaching that turned me on, not research.  I didn’t like musty old archives, and I sure as hell didn’t like working on long papers.  I enjoyed discussing ideas in seminars, but nothing was as "fun" as interacting with students in the classroom.  I began to think more and more about what my mother did for a living, and began to wonder if I wouldn’t be better off teaching somewhere where I could "just teach".

Continue reading ‘Reprint: Giving Thanks for the CC’

“Why is everyone hugging here?” More on hugs, teaching, and boundaries

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 16, 2009
in Affection, Emotional and Sexual Boundaries, Pasadena City College, Physical affection and Teaching
. 9 Comments

We’ve recently hired a number of wonderful new faculty members in my department, and we’re excited to have them. (All the more so because with the state budget cuts, it may be eons before we make any additional hires.) One new professor, who has had some teaching experience elsewhere, asked me yesterday: “I’ve noticed that quite a few students here want to hug me. Is that normal at PCC? It hasn’t been at the other places where I’ve taught.” I smiled and told her that yes, it was something I’d noticed early on in my own career here: students at community colleges (or at least this one) tend to have much greater expectations of being “nurtured”, which can include hugs, than do students at four-year institutions. It’s more common for students to hug their female professors, and most of those seeking hugs are women. And while it’s far from being a universal practice, my new colleague is not the first professor to point out that students here are, as a group, more affectionate than at many other other academic institutions.

My new colleague, who is untenured, wanted some tips on how to handle the “hugging thing.” I assured her that there were no rules against hugging students, though common sense and a respect for boundaries suggests that it is best to wait for the student to initiate a friendly embrace. I reminded her of what I know she already knows, that — particularly for the untenured — perception matters as well as intent, and that it is helpful to remain aware of how one’s physical actions might be perceived by witnesses. Students are, as we all know, very attentive to the mannerisms, quirks, and personas of their professors. While fear of arousing suspicion shouldn’t cause us to be defensive or distant, we need to balance the responsibility to connect with our students with an awareness of how that connection (particularly when it includes a physical gesture like a hug) might be perceived.

This is all the more true in gender studies, the field in which I (and my new colleague) work. We’re not just teaching a subject, we’re leading classes that touch (sorry) on issues of sexuality, boundaries, power. We stir up strong emotions; we invite our students to consider their private lives and how their attitudes towards some fairly intimate subjects are shaped by history and culture. As I’ve written before in my student crushes archive, some students are prone to confusing excitement about the subject with excitement towards the professor who’s teaching the class.

None of this means we shouldn’t hug our students. Though I never foist hugs on the unwilling, and I am attentive to good boundaries, I am resolute in my commitment to practice physical affection as part of my mentoring and teaching. I do it because we live in a world where far too many men in positions of authority are fundamentally unsafe. Far too many adult men, including professors, are sexually predatory. Touch from them is unsafe and violating. Other men live in a not entirely unreasonable fear of having their actions misinterpreted. Anxious not to be labelled as harassers, they maintain scrupulous boundaries with their students and subordinates. That’s obviously preferable to groping lechery, but it sends the message that men are cold, remote, distant, and unavailable. It reinforces the message that touch can’t be safe.

I certainly don’t hug all my students. I don’t just hug women, or just men. I recognize that personality and cultural expectations about affection differ; foisting unwanted affection on someone for whom I am responsible would be profoundly unethical and violating. At the same time, if I didn’t embrace with exuberant non-sexual enthusiasm those students who would like to be hugged, I fall short of another mark. Touch can violate, but touch can heal. Touch can be unsafe, touch can be more affirming than a thousand verbal reassurances. We cannot allow our fears about touching blind us to the good, as well as the harm, that it can do. Just as gender studies, as an academic discipline, has broken down the convention that said that sexuality was not suitable for intellectual analysis, so too some of us may be called to dismantle the convention that says that touch has no place in teaching.

Five years ago, in another post, I wrote:

I have come to believe that the key thing that those of us who work with young people need to do is commit ourselves to being deliberately counter-cultural when it comes to touch. This doesn’t mean ignoring the power of sexuality. It means not allowing our fear of sexuality to hold us back from reaching out to those who need it. We have to find non-exploitative ways to hold each other — and hold each other across lines of sex, age, and status.

I repeated something like that to my colleague in our conversation yesterday. And, with the reminder that discernment and intuition are vital here, I stand by that advice publicly. I don’t expect hugs from everyone: I don’t hug everyone. But with the commitment to be “safe” foremost in my mind, and with deep reverence for tremendous variety in other people’s personal boundaries and comfort levels, I’m as committed as ever to an affectionate hug, a reassuring squeeze of the hand, or other good and right forms of affirming touch.

Empty reservoirs, empty coffers, more men on campus

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 03, 2009
in California, Money, Pasadena City College and Politics
. 6 Comments

Since I came to Pasadena City College in 1993, I’ve never seen such a bleak start to a new academic year as I’ve witnessed this week. This lovely foothill city remains shrouded in smoke, as the Station Fire continues to smolder, threatening the gorgeous canyons, cliffs and fauna of the nearby San Gabriels. On campus, it’s difficult to breathe and the stench of burnt material wafts through air conditioning vents and offices. After getting into the low 100s Monday and Tuesday, we might only see mid-90s today. The toxicity of the atmosphere matches the frustration and anxiety here at school.

Public community colleges, dependent on plunging state revenues, cut their course offerings and delay hiring new faculty in a recession. At precisely the same time, as unemployment rises, demand for classes grows as more and folks seek retraining. In a booming economy, our enrollment always drops (this actually became a bit of a problem around 1999-2000); in a slowing economy, the opposite effect happens. It’s not just unemployed folks, either. Many high school graduates who might have chosen to enter a healthy job market have decided to focus on their education for the time being, with plans to drop out or take a break as soon as hiring prospects improve. This means that invariably, increased demand coincides with falling resources. (Much, I suppose, like food banks.)

We don’t have the updated demographics from our admissions office, but here’s something many of my colleagues and I have noticed: we have far more men in our classes than usual. PCC is majority female, and my survey classes average about a 60-40 woman-to-man ratio in a normal year; my gender studies classes tend to have a much lower percentage of lads than that. But looking at my rosters, all four sections of my Western Civ survey courses have more male than female students — something that hasn’t happened before in all the years I’ve been here. The percentage of guys in the hallways seems higher as well, and the colleagues I’ve chatted with say they’ve noticed a similar shift.

Most evidence suggests that more men than women have lost jobs in the current economic slowdown. While this doesn’t mean that we’ve come close to achieving the vital feminist goal of pay equity, it does mean that layoffis in traditionally female-dominated fields (like health care and education) have been less draconian than in male-dominated fields such as manufacturing, construction, and sales. This may well-explain why after years of a slow but steady rise in the ratio of women to men, the situation may well be reversing itself. One wonders if that’s true at more selective institutions.

In any case, I have never had to say “no” to as many students who wish to add my classes; my wait lists, which usually average 10-20 aspirants, now average twice that number. Everyone seems to have a real, desperation-tinged tale to tell about why they need the class; I’m familiar with the appeals, but sense a different level of urgency — and in some, a heartbreaking sense of despair — that I’ve never seen before.

Five generations of my family have graduated from California public colleges and universities. Three generations have taught at one level or another in the post-secondary education system. But not in living memory has the situation been this dire, not in living memory have the barriers to achievement been this high. The rungs are being sawed off the ladder into the middle class. It’s heartbreaking.

But I’ll teach with my customary over-caffeinated energy, crowding as many students as I safely can into the rooms, and to the best of my most imperfect ability, offer inspiration and encouragment.

My prayers this week have a hydrological theme; rain for our mountains and hillsides and depleted reservoirs, and mighty streams of revenue for our depleted state coffers.

Smoke-filled first day of school

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 31, 2009
in Local news and Pasadena City College
. 0 Comments

Today, I begin my 17th year as a faculty member at Pasadena City College. When I arrived on campus at 8:15 this morning, the temperature was already well into the 80s and the smoke from the nearby Station Fire was so heavy that my eyes burned and my lungs ached as I walked from the parking lot to my office. My air-conditioned office reeks of smoke, as do the hallways and the classrooms. Perhaps we ought to have cancelled classes today, but perhaps this is the safest place for many San Gabriel Valley and foothill folks to be. On the other hand, with the air nearby officially labelled hazardous, a mass evacuation to the beach might be even more appropriate.

But it is not my job to prescribe remedies, it is my job to teach and comfort. I have found that in times of crisis, some students don’t want — or can’t — come to campus. They need to be accomodated with make-ups and excused absences. But many find reassurance in the routines of school; young people often see educational institutions as safe havens. Come what come may, the familar rhythms of syllabi being distributed, roll being taken, introductory lectures given and so on offers comfort and a sense of normalcy when things seem anything but. I was here for my students on 9/11, keeping my office open and meeting with my classes to talk. In this far more local crisis, where there is no escaping the discomfort, the best I can do is carry on, providing calm.

But perhaps an air filter mask would be helpful.

Station Fire

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 30, 2009
in Local news and Pasadena City College
. 0 Comments

A quick Sunday night note:

As most readers will know, a major fire is burning in the San Gabriel Mountains above Pasadena. The beloved terrain where I became a trail runner is in flames; two heroic firefighters have been killed tonight; and the famous Mt. Wilson observatory (and Southern California’s main communications network) is under threat. As of now, Pasadena City College is planning to hold its first day of fall semester classes tomorrow as scheduled, though we’ve been advised that many students will not be in class. Several nearby schools have cancelled classes. The air quality will surely be abysmal tomorrow.

Many of my friends have been evacuated from their homes in Altadena and La Canada Flintridge, though their homes still stand.

The Pasadena Humane Society is swamped with rescue animals, and is in need of donations of cash, cages, blankets, and food. You may donate here.

Follow news of the fire on Twitter using #stationfire, #station and latimesfires; more breaking news here.

Misquoted spectacularly: UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 05, 2009
in Mass media and Pasadena City College
. 3 Comments

In an online-only article in my campus newspaper, there’s a rather whopping misquote:

Hugo Schwyzer, advisor to the feminist club, joined the crowd surrounding the table. The event was a counter-act to the anti-abortion display on campus on May 18, he said. Schwyzer added that the feminist club is trying to provide a lot of helpful and useful information.

“Abstinence works. We want to educate young people about sexuality; educate them to understand their bodies in a complete and healthy way,” he said

I’ve been stunned before by how my words were used by journalists — but this surely takes the proverbial cake. I had given the reporter a three-minute primer on everything that was wrong with abstinence-only education… and this was the result.

Jeepers. This is why I like email-only interviews. The paper has been contacted, and a correction is promised soon.

UPDATE: No correction, but the absurd sentence has been deleted. Good journalistic ethics mandate notice that a correction was made on the website, but we’ll let it slide.

Ed Feser on George Tiller: more from my delightful, but utterly appalling colleague

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 03, 2009
in Pasadena City College
. 62 Comments

Pasadena City College’s social sciences division has two blogging professors: I’m one, and my father’s former student, philosopher Ed Feser, is the other. Ed and I like each other a great deal, and each refers to his counterpart as “a delightful person with appalling views.” We share a department, a common commitment to the college, and a common faith in Christ. And we both do love to scribble!

Ed is particularly appalling here, where his post on George Tiller (written from Ed’s very conservative perspective) is diametrically opposed to my own. (I compare George Tiller to Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Ed compares the assassinated physician to Jeffrey Dahmer.)

Warning: Ed’s post may be triggering — or simply infuriating — for some. But he’s got tenure, as do I, and he can handle a bit of heat for his views if you want to see if you can get through his moderation queue. Part of being in an academic department, after all, is finding a way to be personally amiable and ideologically combative. And sending readers his way is surely within the bounds.

By the way, Ed’s book, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism has been well-received on the right, and is now winning widespread plaudits from those who find its reactionary views to be congenial. It’s certainly spirited and enjoyable to read, albeit jaw-droppingly wrong. And I’m not even an atheist.

Pro-life in private, pro-choice in the voting booth: UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 19, 2009
in Abortion, Pasadena City College and Voting
. 25 Comments

I posted about Obama, abortion, and irreconcilables yesterday. As coincidence would have it, a major anti-abortion campaign has descended on Pasadena City College this week. At strategic points around campus, activists have erected massive billboards depicting the fetus at various stages of prenatal development. Several dozen young people, clean-cut and mostly white, clad in shorts and t-shirts, are manning the displays with literature and a willingness to talk. Yesterday, these huge set-ups attracted large crowds, drawn to the brightly colored, highly controversial images. As I walked on to campus this morning, the displays were being erected once more; this is presumably part of a week-long campaign.

(UPDATE: I’ve learned that our visitors this week come from the Wichita, Kansas outfit called Justice for All. Their website — with exact reproductions of the images they have on campus this week – is here. Warning: May be triggering for many. A visit to the JFA site makes clear they are tied to conservative Protestant evangelicalism, advocating abstinence until marriage. JFA is closely linked with Stand To Reason, the Southern California apologetics group; STR’s statement of faith is here. JFA has been sued before over their displays, and a lawsuit is ongoing in Texas after a display at UT Austin.)

This often happens this time of year. Christian colleges and universities that finish their terms in early May free up committed young activists to descend on public colleges and universities that won’t finish up until June. What a fine thing it must be to be able to tell one’s friends that one is spending the summer campaigning and witnessing for life, bringing the “truth about abortion” to the ignorant, the misled, and the Great Unsaved! I’m a bit snarky, but also empathetic. I’ve been part of similar marches and campaigns, and unlike most people, have adult experience with being on both sides of the abortion issue. (Pro-choice, pro-life, and pro-choice once more.) I know how easy it is to move from passionate conviction to righteous indignation to dehumanization of one’s opponents.

On a day like today, I have no interest in wading out onto the quad to engage one-one-one with these folks. My main concern is for the emotional welfare of my students, particularly those who have had abortions. (I can think of four young women currently on this campus who have confided in me that they have made that particular choice. I’m under no illusion that everyone who has had an abortion shares the story with me, and as a result, can only assume that a substantial percentage of my students have terminated a pregnancy.) The activists have set up their displays in such a way that it is difficult to enter or exit our main buildings without seeing these graphic and troubling images; I am eager to make myself available (and I know I speak for my feminist colleagues when I say that they are also available) to students who want to process through their feelings.

If I were to engage with the activists, I wouldn’t debate the issue of when life begins. The answer to that question is so weighted with theological conviction and emotional intuition that the chances of achieving a happy universal consensus are nil. (See yesterday’s post about the inevitabilty of irreconcilables.) Rather, I’d prefer to focus solely on policy. What laws do they want changed? What punishments would be appropriate for women who seek abortion? What punishments would be appropriate for doctors who provide abortion? What expectations do these activists have that ending legal abortion will also end illicit pregnancy terminations?

President Obama rightly pointed out that most Americans have contradictory views. Many Americans, an increasing number, are “pro-life.” The anti-abortion movement is winning the battle to convince folks that a fetus is a human being. But they aren’t winning elections; just last fall, pro-life propositions were resoundingly defeated in Colorado, South Dakota, and in California. The reason for this apparent disconnect is that a great many people find abortion abhorrent, but are reluctant to ban the procedure in all instances. Most Americans can imagine their own daughters or little sisters getting raped, after all; few Americans would want to force a woman to carry such a pregnancy to term.

So the question I would have for my pro-life friends is about policy. What specific policy recommendations do you call for? If doctors continue to perform abortions once it has been made illegal, what charges do you intend to bring against them? What crime do you think a woman ought to be charged with if she seeks an abortion? If you believe that women are “victims” of abortion, do you see them as emotional children who cannot be held accountable for their actions? Do you think penalties should be enhanced for women who seek more than one abortion over the course of their lifetimes?

The issue of when life begins is, I think, more or less a moot point. Even if we concede (and I do not concede this) that life begins at conception, what specific policies and coercive tactics ought to be adopted to protect that embryonic life? In the public square, those of us who hold strong views need to bring tangible policy solutions to the table. And this, of course, is where the pro-life movement loses traction with the American people. 51% of Americans may describe themselves as pro-life, but that doesn’t mean 51% of Americans want abortion to be outlawed, or want clinic workers charged with murder. Americans, in other words, seem to be increasingly pro-life in their private moral views and resolutely pro-choice in terms of their views on public policy. (This explains why parental notification initiatives have failed three times in California, despite the fact that most Californians think teens should talk to their parents before seeking an abortion.) We lean increasingly to the right philosophically, but increasingly left in terms of practicalities.

But today, my thoughts are not about politics or philosophy. My thoughts are with the young women on this campus (statistically, on a campus with more than 15,000 women, there are thousands who are have had or will have an abortion) who will come face to face with these graphic displays today. My prayers are for them, my office door (as I told my women’s studies class this morning) is open to them. And I’m choosing to remain cheerfully civil to those whose views are different from my own.

PCC in the news

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 22, 2009
in Pasadena City College
. 2 Comments

I don’t often take note of the goings-on at my college, but here are three news items worthy of promotion:

Pasadena City College is awarded a $1.7 million grant to train students to work with embryonic stem cells; we’re the only community college in the state to receive the funding. The biology department was divided, with my colleague Joe Connor in strong opposition to both the grant and embryonic stem cell research in general; the majority of his fellow profs lobbied hard for the money. Cal Tech, located across the street from our campus, is assisting us.

My colleague Richard McKee, a legendary gadfly, is now on the hook for $80,000 in damages after his latest lawsuit. I’ve been hearing about Rich since I came to the college in 1993; he’s the sort of person who evokes both admiration and fury in equal measure. If nothing else, he’s certainly a fine example of what one can do with the protections afforded by tenure.

And after years of coming close, the Pasadena City College Lancers won the California state women’s basketball title. Greg Smith, the assistant coach and veteran PE professor, is an old and beloved friend of my wife’s. We are thrilled for him and for the team.

The confidence to knock on my door: a note about race, sex, perceived attractiveness, and mentoring

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 05, 2009
in Mentoring, Pasadena City College, Race and Teaching
. 9 Comments

Though I didn’t respond at the time, I’ve been mulling a comment made by Leslee below this post . I had written on Tuesday about daughters and the not-surprising fact that most of my mentees at the college are women (the high school youth groupers are more evenly divided by sex.) Leslee, who worked in my office for a colleague a few years ago, and knows me well, wrote:

I think the issue, Hugo, is that girls are more likely to seek out male mentors than boys are. And having worked in your office for your officemate, I’ve noticed that your mentees are disproportionately white and pretty. That doesn’t mean that you only choose white girls and pretty girls to mentor. But young women who feel confident about their looks, if not much else, are more likely to seek out a male mentor like you because they are more certain of getting some kind of attention.

As discomfiting as it is to read those words, there’s enough truth in them to deserve a response.

I bend over backwards to avoid, as much as is humanly possible, playing favorites. I do everything I can not to let a student’s appearance, or race, or even (as in this 2007 post about mentoring) bad body odor interfere with my attentiveness to him or her. As I’ve written before, when working with young people (or even with colleagues) I remember the prayer I was taught many years ago:

“God, show me this person not as I see them but as you see them. Help me to be for them what I am called by you to be. Remove from me my fears and my selfish desires, and show me how to love them as you love them”.

And that works, and works better and better as I get older and more experienced as a professor, a youth leader, and a mentor to teens and young adults. But that previous post was about the importance of having really excellent boundaries, and it didn’t address Leslee’s point, which was that certain kinds of students, particularly those who perceive themselves as attractive or entitled by class and race, are more likely to be bold about seeking me out as a mentor. Continue reading ‘The confidence to knock on my door: a note about race, sex, perceived attractiveness, and mentoring’

Peer mentoring, young Armenian feminists, and mapping a route out

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 22, 2009
in Ethnicity, Feminism, Feminist Pedagogy, Mentoring, Pasadena City College and Youth
. 2 Comments

About 15% of our students at Pasadena City College are of Armenian descent; Pasadena is part of the axis of the great Armenian Diaspora centered in nearby Glendale. Indeed, one of the periodic and cheerful debates we have ’round here is whether to classify Armenians as “white” or something else. My favorite form is one used at Glendale Adventist Hospital: there is one box to check marked “Caucasian” and another box marked “Armenian”. Some folks desperately, desperately need a lesson in basic geography! (If we’re going to start naming ethnic groups after mountain ranges, can I please be a mix of “Alpine”, “Pennine”, and “Sierran”?)

In any case, my women’s history course always seems to attract a disproportionate percentage of Armenians; on average, 20-25% of the women who enroll. And I’ve become familiar, after sixteen years of teaching here, with the particular brand of chauvinism that is so much a part of this otherwise marvelous culture. When it comes to the strictures of the modern double bind, no group seems seems as burdened as young Armenian-American women. Based on what I’ve learned from hundreds of students over the years, the pressure is uniquely overwhelming. On the one hand, most of my Armenian students are expected to study hard and do well in school and pursue the traditional careers of the first-generation upwardly mobile: medicine, law, engineering, business. (Gender studies is discouraged as a major.) On the other hand, there is a tremendous encouragement towards early marriage as well: no ethnic or religious group whom I have ever taught has as high a percentage of nineteen and twenty year olds with engagement rings on their fingers. (And yes, I’ve taught passels of Mormons, and anecdotally, they are less marriage-focused than first-gen Armenians).

Young Armenian women are generally expected to be beautiful (most wear make-up to school), to be feminine, and, it goes almost without saying, to be virginal until marriage (or at least, until engagement.) All dating is to be endogamous at the risk of rejection, ridicule, and rage. And even the best and the brightest young women are regularly told by their parents — I hear this story every semester without fail — that they can “forget” about going to university far away. The cultural rules require young women to live at home; USC and UCLA are filled with Armenians who would have loved the chance to go to Berkeley or Duke or NYU but who have been told in no uncertain terms that moving away is “not what a nice girl does.”

Some of my readers may be annoyed at this point. Is this another in my continuing series of posts that argue for the middle-class WASP virtues of self-discovery and autonomy at the expense of tradition and family? Is this another cluelessly elitist paean to the glories of daring to disappoint one’s parents? Maybe. But it’s based mostly not on what I think, but on the veritable catalogue of anguish and frustration and ambivalence I have heard from legions and legions of young Armenian-American women. And a few years ago, I got an idea about a sensible and culturally sensitive way to approach the problem. Continue reading ‘Peer mentoring, young Armenian feminists, and mapping a route out’

From Carter to Obama: watching an inauguration in class

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 16, 2009
in Mass media, Memories, Pasadena City College and Politics
. 6 Comments

The first presidential election I remember was in 1976; I walked precincts with my mother for Carter-Mondale, and stayed up later than my usual bedtime on election night to listen to the returns on the radio. Two and a half months later, I came to school on a chilly Carmel morning and watched the inauguration of the 39th president; my fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Douglas, had the television on in the classroom. It was the first time I’d seen a live news event in class, and I was gripped. We watched the swearing-in, Carter’s speech, and parts of the inaugural parade. I remember that my classmates were unusually attentive, perhaps out of fascination with the political spectacle, or perhaps focused on the novelty of having the TV on at school.

Next Tuesday morning, I will meet with my History 1A class at 8:00AM sharp. I’ll lecture for about forty minutes, and then suggest that everyone troop down to Sexson Auditorium (which seats nearly 1000 people and is our largest room at Pasadena City College) for a group viewing of the inauguration. Rather remarkably, it will be the first inauguration I’ve watched live on television since 1977; in 1981, my eighth grade teacher at York School turned on the radio but not the TV. I don’t remember where I was in 1985 for the second Reagan inaugural; I was hungover and in bed for the first Bush inaugural in 1989. At the moment Clinton was inaugurated in 1993, I was meeting with my dissertation adviser. I was insufficiently interested in the second of his swearings-in, and out of disappointment and pique I deliberately found other things to do both times George W. Bush went through the prescribed investiture. But I am eager — and many of my students are eager — to see Barack Obama sworn in. A couple of folks in the 1A class had emailed me earlier in the week, expressing their hope that I would adjust the class schedule so we could watch the great event.

Since joining the PCC faculty in 1993, I’ve only turned on a television for a live event twice before. The first time was in October 1995, when I sat with my class to watch the verdict delivered in the OJ Simpson trial. I still remember the gasps at the acquittal, and the starkly varied reactions (largely along racial lines) among my students. And of course, I turned on the television on September 11, 2001, wanting to offer a comforting presence for my classes, knowing that some of the younger and more vulnerable ones would want to take in the horrifying images with a calm adult in their midst. Next Tuesday will be the third live TV event I’ve watched with students, and it will surely be a happier spectacle than the previous two.

Sawing the rungs off the ladder

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 11, 2008
in Money and Pasadena City College
. 2 Comments

The California budget crisis is getting worse by the minute, the Los Angeles Times reports, and our dysfunctional legislature (hamstrung by a super-majority requirement to pass significant legislation) is engaging in pre-Christmas yammering and not much else.

There’s an air of anxiety here at the college, and it isn’t just on the part of students getting ready for final exams. The governor has made clear that there will certainly be major mid-year budget cuts as part of the coping strategy for the state’s massive deficit. This means that money already allocated — and in many cases spent — will be taken away from colleges, universities, and school districts up and down the state. In immediate terms, one of the worst things the state has done (though it may well have been necessary) is raise fees for our winter intersession from $20 to $26 per unit. Compared to those fees in other state community college systems, California’s are low; I understand the need to boost revenue. But the problem is that most of our students have already registered and paid for their winter session classes at the $20 price. It is now the college’s job, not the state’s, to track down each and every student and bill him or her for the remaining $6 per unit. If a student can’t cough up that extra money by the end of the second week of winter classes, he or she will be dropped. It’s added expense to hunt them down, and it’s embarrassing to us and burdensome to the students to add this special assessment onto what they already paid.

It is axiomatic that community college enrollments skyrocket when unemployment rises and the economy contracts. People come back to school for retraining in an ever-more competitive economy; those who might otherwise be tempted to leave college for well-paying jobs find that they are better off stickiing it out and picking up a degree or a certificate. Our enrollment this year is at record numbers, and the campus and its facilities are bursting at the seams.

Of course, precisely at the moment that we are most needed in order to help folks weather the recession, our budget gets slashed. At the moment demand increases, cutbacks will mean that we will be able to offer fewer classes rather than more. Adjunct faculty may find their contracts aren’t renewed, and though no one is yet daring to speak the word “lay-offs” for full-time professors, there is real fear that that day may yet come. Pasadena City College last laid off teachers in 1983; several of our most senior faculty members were around in that scary time and remember it well. Those of us who have seniority are a bit better insulated in terms of job protection, but our concern is not merely for ourselves or even our junior colleagues. Our concern is for the students we teach and the community we serve.

Community colleges are the ladder into the middle class for millions. What’s exasperating is that the rungs are only reinforced in times of plenty when they are least needed, and sawed off precisely at the moments that they are most desperately required. I have no solution, but lament the impact upon my students and more vulnerable colleagues.

Your loyal blogger…

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 04, 2008
in Academia, Pasadena City College, Ratemyprofessors, Teaching and Vanity
. 6 Comments

… has had his dubious recent distinction publicized in this piece in the Pasadena City College paper. And of course, I hate the picture they took of me.

I have been teased all day at school by colleagues and students alike. Part of me loves it, and part of me feels humiliated, and part of me wonders in what particular way I am supposed to parlay this trivial but interesting distinction into something useful. It’s the sort of thing that one probably doesn’t want in one’s obituary, so I’ll simply have to accomplish enough to ensure that there’s no room to stick this “triumph” in there. But I’m not so embarrassed that I won’t note it here, and enjoy the fleeting notoriety.