“The bitter end” (1/12/10) was an unintelligible piece riddled with a number of factual inaccuracies and was unproductive in addressing issues that exist within the [anthropology] department. Marshall described the major as a neglected hodgepodge of courses, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Courses in various areas are offered every quarter and numerous professors, including the head of the department, are available through easily accessed, scheduled office hours to help guide undergraduates to form their own experience. This is required of faculty in the department and should be readily known to the undergraduate population. Undergraduates frequently feel as if certain times do not fit their own personal schedules, but this does not change the fact that times to sit down and talk with these professors do exist for everyone interested.
The graduate students that do teach courses do a fine job and frequently receive rave reviews in evaluations. The graduate students from the department go on to professorships at other elite universities based largely on these reviews. Perhaps they are inarticulate after reading papers written by the likes of Marshall, but they represent the department and University well. It is not a coincidence that the placement of our graduate student population into full professorships surpasses that of most peer institutions. Marshall also lacks any basis for claiming the existence of a “creeping audit culture,” which he used to attempt to further this argument. There are no official statistics of this kept for Marshall to base this on and in all of the anthropology courses I have taken or TA’d, I can count the number of auditors on one hand. All-in-all, this is just another baseless statement from Marshall.
Problems do exist within the department and must be addressed, but in a productive manner. Undergraduates currently fund the graduate department, which creates problems as select faculty wish to work predominantly with the graduate department versus those who fund a large portion their salaries. The department has numerous things to be proud about, but this should be looked at if it looks to remain the leading undergraduate department in the country. We should create dialogue, offer new solutions, name those causing problems within the department—not write unintelligible diatribes with irrelevant metaphors that take away from undergraduate credibility.
Evan Scott
Class of 2010
Evan,
Let me clarify some things about my column.
The column was not factual but fictional, or if you prefer, it was subjective rather than objective. There are claims made both in the form/structure of the piece, and in its particular sentences, which are ghastly full of rhetorical liabilities and excesses of style. These are calculated partly to give a particular force or impression, and partly for amusement, my own as well as my detractors, who will there find plentiful opportunities to ridicule me, if they’re unaware that I’m laughing too. You see, I believe that sometimes seriousness deserves companion in flippancy, and so you are in a strict analytical sense correct in criticizing me for my irreverent, or as you call it, “unintelligible writing,” which you pair with its “unproductive” quality, but then I actually think you’re being a bit dishonest because:
1) it was apparently intelligible enough for you to make facile counterpoints and dismiss its characterizations as inaccurate; and
2) you yourself affirm the necessity of bringing attention to the existence of “problems” and you suggest we must “create dialogue, offer new solutions, name those causing problems with the department,” which agrees in principle with my bringing attention to the existence of problems but makes no leeway in specifying any further what they are.
Now then, my column was an attempt to give expression to a bold array of issues encountered by me and my friends over the course of the years. I identify these issues in part with the way the college is situated with respect to academic departments, which are intrinsically graduate-oriented. I point to issues in a way to express this frustration and try to adumbrate some of their apparent key features ; it makes no sense whatsoever to pretend that I know what exactly to change, nor do I have the means to change anything myself, which is why I can only raise a hue and cry, and hope it will rouse to action somebody who does have the power.
Let me remind you that this is a college newspaper, and while what’s written here may sometimes have ‘important’ consequences, it would be safe to assume that it usually doesn’t. As far as the effect of my column, my best hope is that it causes some kind of stir, and a negative response is a welcomed response, for it does at least get people thinking, and thinking of how to interpret my words, if only to better rebut them. Therefore, I think this column is not “unproductive;” it has been productive, and to what extent it remains to be seen—based chiefly on whether the department reaacts. A Maroon column is not the place for a flull-fledged manifesto or a tightly-written academic argument. Nor is it the place to mount specific complaints that may offend the mentioned parties and bore everyone else in their specificity and idiosyncracy. But it is a place to start, a platform for articulating certain issues and seeing how the wind carries them.
To clarify points which irked you:
I think instructors can be good and bad, graduate student instructors and professors alike, but it would be reasonable to assume that professors are, on the whole, better informed and better experienced at conducting classes. There are considerable reasons for concern when many anthropology students take fewer than half of their classes with ‘real’ professors, particularly in classes that may bear on canonical issues and methodology. I’m convinced—you may disagree—that the quality of classes helmed by professors are generally much better than the alternatives. Moreover, for undergraduates looking for academic recommendations to go on to graduate school, lack of familiarity with professors (through the class modality, i.e. interacting and submitting papers) can hamper their efforts.
I don’t know how much undergraduates actually fund graduate departments, and it seems that it would be a complex equation. What I know is that we pay a hefty tuition here, and since most of our classes are organized through departments, one imagines a lot of our money funnels through them. My point is merely to suggest that undergraduates deserve consideration (in some sense) commensurate with their (significant) financial commitment made towards obtaining a good undergraduate education rooted in a particular graduate department.
With respect to course requirements–there are four categories of classes which must be combined in some way to yield three classes. Substantially, these categories are each filled with classes of quite fluid content, and the content of classes found in one category are largely indistinguishable from the content in other class categories, with the notable exception of methodology. In addition to these three classes, we must have eight anthropology classes and two other anthropology or “related” courses. There is so little actual organization that anthropology students will have potentially no overlapping knowledge, and will not necessarily be guaranteed exposure to essential texts, themes, and histories of the discipline. These are, for any discipline, a shabby thing. You could propound a counterargument, but I can’t imagine a good one for defending this system.
As for my audit culture comment, I cannot tell if you seriously interpreted it as an “attempt to further” my argument, presumably, as far I can gather, by implying that auditors (non-enrolled students in classrooms) are on the rise. But if you did, then your critique was on the money, for it would be equally absurd to argue that auditors are on the rise as to argue that auditors are a threat to a better undergraduate anthropology education. In fact, the “audit culture” comment was meant light-heatedly as a cheap in-group citation, referring to the anthropological literature on “audit cultures,” which are far too vast and varied to be more than mentioned here. I trust you will pursue the matter further if you’re concerned about the factuality of the reference, viz., of the actual existence of such a literature.
In general, I praise your earnestness in supporting a movement to help make key changes in the condition of undergraduates in the anthropology department, and I welcome your suggestions as to how to proceed. You know how to reach me.
Best Regards,
Marshall