College students these days...

Locally, a 20-year-old young woman was arrested this week for 1) having sex in public (at a playground filled with kids, during the day!); and 2) underage drinking. On the online version of the newspaper story, oh-so-helpful commenters posted a link to her myspace page (hello, who uses myspace these days??) so that we could all see her youthful exploits with partying, drinking, and use of illegal drugs. Her 31-year-old boyfriend was not able to post the $40 bail. Must've spent all his money on the beer!

She is...(wait for it)....a criminal justice major at a state college in the area.

I could not make this stuff up! Thank God that ever-alert local reporters and the blogosphere are on the case.

a tale of three cities

We spent a few hours yesterday in Haverhill, MA (say 'HAIV-rill') and it was quite interesting. Haverhill was a major shoe production center back in the day, along with Brockton, Lynn, and to a lesser degree, Newburyport. Before that it was a market town for the upper MA and southern NH Merrimack River valley area. I dimly remember (or remember hearing about) a disastrous downtown fire, and then the misguided redevelopment efforts of the 1970s. (A bank building of that era provides ample testimony.) In my growing-up years, Haverhill was a sad place: downtown of vacant, weed-infested lots. Polluted river. Left-behind commercial area "anchored" by the Registry of Motor Vehicles. (If you are from Mass., and over the age of 35, you will understand what a cruel irony the last one is.)

Right now, in the midst of economic doom-and-gloom, Haverhill seems HOT to me. I'm intrigued, and interested in teasing out the differences between it and other, not-hot places on the North Shore of Boston.

Let's compare with two other cities: Newburyport; and Peabody.

Pop: Haverhill 56K, up from 46K in 1980. Wow! What's THAT about?
Newburyport: about 20K
Peabody: about 50K

Economic base: Haverhill: not sure
Newburyport: tourism downtown; industrial park in the swampland south of town
Peabody: Northshore Mall, Centennial Industrial Park

Place promotion "hooks": Haverhill: Merrimack River, John Greenleaf Whittier; shoes.
Newburyport: Merrimack River and sea access, historically significant architectural assemblages
Peabody: George Peabody, low taxes for biz; what else?? (commercial district is tiny; prevailing community attitude in historic areas favors parking lots, vinyl siding, and chain link fencing)

State and federal funding: Haverhill: not much evidence of it: T station might be a bonus - it's on the Amtrak route to Portland; ancient streetscape improvements on River St. Everything lately appears to be grassroots; there is no evidence of recent major dollars for upgrades.
Newburyport: Congressmen really brought home the bacon in the 1970s - the renovated downtown is spiffy and oh-so-Federalist, but a bit of a stage-set.
Peabody: $6M in downtown infrastructure in the mid-1980s, but it looks a bit tired now. The focus on "getting the traffic through" to Salem makes downtown a bit of a traffic sewer to Salem, not pedestrian- or retail-friendly.

I was impressed with the can-do, make-it-work attitude I could see expressed physically in Haverhill. No waiting for grants; just get in there and slap some paint on the walls and open up a brew-pub -- or antique store, or gallery. In the end, that spirit will make this place successful, and make it endure.

It seems to me that one could develop an index (hello, Richard Florida!) as to the predictors of success of such small cities. As I say, I am intrigued...and thinking about this.

7 days out

I am trying to segue into a routine and some self-discipline, after a summer of doing what I wanted, pretty much when I wanted. (Even the online course offered quite a bit of flexibility, at least on an hourly basis.)

That means: going to bed earlier and toughing out insomnia instead of succumbing to the lure of laptop video. It means getting up early, in prep for the 6 am alarms. It means staying on top of household chores so they don't get out of control (Laundry Mountain, anyone?).

Also, this term, it's gonna be really important to keep up an active research and writing program, not just on my "research day" but consistently, every day. So today I resisted the urge to fiddle around with my syllabi, and instead conference-called with my co-author on the chapter of our book on traditional cities (still have to make an outline out of the notes), and read, cover to cover,
Edgar M. Hoover's scintillating 1937 Location Theory and the Shoe and Leather Industries for a research project I intend to present at a conference in November.

Oh, and I read Sunday's NY Times and the local papers. I urge my students to keep up with events, so I have to walk the walk.

It's 7 pm, so I think I'll "take the rest of the day off," which is what my boss used to recommend at 6 pm when he stopped in my office on his way out of the building. Ah, those were the days!

shift-share analysis for the toddler set

I've been working for what seems like weeks but is probably only a few days on my last syllabus for fall, Economic Geography. Last time, I took a very traditional approach: theory; basic concepts; four economic sectors; trade; transportation and communication. I did a bit with local economies and wanted to do more (eventually I will probably teach a course on community and economic development and we'll take it up there).

My lecture material was dull, and I was dull, and the textbook was so boring that I routinely fell asleep while reading it. So this time I am trying to be more lively and introduce more relevant topics. About half of my students are in our globalization track; the other half are in early childhood or elementary education. The latter is especially a challenge in terms of making the course meaningful. I am trying to think of how they might use this stuff in their teaching. Doesn't every preschooler need to know something about the global economy?? Sigh.

In other news, it has been a very social few days, and it's weird to be sitting alone at my desk all day again.

out-curmudgeoned!

"Many students are simply not prepared to engage in serious academic work and do not know how they are expected to behave on campus. Most of them bring a consumer mentality to school and very little concern about approval from the older generation. That their own generation was raised on oversized portions of self-esteem is part of the problem, not to speak of their massive exposure to coarse popular culture on television and the internet."

P.M. Forni, professor of Italian at Johns Hopkins, from the Fall 2008 issue of Thought and Action, the NEA Higher Education Journal.

cherry strata

I experimented yesterday with the strata form, seen in such classics as B's family's Christmas Bake and a more modern twist, New Year's bake. This one is not terribly sweet and is a terrific way to use up bread leftover from BBQs and the like. I have a new cherry pitter which is a blast to use! Probably any other kind of summer stone fruit or berries could be substituted - just vary the spices accordingly.

About 8-10 stale hot dog rolls, or whatever other miscellaneous bread is on hand, torn into 1- 1 1/2 inch pieces
8 oz cream cheese, cut into 1/4 inch cubes (yeah, THAT'S a good trick in this heat)
most of a bag of cherries (standard supermarket size), pitted and divided: 1/2 cooked gently with 1/4 C sugar and a couple spoonfuls of water; the other uncooked and sliced for garnish
4 large eggs
2 C milk
2 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
1/2 t almond extract

Layer 1/3 of the bread in a buttered casserole dish.
Top with 1/2 the cream cheese, dotted in place.
Top with 1/2 the cooked cherries.
Layer another 1/3 of the bread.
Top with the remainder of the cream cheese and cooked cherries.
Layer on the last 1/3 of bread.
Beat the eggs, milk, cinnamon and almond extract in a large bowl. Pour over bread mixture and press bread into the egg mixture until all the bread is saturated, taking care not to disturb the "layering" too much. Refrigerate for a bit - overnight is ideal, but if you are like me, you have about 30 mins of chilling before you have to bake it to be ready for dinner guests.

Bake 350 deg for about an hour uncovered until puffy and golden. If the casserole dish is very full, slip a cookie sheet under to catch any overboil.

Spoon onto bowls/plates, and serve with the sliced uncooked cherries. Whip cream garnish if you like.

helpful study "stick" or useless busywork?

B has finished final grades for the traditional class - a relatively even distribution of As, Bs, and Cs, with a couple of Ds. That's unusual for us - we usually see reverse bell curves - a bunch of As and a bunch of Cs and Ds, with a gap in the B and high C range.

Possibly the higher grades are due to the fact that students were REQUIRED to take reading notes and turn them in for a grade, before the classroom work began. This meant that, even if they did a half-assed job of typing out some definitions and chapter subheads, they had had to engage even if in a desultory way with the content of the day. Thus they understood more in class and did better on the exams.

But should we require notes to be turned in for college students? I tend to think that they have been informed as to what constitutes useful study practice, and they can do it or not as they see fit. (I always wanted to take reading notes but rarely could keep up with it.) Are we as professors obligated to MAKE them do better by putting in place this sort of policing of class preparation? I am of two minds about it: on one hand, part of the job of college is becoming fully an adult and learning for yourself how to learn, even if (perhaps especially if) you make some mistakes along the way. On the other hand, if we can make good preparation for the class session happen simply by requiring (and grading) notes, then shouldn't we do it? It would certainly improve the pre-learning and up the sophistication of what we could do in the classroom.


but then: who the hell wants to grade reading notes?? Yuck.

on the road

My mother-in-law turned 75 yesterday - big fete today. A very chilled afternoon with the family - despite the fact that when 3 overthinking overachievers plan a party, there is bound to be some lack of coordination.

I have been reading the very inspiring story of B's cousin Joe, who was seriously injured in an auto accident in Italy 3 1/2 years ago. He has made a remarkable recovery - yet his life (and the lives of his family) has been irreversibly altered. It is a bit of a wakeup call to appreciate more what we have and how much richness of life we take for granted. See http://joeprogress.blogspot.com.

science phobia

One of B's students opined the other day that he hates science and finds it difficult. I find this weird: is not the entire structure of modernity - our worldview - based on the paradigm of scientific inquiry and rational explanation? Are we not completely saturated in every aspect of our lives with a belief in rationality and human progress in knowledge?

I assume that the scientific method is taught in grade school, and I know that students in the primary grades are also taught to justify claims with evidence. However, while modernity may operate on a "verify the facts" basis, students don't always internalize this.

Are people in general LESS convinced of the scientific method? One sees the new agey stuff, polls that suggest people believe in miracles and UFOs and Elvis sightings and the power of crystals. But in fewer or in greater proportions than in previous decades?

Plus our media-saturated culture encourages us to accept "truth" as frequency of message rather than evidence supporting it: "If you say it often enough people will believe it."

I can't help thinking that science phobia at its most elemental equals lack of curiosity about how things work, and THAT is really scary, but lack of curiosity is what I observe in many of my students. Many of them accept the world as it is and have no interest in WHY things are the way they are.

My Marxist colleagues make this a class issue, something along the lines of "our working class students are too oppressed to imagine a world in which they have the power to change." But for me, college is exactly the first step: the knowledge of WHY the world is as it is is the beginnings of power to imagine and effect change.

the so-what question

I always spend a lot of time (too much) working up the first several sessions of a course. Right now I think the approach is wrong. Rather than spending several sessions talking about basic concepts and epistemology, maybe it would be better to dive into a substantive issue or two and USE the concepts/epistemology to show how we can make sense of the issue.

Otherwise it seems like forever before we get to something we can sink our teeth into, and I fear the class can't really make sense of the abstractions of concepts. I always try to be governed by "why should we care about this?" as a grounding question and - for example - I have to think that being able to define and give examples of site and situation is of no use in and of itself. How can that be USEFUL in a particular context or contexts?

Not to be too instrumentalizing about it...

week out of time

For a variety of reasons in life, sometimes there are just periods that are "out of time." A family member is sick and in hospital, say, and you spend every free moment there or getting there or thinking about being there. Or you have houseguests and your normal routine is disrupted. Or there is a crazy storm. Or no internet. Or whatever.

I am not making excuses for not posting, but the last several days have been very much out of the routine. I am looking forward to getting back in it tomorrow: walking every morning; writing; working on my lists of to-dos.

RIP Jack Brennan

A former colleague died yesterday, someone I haven't seen since before my sojourn in the Midwest. He was a civil engineer and long-time public works guy, the kind of guy who knows the location and history of every manhole and drain line in town.

He taught me how to write specifications for road projects and how to develop a mutually respectful, productive relationship with contractors. He had a great love of history and could talk with you on all kinds of subjects - always easy, friendly conversation that left you feeling enriched.

I will miss him.

consumerism, or, an afternoon of retail therapy

Spent the afternoon at an outlet mall a couple of states over. (Yeah, in New England, such things are possible.)

I always suspect that these outlets are where mass-market chains sell poorly-made merchandise they are sorry they bought. True to theory, our trip started badly, at the "Corelle" store that used to carry open stock Revereware. Turns out they have abandoned the signature line of copper-bottom saucepans (copper must be rising on the world commodities market) and have some "new improved" line. In short, though: no open stock, and a store full of plastic dishware in cutsey patterns (that's the Corelle part) and cheap plastic gizmos that will break at the first use. More, the sales staff was snotty and superfluous.

I call my theory about this outlet stuff the Walmart Theory, because it's all about "Low Prices."
Here's the gig: if you can offer the customer a well-made, steel potato masher for $19.99 and a cheaply made, will-break-at-the-first-mashing masher for $10, the customer will invariably buy the $10 item. Your profit margin is substantially higher on the $10 item, because it is made in China of cheap plastic. If it breaks, no sweat. They are not gonna drive back to Maine to get a refund on a $10 item. And they are so entranced by the (relatively) inexpensive goods in your store that they WILL return, even if they keep buying cheap crap that doesn't last. So there is no point in stocking the $19.99 item.

I, on the other hand, although I am Yankee-cheap, am willing to pay more for tools (kitchen, yard, etc) because I do value quality and I want these things to last more or less forever. So we bought the $19.99 masher (at Villeroy and Boch) and expect to use it for the next 20 years or so.

Also at Villeroy and Boch: a sweet deviled egg holder (great gift!).

Then, the underthings. Every couple of years I grit my teeth and buy all new stuff. I'll spare you the details (google "bras suck" or "bras are evil" or "buying swimsuits" or any such phrases and you'll get lots of bloggers who write eloquently about the pure evil that is foisted by the corporate fashion industry upon women and their body image(s)), but suffice it to say, mission accomplished, and I even got some new sox in the bargain.

Dinner at an awesome, elegant yet casual restaurant, the Dockside Restaurant on York Harbor. I highly recommend it. Lobster cocktail: inspired! Elderly couples sucking down lots of wine and whooping it up! Fantastic!

New digs

I spent some time yesterday moving my office stuff from the adjuncts' office (which I shared with B last year) to my own, single-person office. I didn't push the move; I was happy in the other one, but the new chair INSISTED. "Every tenure-track person gets their own office; that's how we do it here."

In part she wanted to get the guy who was retiring to clean up the office just for the general health and safety of the campus. There were a couple of dumpster-loads of stuff in there. He surprised everyone by really buckling down to it, and this past week it was painted and cleaned and the floor refinished, all for me.

I didn't think I'd be so excited about it, but I kind of am. It's huge, and since I mostly work at home, I won't be filling it with books and papers. It will probably remain rather spartan. The spartanness is a bit deceptive - those of us who are bit more technology-oriented actually have a lot of files and information - but it is all on our laptops.

I am vaguely looking around for some objets, or at least some creature comforts, that I can bring down there to put a bit of personality into the space. I suppose that the anonymity of all my past offices is a reflection of my belief that the work happens in the space of the mind, and that the physical space doesn't matter. I've never found the need to "personalize" work offices, unlike so many people I know.