Honesty and Other Good Policies

I know that I have some concrete answers to this question, but I’ve been wondering what to talk about in this post for a while. The topic that glows in my mind is then topic of cost for education. I think the cost of education for students in the United States should change. I think the playing field should be level for as many people as possible, and right now, this is far from the case— for many students of any financial or racial background. I believe that if students have obviously put in effort to the high school education, they should be rewarded with affordable higher education, if they so choose.

Today, students who choose to go to a four-year institution right away accumulate a massive amount of debt. I know people that graduated with $60,000 to $100,o00 in debt from undergraduate charges alone. For students that go to community college and transfer, I know people that habe fallen within the $25,000 to $50,000 in debt  mark. I don’t think this is right. Many students take on their own higher education bills, and this debt puts them at a disadvantage from the start. When students come out of undergrad with debt the size of a luxury car, if not more so, I think this is a problem, especially since students constantly hear from different directions that the undergraduate degree is the new high school diploma. This may or may not be true, but it does not take away from the fact that this belief is being perpetrated among today’s youth and that many students that graduate with a bachelor’s degree have trouble finding a related job.

In addition to the fact that this belief is being repeated over and over, and that students continue to get themselves into debt that it will take a decade, if not more, to get themselves out of, students are also realizing, as we graduate students have heard in class these past couple of weeks, that students around the world pay much, much less for their Bachelor’s degree than do students in the United States. Regardless of why this may be, American students can’t help but wonder “What?! That’s not fair.” Granted, there may be certain reasons that certain countries have a considerable difference in college tuition rates, one being a higher overall tax rate (an idea at which most Americans would balk). But this begs the question, is that truly all there is? Do other countries only have lower tuition rates because of higher taxes for every citizen? I’m not advocating for free higher education. Not by any means. Because as the old saying goes: “There’s no such  thing as a free lunch.” I only argue that higher education  (undergraduate and graduate work) should not keep students in debt for decades or the rest of their working lives. Higher education, especially undergraduate education, while not free, should be decently affordable so that those that seek to obtain this degree can do so without the cost being an issue for several years.

Before I chose to focus on Nineteenth-Century Century Gender Studies as my open access journal after finding it on DOAJ,  I simply Googled “Open Access Journals for English Literature” and found an open access journal (English Language and Literature Studies)  that seemed very legit. They had a lot of information and seemed to be published by a credible company. However, I was offput by the fact that any scholar seeking to publish in the journal had to pay $300 dollars to do so if their selection were approved. While this may be a normal, permissible practice, I’d rather focus on a journal that did not charge their authors a fee for submission or publishing.

So I decided to go with the Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies open access journal. It’s on the list of open access journals on the Directory of Open Access journals, so it should be fairly trustworthy. Their website is very minimal. I believe journal is its own publisher, and it is published within the United States according to the DOAJ. However, their board of directors, editors, and advisors is huge. These positions are filled by various professors at a multitude of credible universities and the website includes bios of their founders, editors, and advisors so that their potential authors understand the credibility of those that will be reviewing their work.

The purpose of the journal is as follows:

Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies is a peer-reviewed, online journal committed to

publishing insightful and innovative scholarship on gender studies and nineteenth-century

British literature, art, and culture. The journal is a collaborative effort that brings

together scholars from a variety of universities to create a unique voice in the field. (NCGS)

The journal aims to consider gender and sexuality in a variety of context, and they publish three times a year. I like that they want to bring in a group of different voices to each issue.  The website is very welcoming to potential authors. It does not include  information on their stance on open access or their place within the movement. The website does state, “Users can use, reuse and build upon the material published in the journal but only for non-commercial purposes” (NCGS). Overall, I think the website could use some more information on the journal’s stance on open access.

Works Cited:

Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies. Edited by Stacey Floyd and Melissa Purdue. www.ncgsjournal.com/. Accessed 3 April 2017.

Directory of Open Access Journals. “Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies.” link. Accessed 3 April 2017.

For this post, I found an article by Pearson, an education and publishing group well known in the realm of  Higher Education. The group conducted a study to determine how faculty in today’s higher education circles use social media. The article is full of statistics, graphs, and charts, and it was interesting to see what group/percentage of higher education actually uses social media in their classrooms.

Before I talk about statistics and data, I’m interested in how they define social media. Usually, when Pearson says “social media,” the group means blogs/wikis, podcasts, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitterb (10). This is interesting to me because, generally, I think that media is a common resource used in classes (videos, movies, YouTube, songs, Google programs, etc.) I wouldn’t think that social media would be as commonly considered “learning tool” in classrooms. But let’s get down to statistics. As you can imagine, educators 35 and younger are more likely to use social media in their classrooms than any other age group (Pearson 16). This age group also tends to use blogs/wikis as educational material more than any other social media medium (if that’s grammatical correct). Of the 35 and younger category, 5% report using social media daily, about 17% report that they use it weekly, and 30% report that they use it monthly (Pearson 16).

But what about videos? Where do they fall? Eighty seven point five percent of faculty report that they use videos. This is an overwhelming majority that transcends all age groups (Pearson 20). But what was interesting to me was that Pearson’s data suggests that in most every instance the Humanities is the discipline that incorporates social media or videos more than any other discipline (Pearson). This data doesn’t surprise me only because the material taught in the humanities lends itself better to humanities inspired media like videos, songs, and the like.

This is all fine and good. But I’m wondering what the benefit of using social media in class actually is. I can understand the weekly or monthly inclusion of blogs, if teachers require their students to write blog posts for credit. But really, I can’t imagine bringing in Facebook or LinkedIn on the regular. I’m not sure what purpose that would serve, unless they’re showing memes every day to start the class or something. It seems like it would be more of a distraction, if anythign.  I have used videos in class. That’s not an unusual resource at all in my experience. Maybe podcasts could be a regular tool to assign as homework as well.  I have encouraged students to post surveys on their Facebook page or on the Virginia Tech class Facebook page. But other that that, I’m not sure how or why I would weekly  integrate other social media. Do you all have any use for social media? I would like to hear suggestions and opinions!

Work Cited:

Pearson. “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Facebook: How Today’s Higher Education Faculty Use Social Media.” Pearson Learning Solutions, 2012. www.pearsonlearningsolutions.com/assets/downloads/pdfs/pearson-social-media-survey-2012-color.pdf. Accessed 29 March 2017.

I appreciate the different links to the different types of privilege. For the most part, I was aware of the groups that tend to have more privilege than do others, but for some reason, I hadn’t heard the term “cisgender” before. I found “30+ Examples of Cisgender Privilege” to be informative in the sense that it’s written in the second person (you), but doesn’t sound overly accusatory or harsh (Killerman). It effectively demonstrates what a person who is not cisgender might encounter on a daily basis—and these attitudes and situations are definitely not ones anyone would like to encounter. It’s always helpful to reminded of a viewpoint that is not my own; this article truly gets its readers to consider what its like to be in another person’s shoes.

I also appreciated “Male Privilege Checklist.” As a woman, I’ve heard plenty about male privilege, but I don’t feel like I’ve been actively discriminated against in my life. Granted, I don’t see what goes on behind the scenes of a situation where discrimination might actually be possible, so maybe I have been discriminated against and don’t know even know it. All in all though, I haven’t seen overt male privilege in my own life. Perhaps I’m very lucky.

However, after reading the “Male Privilege Checklist, ” I actually agreed with most of what it had to say regarding Male Privilege, but there were some points with which I did not agree. I liked that it was written in first person, demonstrating that a male could be admitting these things to be true (but it was written by a woman which make the dynamic here a littler more controversial and interesting).  Number 15 was spot on: I was having this conversation with my roommate the other day: “My clothing is typically less expensive and better-constructed than women’s clothing for the same social status. While I have fewer options, my clothes will probably fit better than a woman’s without tailoring” (SAP).  I don’t know what the clothing industry is trying to say by making women’s sizing so drastically different from brand to brand. It’s absolutely frustrating to never truly know what size I am.

I also liked the points that had to do with a woman being called “selfish” for choosing to work rather than be a stay-at-home mom (that is a great choice as well!), though I feel this is becoming more socially acceptable now (SAP). In some communities, it’s still an issue. Men also never have to take their wives last names (though I’ve seen it happen once) while women are often questioned and criticized for choosing to keep their own last names (SAP). It’s something I’ve given thought to doing myself, but wonder how people in my life would take it. In certain situations, women tend to have “what other people think” in the back of their minds. Overall, I appreciate the argument of this checklist. While equality for women has progressed greatly, there’s obviously still some work to do.

Works Cited:

Killerman, Sam. “30+ Examples of Cisgender Privilege.” It’s Pronounced Metrosexual.         itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2011/11/list-of-cisgender-privileges/#sthash.e8r5JTq6.dpbs

MIT School of Architecture and Planning. “Male Privilege Checklist.” MIT. www.sap.mit.edu/content/pdf/male_privilege.pdf

I posted previously on ethics, but the concept of punishment for infractions interested me this week. This past week, when my group was asked to select a case from the ORI Case Summaries section, we picked the one on Meredyth Forbes who “intentionally fabricated and/or falsified data for zebrafish embryogenesis and oocyte polarity” in two papers and two different presentations. She also worked magic with photoshop to show her results in selected pictures (ORI). Basically her punishment was that she wouldn’t be able to work for or with the government on any studies or publications for three years (ORI). Granted, she wasn’t working on a project that concerned the welfare of human beings, but generally, the consensus at our table was that the punishment was fairly lenient.

I would suspect that the punishment for anyone willingly and knowledgeably endangering human life would be greater than that of someone photoshopping a picture of a zebrafish. But at the same time, our group seemed to think that it was the principle of the thing that matters. Forbes willingly engaged in unethical activity in order to get published, knowing that falsifying data for any reason was wrong. This is wrong. To our group, it seemed that once a name disappears from ORI Case Summaries section, the consequences don’t appear as visible. Forbes could easily get a job again, or so it seems.

I also wonder if academia should believe in the idea of second chances. Everyone makes mistakes, and there’s a saying in culture that like to remind us that everyone deserves a second chance. Should this apply to those that unethically alter data in order to advance their name in their realm of studies? This is a hard question. Based off of what we discussed in class, the concept of second chances in academia seems to depend on the severity of the infraction.

Works Cited:

The Office of Research Integrity. “Case Summary: Forbes, Meredyth .” The Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed 15 March 2017, link.