Caribbean Sociology and Gender Scholar

I’ve had email subscriptions to EdX, Coursera, and Udemy and even taken a “free” course through the massive online open course format, more commonly known as MOOC nowadays. I think it’s quite neat, and judging by the many students all over the world, people who might not usually have the opportunity to matriculate at the institutions that pioneered the format, it seems to be a clever idea. Tertiary education is free, or nominally fee-based in many countries around the world; but there is a common perception that an education derived from one of the global north “greats” – UK, US, Canada, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and France – your degree or certificate may not cut it in the modern world. This prophecy is fulfilled when would-be students from the global south, due to forces often manipulated by the very same nations – visa barriers, unequal exchange rates, lack of access to the qualifying secondary education, language barriers. MOOCs using the free and open format, often offering a certificate for a fee, earn double or triple benefit from these course offerings. They get to signal their virtue in offering free education to the global community, they promote and advertise their traditional formats, the certificate fees and loyalty that may garner future traditional matriculation give them earning potential (not that they need it given how much these institutions, and the nations in which they reside) have stolen from the rest of the world. For the institutions, they’re a boon. For professors on the other hand, perhaps not so much.
Online learning and MOOCs are a more accessible route to micro credentialling, celebrated by some, cautioned by others. Some professors see no problem with the format, particularly because it offers them new modes of teaching that are flexible. Those who are tech-savvy and already maximize functionality on their learning management systems, such as Canvas and Moodle, are better prepared and able to adapt to the new format. Some believe they take resources and attention away from traditional learning and they do not lend themselves to success in every area (I would imagine MOOCs are less convincing for the performing and visual arts, for anything where instruction in a hands-on setting is valuable). Some professors see hope in the format and identify being able to offer free education – altruism – as one form of value they place in the option. Others see MOOCs as a way to test out new innovations, which begs the question, is the experimental element beneficial to learners?
Overall it seems that the main concern for most professors is the learning curve and time commitment. As we have seen with the switch to online platforms during the pandemic, college professors and secondary school teachers faced high stress, and impossible hurdles having to fulfill their traditional teaching obligations and effectively learn new formats, modify materials, and manage more stimuli in the classroom. Whatever option is used for learning whether traditional classroom, online courses, traditional correspondence or MOOCs, two things are important: that the quality of education remains, and that those teaching are able to carry a fair burden of the workload.

I reviewed two cases on the Office of Research Integrity’s website. Actually, I reviewed several, but I circled back around to a couple of them for the purpose of writing this post.  In 2020 ORI found that Charles A. Downs, a former Adjunct Assistant Professor, Arizona Health Sciences Center, the University of Arizona  “engaged in research misconduct by intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly falsifying and/or fabricating data included in six (6) grant applications submitted for U.S Public Health Service (PHS) funds. As punishment, the respondent agreed to have his research supervised, to have a committee appointed and a supervision plan established, to not apply for any PHS funds unless the supervision plan is submitted and approved, and to abstain from serving on any PHS board, all for four years.

In the second case Yibin Lin, Ph.D., University of Texas Health Science Center knowingly and intentionally falsified, fabricated, and plagiarized data and text reported in the numerous published papers, which have been retracted, and manuscripts. The respondent also attempted to deceive the online publication sites bioRxiv and medRxiv, creating fictitious author names and affiliations, but not listing himself as an author. Given the extent of his misconduct, Dr. Lin agreed to exclude himself voluntarily for a period of ten (10) years beginning from any contracting or subcontracting with any agency of the United States Government and from eligibility for or involvement in US Government non-procurement programs (known as “covered transactions”). The scope of the respondent’s misconduct is surprising.

For both of these respondents, I think about the antecedents to this behavior. I believe many of us say this could not be us. But I wonder whether there is a tipping point, an incident, or an experience that catapults a researcher into these actions that inevitably will be caught. I wonder about whether they felt pressure to have a particular result, or to what extent was this driven by ego – a belief that they should have had particular results or a particular trajectory. I also wonder about how many of these situations have gone undetected because the fraud was less extensive. Research ethics reviews and peer reviews of published research are overseen and judged by human beings who all bring their own values and flaws, but the systems are lengthy and intended for researchers to be thoughtful. We should all be mindful of these types of ethics misconduct cases. At some point, it may have been that these researchers turned a corner in their mistakes and believed they were too far gone to turn back. However, at some point they were also young, hopeful scholars with potential. I hope they learn and recover from their mistakes.

In a conversation about The University recently, a former colleague said she was certain that academia would change. “Wouldn’t it?” She asked. Perhaps she wasn’t as sure as she said. Not an academic, herself, she observed that every client she has had in academia (she’s a psychotherapist) and friends have complained about academia. She’s said it seems the political nature of the setting, makes it a difficult space to navigate. She was reflecting on my observations of colleagues, and how after a meeting someone accused the most recalcitrant and ineffective of the lot, of being “just as bad” as the professors.

I thought for a minute about my friend and former colleague’s hope, first, an assertion then changed to a question. I said I thought it would implode before it changed, not soon, but that contrary to the idea that universities are spaces of innovation, attitudinally and structurally they are extremely conservative, and attrition seems to happen in the margins – rather, of the people in the margins: those with the least power, those hoping, willing to push the boundaries, those innovating. Far too many of the best academic scientists and practitioners I once knew, people who enjoyed teaching and mentoring but not faculty politics and hierarchy, fled the university for government, and the non-academic private sector.

The thing that must change is the structure itself. The university must do the gargantuan task of upsetting itself, of demystifying many of the processes that in thought and word appear to maintain a high regard for tradition and rigor, but in deed simply limit or marginalize too many folks. The university must accelerate its efforts at inclusion. There are changes now. The pandemic and the global uprising for Black lives, sparked by events in the US last summer, but in response to centuries of oppression and inequality, presented an opportunity for more funding, programs, statements, and task forces. Some are skeptical about whether the change will happen. But the conversation genie and the language that accompanies it are out of the box. Dialogue is certainly a pathway to change. Accessibility, equity, owning up to past wrongs, and reckoning with the fact The University was never intended for many of the people who now populate it and make it better, look towards the right direction. Change must come, it’s a matter of survival.

https://www.spelman.edu/about-us

Spelman College Mission Statement

Spelman College, a historically Black college and a global leader in the education of women of African descent, is dedicated to academic excellence in the liberal arts and sciences and the intellectual, creative, ethical, and leadership development of its students. Through diverse learning modalities, Spelman empowers the whole person to engage the many cultures of the world and inspires a commitment to positive social change.

Hello readers,

I’m Leslie Robertson Toney, a Ph.D. student of Sociology with a concentration on Women’s and Gender Studies. My interests broadly speaking are in health, well-being, and society. Specifically, I am interested in the ways women and adolescents articulate agency, engage with and shape health-related behaviors in the post-colonial Anglophone Caribbean. My frameworks are Black feminisms, transnational and decolonial feminisms. My dissertation project explores the sexual agency of adolescent girls, using Trinidad & Tobago as a case study. I write about young women and girls’ engagement with sexual, reproductive, and mental health within the systems and structures of post-colonial society. I also write about Trinidad carnival, its history, connections, and implications for the Black diaspora, and how carnival serves as a metaphor for engaging in acts of resistance and articulating agentic behavior for marginalized people.

This blog is an assignment for the Future Professoriate courses I am currently enrolled in at VT, including Preparing Future Professoriate and Diversity in a Global Society. I have been blogging for many years in a few different spaces, most notably here, about the historical Diasporic connections and contemporary social implications of Trinidad Carnival, but I will be attempting some new things here.

I hope you follow, engage, and gain something from this space.

L

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