ALL ABOUT MENTORINGA PUBLICATION OF SUNY EMPIRE STATE COLLEGE Issue 53 • Spring 2020 ALL ABOUT MENTORING Issue 53 • Spring 2020 Printed by SUNY Empire State College Print Shop ALL ABOUT MENTORING ISSUE 53 SPRING 2020 Alan Mandell College Professor of Adult Learning and Mentoring Editor Scattered throughout this issue of All About Karen LaBarge Mentoring are quotes taken from our recent Senior Staff Assistant for publication, Explorations in Adult Higher Education. Faculty Development Associate Editor This, the sixth of our “occasional paper” series co-edited by Shantih Clemans and Alan Mandell PHOTOGRAPHY with Associate Editor Karen LaBarge, focuses Photos courtesy of Stock Studios, on the theme of “access, identity and power in and faculty and staff of American higher education.” It includes edited SUNY Empire State College, unless otherwise noted. guest presentations from two webinar series, as well as responses from our SUNY Empire State COVER ARTWORK College colleagues Frances Boyce, Ruth Goldberg, “Daquan” Elliott Dawes, Jeffrey Lambe, Rhianna Rogers, David Fullard Margaret Clark-Plaskie, and Renata Kochut. Our colleague, Raúl Manzano, provided the paintings PRODUCTION that are included in the publication. If you are Kirk Starczewski Director of Publications interested in receiving a copy of this occasional paper, Janet Jones please contact Janay Jackson ([email protected]). Office Assistant 2 (Keyboarding) College Print Shop Send comments, articles or news to: All About Mentoring c/o Alan Mandell SUNY Empire State College 325 Hudson St., 5th Floor New York, NY 10013-1005 646-230-1255 [email protected] Special thanks: Thanks to our entire SUNY Empire State College community for being just that, especially now, when we all need it. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Editorial — SoTL for the Little Set ............................................. 2 Moments in the Human Condition .........................................49 Alan Mandell, Manhattan and Saratoga Springs David Fullard, Manhattan The Return of the Social: The View from Labor Studies ........ 4 Thoughts by a Pilgrim on EcoPilgrimage ................................53 Richard Wells, Manhattan Karyn Pilgrim, Brooklyn “In the Noise and Whip of the Whirlwind” or Pay It Forward with Mentoring ................................................57 The Poetry of Teaching Poetry ................................................11 Teresa A. Smith, Saratoga Springs Elaine Handley, Saratoga Springs Individualized Transitional Support The Marines Have Landed .......................................................13 for Career-Change Employees ................................................59 Connelly Akstens, SUNY Empire Online Susan J. Sylvia, Grand Canyon University Pears ...........................................................................................15 Life After Empire: The Learning Collaborative ......................64 Reamy Jansen Miriam Tatzel, Mentor Emerita, Hudson Valley Transcending Vegetation .........................................................16 Engaging Students in Hands-On Science Sandra Winn, Saratoga Springs Learning Experiences at a Distance ........................................67 Audi Matias, Saratoga Springs Observation on the Daily Trek to Work — My Take .............19 Lear Matthews, Manhattan Institute on Mentoring, Teaching and Learning Project Summaries ...................................................73 On Trying Not to Grade ............................................................21 The 2018-2019 IMTL Fellows Rebecca Fraser, Manhattan The Return .................................................................................76 A Study of Representations of Robert Congemi, Latham Women in Art History Textbook ..............................................24 Alice Lai, Saratoga Springs Reflections on Gamification in Mentoring and Teaching .....82 Anamaria Iosif Ross, Utica Getting Personal: How We Used Voice Feedback Tools to Connect with Students on their Writing Practice .............29 Reflections on Not Knowing ....................................................85 Dan McCrea and Kjrsten Keane, Saratoga Springs Betty Hurley, Mentor Emerita, SUNY Empire Online “On ‘My Bucket List’” Continued or Take Flight ..................................................................................87 “How We Have Grown” .............................................................34 Laurie T. Seamans, Retired Assessment Specialist, Mary Zanfini, Staten Island Syracuse From the Personal to the Sociological: 2018 – 2019 Arthur Imperatore Community Forum Why The Ramones Matter ..........................................................38 Fellowship Report .....................................................................89 Donna Gaines, Garden City Lorraine Lander, Canandaigua The Complex Nature of Success in The Working-Class Experience as Class Politics ....................92 Human Services Students ........................................................41 Sharon Szymanski, Manhattan Thalia MacMillan, Manhattan An Extended Review of: Leaps of Faith: Stories from Working-Class Scholars An ESC Digest and Evaluation: Edited by Anne C. Benoit, Joann S. Olson, and When and Where I Entered.........................................................44 Carrie Johnson Robert Carey, Mentor Emeritus, Brooklyn Remembering Our Colleagues ................................................98 Core Values of Empire State College ....................................102 SUNY EMPIRE STATE COLLEGE • ALL ABOUT MENTORING • ISSUE 53 • SPRING 2020 2 EDITORIAL SoTL for the Little Set “The thing is, with each story I could see after his wife) meant listening to her Our colleague, Mayra Bloom, took the that the children wanted to do something talk about her little students and their lead at, then, the Hudson Valley Center, nice for someone, compliment them, or sit special ways and the worlds they and we welcomed Paley. And with her next to them. Some recognition of another created. And, without skipping a beat keen attention so palpable, she listened person, a connection to another person (because, of course, everything is to our students (many current or future had to be made.” connected to everything), she was onto teachers themselves) and their efforts to the biggest themes of any time: fear, describe their own school experiences, — Vivian Gussin Paley, The Kindness unfairness, hurt, care, stereotyping, as if they were (as I would guess her of Children (1999), pp. 19-20 rejection, love. own students felt) at the center of the world. How lucky we were to have her As I probably couldn’t fathom at the with us. n July 26, 2019, Vivian Gussin ripe old age of 18 and 19, Paley was Paley died. Her name may using the world of three- and four-year- Vivian Gussin Paley, masterful O not ring a bell for most of olds to push us to wonder about (and ethnographer and storyteller, is really you, but for those involved in early even reimagine — her hope) the ethical an exemplar of what’s now called childhood education or in the study of strands of our lives and the problematic “the scholarship of teaching and schooling practices, Paley’s works — nature of ideas, feelings and attitudes learning” (SoTL) for the little set. There her example — have been powerfully that we, in a flash, take for granted. Why she was, day after day, year after present for decades. Even the titles of do we assume that it is OK to push a year, observing, glimpsing, listening, her many books, You Can’t Say You Can’t person aside or ignore someone not like recording, transcribing, and then Play (1992), The Boy Who Would Be A us? Why, without a second’s worry, can editing her thoughts, searching for Helicopter (1990), Mollie is Three (1986), we think that someone is way too odd themes and tensions, questioning a The Boy on the Beach (2010), offer first for words, or just pretty dumb? Is it only move she had made, wondering about clues to the distinctiveness of her lens reasonable, only natural, to assume that a conversation between her students and to the quirky beauty of what she it’s our call to choose those with whom she had overheard or an interaction has offered us. we want to spend any time? Paley, in (all of those most sacred impromptu her own way, was always teasing us into dramas and their unfolding) she had My own introduction to “Mrs. Paley” thinking that, yes, life could be different. witnessed, probing her assumptions, was of her as the mom of a dear college trying out something new — knowing friend, David Paley (“Pale”). Dinner at Years ago (before she was named a (and the books kept coming!) that there the Paley’s (always including the rather MacArthur Fellow in 1989), we invited was no end in sight to a process of cold and formal “Mr. Paley,” who, Vivian Paley to SUNY Empire State reflection-on-practice that often pushed stunningly to me, died only weeks College to meet with our students. SUNY EMPIRE STATE COLLEGE • ALL ABOUT MENTORING • ISSUE 53 • SPRING 2020 3 her back to her own early life and to her answers — we are often desperate to Some Work by Vivian Gussin Paley experiences with her immigrant parents. provide that individual student with The boy on the beach (2010). Chicago, IL: Paley wanted us to know — to really the academic and personal support we The University of Chicago Press. feel — that nothing is easy: there know she needs — that she deserves. is always discomfort; we’re always The kindness of children (1999). Taken together, Mrs. Paley’s impressive grappling with what we