ALL ABOUT �

MENTORINGA PUBLICATION OF SUNY EMPIRE STATE COLLEGE Issue 39 • Spring 2011 ALL ABOUT MENTORING ABOUT ALL

Issue 39 • Spring 2011 Spring • 39 Issue

2 Union Ave. Saratoga Springs, NY 12866-4390 518-587-2100 www.esc.edu

Printed by SUNY Empire State College Print Shop ALL ABOUT MENTORING

issue 39 spring 2011

Alan Mandell College Professor of Adult Learning and Mentoring Editor Karen LaBarge Faculty Development Projects “It is important to listen. My most frequent mistake Coordinator is trying to impose my point of view or other personal Associate Editor Gael Fischer expectation on a multifaceted world. When we set Designer out to improve life for others without a fundamental Debra Park understanding of their point of view and quality of Copy Editor experience, we do more harm than good. Often, little p h o t o g r a p h y Photos courtesy of Stock Studios, more is required than to listen. The best change is one and faculty and staff of that enables those with plugged ears to hear what the SUNY Empire State College, unless otherwise noted. so-called ‘voiceless’ have been voicing all along.” Cover image Carol Warner, “The Best of Everything,” 2006, mixed-media room installation. Lauren Reichelt, “Making Polarization a Last Resort,” p r o d u c t i o n Kirk Starczewski Tikkun, winter 2011, p. 63 � Director of Publications Ron Kosiba Print Shop Supervisor Janet Jones Keyboard Specialist 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 to: Gail Stanback who provided valuable help for Justin Giordano’s piece, “Music in Our Times” (p. 15-16) in All About Mentoring 38. Mary Folliet for Judt research and reflection. Yvonne Murphy for ongoing help and insight. Jacque Dixon for last-minute aid. 1

Table of Contents

Editorial – The Expertise of Humility ...... 2 My Lost Stories ...... 55 Alan Mandell Steve Lewis, Hudson Valley Center

Imagination and Art: Children Cope with War ...... 3 Reflections on a Journey of Learning to Adjust My Blind Spot 57 Judith Gerardi, Metropolitan Center and Heidi Nightengale, Central New York Center Center for International Programs A Teacher Reflects: Learning About Student Leadership . . . . .59 Mentoring: A Poet’s View ...... 11 Dianne Ramdeholl, The Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Susan Jefts, Center for Distance Learning Center for Labor Studies

Educating the Digital Citizen in the 21st Century ...... 13 Making Sense of Mexico: 1975-2010, Part I ...... 60 Nicola Marae Martinez, Center for Distance Learning Chris Rounds, Central New York Center

Three Poems ...... 20 Found Things: Chansak Suwanchaichinda, Long Island Center Empire State College Objectives ...... 65 Debra Monte, Center for Distance Learning “Goin’ Mobile”: Designing for Mobility in Networked Social Spaces Changing Ways of Knowing for Transitioning Women ...... 21 A Review of a Special Issue of Open Learning 25(3), Jo Jorgenson, Rio Salado College Mobile Learning: Using Portable Technologies to Create New Learning ...... 69 “So They Will Honor You as a Human Being”: Indigenous Thomas P. Mackey, Center for Distance Learning Knowledge and the Practice of Mentoring ...... 26 Jeffrey P. Lambe, Long Island Center “Music never stops; it is we who turn away” A Review of Dear Maxine: Letters from the Unfinished Upstream Gallery Exhibit, “Collaboration is the Theme” . . . .28 Conversation with Maxine Greene, Edited by Robert Lake . . . 73 Mara Mills and Celest Woo, Hudson Valley Center Tina Wagle, School for Graduate Studies Yvonne Murphy, Central New York Center Mindy Kronenberg, Long Island Center Adult Education and Politics A Review of The Struggle for Democracy in Adult Education, Blended Learning Online: New Perspectives and Practices . . . .31 Edited by Dianne Ramdeholl, Tania Giordani, Thomas Heaney Sheila Marie Aird and Mary V. Mawn, and Wendy Yanow ...... 75 Center for Distance Learning Richard Wells, The Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies The Haiku Maker ...... 34 Robert Congemi, Northeast Center Innovation, Disruption and Higher Education: Is There a Road Map for the Future? � Mentoring: A Social Relationship, An Academic Partnership . . 41 A Review of Works by Clayton Christensen ...... 78 � John M. Beckem II, Center for Distance Learning Christopher Whann, Metropolitan Center

Interiors – Installations ...... 43 Honoring George Drury (1917-2010): Carol Warner, Metropolitan Center Reflections From Colleagues ...... 83 Jim Anderson, Ken Cohen, Lloyd Lill and Wayne Willis, Lessons of War ...... 47 Genesee Valley Center Elaine Handley and Claudia Hough, Northeast Center Core Values of Empire State College ...... 86 Education and Individualism: Some Notes, Some Questions . . 53 Carla R. Payne, Union Institute and University, and Community College of Vermont

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 2

and expansion of what is “scholarly,” but, had a question about it, or trying to just e d i t o r i a l bottom line, even as so-called “mentors,” hang in there to find the learning we sense we just didn’t want to give it all up. We’re is lurking somewhere in a student’s work scholars – of some sort – damn it! experience, or going back and forth, and then again, with a group of colleagues in an We have learned that the qualities and effort to revamp some procedural matter, expressions of meaningful mentorial or staring at a screen struggling to find just expertise at our college (and at other the right phrase to capture our judgment colleges with core values similar to ours) are about the outcome of a student’s work? incredibly hard to articulate and, for sure, Do we genuinely take these activities to to regularly practice. And our difficulties be part of our scholarly lives? Do we ever are only made rougher by the slippery imagine in our heart-of-hearts that they are terrain of taken-for-granted assumptions appropriately academic and carrying them about the glow of the professor-as-expert. out is an expression of our expertise? It’s just not so easy to surrender, especially when confronted by the not so distant fear Our challenge is not to draw ever-finer that such a scholarly construction is all distinctions between teaching, service and that stands in the way of the loss of any scholarship because even within such an The Expertise kind of academic identity. When we’re ingrained tripartite model, we know that frightened, we desperately grab onto a more there is already a tacit hierarchy. Our of Humility conventional ideal. dilemma also cannot be reduced to one of workload, although without doubt, we have The question, however, shouldn’t go away: been bitten by this menace and its legacy “Nobody sticks a finger in an electric fan How, every day, sitting face to face with of unfairness for years. I’d argue that the to see what will happen. Conversely, a student or being online, or working with expertise of mentoring (in as much as we we have all we can think about.” a group, or taking a call – how, in any honor it at all) plays second fiddle because of these forms, can we – should we, as John Ashbery, “Zymurgy,” it is our own version of “care work,” a mentors – display what we know? As an in Planisphere, 2009 fantastic blend of the cognitive and the experimenting college, shouldn’t there be affective, a kind of experiential-emotional- an experimenting expertise? e depend on our expertise. intellectual labor that has been historically Indeed, we calibrate the degree I’d say this: The professorial strut is demeaned (so often as “women’s work”), W to which, in any given situation, tantalizing. Faculty pass along what they but is personally enriching, socially valuable our expertise is acknowledged, exercised, claim to know, develop curricula and and intellectually complex. deepened. And we worry, with good reason, whole programs based on their authority, Yes, of course, deskilling continues to occur about the myriad ways in which what we produce research that assures their pedigree, in many areas of labor (teaching at all think we do best is ignored, denigrated or and are rewarded for their single-minded levels included), but we shouldn’t confuse just plain thinned out. Why learn all that commitment to their scholarly vocation. deskilling with the true skills necessary to we have learned if we’re not even given the Professors are deemed authentic; they take carry out a complex and difficult faculty space, the time, the encouragement to strut pride in and expect recognition for their role and the deep learning demanded to our stuff? labors and fight for their time. do it well. We shouldn’t use our fantasy Yet, from the very start, Empire State And I’d also say this: The mentorial strut of the professorial strut as the criterion to College has been confused about what is harder to recognize let alone act on, judge an on-goingly experimental mentoring legitimate strutting should be all about. exactly because the lure of the professorial expertise that rests much more on our What kind of strutting, if any, is appropriate is so strong. Can it ever be that responding nuanced responses to not knowing, to our for mentors to do? We didn’t come to to a student’s difficulty in organizing her commitment to listening, and, overall, to a this place, did we, to become the kinds thoughts, or confusion about what new tradition of strong academic caring, than to of experts we would be if we were on the studies he should take up, or worries about the arrogance of claiming “I know it and faculty at a Research I institution, or even how her kids are responding to her many you surely don’t.” Our distinctive mentoring at a more conventional four-year liberal hours in front of the computer – that we strut is one that, in a most intricate turn, arts school? But, at the same time, did we truly believe that attention to these matters embeds our expertise in humility – a expect to be mired in what some feel to has real academic significance? How about humility that we have to nurture together. be the daily drudgeries of a new fangled searching for an article with a student on a version of Melville’s famous scrivener? Yes, topic with which we’re not familiar because of course, we appreciated Boyer’s revision that student mentioned in passing that he Alan Mandell

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 3

Imagination and Art: Children Cope with War

Judith Gerardi, Metropolitan Center and Center for International Programs

hildhood and warfare symbolize of the imagined world of fantasy are being. This first way in which imagination opposing ends of life experience. compromised during extreme threat, operates during war, then, is centered on self C We cringe when the two occur including war. Danger restricts physical expression. It facilitates emotional release together, as they increasingly do. Bewildered exploration of the actual environment. It and the preservation of the child’s sense of children make efforts to lead a child’s life as also can restrict mental exploration of the individuality. they are faced with militia attacks, bombs, imagined environment. Imagination often deportations, and continuing loss and fails to contribute to healthy psychological Mental Exploration change. Powerless adults make efforts to coping when the individual’s psychological The second way in which imagination protect children and to see them as having energy is focused on survival and cannot provides an antidote to restrictions of a normal future, actively pursuing those offer an emotional release or a means of place, psychological coping through mental goals in the midst of war, deprivation, and creating mental solutions to the chaos of exploration, allows the child to entertain continued threat and likely death. While bombardment, deprivation and loss. Instead, solutions in fantasy that are not possible children often weather armed conflict fantasy becomes restricted, dominated by to her in the real world. This possibility is remarkably well, it is not without worry, efforts to psychologically tolerate extreme severely restricted by the physical danger terror, frightening thoughts, and uncertainty physical and emotional upheaval. In and emotional tension of war, which about their future. Who are these children effect, imagination gets stuck, unable to threaten the typical ways that children’s and how can we understand their experience satisfactorily aid ego development. imaginations serve their psychological and psychological reality? How do they Yet imagination also has the potential to well-being and mental life. However, when psychologically cope with living in a war retain its role in healthy mental exploration, imagination continues to operate more zone? Both surviving victims and those who the focus of this paper. The use of freely, it can provide an alternative to the perished report to us through their diaries, imagination operates in two interrelated reality of war. The child can continue to essays and drawings. This paper addresses ways in relation to compensating for explore possibilities in her imagination their drawings, a means for self expression the restricted physical exploration of the that are unavailable in the danger of a war and, often, coping with extreme danger. child’s environment that is associated zone. I will give examples of drawings that In their drawings, children express with life in a war zone. First, it allows self illustrate these points. themselves nonverbally in ways that often expression. The child can create a world are more natural for them than are words. that he controls, one in which he can find Children’s Psychological Experience They enter their inner world as they draw emotional release, take on new and different of War: The Drawings and can usually achieve a level of truth roles, and express his innermost reactions The drawings presented and discussed in this that reflects their reality. Further, since the and thoughts. Second, for some children, paper were created by children aged 6 to 14 communication does not rely on a particular imagination allows mental exploration that during four different wars spanning close language, the child’s voice can speak to begins to address psychological coping. to 70 years, from the Spanish Civil War any viewer. While individual and cultural (1936-1939) to Darfur (2003-2010), thus meanings cannot be interpreted from the Self Expression representing different time periods, regions drawing alone, the child’s primary reality The first way in which imagination provides and world cultures. They show disturbing as presented in the drawing is usually clear. an antidote to restrictions of place brings similarities, including portrayals of Freed from the limitations of language, we the child beyond the miserable, limiting, explosions, destroyed structures, mutilated can read children’s drawings to learn about dangerous world of war so that he can and dead people, family, dislocation, and a shared experience of events that may be create the world that he needs. In that monsters. They show the mayhem of separated by time and location. War is such world, he can freely engage in mental attempting to escape the assaults. This is an event. exploration of his observations and what children see, and it continues. I believe An important aspect of healthy thoughts. The child finds that he can create that you will be struck by the common psychological development is free and occupy a visual representation of his experience visually reported by these exploration of the actual environment psychological reality. Against a background children. The drawings selected for this and the one beyond it, the imagined or of group suffering and powerlessness, paper were placed in five groups: transition hypothetical environment of fantasy. imagination provides affirmation in the form Both exploration of day-to-day life and of recognition of the child artist’s individual

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 4 from peace to war and homes under aerial and death. She attack, escape, fear, coping, and anger skillfully presents directed at the enemy. a complex and nuanced scene, Transition from Peace to War showing her ability to render scale The first set of children’s drawings, depicting and proportion. homes and surrounding areas under attack, The pretty sturdy are representative of many such drawings. buildings evoke They show air bombardment, face-to- stability; the mother face combat, street bombs, and damaged and child pairs buildings and people. Whether home is evoke trust and mud, thatch, wood, cement or brick, the care. The child artist drawings show remarkably similar scenes of surely intended to air and ground attacks. The viewer is drawn show innocence, Drawing 2: Croatia, “Mama, Wait for Me.” Boy, age 11, c. 1991. into the scene, to the child’s clear depiction unawareness of the of his crumbled world. The drawings the home with its shattered and dislodged threat that, in fact, has taken place around make it unhappily easy to enter the child’s windows. Another bomb is on a trajectory the corner. The picture centers on a child psychological reality: loss of the assumed toward a child’s swing, as if symbolic of mid-page under a substantial verdant tree, safety of home. attack on the child and childhood pleasure. covering her eyes, suggesting the wish to During the Spanish Civil War in the late not see or accept what is happening around The next transitional illustration was drawn 1930s, young Spaniards were evacuated to her. This drawing is a particularly fine by a child from Darfur in 2005 (unknown children’s colonies elsewhere in Spain or illustration of the changed world faced age and sex) and again contains air and in neighboring France, away from active by children in war and of the dawning ground attacks. In this drawing, the scene violence, where they attended school awareness of the threat and what has been is broader as if viewed from a distance and and drew pictures. One such child was a and will be lost. includes many huts and people. (Drawing 3) 13-year-old girl, who drew a transitional Another transitional drawing similarly The roughly drawn huts and stick figure moment from peace to war. Drawing 1 shows normal life and its family bonds people stand in contrast to the more detailed depicts a peaceful town under aerial attack, juxtaposed to aerial attack, damaged bombers and ground attack vehicles, as if mothers walking holding a child’s hand, two buildings and victims. Drawn during the to emphasize the overpowering assault, the wounded or dead among the neat buildings, wars in Yugoslavia (1991-1995) by an extent of damage, and the entire village one building shattered, and a child covering 11-year-old boy from Zagreb, Croatia, it having been victimized. Children often draw her eyes. is titled “Mama, Wait for Me.” A bomber disturbing objects in greater detail than The child artist captures the new reality in dominates the scene with a bomb below it other parts of their pictures. (Drawing 3) great detail, juxtaposing orderliness and on a direct trajectory to mother and child Drawings 1-3 represent increasing human care and attachment with destruction who are walking away from the yard and dominance of wartime assaults. Drawing 1 shows the contrast of peace and attack in a small town. Drawing 2 shows an aerial attack on a house that surely is meant to be the child artist’s. Drawing 3 shows the rampant bombing of an entire village in Darfur, Southern Sudan. Another Darfur drawing shows a family’s escape, which eventually brought them to a camp in Chad. Drawing 4 by a 9-year-old girl from Darfur shows victims holding each other. This drawing of escape emphasizes connection among family members. The child artist explained what she drew as people running from the Janjaweed, guns, planes and bombs “all together.” “All of us – my family – we were screaming and running from the Janjaweed … holding each other by the arms to keep together. Here in camp we Drawing 1: Spain, Girl, age 13, 1937-38. are safe, but my father … was lost.” At the

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 5

Drawing 3: Darfur, 2005.

“All of us … holding each other by the arms to keep together. Here in camp we are safe, but my father … was lost.”

~Nine-year-old Darfur girl

Drawing 4: Darfur, Girl, age 9, 2005. lower left, the child has drawn what appears that it illustrates the emotional importance to be a member of the Janjaweed, roaming of family. Mental health workers and armed groups in Sudan’s Darfur region and researchers typically find that family or elsewhere. The figure is drawn in fuller community support can be associated with detail than the terrified victims. resilience and psychological survival. “ … All of us … holding each other by Drawing 5a: Spain, “Evacuation” c. 1937. Escape the arms to keep together. Here in camp we are safe, but my father … was lost.” The paired drawings The comparative lack of detail in the numbered 5a and 5b rendering of the victims puts in high relief show stunningly similar the primacy of human connection, as evacuations from internal seen in the figures holding each other, as armed conflict in Spain and if constituting one mass. In this example, the former Yugoslavia – we can see that drawing gives children a events separated by over means for processing the catastrophe that 50 years. befell them, bringing potential benefits. In each, we see children For example, it can get the fear out of the boarding vehicles to a child’s mind by objectifying it on the page; safe destination as parents this is a beginning, a foundation for later look on. The weight of understanding. If it’s out there, it can be separation and the unknown examined. Drawing 4 also is interesting in future are clear. Drawing 5b: Croatia, “Evacuation” c. 1991.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 6

in laying a foundation for coping The child artists whose work is seen in with the dreaded reality. Thus, both Drawings 6 and 7 both seem focused on emotional well-being and dealing uncontrolled threat. Yet, it is actually with realities can be bolstered positive that these children objectified the through art, through the child’s overwhelming threat present in the war own drawings. In this section, I zone. The ghosts and monsters were created present drawings illustrating fear by them and served them by focusing their and the different ways that children attention on specific objects rather than on of war express it. a generalized unease in their actual world. This is a first step in coping. Drawings 6 and 7 show two Croatian children’s fantasy Other children drew fear in a more personal representations of their fear, or interior way, with human beings as the transforming it into an object of central figures, perhaps forcing the viewer Drawing 6: Croatia, “Ghosts and Skeletons in My their own creation. Drawing 6 (c. to recognize that it is a child experiencing Closet,” Girl, age 12, c. 1991. 1991) by a 12-year-old Croatian the emotions that were put on paper. The girl, who titled it “Ghosts and depiction of fear in Drawing 8 by a 6-year- Skeletons in My Closet,” brings old Serbian girl is particularly raw. The fear into her familiar place that figure seems to hang in space, laid bare. once was safe – her home. In the form of skeleton/mummy- like figures, evil enters through windows or from a closet, leaving blood on the floor. The threat is all around and continues to invade the child’s private space. The viewer feels the closeness of the threat to the child’s psychological reality. The danger shown in Drawing 7, by Drawing 7: Croatia, “Fear,” Boy, age 12, c. 1991. an 11-year-old Croatian boy, is immediate and overwhelming, Fear as made evident by the monster In addition to rendering memories of taking in excess of half the page and being Drawing 8: Serbia, “Fear in Me,” Girl, the horrors of enemy attacks and their more defined than the human figures. The age 6, c. 1991. experience of escape, children of war draw enormous dark-eyed sharp-toothed monster their fears, often in the form of animals, attacks people who are monsters and supernatural symbols such as drawn both smaller ghosts. Fear consumes children during the and in less detail. The extreme threat of war and recognizing it and emotional dominance making it the subject of one’s artwork can of danger and fear be helpful. as represented by the monster also is seen Children’s depictions of their fears are clear in the use of stark and communicate easily to us, the viewers. and varied colors, in Such drawings form an important vehicle contrast to duller and within which children can tap and express less varied colors of their emotional life. Externalizing emotions people. The white of in some way can allow a child to release the paper is the only some tension, can make a chaotic fearful background. This lack situation more understandable by bringing of context or scene meaning to it, can make part of the threat creates a sense of more manageable and allow the child to being overwhelmed, of see herself as in control of some part of the unbound fear. danger and terror, and can be a key element Drawing 9: Terezin Concentration Camp, Girl, age 6, 1942-44.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 7

The child artist’s title for her drawing, of other inmates being taken elsewhere specific object which may allow the fear “Fear in Me,” is a miserable and poignant within the complex when accused of minor to be focused, allowing the child to release description of the helpless stunned figure. transgressions against the rules of the psychological energy that is needed to concentration camp. confront life in a war zone. Clearer steps in Similar to Drawing 8, Drawing 9, by the direction of coping are seen in Drawings another 6-year-old girl, an inmate in the These five portrayals of fear, Drawings 6-10, 11-13, where imagination becomes an ally Terezin concentration camp in World War illustrate different ways that children used in living with fear and danger. II, is stark and shows raw terror. This their art creations to relieve anxiety during pencil drawing of two girls, a large flower, wartime. Drawings 6 and 7 objectified Like “Ghosts and Skeletons in My Closet” a smaller flower, grass and the sun is the feared thing in the form of monsters (Drawing 6) in the “Fear” section above,

Drawing 10: Terezin, Girl, age 13-14, 1942-1944. Drawing 11: Croatia, “My Vukovar,” Girl, age 13, c. 1991. contained within a three-sided frame drawn or supernatural figures, the child artist “My Vukovar” (Drawing 11) by a 13-year- by the child artist. The line quality seems constructing a specific focus on which to old Croatian girl, depicts a feared object, light, but a digitally archived copy at the project emotional turmoil. Drawings 8-10 in this case, a menacing animal on its hind Jewish Museum in Prague reveals stronger, suggested a personal and interior reaction legs. This contrasts with Drawing 6, where firmer, darker lines. In that copy, it is more with the child artist using humans as the feared object is a supernatural figure, apparent that the child drew a three sided central figures. In either approach, drawing something magical and hard to control. frame around her drawing, as if to try to provides the child with an emotional outlet, Being a familiar and recognizable object, the contain her fear. The girls and the sun have the release of tension, and a step toward animal, although vicious, is more real and grid-like teeth, as if clenched in fear. This seeing herself in control of some part of the perhaps potentially manageable. very young child attempts a quite detailed danger that she and her family have been The fear is embodied and under the control drawing. The detailed teeth suggest their facing. Drawing the fear casts the child artist of the artist who created it. She drew it. importance to her emotional experience. as a person of action. She decides what to Despite bright or harsh colors, which may draw and how to draw it. That is a first step A teenage girl in Terezin, age about 13 or14, suggest raw emotional explosiveness, the in regaining control of chaos. The next step drew a girl with raised fists and large double child artist shows complex planning and is to explore ways to deal with the danger doors in the background. Like Drawings 8 thought in her drawing. Taken together, and cope with the psychological threat to and 9, it is quite interior and raw. Attention these two aspects of the drawing show the mental health. Drawing can constitute such to the fists suggests their importance to the viewer a way in which emotion and thought a next step. child artist. Like Drawing 8, the human may work together to form an avenue to figure is the focus of Drawing 10, which is a psychological coping. Psychological Coping similarly stark presentation of all-consuming Drawing 12 by a 12-year-old girl in Terezin fear, here with anger or frustration added. The previous examples of self expression is based on a standard fairy tale, “The The double doors may portray a barrier and emotional release in children’s war Sorcerer and the Golden-Haired Girl,” against the horror that lies behind them. drawings revealed how drawing could lay and depicts a threatening animal/monster. There were heavy wooden doors of this sort a foundation for psychological coping. However, in her imagination and drawing, in the Terezin camp, and people were aware For example, depicting monsters creates a

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 8 the child artist shields herself from the Drawings 11 and 12 both draw on differences in coping reflect the ways in monster by encasing the figure of the girl in imagination to express threat and explore which one medium, drawing pictures, can a protected space. how to cope with fear. Drawing 11 houses meet varying preferred psychological styles. the threatening animal in a “real” scene of One is more tied to reality, the other more In her drawing, she could protect herself destruction to which the child artist gives to fantasy. from danger. The child artist demonstrated her town’s name, my Vukovar, making a way to cope with real threat through A more agentic approach to handling the it clear that the child artist is specifically imagination – by creating a barrier psychological impact of war is seen in depicting her town. Drawing 12 is a fantasy between the innocence of the golden- Drawing 13 by a 12-year-old girl who had without background, as if we are entering haired girl and the horror of the monster. been evacuated to the safety of a children’s the child’s imagination. These individual relocation colony during the Spanish Civil War. Moving beyond the construction of a protective shield in her fantasy, the young artist drew a child taming a monster, which she clearly identifies as the enemy through a swastika, the symbol of her oppressor’s ally. She depicts a boy taking an ax to the monster and thus taking control of the threat. This is an example of active coping through art. The child takes initiative in fantasy; she is the agent of action. That is a very strong means of coping. It also is interesting that the background of this scene is idyllic: hills, trees, an altogether pleasant picture interrupted by the war monster.

Anger Coping can take place in the form of Drawing 12: Terezin, “Sorcerer and the Golden-Haired Girl,” Girl, age 12, expressing and directing anger. Drawings 1942-44. 14 and 15 are two such examples from the Spanish Civil War. Drawing 14, by a 12-year-old boy, is dominated in the foreground by fists raised against the bombers in the sky. Drawing 15, by a 12-year-old girl, shows the militia fighting the enemy. It is captioned: “This drawing shows the militiamen who are at the front and who attack Fascist airplanes.” Like Drawing 13 of the child walking a leashed animal, Drawing 15 illustrates taking charge, a psychological protective factor for child mental health during war. The history of the Spanish Civil War could support these children being more likely than other child war victims to entertain Drawing 13: Spain, Girl, age 12, 1937-38. the possibility of taking charge, seeing it modeled by adults. For example, adults made children safe by evacuating them to children’s residences distant from active conflict (in this case, a location in France) where they lived a relatively familiar and ordinary life. The Spanish Civil War drawings often reflect factors identified as psychologically protective by Apfel and Drawing 14: Spain, Boy, age 12, Drawing 15: Spain, Girl, age 12, Simon (1996), including the value of adult 1937-38. 1937-38.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 9 support, caregivers being in actual control of intense attention from both children and This makes available to the child the the children’s daily life, and having a group adults. Child artwork offers a possibility discordant elements which had disturbed her goal that drives the war or conflict. for meeting these two psychological needs. understanding of what she perceived. It can offer emotional release, for example, Children also can depict imagined scenes of How Art Supports Children by locating fear in a dreaded object such as defeating the enemy. Two drawings from the in War Zones a monster, creating frightened self portraits, Spanish Civil War collection demonstrate or by depicting explosions and destruction. Drawings from the Spanish Civil War (1936- this approach. In Drawing 13, the enemy It can affirm individuality by providing a 1939) to the present, a period of over 70 portrayed as an animal is actually leashed means for the creation of one’s own unique years, show that through the visual arts, and under a child’s control. In Drawing 15, personal world on paper, preserving a sense children illustrate and bring meaning to their enemy airplanes are targeted. These uses of self, of being “me,” the person of action, experience of war. The act of drawing taps of art for mental exploration illustrate the who makes the picture. imagination, which is a vital developmental potential value to the child of a preferred expression and tool throughout childhood In the early 1940s, Jewish children deported personal story, explanation or wish. This that helps support the child’s effort to make to the World War II concentration camp can be soothing to a threatened child. sense of the world in which she lives and Terezin, northwest of Prague, drew over Children’s war drawings selected for this her place in it. It can be of particular value 7,000 pictures under the direction of a paper illustrate the clear ability of children to children as they try to make sense of fellow inmate, the artist and teacher Friedl to depict what they see and recall, create their experience of living in a war zone. In Dicker-Brandeis. Milton (2001) addresses visual representations of their war-based addition to artwork providing a means for the way in which such child artwork was fears, and use the medium as an ally in their finding comfort and achieving a level of able to alleviate the constant awareness effort to use their minds and imagination to understanding of the catastrophe of war, it of adults and children that their lives envision and cope with the atrocities that can provide a means for the child to express were under the complete control of their they have witnessed. inner turmoil and explore ways to cope with captors. She argues that in Terezin, Dicker- threats to her psychological well-being. How Brandeis used art as an outlet for children’s References does this work? imaginations and as an escape “enabling them to gain control of their own personal Apfel, R. J., & Simm, B. (1996). Minefields First, child art achieves self expression and space and time” (p. 30). That is, controlling in their hearts: The mental health of its components: emotional release and a a part of one’s life, what one draws, shows children in war and communal violence. sense of one’s individuality. Second, child children that they remain vital and capable, New Haven, CT: Yale. art can provide a means of coping through an alternative perception to the reality of mental exploration of imagined solutions to Associazione Volontari Per Il Servizio having all aspects of their lives determined extremely threatening events. Internazionale (AVSI) et al. (1998). by the enemy in charge of the concentration Where is my home? Children in war. camp. These children were provided Self Expression and Affirmation Kampala: AVSI: Gulu Support the moments of freedom to explore themselves of Individuality Children Organisation (GUSCO): Red and their inner world. They also signed Barnet: United Nations Children’s Fund An important characteristic of child art is their artwork, which recognized agency, the (UNICEF): World Vision. that it is not tied to language. A child can exercise of individual will, of being effective express confusion and fear nonverbally. in having an impact on the material world. Fox, C. (2001, Dec. 16). Artist gave hope to Huxley (1939) writes of drawings by those children during Holocaust, Visual Arts evacuated to the safety of children’s camps Mental Exploration Review. Retrieved from http://www. during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939): jewishatlanta.org/page.aspx?id=26053 With art materials, children can re-envision “Their drawings are more eloquent than their world in ways that portray time- Gangi, J.M., and Barowsky, E. (2009, their words, better than their syntax (n.p.).” separated events and confusing experiences. August). Listening to children’s voices: Of Sudanese child refugees, the Associazione For example, drawings can combine Literature and the arts as means Volontari per il Servizio Internazionale elements of the child’s life before war with of responding to the effects of war, (AVSI) (1998) reported that drawing was life under attack. Drawing 1 showed a terrorism, and disaster. Childhood part of the recovery process: “The words transitional moment: a peaceful town under Education, 85(6), 357-364. and drawings flow from what is uppermost aerial attack, mothers walking holding a in their minds; they receive no direction Huxley, A. (1939). Introduction, They still child’s hand, two wounded or dead among (n.p.).” draw pictures. Southworth Spanish the neat buildings, one building shattered, a Civil War Collection, Mandeville The child’s psychological needs for child covering her eyes. It is an illustration Special Collections Library, University emotional release and affirmation of of the child selecting elements that are of California, San Diego. Retrieved individuality are given little room during incongruent, in this case, peace and aerial from http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/ the chaos of war when avoiding danger attacks, which can form a step in meaning- tsdp/ and meeting basic physical needs demand making by first portraying the incongruency.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 10

Milton, S.H. (2001). Art in the context of Drawing 5a: Retrieved from http://orpheus. Drawing 10: Volavkova, H. (1993). … I Theresienstadt. In A.D. Dutlinger (Ed.), ucsd.edu/speccoll/tsdp never saw another butterfly: Children’s Art, music and education as strategies drawings and poems from Terezin Drawing 5b: Grant, J.P. (1994). I dream for survival: Theresienstadt 1941-1945 concentration camp, 1942-44. New of peace: Images of war by children (pp. 10-59). New York, NY: Herodias. York, NY: Schocken. of former Yugoslavia. New York, NY: Wix, L. (2009). Aesthetic empathy in UNICEF. Drawing 11: Grant, J.P. (1994). I dream teaching art to children: The work of of peace: Images of war by children Drawing 6: Grant, J.P. (1994). I dream of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis in Terezin. Art of former Yugoslavia. New York, NY: peace: Images of war by children of Therapy: Journal of the American Art UNICEF. former Yugoslavia. New York, NY: Therapy Association, 26(4), 152-158. UNICEF. Drawing 12: Staatliches Judisches Museum in Prag. (1983). Kinderzeichnungen Drawings Drawing 7: Grant, J.P. (1994). I dream of aus dem Konzentrationslager peace: Images of war by children of Drawing 1: Retrieved from http://orpheus. Theresienstadt. Prague: Staatliches former Yugoslavia. New York, NY: ucsd.edu/speccoll/tsdp Judisches Museum Prag. UNICEF. Drawing 2: Grant, J.P. (1994). I dream of Drawing 13: Retrieved from http://orpheus. Drawing 8: Grant, J.P. (1994). I dream of peace: Images of war by children of ucsd.edu/speccoll/tsdp peace: Images of war by children of former Yugoslavia. New York, NY: former Yugoslavia. New York, NY: Drawing 14: Retrieved from http://orpheus. UNICEF. UNICEF. ucsd.edu/speccoll/tsdp Drawing 3: Retrieved from http://hrw.org/ Drawing 9: Volavkova, H. (1993). … I Drawing 15: Retrieved from http://orpheus. photos/2005/darfur/drawings/images never saw another butterfly: Children’s ucsd.edu/speccoll/tsdp and http://www.slate.com/id/2122730/ drawings and poems from Terezin Drawing 4: Retrieved from http://hrw.org/ concentration camp, 1942-44. New photos/2005/darfur/drawings/images York, NY: Schocken. and http://www.slate.com/id/2122730/

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 11

Mentoring: A Poet’s View

Susan Jefts, Center for Distance Learning

aybe it all comes down to poetry if I stop for a moment, can sometimes find it versus prose. The whispered dwelling between words, or in the patterns M or the spoken, the implied or of light and shadow across a counter. It is the stated. The more subtle light of evening the rest of the story, the unsaid words. It is versus the bright light of day. It’s hard to where poetry tends to live. live solidly in both worlds. I think most of It occurs to me that mentoring is a little like us have a preference for one or the other. Is this. So much of it is about how we choose it the difference between intuitive ways of to see. It can help to know if our natural perceiving and the more sensing, meaning way of seeing is by way of possibilities and via the five senses, way of perceiving? associations or in more of a sensing manner Sometimes it seems to be. Multitudes of of considering what is already there before colors, dimensions and possibilities versus us, and of what seems to make “sense.” the observable ones before us or known Our culture has us trained to perceive in in our minds. “I dwell in possibilities,” more of a practical and logical manner, Emily Dickinson said of poetry, “a fairer whatever our natural preference, and this house than prose.” This is not to say that can leave out a whole world of possibilities. prose isn’t colorful and full of dimension What I believe we (and our students) could and possibility – it often is. But poetry is benefit from when mentoring, is a conscious Susan Jefts unique in possessing that quality Octavio turning to the intuitive, associative parts of Paz calls “roots and wings.” It likes to fly to our minds, where we might dwell a little unchartered places, as well as dwell in the developing, but she was never sure. One day more in possibility. deep rootedness of the earth. It needs both, I decided to play with this, toss back to her and can have both, even in the same line. It is relatively easy, in many cases, to guide some of her own words and thoughts that students along toward developing degree included her interests in journalism, human But is it an and/or thing we’re talking plans with a minimal amount of deep services and philosophy. She had especially about? Don’t we have the capacity for both reflection on either of our parts. I find liked a philosophy class where they talked poetry and prose in our lives and the way that when I stop, however, even just for about how there are no absolute truths. we see? And isn’t there a need for both in a few minutes, and look at a degree plan We spent the next week emailing back and this world? There are days when I just want backward or forward or a bit upside down, forth about this idea and aspects of her three to go in a straight line. I have a list and I it can take on a new light. Often the clues interest areas. We explored what about them want to get it all done. If I stopped for every have been there all along. Something a she was drawn to and how writing relates stray atom or metaphor that wandered student once said in email, or a recurring to philosophy, and how writing relates to into my mind, the day would be shot. No word or phrase. Often they are the asides. mental health and community services. Then meetings attended, nothing mailed, no calls They don’t find their way to the center we progressed to considering different ways returned. I’d be a happy and creative, but because they seem unrelated at first, perhaps of combining some of these areas. disorganized, mess. Some days I need the illogical. This tends to be where the gems lie; set parameters and completion of prose. She said that from this process of exchanges in the odd juxtaposition of words or ideas Point A to point B with just a few detours. she felt a whole new world of possibilities that can lead to the most interesting and I can go like this for a while, maybe even a open up for her. She had not considered original places. week or two, but then something happens. I that there might be meaningful connections start to miss the subtleties and uncertainties I have been working with a student between her different interests. I suggested of life, and the turning of them into who started with a concentration title of she read about the area of interdisciplinary something – something of captured beauty, philosophy, but during her first few months studies that could help her translate these and not necessarily with purpose. It starts in as a student at the Center for Distance connections into a viable academic program. unlikely settings: a meeting at work, a call Learning, she occasionally mentioned her Over the next days, she shared a multitude from a student, or an exchange of money interests in human services and writing. of possible ideas, and of subpossibilities at the coffee shop. I become aware that From time to time, I would ask her how within them, things I would not have something is missing in these exchanges and she saw her concentration in philosophy thought of.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 12

Now, a few months later, this student has fun and joy that comes from the experience Or it can be in trying out new ways to chosen a focus and is progressing along in fuels both mentor and student and is well encourage students to find the phrases and her degree plan. I’ve learned from this and worth it, although I’m also aware our ideas that are lingering beneath the surface, a few other similar experiences that it can student loads prohibit us from doing this as waiting to be discovered and turned into be worth it to take the time to explore away often as we might like. Some students will something unique, and perhaps more deeply from the known degree path, which students respond to this exploring, and some won’t. reflective of who they are. Like poetry. often take as a way of default. I think the It can be in the timing or in the wording.

Center for Mentoring and Learning Faculty Reassignments

Katherine Jelly, Center for Mentoring and Learning

he Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) sponsors two faculty reassignments with the Center for Mentoring and Learning (CML) each year. These reassignments, funded by the Empire State College Foundation, support projects related to T mentoring, teaching and learning, and offer an opportunity for faculty to further their professional development and share their work with colleagues within and beyond Empire State College. Each reassignment provides a quarter-time release from regular mentoring responsibilities over a period of one year beginning and ending in July. We encourage applicants to discuss project ideas with the director of the Center for Mentoring and Learning, Katherine Jelly, the college professor of adult learning and mentoring, Alan Mandell, or members of the CML Advisory Board (for a listing of members, please visit http://cml.esc.edu/advisory_board). Applicants should also consult their deans early in the process of developing a proposal. After consulting his/her dean, the applicant submits the application along with a current curriculum vitae to the dean, who forwards these materials, accompanied by his/her recommendation, to OAA. Upon completion of the reassignment, the faculty member submits a report to the director of the Center for Mentoring and Learning, with copies to the dean and provost, regarding the outcomes of the project. In addition, we encourage faculty to publish this report in All About Mentoring. This year’s (2010-11) recipients are: Kate Forbes (Central New York Center) Frank Vander Valk (Center for Distance Learning) Diane Gal* (School of Graduate Studies) *funded through OAA but working with CML. Please see the CML website for descriptions of their projects at http://cml.esc.edu/programs/current_faculty_reassignments. This reassignment opportunity and details for applying are explained in the collegewide announcement from the provost’s office, “Sabbaticals, Reassignments and Other Faculty Development Applications.” Applications are due by Sept. 15, 2011.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 13

Educating the Digital Citizen in the 21st Century

Nicola Marae Martinez, Center for Distance Learning

I. Prologue to our ability to be informed digital citizens. In my course, Privacy, Security, Freedom: A headline caught my eye recently while Social Concerns for the 21st Century, we browsing a local bookstore. Foreign Affairs cover the implications of living in a world had a leading story titled: “The Political within digitally mediated surveillance; Power of Social Media: Communications technology tracking tools; dataveillance; Technology Will Help Promote Freedom but and a wide range of threats to privacy, it Might Take a While” (Shirky, 2011). One security and civil liberties. In addition to might have thought that the article referred researching these topics from philosophical, to current historic events taking place all policy analysis, legislative and current events over the Middle East and Africa, but in fact, perspectives, students debate the balance the article pre-dates recent uprisings and necessary to uphold individual privacy covers a wide range of political and social and civil liberties within an era of ongoing movements for which social media have security risks. The role of the student as been instrumental. The author points actor and agent, within various degrees out that: of autonomy, reveals the potential for the Since the rise of the Internet in the development of both personal and political autonomy as the course unfolds. Students early 1990s, the world’s networked Nicola Marae Martinez population has grown from the low comment on their learning: millions to the low billions. Over the • “After learning the information I have as for the educator. Instant access to news same period, social media have become learned in this course, I am eager to from a number of international sources a fact of life for civil society worldwide, make a difference either in how I vote, provides us with a deeper understanding involving many actors – regular citizens, what corporations I support, or even to of events and a variety of viewpoints. In activists, nongovernmental organizations, be more informed about our nation and addition, the ability to analyze, create telecommunications firms, software our government. I have really grown and disseminate content using a wide providers, governments … . (p. 28) to appreciate academic and scholarly range of social and digital media tools is Recent political uprisings with citizen sources. Our media and news stories have becoming a necessary literacy for the 21st protest in Tunisia, Egypt and other Middle such a slant on them that it’s difficult for century citizen. Emerging research, along Eastern countries reflect a new level of mass anyone to know the truth.” with increased interest from our students, mobilization using mobile and social media. • “Our group as a whole was introduced highlight the importance of educating for These media are shaping domestic and to some of the most complicated issues digital media literacy. foreign political agendas, affect our privacy facing citizens and government today. and security, and are changing the nature of We explored, analyzed, researched and II. Why Digital Media Literacy? individual autonomy and freedom. We have even debated acts of legislation, political According to the New Media Consortium entered an information era in which the and social commentary, not to mention Horizon Report for 2010 and 2011, teaching and learning of these media should philosophy. Our eyes were opened to “Digital media literacy continues its rise in be critically embedded in the educational the various issues facing modern society; importance as a key skill in every discipline program, with careful consideration given privacy, security, terrorism and cultural and profession” (p. 3). In fact, digital media to ethical, privacy and security concerns. awareness were only some of the topics literacy is consistently listed as the top Digital media literacy is a critical component we delved into.” challenge in this report on emerging trends of civil society in the 21st century. In a world in which our media is dominated and challenges in higher education. The One of my strong interests as an educator by a very small handful of new sources 2010 Horizon Report discusses the difficulty is to encourage autonomy among adult that provide the same account of events to of encouraging digital media literacy among learners. Understanding adult agency and subscribers, assessing alternative sources faculty as well as students. The primary autonomy are strong underlying themes in of news and information is essential. This difficulty is the problem of educating faculty my own scholarly work. In the 21st century, is where social media tools are becoming so that they feel prepared to share this agency and autonomy are intrinsically linked indispensable for the everyday citizen as well learning with students and to allow students

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 14 to research, create, disseminate and publish using these media. This lack of familiarity among faculty may lead to hesitation Essential Competencies of Digital and Media Literacy in adopting digital and social media for mentoring and learning. 1 . �ACCESS Finding and using media and technology tools skillfully and sharing appropriate and relevant information with others III. Defining Digital and 2 . �ANALYZE and EVALUATE Comprehending messages and using critical Media Literacy thinking to analyze message quality, veracity, credibility and point of view, In Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan while considering potential effects or consequences of messages of Action, author Renee Hobbs (2010) 3 . �CREATE Composing or generating content using creativity and confidence provides an excellent definition of digital in self-expression, with awareness of purpose, audience and composition and media literacy: techniques The term ‘digital and media literacy’ 4 . �REFLECT Applying social responsibility and ethical principles to one’s own is used to encompass the full range identity and lived experience, communication behavior and conduct of cognitive, emotional and social competencies that includes the use 5 . �ACT Working individually and collaboratively to share knowledge and solve of texts, tools and technologies; the problems in the family, the workplace and the community, and participating as skills of critical thinking and analysis; a member of a community at local, regional, national and international levels the practice of message composition and creativity; the ability to engage in reflection and ethical thinking; as well as active participation through IV. Digital Media Studies institutions, or extensive professional teamwork and collaboration. (p. 17) expertise in an artistic field. Some students Digital, social and new media studies Hobbs further defines digital and media are bringing both of these to the college, are growth areas attracting a changing literacy “as a constellation of life skills that and are ready to move immediately into demographic in arts and communications are necessary for full participation in our degree planning and undertake studies at concentrators at the Center for Distance media-saturated, information-rich society. an advanced level. These students share Learning. Academic area coordinators These include the ability to do the following: the common characteristic of having serving mentees in these areas are seeing previous studio training in an artistic genre, • Make responsible choices and access a rise in students who matriculate with sometimes at a very advanced level. They information by locating and sharing a large number of prior credits in arts, find themselves at a place in their career materials and comprehending information design and media studies, with a need for where they must either prepare for a career and ideas advanced-level studies in their concentration, transition or acquire new, advanced skills • Analyze messages in a variety of forms and an interest in digital and new media. and knowledge that will position them by identifying the author, purpose and There were 204 combined admissions favorably for future opportunities. Many point of view, and evaluating the quality application inquiries for the areas of arts of these students are requesting new studies and credibility of the content and communication (at CDL) between June in digital arts and media. Most of them and November 2010, a number that reflects need to take these studies at an advanced • Create content in a variety of forms, the strongest area of interest for potential level, including a capstone course in their making use of language, images, sound, concentrators among the areas of The Arts, concentration. and new digital tools and technologies Cultural Studies, Historical Studies and • Reflect on one’s own conduct and Educational Studies.1 As an academic area coordinator at the communication behavior by applying Center for Distance Learning, my role The rising interest in digital media studies social responsibility and ethical principles includes being a mentor and supervising reflects an ongoing interest from the general adjunct instructors teaching sections of • Take social action by working education student seeking digital and media the courses under my purview. One of individually and collaboratively to literacy skills, as well as a new group of the difficulties encountered working with share knowledge and solve problems in students needing advanced studies in digital instructors is that they have different levels the family, workplace and community, media topics. Previously, CDL courses of skills and knowledge of emerging media and by participating as a member of a in the arts, digital media, and media and and technology. I recently participated in community.”(p. vii) communications were designed to serve the a significant revision of a digital art and Hobbs’s report proposes the following general education student seeking to fulfill design course, which included the addition competencies of digital media literacy requirements. Our new mentees are arriving of ethical, legal, policy and social aspects of (p. 19): at CDL with either a large number of digital design, as well as the incorporation of transcript credits in the arts from previous social media as tools used by the students in

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 15 their learning activities. In the case of digital technologies for teaching and learning How might this translate into working media studies receiving significant revision, in higher education without succumbing with a student in face-to-face, blended or the largest problem we face is not in helping to the appeal of the shiniest new trend fully online studies? The following studies students master new tools and incorporate of the moment. Another is assessing the include most, if not all, of the practices them into their learning; it is, rather, the effectiveness of these degrees of literacy, that may be applied using both individual necessity of helping instructors prepare to ensuring that they are not taught to the and group activities. Note that rather than teach courses that include new and social detriment of deep learning in meaningful keeping a diary, students are presenting their media. More often than not, the issues topics, and providing learning experiences reflections in blog format or using other that arise are related to the assessment of that are rich in opportunities for research digital and social media environments. learning within this new media environment. and the development of critical thinking. A Student transgressions with regard to the key strategy for encouraging digital media Digital Storytelling use of the media are rarely technical. They literacy is to place a strong emphasis on Students in Digital Storytelling master at often occur due to the blurred lines between acquiring the skill of learning to learn, least one new tool every two to three weeks. ethical uses of media, intellectual property which is congruent with our commitment In a distance learning environment, they do rights, and the tension between “common to serving lifelong learners. Hobbs offers not receive one-to-one tutorial assistance as practices” and “academic expectations.” the following chart (below) as a guide for is common in the laboratory setting. Rather, instructional practices for digital and media One challenge we face is in analyzing, they are directed to seek tutorial assistance literacy education (p. 23): evaluating, recognizing and implementing in social media spaces such as YouTube, the appropriate digital media tools and how-to.com and other World Wide Web

Instructional Practices of Digital and Media Literacy Education

Keeping a Media-Use Diary Record-keeping activities help people keep track of media choices and reflect on decisions about sharing and participation, deepening awareness of personal habits.

Using Information Search and Evaluation Strategies Finding, evaluating and sharing content from a variety of sources helps people explore diverse sources of information. Using search strategies appropriate to one’s needs helps people make discriminating choices about quality and relevance.

Reading, Viewing, Listening and Discussing Active interpretation of texts helps people acquire new ideas, perspectives and knowledge and make sense of it in relation to lived experience. Dialogue and sharing help deepen understanding and appreciation.

Close Analysis Careful examination of the constructed nature of particular texts encourages people to use critical questioning to examine the author’s intent and issues of representation.

Cross-Media Comparison Comparing and contrasting two texts that address the same topic help people develop critical thinking skills. By examining genre, purpose, form and content, and point of view, people recognize how media shape message content.

Gaming, Simulation and Role-Playing Playful activities promote imagination, creativity and decision-making skills, supporting people’s reflective thinking about choices and consequences.

Multimedia Composition Message composition using a combination of language, images, sound, music, special effects and interactivity provides real-world experience addressing a particular audience in a specific context to accomplish a stated goal. Teamwork, collaboration and knowledge sharing enhance creativity and deepen respect for the diverse talents of individuals.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 16 resources that provide superb step-by-step criteria for the creation of digital stories as with most types of media, and allowed instructions in video and with screencasts they evaluate them. It helps them understand for both simultaneous and asynchronous using a wide range of the very tools students where their own stories fit within the dialogue. Students included their preliminary are learning to master. In addition, digital spectrum of other digital narratives. reflections, research, experimentation and media online courses have a student café in dialogue in the Google Wave environment, This type of course, which has a focus on which students help each other learn some but selected a number of other tools to assist both storytelling and digital media mastery, of the more difficult aspects of using Twitter with their study. Once refined, research provides all levels of students with the and other social media tools. and reflective statements were published opportunity and skills to gradually acquire on student blogs. This study is now being Students typically enroll in this popular competency and literacy as the study proposed as a CDL course using alternative study with a wide range of skill sets. Some evolves. In my experience, even the student media environments to create personalized students start the course with excellent with the least technical skill among her peers learning experiences. writing skills – superb writers, expressing has been able to create a blog; learn Twitter; an interest in writing and storytelling, review, research and evaluate digital media Studies in Mobile Media . This is a new but tentative about their limited digital resources; and create digital stories that set of guided independent studies open to skills. Other students begin stronger on combine elements of written narrative, audio students across the college. Current students the technical side, with less confidence commentating, visual resources, moving are working on independent projects using in their ability to write a good story. The images and music. All of these skills form a variety of mobile media. For example, shared student spaces in this study provide the building blocks of digital media literacy. one student is focusing on the medium for them with the opportunity to express their artistic expression using photography and Digital Art and Design, Introductory and concerns and share their work with their video. Another is applying the study to Advanced . These courses have been revised peers. This highly supportive environment create the research foundation for a business to include a stronger emphasis on applying allows students to share strategies and application. The text for this course, Mobile social responsibility and ethical principles, provide feedback on the development of Technologies: From Telecommunications to peer critique, blogging (as a platform each other’s projects, which is a wonderful Media (Goggin, 2008), provides a critical for portfolio development and artistic preparation for peer critique. analysis for the use of mobile media in statements) and close analysis. global contexts, thus applying the principles One way to foster critical analysis, Information Design . This course has been of teaching digital and media literacy evaluation and thinking is through the substantially revised to include all of the described above. implementation of carefully designed rubrics recommended practices of digital and media that allow students to participate in peer literacy education, along with stronger V. Danger Zones critique and evaluate digital media artifacts. theoretical foundations and emphasis on For example, in the Digital Storytelling The flip side of digital and media literacy contemporary mixed media practices. course, students apply a digital storytelling is that access to unfiltered information rubric to the review and evaluation of History and Theory of New Media . This puts the student at risk of encountering professional digital stories, as well as those was a guided independent study using the compromising content, behaviors and of their peers. The rubric used in CDL now defunct Google Wave (incorporated practices. Staksrud, Livingstone, Haddon, studies was adapted from a tool created at the request of the student, when Wave and Ólafsson (2009, p. 18) and Hobbs to evaluate digital stories at the University was in its early experimental stages). This (2010, p. 29) wrote a comprehensive report of Houston.2 A wonderful side effect of was a very successful study in which the on research of children’s use of online applying this rubric to the analysis of student communicated privately with me technologies in which they categorize different story projects is that students using Google Wave, a rich and flexible associated risks in three areas: content, gain a strong grasp of commonly accepted environment that supported integration contact and conduct (see table below).

Content Risks Contact Risks Conduct Risks This includes exposure to potentially This includes practices where people This includes lying or intentionally offensive or harmful content, including engage in harassment, cyber bullying and misinforming people, giving out personal violent, sexual, sexist, racist or hate cyber stalking; talk with strangers; or information, illegal downloading, material. violate privacy. gambling, hacking and more.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 17

While I find this useful in the analysis of The student selecting to participate in should not be appropriated, refashioned or related risks for our adult students, in my virtual world activities is afforded a level of repurposed without permission. The other experience the following are the types of privacy protection that is currently higher side of intellectual property and copyright risks we are most likely to encounter in than when they use Facebook, for example, involves the protection of the student’s educational uses of digital and social media: which has an unfortunate history of making work. Many free tools have a lengthy terms Privacy and Personal Data at Risk; Security private data public without the user’s of service agreement in which, buried in Risks; Intellectual Property and Copyright knowledge. Facebook also has been charged small print, they claim full ownership of Issues; and Ethical Considerations. with harvesting personal data for the use of any content and materials uploaded using advertising, particularly with their Beacon their service, or, require the user to grant Privacy and Personal Data at Risk program. On Aug. 12, 2008, a class action the service a perpetual license to use and lawsuit was launched against Facebook, redistribute the content, even in advertising. Access to digital and social media which was later settled for the sum of $9.5 Students should pay careful attention to the ecosystems comes with an unfortunate million (Brodkin, 2009). Students should content ownership clauses of any terms of trade-off, in which the student is in danger be informed of the risks they take when service agreement prior to registering for of being tracked by the very websites and registering for these social media services a service. tools that he or she uses in order to create and learn to review their privacy and this knowledge. It is not uncommon, for security settings on a regular basis. Ethical Considerations example, for their birth date to be required to sign-up for any given Web resource. The convenience of digital and social media Security Risks Sometimes a student is asked to provide comes at an ethical cost to both users and even more personal information. This The use of digital, social media and Web 2.0 providers. Choosing to access a digital or personal data is often harvested for sale to tools puts the student at risk of exposure to social media site (or application) presents third-party advertisers. When students are a wide range of threats. These range from the user with an ethical choice regarding asked to share information openly on a blog, low-level annoyances, such as infection by how they choose to use, and share digital to distribute their work using various Web a computer virus, to more serious threats assets available to copy, download and tools, or to create objects that may become such as being hacked by a malicious disseminate.4 Will they respect copyright, the property of the company that created intruder. In addition, the student should be attribute original authors, and share the tools used, a whole new level of digital aware of the dangers inherent to revealing information responsibly? Will they pay media literacy is required. Virtual worlds private and personal data on social media for monetized digital content rather than such as Second Life provide the student networks. This may lead to serious security seek out pirated versions? For the provider, with anonymity – they may select an avatar breaches such as identity theft, cyber ethical decisions are multi-layered, and in name of their choice, and only Linden Lab, stalking, harassment, and other undesirable many ways define the nature and intent of the company running Second Life, will have side effects of being a digital citizen. The the organization offering the application access to that data. Disclosure of another best preventative measure is to educate and services. Will they collect user data avatar’s personal and private information is students in calculated risk analysis and and track user activity? Will this be with a grievous breach of the Second Life terms raise their awareness of the implications of or without user consent? Will they sell this of service, and therefore a bannable offense, privacy policies and security policies, ethical data to third party businesses? How will which is not taken lightly. Following is an considerations and legislative issues involved they protect and store the information and excerpt from the community standards that in using digital and social media for assets? Students should be prepared to addresses the issue of disclosure. knowledge sharing, acquisition and creation. investigate whether the company providing a digital tool or service is ethical in the 3 Second Life Community Standards Intellectual Property and handling of user data and information, Disclosure Copyright Issues asking questions such as: Does all content created by the user remain the intellectual Residents are entitled to a reasonable level Digital media literacy, in my opinion, must property of the user, or a company claiming of privacy with regard to their Second Life include some education on instructional all rights to all materials created with their experience. Sharing personal information copyright and copyright law, as well as tools? Is the provider downloading hidden about your fellow residents without their ethics. The questions of intellectual property applications to a user’s computer to harvest consent – including gender, religion, age, and copyright have two sides. The first information or use for advertising? Does marital status, race, sexual preference, involves the use of intellectual property of the application leave security gaps that alternate account names, and real-world others by students. Do students understand might provide an entry point to an intruder? location beyond what is provided by them that they cannot choose content created Ethical use of content and how providers in their resident profile – is not allowed. by others without their permission, even use private personal data are two of the key Remotely monitoring conversations in if it seems to be readily available online? components of ethics, along with security Second Life, posting conversation logs, In this new era, some students struggle to policies and practices. In addition, we need or sharing conversation logs without the understand that digital artifacts belong to participants’ consent are all prohibited. their creator, and unless otherwise stated,

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 18 to educate students in ethical approaches The college’s Vision 2015 includes the 3 Linden Lab, “Second Life Community to the repurposing, creation and sharing following social mandate: Standards,” http://secondlife.com/ of content. corporate/cs.php. San Francisco, CA: Our mission is to provide education Accessed April 1, 2011. to people who are actively engaged in VI. Epilogue sustaining and seeking to improve a 4 Assets include data provided, On February 11, 2011, I sat next to our challenging, diverse and problematic photographs and other images, colleague, Nazik Roufaiel, a native of Egypt, world. Our role as a public institution documents and written content, and at the New Mentor Orientation in Latham, is not separate from our citizenship any media or digital artifact created and N.Y. We watched Arabic broadcasts on the in the same world that challenges our uploaded by the user. Al Jazeera Network in real time as historical learners. We must endeavor to provide events unfolded in Cairo. As we viewed the the education they need to thrive as References live video stream of protesters demanding individuals, as members of communities, Banks, E. (2011, February 11). Egyptian the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, as active citizens and as agents for change. president steps down amidst ongoing updates popped up on my iPhone (p. 4) groundbreaking digital revolution. from The New York Times, CNN, BBC, I invite you to consider this statement in CNN. Mashable. Retrieved from http:// Reuters, Le Monde, and other news sources. alignment with Hobbs’s (2010) comment www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social. Colleagues from all over the world were on the role of digital and media literacy in media/02/11/egyptian.president.digital. commenting on the events on Facebook, and education: mashable/index.html my Twitter feed filled with instantaneous accounts of the live happenings. Social and Digital and media literacy education Brodkin, J. (2009, December 8). Facebook mobile media were not only purveyors of offers the potential to maximize what halts Beacon: Gives $9.5 million to news to those of us watching from afar. In a we value most about the empowering settle lawsuit. PC World. Retrieved mashable article titled “Egyptian President characteristics of media and technology, from http://www.pcworld.com/ Steps Down Amidst Groundbreaking while minimizing its negative dimensions. article/184029/facebook_halts_beacon_ Digital Revolution,” Emily Banks (2011) As the Knight Commission report, gives_95m_to_settle_lawsuit.html commented on the role of social media in Informing Communities: Sustaining Goggin, G. (2008). Mobile Technologies: the revolution: Democracy in the Digital Age, explains, informed and engaged communities need From Telecommunication to Media. From the beginning, the revolution citizens who appreciate the values of London: Routledge. in Egypt was propelled by the use of transparency, inclusion, participation, Hobbs, R. (2010). Digital and Media social media. It at least partly began empowerment, and the common pursuit Literacy: A Plan of Action. In The on Facebook with the creation of of the public interest. (p. xi) Aspen Institute (Eds.), The Aspen Facebook groups that gained hundreds Institute Communications and Society of thousands of members and promoted I propose that educating ourselves and our Program. Washington, DC: The Aspen the early protests in Cairo. Subsequently, students for digital and media literacy is an Institute. the government blocked Facebook and important aspect of effective teaching and Twitter and eventually shut down Internet mentoring for 21st century citizenship. Johnson, L., Levine, A., Smith, R., & access completely. And with the outside Stone, S. (2010). The 2010 Horizon world following the unfolding revolution Notes Report. Austin, TX: The New Media online, political leaders and others, 1 Leads by total June to November Consortium. including Twitter, spoke out against the 2010. Internal data report on potential Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, violence and freedom of expression issues applicant inquiries by center and by A., & Haywood, K. (2011). The 2011 at risk. (p. 1) discipline. This information is based Horizon Report. Austin, TX: The New Later that day, a colleague commented that on an analysis of prospective student Media Consortium. he was a little perturbed that one of his inquiries, for the period from June 1, new mentees had delivered the first draft 2010 through November 30, 2010. It Linden Lab. (n.d.). Second Life Community of his degree program rationale via iPhone. was generated by the college’s office Standards. Retrieved from http:// Meanwhile, a student taking mobile media of Admissions, SUNY Empire State secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php studies shared his new blog, with an analysis College, Saratoga Springs, NY, 2011 Lyotard, J.F. (1984). The Postmodern of several mobile applications, before 2 University of Houston, Digital Condition: A Report on Knowledge, even completing his first reflection for the Storytelling Rubric, retrieved April Theory and History of Literature (V. study. It seems that some of our students 5, 2011. http://digitalstorytelling.coe. 10). Minneapolis, MN: University of are already embracing the tools underlying uh.edu/DS-Project-Guidelines-2010. Minnesota Press. digital and social media literacy. html

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 19

Shirky, C. (2011, January/February). The on Cultural, Contextual and Risk Issues 34cd28915ce85256bfa005466c8/47f6bf Political Power of Social Media. Foreign in Children’s Safe Use of the Internet 639b160db6852575fb0073d0e2/$FILE/ Affairs, 90(1), 28-41. and New Media. LSE, London: EU Vision%202015%207-2009.pdf Kids Online. Staksrud, E., Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., State University of New York Empire State & Ólafsson, K. (2009). What Do We State University of New York Empire State College. (2011). Leads by total June to Know About Children’s Use of Online College. (2010). Vision 2015: The November 2010. Internal data report Technologies? A Report on Data report of the vision 2015 task force. on potential applicant inquiries by Availability and Research Gaps in Retrieved from: http://www.esc.edu/ center and by discipline. Europe. 2nd Ed., European Research esconline/across_esc/president.nsf/3789d

“The individual and social aims of education are not only both essential but also are each necessary to the other. Only through the actions of competent, ethical creative individuals can a society be sustained and improved. Only through the systems and ethos of a humane and supportive society can an individual thrive and reach his or her fullest potential. Further, it is only through working in the social realm – with and for others – that the self can develop. Thus, education must foster not just the individual’s growth and accomplishment but also social justice, appreciation of diversity and attention to the greater good. Each of these aims is essential. Each needs to function in constant interaction with the other.”

Katherine L. Jelly, “Between Individual and Society: An Essential Dialectic in Progressive Teaching and Learning,” in Higher Education for Democracy, 1999, p. 189

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 20

Three Poems

Chansak Suwanchaichinda, Debra Monte, Center for Distance Learning Long Island Center

Lost but Found Awakening Canyon Heart

The star, there, our star Bathe me in your sunshine I hear what you say Every night, together Let me drink you in I’ve heard the words before Always mesmerized And take you deep. Both as a young and trusting girl By the white gem And now … years later. Rising and falling The familiar sound The breath comes in But your words Your voice, your laugh And out. Echo Still echoed in my mind Within the Redemption washes over me Never forgotten Empty chambers. Like a gentle I’m here again Warm Bouncing Looking at our star Breeze Back and forth But tonight, the cold breeze Looking for a place At one within Is my only company To land. At once Can the star see you? Without. With nothing to I really wonder Hold onto I hope, at least They You can still see it Slip away. I am behind, I know But wait for me One day soon You will be found again

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 21

Changing Ways of Knowing for Transitioning Women

Jo Jorgenson, Rio Salado College (Tempe, Ariz.)

Schuante, a soft-spoken 47-year-old African the contrast of her quiet, shy demeanor American woman with five children, spent and the strength of her voice as she shared over 20 years in and out of prison, yet she her learning experiences and knowledge emanates a profound state of well-being in with the newer students. She mentored and her life now. After serving her last sentence, tutored, easily conveying her love for the she returned to the community almost electrical trade and her hope and dream to four years ago and secured employment be a part of that industry after her release. in a field for which she was trained It wasn’t until more than a year later that while incarcerated. Schuante continues I chanced upon her again as one of 11 to be successful in her work today. When interviewees whom I selected by criterion asked about turning points in her life, she and snowball sampling strategies to be part remarked, “To be honest, it only boils down of a phenomenological study. My purpose to one thing for me: it is education.” was to explore women’s perceptions of their post-secondary educational experiences Reflection during incarceration and the influence of that involvement in their lives post-release. When I first encountered her among a group of learners in a construction program The study was completed in partial that taught carpentry and electrical skills, fulfillment of the requirements for a degree Jo Jorgenson Schuante was nearing release from a of Doctor of Philosophy in Education, minimum security facility and finishing her but I have been acutely interested in the Relevance workforce development training as a college relationship of education for incarcerated student in prison. At Rio Salado College in men and women to successful community In the United States, more than 2.3 million Tempe, Ariz., incarcerated students enroll re-entry for over 30 years. For much of adult men and women are incarcerated in in certificate and associate degree programs that time, I have placed special focus on penal systems nationwide. More than one while still in prison. Although the array of positively impacting the lives of women who out of every 100 adults is behind bars; this educational offerings has fluctuated over the have been serving sentences of probation, country has the largest number of people last 25 years along with the state budgets imprisonment, or parole for criminal under confinement in the world (Pew and the political climate, the Department of activity. My exposure to their stories of Center on the States, 2008). The cost of Corrections has maintained contracts with economic and social marginalization as educating a prisoner is less than the cost of the local community colleges throughout women struggling to survive in a world incarcerating that prisoner (Erisman and Arizona to provide opportunities for dominated by male principle has deeply Contardo, 2005), yet the value of education inmates to advance their education and moved me to concentrate my energies on in the reduction of recidivism continues to learn skills that will improve their chances creating enhanced and equal educational be debated. Additionally, the burgeoning of employment. During one of these opportunities for this population. In my cost of incarceration and current economic peaks in the department’s commitment to current position as dean of instruction shortfalls have led to programmatic cuts that education for inmates, Rio was able to and community development, my level of inevitably affect educational funding. expand experiential learning for minimum involvement is one that is more closely I was intrigued by the approach Owen security women by training them at actual aligned with policy change, and less (1998) offered for viewing the increased construction sites in the community. connected with individuals. Nevertheless, criminality of women. Building on the The students, working alongside their my passion for providing quality-driven work of previous research, she posited that instructor, applied theory to practice by post-secondary educational opportunities women’s criminal behavior is reflective of building Habitat for Humanity homes and to incarcerated adults and juveniles is a their attempts to survive under conditions remodeling businesses and educational work constant. With regard to incarceration and that they did not create. They have spaces for government and industry. reintegration, we have egregious social been economically marginalized to the issues that need serious attention and As I observed Schuante in this environment extent that they are not able to cope in a contemporary, innovative solutions. in my role as an administrator of conventional society that still places great instructional programs, I was struck by value on traditional roles such as those of

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 22 mother and wife. If women’s experiences admittance into those spaces that might way it sounded, it was really bad. So are contradictory and fraught with sexual, otherwise be barred from access. Women when I went around there and saw what physical and emotional abuse, their who trusted me referred me to others, and I saw, my brother laying in the street … pathways may be littered with a series of my immersion into the process of in-depth big hole in his stomach, bones sticking bad choices that lead to imprisonment. interviews to seek understanding of the life- out … oh my God. … he didn’t make it Thus, female criminals have not become views of women began. The study focused … so I was just so crushed … . I didn’t more dangerous; rather, the system has on a single, overarching question: do college understand … I gave up on everything, become more punitive in response to learning experiences in prison contribute I had to go to school, I had to walk the crimes they have committed (Bloom, to positive reintegration for women upon around the corner and see the stain from Chesney-Lind, and Owen, 1994). release; and if so, how do those experiences my brother’s blood … oh God. So then I improve released women’s reintegration? started taking another route, which was a The theoretical base for my study was longer route because I didn’t want to walk informed by two main ideas that are Schuante invited me to interview her at the by and see that. I started skipping school, constructive-developmental in nature: that tiny, one bedroom apartment she calls home. I gave up on everything. … I come from the meaning of the women’s lives during It was clean and neat, and illustrative of a middle- class family, never had to want incarceration shape their futures following the pride she has in her life now. Her lived for nothing. I let it all go, next thing I was release; and, that how the women learn to experience, as shared with me, was both hanging with the wrong crowd, ditching participate in the process of knowing (i.e., tragic and inspiring as a story of life at its school. I got on drugs, in and out of jail, Women’s Ways of Knowing) influences worst and its best. prison … their understanding of self and their ability to navigate in the larger world. The most Early Memories of Learning Seven of the interviewees in this study prominent finding of my study was that specifically referenced a loss of self-esteem To understand the stories of their lives while the skills and knowledge attained as they grew older and experienced life- prior to incarceration, I initiated the through higher education are critical for altering events. Five of the women began interviews with questions that would releasing women to become financially with stories of positive recollections, while encourage the participants to reflect on stable, the transformation they have made in six of them began with memories of difficult their early memories of life and their first their ways of knowing about self and others childhoods. However, all of the participants experiences with learning. Schuante talked are the true guide to successful re-entry. expressed some level of discord in their lives about her family as a “middle-class family” early in the interview. To their self-portraits, and recalled that she “never wanted for Approach Schuante and three others added descriptors anything.” She was brought up “with such as “lost,” “hopeless” and “depressed.” In Weis and Fine’s (2000) discussion of a manners” and she “believed in God.” She social researcher’s role in sustaining “safe shared her positive memories of her early While the type of trauma endured by spaces” in qualitative research, the authors school years and the teachers who told her each woman may have differed widely in posited: that she had potential. seriousness or intensity from an outsider’s point of view, each woman revealed a The spaces into which we have been Early in the interview, Schuante disclosed profound sense of sadness as she shared her invited provide recuperation, resistance, that as a young child she had been happy, story of the beginning of what eventually led and the makings of ‘home’ … Not rigidly had loved school, and was raised by a to a downward spiral in her life. For some, bound by walls or fences, the spaces often family who could take care of her needs it was a tragic event; for others, it was a are corralled by a series of (imaginary) and support her interest in gymnastics defining moment of marginalization in their borders where community intrusion and and extracurricular activities. The tragedy lives – a specifically, bounded time when state surveillance are not permitted. These that occurred in her life at age 13 was the in retrospect, they began to see themselves are spaces where trite social stereotypes moment that, in her own words, “took me falling into a void of unhappiness and self- are fiercely contested. (p. 57) way off course.” As she shared her story loathing. Thus, the success of this study was with me, the emotion was still raw and the dependent upon my ability to tread carefully tears barely under control. Transitioning to Learning in Prison and respectfully into this innermost I was young and I had a brother that was Each of the participants shared her sanctuary, or space, and to seek the stories killed and he was shot outside at close beginning moments of attempting to deal women have to tell about their journeys range and for me to be a little girl, 13 with the crises in her life by taking charge – during and following their release from years old, and it was right around the or empowering herself – to change direction. prison. To this end, my perspective and corner from my house and it was at the In their own words and way, they were experience with imprisoned women was beginning of the school year and I was sharing their memories of trying to gain germane to my effectiveness in gaining happy about going back to school, then their voices (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger & access to, and most importantly, the trust something like this happened. So I finally Tarule, 1997/1986). All of the participants of the participants. My genuine motivation got up the courage to go around there expressed their desire to enroll in college and trail of my life’s work provided me to where my brother was at … from the classes, but with some trepidation and an

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 23 intrinsic effort to self-protect. One comment they found to be nurturing and supportive, something and they didn’t do it. She was, “I don’t know if I was scared or if I the women cocooned themselves as did it, and you can guarantee when that just felt if I was doing something toward protection from their worlds of the past. class was getting ready to start you had being a better person that this would go by your books. And you had pencils, paper, Although the types of learning experiences quicker or faster, or make it alright. But I graphing calculators, things that you varied from traditional or hybrid learning just knew I needed to get in on that … ” needed to do your classes you had … models to distance learning classes, the Another said, “I was nervous,” and yet That was probably the biggest impact participants spoke of the influence of caring another commented that “I was actually because in the beginning if she hadn’t educators in their learning process. In their fearful of college at first until I got in done what she said, I wouldn’t have had discussions of those who were significant there to see it wasn’t that bad.” As each trust in that, but she always did what she in their lives, every participant expounded interview progressed, the dialogue about the said she was going to do … I mean, [she] on one or more educators who inspired learning process, as a whole, intensified. In is an absolutely phenomenal person … them, confirming the notion that caring is Schuante’s words: she makes you believe in yourself when integral to pedagogy. The women offered you don’t think that you can. When you I couldn’t wait, I had to stay at [the feedback about many educators and some don’t believe in yourself one bit, she’s maximum-security unit] for a year … if it noneducators who were a positive influence, there to tell you: ‘You can do this, you wasn’t for me coming in here and getting as well as some who were not. can do this.’ this now, then I would get out and go They recalled learning methodologies that right back and do the same thing [that They also talked of the collaboration engaged them in the classroom, interactive got me here before]. I needed to take a among their peers evidenced in study group lab and other hands-on experiences. They look at myself, because apparently I was sessions, or the confidence gained by helping talked of skill-building and resultant not doing things right, and as long as I other students with homework. Those learning challenges as value-added. continued on this same path, it was going in classroom and lab settings described Regardless of the methodological approach, to take me to the same place – prison or collaboration as the teamwork of classmates, the participants emphasized their accounts death, or maybe both. or the shared learning experiences of of knowledge-making within a community teachers who taught while demonstrating At this juncture in their stories, none of of either a few or many that fostered trust their openness to learning. This fostered the women articulated an understanding and collaboration. One instructor was noted trust in those who might have otherwise of the significance of their decisions to in particular for his positive influence: just been authority figures. This entire new be in college beyond the desire to avoid learning environment helped the women temptation in order to change their He showed us that we have choices and to develop a new level of consciousness direction in life. Patterns emerged from the that the choices that we make impact through their learning experience (Taylor interviews illustrating their processes for others … but, that we could, as women, and Marienau, 1995). reorienting their earlier learning experiences become whatever we want to. and self-protecting to strengthen their He was just an awesome man, he cares In the ongoing recollection of their learning success. School provided a buffer against about us and he just looks at you, he events, the women continued to reflect the troublemakers, and it helped to create never looked at us as prisoners/inmates. on their attainment of knowledge, and all a subset of like-minded women who could He looked at us as people, who we were. that they were deriving from it. As they support one another in positive ways. I can’t thank him enough for that. Even expanded on those experiences during By avoiding controversy, and caring and to this day, I talk about him all the time; the interviews, they gained strength of supporting others, they contributed to their my teacher was the best. He had a good expression, articulated in words and with own “holding environments,” defined by influence on everybody. tone and inflection. They shared purpose Kegan (1982) as a supporting or “amniotic” Those who were in self-directed study in thought and action and spoke of “whole internal environment (p. 140) where one is referenced the feelings of trust gained new worlds” with new-found confidence safe to evolve and to let go. through unwavering volunteer support and in their abilities. They voiced feelings of teachers who expressed a genuine interest in empowerment while remaining philosophical Gaining Voice From Learning their learning through frequent and steady about their journeys in academe. Taylor, Marienau, and Fiddler (2000) discussed the These women found an internal place of written responsiveness. process of continuous learning as one that safety for learning where they began the Louise talked about her experience with an approaches “new situations willing to pose process of growing and changing. They educator who volunteered her time at the and pursue questions out of wonderment” began to trust and listen to their inner prison facility: (p. 39). The women in this study, as they voices, rather than those of their peers. gained voice, were not afraid to focus on They prioritized their time in such a She was always positive, no matter what. learning; in fact, they thrived on it. They way as to allow for study and reflection. If she said she was going to do it she did carried their feelings and their resolve with As a continuum of change, and in the it … always. And that is an extremely them following imprisonment. surroundings of a learning environment that important thing because you are used to people saying they were going to do

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 24

I was not prepared for the stories of how the maize of obstacles put in place by societal I mean now – now I feel so good. I participants’ knowledge-making experiences norms that bar felons from being given a mean, look at the things I accomplished, led them to reach out to those who chance to work. Most of the women had I actually have a GED, and then I have continued to struggle, or how the evidence some difficulty finding employment, even college courses, and I did quite a few of of another’s setback seemed to genuinely though they could demonstrate aptitude the college courses, and it’s like it just feels sadden them. Their focus seemed to shift based on their education. While the majority good to me. from being self-absorbed, to the world was working, some were only able to get While Schuante was successful in securing around them, or caring for others. This part-time employment, and others had not a job where she could apply her skills, capacity for empathy signaled a fundamental been able to find meaningful or challenging the majority of the participants reported change for them in the way they perceived jobs. They said repeatedly, “Society is very employment as the primary challenge themselves and those around them – from a unforgiving.” after release from prison. In spite of this stance of doubting to believing. The participants’ stories offered some ongoing challenge, the women viewed their There were others who characterized their examples of how higher education aided educational experience as one that fueled defining moments as those experiences in securing employment. Moreover, their their sense of self-worth and their resolve to that taught them unexpected skills such exposés about learning as a transformational live their lives differently. as those learned in the construction experience of self were, perhaps, as technology classes. influential in successful employment Synthesis of Learning and outcome, and certainly paramount in giving Community Re-entry Experiences [My best moments were] when we them the courage to overcome the many built the first house, the Habitat [for Through the participants’ expressions of obstacles they face with criminal records. Humanity] house that we were building. the influence of learning on their personal When we finally got done with it – wow – Schuante, who was hired shortly after growth, or ways of knowing, and their ‘look what we did, just a bunch of us.’ release in the field in which she was trained, hope for their futures, I was able to better I think it was 15 of us that got to go out received an outstanding evaluation for her understand what education seems to all the time. Like ‘look what we did, we six-month review. She gives the credit to her have done for these women. They knew made a house you know,’ and then we got college education because it changed her themselves differently. They could reflect, to have the people come, the owners – outlook about herself and her capabilities as they could choose, they built new capacities yeah, that was really cool – to meet them. a worker: that reach beyond the skills learned through It was awesome that we could. You their course work. As a summarizing essay All this comes from [college]. I never know – as a girl, I didn’t really ever think of sorts, they shared their feelings about life, thought this would happen in my life. If about construction. I don’t know if I want the struggles that have shaped them, those it wasn’t for [college] and me going in to do something like that – that’s a man’s who remain significant in their lives, and and getting that education, and really job – but it’s really not. Especially with their educational journeys. coming out and doing something with the electrical part – you use your brain it – applying myself … and that right The findings underscored the significance more and you don’t have to do all the there, everything that I have, I could just of the change that has occurred for the heavy lifting and all that stuff, but it’s still cry right now because of everything that participants relative to self-perceptions. just as interesting building the houses – I have. Before I went in, I went in with All of the participants noted positive the experience was awesome, just the nothing, if it wasn’t for this class, the attributes about themselves such as people. It made me feel 100 percent better program, I’d a came out with nothing. “someone with a good personality who about myself, about educating myself and Telemarketing is the only thing that’s loves people and is also a good motivator, just being more knowledgeable, period. available for someone that doesn’t have good influencer … a very good person,” “very independent and focused,” “I like Connection Between Learning no experience or nothing like that. So me, actually I love myself now … I didn’t and Reintegration because of [college], I’ve come a long way. And also, education has just changed before,” “I’m proud of myself,” and As the participants shared their experiences my life totally, if it wasn’t for the things “happy, motivated, ready to learn … returning to their communities, they I got under my belt as far as those I adapt well, extremely well.” Two of provided valuable insight about education credentials, I’d be out there struggling at the participants described themselves as as a tool for successfully overcoming telemarketing or working at a hamburger “survivors.” Although, their perceptions roadblocks. While the data clearly pointed joint. I just have a different outlook on of self were more positive, some of to the difficulties the participants have everything. participants used descriptors that pointed faced, the data also underscored the to their tentativeness. One interviewee In Schuante’s earlier description of self, she significance of their feelings about the shared that she still had “problems,” used words such as “lost,” “hopeless” and empowerment they gained from learning. “but the problems that I have I deal with “depressed” to define her place in the world. According to the findings, the ability to now, I deal with them.” She now views the tremendous change in find and keep a job had more to do with her life as: the participants’ finesse at maneuvering the

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 25

The evidence of education’s influence on they had gained in themselves through the Kegan, R. (2000). What “form” transforms? these women’s lives was multifaceted, varied rigor of study, and in the hearts of those A constructive-developmental approach in color and texture, and woven throughout who taught them and learned with them. to transformative learning. In J. their experiences. It was embedded in their Mezirow and Associates, Learning as The exposure to new and different learning self-perceptions, in the approaches they Transformation: Critical perspectives on opportunities actually changed their earlier have taken to their struggles, and in the a theory in progress. San Francisco, CA: views of themselves as women and as recounting of their successes. It also was Jossey-Bass. pp. 35-69. learners, hence the transformative learning undisputedly positive and good. According that Kegan and others have described Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: to one participant: (Kegan, 2000, p. 48). Problem and process in human It made me think, give people a chance. development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard For most of the women, this transformation Let them in and not be so negative. I University Press. seemed to grow from their very early think that when I was doing drugs there positive learning experiences, which were Mageehon, A. (2003). Incarcerated women’s was a lot of negativity. Everything was reversed somewhere along the journey, to the educational experiences. The Journal bad, and ‘oh my life is horrible.’ Just joy that learning brought once again. They of Correctional Education, 54(4), 191- that whole perspective has changed. communicated a wealth of newly acquired 199. That people are actually really awesome, skills, but also seemed to have changed their everybody has their own personality and Pew Center on the States. (2008). One in frame of reference for knowing. [I] just take them as they are. [The world] 100: Behind bars in America 2008. Pew is a better, wonderful place and I actually I hope that this study will be used as a Charitable Trusts. Washington, DC. get to see it when I’m still alive. There are guide for higher education, colleges and Owen, B. (1998). “In the mix”: Struggle and so many things I want to do and I can’t community leaders who have interest in survival in a women’s prison. Albany, wait to do them. My life was a small the development of initiatives that address NY: State University of New York Press. box before. transitioning for women from prison. If The major change for these participants was there is continued effort to deliver the Reisig, M. D., Holtfreter, K., & Morash, M. in whom they understood themselves to be – learning opportunities and environment (2002). Social capital among women as learners, as workers and as contributors necessary to encourage and promote offenders. Journal of Contemporary to the wider community. collaborative solutions for these re-entry Criminal Justice, 18(2), 167-187. women, their possibilities for personal and Rose, C. (2004). Women’s participation Thus, while trade-related or academic skill social adaptation may improve, and their in prison education: What we know level contributes to success, the women struggle to successfully forge a meaningful and what we don’t know. Journal of emphasized the significance of pure grit pathway and call community “home” may Correctional Education, 55(1), 78-100. and confidence in their ability to be be realized. successful at actually getting the position, Severance, T. A. (2004). Concerns and or to be patient and persevere if not hired. Note coping strategies of women inmates Overwhelmingly, their voices turned to concerning release: “It’s going to take All quotes are taken from personal reflections of positive attitude, ability to somebody in my corner.” Journal of interviews of women that I conducted concentrate, work ethic, openness, honesty, Offender Rehabilitation, 38(4), 73-97. oral and written communication skills, between August and October 2008. maturity, enthusiasm, and dedication to life Taylor, K., Marienau, C., & Fiddler, M. as the more meaningful elements of survival References (2000). Developing adult learners: Strategies for teachers and trainers. San and sustainability. The existing literature Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. referencing college-level education’s N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1986/1997). influence on attitudes of released women Women’s ways of knowing: The Taylor, K., & Marienau, C. (1995). is scarce. However, there is research that development of self, voice, and mind. Bridging practice and theory for points to the positive effect of learning New York, NY: Basic Books. women’s adult development. In K. experiences on women during incarceration, Bloom, B., Chesney-Lind, M., & Owen, B. Taylor and C. Marienau (Eds.), particularly with regard to the lasting effects (1994). Women in California prisons: Learning environments for women’s of instructors’ care and encouragement in Hidden victims of the war on drugs. adult development: Bridges toward the classroom (Mageehon, 2003; Reisig, San Francisco, CA: Center on Juvenile change. New Directions for Adult and Holtfreter & Morash, 2002; Rose, 2004; and Criminal Justice. Continuing Education. San Francisco: Severance, 2004). CA: Jossey-Bass. No. 65, pp. 5-12. Erisman, W., & Contardo, J. B. (2005). The women interviewed in this study Learning to reduce recidivism: A 50-state Weis, L., & Fine, M. (2000). Speed bumps: credited their demonstrated resolve to analysis of postsecondary correctional A student-friendly guide to qualitative succeed in their journeys to their learning – education policy. The Institute for research. New York, NY: Teacher’s to the long awaited, but undeniable belief Higher Education Policy, 1-15. College Press.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 26

“So They Will Honor You as a Human Being”: Indigenous Knowledge and the Practice of Mentoring

Jeffrey P. Lambe, Long Island Center

uring the late 1980s and early cultivation and obligation. The continuing 1990s, I volunteered for a unfolding of the renewable quality that is D nonprofit environmental education mirrored in the natural world is innate. organization when the landscaping season Although the individual beings and process ended. We had contracts with the New that exist in nature are distinct, they are Jersey Division of Corrections and Division interconnected. The natural world is of Family, Youth Services (DYFS). This is based on both individual integrity and when I met Tekaronianeken Jake Swamp contribution in conjunction with others. and Wanbli Nata’u Javen Tony Tenfingers, This ongoing interconnection facilitates onkwehonwe (original or real human the renewable spark of life’s continuance. beings) who embodied two of the great This is the model for many expressions of cultural traditions of Turtle Island (North indigenous cultures. For example, during America), the Kanyen’keha (Mohawk, the the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy, People of the Place of Chert or Quartz) and Those Who Build the Longhouse) naming the Oglala Lakota. In subsequent years, I ceremony, the community is reminded about volunteered with the Tree of Peace Society, the importance of observing children as they a cultural and environmental education grow: simply watch them. Ideally, there is organization that Jake founded. At one an obligation to nurture and cultivate the Jeffrey Lambe point, Jake commented: “Why don’t you get unique attributes that the child will certainly that piece of paper so they will honor you express in the coming years. In turn, these as a human being?” I have been reflecting qualities enrich the community and create a nature of traditional narratives allows for on the meaning of this suggestion for a healthy world for future generations. disparate, even contradictory, truths to arise long time. Needless to say, I got that (which simultaneously. It is up to the listener to seek Both Jake and Tony shared traditional turned into those) piece(s) of paper. In the her or his own understanding by drawing narratives and personal stories when following essay, I will describe some of on personal inferences. In this sense, truth they worked in counseling and education the unique aspects of mentoring and other and validity are determined in terms of a environments. Cultural narratives insights that I experienced with these two resonance within one’s experience and being. intersecting with personal experiences in a extraordinary people – insights that have reflective manner is one characterization of I am continually intrigued, challenged and influenced the way I approach mentoring traditional teaching and learning. In a sense, inspired by the depth of knowledge that is students at Empire State College. It may be traditional narratives hold the culmination grounded in – and stems from – expressions unreasonable to suggest that those outside of of knowledge of a people. These are often of indigenous knowledge. Even at a young an indigenous culture adopt an indigenous expressed in figurative language and age, I felt that although the knowledge base perspective to mentoring and learning. represent different levels of experience and that I was experiencing was very different, However, attentiveness to a different cultural knowledge. They are meant to extend to and in terms of depth and complexity, it was perspective can prove enriching and can guide those living today, as well as future akin to anything that was being taught in enhance the work that we do. generations. In essence, such narratives are a college or university. This was further The natural world is the model for the a cultural framework that guides people as validated by the fact that we were regularly type of mentoring and learning that I they come to being or become real human solicited to incorporate the Tree of Peace experience. One way to think about beings. The narratives, along with the help Society’s cultural programs with community indigenous mentoring and learning is the of elders, knowledge holders, and others service learning components of colleges and process of “coming to know” through a helps us embrace the joys and challenges universities. reciprocal relationship and reflective process that we meet along the way. There can While working with the state of New between mentor and mentee. As I will be many layers of meaning – some that Jersey, I found that the types of learning describe below, this pedagogy is grounded are culture specific, and others that speak environments created by both Jake and in a sense of respect for individuality, to the entire human experience. The Tony were designed so that all who

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 27 were present could participate equally as how culture and experience inform the and how their degree will help them achieve learners. Often, for example, the roles of construction, communication and validation their goals. Adult learners desire clarity and correction counselors, incarcerated youth, of knowledge, particularly in educative direction. Most new students to Empire adult learners, and the mentor were in a environments. Perhaps this is the reason State College are excited, apprehensive, and, sense suspended. With cultural narratives that I became very interested in Empire at times, fearful because of any number as the basis of our common work, all State College’s unique and even radical of factors related to contemporary adult were encouraged to reflect on who they approach to prior learning assessment. learners. Deep reflective listening inspires were, how they were conducting their Questions related to the legitimization of incisive questioning that arises from – and lives, and the nature of their relationship experiences, skills, aptitudes and bodies of speaks to – who the individual is, thus to others. The atmosphere could be knowledge and how these are understood, encouraging learners to look inward and intimate and personal. This often caused translated and validated by the culture and develop deeper critical thinking skills problems, particularly among those who values of institutes of higher learning are and clarity. Ideally, this stretches them assumed a distanced role because of their complex, intriguing and certainly not simply to unexpected areas and levels. Nuanced responsibilities as counselors. Some were answered. interpersonal and conversational skills can also put-off by the personal nature of this aleviate student anxiety and help one create approach. At times, they were challenged by a balance between flexibility and structure, what the narratives and process evoked. challenge and support. I strive to listen Indigenous mentors deeply in order to successfully cultivate There are other unique qualities to the spirit students’ interests and goals within the of this approach. Indigenous mentors begin begin from a grounded administrative and curricular structure. This from a grounded perspective. Preconceived perspective. Preconceived requires a reflective process between mentor ideas about a mentee are not the norm and and mentee. As many mentors at Empire may be considered disrespectful. Advice and ideas about a mentee are State College will attest, this process is counsel is individualized, gained through not the norm and may be enriching and continually helps one grow as observation, deep listening, and working an educator. with the person based on who they are. considered disrespectful. Often, traditional narratives provided the I feel very fortunate to work at a college that basis. This was true in my experience. values and engages the term “mentor” and Through careful observation, both Jake whose core values mirror my experiences and Tony took the time to understand who The experiences described above help me and education philosophy. My exposure to I was before they made suggestions. They think about the practices of mentoring at the mentoring skills that I described earlier never spoke in an authoritative manner or Empire State College in other ways. Whether was somewhat unique. Although I do not said things in a direct way like, “you should we are talking about creating a degree use cultural narratives when mentoring, do this” or, “you shouldn’t do that.” Their plan or an individualized study, writing a the skills that I saw and experienced advice was mostly suggestive. Their words degree rationale, or thinking about prior among indigenous people and that I strive often dug deep because they were not based learning assessment, student centeredness, to continually develop are used by many on predetermined or subjective notions; they a core value of Empire State College, is mentors collegewide. stemmed from empathy and nonjudgmental fundamental. A mentor guides the mentee to One final but important point that my observation, and were spoken in a seek her or his own understanding through own mentors instilled in me was the nonconfrontational way. It was because of drawing on personal inferences. As I understanding that the insights and my experience of their approach that I was mentioned above, truth and validity are not knowledge gained from our mentor should forced to really think about my thoughts predefined by some set of rules, by turning be used for the benefit of those around and actions. to a set of preset options or behavioral or us, for the natural world, and for future conceptual outcomes. They are determined My exposure to indigenous knowledge and generations. I like to think that I can make by resonance within one’s experience and community service learning sparked a strong a contribution to helping students at Empire being. The ability to really listen to students interest in the philosophical and experiential State College achieve their goals. Perhaps is essential in order to ascertain who they dimensions of knowledge. I have come this is a part of what Jake meant when he are in terms of interests or personal and/ to appreciate different “knowledges” suggested that I get that piece of paper all of or professional goals, trajectory of study, and have developed a strong interest in those years ago.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 28

Upstream Gallery Exhibit, “Collaboration is the Theme”

Mara Mills and Celest Woo, Hudson Valley Center; Yvonne Murphy, Central New York Center; Mindy Kronenberg, Long Island Center

Mara Mills Celest Woo, who is one of my favorite And here’s a poem from me … collaboration partners. Two of the other Hudson Valley Center poets were Empire State College alumni – As I Stand Here Folding one from the master’s program and one, an Collaboration happens in many ways and as undergraduate. The other poets invited came … Why don’t you write said my muse a theater professional, collaboration is a way from outside the Empire State College circle as i folded his laundry. of life and one that allows me to be most but within my collaborative network. A poem a story why not a novel creative and to bring others into the process. Ready, set, go … poets choose artists. my hands smoothed the creases The Upstream Gallery/Empire State College Until the writing was finished and the he came closer collaboration began when Allen Hart, a performance work began, I played spider, i laid the boxer shorts atop the bleach member of Upstream and an artist with keeping in touch and meeting with my whitened hill whom I have collaborated, suggested to Upstream partner, Mitch Goldstein, the the board that they bring me in to direct a … You don’t seem to write anymore president of the board. We measured walls, project for the December 2010 group show, i chose a tee shirt placated artists and writers, kept the stream something that was different, exciting, and of communication open and angst to a closer still eyes solemnly questioning. might attract more people to the gallery in a minimum. Just before the show, most of caressing its front i tame the tides of fabric time of light attendance. the poets came in (some with their artists) … Remember when you used to write … Previously, I had worked with several to rehearse. This wasn’t a reading, it was gently i shape the sculpture of its sleeves organizations to produce collaborative, a performance, and rehearsal time was … Those poems. he stretched out his arms creative projects bringing together artists, needed to look at transitions between for emphasis writers, poets and playwrights. Hart had pieces, and hear voices to decide order and upon them i laid my poem fresh and clean. attended two of these at the Hudson pace. For me, it was a high point as the Valley Center for Contemporary Art in poets and I worked out the performance Peekskill, the first connecting visual art plan and added new moments, such as and playwrights, the second connecting one poet (male) walking across to another Yvonne C. Murphy sculpture and poetry. The Upstream Board reciting her poem as she (Celest) danced it, Central New York Center agreed. The committee met and decided creating a connection between writers – on the procedure: eight artists, eight poets. yet another collaboration. I chose June Otani’s painting, “A Desert The poets would choose work that they Home,” without knowing its historical I was pleased with the outcome. The found inspirational, and thus their partners and autobiographical context. The serene, poems were meaningful, the art was in collaboration. Poets could respond to restrained overtone of the piece belied a important – and the combination of the already produced work, the poet and artist profound nervous tension. It was quiet art and word enhanced both. All of the could conceive and produce new work, the and buzzing. That tone intrigued me. I was collaborations worked on an artistic level, artist and poet could find work that spoke also drawn to the sense of elegance and and one partnership had an impact that to them from already produced work, or understatement inherent in the composition was important both on a human and an any other collaborative process they chose. and use of color. Drawn, too, to its artistic level. One of the artists had decided architectural quality – I admired Otani’s The next step was to go to Amy Ruth Tobol, she was no longer going to paint because precision. My own work is very often the Hudson Valley Center’s collaboration- of major personal stress in her life. This crowded, excessive, congested, chock full of savvy and artist herself, associate dean. was to be her final show, her final brush- hyperbole and overstatement. I could learn My thinking was that it would be fun to to-canvas moment. Instead, because of from this artist. bring two organizations into collaboration the relationship between her and the poet, and I knew that I had talented colleagues who brought more than a way with words, After I met and corresponded with in Empire State College mentors. Amy the artist is painting again, inspired by the June Otani, I learned of this painting’s Ruth suggested Mindy Kronenberg and collaboration with her poet. Who can ask background, her family’s internment in two Yvonne Murphy. I had already approached for anything more? different camps during World War II and

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 29 her feelings about the treatment of Arab Americans in light of current conflicts. I spent the better part of a gorgeous autumn day at her home, getting to know her art and her life. Borrowing imagery and the language of Japanese Zen gardens, I wrote a poem that I hope reflects the beauty and austerity of her painting but also the confinement, dislocation and shame of her experience. As a result of our collaboration, Otani recast the painting as a mixed-media installation for the Upstream Gallery show. She added a beautiful, large scroll of paper behind the painting, stenciled ethereally with Sondra Gold artwork silvery numbers that were her addresses at the camps. She told me our collaboration amber, turquoise – some rocks get fissured, Relevé. Bones align: straight line of brought up long forgotten memories and energy between right shoulder and left helped her ease out of an artistic rut. I never rakes leave fractures, a framework over sky. big toe, through rib cage, hip, thigh, shin, told her, until now, that our collaboration metatarsals. was a gift, of grace. Superstition Mountain looms, cacti and mica, raking order out of chaos, Passé tilt. Vertigo. Living life on two axes. Gardens Without Water arrangements maturing with the seasons, Combining precarious lift Gila River War Relocation Center 1942-45 a birthday cake, hot dogs, anthropologists, (for/after a painting by June Otani) deep brown clay scarring, mended with with staying grounded wire bandages. tilting one’s way sabako, desert, raking sand into Zen rivers, merging risk and connectedness. stone families huddled into rows A miniature landscape pruned into Risk: knights once met in tilts, inside tar papered barracks – turquoise, abstraction, aiming lances to unseat. wanting ocean, rivers’ recurring patterns Pinball machines bear “Tilt!” signs recalling waves, rippling water: rocks turned and warn you with red lights to hide their faces, their flaw. that you’ve lost center, forfeited the game. A motion sensor Celest Woo calibrated to stifle and punish movement. Hudson Valley Center In modern dance, your center is the sensor, I collaborated with Sondra Gold, and was immediately drawn to her work because it calibrated to breathe movement into stillness was based on dance, as her artist statement and stillness into motion made clear. Once I looked at her pieces, I so that a tilt is an adventure could see it: we both discovered we love art not a violation, that represents body movement. an act of trust, a shifting off the center, Vertiginous a displacement from one’s groundedness. Passé tilt left, flat. Weight on whole foot. At the county fair, Right heel forward. Lead with sternum. screams of delight emit Slight arch. Feel your right little toe. Arms slice through air like a bird, feeling its from the red Tilt-A-Whirl currents and resistance, interacting with as people revel in centrifugal and centripetal it. Fingers slightly feathered, palms out. forces Stretching the length on both sides between whipping them round, up then down, Otani and “A Desert Home” hips and top of rib cage. Gaze soft left. left then right, simultaneously, rebounding

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 30 like the dynamics in dance Mindy Kronenberg Minding the Grid of fall and recovery, tension and release, Long Island Center There is no map suspension, rebound, up and over, to where the pigments isolating our center from our extremities When I was asked by Mara Mills, along of her imagination take her, so we can whip our head round, with colleagues from Empire State College, no kick line of wired poles flick arms akimbo, to be a part of the Upstream Gallery exhibit, “Collaboration is the Theme,” I crowning miles of fertile ground. swing our legs in loosened hip sockets was delighted at the prospect of working A panicked stranger and preserve our center of gravity with a visual artist to test my own poetic rides the brakes that pulses power into the flightiness perspective and linguistic sensibility. In looking for signs, of fingertips, elbows, toes. the past few years, I had participated points to a passenger’s The Tilt-A-Whirl remains still at its center, in collaborative exhibits at art galleries lap tented and veined so that if you stood there, on Long Island, some sponsored by the Survivors Art Foundation. These had with turnpikes and tolls. regarding the hills and dales traversed by the provocative and poignant themes such as A billboard reads: whirling red chairs, Breaking the Walls of Bias and The Body The shortest distance you’d revolve slowly, Altered, and I wrote poems in response between two lines still yet moving, to works in various media that expressed is not art. surveying the fairground. a spectrum of pain and triumph. It was a Mind the grid Still yet moving is how to tilt, challenging exercise in both artistic license and humility. and it minds you, moving the torso without breaking the line hapless traveler. between upper rib cage and hip, Mara asked each of us to connect with an These roads might well just carving out the underside. artist from a list of Upstream community regulars, view their work online, and make point toward the light, This is how I find myself: a connection with someone whose visions but look around you. carve out that underside, that ignored or artistic execution resonated with our We roll on empty negative space, own. She left the nature and process of these straight into the dark. breathe into it, energize it, collaborative pairings entirely up to us. I a bubble of air was drawn to Arline Simon’s collages and to create a vector sculptures for their metaphoric possibilities – they spoke to me in images, abstract and in the opposite direction. representational, whimsical and dark –

I used to break lines of passion that sparked my curiosity while inspiring allowing that dead space to intrude, my own narratives. Arline and I had pull me off balance, crumpling my form. conversations by email and on the phone, The key to tilting side is pulling upright sharing images and poetry until pairings – dance works by forces in opposition – clicked for both of us. I was drawn to three of her works, using an existing poem for a pulling the left hand away from the right mixed-media piece, and writing new poems knee for a sculpture and the acrylic collage, feeling the line of connection between them, “Minding the Grid,” which struck me as pushing the floor away with the standing leg both a window and warning sign to the as my center settles. artist and viewer. I emerge from a crumpled world of desires too close-bound and vectorless into a place where opposing pulls expand me, birdlike, aligning delicate bones into a tilted Arline Simon’s “Minding the Grid” vertiginous exhilaratingly lopsided interstice.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 31

Blended Learning Online: New Perspectives and Practices

Sheila Marie Aird and Mary V. Mawn, Center for Distance Learning

his reflection will offer an additional way to define “blended learning.” T To date, most models of educating have been discussed and approached from either a face-to-face model, face-to-face model with an online component, face-to- face with a residency component, or simply online. Although the discussions about these models are complicated, and the camps of best versus better models will always exist, what is clear is that education as we know it is evolving on a daily basis. How students choose to be educated is not only creating a change in the learning landscape, but is ultimately changing the basic ways we educate and how we choose to blend or not to blend. We are left to deal with a central question: How do we educate in a meaningful way that allows the student to Sheila Marie Aird Mary V. Mawn empower themselves and drive their own educational pursuits? parties involved with a course” (p. 10). In with and educate our students. Another The idea of blended learning is not a new fact, this second definition describes what ingredient is today’s student of the digital concept. Garrison and Kanuka (2004) mentors and students having been doing at age, who is often seeking a more interactive describe blended learning as “both simple Empire State College throughout its history. and authentic online experience. Defined and complex”: as the 21st century learner, this group While the majority of students at the of students is quite comfortable with At its simplest, blended learning is the college’s Center for Distance Learning (CDL) blogs, wikis and other social media. A thoughtful integration of classroom study at a distance, they too are engaged in recent article in Education Week (2010) face-to-face learning experiences with different learning models. For the sake of asked: “How do you define 21st-century online learning experiences. There is this discussion, we would like to share some learning?” Responses from 11 educators considerable intuitive appeal to the examples of how “blending” can be viewed pointed to the need for learner-centered, concept of integrating the strengths through another lens. The discussion we real-world educational opportunities. of synchronous (face-to-face) and offer will focus on how we “blend” at CDL, One expert states, “Twenty-first century asynchronous (text-based Internet) and the infinite possibilities that can develop learning will ultimately be ‘learner driven,’” learning activities. At the same time, from using these approaches to engage, while a second states, “Students in the there is considerable complexity in its enlighten and place education in the hands 21st century learn in a global classroom implementation with the challenge of of the student. virtually limitless design possibilities and it’s not necessarily within four walls.” and applicability to so many contexts. Although this reflection is not a pedagogical Individualized and lifelong learning are also (p. 96) discussion per se, it is an attempt to create key elements. As another respondent stated: dialogue, raise awareness and expand the “No longer does learning have to be one- Heinze and Proctor (2004) define blended definition of how we view and describe size-fits-all or confined to the classroom. learning in a more generalized fashion: blended learning. The opportunities afforded by technology “Blended learning is learning that is should be used to re-imagine 21st century facilitated by the effective combination Blended Distance/E-Learning education, focusing on preparing students to of different modes of delivery, models of be learners for life” (p. 32). teaching and styles of learning, and founded Distance learning has changed dramatically on transparent communication amongst all in the shift from print-based to Web-based, which has informed how we interact

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 32

As we look to expand the definition of of hybrid technologies to tell her story and Blended Learning: Online and blended learning, taking into account the to contribute to the technology needs and Virtual (Example 4) – Audi Matias 21st century learner, we explored some strategic planning of the organization. of the ways that we “blend” in the online Many higher education institutions, environment. We approached our task by Blended Learning: Online and particularly those involved in online inviting colleagues to share, in their own Community-based (Example 2) – learning, have discovered the great potential words, how they think about and integrate Joyce McKnight that virtual environments, such as Second blended learning in the studies that they Life (SL), brings to their programs. In the I think my Community Organizing course at create and/or teach. These examples span interdisciplinary, online course The Future of CDL is a good example of blended learning, various areas of study and, as will become Being Human, we use SL to create a blended as well as of service learning. It contains evident, use different approaches to online learning approach that provides students the usual asynchronous discussions and blended learning. with a supported, constructive learning written assignments. I [also] use Elluminate experience. A series of activities utilizing [a virtual learning environment] for weekly Blended Learning: Online and SL are scaffolded throughout the course in online conversations. I frequently talk Community-based (Example 1) – order to help students with the technology; with students on the telephone about their Tom Mackey in addition, the instructor meets on a regular individual projects; and, almost every basis, virtually, with the students. As with This term, I am working with a student semester, one or two students do face-to- any experiment, students approach the on an independent study on social and face things with and for the on-ground SL activities using the scientific method. community informatics. The open learning community organizing projects I am For the final SL-based learning, they are environment at Empire State College doing. For instance, in spring 2010, one required to develop two hypotheses before encourages this kind of exploration with of my students built a balloon dart board they start their experiment, [each including: experimental modes of learning, in this for a Kids Carnival we had for the Teen a description of] the world(s) they expect case, a study co-designed with the student. Connection [program], and came up to see, the technologies they chose to use, This is a course that I originally developed from near New York City with his wife and their experience as an avatar. Then, in 2007 for the Honors College at the and family to run it. This semester, a they participate in the activity, making University at Albany. I happened to mention Schenectady student has joined at least observations based on their two hypotheses. my experience teaching this course in a two of the neighborhood organizations This addition of a virtual meeting space blog posting and one of my students in there and has been doing very valuable component is a great gateway for students Digital Storytelling was intrigued by the volunteer work. and instructors to come together, despite idea, expressing interest in doing something the physical constraints, to reflect on similar at CDL. This student is engaged Blended Learning: Online and educational materials and subject content. with her community and contributes in Hands-on (Example 3) – Ken Charuk many ways through food drives and other and Mary Mawn Blended Learning: Online and Field- volunteer work. She was interested in The Science of Cooking is a fully online based (Example 5) – Phil Ortiz the idea of a course that required service course that takes a unique approach to learning, an activity that she was already In Marine Biology, students are asked to blended learning. In this course, students use involved in, and would allow her to blend spend some time at the Maritime Aquarium hands-on laboratory activities performed theory and practice in a meaningful way. at Norwalk (CT). Although they don’t with common household items and For this study, the student blogs about interact with their course instructor while ingredients in the student’s own kitchen theoretical readings related to social and there, they do meet with the members of to explore the science of cooking. These community informatics and she conducts the team of folks who helped develop some activities are designed to make connections service learning in her community, aspects of the course (who also appear on a between theory and practice, and offer reflecting on the readings and bringing DVD that was produced for the course). students different ways to connect with the these insights to her observations. She also course content beyond an exclusive printed- conducts a structured field study, where Blended Learning: Online, Field- word learning style. Authentic, everyday she analyzes the organization from a social based, and Virtual (Example 6) – activities such as browning meat and and community informatics perspective Sheila Marie Aird and Mitchell kneading dough help students understand and identifies a need that then impacts her Wood the underlying biological, chemical and work at the community location. The blend physical concepts and processes. This In Public History: A Shared Conversation occurs on several levels – blending theory blending of theory and practice, text and (to be offered starting in fall 2011), an and practice, in place and online learning, hands-on is intended to promote deeper advanced course, students will explore the individual and collaborative practice, course learning, as well as the understanding that concepts and practices of public history. work and service, and integrating a range science impacts everyone’s lives. Students will explore and critique diverse media, including film and websites, oral history collections and photographs.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 33

Students also will take self-guided tours At the National Geographic magazine site, approach to student learning and that also to physical and virtual public history students find professional advice on specific take into consideration various learning sites and will have the opportunity to topics such as taking photos in the rain or styles. As the educational landscape and conduct hands-on research projects ranging shooting with available light in addition our students change, we will continue to from video documentation to traditional to the vast archive of the magazine’s look at different resources and tools of research papers. renowned images. engagement to enhance the educational pursuits of our students. Such approaches – Blended Learning: Online, Active, Blended Approaches in some that exist, others yet to be discovered and Virtual (Example 7) – Pat Lefor Distance Learning – will serve them both inside and outside and Betsy Braun the academic arena, and open the dialogue As is evident from these seven examples, to the way by which “blended” is viewed As described on an Empire State College CDL faculty working in “blended” in the e-learning/online community. blog (http://commons.esc.edu/cdl-course- environments use an array of methods. highlights), written by Betsy Braun: These approaches include: References One popular art course, The Photographic • Connecting the applied to the Garrison, D.R. and Kanuka, H. (2004) Vision, employs virtual field trips to conceptual/theoretical; Blended learning: Uncovering its enhance the student experience. Primarily • Individual reports and group transformative potential in higher an overview of photography, its history and discussions; education. The Internet and Higher the many genres it encompasses, this course Education, 7(2), 95-105. also teaches hands-on techniques. The field • Multiple modes of assessment, trips are designed to expose students to a including student choice of final project; Heinze, A. and Procter, C. (2004). wealth of historical, educational and artistic • Technology-enabled (online) and hands- Proceedings of Education on a knowledge directly related to each module’s on (offline); Changing Environment Conference: topic. A visit to the American Museum • Interdisciplinary; Reflections on the Use of Blended of Photography provides a history of the Learning. Retrieved from discipline, as well as unique exhibitions • Text- and video-based; http://www.ece.salford.ac.uk/ and research resources. The websites of • Discovery through primary source proceedings/papers/ah_04.rtf individual photographers and galleries documents; How do you define 21st-century learning? offer high-quality, contextualized images • Map blogs; One question. Eleven answers. and lessons in presentation. These, in (2010) Education Week: Teacher turn, assist students as they complete their • Virtual field trips; PD Sourcebook, 4(1), 32. Retrieved own photographic assignments for group • Blogs and wikis; and, http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/ critiques. Throughout the course, students • Learner-centered activities. 2010/10/12/01panel.h04.html take full advantage of experts working in diverse photographic specialties such as There are other courses at CDL not journalism, portraiture and documentation. mentioned here that are already developed or are in production that offer a blended

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 34

The Haiku Maker

Robert Congemi, Northeast Center

s too often these days, Daniel seven, five – and if you’re any good Surprisingly, this morning Daniel found awoke from a deep sleep, not you might even capture how ephemeral the tiny poetry coming easily to him. He A immediately certain of his nature is.” knew he wanted to connect the sunshine whereabouts, seemingly drugged, the usual with his dreaming, and to be pleasantly “Oh, is that all?” Daniel, the social worker, for him recently. What followed was the ironic about it. had asked. process of getting back to his normal self – “Let’s see,” he said aloud, and wrote: a clearing of his head, the waning of pain. “No, actually,” Donovan went on. “If “‘Lighting up my room’ … that’s five It was the price he had decided of the great you’re really good, you also manage to syllables.” He started the second line by stress upon him, his agency in Albany suggest correspondences between the finishing his thought: “‘The sun.’” He County, the cosmos since what the various worlds – you know, among humans, paused, but was having good luck and newspapers were calling the Great animals, birds, flowers … ” quickly added, “‘ – though my dreams Recession. were warm … ’” That made seven syllables “I’m not myself,” he told a young for the second line. Now for the last line. co-worker named Jenna, reflecting back “‘Enough and … ’” He did not struggle to an earlier conversation. “How will we for long. Was he in some kind of Buddhist ever find places for all the homeless and zone? Donovan had told Daniel haiku was would-be homeless?” a Buddhist thing, spiritual, mystical. He even got his rhyme and the necessary two But, also, simultaneously, the morning’s syllables. “ … ‘abloom.’” sunlight was simply overwhelming his bedroom, making itself a means for Finished, Daniel smiled at his success, equilibrium, substituting warmth for raised a wry eyebrow and somewhat exhaustion, coziness for anxiety. Alone in reluctantly proceeded to his morning bed, in the room at the back of the little ablutions and dressing, reprising the suburban house he shared with his wife poem as he went along: and two children, Daniel couldn’t help Lighting up my room observing, regarding the moment: The sun – though my dreams were warm “Well, isn’t this a surprise? Now if only I didn’t have to re-enter the world. Enough and abloom. Especially today.” Robert Congemi When these were done, Daniel went So, too, shortly after rising from bed, could downstairs to his kitchen to get food to take he not help giving in again to an impulse with him to work for lunch, the creaky steps “Anything else?” Daniel was droll, but to write a tiny poem upon the matter? of the house reminding him of how alone very interested. Finding paper and pencil in a table beside he was without his family. His wife and two his bed, Daniel dropped down into a chair “Sure,” Donovan said. “But I don’t want to children had gone to visit Daniel’s in-laws. and thought about composing. He prepared overdo it at first. Someday we’ll talk about He himself had been unable to abandon his to write a haiku, poetry an older colleague meaning vibrating like an arrow that has responsibilities at work, but the children from work had introduced him to, whose just hit a bulls-eye.” were on school holiday and his wife Emily practice was curiously a new pleasure had not seen her parents for several weeks. “I’ll do my best,” was all Daniel had for him. Daniel missed his family very much, just managed to say, and turned to the list of as he had known he would. He hated to “It’s fun and satisfying,” the colleague, phone calls he needed to return to clients be separated from them in any way. The whose name was Donovan, observed. and unsolicited callers asking for help in previous day he had seen them off. Daniel Donovan had studied literature at the finding a place to live. stood in the driveway with the children, at university and still read a great deal. Their the side of the family’s house, a bungalow offices at the agency were contiguous. with the conventional bushes and shrubs “Seventeen syllables in three lines – five, and porch. Emily was still inside the house,

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 35 making certain she had forgotten nothing While musing, I see government buildings, he found himself for the week’s trip and readying herself to noting the people in the streets, those who Pink butterflies on my lawn … drive the 300 miles to her family home. lived and mostly rented in the buildings His daughter Grace stood before him, O, no. Just pansies. only blocks from the city’s downtown. looking up at Daniel in her pretty, travel To his chagrin, the pedestrians looked Taking a bus the few miles into the city – dress, while his son was behind her a few impoverished or nearly so. Standing out Emily had their only car – Daniel sat on paces, hopping up and down, typical of him, from others, a teenage couple walked the side of the bus closer to the houses of a 6-year-old boy. together holding hands in the morning’s the working class streets, unable to keep his sunlight, and this image, too, captured his “Grace, I want you to look after your thoughts exclusively on the workday ahead imagination. Not wanting to lose the image, mother,” he instructed his eldest child. of him. The bus carried passengers like him, Daniel quickly reached in his pocket for his “You know she can work herself into a mostly government and civil servants from paper and pencil and raced to capture it, state, when there is too much for her to the suburbs just beyond the city. As the bus his mind searching anew for proper words think about.” passed an intersection of cars and pickup and thoughts. By the time he reached his trucks and convenience stores, Daniel His daughter looked and grinned at bus stop in front of the building where he thought of a conversation he had had with her brother. worked, he had composed his third haiku his father weeks before. His father now lived of the day, which had given him a bit of “What is it?” Daniel asked her. in a small town east of the city, in an area trouble to work out. Daniel had fussed over virtually rural, which he preferred. Grace did not mind replying. “Daddy, that the connotation of key words and decided to sounds like you, not Momma.” “Why do you do what you do?” His father be satisfied with what he had written until was already retired. perhaps later that evening, when he had Daniel considered the veracity of this. more time to linger. Now, he read the tiny Behind them, his son continued to hop up Daniel was visiting, dutifully staying poem to himself: and down. in touch. His father had been a high school gym teacher and football coach. Youth, so lovely, “Sean,” he scolded his son, not able to think Daniel stood beside him in the finished of anything else to say. Strolling in the sun … While I tire basement where his father had his workout When his wife and children had gone, equipment, athletic awards, and a huge When I walk, thirty. Daniel had walked around seemingly flat screen television set for watching Whatever pleasure the unfinished haiku without point to the back of the house to its sports events. had given him was momentary, for as backyard, as he now looked out at it from “I don’t know. I just want to.” soon as Daniel ascended the flights of the kitchen window. The sun that morning stairs to where his agency was located, was also shining brightly and encouraged “Isn’t the work a bitch? Doesn’t it get you he found it already furiously busy. Junior his lingering. Daniel noticed that the roses stressed out of your mind?” staff members and interns were at their he had planted against a side fence earlier Daniel had to smile and nod. “Yes. It does.” work spaces or in cubicles on the phones in the spring were becoming a verdant They had had this conversation before. looking overwhelmed, as were his other bush – a spectacle of red, pink and white colleagues, not much older than the interns blossoms – and turning his glance, just for “Then why? Is this work really what you and junior staff and not much younger a moment convinced himself he actually want to do with your life?” than Daniel. Seeing him, one of the interns, saw tiny butterflies on the grass in the Daniel sighed. “It’s got to be done.” His Susanna, said: far corner of the yard. Such imagination father surfed the television channels, like a succored him and soon he was thinking of “Daniel, thank God you’re here. The calls teenager. He was looking for an important composing another haiku. While preparing are coming in every minute. I’ve been on the post-season soccer game. coffee and then the lunch to take to work, hotline since … ” Daniel again pushed words, syllables and “And when something good happens, really “I’ll help, don’t worry,” Daniel told her. lines about in his mind, hoping to see if he good, it feels meaningful, as they say,” could capture his fanciful thought about Daniel added. Taking a handful of phone messages from the butterflies and its surprise. Again, too, Susanna’s desk, Daniel crossed the large His father settled on a basketball game for for some reason, composition came easily, main room of the agency and went into the time being. “I wonder,” he observed. especially the rhyme, though finding the his office. Pausing a moment to look out “Maybe that’s just rationalization. You’ve exact number of syllables for each line kept his window, he peered down on the street always been a romantic. How long do you him busy for more time than he really had below and watched pedestrians passing plan to continue to do what you do?” to spare. Finally, he wrote the second haiku by his building, others sitting on stoops or of the day: Daniel had had to think about his father’s lingering across the street, or going in and blunt conversation, but now, as the bus out of small stores. Finally, drawing in his brought him closer to the city and its breath, he picked up the first message and

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 36 dialed the number indicated on it. After “Again … I … I … I’m sorry.” It was all he Daniel sighed deeply. His neck tightened up. several rings, a frail, old, frightened, female could think of saying. Was his work even It had been doing that for some time now, voice answered. impoverishing his ability to think and speak? though it never used to. “ … Yes?” “I’ll make it, though. I’m not pathetic,” the The old woman’s voice seemed to echo in old woman proclaimed, suddenly affecting his brain: “Hello,” Daniel said. “You called early this energy. “But they put me in a terrible morning, ma’am, and left a message?” “Please help me? I have nowhere else to go.” building. Sir, you should see the building I “Who are you?” live in. It’s so old and falling apart. And the When the call was over, Daniel was neighborhood is very dangerous. I’ve never not exactly sure what to do, despite his “The county housing agency. Are you in … complained. But now … it was so cold this experience. He had schooled himself in crisis New York?” winter. You know how cold it was?” situations to take his time, to see if there “Yes. Yes. Oh, God, thank you for calling weren’t some kind of solution possible. But “Yes, ma’am. I know. It was very cold.” me back.” The old, frightened voice nothing came to him. Then, rather fancifully, Daniel thought to be a bit light-hearted. “I abruptly sounded a bit relieved. “I’ve been though not unheard-of for him, he decided live north of you.” calling everybody. Whoever I could find in perhaps his unconscious or subconscious, or the phone book.” “Well, sir, it was so cold, I could hardly get whatever his analytic friends called it, could out of bed.” She was not to be deterred. “I work on the problem while he focused his Daniel was not surprised. “You should slept in the bed with my overcoat on. Can attention elsewhere. The something else was know, ma’am, this office is for counties you believe that? In this country? Letting the easy. He would call his wife. north of you. You really should be calling landlord do that to American citizens. Not authorities where you live.” Taking up his cell phone, Daniel punched in giving people any decent heat.” She would Emily’s code, and after a number of rings, That seemed to make her alarmed again and not stop. “Someone could have frozen to she answered him, which was very relieving. set her back. death. Probably did. What is this country Perhaps she was no longer angry with him. coming to? And it’s going to get worse “But I’ve been calling everyone where I live. and worse.” “Where are you?” he asked her. He hoped Nobody gets back to me, nobody helps me. she was alone. I’ve been trying to get help for days. Please On this point, Daniel thought he could not don’t hang up on me. I need someone to have agreed more, though he kept his silence “I’m at the beach. We’re at the beach.” help me. Please help me.” and continued to listen. Of course – he had forgotten. The town At such urgency there was little else for him “So the pipes burst. That’s what happened. beach on the shore. A very rich and to say: “Don’t worry. I won’t hang up.” The pipes in this house burst. There was no private place. Daniel swung around in his seat and again water for who knows how long. I couldn’t “How did the trip go? No trouble? Did looked out his office window down on the wash myself, or wash clothes. I heated water the car perform all right?” He hoped she’d people, the stores and the buildings on the over the stove. And then inspectors came. say yes. street across from him. “I’ll do everything And now the building is condemned and I can.” everybody has to get out.” “Mainly.” Her voice was extraordinarily weak. “Thank Unable to resist the impulse, Daniel looked “Mainly?” God, thank God … .” outside onto the street, this time spying “That sound,” Emily explained. “That young women leading a long line of small The intensity of her need made him feel like sound the mechanic you went to doesn’t children farther downtown, toward City a special mission had been assigned to him. understand. The car made that sound most Hall. The children all held on to a rope to “Tell me why you called. Please.” of the trip. But I kept the windows closed, be orderly and for safety. and the radio on. And talked to the kids.” “I called because I don’t know what to do.” “We have to get out.” The old woman was “I see,” Daniel said. “How’s the visit He thought he heard her crying. implacable in her fear. “And nobody knows going?” where we’re going to go. We don’t have any “I’m a very sick woman, you know.” money. We hardly get by. People are going At this question, Emily’s voice seemed to “I … I’m sorry.” to starve if things don’t get any better. I’ve brighten a little, perhaps despite herself. got to leave in two weeks. I have to get out “I worked for the government, too. And “Good.” of my apartment and find another place to got workers’ compensation. I was hurt on live in. How am I going to do that? I can’t “What did you do? Did your folks take the job. That was several years ago.” She do that? I don’t even know how to do that? you all out to eat?” hardly paused. “And now I’m in my late Young man, you’ve got to help me. I don’t 70s, and I have diabetes, and I can hardly She really didn’t want to hurt him. know what to do. I don’t know who else walk out of the house, and God knows “ … Yes.” to ask.” what else I have.”

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 37

“At that restaurant?” Daniel sat down in the chair beside Jenna’s “Daniel, I’m just a clerk,” Jenna answered desk. “And I’m not sure what I can do,” him. “I wish I were a commissioner, but I’m “We did go there, Daniel.” he explained to her. “Maybe we can find not. What about Anthony? Maybe he can “And shopping today? Your mother took out where she might be on the list for do something. Or think of something. He you to those expensive shops?” another apartment?” likes you.” “Some of them are chains.” Jenna stopped her work, understanding Daniel considered her suggestion for a few what Daniel was asking, and began to type moments. It was plausible. “I’ve been on “Some chains.” into her computer. “That’s an idea. Hold on. committees with him.” “Daniel, why are my parents bad because I’ve already done that a few times this week. “Call him,” Jenna said. “See what he says.” my father’s successful?” she asked him. What’s her name?” “They haven’t hurt you.” Thinking about it further, Daniel finally Daniel told her and Jenna finished nodded. When the call with Emily was over, Daniel processing their inquiry on the computer. turned his attention still another time to his Both she and Daniel waited a few moments “All right,” he told her. window, now even more unable to think of and then, reading her computer screen, Once back in his office, Daniel called his what to do. Life was becoming too complex Jenna seemed amazed at what was there and colleague, who also was in New York City. and hard for him. Not quite directly across turned to Daniel. “Are you ready? Guess He and Anthony had worked together in the the street, students with their textbooks sat what number she is?” past few years. on a stoop in front of a tall building that Daniel gestured that he hadn’t a clue. housed a print shop on the street level and “Tony, you’ve got to help me,” he said to apartments on the three stories above the She passed along the bad news: “Your old his colleague, when Daniel had him on the shop. The young people also struck him as woman’s number 5,322.” phone. “I know it’s probably out of line. But archetypal, iconic. Daniel wrote a fourth this lady’s in a very bad place.” “What?” Daniel felt slapped. haiku of the day, forcing a wistful and “Everybody’s in a very bad place, Daniel.” bemused feeling upon himself. He had no “That’s right. 5,322.” trouble writing the poem: “Tony … ” “But that’s insane,” he said. Students on that row “I can’t jump her.” “We live in an insane world.” Of brownstone steps – I saw them Daniel probably went farther than he should He tried to explain to Jenna, who didn’t have. That’s how strongly he felt, especially Twenty years ago. need an explanation. “But the woman will these days. “Tony, the woman’s nearly be dead before she’s moved halfway up that Minutes later, however, leaving his office 80, she has no money, no family, she’s an list. I’d put money on it.” and returning to the main work area, invalid, she has to get out of a condemned Daniel compelled himself back to the task “Well, that’s the situation,” Jenna replied, house we once put her in.” He raised at hand. What could he possibly do for the no happier than he. his voice in frustration at his colleague. old woman? What could he come up with? “Somebody’s got to do something.” Daniel shook his head. “Is there any way Who did he know? For a start, he walked she can get jumped?” At first, Anthony was silent, but then he to his friend Jenna’s desk. She supervised the said: “You’re getting yourself too worked interns. Donovan was on a site inspection. “You mean put over all the other people?” up, old buddy. Let me see … Let me see.” “Jenna, I just talked to a lady from the city. Daniel wasn’t sure what to say. “I … I “Yes … see,” Daniel said. “See.” She about broke my heart. Apparently, she guess. Her case is so bad. She is on workers’ had her phone book out, called any place compensation.” As the day went on Daniel tried hard not that had to do with housing, and got us.” to be too emotional. After all, that’s what Jenna was not impressed. “That might mean everyone said was best for him. He looked Jenna looked up from her own work. She something. But there’s probably lots of other out his office window still a further time had papers scattered across her desk. “What people who could say the same.” on the street below, to see if there were did the woman say?” “I know.” Daniel glanced around the large not something now which would strike “She’s in her late 70s, her building’s room. Everyone was working so furiously. him as poetic, but at the moment nothing condemned, she has to move out, and of “I just want to help her,” he said. “I just particularly special or exciting came to him. course she has nowhere to go and absolutely want to help a sick, old lady find a decent This being the case, he turned back to his no one to help her.” place to live. He looked at his colleague. papers and messages, again forcing himself “Can’t we do something for her?” to be as resolute as possible, and sorted Jenna sighed. “Terrific. I thought I’d heard through the number of calls he needed it all.” to make and had planned to make the day before.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 38

Starting with one he thought would be The young woman’s parents watched other homes we have in the city.” He tried relatively straightforward, Daniel recalled Daniel closely, the old people already to make himself as compelling as the man a young couple, graduate students at the grateful. My God, he thought, poetry was. “Go there and see for yourself. Have university who had appeared at the agency can be found anywhere. the neighbors join you. And, by the way, two days earlier. They were worried, though a few years ago, I lived only a few doors “I’ll do my best,” he told them. not quite as lost or desperate as other clients away from a group home, with my wife recently. Immediately, Daniel had liked The second landlord was even more and children, and we never had any trouble them, and was reminded of himself not that troublesome than the first. Daniel had at all. I’m not sure we even saw any clients many years ago. The young man said he was worked with him several times before, who lived in the home.” a philosophy student at the university, the and after all the economy was in such bad The man actually continued to listen to him. young woman in anthropology. They had shape, and tough times would soon be Silently, Daniel thanked the gods. little money and hoped the agency could getting even tougher. find them an inexpensive apartment. “And, this may not impress you,” he “Can they make the rent?” the landlord continued, almost afraid to stop talking, “We’re both trying to get through graduate asked, challenging Daniel. “More than a “But the people are not institutionalized. school,” the young woman explained, couple of my tenants have not been able to They get a place to live that’s a nice house, Daniel hearing nothing he hadn’t heard recently. I’m a businessman after all.” decent rooms. That can’t be bad. Suppose often before. “We’ll take most anything “Talk to them,” Daniel told him. “And the it was someone in your own family? you have.” daughter. I have a feeling she’d do anything Who was so old, who couldn’t take “And then fix it up,” the philosophy to help.” care of themselves, who needed a little major said. help, a little looking after? Someone to “I’ll need two months up front, and give them their medication, or to ask if Calling for them, Daniel spoke to an a security deposit. I can’t not do that they’re comfortable?” available landlord, a man who owned anymore.” a number of low-end buildings. “They Now it was Daniel’s turn to pause. He “Sure,” Daniel said. look like great young people,” he told the supposed he shouldn’t go on any more and landlord. “They can’t afford the dormitories The following call was the toughest. It leave the situation open to more criticism. at the university and are willing to take involved a daunting complaint, one familiar But he couldn’t help making one last point. anything not too expensive.” enough to Daniel. The city wanted to “Please, come around to the agency. establish another residential home for The landlord hesitated. It was as if he were We’ll give you all the information you people with mental and social problems. But renting out luxury apartments. “Uhh … need. We’ll give you records. We can get Daniel talked as convincingly as he could you’re sure about these kids? Sometimes testimonies. Again, this is a good thing, sir. with the complainant and, finally, prevailed, students will tear a place apart just for fun. A good thing.” using all his experience and conviction to Or they think it’s a good, revolutionary act.” placate the man for the time being. The man Daniel held his breath. The man on the “I’m sure,” Daniel said, dry. “Let them see was absolutely furious. Daniel imagined a other end of the phone mumbled and one of your places. You won’t be sorry.” big, imposing person, in construction or grumbled. Could I have been successful? something. Daniel wondered. His next call was for an elderly Hispanic couple. Their daughter had called and He was beside himself. “Well … I don’t know,” the man replied. then personally brought her parents to the “You sound like a smart person. I don’t “Look, I’ve heard you guys are going to put agency. She was a feisty girl. Her parents, know what to think. I think you’re too one of those damn houses for crazy people shy and tentative, smiled sweetly through smart for me. I’ll think about what you in my neighborhood,” he began. “Right the interview. said.” on my god damn street! Well, I’m telling “My parents are from San Salvador,” the you you’re not going to get away with it. I When he put the phone down, Daniel daughter told Daniel. “I am so excited don’t care if the city or the state or the god sighed, relieved. they’re here. It’s been years. I assured them damned country is saying it’s okay. Not in But rather than relax, Daniel kept on you could find a nice home for them.” Her my neighborhood. I’m thinking of getting working. He didn’t slow down for the rest toughness softened, at least for the moment, all the neighbors to organize a protest. To of the afternoon, until it was time to stop her worry manifesting itself. fight back!” for the day and go home. Before leaving “You can do that, can’t you?” She leaned “Sir,” Daniel attempted to explain, the man the agency, he couldn’t resist studying it forward. Suddenly, Daniel thought she, too, pausing, perhaps calmed a little, his protest with a curious eye, observing his colleagues might cry. “It doesn’t have to be the Taj being made. “The group home is not a bad at their work spaces or in their offices, Mahal. Just something they could live in thing. Do you have any experience with the implacable papers covering desks, close by. That would be wonderful.” them? We have plenty of data we can show devoted souls on the phone scratching notes you. I’ll give you the names and addresses of furiously or writing up their inevitable

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 39 reports. Walking again to Jenna’s desk, The small, aggressive, intellectual, self- you that. As they say in baseball, wait until Daniel thanked her for helping him earlier centered man raised an incredulous eyebrow next year. Then with no more money, the and told her Anthony had promised to get and leaned toward Daniel, apparently to real reality is going to kick in, we’ll be back back to him with maybe something positive better make his argument. Daniel wondered to where we were, and God help us, because for the old, handicapped woman in the why this was happening to him. there will be no billion dollars to help us city. As he walked down the stairs of the out. How much can we borrow from China “Yeah, I know they say things are getting building, Daniel even found himself trying for God’s sake? All China has to do is sneeze better. They talk about some little money to write another poem, thinking suddenly and the good old United States of America being paid back. Or they talk about a tiny with fondness of his own home. He had an is history. And also how much more money up-tick in housing sales. Or they get all bent idea to make a poem out of the fallen leaves can we print? We’re already printing money out of shape when the stock market goes of the past week, and rather quickly, his run like crazy. Where do you think the stimulus up.” The man leaned even closer. “Sure, of creativity this day abundant, regardless billions came from? No, sir, we’ve already the stock market goes up. Big deal! It’s just of his stress, coupled a chore of September mortgaged off the next several decades of flimflam. They’re just taking care of each with his supposed aging: our future, God help us.” The little man other, and how is that really an indicator looked triumphant. “And that’s the good Brilliant, autumn noon – anyway? My God, but Wall Street is news.” unrepentant.” Yellow, red, and gold-leafed trees. “What do you mean?” Daniel managed to Daniel tried to keep his balance. He Ah, my back sore soon! ask him, feeling nearly overwhelmed. struggled to be polite, to be a part of this Sadly, though, as fate would have it, as unforeseen conversation. “A lot of people The man seemed incredulous. “What do Daniel awaited the bus to return home, to think things are getting turned around. I mean? I mean who knows what else is his near despair, the day soon inexplicably Maybe not as quickly as we’d like, but all out there? This could be only the tip of the turned dark again. He had been waiting in kinds of reporters and analysts are saying proverbial iceberg. I’ve heard rumors that innocence at the bus stop at the end of the so.” there’s more and more to come. This might street from his agency. Several people waited be just the first wave.” But the man looked at Daniel with great alongside him – the usual suburban people incredulity. “Where are you getting your When Daniel finally exited the bus, he who like himself lived only a few miles information?” felt lightheaded. It was as if he had been beyond their small city. Among them was a attacked, assailed as badly as by anything man Daniel had seen often before – a small, “Uhhh … from television … the news else that day. He didn’t quite remember his aggressive, rather unpleasant, intellectual- and commentary shows. And from the first steps of walking. He wondered if he looking man. Catching Daniel’s eye, for newspapers. Good newspapers.” didn’t feel nausea. some reason the man moved determinedly The little, aggressive man seemed to have through the small crowd of people toward But, then, suddenly, at the same time, trouble staying in his seat. “Listen, Daniel, him, and it was soon apparent the man somehow he felt an overwhelming urgency I know something about economics, too. meant to spend his time on the bus riding to … to rebel. To be absolutely defiant and I minored in it at college. You know, with Daniel. Daniel cursed his fate. assert that he’d had enough. It was the most Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations, Keynes, curious thing. He simply needed to rebel. “Daniel, right?” the man asked, reaching neo-Keynesian theory. I did a paper In some kind of existential protest, Daniel him and following Daniel up the steps of the once comparing capitalist and socialist chose not to accept what the aggressive, bus, to pay his fare immediately after him. economics.” little man had said. Something he didn’t “Yes … ” Daniel answered, uncertain. Daniel felt, out of the blue, as if a part of his quite understand fought a sense of despair, destiny, he was in the middle of a diatribe. and Daniel found himself putting down his The man pursued him down the aisle of the metaphoric foot. Who was to say what the bus and promptly sat next to Daniel. He “So let me tell you, neighbor,” the man future would bring? How could this man seemed implacably intent on conversation. continued. “Nothing significant has really know any better than anyone else what happened. There are all kinds of negatives “Riding the bus now? Trying to save some the future would be? Good God, he was still out there, and it is my prediction that money?” The man spoke rapidly, nervously. merely a neighbor. In a small town, beside they will remain out there for some time. “I am. With this economy, huh?” The man a small city, located in a huge country, in a In addition to very little real payback, in seemed overflowing with a strange energy. vastly huger world! No, no, Daniel decided, addition to an up-tick or two in the housing simply asserting himself. He would not be Daniel smiled weakly. He tried to find market, in addition to whatever the hell overcome by this man, especially after all the something to say. “I’m glad things are Wall Street is doing. Take, just for instance, struggling he had endured during the day. getting a little better.” next year. What happens when the stimulus package is gone, past, caput, used up, Reaching the end of the first block of his siphoned off, smuggled or stolen away in walk home, as silly as it was, he began some degree by the geniuses of evil? I ask speaking aloud, too, aware of his own

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 40 absurdity. He thought of what he should of the old worn-out garage, where another “ … Is everything okay?” he asked her. have said in rebuttal to the aggressive little had scraped a car against a door of the “Yes.” man. Daniel would assert his own diatribe. garage. He found himself looking again at the little garden and lawn directly behind the “ … Well, then?” “Surely, America can overcome this latest house, and then to an open space beyond crisis?” He crossed the street, heedless of “I just wanted to talk to you.” There was them, bordered by scraggly trees. Next, any traffic. “Look what monstrous things kindness in her voice. It was his own Emily! he stared off at the wooded space beyond it has overcome since its birth. Take its “I had to tell you I felt so bad about our this clear area, that at first was sparsely birth. Was there ever a miracle? How conversation before. I’m not sure why I was occupied by trees and gradually became could it have happened? A few colonialists so edgy.” Then, a long pause. “Now, I just thicker and thicker until it was a wood, a overcoming the greatest nation on earth, want to say that … that I love you, Daniel. darkening, almost secret, almost forbidding possessing the greatest Navy and Army? I … I really do. I wouldn’t change anything. place. Strangely, all that he saw, even the It was inconceivable to everyone. The You believe me?” dark place, filled Daniel with a sense of early defeats, again and again. The rag tag sweet familiarity, with a redeeming sense of “ … Yes … I do,” he managed. army. The desertions? But what happened? ownership. Sighing with possession, he went Something absolutely extraordinary. So how “Good. I love us.” inside the house. can this neighbor of mine think the country “ … So … do I.” can’t overcome this mere blip? Driving the Putting his briefcase down, which was English out of our land? Writing a world- filled with forms and manuals and letters, She sighed in relief. “Then let me put the famous Constitution, to say nothing of Daniel took off his coat and looked to see kids on. They want to say hello to their overcoming a horrendous Civil War? Good if any mail had been delivered. It was his father.” God, think of that for a moment. Talk habit. There was none. But on the telephone When the call was over, Daniel tried to about hard times. Endless fighting, and then answering machine, he could see he had two watch television, but nothing interested him, the assassination of the president, the only messages. Hopeful, apprehensive, Daniel and besides, he was too excited to watch man in the world who could have held our clicked on the first message. It was from his television. Instead he took to writing a little country together. On and on it went until friend and colleague Anthony. poetry one last time for the day. The first we were the greatest nation on earth. Let’s “‘Daniel, sorry I missed you at the office’,” haiku came almost as easily as the others. talk about the Second World War … ” Anthony informed him. “‘The impossible He would acknowledge the dark side of life. At this point, Daniel reached his house. He task you set me took a bit of time. Believe After all it was a part of everything. wondered if his own outburst had at least it or not – I was able to get your little, old Far behind our house, brought him a little stability. Also, standing handicapped lady moved up. Our people there, he wondered suddenly – in a real will be calling her in the morning. The A hollow I can’t forget. turnabout of his attention – if the house workers’ comp. helped.’” Dark, still, secret place. itself seemed … poetic. Yes, poetic. Or that Smiling, his heart starting to beat faster, he made it so, his modest bungalow house, The second haiku was more difficult. But in Daniel clicked on the second message. It was the house of a mere worker. Unable to resist, time it came, too. Daniel thought it turned from his Emily. It simply said: “‘Call me.’” Daniel walked up the driveway alongside out to be his best one of the day. the house slowly, touring what he for the Now, at the advent of some kind of Man at dusk alone, moment actually thought of in fancy as his epiphany, Daniel tapped Emily’s number domain. He reached the end of the side of into his cell phone. Almost immediately, she Raking leaves of fall, do you the house, where by chance a past owner answered him. Dream upon the moon? had left a basketball hoop fixed to the top

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 41

Mentoring: A Social Relationship, An Academic Partnership

John M. Beckem II, Center for Distance Learning

hrough a quick Google search, That’s the point where my mentoring I found Empire State College: career evolved. Everywhere and Online. Intrigued T I realized that I felt exactly how our students by the format and the SUNY affiliation, I feel when they begin – except I am not the applied for an area coordinator position at person who is returning to school after the college’s Center for Distance Learning raising kids for 20 years. I am not the bank (CDL), interviewed, and was offered the vice president pressured to earn a bachelor’s job. Prior to my start date, I re-read the degree by December 2011. I am not the job description and saw the “mentoring” high school graduate trying to work, impress portion, which seemed to be a large part of my parents and pay my car insurance, this “teaching” job. I called the dean, Meg which is due next week. I am the person Benke, and asked, “So what is mentoring?” who needs to help students figure out how and she answered simply, “It’s similar to to choose 128 credits to create a balanced, advising but from a bigger perspective. You quality degree program, consistent with correspond with students and help them to SUNY and Empire State College policies, plan their degrees.” which will be accepted by the faculty At the start of my new job with the college, assessment committee. I realized that to I assumed I would be helping students truly understand my mentees, I needed John Beckem choose “classes” from different topic areas to embrace their concerns and be able to and requirements to “customize” their relate to the anxiety of a first-term Empire degree programs. State College student, from financial aid highlighted and rabbit-eared 25 different questions to academic research, technology, pages, and asked CDL colleagues Dana That’s the point where my mentoring instructor communication concerns, and Henson, Diana Hawkins and Ginger Knight career began. so much more. for answers, guidance and clarification. I learned that a mentor is not an advisor. Motivated and empowered, I wanted Now ready to mentor, I scheduled my Mentoring is more than course selection. to learn all I could to help students to first student conference call … and the Mentoring is a constantly-evolving be successful in their academic career at rest is history. process that changes with each person, Empire State College. At CDL, I met with program and point in time. Mentoring is That’s the point where my mentoring Cynthia Flynn, director of operations, to a social relationship based on an academic career matured. understand how the entire process works partnership. I have celebrated grandbabies from recruitment to acceptance, in both I now have over 35 mentees and my group with my student mentees; I have coached paper and electronic formats. I met with is growing on a weekly basis. I have several them through military transitions; I sent a Joe Boudreau, coordinator for special students enrolled in my Planning and sympathy card to a now-graduate whose programs and retention, to find out what Finalizing the Degree course. To continue mom recently died. For the first time in factors contribute most to student success to learn more about the degree planning my career, as a mentor, I have a chance to at the college. I asked Craig Lamb, director process, I have been both a participant bring together all of my experiences and of academic support, how I could help my and chair in several assessment committee perspectives – academic, corporate and students meet their various academic needs. meetings. I also partnered with Carol military – to help guide and shape the I also spoke to Chuck VanVorst, who works Carnevale as my “mentor buddy.” future of other learners. This is an for the college’s Office of Veteran and opportunity and a gift. I am happy to be here, sharing my thoughts Military Education, to see what’s different and experiences with each of you in this With a basic understanding of the mentoring about military students and the transitions publication. In my first 12 months, I have philosophy, I’m ready to begin my first they encounter when returning to college. I researched, evolved and matured in my student relationship. Like any other smart discussed student challenges and common mentoring role. In order to capture my first- professional, I ask my colleagues, “So what issues with David Caso, director of student year experiences in one place, I developed is degree program planning? How do you and academic services at CDL. I read the a mentor-blog at www.escmentor.blogspot. actually do it?” entire Student Degree Planning Guide, com. This is an interactive website where

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 42 students can access valuable information about classes, academic policies and learning resources of all kinds. While I continue to work with new and existing students, I know I will continue to learn more, as each student brings a new opportunity and a new perspective. With that in mind, I wonder … where will my mentoring career grow from here?

Note Thanks to Diana Hawkins for her help in editing this document.

Suspending our Suspicions

A quote from European historian Tony Judt that was included in All About Mentoring #38 (inside front cover) contained a quite awful error. Judt’s words (from his 2010, Ill Fares the Land) should have been:

“All collective undertakings require trust. From the games that children play to complex social institutions, humans cannot work together unless they suspend their suspicion of one another. One person holds the rope, another jumps. One person steadies the ladder, another climbs. Why? In part because we hope for reciprocity, but in part from what is clearly a natural propensity to work in cooperation to collective advantage” (63).

Judt, the Remarque Professor in European Studies at NYU, died of A.L.S. (Lou Gehrig’s disease) in August 2010 at the age of 62. His final volume, The Memory Chalet (2010) contains the following:

“Though I am now more sympathetic to those constrained to silence I remain contemptuous of garbled language. No longer free to exercise it myself, I appreciate more than ever how vital communication is to the republic: not just the means by which we live together but part of what living together means. The wealth of words in which I was raised were a public space in their own right – and properly preserved public spaces are what we so lack today. If words fall into disrepair, what will substitute? They are all we have” (154).

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 Installations by Carol Warner, Metropolitan Center Interiors

“The Best of Everything,” 2006, mixed-media room installation, Parsons The New School for Design at Peer Gallery, New York, N.Y.

y work bridges the gap between and the complexities of achieving the American photography and sculpture. I am dream. The goal is to explore the way photography M particularly interested in appropriating generates longing through these snapshots of idyllic photographic images from a variety of print media home life. and expanding them into three-dimensional spaces. “The Best of Everything” features the projection My current series of home improvement installations of a found image and replicas of objects staged are based on the idea of a “dream house.” They in the original photograph, such as a chandelier, combine found images of luxury apartments with a pillow, a candy dish and a herring-bone floor. home improvement materials from “big box” stores. The intention is to invite the viewer into an The resulting sculptural environment examines the environment framed by the gallery, which presents economics of housing, the process of consumption, an unusual space between media and reality.

alison burstein :

photo credit

“Have it All,” 2010, vinyl sign, 24 x 48 inches. This sign in the window was part of a larger, “River View” installation in progress. “Weaving In & Out“ was site-specific installation titled “River View” a collaborative exhibition in a new green development in East that was created for the art exhibition, Harlem called “Tapestry.“ The exhibit took over this raw ground “Weaving In & Out.“ floor space at 245 East 124th St. Curated by Jodie Dinapoli, Ella Levitt, Manon Slome of No Longer Empty with Trinidad Fombella from El Museo del Barrio.

alison burstein alison burstein : :

photo credit photo credit

“River View” was derived from photographs found in I worked closely with interns from the organization No Longer local real estate listings. The appropriated images were Empty to realize aspects of the installation, “River View,” which enlarged, printed and mounted on board. A rug was included recreating a pattern by hand on a store-bought rug, made to look like the one in the photograph. installing signs and building floors. “River View,” 2010 (detail). The photograph on the right represents a luxury apartment interior. Below: The photograph in the installation is a view of the East River. The overlapping flooring was created onsite and includes vinyl tiles and pebble tiles with grout. The building materials used in the installation reflect different aspects of the photographs. Sometimes they mimic actual parts of the images – like the rug. Other times they play off the images; for instance, here, the pebble flooring, often seen in contemporary bathrooms, becomes a river bed.

“River View,” 2010, mixed-media installation, 10 x 20 feet. Visitors can walk on the floors or sit on the rug. “Pythian Condo,“ 2006, mixed-media installation, room size 12 x 7 feet. This piece is from my “Home Improvement” series. The objects are installed to mimic the angle in the photograph. The title was derived from the text accompanying the photograph in the original listing.

“Bathroom,“ 2006, mixed-media installation, 3 x 8 x 6 feet. This is a scenario into which the viewer can almost enter, hence the tile walkway and actual slippers.

Left: “Interior,“ 2006, mixed-media installation, 5.5 x 6 x 6 feet. The materials in this piece invoke socioeconomic differences; they fail to live up to the grandeur represented in the found photograph. 47

Lessons of War

Elaine Handley and Claudia Hough, Northeast Center

“War is so epidemic in its occurrence, devastating in its impact, and lasting in its aftermath, that we must study it and tend to it and treat it.” – Edward Tick

e stood in the front of the room, holding the book he authored HGhosts of War (2009). Ryan Smithson looked like a typical college kid, not like a veteran who had recently spent a year in Iraq as an Army engineer. Smithson came to our War Stories class to read from his book, to share how he came to write it and talk about using writing as a way of healing. Smithson takes a deep breath, opens his book and begins reading the chapter “The Town that Achmed Built.” The students, Claudia Hough (left) and Elaine Handley including three veterans, are riveted in their seats as Smithson reads about being Now the veterans in the class are leaning chapter, no one says a word; the room is ambushed by insurgents in the town of forward in their chairs; they are really totally silent. The two younger vets speak Samarra. It is the first time he witnesses the connecting to Smithson’s story – the inability first. There is an instant tangible bond destruction of women and children. It isn’t to talk about what happened in Iraq, the between the vets and Smithson. They have easy for Smithson to read these words that feelings of loss at leaving other guys behind, questions, they want to know more, and, to describe the loss of his innocence. It isn’t the night terrors, the paranoia. Smithson’s our amazement, they immediately start to easy for the rest of us to hear them. We’re words are brutally honest – we’re all open up about their own experiences right all visibly shaken, including Smithson, who getting emotional. When he finishes the in front of the class. It is a transcendent pauses to compose himself. He moment. continues with another chapter from Ghosts of War: Our veterans returning home to families, jobs and college face overwhelming The hardest part of a obstacles, including the long-standing rift combat tour is not the between the military and the public. As combat. It’s not the year one student soldier put it: “The majority or more away from home of college campuses don’t support the war, and family. It’s not sleeping they don’t support what we’re doing … in Humvees or eating it’s a struggle.” They often speak of being MREs. It’s not the desert invisible to the American public who is sun that makes everything unaware of some of the good they are doing too hot to touch. It’s not in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as building the fear and wild atrocity roads and schools. It’s not so much that you experience. You get they do not feel cared about; it’s more that used to all that. Bombs society seems to be unaware of what soldiers are just bombs. Blood is are facing. just blood. The hardest part of a combat tour, I’ve Adding to feelings of misunderstanding, discovered, is coming home. veterans returning to college are often (p. 290) Ryan Smithson, veteran and student intimidated by the academic environment.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 48

They are moving from the highly structured, war – in these days of an all-volunteer The responses we received were not hierarchical military life to one that prizes army – two writing and literature mentors unexpected. Many students learned about individuality, choice and exploration. The with no military service, who have never war from TV and movies – and also from decision-making skills needed for success in seen war firsthand? We were keenly aware toys. Andy, who went on to become an college can be overwhelming for veterans, of our inexperience, our naïveté. So what Army Ranger and was among the first especially for those with mental or physical business did we have mucking about troops to parachute into Afghanistan during injuries. Not all who have served in the creating a war course? the U.S. invasion, wrote: military suffered physical injuries, but As experienced writing and literature I was about seven years old. I had many veterans are coming to college with teachers, what we do know about is the my Air Force academy sweatshirt on, psychological needs that are different from power of the written word. We know a sandwich in front of me, and the those of other nontraditional students. The literature can illuminate aspects of your self television blaring. I couldn’t eat my psychological effects from the trauma of war and your experience; that writing helps you sandwich though, I was too intrigued often contribute to student veterans’ feelings process what you know and what you don’t with the movie I had on. Sure, I had of isolation. know; that both literature and writing are seen it five times, but I couldn’t get Writer Maxine Hong Kingston in Veterans about making meaning, and even change enough of it. I loved Top Gun, I loved of War, Veterans of Peace (2006) explains people’s lives. We have experienced this the military, I knew I wanted to be a how she discovered in her early work ourselves and we’ve watched it happen part of that, and I knew it at a very with veterans that they needed to write in to scores of students. Finding the stories, young age. I wanted to be disciplined, I order to help heal the trauma of war. By poems, films and articles that explored wanted to look sharp in that uniform, writing, they created a written record of war was something we could do. We were but most importantly I wanted to show their experience and were able to see how confident we could create meaningful my patriotism in the most simple, yet their thinking developed. “Processing chaos assignments that would help us all discover hardest way possible. I had the red, through story and poem, the writer shapes what happened to people directly and white and blue coursing through my and forms experience, and thereby, I believe, indirectly involved in war. With students, veins. I had the “Star Spangled Banner” changes the past and remakes the existing especially those who have had direct playing in my head. Ever since my first world. The writer becomes a new person experience with war, we would educate each baseball game when my grandfather, after every story, every poem; and if the art other. In his introduction to his War (1995) a Korean War veteran, had me stand is very good, perhaps the reader is changed, short story anthology, Jon E. Lewis writes: and take my Twins cap off and put it too” (p. 1-2). “War is the ultimate, the most extreme of against my chest, I knew I wanted to be human experiences … . No other human one of those sharp dressed men holding Dr. Edward Tick, a psychotherapist and activity is like it, or so pervaded by the that flag. author of War and the Soul (2005) writes imminence of death. War is perhaps the about helping veterans recover from post- Laura wrote about her firsthand war supreme theater for asking the questions traumatic stress disorder. He believes experience as a young child: about what it means to be human” (p. xiv). that in order to heal, veterans need to tell My first experience with war was in their stories and have a public platform: And so we created, War Stories: Reading Cuba during the Revolution. Castro “Veterans most often withhold their stories, and Writing About the Impact of War, was fighting in the Sierra Madres and not only because of the pain evoked in which was first offered in 2009; the study is Batista was trying hard to keep him telling them but also because they fear that, currently a 4-credit study group organized from getting a foothold in Havana and in our culture of denial, we won’t properly into six modules. other major cities and towns. Being receive them” (p. 221). Soldiers returning The first module asks an obvious question: a small child, the real danger of the home need to share their stories, and writing What do we know of war? The first writing situation escaped me. There were times them down helps them process their war assignment is this: when windows were shot out and we experience. slept on mattresses on the living room Some of us know about war from first- We were familiar with the work of James floor. My grandfather, with a shotgun hand experience, some from family and Pennebaker and Louise DeSalvo, Marion in his hand would stay up all night, friends who were soldiers, but all of us MacCurdy and Charles Anderson, and waiting and listening. Occasionally, got messages about war, courage and Jeffrey Berman, all who have worked men, bleeding from wounds would patriotism from our families, teachers – with students using writing as a tool to arrive at our back door. They would from different aspects of society, like help process difficult life events. It got us be ushered quickly and quietly to the TV, the movies and books. So what thinking. What if we created a study that kitchen, and then they were gone. messages did you receive about war? could support our returning veterans and Who or what influenced you most in Other students reported learning about educate other students and ourselves about your thinking? Are the messages you war through the lens of good and evil as the multifaceted realities of war? We were received as a child different from what represented by the good guys and the bad uneasy about it. What did we know of you believe now? guys; the good guys were always suppose to

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 49 win. Students read two Tim O’Brien short them come to their own reasoned conclusion What Is Heroism? is our question for stories: “The Things They Carried” and about the information and the event. For Module Three. Because heroism is so “How to Tell a True War Story,” the latter, some of the students, this “compare and much the public face of war, and the label in particular, as a way to think about the contrast” assignment of looking at how “hero” has become ubiquitous, we believe idea of emotional truth and the casualty of events are portrayed in the media is truly it important to ask students to think about truth in war. Also we asked the students to eye-opening. They had no idea that the news what heroism means to them, and how our begin a journal that they were to maintain is so slanted. One student wrote that she culture defines it. In that spirit, we listened throughout the course as a place to sort out had not known that conservative and liberal to Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler’s Vietnam War their reactions to the stories, videos, films anthem “The Ballad of the Green Berets,” and class discussions. and we read and discuss the biographies and poetry of World War I soldiers Siegfried When the study met for the first time, we When the study met for Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Students handed each student a small plastic army are also asked to read “The Banality of guy – the kind most of us played with as the first time, we handed Heroism” by Franco and Zimbardo. kids – and asked students to use it as a each student a small writing prompt: What feelings and memories Chris, a student who had recently served did it evoke in them? What did such a figure plastic army guy – the in Iraq, was particularly taken with represent to them now? After writing, we kind most of us played Sassoon’s struggle: asked students if they wanted to share what Siegfried Sassoon was an interesting they wrote. We were surprised by two of with as kids – and asked writer. I was surprised by the letter our students who proclaimed, “These aren’t students to use it as a he wrote that told his superiors of his toys, these are instruments of war.” They feelings that the war was not win-able. went on to explain how they had kept these writing prompt … The words he wrote to his commanding “toys” in their pockets at all times while officer saying “I am a soldier speaking they were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, for soldiers … I am making the as a way to communicate with the locals perspectives were so dramatically different. statement as an act of willful defiance about the U.S. military maneuvers in a Another student wrote that she’d come to of military authority … I can no longer particular area. Because they did not share understand that “decoding media claims” be a party to prolong these sufferings a common language, using the army guys was daunting. Students came away from … The ends I believe to be evil and allowed the soldiers to demonstrate this assignment convinced of the importance unjust” were very powerful words. I their intentions. of getting their news from more than one believe this was important to our class Module Two is War and the Media: venue and to be on the alert for bias. because it showed that soldiers in a war Militainment. Since the media plays a Dick wrote: are often very conflicted about it, or major role in shaping our attitudes about even adamantly against it. At times it seems that civilians see war, we want students to look critically at the military as a cohort of modern In this module, students were asked to some of the mainstream news sources (print day gladiators whose exploits serve view the films Glory! and Hurt Locker and and online) to get a sense of the range of to entertain us. On TV we can watch decide which of the characters are heroic information and opinions we are exposed live pictures of the wars in the Middle and why. Paul wrote: to about the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and East. So called “reality programs” Afghanistan. Students begin their work … there are very few who have the show carefully edited scenes of combat by viewing and critically analyzing the desire to volunteer this courage, bravery intended to excite but not offend the documentary Militainment, Inc.: Militarism and honor before they are called to do viewers. We can watch as Predators, and Pop Culture which takes the position so. The word hero is sometimes very flown by men and women who sit that the Pentagon and Hollywood have loosely thrown around; it is not a label in Texas and “fly” the unmanned air collaborated to depict war as entertainment. because a label can easily be removed. vehicles through a laptop computer, Next, they write an essay comparing and To be a hero is a title, something that bomb villages in Afghanistan. It seems contrasting various media accounts of an you have earned and something that that we are trying to make war into a event of their choosing related to the war never goes away unless it is replaced by kind of video game. in Iraq or Afghanistan. Abu Graib was something nobler. a popular topic the first time we taught For our in-class writing, we bring World Module Four is dedicated to The the study. War II propaganda posters to class and ask Homefront. It was important to us to students to analyze the images and messages. Students collect information about the provide students the opportunity to consider They are surprised to discover how powerful event from a liberal, conservative and how war affects those at home, especially the combination of images and words are in international media source, and then apply children. We use short stories by Pirandello, manipulating our emotions and promoting a specific critical thinking questions to help Faulkner, Alcott and essays from Operation particular notion of patriotism.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 50

Homecoming; in class we watch the film A student who had been deployed twice She said I acted as if I could not wait to version of the Faulkner short story “Two and expected to be deployed again wrote get back to the company of my buddies Brothers,” that chronicles how a young boy about using alcohol to cope with feelings in the Army … . When asked if feelings reacts to his brother’s enlistment during of guilt and anxiety. He described plunging leftover from her wartime experience WWII. We also have students listen to back into his old life, only to find himself influenced her views of current issues, popular anti-war music from the 1960s incapacitated with nightmares and panic she responded saying that she was and watch “Private SNAFU” cartoons from attacks. He ended his essay by writing: “ … disheartened by our country unfairly WWII. We bring Twain’s “The War Prayer” when you go to war you will always carry asking so much of today’s military to class, where we read it together and that war with you. And once you become a families. She went on to say our discuss what Twain was saying to those who soldier you will always remain one.” nation’s unwillingness to share the support war but are not soldiers. Students burden of our military families seems Module Five is Coping. We begin by are given the opportunity to write a true or evidence that the country has lost its discussing Pennebaker’s healing and writing fictionalized story about a soldier coming moral compass. research and DeSalvo’s five qualities of home from war, from either a soldier’s a healing narrative. We talk about war One particularly powerful documentary we perspective, or that of someone who has and trauma, and present this work as a watch together during this module is Muse been on the homefront. writing tool students can employ at any of Fire. This film, featuring soldiers and Lisa, a student with no military experience, time to enable their own healing from family members reading their writing, serves wrote about witnessing a soldier’s young trauma. We have students read George as a model for our students and emphasizes family waiting on the tarmac at an airport Saunders’ humorous essay, “Heavy the healing benefits of telling our stories. as his flag-draped coffin was carried off a Artillery,” and discuss the role of humor The final module is Reintegration. Students plane. As the family walked back through in coping. For their writing assignment, read a series of stories and articles about the waiting area, people in the airport students interview someone who has been the challenges of soldiers reintegrating into became silent; some saluted and others significantly influenced by war in order to society after having been at war. In class, bowed their heads. She told the class it was learn about the circumstances of the war we watch a YouTube talk by psychotherapist at that moment the war became real to her. experience, how he/she has coped, and how Ed Tick who points out that many the experience changed the person. This Our veteran students usually choose to write indigenous societies have rituals and turned out to be one of our most powerful about their own experience. Dick, who had ceremonies that allow returning warriors assignments. Students choose a wide variety been a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, wrote to tell their stories and help them become of people to interview, but often select about how difficult re-entry was: part of society again. Our American society relatives who they had previously never provides no easy way for soldiers to pick up When our tour of duty in Vietnam was talked to about their war experiences. their civilian lives again. down to the last 30 days we became One student interviewed his grandmother so-called short timers. We would joke One of the assigned readings is “Betrayal about how she coped during WWII. He with each other about our return to the in the Field” by Helen Benedict that learned how memories of war, even for world. We reminded ourselves not to chronicles the difficulties women soldiers those on the homefront, last a lifetime. Also, use profanity when asking our mothers- endure beyond the trauma of war: many are he discovered the contrast between civilian in-law to pass the salt. We boasted that sexually harassed and even raped by their involvement in the war effort then and now. the first thing we would do at home fellow soldiers. When they return home Some students interviewed the spouses of was to make love with our wives; the they find little or no help coming to terms deployed soldiers, and others interviewed second would be to put down our with this devastating trauma. This was people in the military who have been luggage. We promised to never come particularly eye-opening to our students, deployed about coping both in combat and back to Vietnam … . It immediately including our male veterans. with reintegration. Dick decided to interview became apparent to me that they [my his wife, who was 19 and pregnant when Have we accomplished what we set out family] had gone crazy while I was he left for Vietnam; they had never talked to do when we created War Stories? We away. I knew they loved me and meant about what it had been like for her while he know some things for sure. War Stories well, but their words and actions were was at war and when he returned. created a communal academic environment confusing. I had no idea of what it where people deeply affected by war was they expected of me or what their She said she was angry at the Army could write the truth, as they know it, conversations were about. My son for turning our family upside down about life-defining experiences they have screeched and cried all the while. My and even angrier with the anti-war participated in or witnessed – with support mother asked me silly questions. My demonstrators who used such terms as and without judgment. War Stories gave wife, now a most serious young mother, ‘baby killers’ to describe soldiers … . people permission to write, to process their acted nothing like the young bride I had According to her, I returned from experience, to gain clarity and perspective – left to go to war. I felt quite ready to Vietnam an angry, impatient man who to take action, rather than to feel helpless get on the next plane to Saigon. had no time for either her or our son. in the face of traumatic events. The Gulf

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 51

War veteran and author of Semper Fi James Kim, who’d had no military experience, we found, often arrive with training and Swofford, wrote “ … the most complex and commented on how important the journal skills that make them potentially excellent dangerous conflicts, the most harrowing was for her to sort through what she students. We have found many of them operations and the most deadly wars, occur was encountering: to be determined and highly disciplined, in the head” (p. 298). Many veterans go for attributes that can make them dedicated I felt that many of the stories we read years without talking about what they have and motivated learners. They often arrive triggered many emotions that I was witnessed or done in war. They don’t think understanding the value of critical and not always sure where they came from their families and friends can understand creative thinking skills, paramount to but after writing in my journal, I was what they have lived through, and they are problem solving, improvisation and their able to put some of the emotions into afraid that expressing their thoughts and survival in combat situations. Military perspective. Having never experienced especially their feelings will make them look personnel understand the necessity for good, war firsthand there were times when it weak. Writing gives them a way to tell their clear communication and can be taught was very difficult to handle some of the stories, and share them when and if they are to further develop these skills in writing. information that we read. I have never ready. One of our military students wrote: Many people who have served in recent really talked about war with people wars are Reservists and are older. Beyond The course’s written assignments who have served. their military experience, they have rich brought my family closer to Other comments included one man life experience to which they can relate understanding my experiences while at admitting that the course had required him and connect their learning, making them war, and my strange way of looking at to keep an open mind because he so strongly potentially deep and committed learners. things. I had to write about topics that opposes the current wars, as well as this I would just as soon forget. This was As a rule, our student veterans dislike statement from someone who thought the a good thing for me. It opened up the ambiguity; they like structure and certainty. course was going to be quite different: flood gates to my locked up feelings. I The military culture is all about goals, wasn’t comfortable writing at a college Prior to attending the course, I expected objectives and timelines. When you can put level, so I sent my papers to my family to have previous war veterans as academic work in that context it is easier to proofread them. This was my way of classmates who have recently returned for them. Respect is big with them, and opening up. from Iraq. I had envisioned two hours they respond well when it is clear that we of chest pounding and hoorahs from respect their experience and perspective. Along with the nonmilitary students in the the participants. On the contrary there Empire State College’s many study options, study, we had the opportunity to go beyond was a mix of people from various from online studies to tutorials, allow preconceived ideas and stereotypes of the backgrounds who shared very different veterans to exert control over their learning military and to better understand how our views on the subject. environment and increase the chances of communities, families and soldiers are all academic success. The college’s mentoring changed by war. An active-duty military student, who has model provides these students with support served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote: When we asked students to discuss whether their thinking about war and its impact I never felt judged during the class. changed during the term, and, if so, what I could speak my mind and true feelings I could speak my mind influenced their thinking, their responses about war without ever worrying about were honest and insightful. being condemned for them or my and true feelings about actions. If the mood in the classroom Keeping a journal, interestingly enough, war without ever had been different, I never would have seems to be especially valued by the students been so outspoken. I actually looked worrying about being with military experience. Chris wrote about forward to class, despite working the importance of keeping a journal: condemned for them or all day. I kept up with my journaling every two my actions. Another student veteran wrote: or three days and it was a big help to me. It has helped me put to paper many War Story’s [sic] was brain food for feelings that I needed to deal with. me … . War Story’s covered every and resources that might be more difficult Many of the things I have put down angle from liberal to conservative, from to learn about on a conventional campus. in my journal have been very thought- war-numb civilian to the war-wrung The opportunity to build a relationship provoking and have helped me reopen veteran. You knew what you had to do, with someone who can explain and help the many doors of events and emotions but how you were to feel, think and student veteran with academic decisions may that I have closed and that needed write was up to you. be invaluable. to be reopened. We learned a great deal about our student Civilian life is slow compared to being veterans as a cohort from creating and in a combat situation. Active and teaching War Stories. Military students, recently deployed, and nonactive military

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 52 students are used to action, and the more Ultimately, we believe that what matters Smithson, R. (2009). Ghosts of war: The contemplative aspects of academic life most is that we give students – and true story of a 19-year-old GI. New can be frustrating. They want answers – ourselves – the opportunity to think about York, NY: Collins. yesterday. We have noticed, too, that and explore all the complicated aspects of Tick, E. (2005). War and the soul: Healing military students often bite off more than war. As the writer James Salter says, we our nation’s veterans from post- they can chew. Sometimes, like many of need to know about war, because it is traumatic stress disorder. Wheaton, IL: our other students, military students just about us. Quest Books. disappear, not finishing their work, not responding to emails and offers of help. Note Willis, C. (Ed.). (2003). Semper Fi: Stories Were they redeployed? Did they get too of the United States Marines from Quotes from students in this essay were overwhelmed by academic demands? boot camp to battle. New York, NY: collected from study group assignments and Thunder’s Mouth Press. To consciously support veteran students discussions during the 2009 and 2010 terms. demonstrates that colleges welcome diversity War Stories Project in ways that are rarely talked about. References Besides being dedicated to identifying Claudia Hough and Elaine Handley have As expected, the literature on war is and eliminating classist, racist, ageist or joined with Cindy Bates to work on a immense. We recognize that we only touch sexist attitudes, it shows that diversity of project that evolved out of the War Stories on a small sliver of that work. Included experience is welcomed, and that colleges study. They have collected stories about war below are references to some of the key strive to foster an inclusionary environment from the Empire State College community texts mentioned in our essay. If anyone is that is dedicated to erasing veteran’s that they will craft into a performance interested in receiving a fuller bibliography social alienation by inviting them into a piece. It will be presented at the new Arts of the materials we have collected, we would community of discourse that contends with Residency on Thursday, Nov. 3, at Proctors be happy to share them with you. real world dilemmas. The lived realities Theater in Schenectady, N.Y. of experience in our complicated world Kingston, M. H. (2006). Veterans of war, desperately need the rigorous critical inquiry veterans of peace. Kihei, HI: Koa and communication skills that can be honed Books. in the academic environment. And higher Lewis, J. E. (Ed.). (1995). War: A classic education needs to learn from people whose collection of 56 great war stories of our lived experiences are the stuff of literature, time. New York, NY: Galahad Books. philosophy, history and politics.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 53

Education and Individualism: Some Notes, Some Questions

Carla R. Payne, Professor Emerita of Graduate Studies, Union Institute and University, and Adjunct Faculty, Community College of Vermont

1. I have the privilege of teaching philosophy, society should not be blamed for the acts inconsistency in insisting that certain values which gives me a glimpse into what students of an individual. She said, ‘It is time to can be inculcated and at the same time are thinking. Over the years, I have noticed restore the American precept that each that what we experience doesn’t count in that the ethical relativism that is endemic individual is accountable for his actions’” making us who we are. Does it make sense among undergraduates is beginning to (Shear, 2011). to argue that family values (or any values) have an analogy in their attitude toward The political implications and motivations need to be cherished and perpetuated, and ontology. Not only do many of my students of the Arizona legislation and of simultaneously that we are all radically and insist that what is good and right is relative pronouncements similar to Palin’s have been solely responsible for who we are and what to the individual, but also that what is real is widely canvassed, but the extent to which we do? Or does this argument apply only real only in relation to the individual person. they reflect a major theme in American to criminals, while those of us who turn This goes beyond even Jamesian pluralism culture, rooted perhaps even more deeply out to be “good citizens” owe our virtue to what amounts to an insistence on the than chauvinism, is not being given equal to parental teaching, proper schooling, democracy of existence itself. Whatever the attention. Individualism is the mantra, and religious indoctrination or divine grace? logical merits of such a position, it does not the virtues of individualism are proclaimed 4. It is interesting to realize that in 1930, seem to result from reflection on the nature and assumed, but rarely examined for their at the beginning of the Great Depression, of things, but rather from a sense that any implications. Are we, after all, biological John Dewey drew a distinction between other position would not be fair, i.e., that atoms, each thrown into the world to an older individualism and a newer one, a monolithic reality would infringe on compete with every other, owing nothing regarding individualism as a “mental and individual rights. This may be the ultimate of ourselves to any others and therefore moral structure,” itself dynamic, evolving ought-is argument: x should not be the without essential ties beyond ourselves? and changing “with every great change in case, and therefore x is not the case. But I Aristotle asserted that we can’t even be social constitution” (Dewey, 1962). The am concerned here less with the soundness human outside human society, and there older individualism he saw as rooted in of this train of thought than with the way are centuries of research demonstrating the feudalism, and as later transformed by it mirrors the assumptions in our present importance of the social environment on our the industrial revolution. It was defined political environment. physical, physiological and psychological by economic self-interest, at a time when 2. Some examples to consider: development. But radical individualism such an understanding of individualism occurs and recurs as a leading motif, and represented resistance to prevailing legal • Headline: Rift in Arizona as Latino indeed as an article of faith, throughout and political repression. But “emergent Class is Found Illegal. A high school American history. Our most recent versions individualism,” according to Dewey, class in Latino literature is found to be of libertarianism trumpet it: because any consonant with the forces of the present in violation of Arizona legislation (HB government that is democratic is necessarily time, is impeded by our “opposing the 2281, May 10, 2010), which stipulates a collective enterprise of the governed, even socially corporate to the individual” (1962). that “A school district or charter school in such a government must infringe on the Of course the terms of that opposition are this state shall not include in its program absolute autonomy of the individual person. now themselves transformed by the passage of instruction any courses or classes that The contemporary insistence on the virtues from the machine-dominated industry of include any of the following: … Advocate of choice and on the total responsibility his era to the digital technology of ours, but ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of each person for his/her own fate, which Dewey’s rejection of personal or individual of pupils as individuals” (Lacey, 2011). we see shaping policy from health care to gain as the sole and permanent driver of • After the shootings in Tucson, Sarah financial regulation, is another variation on progress is still highly relevant, as is his Palin is quoted as saying that “. . . acts this same theme. repudiation of the idea that the ties that like the shootings in Arizona ‘begin and 3. An educational system is bound to reflect bind us together in community “are merely end with the criminals who commit the underlying assumptions of the society external, and do not react into mentality them, not collectively with all the citizens that it serves. But we must recognize that and character, producing the framework of a state.’” “Ms. Palin quoted former to the extent that education is implemented of personal disposition” (Dewey, 1962). President Ronald Reagan as saying that through social organization, there is a fatal It is the contradiction of this very insight

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 54 that is unfortunately frozen into law in the transactional process through which the Control of the sovereign individual is exactly Arizona statute, in the insistence that we are learner is constantly taking something the bugaboo, the taboo, the evil empire or can be human persons apart from our from his environment and giving that we are to combat and that threatens us membership in groups with other humans. something to it. It is a social as well as and our persons, according to the thinking With Aristotle, Dewey says: “Individuals an individual process and it involves all that seems to inform both the Arizona who are not bound together in associations, of the personality, that which we call school legislation and much current political whether domestic, economic, religious, intellectual as well as the emotional and invective. Reading Dewey’s “controlled” political, artistic or educational, are the physical. (Davis, 1996) to mean “focused” or “directed” would monstrosities” (Dewey, 1962). This is not to be more consonant with his overall The opening assumption that learning is deny the legal and ethical responsibility of position, although the roots of the darker individual in this statement trumps the each individual for what that person does or interpretation are deep in our history and subsequent characterization of it as a social does not do, but to recognize that becoming culture. While the depiction of the natural process, and ignores the social purpose of an accountable individual is an essentially and ideal human condition as the unfettered education and growth as postulated by social process. competition of completely autonomous Dewey. It also disregards his criticism (and persons – each owing nothing to the others – Dewey noted that the opening of a new Kilpatrick’s [Beyer, 1997]) of the notion may appeal, it has long had its detractors. continent in America shaped the older, that “the consciousness of each person is Hobbes is the most obvious. Anarchy and feudal individualism into a romantic form, wholly private, a self-enclosed continent, civil war cannot support civilization, and with the energies of individuals focused intrinsically independent of the ideas, he thought that we would give up a good on opportunities for personal gain, yet wishes, purposes of everybody else” (Dewey, part of our liberties to avoid social chaos. in the aggregate serving “national life” 1916). The goal of self-fulfillment here is Total freedom leading to unfreedom, total (Dewey, 1962). This is the same view that an individual goal. This point is more than responsibility leading to irresponsibility: grounds the contemporary ethos of personal a theoretical subtlety, since it was very is this the true foundation of progressive aggrandizement. We are to pursue our own influential in determining the orientation educational thought? interests, becoming entrepreneurs one and of the programs initiated at Goddard and all, and scorning the common or collective elsewhere, and in the primacy in those References effort implied by any project, policy or programs of the individual learning contract endeavor that is public rather than private. or study plan and independent studies Beyer, L. E. (1997). William Heard over the exchanges of ideas, questions and Kilpatrick: (1871-1965) [Electronic 5. Historically, progressive education is responses in which “knowing” occurs. version]. PROSPECTS: The Quarterly viewed as breaking with mainstream ideas That is not to say that there were no Review of Comparative Education, about the role and purposes of education, group settings included in the programs, XXVII, No. 3, pp. 470-85. but it also can be seen as embodying this but typically they were occasions for the same romantic view of the individual Davis, F. K. (1996). Things were different display and presentation of individual person. Progressive education led the way in Royce’s Day: Royce S. Pitkin as projects, rather than regular opportunities in this country in recognizing the interest of progressive educator: A perspective for the collaborative construction of the learner as crucial to significant learning, from Goddard College, 1950-1967. understandings. In this respect, certain but in the version that characterized some Adamant, VT: Adamant Press. interpretations of Dewey’s thinking and of its leading institutions (e.g., Goddard their implementations did not depart Dewey. J. (1916). Democracy and education. College, Union Institute, SUNY Empire from mainstream American educational Retrieved from http://www.ilt.columbia. State College), the fundamental assumption philosophy, which has generally treated edu/publications/Projects/digitexts/ was that the individual exists prior to social learning as a solitary pursuit, with learners dewey/d_e/chapter22.html experience, and is given with all those side-by-side, but rarely together. characteristics that determine interaction. Dewey, J. (1962 ,1930). Individualism old 6. It also is interesting to find that this last and new. In J.J. McDermott (Ed.) The The Goddard philosophy starts with the citation from Dewey appears on many philosophy of John Dewey: Vol. II, The individual. It holds that each person is websites these days as evidence of the lived experience (pp. 608-620). New truly unique, has his own needs, has to insidious, pernicious and un-American York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. contend with a special set of problems, socialist tendencies of Dewey and possesses talents peculiar to him, and Lacey, M. (2011, Jan. 8). Rift in Arizona as Deweyeans. This misreading could be is worthy of the respect and love of his Latino class is found illegal. The New reinforced by the language of the question fellow men. It assumes that learning York Times. Retrieved from http:// he put as a corollary to the critique of is inherent, natural, individual, active www.nytimes.com/ atomistic individualism: “Given feelings, and the means to self-fulfillment. It says ideas, desires, which have nothing to Shear, M. (2011, Jan. 12). Palin calls that education is the reconstruction do with one another, how can actions criticism ‘Blood libel.’ The New York of experience of the individual by proceeding from them be controlled in a Times. Retrieved from http://www. himself for himself, but that it also is a social or public interest?” (Dewey, 1916). nytimes.com/

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 55

My Lost Stories

Steve Lewis, Hudson Valley Center

ut of the refracted tunnel of trying to stay upright on this spinning macular degeneration, my planet – I have to admit that it meant little O 92-year-old mother points a more to me than finding an intriguing misshapen finger toward the cluttered table. daguerreotype of an unknown subject Then she says with a shrug, “That’s about in the 75 cent bins of local antique stores. my mother.” So? My eyebrows rise involuntarily as I reach So now it’s several years later and my for the two carelessly folded sheets of paper mother is several years silenced beyond this next to a ripped envelope. One is a dark life and I know nothing more about my photocopy of a story from the Brooklyn grandmother than I did the afternoon I read Eagle, dated June 24, 1906; behind it is the Brooklyn Eagle and the Saloon Keepers another with the same date from the Saloon News. But I am haunted now by that Keepers News. shadow of a 17-year-old girl robbed by the Both articles are about an incident involving two well-dressed thugs. The girl who would a 17-year-old girl named Jennie Sakol, die 19 years later when she was 36 years robbed of $1,500 by two “well-dressed old, leaving behind a daughter who was thugs” in East New York who got away in robbed of her tongue by the triple betrayals Steve Lewis a covered wagon. According to the reports of a helpless mother, a hapless grieving in both papers, the girl had gone to the father and a Brooklyn neighborhood of bank for her father, my great-grandfather, misguided or cowardly adults who kept needles in front of the Sylvania TV at night, who owned a saloon on Stone Avenue (now mother and child away from each other for the empty pages of a painful past beyond Mother Gaston Avenue) and, ahem, cashed several months – and then eternity. words. checks for customers on the weekend. And so in the breathless spaces in a There was no point in stopping in front of Because my eternally tight-lipped mother breathtaking life built around seven children the house. It’s a shell to me. I rolled past has never spoken of Jennie Sakol, I and 15 grandchildren, I sometimes find the Schnippers’ house where their little girl don’t connect the name to my maternal myself staring off into space like my mother Cheryl died of a brain tumor when I was 7 grandmother right away. I do know, often did, wishing that I knew just a handful (and no one said a word to me about it), although I do not think I have heard it of stories about this Jennie, something, turned the corner onto Westwood Circle, from my mother, that when Jennie Sakol anything, a few words strung together here past Bobby Jayson’s home (whom I haven’t Aaronson grew ill and was hospitalized or there about what she looked like or what spoken with in 46 years), past Dr. Kent’s in 1926, her 13-year-old daughter, my she cooked well or the punishments she (who would come to the house with his mother, was sent off to summer camp in the meted out or which lullabies, if any, she black bag and talk to my mother not to Catskills – and the two never saw or spoke sang to her baby girl to sleep. How me), and onto the Long Island Expressway, to each other again. bereft little Lillian must have felt at 13, a leaving behind all those untold stories that motherless child. might have become a fertile plot of ground That was pretty much all I knew of my to better grieve a mother’s passing. grandmother before reading the story of A few months ago, I drove alone to the the robbery on Stone Avenue. And, frankly, 1950s gray rancher on Long Island where I Perhaps because I so long ago left that quiet because I had so little connection to the grew up, and as I neared the house I could neighborhood to live a life teeming with young victim of the robbery, the articles feel my mother’s bereaved soul all around children and words, no doubt trying to provided only an interesting source of the small manicured property, in the grassy fill in some of the blanks she left behind, I conversation at the next family dinner plot where a maple tree once shaded the drove upstate to my home in the mountains (everyone laughing at the vision of bandits front yard, in the chiseled bushes like a thinking not of my enigmatic mother or my escaping in a covered wagon) … and I later fence in front of her bedroom window, in unknown grandmother, but, oddly enough, used it as a “trigger” for one of my creative her silences at supper, the sighing shoulders the thousands of writers who have come to writing workshops. But in the end – as in doing dishes, the quiet clicking of knitting my classes and workshops over the past 40 the end of another full and wearying day years to tell their stories. To put into words

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 56 the medicinal narratives that, after all is How simple it would be for them to scoop moves so resonantly between the sacred and said and rewritten, remind us that we’re not up some ice cream or drink some beer and profane lines of a gritty Pittsburgh skyline alone on this half dark and ever-spinning turn on the television and let nameless teams and the sandy Connecticut shoreline; and planet. This planet that is awesome in its of script writers fill the emptied hours with J.G. opens up the second-story window gifts, breathtaking in its fearful reprisals. words that evaporate before morning. But of a childhood in Westchester to see This planet that makes some stories too these remarkable tellers of mine, most of what happens after his father runs off to painful to tell. whom labor on without paycheck or byline, Mexico with a neighbor; J.E. tells us of a who inform my world in ways beyond misbegotten bicycle trip from Minnesota to In soulful contrast to my unreadable mother words, resist such easy comfort. In the days New York; E.M. the drama of a lost nephew who kept her tongue, those good writers between classes they write their hearts out. in Broad Channel. spend considerable money and time to urge That is not a metaphor. themselves away from weary work and And so I think, and I think, and I can’t household chores and the inherent pleasures So L.W. writes about a hard father and a stop thinking of my grandmother, Jennie and tensions of family life, not to mention harder deployment in Vietnam and hardest Sakol, and how different things might have the adoptive comforts of television and of all, the anguished tale of coming home been if only I could have had my mother intoxicants and food, to write their stories. to an angry, unforgiving country; and C.A. in my class.

“To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn. That learning process comes easiest to those of us who teach who also believe that there is an aspect of our vocation that is sacred; who believe that our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students. To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.”

bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 1994, p. 13

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 57

Reflections on a Journey of Learning to Adjust My Blind Spot

Heidi Nightengale, Central New York Center

s a faculty mentor with the work for which I was honored to receive railroad of sorts, the first call from a Auburn Unit of the Central New the Altes Prize for Exemplary Community frustrated school administrator (someone A York Center, one of the studies Service last year. That is, it was Goleman’s who could not get law enforcement, social that I guide involves investigation into the thinking about empathy that led me to a services or not-for-profit human service work of Daniel Goleman. Goleman made movement away from a personal blind spot agencies to respond) prompted that first his theoretical research about emotional I had been hiding. sheltering experience. Several more young intelligence both groundbreaking within girls followed to cross the Finger Lakes Early on, I found myself emotionally, the academy and accessible to those outside Railroad tracks to my home. physically and spiritually impacted by the academy who grabbed his books off remarkable people, mostly young people, But my blind spot was showing up the shelves of local bookstores and helped who came into my life nearly always emotionally. Why did I want to do this him become a New York Times best-selling through a serendipitous series of events. work? Did I house these youths and try to author. Goleman’s work caught my attention as an administrator of not-for-profit organizations in the 1990s, years before I came to SUNY Empire State College in the mentor role. Goleman speculated that emotional intelligence (EQ) far out-predicted the likelihood of life success at home, in school, in the community and in the workplace than its counterpart, the long validated intelligence quotient (IQ) and its well established testing methodologies used to arrive at a static IQ. At the heart of Goleman’s work was a series of competencies. I studied them. I pondered them. I wondered if I had them. He postulated that personal and social competencies such as empathy, self- awareness, self-control, social skills and motivation were far greater predictors of happiness and success than the IQ. In his ground breaking book, Emotional Heidi Nightengale (left) Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More than IQ (1995), Goleman details these personal Phone calls from local school administrators provide for their emotional, nutritional, and social competencies and argues that the would indicate that a teen and senior at educational and other developmental needs common link between them and emotional the high school district was homeless. At because of a narcissistic need to receive intelligence is the concepts of compassion the very least, high school graduation was accolades? Did I simply want to feel good and humanity. at stake, as the adolescent had aged-out of about myself more than feel connected to The hallmark of these competencies for any intervention from the local department the whole village ideology that in other parts me was empathy. Even Goleman admits of social services. Without shelters and of world society creates a quiet stepping up that while this is a fluid, developing programs for theses girls, my home could to just take care? and developable competence, he knows provide a refuge from the streets and could As my work continued, I found my answers little about how one comes to become offer routines and safety to help them following the path of discovering and empathetic. Still, it is this competency and remain in school through high school exercising my emotional intelligence. my on-going reflection on it that led to the graduation and beyond. In an underground

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 58

I kept at it, and also continued many other garden and feed them to specific and college trips, and sought help of all kinds. pieces of volunteer work in my community special young girls, entire not-for-profit Without the blinding near-sightedness of in an effort to impart my academic and youth serving organizations, and peace early narcissism that can motivate some experiential knowledge. I wanted to and diversity task forces among other in volunteerism, I now fully see that when work for good programming for youth community groups. one works through the immediate perks of and families at risk. I wanted to work the notoriety of “expertise,” there are no toward ensuring some overall good in my replacements for the evolving competencies community. And as I met many people in of self-awareness, self-regulation, this work, one thing kept creeping up in I wanted to work for motivation, social skills and empathy. There my conscience: Those I was working with good programming for are no replacements for humanity linked and for were very often endowed with with compassion. My former blind side is Goleman’s competencies – and especially youth and families at shined now to a 20/20 vision polish each with empathy – as a typical hallmark. risk. I wanted to work time a child, a young adult or older adult recognizes me as “that lady who taught me I kept thinking about Goleman and about toward ensuring some to open a new door.” his newer work on what he describes as “the emotionally intelligent workplace” (2001). overall good in my References Around me and inside me I was moving far community. from any “look at me”-narcissism about Cherniss, C. and Goleman, D. (Eds.) (2001). contribution, and instead beginning to The emotionally intelligent workplace. attach personal and social competencies San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. to a teaching model based on leading Already this has been a life’s work, and Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: by example. I was exemplifying one of many of the young people I once impacted Why it can matter more than IQ. New Goleman’s tenets: Emotional intelligence is as mentor, homework assistant and agency York, NY: Bantam Dell. not static. It can be cultivated, and I believe expert volunteer now sit alongside me on that in my cultivating, I was working to the very boards of agencies where they pick the fruits of this emotionally intelligent participated, played, scraped knees, attended

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 59

A Teacher Reflects: Learning About Student Leadership

Dianne Ramdeholl, The Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies

This piece was inspired by attending the WE LEARN (Women Expanding Literacy Education Action Resource Network) Conference and written while sitting on the train returning to NYC. (It was later published in their spring 2009 newsletter). I kept thinking about unspoken but unmistakable power dynamics between students and nonstudents and also between Student Leadership further exploitation with facelifts students and other students (and how that Isn’t innocuous Mouthpieces for furthering others’ agendas impacts and defines student leadership). Flavorless, clear It’s grappling, wrestling In my experience, student leadership involves collective struggles, grounded It doesn’t seep gently Reframing, resisting in solidarity, for equity, space and rights. Like water, Rewriting, rethinking It can never be paternalistic or replicate a lapping stream Renegotiating, re-navigating dominant power structures … It’s frothy, bubbling, Redefining, re-presenting Fierce, rich Dominant terrain. Residing at intersections of Co-creating space histories and legacies Equitably honoring past and present Toiling collectively, collective struggles Democratically envisioning Pushing and pulling … Dilemmas and contradictions, For and with … Pushing, pulling … Challenging, questioning, For and with … wild and untamed Re-imagining For space, voice, rights Existing beyond frameworks Pieces of the pie. Beyond boundaries and limitations In solidarity Beyond fixed definitions Common struggle Fluid, shifting, Unquenchable and unstoppable. Constant metamorphosis It isn’t toxic Unlimited worlds of possibility Perpetuations of dominant interests Narratives as of yet unwritten …

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 60

Making Sense of Mexico: 1975-2010, Part I

Chris Rounds, Central New York Center

n February of 1975, my wife and I left the small town of Yautepec in the I state of Morelos, Mexico, after a year in residence. I had been doing dissertation research with a focus on land reform and economic change, and we were going home. Thirty-five years later, in early February 2010, as a part of my sabbatical, I was headed back. I had returned for brief visits a couple of times during the intervening decades, but this would be my first extended stay. I planned an initial visit for three months, then a fourth month in June. The theme I set for myself was “Making Sense of Mexico: 1975-2010.” By this I didn’t mean “finding out the right answers”; rather, my aim was to achieve a baseline understanding of what had gone on in my absence. From this I hoped to establish a longer-term research and writing agenda. During the intervening Chris Rounds, bump on a log, between Yautepec and Oacalco, March 2010 years, I had been drawn far away from my nearing 20 million. That traffic jam was was under the stairs, requiring a modicum interest in Mexico. More than a decade in suggestive of a major theme that would of agility, but I could cope. The apartment academic administration, coupled with 20 emerge in my work. was most noteworthy for its absences: no years as a mentor in one of Empire State television, no Internet access (well, it turned My apartment was perfect. In the old College’s smaller units, had left little time out that there was, but it took me weeks to central district of Cuernavaca, it was a for “keeping up” with things Mexican, and discover that). No distractions! Beyond these 10-minute walk from the Zocalo, or central I intended to use this time to catch up on technical absences, other “distractions” also plaza. It was close to local bus routes and what had been going on there. The research were off the radar: no family, no students, a short walk from both the central public agenda would, I hoped, see me through the no subscriptions to plow through, no lawn market and a supermarket. From the transition to retirement. to keep up, no snow to shovel. Indeed the central market, I could catch a bus to my apartment came with what we might call a My flight into Mexico City was scheduled old stomping grounds in Yautepec, located maid. Petra was the owner’s eyes and ears to arrive just before 1 p.m. on Feb. 5. I got 17 miles east of the city. I had found the on the ground (he lives in Wisconsin – don’t there at 11:30 p.m. I was still okay, though, apartment with help from Jill Hamberg, our ask). She cleaned the apartment once a week since I hadn’t lost my luggage, I had a key colleague at the Metropolitan Center. She and took my laundry out to the cleaner’s. to my apartment in Cuernavaca (an hour had suggested that I contact Metropolitan And I found myself free, as I had not been and a half south of the airport), and I could Center alumnus Nick Iuviene, who had just in decades, to read, walk, reflect and write. catch a bus directly from the airport. Yet in returned from Cuernavaca. He, in turn, had And boy did I have catching up to do! the middle of the night, the bus was stuck given me a name and email address, and I’d in the capital’s traffic for two hours, and I even received the apartment key in advance. My reading began with things I’d brought finally got to my apartment at 3 a.m. The Things were so much simpler than they had with me, including a fat history of modern next morning’s papers carried a story about been in the 1970s! Mexico and a newly published history of a burst dike in one of the capital’s drainage capitalism. These were quickly supplemented The apartment opened onto a traditional canals. A major highway and an entire through trips to the major bookstores in urban patio, protected from the street by a neighborhood were drowning in six feet of Mexico City, where I picked up books on high brick wall. I had a living/dining room, a sewage. The chaos spread throughout the Mexican environmental history, water and small kitchen and a bedroom. The bathroom metropolitan area where the population is 20th century political history. I also became

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 61 a devoted reader of the left-leaning yet the second-floor balcony across from the dramatic growth had occurred. Its very respected weekly Proceso, and of the cathedral. I know what you’re thinking … population had been around 600,000 in daily La Jornada. I picked up additional life was hard. 1970. By 2000, it had reached 1.6 million. works recommended by friends, and The municipality of Yautepec had more For me, the most amazing part of these family members coming for visits provided than tripled in size over the same period, early weeks was: I was doing exactly what deliveries from Amazon. Life was good! (I’ve from almost 27,000 to around 84,000. I wanted to do. The books I read were the appended a partial bibliography.) (These figures are taken from the decennial ones I wanted and needed to read. The censuses of the state, 1970-2000.) The visual My daily life quickly fell into a pattern. I trips I took were to places I wanted to go. impact of Morelos’s growth is greatest when was up by 5:30 a.m. and read for a couple My writing focused on what I was reading, you begin to descend into the state on the of hours. At least twice a week, I spent seeing and thinking about. I was doing highway that connects it to Mexico City. a day “in the field,” either in Yautepec what I had set out to do: making sense of a On that early February morning, I was or Cuernavaca, with an occasional trip place that had been on the margins of my stunned to see that the plain where to Mexico, D.F. (the Federal District … consciousness for more than 30 years. It was Cuernavaca used to be nestled in the upper- capital). In Yautepec, I retraced walks I had only then that I began fully to appreciate right-hand corner was now a sea of lights. taken 35 years earlier, covering many of the the “down side” of working at Empire This impression was confirmed on my trips nooks and crannies of the municipality. I State College. I had devoted a career to to Yautepec. Where miles of fields had once took pictures, talked to people, and recorded responding to the needs and interests of separated Cuernavaca “proper” from its observations on a digital recorder. I was students. I’d loved doing it, and as a result, surrounding towns, urban development was interested in changes that had occurred in my education was broadened in many virtually pervasive. the sugar industry, which had been the heart unanticipated ways. I’d developed interests of Yautepec’s economy, and the spread of and even some expertise in adult learning, Yautepec, when I lived there, was essentially weekend residences, something that was in environmental history, in U.S. foreign a small town. You could get a full view of it just getting started during the ’70s. It wasn’t policy – all in an effort to anticipate and from atop “El Tenayo,” a steep hill within that Yautepec was, in any particular sense, respond to my students’ needs. In doing the city and just south of the Rio Yautepec. representative of Mexico. The state of that, I had willingly sacrificed my currency The most striking changes in 2010 involved Morelos was substantially better off than all in modern Mexican history. In 20 years of the city’s spread toward the west, in the of its neighbors to the south, and radically mentoring, I can’t recall a single student direction of Cuernavaca. The land there different from the country’s northern states, request to study modern Mexico. was not irrigated. It had, in fact, constituted where population density was low and the village’s original communal land, rocky The first part of this essay (the second farms could be huge. Yautepec is blessed and planted in corn or reserved for grazing. section will be included in All About with substantial irrigated land and easy This year, it was quite evident that housing Mentoring fall 2011) briefly explores some access to urban markets and jobs. It is in spread for at least a half mile west of its of the changes I encountered and ponders no sense “average,” but it is the place I had previous boundary. A similar pattern was their implications. I want to emphasize that gotten to know pretty well, and I wanted to evident south of El Tenayo. Indeed, in that I left Mexico in early July 2010 realizing get to know it again, at least to the extent I direction, two modest and treeless hills just that I had only scratched the surface. I could in a few brief visits. east of what had been the valley’s major also want to express my deep gratitude to hacienda, Atlihuayan, were fully developed. During that first month, my home life could Charlie Goff, director of the Cemanahuac As I walked those hills, a couple stopped me fairly be characterized as monastic. I hadn’t Educational Community for his friendship to try to sell me a plot of land. They assured developed any acquaintances that might and willingness to share his deep knowledge me that piped water was plentiful and absorb spare hours, and I had lots to read of Mexico. electrical service was uninterrupted. And and think about. In the mornings, when it housing plots were cheap! A couple they was still quite cool, I read on the building’s Basic Dimensions of Mexico’s introduced me to invited me into their very flat roof, with a view of Mt. Popocatepetl Change: 1975-2010 Population attractive home, with fantastic views of the off to the east, and much of Cuernavaca In the early 1970s, Mexico’s population surrounding valleys. The man had retired on to the west and north. In the middle of was growing at a rate close to 3.5 percent. the advice of his doctors a few years earlier, the day my first-floor apartment was cool During the intervening years, that rate had and they had moved to Yautepec from the enough, and my dining room table doubled dropped dramatically. By 2010, the U.N. Valley of Mexico because the air was clean as a desk. Meals were simply prepared on a estimated that its growth rate was closer and the weather warm. When I walked two-burner gas stove, and I treated myself to 1 percent. Still, the national population these hills in 1974, they were nothing but to restaurant meals a couple of evenings a more than doubled, from 48.2 million in scrub. The only inhabitants I encountered week. Even that fell into a pattern. Pazole 1970 to 103.3 million in 2005 (INEGI, were goats. at El Barco once a week, Sopa de ajo con Banco de Informacion Economica 1999 dos jeuvos at the Vienese maybe once Housing developments constituted another cited in Moreno-Brid and Ros, p. 262). every couple of weeks, and perhaps a pizza new feature. These had simply not existed And within the state of Morelos, similarly occasionally at the Marco Polo, sitting on in 1975. There were certainly weekend

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 62 residences, built by people from the D.F. Transformation of the where products were promptly re-exported (the Federal District, Mexico City), complete Mexican Economy with minimal local impact, save through with high walls, lawns and swimming the creation of some low-wage, low security pools. But they were independent units. In the mid-1970s, Mexico was at the assembly-line jobs. What did radically The housing developments of 2010 were end of what some think of as its golden change in Mexico was access to North on a different scale entirely. The more age. The economy had been growing at a American retailers, most notably fast food modest, older ones consisted of attached respectable rate since World War II. The joints and retailers like Walmart. Wealthier houses, sometimes very small ones. From peso was at 12.5 to the dollar, where it had Mexicans gained easy access to North the heights of El Tenayo, they reminded me been for years, and public confidence in the American consumer goods. Poorer Mexicans more of Mexican graveyards than housing Partido Revolucionario Institucional’s (PRI) benefitted from greater competition, developments. The newer developments, stewardship of the economy was pretty high. especially in the form of imported (and very much under construction this summer, This didn’t mean that everybody was happy. heavily subsidized) U.S. corn. The very were on a much grander scale, covering Income distribution was grossly inequitable, wealthiest of Mexicans also benefitted, as many acres and surrounded by high walls and some other countries were growing at did their colleagues in Russia, from the that could stretch for hundreds of yards. a much faster rate, but the PRI economists opportunities presented by privatization. The scale had changed, but the pattern was were accomplishing their own goals: the rich Carlos Slim, one of the world’s wealthiest familiar: lands that had for generations were, after all, getting richer. Beginning in men, got a huge boost when he bought up been devoted to food production were the 1980s, all of that changed, abruptly and Mexico’s cell phone services, replacing a transformed into vacation retreats, complete radically. A boom related to the promise of public monopoly with a private one. The with all of the amenities. And local people, oil revenues and easy access to international national economy did not achieve “take- who had once farmed the land, were capital led to a catastrophic collapse in the off.” The promise of integration with the allowed through the guarded entrances only early ’80s as oil prices fell and interest rates “Colossus of the North” did not extend to if they had a job to do. climbed. This left Mexico nearly bankrupt, people. And the PRI government lost the last with the greatest burden falling on workers shreds of its credibility as a manager of So Mexico’s population continues to grow, and the newly emergent middle class. Neo- the economy. increasing pressure on every resource and liberals within the PRI then took over, government service, but the fact that the driving the divestiture of the government’s pace of growth has sharply declined is very industrial and other investments, and important, and heartening. Why this change eventually the adoption of the North Walmart is there … but has occurred has, inevitably, prompted much American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). its local competitors are speculation. The most convincing analysis Economic nationalism was abruptly replaced I’ve encountered involves the changing by internationalism. Mexicans were assured as big – and as offensive. roles of women. Back in the ’70s, Mexico that international investment would flow was a bastion of “machismo.” Women, into the country, creating new jobs and especially poor women, had very little say lowering the price of consumer goods in most matters, including family planning. while increasing their quality. Mexico’s When we left Mexico in 1975, I took a look Women, again especially poor and rural economy would be integrated with those of around the Yautepec open-air market and ones, tended to marry early and bear many Canada and the U.S., incomes would rise wondered if it would still be there when I children. The expectation was that some and inequalities would fade away. Along returned. There were, at that time, a few would die, others would move away, and the way, tariffs would be lowered and then grocery stores in Mexico, and I wondered the parents saw those who remained both eliminated, borders would open to the free whether the North Americanization of as contributors to the family income and exchange of goods, and Mexican industries the Mexican food system would put the as their only source of security in old age. would be strengthened through healthy public markets out of business. That hasn’t In the intervening years, several things had competition. Mexico had, in short, bought happened. What you see in Mexico today changed. Women’s access to education had into the Washington consensus. are two systems existing in parallel. In improved. Many worked outside the home. both Cuernavaca and Yautepec, the local Access to birth control information and What actually happened is a long and public markets are alive and well. They methods had dramatically improved. And complicated story. Here are a few snap- look much the way they did when I left: the age of women at marriage had increased. shots: full of great smells and colors, populated by I’m sure that the impact of these changes Investments did flow in, but the vast local vendors selling meat and vegetables varies by class and region, but it seems clear majority went to North American that have never experienced the inside of a that important changes have occurred. subsidiaries and virtually none went refrigerator, and visited by local people who to small, local enterprises (Juan Carlos appreciate the social as much as the practical Moreno-Brid and Jaime Ros explore this in aspects of buying food. But now a fully detail.) New technology flowed in, too, but articulated parallel system exists, complete was employed largely in assembly plants with parking lots, air conditioning, and the

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 63 total absence of any smell except antiseptic. of heavily processed white bread, much when its soldiers opened fire on massed Walmart is there (now said to be the largest preferred by members of the elite, who tend demonstrators in the Plaza of the Three private employer in Mexico), but its local to distain tortillas as way too … Mexican. Cultures: Tlatelolco. And during the ’70s, a competitors are as big – and as offensive. form of low intensity warfare was on-going These mega-stores primarily serve people Politics: The Demise of the PRI involving small revolutionary bands. But the who drive cars, and people who can afford power of the PRI seemed beyond question, In the 1970s, the PRI (Partido the luxury of processed food. as it accommodated dissidents within the Revolucionario Institucional) had been elite and did not hesitate to crush agitators A similar pattern can be seen in the in power for as long as anyone could within the lower classes. It waved the restaurant business. Burger King, remember, and its hold on power seemed patriotic banner continuously by asserting McDonalds and KFC’s are pervasive in the firm. Its façade had been shaken in 1968 its independence from its North American neighbor, and giving vocal support to regional trouble makers like Fidel Castro. At the same time, it never confused rhetoric with reality when it came to private property rights and keeping labor costs low. In the mid 1970s, there was much talk of new oil discoveries and the promise of a boom just over the horizon, and leaders of the PRI quickly became victims of their own rhetoric, increasing borrowing and public spending and relying on high oil prices both to attract investors and to pay off loans. In the early 1980s, all of that quickly came unraveled, as a downturn in the North American economy resulted in a sharp drop in oil prices and an equally sharp rise in interest rates. The vaunted PRI economic machine went off the rails. What followed, referred to as the “lost decade,” was a period of economic contraction, wholesale privatization and stagnation or worse in job Food cart: The zocalo, Cuernavaca, Morelos, June, 2010 creation. Through all of this, the wealthy fared better than the middle classes, who in big cities, but so are the street vendors and local restaurants. One noticeable change involves neighborhood bakeries and tortilla shops. Abundant in the ’70s, they seemed much harder to find this year. But it turns out that their products remain readily available, through the tiny neighborhood groceries or “tiendas” that grace just about every residential block. You’ll find the fresh tortillas, still warm, delivered each morning by motorbike, snuggled in a cooler near the counter. Okay, the quality and freshness have suffered, but the tortillas survive. One difference, and an important one, is that the price of this staple has jumped, as competition for corn from the North American Midwest booms. Mexican consumers join the long list of victims of ethanol. No worries, you can always buy “Pan Bimbo,” the Mexican version Walmart ... could have been anywhere. Yuitepec, Morelos, June 2010

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 64 turn fared better than the poor. Perhaps it that national leaders promised would pave This long-running scandal, coupled with yet was the PRI that fared worst of all. In many the way for Mexico’s transformation into another economic collapse and a response ways, its credibility never recovered. a fully developed country. What Mexicans from the PRI that was little short of refer to as the “intellectual authors” of catastrophic, finally resulted in the PRI’s loss In September 1985, the PRI suffered the assassination was never identified. of power to the conservative Partido Acción another major blow following a massive That fall, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, an Nacional (PAN) in 2000. earthquake that rocked the capital. Damage official of the PRI and a national senator, was widespread and a great many people This sketch of major changes in Mexico was assassinated. During the months that died, yet the PRI, in the following days, was between 1975 and 2010 suggests a number followed, investigations revealed what invisible. Local people seized the initiative of themes worthy of further investigation. historians Michael C. Meyer, William L. and quickly mobilized to search for victims In the second part of this essay, I will Sherman and Susan M. Deeds (2007) refer and provide services for survivors. When explore one of them: Governmental to as follows: the PRI belatedly leapt into action, Capacity. Powerfully influenced by their having initially minimized the damage North American neighbor, Mexican and assured international experts that administrations during the 1980s and help was not needed, it sent in the army 1990s sharply reduced the government’s to protect private property. The party role in the economy and opened the was further discredited when post-quake country to foreign private investment. analysis suggested the pattern of building And, as noted, rapid population growth collapses revealed one of the many costs and urbanization increased pressure on of corruption. Contractors working on natural resources and infrastructure. government buildings, including hospitals Simultaneously, democratization both and schools had clearly used shoddy raised expectations and created openings materials and government inspectors had for new approaches to addressing these been paid off. issues.

The 1988 presidential election brought The question I will take up is: how the decline of the PRI into full public prepared are Mexican governmental view. The PRI candidate, Carlos Salinas institutions to respond to the challenges de Gortari, chosen, as always, by the currently confronting them and those outgoing president, was challenged sure to arise in coming decades? One by a leftist spin-off group that called narrative suggests that this issue need itself the Frente Democratico Nacional not concern us: the market will provide. (the National Democratic Front). Its Another argues that strong and responsive candidate, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, was governments are essential to the vitality widely believed to have won the election, of market economies and flourishing but the PRI abruptly halted the ballot societies. A look at the Mexican count and declared its man the winner. experience offers some valuable insights. This period, between 1985 and 1990, saw the rise of several “civil society” Note groups, many of them byproducts References included here are texts of the popular response to the 1985 Girl in Sombrero: Watching a World Cup victory referred to in part I. A full bibliography earthquake. Civil society has taken on celebration, Cuernavaca, Morelos, June 17, 2010 will be provided in All About Mentoring multiple roles since then and, as we shall fall 2011. see, may be central to Mexican hopes for the future. For at least half a century Mexicans References Things got even worse in 1994, when the had awaited revelations of corruption Meyer, M.C., Sherman, W.L. and Deeds, PRI candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, who each time a new administration S.M. (2007). The course of Mexican promised to open the political process and replaced an old. But this occasion history (8th ed.). New York, NY: demonstrate the PRI’s responsiveness to was different. The news of intrigue, Oxford University Press. the public, was assassinated. This event, in corruption, big money, naropolitics May, on the heels of the Zapatista uprising and murder that began to surface in Moreno-Brid, J.C and Ros, J. (2009). in the southern state of Chiapas on Jan. February 1995 was not the typical Development and growth in the 1, traumatized the nation, just at the time low-grade moral infection. It was a Mexican economy: A historical when Mexico should have been celebrating gothic tale that mesmerized the nation. perspective. New York, NY: Oxford the implementation of NAFTA, the pact (p. 618) University Press.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 65

Found Things: Empire State College Objectives

In 1973, Empire State College published its For these reasons, we take time to be as third “bulletin.” (Even now, it’s been less clear as we can about the educational than a decade since the college created its objectives embedded within the admissions first “catalog.”) Like the first bulletin (1971- process, the Learning Contracts, the 1972), the overall spirit of this 104-page, educational resources and special programs, 5 ½ x 7 ½ inch document is captured in and the academic procedures and standards. the description of the “objectives, processes What are our objectives? Think of and academic offerings” of the college. a pyramid. At its apex are simple Particularly telling is the section, “Empire communication and reading skills. These State College Objectives,” included here. skills are supported by several major Written by the college’s founding academic blocks of intellectual competence, which vice president, Arthur Chickering, these rests on six major dimensions of personal “objectives” offer a glimpse of the ways in development. Though they are described which the college sought to communicate sequentially and range from the simple and its core values about knowledge and concrete to the abstract and complex, when “personal development.” a man or a woman enters the Empire State Thanks, as always, to our college historian, program, all three levels of objectives are Richard Bonnabeau, for assistance in this met at once. archival work, and to Arthur Chickering Empire State’s program places a premium on The Bulletin for his help in our efforts to search out oral and written communication, including the document’s author. Readers might be of the criteria by which facts, principles, or effective reading ability. interested in comparing the language and opinions are judged. Knowledge is acquired the ideas in this document with Chickering’s When a prospective student visits a through memorization and direct experience, summer 2010 publication, “Our Purposes: Learning Center, he needs to be able to and is reinforced by use. Personal Reflections on Character read the materials available there and to Donald Wentworth and Dolores Guion Development and Social Responsibility talk with others about his interests and were granted advanced standing in in Higher Education” (Liberal Education, what the Center offers. To complete the part because they had acquired such 96 [3].) Admissions Prospectus, he must write knowledge through education and prior answers to difficult questions. Planning, work experience … Emma Schmidt’s implementing, and evaluating Contracts knowledge of philosophy and group ducational effectiveness is enhanced and Programs of Study calls for continual dynamics will grow as she reads Spinoza, when the objectives and their oral and written exchanges between Bales, and others, just as Bob Lenard’s relationships to the institutional student and Mentor. Most Contracts E knowledge of Greek culture will expand policies and practices are spelled out. The require substantial reading and written as he reads The Iliad. chance of generating contradictory forces reports. Comprehension converts information which cancel one another is then minimized. Empire State’s program requires several acquired through memorization into When an educational institution believes major aspects of intellectual competence: working knowledge. It is evident when in its objectives, it sets into motion forces knowledge, comprehension, analysis, people can translate information from which affect everyone associated with it. evaluation, synthesis and application. Students must weigh their own purposes one form or another, can express it in and values against those of the institution. Knowledge involves more than recalling their own words, in mathematical terms, They then must determine whether there specific bits of information, i.e., terminology, in artistic products or literary metaphors. is sufficient agreement between the two to dates and facts. It includes knowledge Comprehension is indicated by the power to warrant committing their time and energy of conventions, trends and sequences, interpret and extrapolate ideas, and when to the institution. Clearly stated objectives classifications and categories, and major the consequences are consistent with the make this determination possible. theories or generalizations which are information given. appropriate in a given field. It also includes knowledge of the methods of inquiry and

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 66

Bob Lenard’s comprehension is tested Schmidt’s study of the agency practices competence. Donald Wentworth is asked and his interpretive abilities are exercised in relation to Spanish-speaking clients how Marx and Engel’s definitions of when after carrying out library research will evaluate their effectiveness and the working class and the owner class on the non-Western antecedents of Greek responsiveness to such persons and their apply to his own experiences in and out Classicism in Persia, Egypt, and India, he effectiveness with them, and the degree of the factory. He is asked to examine writes a paper discussing the non-Western to which requirements for employment the relationship between the sit-down and nonlinear influences underlying and volunteer work permit persons of strikes and the preceding history of the Western rationalism … The same is Spanish background to participate in the labor movement, and the relationship true for Charles Booth when he reads work of those agencies … Chuck Booth’s between the CIO of the sit-downs and Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man and evaluative paper on experimental colleges current union activities – especially of describes “transcendented being,” and will scrutinize and make judgments about the U.A.W., his own union … Dolores of Janet Lessinger when she discusses the their methods and curricula. Guion undertakes substantial background experiences of modern life as presented Synthesis involves arranging and combining readings, studies a series of Health Science in Kafka’s The Trial and Laing’s The elements so that a structure or pattern Programs, and develops her own optimal Divided Self. emerges which was not clearly there before. health education program for Licensed Analysis calls for the ability to break down The result may be a communication in Practical Nurses … Chuck Booth relates a communication or an experience into basic which a writer or speaker conveys his ideas, Mersault’s “Passivity” to the “Aesthetic elements, to identify the relative importance feelings, or experiences to another; it may Concepts of Disinterestedness,” as of ideas or incidents, and to make explicit be a proposed plan or a set of abstract discussed by Kant and Baumgarten; he the relationships among them. relationships which classify or explain considers Plato’s notion of dialogue as certain phenomena and may be presented in it applies to intercourse between student When Emma Schmidt creates her verbal, mathematical, or artistic form. and teacher … Janet Lessinger reads “intellectual autobiography,” looking Jews Without Money, Call It Sleep, back over her past reading and Dolores Guion’s report will synthesize The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The experiences, she tackles a complex the results of her analyses of the Hudson Second Sex, Last Exit to Brooklyn, The analytic task … Dolores Guion faces Valley Community College Health Science Man with the Golden Arm, Division a similar challenge when she examines Programs … Emma Schmidt’s reports on Street America, and asks, “How do the Health Science Programs at Hudson community agencies which have Spanish- the lives of the persons in these books Valley Community College to determine speaking clients and her interviews with converge? How does this convergence what they include and whether there faculty members in the Department relate to life in a metropolis? In what have been task analyses of the basic skills of Human Services will call for the ways is the rhythm of urban life an assault and concepts of health career workers … ability to draw together diverse kinds of against the persons on the underside and Donald Wentworth’s research project on information to make an integrated whole on their cultures?” The General Motors sit-down strike will … Chuck Booth will need similar abilities Empire State’s program aims to develop call for similar analytic abilities. when he compiles a bibliography for use intellectual competence in these major in his course and organizes the readings Evaluation calls for the ability to make areas. It asks students to acquire knowledge in relation to students’ interests … In qualitive and quantitative judgments in pertinent to their purposes, and to develop bi-weekly phone calls and conferences relation to given or understood criteria. skills of comprehension, analysis, synthesis, with the Mentor, Bob Lenard and others It calls for judgments about the value of application, and evaluation. Although the will create syntheses of their readings, information, materials, and methods for emphases differ, most contracts test a wide travel, work experiences, volunteer specific purposes. In some cases, judgments range of such abilities. In the course of his activities. may rest on internal evidence such as college career, each student will frequently logical accuracy or internal consistency. Application calls for the use of abstractions be challenged to develop these skills. In other cases, judgments may rest on in particular and concrete situations, or external criteria which must be selected or for the ability to compare one set of ideas * * * formulated to fit the case, or which may or experiences with another in order to However, intellectual competence is only one depend upon using standard systems of consider the implications or potential aspect of individual development. Significant appraisal. consequences. The abstractions may be educational experiences influence other general ideas, rules, or procedures or they Dolores Guion’s study of Health Science major tasks which are the work of human may be technical principles or theories. Programs will have a substantial development throughout life: increasing The capacity for application is critical if evaluative component as she makes interpersonal competence, increasing knowledge is to relate to the identification judgments about the effectiveness of awareness, clarifying purposes, becoming and solution of problems. student training and the degree to which increasingly self-reliant, understanding there is a good fit between the curricula Empire State’s program has special oneself and others, and developing self- and actual job requirements … Emma potency for this kind of intellectual consistency. Because these are important areas of concern for many students, and

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 67 because the College will have an impact on chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology to go. Their contracts and programs of them, we must recognize them explicitly, and ecology describe the shifting physical study focus directly upon their career take them seriously, and try to operate in conditions which fundamentally determine concerns, providing pertinent information, ways which help rather than hinder them. our existence. appropriate skills, and broad perspectives … Bob Lenard has some strong interests Interpersonal competence is of primary Skills decline when unused, and specific which provide a basis for beginning importance in marriage, family life and in pieces of information are forgotten or study, but his intellectual interests are social relationships. It also plays a primary become outdated. However, once we move still uncertain. Not that he minds. On the role in job success. Most persons quit, are to more complex levels of perception contrary, he wants to take time to wander fired, or are unhappy on the job because and understanding, we no longer yield through diverse cultures and climates, to they can’t cooperate effectively with their so readily to surface explanations and explore varied life styles and values of fellow workers. Interpersonal competence oversimplifications. Once we experience the past and present. His “reactive diary” calls for the ability to interpret the intentions the reward of new sensitivities, we will not continually applies his readings and travel and attitudes of others, to see situations lightly forego them. experiences to his own past and present, from another person’s standpoint. It calls Donald Wentworth’s union will not be to his own questions about who he is, for the ability to improvise new roles the same for him after he finishes his and where he is going … Emma Schmidt and alternative lines of action in working first contract … Rockland County will brings two main purposes which guide her relationships with others, and to help them not be the same for Bob Lenard after initial study – a social work career among do the same. It also involves self-confidence he completes his extensive readings Spanish-speaking peoples, and a desire and the capacity to take the risks that and his travels through Spain, Italy and to develop her interest in psychology, spontaneity and shifting orientations require. Greece, his reflective diaries, his papers philosophy, and politics … Chuck Booth The continuing relationships between … Manhattan, Albany, and Troy will be wants to start an experimental school, but students and Mentors which are part of different places for Janet Lessinger as she he wants a broad foundation underneath contract planning and implementation pursues the Culture of Cities program that specific philosophy, and a study of continually tax the interpersonal and encounters the varied cultures of three experimental colleges. competence of both parties. Dolores megalopolis … After reading Spinoza, As these contracts are carried out and Guion will need such competence when Wittgenstein, Skinner, and Bertrand evaluated, the initial purposes which she carries out her research project Russell, and learning to understand motivated them will be modified. Sometimes in cooperation with and under the and use philosophical methods, Emma those purposes will be sharpened and supervision of Miss Jane Gary, Director, Schmidt’s approach to future work and strengthened, sometimes they will veer off and Mr. Author Powlawski, Researcher, study will be modified. of the State Department of Health Clarifying Purposes occurs when such Services and Manpower, and she will need questions are asked as “Who am I? Who “Who am I? Who am it to assure the continued cooperation of am I going to be? Where am I?, and Where I going to be? Where the Hudson Valley Community College am I going?” Significant educational faculty … Emma Schmidt’s competence experiences raise such questions. Answers am I?, and Where am will be challenged when she visits agencies require judgments about the kind of life we I going?” Significant to learn about their practices in relation want to lead and about vocational plans and to Spanish-speaking clients, and when aspirations. The work we pursue influences educational experiences she interviews Human Services faculty not only how much money we earn, but raise such questions. members … Chuck Booth will be tested where we live, the friends we make, and when he directs his own seminar in basic the ways we spend our time. Furthermore, philosophy, seeks out guest lecturers, and competence develops most effectively when works with his class. powered by clear purposes. to a newly discovered and attractive angle, Increasing awareness lies at the heart of sometimes they will be traded entirely for Empire State’s approach, which takes liberal education. In very general terms, a different vocational plan, a different life students’ purposes as the basis for history, economics, political science, style, or a different range of interests. educational planning and action, generates anthropology, and sociology increase strong forces in this area. They begin to Becoming increasingly self-reliant means awareness of the diverse forces which operate with the initial exploration of a becoming emotionally and functionally underlie social changes. Poetry and the Learning Center, the admissions application, independent; but most important, it arts expand sensitivities and provide new and the Orientation Workshop. Each time a means recognizing our interdependence. views of the world. Literature, philosophy, contract is planned and evaluated, questions Emotional independence calls for the psychology, and religious studies reveal the of purpose and progress are raised. capacity to function without constant praise, complexities of human nature and human encouragement, and emotional support. relationships, and the motives and values Wentworth and Guion know quite clearly Functional independence calls for the held by individuals and cultures. Biology, where they are and where they want

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 68 capacity to go where you need to go and to develop more realistic ideas about our standing union commitment will get a do what you want to do without needing strengths and weaknesses. Why did we thorough going-over as he studies Marx advice and assistance. Fundamentally, we are respond like that? Where did those attitudes and Engels and the General Motors strike not so much independent as interdependent. come from? Can we really make these of 1936-37. He will find that new and Friends, family, state, and nation depend changes or handle this new opportunity? more complex levels of self-consistency on us and we on them. Therefore becoming Life is enriched when we can enjoy a wide will have to be created … Chuck Booth autonomous, “having the capacity to be self- range of different kinds of persons, when we will have a similar experience as he governing and having the right to do so,” can go beyond simply tolerating those who compares the philosophies of Camus, occurs as we manage our interdependence are different and can respond to them as Plato, Marcuse, Heidegger, Hegel, and by recognizing when and where we must individuals. Kant with his own views, the views of depend on others and when we need not. his Mentor, and the views of the students As Donald Wentworth reads about union who attend his seminar … When Emma Empire State’s program calls for substantial leaders such as Debs, Haywood, and Schmidt confronts questions concerning independence. It asks students to take charge Gompers, and about industrial leaders effective “Human Services,” as described of their own learning, to recognize when such as Ford, Sloan, and Filene, as he by college professors and community they require help and when they don’t, reads Servants of Power and What’s on agencies she also will confront questions and to know how to obtain that help. It the Worker’s Mind, he’ll learn things concerning human values and the values asks them to work largely on their own, about himself, his past, and his fellow behind her own impulse toward a social with periodic advice and evaluation from workers that he hadn’t recognized before work career … Bob Lenard will encounter a mentor, but without the usual support of … When Bob Lenard looks into the eyes values and action expectations which classmates, roommates, and other friendship of a Spaniard, an Italian, and a Greek, contrast sharply with his own. groups established in residential colleges. he’ll see new reflections of himself, his family, and American culture; he’ll bring This, then, is Empire State’s pyramid of Students like Wentworth and Guion, back new understandings for a wider objectives. The forces set in motion by this with wide ranging experiences, strong range of future friendships … Janet institution effect simple communication commitments, and demonstrated capacity Lessinger will meet new cultures and skills, intellectual competence, and to get around and act effectively, bring new autobiographies which will spotlight significant areas of personal development. high levels of independence with them different aspects of her own background, Clearly, these forces will operate with … In undertaking a new career after 17 and provide a broader base for meeting different intensities for each student, years as a factory worker, Emma Schmidt the diverse persons she encounters in her depending upon his or her purposes, skills, is making a gutsy step. Success will mean urban drug center. abilities, and personal characteristics. But a wider range of alternatives for her, not operate they will. simply because she has a degree, but Self-consistency exists when word and because contracts like hers will increase deed are not in conflict, when they reflect Learning occurs as new conditions require her capacity to pursue those alternatives beliefs and principles which hold through new responses and as new experiences excite … Bob Lenard’s self-reliance will be tested changing circumstances. The development of new reactions. Students will learn because in his study and travels with his friend. self-consistency is a two part process. First, the experiences built into contracts challenge When that ambitious undertaking is there is the effort to establish a set of beliefs their competence, test their purposes, and completed and after they have faced the which makes sense of our own experiences question their values. If the challenge is difficulties and decisions which will surely and insights. Then there is the struggle to too limited, or too overwhelming, then not arise, they will be confident of their ability make actions consistent with beliefs. Because much learning will occur. The most effective to go almost anywhere and do almost the world continually challenges our beliefs contract and program of study recognizes anything. and pressures us toward behaviors contrary just the right difference between a student’s to them, maintaining self-consistency is present level of learning and development Self-understanding and understanding a life-long task. And this is in no way a and what the new plans will require. Then others calls for the capacity to move beyond celebration of frozen attitudes; growth and students can use the forces at work to relationships of simple understanding to change do not necessarily violate the kind of move ahead in those areas most important those where there are sympathetic responses consistency we are talking about. to them. to diverse kinds of persons and their conditions. Self-understanding grows rapidly Significant educational experiences through such relationships. As we test raise important questions concerning ourselves in new experiences and situations, attitudes, values and beliefs. The values we come to know ourselves more fully and and attitudes behind Wentworth’s long

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 69

“Goin’ Mobile”: Designing for Mobility in Networked Social Spaces

Thomas P. Mackey, Center for Distance Learning

A Review of: youth, elevated and empowered by rock multiple portable devices such as the Nano music, while embracing nascent technologies or Shuffle, smart phone, netbook, MP3 Open Learning 25(3) such as synthesizers and tape machines. player or digital tablet, allowing access Special Issue Thematically, this song demonstrates the to the Internet from anywhere, at times Mobile Learning: Using Portable ability either individually or collectively to convenient for the user. In the ’70s, records Technologies to Create New Learning envision a future and move freely on the and tapes were containers for music, and n 1971, the same year Empire open expansive highway. In 1971, The Who now we experience the music itself as pure State College was established, Pete played some of these songs at the Saratoga information, less tangible as a thing found I Townshend sang about the freedom of Performing Arts Center (SPAC), breaking within a sleeve on vinyl or cassette, and the open road in the rock anthem “Goin’ attendance records at this venue with nearly now a transparent digital binary, easily Mobile.” In the days of analog, when music downloaded, copied, mashed up, and shared was organized by sequenced tracks, this though multiple digital devices. Listeners are song was in a fixed position on side two of now active contributors, downloading and The Who’s classic LP “Who’s Next.” Forty sharing digital content in numerous formats, years later, we remember or imagine what it ranking and reviewing tracks, and uploading was like back then by listening to this disc their own works as user-generated content. and recalling the sounds that dominated FM radio for at least a decade. From the From Digital to Mobile minimalist synthesizer that opens “Baba Our understanding of mobility continues O’Reilly” to Roger Daultrey’s primal scream to change as the cell phone evolves into that closes “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” this an all-purpose smart device for doing album defined rock music of the 1970s. The much more than making a phone call, and work itself emerged from the disconnected the laptop morphs into a digital tablet. pieces of an unfinished project, Lifehouse, Mobile apps connect us to news sources, corrigan corrigan a proposed film that was intended to evolve . radio streams, music sites, digital libraries, over time with collaborative interaction interactive maps, search engines and social with concert audiences (Atkins, 2000, p. networking resources such as Facebook, 14). As a fragmented collection of songs Twitter, LinkedIn and WordPress Blogs. that developed from a failed project, “Who’s

photo photo by peter j Through a collaborative social network, we Next” works as a postmodern song cycle, The Who post, tweet, text, interact, read, write, share, defined not so much by the authority of and produce information continuously and the author to create the narrative, but interactively. According to Chris Anderson 30,000 fans, and providing a social context as an open-ended piece constructed and and Michael Wolff (2010), the mobile for this music in Saratoga Springs and the understood by individual interpretation and revolution has already taken place. In their Capital District (McMichael and Lyons, collective memory. Wired article “The Web is Dead: Long Live 2004). The free form FM radio format of the ’70s the Internet,” the authors make a convincing argument that we have moved beyond allowed for the play of multiple tracks from From Analog to Digital this record, demonstrating the power of the Web browser as the primary mode for randomness and sense-making, an idea that The sense of mobility that is celebrated connecting online, and toward increased re-emerged 40 years later in Apple’s iPod in this song, even if told from the mobility with smart phones and apps. Shuffle. This one track in particular, “Goin’ perspective of a privileged rock star on Although we are comfortable accessing Mobile,” accelerated forward declaring the road, reflects the revolution of the the Web through a browser, Anderson mobility as a way of life: “When I’m era and the ongoing momentum toward and Wolff argue that: “the Web is not the drivin’ free the world’s my home.” Similar a shifting networked future. Forty years culmination of the digital revolution” (p. 1). in many ways to other Pete Townshend later, the way we experience music has The authors shift the focus from the Web compositions, this song asserts the power transformed considerably from the analog browser to the larger Internet, and how we of youth – a disenchanted and rebellious “tape machine” mentioned in the song, to use it to communicate, create and interact

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 70 through various modes, including these in this volume also remind us how much (p. 188). The context for these open convergent mobile devices that fit in the technology has transformed in the past 40 learners included a combination of formal palms of our hands and can be used for years and how we must continuously adapt and informal environments such as the making the occasional phone call. Today’s to these changes. According to guest editor classroom, fieldwork locations and home mobility continues to be a way to express Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, “with its strong (p. 196). According to this study, “netbooks openness and freedom propelled forward by emphasis on learning rather than teaching, were ideal as lightweight, portable devices a youthful sense of innovative app design mobile learning challenges educators to try for use in the field, capable of running and use. to understand learners’ needs, circumstances multiple software programs to transmit and abilities even better than before” video and audio and to store high-resolution Based on the report Mobile Access 2010 (p. 18). As this journal suggests, mobile images” (p. 197). The netbooks also offered (Smith, 2010), conducted by The Pew learning opens education to students with extended battery life which worked well in a Internet and American Life Project, access to a range of portable devices and variety of field locations, allowing students “Fifty-nine percent of adults now access to international audiences with immediate the flexibility to complete several tasks the Internet wirelessly using a laptop or access to cell phones. at times that were convenient for them. cell phone”(p. 1). This is a significant trend, The authors recommended the netbook but perhaps of most importance is what According to Kukulska-Hulme, mobile as an option for distance learners because people are doing with these devices. This is learning is complementary to current the devices are “highly portable,” flexible a new era for creative freedom, as mobility technologies and does not automatically and open to multiple inputs (p. 198). The allows for taking and exchanging pictures replace other formats such as “desktop netbooks also featured highly usable screens and videos, sending and receiving text computers, pen, paper and printed books” that allowed for a range of activities, from messages, playing games and downloading (p. 184). She envisions the mobile device writing to browsing the Web. The study music. Individual activities become as a way to support learning in between found that students considered the hardware collaborative actions through linking and classroom sessions, and as a means to to be intuitive because of their previous interacting with others and by sharing explore both formal and informal learning. familiarity with the netbook functionality, and participating within an expansive In addition, Kukulska-Hulme clearly and the network connections allowed for collaborative network. The 2011 Horizon identified the way mobility opens education easy access to a range of online resources. Report identified mobile computing as to a wider audience. She argued that: Although the researchers are interested in one of the key trends in higher education, “learning is open to all when it is inclusive, comparing the netbooks to smart phones, it asserting that: “mobiles are capable and mobile technologies are a powerful is clear that netbooks offered flexibility and computing devices in their own right – and means of opening learning to all those who functionality to open and distance learners. they are increasingly a user’s first choice for might otherwise remain at the margins of Internet access” (p. 5). This report suggests education” (p. 184). She sees the mobile Mobile Media Players (iPods and that the learner is an active, collaborative device as a way to engage learners who may MP3 players) and interactive participant, and mobile have previously been unable to experience devices provide easy access to the Internet traditional modes of learning. Further, she The potential for mobile media players for communication and for the creation of argued that mobility has the potential to such as the Apple iPod was examined by individual and collaborative documents. bring education to international audiences a team of researchers from the School of and “to girls and women, who, in many Education at The Open University, UK. Open Mobile Learning parts of the world, are still denied basic Shohel and Power (2010) examined the opportunities to improve their lives through use of mobile technologies to improve As an emerging trend in higher education, education” (p. 184-185). This ambitious and English-language instruction in Bangladesh. mobile learning is an area for scholarly inclusive method for open mobile learning The authors conducted a study of open exploration and for collaborative practice continues with several research essays that distance learning based on interviews with in face-to-face and online environments. further support the value of this approach. teachers who participated in a professional The relationship between open and mobile development English in Action (EIA) learning has been examined in a special Netbooks program. Within this framework, “English- edition of Open Learning (2010). This language teachers are provided with media issue features several essays that report on Mobility extends beyond the smart phone players (iPods), preloaded with video and innovations taking place internationally, and includes such devices as the netbook. audio language learning resources, along including: The Open University, UK; The A team of researchers (Gaved et. al., with battery-powered speakers for use University of South Africa, Pretoria, South 2010) at The Open University conducted in the classroom” (p. 204). Based on the Africa; and The University of Waikato, a study of netbook use that included over analysis of interviews, the authors found Hamilton, New Zealand. As Empire State 300 secondary school students and seven that “the use of new mobile technology has College rediscovers its own 40-year legacy as teachers during seven trials (p. 187). The been shown to facilitate access to learning, an open institution, it is useful for us to see purpose of this study was to determine as well as improve the quality of teacher how instructors and researchers are engaging “how well the netbooks performed as education and training” (p. 213). The use with trends in mobile learning. The essays mobile learning devices for education”

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 71 of iPods in particular allowed the English- of South Africa (UNISA) described the use network that is no longer tethered by Web language teachers easy access to professional of an instant messaging system designed browsers or desktop computers. Noeline development materials in support of their especially for cell phones called “MXit,” Wright (2010) explored the use of the own training at convenient times and in which can be used on a range of cell phones microblogging environment Twitter at The dynamic, portable delivery modes. This to create interactive learning environments. University of Waikato in New Zealand. In approach was especially valuable in a According to Makoe, “cell phones hold this pilot study, Wright examined the use country where English-language teaching such a promise for distance education of Twitter by students via cell phones in was challenged by a rote delivery mode as a cognitive delivery tool to enhance a teaching practicum as part of a teacher that was not interactive or technologically collaborative learning and social interaction education program. Through an analysis enhanced. The use of mobile media players because more than 98 percent of UNISA of participant tweets, the author found in this context appeared to enhance students have access to or own cell phones” that “Twitter chronologically logged instructor support, while improving the (p. 251-252). Makoe notes that these devices participants’ reflective thinking during a quality of instruction, and offering an include a variety of features for users to take school practicum, reduced isolation and innovative and interactive approach pictures and video, play games, access the supported a sense of community” (p. 263). to learning. Internet, and communicate with other users The portable, on-the-go nature of cell via instant messaging (p. 252). In this pilot phone microblogging allowed participants The use of mobile media players for study, Makoe examined the use of MXit by to reflect on a range of course activities language learning also was examined by a “23 UNISA students who belonged to five related to teaching practices, pedagogical team from the Department of Languages study groups, each ranging from three to theory and relationship building. They at The Open University. Demouy and seven members” (p. 253). also had the opportunity to explore and Kukulska-Hulme (2010) explored the use reflect on those individual daily activities of iPods, MP3 players and cell phones to Overall, MXit allowed for interactive that were not necessarily connected to the advance listening and speaking practices in conversations in a mobile chat room, practicum (p. 263). The ease of access to French language instruction. The authors between instructors and students, and other participants in the course diminished examined how students in a French among peers, across distances (among any sense of isolation while building a program delivered via distance learning different provinces). According to Makoe, strong sense of community within the experienced additional course activities the use of MXit in this context allowed group. The 140-character limit of Twitter using their own mobile devices. Students individuals to maintain control over the pace promoted targeted reflections among did not automatically envision their mobile of their learning while exchanging ideas and learners rather than superficial observations. devices as tools for learning, but found that experiences with students outside of their In addition, about half of the participants after involvement with this approach in the own community. The use of cell phones used computers with standard keyboards course, mobility supported activities for created a mobile network for students to along with mobile devices, creating a listening and speaking (p. 229). In particular, share a common technical language while blended approach for accessing websites “the use of iPods and MP3 players was providing individual choice related to and applications. quickly adopted and found extremely learning activities, interactions, identity and useful as a means of increasing contact with relationship building (p. 256). Through this Mobility and Innovative the language in spaces and at times that mobile learning environment, international Open Access suited their lifestyle” (p. 229). In addition, distance learning was enhanced by a the use of mobile phones also supported portable networked technology that did not As we have seen, the examination of mobile the practice of listening and speaking in require the traditional computer and Web learning in Open Learning demonstrates the language learning contexts, although some browser. In this context, the rapid emergence potential of mobility to provide innovative respondents preferred the more sophisticated of cell phones as a means to access the open access to education. The essays in functionality of DVDs over the simplicity of Internet reimagined distance learning as this journal illustrate that open mobile cell phones (p. 229). a portable, socially-constructed tool for learning is already having an impact on collaboration and self-directed inquiry. students internationally through netbooks, Mobile Phones and For the students in this particular study, mobile media players, smart phones, Social Networking the use of cell phones was an empowering mobile apps and social networking. These activity based on resources they already had emerging technologies allowed for individual International distance learning is supported access to for the development of interactive reflections and collaborative participation in by the use of the cell phone as an interactive study groups. a range of educational contexts. Portability device for collaboration. The rapid expanse created learning environments that extended of cell phone use in South Africa, for The increased use of mobile technologies from the classroom, to fieldwork locations, instance, has allowed instructors from has provided another means to engage to multiple distance learning sites in support the Institute for Open Distance Learning in social networking, especially through of several disciplinary perspectives. to create socially-constructed learning mobile apps. Users access such resources as environments through mobile technology. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter through Mpine Makoe (2010) from the University mobile phones, creating a portable social

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 72

This networked approach to higher simultaneous revolutions in politics, the arts Gaved, M., Collins, T., Mulholland, P., education is consistent with the philosophy and higher education. Empire State College Kerawalla, L., Jones, A.,Scanlon, E., … of Empire State College as a mentor-learner was a part of this transformation, opening Twiner, A. (2010). Using netbooks to institution opening education to students education with a nonresidential, decentered support mobile learners’ investigations at regional centers and through blended approach to mentoring and learning across activities and places. Open and online studies. Collectively, we provide in a variety of individualized learning Learning, 25(3), 187-200. students with multiple approaches to practices. In 1971, Empire State College Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, learning, including individualized study, was envisioned as a university college that A., & Haywood, K. (2011). The 2011 group study, residencies, blended learning, “transcends constraints of space, place, Horizon Report. The New Media online learning and evolving opportunities and time” (SUNY, 1971, p. 2). Mobile Consortium. Retrieved from http://net. for mobile learning. We reach students in learning supports this goal by providing educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/HR2011.pdf communities throughout the state of New access to education that extends beyond any York; across the United States; and globally particular location or time. In these portable Kukulska-Hulme, A. (2010). Mobile through our Center for International networked environments, learners access learning as a catalyst for change. Programs, Center for Distance Learning a wide range of digital music, media, text, Open Learning, 25(3), 181-185. and International Distance Learning (a images and learning objects in an interactive McMichael, J., & Lyons, J. (2004). portal for providing international students dialogue. Further, mobility provides a The Who concert file. London: with access to our online courses). Mobility resource for building community across Omnibus Press. offers yet another innovative format that local, national and international borders, extends the reach of our distributed and for creating and sharing user-generated Makoe, M. (2010). Exploring the use of learning environment. content among mentors and learners. MXit: A cell-phone social network to facilitate learning in distance education. At the same time, mobile learning presents As we go into a mobile future, these old Open Learning, 25(3), 251-257. us with many challenges as educators songs from The Who are not simply and raises several questions: How do we fragments from a failed movie project or Saratoga Performing Arts Center. (1971, effectively embrace this approach within remnants from a past youth culture. At Aug. 2). Tonight’s performance: The a decentered and distributed learning the start of an emerging mobile era where Who [Program]. Retrieved from http:// environment? How do we effectively flexibility, collaboration, interactivity and www.thewho.org/programs.htm adapt mobile learning to our wide range openness advance learning opportunities Shohel, M.M.C., & Power, T. (2010), of mentoring practices? Do we have the for our students, this is music for the Introducing mobile technology for technology infrastructure in place to reinvention of a great idea. enhancing teaching and learning in successfully experiment with and explore Bangladesh: Teacher perspectives. Open mobile learning? How does mobility References Learning, 25(3), 201-215. influence our understanding of international Anderson, C., & Wolff, M. (2010, education? Are we prepared to expand Smith, A. (2010, July 7). Mobile Access September) The Web is dead. Long our individualized mentoring and learning 2010. The Pew and Internet American live the Internet. Wired, 18(09). practices to the inherently collaborative Life Project. Retrieved from http://www. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/ approaches made available through mobile pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Mobile- magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/ learning? How do we assess mobile learning Access-2010.aspx outcomes? How do we as an institution Atkins, J. (2003). Who’s next and the State University of New York. (1971). A collectively embrace new technologies in lifehouse project (liner notes). On prospectus for a new university college: ways that build community? Who’s Next Deluxe Edition [CD]. Objectives, process, structure and Santa Monica, CA: MCA. establishment. Retrieved from SUNY The Mobile Future Corrigan, P.J. (1971). The Who at Saratoga Empire State College website: http:// On the evening of Aug. 2, 1971, Pete Performing Arts Center. Photo Gallery. suny-empire.esc.edu/media/escwebsite/ Townshend defiantly destroyed his guitar Photo.net. Retrieved from http://photo. content/oem/esc40th/a-prospectus-for-a- on the stage of the Saratoga Performing net/photodb/photo?photo_id=9580242 new-university-college.pdf Arts Center, fulfilling the expectations of Demouy, V., & Kukulska-Hulme, A. (2010). Wright, N. (2010). Twittering in teacher fans and demonstrating a revolution in On the spot: Using mobile devices for education: Reflecting on practicum progress. Townshend smashed pop music listening and speaking practice on a experiences. Open Learning, 25(3), conventions to bits, while reflecting social French language programme. Open 259-265. and cultural changes of the time, with Learning, 25(3), 217-232.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 73

“Music never stops; it is we who turn away” – John Cage

Tina Wagle, School for Graduate Studies

A Review of: three years as they transition from student and to social justice. These are the ideals to teacher. We believe that such moments of that have been a constant passion in my life Dear Maxine: Letters from the Unfinished reflection are important in demonstrating and career. Conversation with Maxine Greene growth and lifelong learning. And yet, as In the introduction to this book, the Edited by Robert Lake I read and thought about Greene and the educational philosopher Nel Noddings authors of these letters to her, I wondered, recently read Dear Maxine: Letters states correctly that education has strayed “When was the last time I allowed myself to from the Unfinished Conversation with incredibly far from the vision Maxine reflect on imaginative pedagogy or sit with I Maxine Greene (2010) and wanted to Greene articulated when writing The my own critical thoughts?” offer some reflections inspired by the work Dialectic of Freedom in 1988. “Her hope for All About Mentoring. For those not The field of teacher-education is changing. was to open possibilities for all students familiar with her work, Maxine Greene is More and more standards are being imposed to achieve some measure of freedom in said to be the most profound educational on students, competitors from businesses recognizing possibilities and directing their philosopher since John Dewey. A prolific outside of the educational arena are entering own lives. In contrast, today’s policies aim author and educator, Greene holds a deep the fray, and the demands upon teachers to control the lives of students through respect for the arts and humanity and is able are greater than ever. In order to house uniform preparation, uniform achievement, to see potential in everything and everyone. a quality teacher-education program, we and uniform futures” (xxi). Greene discusses The book is a collection of letters written cannot be oblivious to this bigger picture; freedom a great deal in her many works but to Greene by friends and scholars, many of we must keep up with these changes; we never really offers a single definition of it. whom also are considered to be leaders in have to be diligent in what we offer our Instead, she carefully collects ideas of what education today, including Shirley Steinberg, students in order for them to be successful freedom should include. She has stated that Mike Rose, Elliot Eisner, Gloria Ladson- in their own classrooms. We have necessarily in order to achieve and exercise freedom, Billings and William Ayers, just to name a been preoccupied with these demands, “young people need to be invited to engage few. The letters are poignant and moving. which have required tremendous time with the worlds of people, objects and ideas. They speak not only to the body of work and attention. It would be irresponsible They must be allowed to communicate in Greene contributed over the years, but also of us to imagine they do not exist. But ways that open up spaces instead of closing to the profound impact her work has had what does all of this attention do to our them down by prescribing beforehand on educators globally and perhaps more lives as reflective practitioners? exactly what should be learned” (xxi). I importantly on the art of thinking critically think Greene would believe that neither I think many of us at Empire State College and innovatively. students nor their teachers can truly learn often say how busy we are – myself or teach in a free manner with the iron of The words of 20th century American included. But as I allowed myself time to standardized tests shackling their wrists. composer John Cage – doubling as the title read this tribute to Maxine Greene, I was for this piece – come from his Composition drawn back to my own roots in the social It is thus not incidental that Greene in Retrospect (1983) and were cited by Julie foundations of education and to the core of argued so strenuously for the arts and Searle in her letter to Maxine. The reason I that work, which is about thinking – about for the importance of their presence in chose this title is because as I was reading reflecting – and, importantly too, about K-12 education and beyond. For her, the the book, I was struck by the importance being hopeful about education. So, as I read arts provide a space to be creative and of reflection. Greene believes that one’s the Cage quote, I asked myself whether any free, to think with one’s imagination. imagination is the key to conceptualizing time that was lost not thinking this way was If young people are allowed this space, a better future. It is the imagination that my own fault. “The music never stops; it is they can create without limits and learn allows us to think critically and reflect in a we who turn away.” I think I turned away. without boundaries. Instead, today we are way that is open and visionary. Reflection Despite the daily grind of conference calls, all faced with many pressures to pass so is an act we often encourage our Master contract evaluations and email, I need to many assessments that inhibit this kind of of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) students to pause and reflect on the bigger picture of freedom. I acknowledge and appreciate engage in throughout their course work, and education and learning. I need to remember the arguments about accountability and crucially it exists as a requirement for the what matters to the greater good of society outcome measurements, but maybe what final portfolios they create at the end of the Greene and the authors of this book are program. We ask them to reflect on the past telling us is that it is right now when

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 74 imagination-based thinking is needed the us on the work we were doing and gave care, nothing else would matter. Caring most. If we lose this opportunity, we could us points to consider as we pursued our teachers should be willing to give their be turning our backs on possibilities – research on marginalized populations. It students a space to pursue freedom in their possibilities that offer hope for the future. was evident that she cared about our little learning by being creative and thoughtful. presentation despite her legendary status and This is one key ingredient in building the Like many of the book’s contributors, obvious professional clout. democratic community that Maxine Greene I remember the moment I met Maxine envisioned. We need to remember Greene’s Greene. I was a doctoral student making one My recollection of this act leads me to a words of hope and creativity that may allow of my first presentations at the American final reflection inspired by Letters. us to conceive of a future with educational Educational Studies Association Conference It is no coincidence that I cited Nel innovations that support social justice and in Miami, and Lois Weis, my advisor, Noddings earlier in this piece – Noddings excellence for all. In this time of great need invited Greene to come to our presentation. has done a lot of great work with teachers for creative and innovative thought, let us As usual, she was dressed in black, sitting and the notion of “caring.” Currently, the not turn away from the music. in her wheelchair with dozens of people M.A.T. program is working on accreditation approaching her to say hello and shake her through an organization called TEAC References hand. I remember being star struck as I had (Teacher Education Accreditation Council). recently read The Dialectic of Freedom and Cage, J. (1983). Composition in retrospect. The program needs to demonstrate evidence thought she was one of the most intelligent Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University that our students – now teachers – have people I had ever read. While much of her Press. achieved competence in three areas: “content work is conceptual, it has a humanness knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and Lake, R. (Ed.). (2010). Dear Maxine: Letters about it that offers hope and encourages us caring teaching skills.” All three components from the unfinished conversation to trust that equitable education is possible. are essential in a quality teacher, but I with Maxine Greene. New York, NY: Greene showed what I knew to recognize as cannot help but think that if a teacher didn’t Teachers College Press. her down-to-earth self as she commended

“For many reasons, the writing of life narratives is likely to remain central to the practice of adult learning. They are important and effective in multiple ways. There must, however, be room in our practices for narratives that are jarring, unsatisfying, and/or structurally and emotionally jagged. … [W]e must allow stories that acknowledge how a life can be messed up in ways that are not only apparent, or how an attempt to break away from the constraints of the past is only partially successful, as I believe it always is.”

Elana Michelson, “Autobiography and Selfhood in the Practice of Adult Learning,” Adult Educational Quarterly, 61(1), February 2011, p. 18

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 75

Adult Education and Politics

Richard Wells, The Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies

A Review of: leverage when they help create a social rightly insists that democracy has a less movement by joining forces with other procedural, less discursive, more material The Struggle for Democracy popular institutions. component. Real democracy also means in Adult Education that “vast disparities in wealth” have been Two of the essays, one by Thomas Heaney Edited by Dianne Ramdeholl, abolished, and “all forms of resources” have and the other by Arthur Wilson and Ronald Tania Giordani, Thomas Heaney come “under common control” (p. 6). and Wendy Yanow M. Cervero, provide important insight into the challenges of administering and planning However welcome such an arrangement oes adult education have a political adult education programs democratically, might be, it is of course rather difficult to purpose? The seat-of-the-pants that is, in a way that incorporates the achieve in practical-political terms because D answer is yes. To teach adults is to voices of students and staff into curriculum of how entrenched inequality is in the teach a segment of the population that, for design and overall decision making. Both society we now have. As many of us now a host of reasons, does not have access to a present cases that don’t offer clear cut know, achieving a critical appreciation traditional college experience. By providing answers; in fact, they may indeed raise more of that inequality through participatory that access, programs in adult education questions about how, exactly, to structure dialogue, critique, etc., in an educational broaden individual horizons. The more an educational program democratically – setting is one thing (and not always a students they reach, at least in theory, the but that may be a good thing. Despite a success, for that matter); garnering the more they contribute to the democratization lot of messiness and seeming inefficiency, effective power to create the necessary of a culture. administrators need to continually engage all changes in that social world, even if that This is a vague but reasonable enough program stake holders, since this is both the world is just the city or town in which the place to start an assessment of what, best way to run a program in the interests of students live, is quite another. Brookfield exactly, can be political about adult the students, and the best way to “model” doesn’t confront this problem, making his education. But right away it raises two democracy on a broader scale. juxtaposition of the “discursive” and the “material” qualities of democracy seem other important questions: What do we But what might that broader democracy rather loose. mean by a democratic culture? And if it’s look like, and how would adult education true that what we have now, in the U.S. get us there? The opening essay, by The analytical fissure between, say, an anyway, does not live up to our definition, leading critical theorist of adult education ideal speech situation (or a participatory how can adult education contribute to Stephen Brookfield, takes this question classroom) and economic justice firmly the struggle for the kind of social change on in two ways. First, Brookfield focuses established is indicative of a similar caesura that would get us there? This volume of on the communicative practices that, in in the work of Paulo Freire himself. New Directions for Adult and Continuing his estimation, produce and constitute a “Problem posing education,” wrote Freire Education, co-edited by Empire State democratic system. There must be equal in Pedogogy of the Oppressed (1973), “is a College School for Graduate Studies Mentor access to information, there must be revolutionary futurity. Hence it is prophetic” Dianne Ramdeholl, sheds light on these very inclusiveness, and the conversation itself (p. 72). Here, dialogue-based pedagogy is questions. Moreover, the essays, which range must be expansive. In other words, there not only inherently liberatory, the kind of from a theoretical discussion of democracy must be a healthy respect for the different liberation being pursued is undefined, as itself to reflections on particular programs perspectives people bring to the table and a are the political and economic forces lined and practices to critical analyses of attempts willingness to engage in an “ever-widening” up against it. As adult educator Rachel to “democratize” adult education planning discussion, one that moves toward questions Martin has argued, Freire tends to take for and administration, force us to consider the about how best to organize “social, granted the relationship between oppressor broader political economic circumstances economic and political affairs” (p. 5). Here and oppression, and leaves both sides of in which adult education programs must Brookfield appeals to Jurgen Habermas’ the binary pretty much unexamined. This operate. Doing so not only gives us a notion of the “ideal speech situation,” that is not to say that there aren’t oppressors more concrete sense of what popular adult moment in time when knowledge is evenly and oppressed in today’s world. It is to education programs can do in the name distributed, the stakes fairly apportioned, say the relationship works out differently of democracy. It reminds us that, however and all voices are heard, even when they in different times and places, and to help democratic their internal structure, adult are calling on the “gritty, messy details of students grasp the forces and institutions education programs only gain real political individual lives” (p. 9). Second, Brookfield involved requires both a pedagogical

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 76 imagination and a sociological imagination. Further, these practices were “inseparable public housing complex nearby. At the time, In Freire’s later work the picture gets from [the program’s] commitment to student the Chicago Housing Authority, under the somewhat more complicated, but there involvement in decision making, to a direction of the federal HOPE VI program, remains a strong utopian streak to his democratic community” (p. 32). was dramatically repurposing its public thinking. Indeed, it is one thing to liberate housing stock, a process that included But how do we begin to move from the a classroom, but quite another to liberate the demolition of some of the city’s larger vision to which Hurtig and Adams refer a society. projects, followed by the relocation of the to reality, from democratic classrooms tenants. There was much uncertainty about The difficulties posed by Freire’s utopianism, to a democratic society? Not easily. As the program, and since a number of students which Brookfield’s introductory essay in Hurtig and Adams explain, the program in the workshop lived in a project slated for some ways recreated, animated my reading they directed was not planned as “action- demolition, concerns about housing often of the rest of the essays in this volume. How oriented”; the goal, rather, was the writing came up in discussions and in writing. might we conceive of an adult education itself. And wouldn’t consciously and openly that aims not so much at “liberation,” designing a program as action-oriented in Because housing issues had become a but at providing specific groups in specific itself pose certain difficulties? After all, these particular focus of the collective effort situations the political leverage they need to programs need funding, and funding might of the workshop, when the time came, improve their lives? Or, more bluntly, what be hard to get, either from government that effort moved seamlessly beyond the if the goal of “progressive” adult education sources or foundations, if the stated goal classroom. One of the participants faced programs was not liberation, but power – of a program was, for example, a socialist sudden eviction, and the group swung into political power? Of course these are difficult revolution! And as Gordon and Ramdeholl action to buy her and her family some questions, and they are not necessarily ones point out, since the 1990s, a tighter funding all-important time. The principal of the that this collection sets out to answer. But landscape has gone hand-in-hand with school, along with other members of the other essays in this volume lead to some accountability standards that have become community, joined forces with them as productive considerations. increasingly instrumentalist, more tightly they successfully appealed the terms of focused on data about how well adult the eviction. Here was, without doubt, a In Janise Hurtig and Hal Adams’ education programs are preparing students small, but very real victory. How might contribution, as well as in John Gordon for employment. In this context, programs the circle of effective struggle be widened and Dianne Ramdeholl’s essay, we that focus on much beyond job training are still further? It seems to me that, in this find descriptions of how an egalitarian an endangered species. instance, the workshop setting was critical educational space was created, one in which in creating a common narrative, grounded students from marginalized backgrounds A closer look at Hurtig and Adams’ essay, in common experiences and concerns about felt safe to begin to create and share stories however, shows some room for maneuver, day-to-day life – in this case, about the of their lives. Moreover, as students gained some space for “praxis.” One workshop, roof over one’s head – that mobilized the confidence as writers, as they came to taught by Adams, was run out of a Chicago group to take action, however small. This realize they had important things to say, public elementary school. The students’ represents a kind of leadership, one that a collective dynamic took over. Hurtig children attended the school, and many needs to be nurtured even further, especially and Adams witnessed an important shift of them lived with their families in a large because of the way in which this particular in their Chicago-based writing workshop, issue – housing – was a “live” one, in that “a transitional process by which the role HOPE VI had stirred organized resistance in of the educator is increasingly assumed Chicago and indeed in other cities. by the group” (p. 19 ). As the traditional In the process, relationship between teacher and student they’d discover that Essentially, timing matters. Perhaps, back breaks down, the practice of “popular in a workshop setting, students could be education leaps from being a humanistic, there is a range of encouraged to look at the politics of public progressive approach to education to institutions, from housing more generally, explore the broader providing a vision, however modest, of an structural context of their own particular egalitarian world” (p. 19). Gordon and community organizations, struggles, engage the debates that resulted Ramdeholl’s experience in a New York labor unions and in HOPE VI, and then, in charge of their City adult literacy center revealed a similar political education, rewrite public housing dynamic, one that was rooted not only in grassroots political policy in their own collective image. In a democratically structured classroom, but organizations, that are the process, they’d discover that there is in a program that was itself organized in a a range of institutions, from community way that gave students a real say. Dialogue also reimagining that organizations, labor unions and grassroots and collective writing, they suggest, not world, and fighting in political organizations, that are also only “articulated a yearning for freedom,” reimagining that world, and fighting in but brought “student voices and their life various ways to create it. various ways to create it. As Mechtild Hart struggles into the center of the curriculum.” suggested in her contribution to this volume,

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 77 democratic learning did not simply validate observes Wendy Yanow in the volume’s by adding “organic” (in Antonio Gramsci’s the experience of the immigrant domestic conclusion. Educators and students must sense) intellectuals to their activist base. laborers with whom she worked. Their work within the constraints set by that Practical work needs to be done, specific learning was brought together with that of context. But just as important, they must issues must be identified, strategies need other kinds of workers, with labor unions, be ready to jump at the opportunities to be formulated and carried out, if actual with academic activists and community created when that context shifts, and the leverage is to be gained. A book like this groups, in a process that had the potential to lines of force in the field of power begin to reminds us that popular education, while build a “coalitional consciousness” (p. 39). rearrange themselves accordingly. critical to the struggle for democracy, cannot go it alone. All this supports Gordon and Ramdeholl’s And when this does happen – and it might realistic observation that, absent of a now be happening, on the heels of the right’s References broader social movement, actively assault in Wisconsin on the working men struggling for change, we should not and women of the public sector unions – Freire, P. (1973). Pedagogy of the oppressed. expect too much of popular education it needs to be stressed that creating and New York, NY: Continuum. programs. In the presence of such a maintaining connections to other popular Keating, C. (2005). Building coalitional movement, opportunity for “praxis” institutions is critical. These institutions have consciousness. National Women’s certainly exists, and Gordon and Ramdeholl political experience and resources of their Association Journal, 17(2), 86-103. point to the Citizenship Schools of the own, and can help take the struggle beyond civil rights movement as a case in point. those euphoric, consciousness-raising Ramdeholl, D., Giordani, T., Heaney, T., The larger point is that adult education, moments in the classroom. And surely, the & Yanow, W. (Eds.). (2010, Winter). indeed all education, does not take place writing workshops and other programs The struggle for democracy in adult in a vacuum. It exists “in a sociocultural, described in this volume can, in turn, be an education. New Directions for Adult political, and economic context” (p. 94) important resource for those institutions, and Continuing Education, No. 128.

“Highly deliberate learning is a pervasive phenomenon in human life. The 700 hours a year devoted to learning efforts are enormously significant for the adult himself [sic.], and for the organization, family and society in which he works and lives. Although 700 hours constitutes only 10 percent of an adult’s waking time, surely this small percentage affects his life nearly as much as the other 90 percent. It is during these 700 hours a year, when he sets out to improve his knowledge, skills, perceptions, attitudes, habitual reactions, insight, and perspective, that the adult develops and changes. He resembles an organization that maintains and increases its effectiveness by devoting 10 percent of its resources to research and development.”

Alan Tough, The Adult’s Learning Projects: A Fresh Approach to Theory and Practice in Adult Learning, 1971, p. 4

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 78

Innovation, Disruption and Higher Education: Is There a Road Map for the Future?

Christopher Whann, Metropolitan Center

A Review of: system often described as in crisis. In or capability. Sustaining technologies are February 2011, he and his co-authors those that introduce differences of degree Christensen, C. (1997). The innovator’s released Disrupting College, a report on into a product or a process, so existing dilemma: When new technologies cause innovation in university education. users can use the product or process better. great firms to fail. Boston: Harvard Technologies that shave costs so products My goals in this essay are to outline some Business School Press. are more affordable or technologies that are of Christensen’s key arguments in the larger markedly faster or more powerful are thus Christensen, C., & Raynor, R. (2003). discussion of innovation, and in doing so, sustaining. On the other hand, disruptive The innovator’s solution: Creating and to summarize some of his central themes. technologies are those that introduce sustaining successful growth. Boston: Within such a context, my hope is that differences of kind, so new users can take Harvard Business School Press. we can start developing some ideas about advantage of the product or process. Over how his insights might affect adult and Christensen, C., Horn, M., & Johnson, time, disruptive technologies can themselves distance higher education, which we would C. (2011). Disrupting class: How become sustaining technologies, once they all agree is an area known for its claims disruptive innovation will change the have been thoroughly and widely adopted. for innovation. I do not pretend that this way the world learns. New York: At their point of origin, Sony’s Walkman, or 1 essay provides an exhaustive review of McGraw-Hill. Nokia’s cell phone or Amazon’s Kindle, are Christensen’s work, but his insights do offer examples of disruptive technologies. Christensen, C., Horn, M., Caldera, L., & us some guidance and some warnings about Soares, L. (2011, February). Disrupting how we might respond to future challenges Using certain criteria, disruptive technologies college: How disruptive innovation and opportunities. are not necessarily as “good” as sustaining can deliver quality and affordability ones. Thus, for example, the Walkman In effect, I think that Empire State to postsecondary education. Retrieved was never as good as a high quality stereo College, as a networked institution with a from http://www.innosight.org system, but users could take it outside when significant global and online presence, is an they went for a walk (hence the name). An nnovation is one of the most exciting interesting case study of how an innovating early Nokia cell phone would drop calls topics in contemporary academic organization may have become a “sustaining much more often than a Bell Telephone I business research. One can easily organization” and thus susceptible to landline, but we were no longer attached lose track of the number of articles and being overtaken in a changing, competitive to the wall or required to stay within 20 conference papers about innovation, environment even with good or well- feet of a base while we used it. The Kindle managing innovation, marketing innovation intentioned leadership. and innovation strategies. If anyone can be may not be as good as a beautifully bound hardcover book, but it is much lighter than considered the leader of this field, Clayton Differences in Degree and carrying three or four books on the plane Christensen of the Harvard Business School Differences in Kind is certainly among the top candidates. during an extended trip. In fact, one could Christensen’s 1997 book, The Innovator’s Christensen has noted that he has spent argue that they are likely to be worse quality Dilemma, is a fascinating exposition of decades in the halls of Silicon Valley technologies, but they often fill a niche how what he describes as “disruptive businesses. He has met many excellent that consumers want or need and are more technologies” can overtake an industry, leaders and managers whose companies affordable than sustaining ones. have gone out of business. In The and how good management is no guarantee While companies have an incentive to Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen describes of success in the face of massive change. keep producing a better product for the the trajectories of firms producing disk In The Innovator’s Solution, Christensen customers and users they know they have, drives, earth moving equipment, steel, follows up on this theme by discussing it is successful producers of disruptive computer printers and motorcycles, among how firms and managers can sustain an technologies that can identify new others. He categorizes the technologies advantage in an organization. Christensen consumers who may not need the best upon which these areas depend as either and his co-authors turn their sights on K-12 technology but need something “good “sustaining” or “disruptive.” Technology, education in Disrupting Class, in order to enough” for a different purpose. Many in the sense Christensen and his colleagues analyze how their findings from industrial traditional telephone-producing companies use it, basically refers to new products or (often high-tech) settings might apply to the could make much better phones than processes that improve speed, efficiency controversies surrounding an educational before, and indeed they did, but they

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 79 could never serve the market that wanted more likely. The main approach they take is study instead of departments, assessment mobility even at the expense of phone through their analysis of resources, processes committees for individualized degrees, clarity or perfect coverage. So long as the and values. As processes and values learning contracts as a new “course” form, old, existing, “sustaining” technologies solidify into organizational culture, the and the like. The reorientation of education were working well, could be improved for organizational culture restricts the way that to privilege the student’s goals instead of existing customers, and were profitable companies can identify new opportunities, the professor’s goals; rethinking the role for the companies making them, there take advantage of them, and evaluate their of advising, mentoring and teaching; the was no obvious incentive to try anything potential for successful implementation. individualization of entire degree program fundamentally different. And since the new plans; and the developmental objectives of If successful organizations want to “disruptive” technologies were usually the narrative evaluations are examples of implement sustaining technologies, they demonstrably inferior at the beginning, there different, disruptive, processes and values. likely already have the structure in place was no incentive to worry about them when to do it. (This is reminiscent of the old Empire State College was an ambitious companies knew their existing products and management adage, “you have the perfect effort to challenge many orthodoxies of processes were better. organization to get the results you’re traditional higher education. The college This was and is a mistake. Today we all getting.”) On the other hand, developing also sought to expand learning possibilities know many people who do not even have and growing through disruption requires a to new audiences of learners, responding to landlines, or home stereos, or who buy very different approach. This can happen the “nonconsumption” of higher education only digital format books. Thus, disruptive through acquiring or establishing a new by adult and other nontraditional students. technologies like Walkmen (now IPods!), cell organization/company that already focuses One might call this a “disruption” of the phones and Kindles – even if many could on disruptive technologies or services, or existing, “sustaining,” trajectory of higher show how inferior they were to the products through setting up an entirely new unit education. they replaced – have outstripped their that can operate more or less unimpeded In order to optimize the disruptive potential competitors in the marketplace. by the larger organizational culture. From for growth, from the start the college Christensen’s point of view, once a company For a traditional firm, serving their established a decentralized, noncampus- incorporates the disruptive technology into traditional customers, making an existing based, network of locations for students an existing organizational system used to product better seems like an obviously good and mentors to work together. The developing sustaining technologies, then choice. One knows one’s customers and college created a “center” and “unit” the opportunities for growth from the what they “need.” One does not know as structure that maximized access for disruption are doomed.2 well, if at all, what noncustomers might underserved populations (i.e., educational want out of the product or service. It is nonconsumers). The college also established Disruptions at Empire State College not always impossible to find out, but it is venues like the Center for Collegewide definitely harder. Since these noncustomers It might be interesting to use the Christensen Programs and the Center for Distance are not buying the product or service, it framework to examine Empire State Learning (CDL). One could argue that also is harder to convince the marketing College. One could argue that Empire State CDL was an arena in which “disruption” department to cater to them instead of College developed a radically different took place only once individualized catering to the people actually buying and type of organizational structure than had student learning became the norm and using the existing product or service and existed in “traditional” colleges. These characterized general college culture. There improving it to meet their needs. That, as included learning centers and areas of were obviously many students who needed Christensen and his co-authors suggest, learning to happen in a flexible manner – is one main reason why companies tend flexible in time as well as in space. The to concentrate on developing sustaining Center for Distance Learning provided technologies rather than throwing those The payoff for developing a way to do that through paper-based aside and focusing on disruptive ones. The and implementing correspondence courses and then online payoff for developing and implementing learning. The disruption that CDL created disruptive technologies is not obvious, and disruptive technologies was not, it seems, in altering the relationship competent managers miss out on sure-fire is not obvious, and between mentors and students; rather, it opportunities available with sustaining was disruption of the manner and timing technologies at their peril. competent managers of the learning. As the use of certain technologies (especially systems like Lotus As Christensen and his co-authors pursue miss out on sure-fire Notes and ANGEL) became more taken their analysis of why companies succeed and opportunities available for granted across the college, depending fail at adapting to market changes when upon online learning strategies and new products are introduced, they have with sustaining platforms can now be considered sustaining developed some central ideas about how technologies at their peril. and no longer innovative. companies should proceed to make success

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 80

Searching for Nonconsumers The World of K-12 Education is more the case that to continue to improve, they must standardize and routinize how In a follow-up book, The Innovator’s In Christensen’s more recent work, he to do their jobs so they can maximize the Solution, Christensen and co-author Michael and his co-authors have begun to apply opportunity for an education and the quality Raynor investigate strategies to create and his research to pressing national policy of that education value for the maximum sustain growth through disruption. Part matters – health care and K-12 education. number of students. of the book revisits the key themes of the In Disrupting Class, he addresses issues that earlier work, but the bulk of the book have arisen in the 1983 report, “A Nation If education is a set of tasks to be measured proposes more ideas for generating success. in Crisis,” the debates over “No Child by external criteria like testing, graduation Among the more interesting discussions is Left Behind,” and the controversy about numbers and mainstreaming data, it could a section on the personal digital assistant the value or appropriateness of charter be described as successful. If education is a and smart phone markets, and the specific schools. They build on the work of Howard tool to accomplish other life goals as defined challenges of a firm like Blackberry-maker Gardner’s “multiple intelligences” to write by students, like getting a better job, making Research in Motion (2003: 1076). Since the about individualizing learning (not a new more money, having enough fun in school book was written before the introduction idea at Empire State College), but they also so they do not mind being there as opposed of the iPhone, one can see how prescient expand on ideas about nonconsumption. to playing sports or shopping, then is it Christensen and Raynor were in assessing Here, the authors focus on the use of online working? Christensen and his co-authors the issues in the smart phone market. learning not to supplement classroom would argue no. Here is how the authors teaching but rather to provide teaching in describe it: The authors reiterate a point made in the areas where courses would or could not be earlier book: disruptive approaches focus We believe that a core reason why so offered. One example they use is teaching on nonconsumers as a market niche. The many students languish unmotivated in Arabic online in public schools where no problem is that it can be hard to know who school or don’t come to class at all is that district could afford an individual instructor isn’t using a product while one is actually education isn’t a job that they are trying (Christensen, Horn, & Johnson, 2011, p. producing it or plans to produce it; we to do. Education is something they might 2162-2171). They argue that high quality, learn what people need most times from choose to hire to do the job – but it isn’t even student-developed, learning tools and asking our existing customers rather than the job. While we continue to do our facilitated networks for sharing learning surveying the universe of people who do not research to understand this crucial issue, tools might dislodge textbooks and mass- use our product or service. Often, customers we hypothesize that there are two core jobs market learning management systems and are discovered by accident. Christensen that most students try to do every day: They offer individualized solutions for students recounts the story of Honda management’s want to feel successful and make progress, who learn differently (p. 2480-2495). In efforts to develop a motorcycle meant to and they want to have fun with friends … fact, the authors argue, based on their compete with the classic highway-style How do schools fare against … competitors data analysis, these tools may acquire a Harley-Davidson; in the midst of this work, as something that students can hire to 25 percent market share and the tide may management discovered that the customers be successful and have fun with friends? well have turned by 2014 in favor of digital wanted Hondas for off-road use, which Miserably in many cases. (Christensen, and/or online learning against traditional was an arena in which Harley was not Horn, & Johnson, p. 2886-2903) classroom-based modes of teaching and competing at all. This ensured Honda’s learning – that is, the current “sustainable” success in the new market niche. In the Disrupting Higher Education educational technologies. Insofar as these short run, profit margins for the disruptive innovative, disruptive modes of teaching What about the higher education arena technologies are lower than they are for and learning fill a need, even if they are not and Empire State College’s role in it? If sustaining technologies. In fact, there is an immediately better or obviously superior, Christensen and his co-authors are correct, inexorable pressure on business to move they respond to a market for people who and high schools are being transformed “up-market” and produce higher profit do not now use or do not feel as if they in the foreseeable future by the disruptive margin goods and services while happily benefit from existing modes of teaching innovations they describe and which I leaving the low end, low profit margin to and learning. note above (like online learning, student- others. This is a great idea, that is, until developed learning tools and facilitated the disruptive producers take over and the How have schools ended up in this learning networks), what might that top end evaporates. Anyone old enough to situation? On one level, it is not a failure mean for Empire State College and its recall vacuum tube technologies in radio of education or educators. Christensen and competitor institutions that seek disruptive and television, or gigantic DEC computers his co-authors repeatedly argue that schools solutions: ideas and processes that are new with dumb terminals, or eight-track tapes, and educators are consistently improving to us. If they are correct that educators can see that the introduction of disruptive at the variety of tasks asked of them – test are fundamentally misunderstanding why technologies is a real strategic threat. scores are often increasing, special education students are “hiring” education in the first students are being mainstreamed into regular place, what could that mean for students classrooms, and higher absolute numbers of who are “hiring” colleges and universities? students are graduating from high school. It

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 81

Here are a few preliminary thoughts that are be disruptive. These approaches would state departments of education and other certainly open to debate. be effective ways to compete in a market regulatory bodies pushed colleges to move against other schools that have similar kinds toward systems that could easily measure Empire State College and many of its of student populations or philosophical Carnegie units (so-called seat time as competitor institutions were established goals. It would throw light on some of the the requirement for learning). Although as “student-centered” places. If college basic assumptions – about technologies, competency-based models have fallen students, like high school students, are processes and student populations – that we out of favor because of pressures to meet “hiring education” to be successful and to rarely question. Carnegie unit expectations, they could make have fun, then how well do we meet those a comeback in the new circumstance that goals? If retention data is even a slight Interestingly, the Innosight report, Christensen describes. indication, the answer is terribly. That is not Disrupting College, is less helpful to those a reflection on the quality or dedication of of us in adult and nontraditional education the leadership, mentors, teachers or staff – than is Christensen’s earlier work. His Adult students are no it is a simple empirical reality. There are observations about “measuring” success several ways to address these issues. after graduation (for example, using longer an attractive placement rates, salary improvements, As a strategic matter, the college’s upper market niche in this sense retrospective satisfaction ratings, and cohort administration would need to determine default rates on loans) are all interesting and because many schools are whether or not it wants to pursue disruptive useful and perhaps more valuable measures technologies at all. If so, then the next now catering to them than some of the tools we are using now. In decision is what should those disruptions this context, Christensen and his co-authors … online learning itself be and where should they be housed. For would define “success” based on students example, the college’s decision-makers might is no longer an attractive determining when they have accomplished determine that, rather than using course their goals, no matter how instrumental they niche either. management systems, they want to invest may seem. At an institution where student in smart phone delivery of education. They goals and wants are so central to defining might want to serve nonnative speakers New Marketing Niches the terms of an education, what would of English, either using English language student and employer input in measuring the Christensen and his co-authors would literacy enhancement or teaching courses “value” of an education be? propose focusing on nonconsumers of exclusively in Spanish. They might want to education and concentrating on areas that teach courses through Twitter and Facebook While Christensen’s team’s analysis in are not really attractive to the college’s or the next new social media platform. In the Innosight report is quite good, it is competitors. Christensen proposes that principle, there are many possibilities one reminiscent of points made in the earlier schools target student populations that they might explore; these are only illustrative. work. The team’s examples of disruption can serve uniquely. Empire State College and disruptive technologies for learning Whether the answer is “yes” or “no,” the has done that for years. Rather than move apply well to traditional institutions, but college could still do much to enhance its upmarket and serve those same students less so to nontraditional schools. Online strategic position. Organizational changes, “better,” it might be more valuable to look learning is his primary example of a reducing the complexity of existing for different markets of nonconsumers. disruptive technology; yet, Empire State processes, and reducing costs in a way that Thus, at the beginning of a disruptive cycle, College has been delivering learning online the organization could do more with its the quality of education may not be as for at least 15 years. The issue at Empire limited resources, could all be beneficial in good as other education the college already State College is less about adopting online a sustaining sort of way – doing the things provides. It may take a while to reach that learning, and more about how to compete we do now but more efficiently. There level. But if it meets the goals of the new against other low-cost colleges who do it would no doubt be pushback from people students, who were previously not going to too (especially if we believe that growth in imbued with an organizational culture college or were having miserable experiences numbers is to our overall long-term strategic committed to existing ways of performing during the limited time in college at Empire advantage). The pressure here, I think, is to their jobs. Some measure of increasing State College or elsewhere, then students move “upmarket” and offer “better” online organizational efficiencies of the sort I just will be happier and feel their needs are being learning than the low-cost and often for- described has a value in itself, but it is not met. These students will not exactly be like profit competition. really disruptive. Creating a whole new Empire State College’s existing students or platform (like a smart phone) on which to For example, Christensen describes Western they may not need exactly what Empire teach and mentor students or to measure Governors University and its new location State College is now delivering, but the new student success at accomplishing their in Indiana (Christensen, Horn, Caldera, consumers might be satisfied anyway. goals, or serving students who now rarely & Soares, 2011, p. 50). WGU-Indiana is Adult students are no longer an attractive go to college if at all (like monolingual or “competency based” rather than “credit market niche in this sense because many weakly bilingual Spanish speakers) would based.” That is a decades-old idea, but schools are now catering to them. In this

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 82 sense, online learning itself is no longer possibilities, but they may not be the only today’s sustaining approaches. Today’s and an attractive niche either. There are giant one. I have no doubt that other technologies tomorrow’s disruptions mean growth and companies like Blackboard providing or ways to use these new “learning success in the future. The organizational learning management systems for large platforms” will develop quickly. questions at Empire State College and at numbers of schools serving all sorts of other schools are these: What is the new As I pointed out earlier, throughout their students, and the processes for offering disruption? How could/would/should we work, Christensen and his co-authors online learning in this way are quite well organize to create disruptions – whether observe that the “profit margins” here may developed, routine and affordable. If many of structure, of technology or of values, or be smaller than in the “upmarket” services, schools are doing this right now, is there respond to disruptions when they occur? but they can grow to be very large over really anything innovative about Empire time. They also point out that there is no I intend this essay to begin a discussion State College doing it? No, because we incentive to try these new approaches on about directions. I fully expect that many are simply sustaining what already exists. the part of senior management (or members readers will disagree vigorously with The key to success, then, would be to of the organization) devoted to sustaining some of my assumptions and many of my identify “new” groups of nontraditional existing services. But, a group of faculty and conclusions, or with the premises upon students unlike the students other schools staff who could think creatively about these which Christensen has built his argument. are recruiting, or just like those students opportunities, in an autonomous unit with Still, I trust that, in a spirit of open debate but finding new ways to serve them. For a different organizational design, could well (in the spirit of disruption!), our colleagues’ example, one could look at international balance its budget quickly and grow fast observations and analyses will help spur the students who want American-style enough down the road to create a thriving college to be even more successful in the educations but are not living in places new niche that would serve the college well future than it has been in the past. with significant competition. The college in the coming decades. could leverage its skills providing online Notes and blended models to these “less Interestingly, from Christensen’s point of attractive” markets through a new unit view, these new tools and approaches do 1 The author used Kindle format versions devoted to trying new tools for teaching not need to be as good as the existing ones; of Christensen’s work. As such, or ways of teaching. and, they do not need to succeed all the citations refer to the locations in the time. They only have to be good enough and Kindle version. There are large populations of immigrants, offer something new to people who are not many or most not native speakers of 2 I can attest from personal experience using the services now. However – and this English: they need help succeeding in college to the risks organizational culture can is a crucial point for us – from a Christensen and could become a large market over time. create in this context. For 16 years, point of view, they cannot be integrated into A program that developed enhanced literacy I taught and mentored in a program the existing organizational culture; in such a skills in English or provided non-English similar to Empire State College, context, evidence suggests they will fail. language education as a prerequisite or a Skidmore College’s University Without co-requisite along with college-level learning In one sense, students are not like Walls (UWW). Although my former might open up new educational possibilities transistors, but Christensen and his program was located in a separate unit for an institution that wanted to develop the co-authors do note that the same at its college, it was frequently starved resources, the structures and the processes organizational and market imperatives do for resources by the larger organization, relevant to that new student body. exist across a wide range of products and was constantly seen as an outlier in the services. Empire State College has benefited organizational culture, and eventually Educational technology used in new from disruption in the past and has led a was killed off by the administration. and different ways might work well. lot of it. But, yesterday’s disruptions are UWW officially closed its doors in Smart phones are one arena for growth May 2011.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 83

Honoring George Drury (1917-2010): Reflections From Colleagues

George Drury was born in St. Louis, Mo. the Sheil School of Social Studies. He later University. (David Riesman, Joseph Gusfield in 1917 and grew up in Chicago, where he taught for ten years at Loyola University. and Zelda Gamson wrote at length about earned his bachelor’s degree at St. Mary of In 1959, he moved to Detroit to become Monteith’s history in Academic Values the Lake College, his master’s degree from one of the charter faculty of Monteith and Mass Education: The Early Years of Loyola University, and his doctorate in College, an experimental small college Oakland and Moneteith, published in 1970 philosophy from the University of Chicago. for working-class undergraduate students by Doubleday.) In 1972, George came to For several years in the 1940s, he directed within the larger structure of Wayne State Rochester to become a founding mentor on the faculty of the Genesee Valley Center at Empire State College where he remained until his retirement in 1987. He was active in center and collegewide governance and as co-convenor of the Cultural Studies area of study group. Throughout his years at Empire State College, he wrote and distributed a series of philosophical dialogues on education as we might practice it progressively at the college. These were collected as The Prince Street Dialogues in 1987. He died in Ellsworth, Maine on May 13, 2010 at the age of 92. What follows are reflections from colleagues. Thanks to Jim Anderson, Ken Cohen and Lloyd Lill for their words. Thanks, especially, to Wayne Willis for his thoughts, his research and for all of his care and work in creating this opportunity to honor George.

Jim Anderson For me, George Drury exemplified the role of mentor. I often suggested to my students that they do a learning contract with him. “What does he teach?” they would ask. “Just make an appointment with him,” I would say. The student would meet with George and return with a topic for study, often one they never had thought of interest before. They would not have a learning contract with purpose, learning activities and criteria for evaluation spelled out – only a topic and some suggested reading to get started. The learning activities would emerge in discussions between George and the student. The exact direction of the Photo of George Drury with one of his students, taken through the window of contract would evolve from the exchanges the Genesee Valley Learning Center. This photograph appeared on the cover of between them. This caused headaches for The Prince Street Dialogues, written by Drury and published in honor of the administrators who wanted contracts filed college’s 10th anniversary in Rochester, N.Y.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 84 before the end of the study, but it was and the work that we perform. My most and discussions were always in support always a unique and engaging educational immediate memory of George is that he was of mentors and mentoring, creating an experience for the student. a very gracious, sweet and gentle man, who atmosphere for students to learn and had a warm, easy smile and a twinkle in acknowledging the importance of meeting George warned us that the college would his eyes. He took his role as resident faculty student needs. gradually be absorbed into the traditional philosopher very seriously, and always could methods of higher education and would One of my memories of working with be counted on for a narrative at each faculty look more and more like other colleges. He George is of co-mentoring a Xerox student. meeting about the meaning and purpose warned us to beware of the three terrible The student was studying the History of of our common endeavor. These oral C’s: calendar, curriculum and classes. He Economic Thought with me, and with comments were always followed up with was prescient. We now have terms, area of George, An Introduction to Philosophy. a written commentary, The Prince Street study guidelines and group studies. Much I recalled the student’s excitement after Dialogues (something that I think would of his vision is gone. Yet, in the interaction meeting with George and how they be called a blog in today’s argot), where between mentors and students, his spirit is discussed Socrates’ death in Plato’s he explored his views in greater depth. with us still. Phaedo. George loved his students Frankly, many of these contemplations were and they loved him. too erudite for me to fully comprehend Ken Cohen although I would be willing to try again if Traveling with George was always a The college was four years old when I any copies of these papers come to light. challenge filled with many surprises. On one arrived at the Genesee Valley Center, and His students had no such trouble grasping occasion, I was in a car with George, Peter many things were in place while others were his presence and substance. Feedback from McDonough and Larry Lipsett on our way still developing. The notion of the college as them consistently confirmed his calm, to an All College Meeting. Our conversation an experiment was very much alive. Before understanding manner, his desire to help turned to the creation of the universe I took the job, an acquaintance advised me them learn and grow, and the success of his and a supreme creator. George spent a that the college was too offbeat to survive, efforts in moving them to higher intellectual considerable amount of time describing the and another said that we would run out of levels. His learning contracts were never Thomistic philosophy, the existence of God, adult students before long. I decided to take discrete, 4-credit blocks, but instead were and the first cause of the universe. Larry a chance that lasted several decades. holistic documents that would encourage quietly announced he was an agnostic, and expansive and integrative learning. Several the next minutes were spent in utter silence, The tales that could be told of those early years after I arrived, some faculty got the which was remarkable, for there were few days are many. One early spring day, we notion that we should offer small groups times I remember George being silenced. were visited by the dean who informed us as a learning modality. I don’t think that that we had exceeded our student quota George ever ran a group – one-on-one, face- Wayne Willis for the year, we couldn’t accept anymore, to-face, customized learning was his way. and we should find some other things to do I first came to Rochester in the summer of For me, too, with all the changes in the (alas, a one-time occurrence). On another 1977 to interview for a one-year position college, the ability to work with students in day, sitting with a couple of other faculty at Empire State College, an internship in this individualized mode was certainly the examining some weaving from a box that a mentoring for newly minted Ph.D.s. I was high point of my 30-plus-year career. student submitted for prior learning credits, excited by the possibility of working at a the following dialogue ensued: The only time I saw George’s anger and new college that had embraced so many of sadness was when he needed to leave the the ideas and practices associated with the Faculty member No. 1, a biology mentor: college because of mandatory retirement-age “free school” movement of the ’60s and “What do think it’s worth … maybe mandates. He was not at all diminished in ’70s. But I wondered whether I might feel 4 credits?” his capacities and he very much wanted to intellectually isolated at an institution where Faculty member No. 2, a human keep carrying on the work that he loved and there were no academic departments and development mentor: “I think it might fit him so well. His heart and mind were where the faculty was divided into small be worth 8.” very much in the right place to provide a regional clusters. When Bob Seidel, the only strong foundation for the college and to Genesee Valley Center mentor in Historical Faculty member No. 3, a business mentor, sustain our mission during his many years of Studies, took me to lunch, I asked him how “How about 6?” service. I miss him. he dealt with this. Bob replied, “I talk with All, “OK.” George Drury.” Lloyd Lill Good days. Over the next 10 years until his retirement, As one of the founding mentors of the and after that on occasions when he George Drury was a founding faculty Genesee Valley Learning Center, George and his wife, Finvola, would return to member, one of those who carried the Drury was a caring colleague who critiqued Rochester from their home in Maine, I torch of humanistic education. He strongly and examined the role and direction of learned that George could indeed talk influenced the viability of our college centers and the college. George’s dialogues with me on just about any subject that

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 85 came to my mind, and also on topics administrators who often received George’s pressures from within and beyond Empire that would probably never have entered learning contracts and narrative evaluations State College to retreat to educational my thinking without him. George had at the same time, sometimes for several past conventionality. an impressive breadth of knowledge, but registrations at once. In response to such It is, of course, unimaginable that George more importantly, he was a true intellectual concerns, George was not quarrelsome, but could become a tenured and honored who stood ever ready to delve into many, he remained tenacious in going his own way. member of the Empire State College faculty many things. For his students, education George’s old fashioned gentlemanliness, today. If most Empire State College mentors with George was a matter of formulating sincerity and quiet humor were such had followed George’s example, the college and conducting inquiries, the subjects of appealing qualities that at times he seemed would probably not have survived the which emerged through free and open- to fear that he might be remembered “normalizing” demands of the New York ended dialogue that often continued from mainly as a loveable eccentric. At his last State Department of Education, SUNY one enrollment period to another. It was GVC faculty meeting, after graciously Central, the state legislature, Middle not easy with such a process to break a receiving our praise and good wishes, States accreditation, and many of our own student’s enrollment or degree program he reminded us that he did not think of students. Still, I think of George as a model into small, fixed components – 4 credits himself as any sort of “Mr. Chips.” He of uncaged educational imagination. The of this, 4 credits of that. As a result, it was, he said, “a radical,” and this is true. impossibility of a new George Drury on our was often said that George “held on” to As a founding faculty member of a college faculty is not for me a source of comfort, his primary mentees, infrequently sending that in the beginning operated under very but a painful realization of the costs of our them off to other mentors for their dose few restrictive policies, he had turned this successful institutionalization. of history or psychology or other special formlessness to the maximum advantage and fields. Understandably, his colleagues were crafted a mentoring practice that defied all not always comfortable with this; nor were

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 86

Core Values of Empire State College (2005)

he core values of SUNY Empire We value learning-mentoring processes that: • recognizes that learning occurs in State College reflect the multiple communities, environments • emphasize dialogue and collaborative commitments of a dynamic, and relationships as well as in formal T approaches to study; participatory and experimenting institution academic settings; accessible and dedicated to the needs of • support critical exploration of • attracts, respects and is enriched a richly diverse adult student body. These knowledge and experience; by a wide range of people, ideas, values are woven into the decisions we • provide opportunities for active, perspectives and experiences. make about what we choose to do, how reflective and creative academic we carry out our work in all parts of the engagement. We value a learning-mentoring organization institution, and how we judge the outcome and culture that: We value learning-mentoring modes that: of our individual and collective efforts. • invites collaboration in the multiple More than a claim about what we have • respond to a wide array of contexts of our work; already attained, the core values support student styles, levels, interests our continuing inquiry about what learning and circumstances; • fosters innovation and experimentation; means and how it occurs. • foster self-direction, independence • develops structures and policies that We value learning-mentoring goals that: and reflective inquiry; encourage active participation of all constituents in decision-making • respond to the academic, professional • provide opportunities for ongoing processes; and personal needs of each student; questioning and revising; • advocates for the interests of adult • identify and build upon students’ • reflect innovation and research. learners in a variety of academic and existing knowledge and skills; We value a learning-mentoring community civic forums. • sustain lifelong curiosity and critical that: inquiry; • defines each member as a learner, • provide students with skills, insights encouraging and appreciating his/her and competencies that support distinctive contributions; successful college study.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 87

Submissions to All About Mentoring f you have a scholarly paper-in-progress or a talk that you have presented, All About Mentoring would welcome it. If you developed materials for your students that may be of good use to I others, or have a comment on any part of this issue, or on topics/concerns relevant to our mentoring community, please send them along. If you have a short story, poem, drawings, or photographs, or have reports on your reassignments and sabbaticals, All About Mentoring would like to include them in an upcoming issue. Send submissions to Alan Mandell (SUNY Empire State College, Metropolitan Center, 325 Hudson St., New York, NY 10013-1005) or via email at [email protected]. Submissions to All About Mentoring can be of varied length and take many forms. (Typically, materials are no longer than 7,500 words.) It is easiest if materials are sent via email to Mandell as WORD attachments. In terms of references and style, All About Mentoring uses APA rules (please see the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed. (Washington: APA, 2010) or http://image.mail.bfwpub.com/lib/feed1c737d6c03/m/1/BSM_APA_ update_2010.pdf). All About Mentoring is published twice a year. Our next issue, #40, will be available fall 2011. Please submit all materials by Aug. 22, 2011.

Correction Dr. Carol Twigg, president and CEO of the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT), was mistakenly listed as being located at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Note #12 (p. 67) of Xenia Coulter’s review titled, “Is Higher Education Really Going to the Dogs?” in All About Mentoring 38. NCAT is an independent nonprofit organization.

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 88

suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011 ALL ABOUT

MENTORINGAPUBLICATIONOFSUNYEMPIRESTATECOLLEGE Issue 39 • Spring 2011 ALL ABOUT MENTORING ABOUT ALL

Issue 39 • Spring 2011 Spring • 39 Issue

2 Union Ave. � Saratoga Springs, NY 12866-4390 � 518-587-2100 www.esc.edu �

Printed by SUNY Empire State College Print Shop