One down

Thought it was past time for an update on the Boulder two.

Y’all will be relieved to hear that Tom (and I, and us) have survived year 1 of his graduate school. He finished last papers and tests on May 2, attended the last class on May 7 and left with a classmate for Alaska on May 8. The current forecast is that there’s a better than even chance that we’ll stay in Boulder for year 2 but it’s not 100% decided. Tom plans to research other options when he returns from AK just in case a more traditional (or online) program looks more appealing now that he’s had a taste of Naropa reality. Most likely with a year invested here other options won’t be practical but we’ll see.

Overall, the spring semester (after the opening retreat) was better than the fall one—problems and disarray with the program and teaching continued but didn’t affect Tom as directly. For example, highlights included:

One teacher on the first assignment—a 2-page paper, due the 2nd class--wrote a comment diagnosing the student author as mentally ill. Throughout the term she repeatedly called some students at home after reading their papers and was angry and reactive with them. She called Tom two or three times but he was her “favorite” so got positive feedback. Other than feeling a bit weird at the odd tone of her communication, wondering if she would ‘out’ him to the class as her favorite, and being concerned about her impact on classmates he wasn’t too drawn into the drama. The magnitude of the problem wasn’t apparent until late in the semester and there were things about her that he appreciated, which both helped.

At the beginning of finals week with 5 papers due + exams, the administration sent out a cryptic message that there would be a mandatory disciplinary meeting for the entire class the following week, at which if the group could not reach consensus, the faculty/admin leadership team would make the decisions. No hint as to why the meeting was called, what issues needed decisions or what process would be used for the meeting, but students were requested to submit written input within 2 days. Needless to say that kicked off distracting (and exhausting) rounds of speculation among the students. To further confuse the matter another message a couple of days later gave an agenda for the meeting that did not allow any time for student comment. The meeting turned out to be more positive than any of the imagined scenarios (some people, we won’t mention names, want to be way more controlling and analytical than is good for them) with the faculty/admin saying they realized they hadn’t been doing a very good job and would try to do better. The first substantive change they promised was to not allow any more late work or non-attendance from students.

There was also a class project where the group Tom was in failed miserably to provide a service to people from a different culture. I’m not saying they failed the project gradewise and Tom learned a lot about working (or not) with some of his classmates but the group set unrealistic expectations, told Tom early on he was being too analytical when he tried to define what fulfilling the expectations would require and then totally bailed on their chosen project at the end when the scope became unavoidably clear. (Hmmm. Sounds a lot like his software development experience at the State of AK.)

Oh, and then there was the student in small discussion group that Tom “attacked” and caused to hyperventilate and have to leave the room. Tom was talking with the group facilitator about his observation that she would interrupt and change the topic at times that seemed inappropriate. Another student interrupted, said she didn’t like the way “people” were talking, went on at length about how upset she was and then said she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Tom, fed up with her habit of saying her piece and then forbidding anyone else to speak, asked her a question to try and understand why she was upset, which was when she started hyperventilating and had to leave. He’s such a meanie.

So, I’m thinking one could do a great Dilbert-style comic based on this place.

I’ll continue with other news in a separate post so it won’t be lost to those who don’t care enough about the minutia of Tom’s school experience to have made it this far.