This Week I Accidentally Met a Student Life Professional

Oso Raro has an awesome post about the gap between faculty and student life professionals here. It comes at a good time because this week I had a rare encounter with that side of the university. I got an email last Friday that so-and-so, head of some series of services [1], wanted to meet with me about room use. It was all very vague but I figured that as department chair, it’s a good idea to take meetings with people from other parts of my university when asked. This Wednesday I headed up to the Student Services Building, a very nice and very large building which I had never even entered or noticed for that matter, despite the fact that I pass by it about once a week if not more (it’s on the way from my office to Thomson House, the grad student union). The building looks great, which is probably important since parents need to feel like the university’s in good shape when they enter it and students need to feel like the place cares when they have a problem. I headed up to the Dean of Students office, where my colleague was located, and marveled at all the things that go on in the building about which I know absolutely nothing, but which I remember as being important from my undergrad days.

The meeting involved the possibility of using some space adjacent to the space being used by my department in a new annex (this part isn’t very interesting but it was also very quick). My colleague apologized for calling me over for a meeting “oh my god, I could have just picked up the phone, I’m sure you’re very busy. I’m sorry for wasting your time.” But of course then we got to talking. She’s new to the university and very quickly we identified that we cared about some of the same things in terms of how the institution works and how it might change. I was struck at that moment that progressive faculty probably have a whole group of allies in this other wing of the university of whom we don’t even know to avail ourselves. Having once worked in academic advising, I, at least, should know better.

Super Tuesday

I am not sure I’m comfortable with its linkage to the Super Bowl. Fox was actually running ads suggesting that people watch their coverage of both football and the election, like they were related. Much as I delighted in seeing the Patriots lose the big one (and special thanks to the Giants for not talking about how god after they won–I’ve officially forgiven them for knocking a couple good Vikings teams out of the playoffs), I have no confusion about which “super” day is a bigger deal.

Although honestly, I’m disappointed. The Pennsylvania primary is still a ways away so maybe it will be decided by then, but I was hoping Edwards would still be in the race. Other than Iraq and frankly small differences on healthcare, I don’t see a ton of policy difference between Obama and Clinton, though I think in terms of international credibility for the U.S., Obama has a significant edge. Given the battle cry I hear around these parts (“the rest of the world ought to get to vote too”) I’m persuaded. But Edwards was to the left of them both, and of course Kucinich was to the left of them all, though he never had a prayer.

Carrie learned this year that we have to request ballots for each U.S. election in which we participate. I’m glad she checked. Also, our first property tax bill just arrived. It reminds me of how much I’d like to be able to vote in the country where I now live (taxation without representation and all that).

That said, I’ll be watching the coverage tonight.

5-à-7s and Vegetarianism: Two Montreal Stories

Two responses to the last post merit a post of their own:

1. David asks “What’s a 5-à-7?” The simple answer: a cocktail party that occurs between the hours of 5 and 7pm. Except people seem to mostly drink wine at these things. Spelled cinq-à-sept and pronounced by anglos everywhere as something closer to “Sanka Set” they’re quite common here. There wasn’t much of that sort of thing happening in my social circles in Minneapolis, Chambana or Pittsburgh, but here it’s a regular thing. My first 5-à-7 happened in April of 2004. I was up here for a conference entitled “the Voice in Space” (a title which sounds better in French) and the day before I left for it, I got the offer from McGill. Will took me to an event at then-dean John Hall’s place. When Will said cinq-à-sept, I heard “Sanka Set” and so had to ask what it was. You see, I did not know any words for numbers in French at that time. . . . Anyway, I had a good time at the event and I remember the dean had excellent cheese.

2. Feral Mom mentions a bad chicken experience that led her to reconsider vegetarianism. I was veg as an undergrad, semi-meaty in grad school, and by the time I became a prof in 1999 I was thinking almost weekly about going back to being veg. I was in Montreal for a conference in 2001 and remember taking a meal at a Vietnamese place on St. Catherine street. Vietnamese has great veg options in Minneapolis but here it’s low end and very meaty — except for the subs, which may merit a whole other post sometime — but this place served me a plate of chicken that simply reeked of death. I couldn’t look at it, much less eat it. I walked out and decided to take a break from meat for the weekend, which became a week, which became a month, and here we are. Like Feral Mom, I had an exception: not bacon but for the gyros sandwich. I actually haven’t had a gyro in years now, though, because my last gyro experience wasn’t so awesome. Now it’s more like a don’t-ask-don’t tell policy with poutine gravy (hey it’s probably synthetic anyway) and the stock for the veggie risotto at restaurants.

Snowed in Stroganoff

Last night Carrie had excellent Friday night plans. We were going to a 5-à-7 and then to catch dinner and movie downtown. Well, the weather pretty much killed that ideas and the 5-à-7 was cancelled, so we decided we’d cook something nice and stay in and watch stuff on TV. All evening we could hear the sound of freezing rain (or whatever it was) pelting the back windows of our place.

Feeling a bit adventurous, we decided to try a new vegetarian stroganoff adaptation, which I’ve always found to be an exceptionally fussy sauce to cook but a delicious sauce to eat when done right. Of course I discovered it in my meat eating days and have been on a quest as a vegetarian to find a good alternative. Like most vegetarians, my first stop was the Moosewood which yielded a not-entirely-satisfactory alternative, which also had a mountain of sour cream in it. Lately, I’ve been taking sauce ideas from meat cookbooks and adapting them and having better luck, so this was the plan for last night. It also turns out it’s a lot easier on a gas stove (which we’re happy to be back to after a 3-year sojourn in the electric wilderness), as the precise control of the heat means that there’s less chance of curdling the sour cream.

This recipe depends on a particular economic relationship to dried porcini mushrooms — “buy more/save more.” Those tiny 1/4 oz. bags in the supermarket will set you back quite a bit and you get tiny broken bits and not much at that. We head over to Milano’s, an Italian grocer, and buy what I call the “Sam’s Club size” bag for $40. For $35 we can get pieces and stems but for $40 we get actual whole mushrooms and slices thereof. Sure, that sounds like an insane amount of money to spend on an ingredient, but it means you can use them by the handful and given that you get over 10 meals per bag (maybe 20 if you’re more conversative than me), it’s waaayyy cheaper over time. Just store them in an airtight jar in the dark to keep them fresh. We use them is all sorts of pasta sauces and people generally love them (unless they hate mushrooms, in which case don’t try to pull a fast one). Porcinis work well to take the place of the intense beef flavor that makes the meaty version of the dish so good. Anyway, everything else we needed was in our place or at the corner store.

Snowed-In Porcini Stroganoff (adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook)

A handful of porcini mushrooms soaked in 1.5 cups hot water (don’t go too light on these)
3.5T butter
1T flour
olive oil for stir frying
1/2 cup thinly sliced shallots for stir frying
12oz mushrooms (we used half cremini and half regular button), sliced
3T sour cream
1t Dijon mustard
1t dried dill (2T fresh would be better but there was no fresh dill at the corner store)
egg noodles are ideal, but since the corner store only had regular pasta that’s what we went with

Once the porcinis have softened, strain the liquid through a sieve lined with a paper towel, reserving the liquid. You should have about 1 cup, maybe a little more. Wash the porcinis and make sure there’s no dirt. Set aside. Melt the butter in a saucepan and whisk in the flour to make a roux. When it’s a little toasty, whisk in the porcini liquid, bring to a boil, and then simmer for a couple minutes until it’s nicely thickened. Cover and let it sit. Boil the water for the pasta or noodles and time the noodles so they will finish around the time that the mushrooms will be done. Heat the oil in a skillet and cook the shallots until almost done. Add the fresh mushrooms and porcinis and cook until they’re seared and the liquid has cooked off. As the mushrooms near completion, put the porcini sauce back on the heat and whisk in the sour cream, Dijon and dill. Add salt and pepper to taste for both the sauce and the mushrooms, combine in the skillet and then serve over the cooked noodles.

We ate it with roasted fennel and red onions on the side.

[Edited to clarify a couple things]

Why I Hate Mercury

No, not the planet. It’s cool.

Mercury is the name for McGill’s online student course evaluation system. For most of my career as a teacher, there has been a day at the end of the term when students have filled out course evaluation forms, commenting on the instruction, their impressions of the course, and other related matters. Sometime after the end of term I’d get some aggregate numerical data (e.g., “rate this prof on a scale of 1-5”) and a slew of anonymous comments. The virtue of this arrangement was that because you did it in class, you got a wide swath of students, even if you didn’t have 100% attendance on a particular day.

These were incredibly useful to me, though perhaps not for the reasons that students think when they fill them out. I looked for patterns. If one person complained about some aspect of the course out of 200 or 250 students, it was immaterial unless it was something I hadn’t thought of. It was when I got the same comment over and over that I could see something needed to be changed. Or that I would simply have to warn students about an aspect of my course they might not like.

For instance, in my intro course, I warn students that they will likely hate the pop quizzes. True to form this term (as it is every term), under the “what could be improved about this course” a number of students said “get rid of the pop quizzes; I didn’t feel like I could skip the readings before class.” Or some other complaint about being coerced to do the readings. Good! I want them to feel coerced. The irony is that the pop quiz grade is 5% of the semester grade and we drop the lowest two, which meant that you could skip readings for two weeks and probably get lucky and nothing would happen to your semester grade.

The one term I didn’t use pop quizzes in my intro course, the number of students who showed up having done the reading fell off dramatically. Ergo, the value for learning outweighs whether or not students like it.

Anyway, that was an excursus. The problem is the evaluations are now entirely online. The university reminds students to fill them out, and instructors are encouraged to encourage students to fill them out, but come on. I am not going to stand up in a lecture and beg my students to fill out evals. It’s demeaning all around. Imagine if they had to beg me to get around to grading their papers.

The results are pretty bad. Where I used to have between 60-80% response rate because my lectures have decent attendance (okay, in part because of those coercive pop quizzes), I now get about a 30% response rate. And you know in the comments section it’s bimodal. It’s all “Sterne is the best instructor ever” or “this class is way too hard for an intro course.” True, my aggregate numerical ratings remain about the same (maybe the malcontents get a little more weight, but it doesn’t really matter), but I lose the vast middle who might give me a clue as to whether a problem exists or not. This is not just bad for me, it’s bad for the students, as I’m left wondering when I see a complaint whether it’s acutally indicative of a problem or a malcontent. The same could be said for the praise, though of course I want to believe all the praise.

The problem gets worse if you consider it administratively. What if student ratings were used in assessing merit raises? (Evals are not used for such purposes in our department and I don’t believe they should be, though I know they are used in other departments). Or if you want to put someone up for a teaching award? Or if a student complains about an instructor? The evidence is thinner all around.

The solution is simple: require students to submit an evaluation of the course by a certain date in order to receive their semester grads, and give them an option to opt out that takes almost as much time as filling out the form (so if they really care, they can opt out, but they won’t opt out because it’s easier). I guarantee you that you’d get a higher response rate. But paper evals had a real advantage over their electronic ones because of how they were administered — especially if they came at the beginning of class (which I always requested). Students had to sit there anyway, so they would likely write something in the comment section. The result is that I had lots of bad handwriting to decrypt, but much much more information upon which to make decisions about changing my course for the following year.