MLA 2014

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The Discussion Group on the Two Year College will have two sessions at MLA14 in Chicago.  Below is the program description for one of the sessions: Please attend!

Friday, 10 January

213. Twenty-First-Century Pedagogies

8:30–9:45 a.m.

Program arranged by the Discussion Group on the Two-Year College

Presiding: Stacey Lee Donohue, Central Oregon Community Coll.

1. “Not on Wikipedia: Making the Local Visible,” Laurel Harris, Queensborough Community Coll., City Univ. of New York

2. “Survival Spanish Online: Designing a Community College Course That Bridges Culture and Authentic Connections,” Cecilia McGinniss Kennedy, Clark State Community Coll., OH

3. “Sound Essays: A Cure for the Common Core,” Kathryn O’Donoghue, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York

4. “Leveling Up! Gamifying the Literature Classroom,” Jessica Lewis-Turner, Temple Univ., Philadelphia

For abstracts visit mla.hcommons.org/groups/the-two-year-college/announcements/ after 15 Dec.

About Stacey Lee Donohue

I am Professor of English at Central Oregon Community College in Bend, Oregon. I've been a Department Chair (for two different departments), and for the 2015-16 academic year I will be an Interim Instructional Dean overseeing 4 departments (Humanities; Fine Arts and Communications; Social Sciences; and World Languages and Cultures). I also serve on the Executive Committees of the Association of Departments of English and the Two Year College Discussion Group (soon to be called the Community College Forum). My interest in the K-16 Alliance stems from my work as a faculty mentor and department chair working with high school instructors teaching dual enrollment courses (that count for both high school and college credit) in the high schools that serve a very large geographic region known as Central Oregon. Last year, our region was awarded a significant state grant for our "Cascades Commitment" project, which includes developing alternative certification and professional development pathways for high school teachers teaching college level composition courses in the high schools.

4 thoughts on “MLA 2014”

  1. Stacey,
    The more I look at what is happening in higher ed, in the economy, in politics (campus and DC), and the whole world around me (which I have been doing from nearly all possible angles for decades and decades) the more clearly I see a new and fundamental opportunity for the Liberal Arts — mostly the Humanities and English and Philosophy — to experience an astounding rebirth, and especially at the community college level, the front-line trenches in teaching people how to think.

    Higher Ed has reacted in a particularly fast and fierce knee-jerk fashion to the new realities of the Great Recession. But we ourselves have not yet thought out what those realities are, what real and lasting changes are being forged here and around the world.

    For instance, the problem is not a lack of job skills among college students seeking jobs. It is a lack of jobs. STEM courses are all the rage, but in the US right now there is only one STEM job opening for each STEM degree granted, and the corporations really, really, really want the government to give them nearly unlimited H-1B visas to fill those jobs with foreign PhDs at half the cost.

    Someone once said that poverty is not a lack of opportunity; it is a lack of money. We have all been focusing on the implacable lack of money. We have lost focus on creating opportunity. But I am not talking about creating jobs for people. I am talking about re-imagining “opportunity” and “thriving.” Those are not fundamentally economic concerns, but philosophical ones. They are concerns that require not the ability to weld some steel or or to spin a centrifuge, but to think, to reason, and most important to be able to imagine.

    We have all been so focused on trying to survive that we seem to have forgotten what we really want, and want for our students, which is to thrive. How do we refocus on thriving in an entirely alien economy that needs only servers and temps? And how do we give our students what they need to thrive in a world that is entirely different than their parents’ and grandparents’ worlds?

    I would like to discuss this with you, and to discuss the possibility of a very unexpected session in Chicago in January. What say you?

    ~ Peter

  2. Hi Peter,

    You raise some great points, and a possible subject for a 2015 panel. Also, your ideas seem to jive with the CCHA-Affiliated session at MLA14 (posted below). Would love to chat before or after either session.

    Stacey

    Friday, 10 January
    418. Vulnerability and Survivalism of the Humanities in Corporatized Academia
    5:15–6:30 p.m.
    Program arranged by the Community College Humanities Association
    Presiding: Steven Hymowech, Fulton-Montgomery Community Coll., NY
    1. “Right Leaders of Wrong: A Revolution in Higher Education,” Jesse Stommel, Marylhurst Univ.
    2. “Banding Together in the Face of the Coming ‘Apocalypse,'” Lee Skallerup Bessette, Morehead State Univ.
    3. “Who Owns the Humanities?” George Louis Scheper, Community Coll. of Baltimore County, MD
    4. “Vulnerability and Academia: A Critical Analysis,” Paul Lauter, Trinity Coll., CT
    Respondent: Stacey Lee Donohue, Central Oregon Community Coll.
    For abstracts, visit http://www.ccha-assoc.org/index.html after 1 Dec.

  3. I am terribly sorry, but I did a poor job of proofing when I posted. I meant to say: “…only one STEM opening (in the job market) for every *three* STEM degrees granted.” That makes more sense, do you not think?

    ~ Peter

  4. Stacey,
    The more I look at what is happening in higher ed, in the economy, in politics (campus and DC), and the whole world around me (which I have been doing from nearly all possible angles for decades and decades) the more clearly I see a new and fundamental opportunity for the Liberal Arts — mostly the Humanities and English and Philosophy — to experience an astounding rebirth, and especially at the community college level, the front-line trenches in teaching people how to think.

    Higher Ed has reacted in a particularly fast and fierce knee-jerk fashion to the new realities of the Great Recession. But we ourselves have not yet thought out what those realities are, what real and lasting changes are being forged here and around the world.

Comments are closed.