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HOW TO MANAGE YOUR PROFS: A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR THE NEW COLLEGE STUDENT

September 12, 2018

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

 

So you’re a first-year undergraduate. You’re in college to cram your head full of knowledge, true. But you’re also there to build your personal network. Because the friends and allies you make while taking courses could very well stay with you for your whole life. And the stronger you build this interlocking web of connections, the better your job prospects (and existence in general) will be. The best way to do that—the most lasting and meaningful way—is to graduate. Everyone who does so has a profound experience in common. A strong bond forged in the fires of a seemingly endless series of term papers, labs (for you scientists), crits (for you artists), and exams. You get through that together, you can do anything… together.

 

However, to graduate you need to meet the standards of the people who stand between you and your degree of choice: your professors. And it may seem to students new to higher education that the profs hold all the power in the relationships they have with you and your classmates.

 

Two considerations should mitigate this concern. First, some professors—the best of them—will become part of your network. Help you get jobs, get into grad school, and so on and so forth.

 

Second, you are living in an era where professors have less power in the academy than they’ve had since the Renaissance (American higher education being based, as it is, on older European models). You see, if you had been a college student in, say, Italy in the 16th century, you (being a rich male, as you would have had to be) would essentially be hiring older (also male, but often pretty broke) scholars to teach you what you wanted to study. The universities of the period were basically groups of students paying groups of professors to teach them. Each group had certain rights and responsibilities, and power on campus was distributed between them.

 

In the intervening centuries, professors seized more and more control over higher education—culminating in the mid-20th century when they pretty much controlled the academy from top to bottom. Most of them were granted “tenure” by their colleges, guaranteeing them a permanent job in the interest of academic freedom.

 

Fast-forward to today, and many professors—at least at the undergraduate level—have fallen upon hard times. Over the last half century, American higher education has become more and more corporatized. Colleges today are run like businesses. And many are big businesses indeed. Campus administrations have professionalized. Most key staff are no longer professors, but specialists trained to run universities along capitalist lines.

 

One important job these administrators have is to keep students relatively happy—while extracting the federally guaranteed student loan money most bring with them. The better to convert them to donors after they graduate and become alumni.

 

Unsurprisingly, as time has gone on, administrators have sucked up larger and larger portions of college budgets. So, less and less of most schools’ budgets are being spent on professors. Causing faculty power to decline. Thus, in today’s higher ed establishment, a smaller and smaller percentage of professors are tenured faculty with good salaries and lifetime sinecures.

 

A slightly larger percentage of lower-paid professors are tenure-track faculty spending several years at the mercy of their administrations and tenured colleagues in hope of landing a rare tenured professorship. And the vast majority of faculty are adjuncts—contract professors who, at many institutions, don’t know whether they’re going to have enough courses from semester to semester to pay their rent and keep food on the table. Unless they unionize (a movement that’s spread across public universities in the last quarter century and is gradually taking hold in private ones), the amount of money they get per course can be very low indeed and job security will be nonexistent. Yet even when unionized, adjuncts have trouble making ends meet.

 

And where does all this leave an enterprising student like yourself? In a bit of a catbird seat, if you know how to manage your profs.

 

Doing that involves four simple steps. The first three are practical tactics you’ll want to focus on with your most helpful professors. And the fourth is a “nuclear option” you can deploy if you’re unlucky enough to get a bad teacher while completing your undergraduate coursework.

 

1) Do what your professors ask you to do

If you want to convert your professors from indifferent functionaries to active allies, you’ve got to get their attention. In a good way. And how best to get a prof’s attention? Follow directions carefully. Give them what they ask for in homework assignments, papers, and tests. Don’t go overboard. Good professors understand you have other courses. Just do what they want you to do, the way they want you to do it. Right there that puts you in the top 10 percent of students in a typical undergrad class. Particularly with adjuncts who have very little time to spend with each student, since they need to teach as many courses as possible—sometimes at more than one school—to attempt to make a living wage. The less work you make for professors, the more they will be pleased with you. The more pleased any faculty member is with you, the better your educational experience is going to be.

 

2) Give your professors good evaluations

Every semester, at most colleges, your administration will ask you to give a fairly comprehensive evaluation of each course you take. This, in effect, allows you to evaluate your professors’ performances. What most students don’t know is that faculty are usually shown the evaluations—minus their students’ names. And what even fewer know is that many faculty members can tell which students gave which evaluations. Meaning they know who trashes them, and who praises them. So, be sure to mention something in your write-up that will help your professors know which eval came from you. Don’t be too glowing in your praise. But be fair. They will be much more likely to become your allies going forward if you are.

 

3) Help your professors with their careers

Professors, especially adjuncts, are always looking for chances to stand out from the pack. In hopes of getting more secure long-term employment. Or, if they already have tenure or are tenure-track (or at least have a solid union contract), in hopes of getting the types of “gold stars on their foreheads” that lead to better gigs. Those desired promotions come by making administrators like deans and provosts happy. And stuff like winning grants for flashy research projects is exactly the type of thing that makes such top dogs happy in today’s academy. Because it makes them look good to their higher-ups: campus presidents and boards of trustees. Given that, if your professor mentions an opportunity to assist them with some grant writing or research work or preparing for a big conference or whatever—and you can spare some time—help them out. Don’t be a suck-up or teacher’s pet. Don’t jump on every opportunity that presents itself. That can backfire, or become inappropriate in any number of ways. But maybe once a semester do them a solid. That’s the kind of thing that leads to a long-term connection and adds professors to your personal network.

 

“But surely,” you’re now thinking, “every professor isn’t good.” Isn’t helpful. Some professors are, in fact, obstacles that could stop you from getting your degree and solidifying your all-important personal network of classmates and good faculty.

 

Correct. In a system of higher education where most professors didn’t get any practice teaching unless they were in the minority of graduate students that decided to be teaching assistants instead of research assistants, bad teachers are an unfortunately common fact of college life.

 

And here’s where your newfound knowledge of the falling status of professors comes into play.

 

4) The enemy of your enemy is your friend

If you have a bad professor… and I don’t mean a professor that makes you work for your grades. Those are generally the good ones. I mean if you have a professor who is feral. Arbitrary and capricious in their teaching method and in their treatment of students. Someone who gets off on giving low grades because they think they can do so with impunity. If you get a teacher like that, do not waste too much time complaining to them directly. Nasty professors are inclined to think they’re better than you—even if you make more money working at Starbucks than many of them make as academics. So they’ll tend to ignore your protestations. Better to try a different tack. Remember how administrators have steadily taken control of today’s corporatized academy? And how they want students to be happy? You go complain to them. To the highest level administrators that will sit down with you. In person. And encourage your classmates to do the same. And keep doing it. If enough people complain, and the complaints are legitimate, it will negatively affect problem professors’ careers. To forestall that—and being unable to retaliate since the eyes of the administration are on them—said profs will likely moderate their behavior. And you will have won.

 

Have a great school year, folks. Study hard, don’t party too much, be decent to your fellow beings, and you’ll be fine.

 

Jason Pramas is executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston. He has also been both an adjunct and a “regular” professor at some college or other. And helped organize faculty unions at same. He has degrees and stuff.

EDITORIAL: HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT DIGBOSTON

Official Dig Baby

 

A reader’s guide to building a better news weekly

 

April 19, 2018

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

 

What does it mean to support a news outlet? Clearly the answer to that question varies widely depending on whether the outlet is big or small, nonprofit or for profit, subscription- or advertising-based.

 

But in an era when news organizations of all sizes are having a great deal of difficulty keeping their doors open, it’s an important one to consider.

 

For DigBoston, the answer to that question must be based on how we organize our operation. As we’ve said in past editorials, our organization is very porous to the world around us. We don’t cut ourselves off from the communities we serve. Quite the reverse. We’re always working to connect more strongly to those communities. To serve them better.

 

In fact, we are part of many Boston-area communities. You can view our staff, freelance talent, interns, contractors, and advertisers as a network of personal networks—all of which pay close attention to the news we produce together. Everyone in this primary network then connects to the broad spectrum of local communities that make up our overall audience.

 

The better a job we do as journalists, the more that audience becomes part of our primary network—becomes, in short, directly connected to us.

 

The more that happens, the better our news is. Because people who know us personally, naturally come to trust us. We then hear about community developments faster and faster, and the information we communicate gets concomitantly more accurate and more relevant.

 

So to support DigBoston, the most important thing that you can do as an audience member is to reach out to us the way we’re reaching out to you. To become part of our primary network.

 

And here are eight ways you can do that.

 

Read the paper

This seems like the most obvious suggestion, but it is not. Because reading us doesn’t mean reading us every now and then. It means actively looking for us every week. Making it a habit to check out every issue we produce… and making Dig a part of your life, and therefore more strongly part of the culture that makes our city unique. Which is easy enough to do—especially for people living in and around Boston. We typically start putting new articles online on digboston.com every Tuesday, and our print edition hits the stands in Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and busy parts of Brookline on Thursdays.

 

Show it to your friends

Don’t keep us to yourself. Pass around our articles on email and social media. And, more importantly, keep a paper copy on hand and physically pass it around to friends and family. Remember that stuff about networks above? By reading us often and sharing our work with your personal network, you’re helping build a fan base that interacts more strongly with us over the long term. Which is a recipe for ensuring DigBoston continues to produce good journalism for many years to come.

 

Use our information

We like it when we make people think about issues of the day. That’s definitely part of why we do what we do. But we love it when people act on the news we put out. If we write about a concert or play or art show, go check it out. If we introduce you to a political activist campaign that you agree with, plug in. Get involved. There’s little point in outlets like DigBoston producing news if no one acts on the stories we report.

 

Talk to us

We say this regularly, but we’ll say it again: You like one of our articles? Don’t like one? A fan of one of our writers, photographers, or artists? Drop us a line. Say hi. It might take us a day or three to get back to you, but we do our best to talk to readers that want to talk to us. For most purposes, emailing us at editorial@digboston.com is the best way to connect.

 

Frequent our advertisers

Another seemingly obvious thing, but we make the money that enables us to put out our newsweekly through advertising. And what’s the best way to keep the ad money flowing? Giving your business to institutions that advertise with us. And making it known that you heard about them from DigBoston. Know a similar enterprise? Spread the word that we’re a great place to advertise and that we’re helping a number of industries grow locally. Consider yourself part of our sales force. Like seriously, because we’re actually hiring a salesperson. Interested in selling for us? Send us a resume and cover letter by email to jobs@digboston.com.

 

Advertise with us

Are you a decision maker who’s looking to drum up business in Boston? Then how about buying an ad? You can start with a four- to six-week run, see how your campaign does, and if you’re happy then make it a long-term contract. Drop us an email to sales@digboston.com to get started. Mention that you read this editorial, and we’ll give you a nice discount. Because of course we will.

 

Donate

Donate?! Yeah, we know it’s kind of counterintuitive. A for-profit company asking for donations through crowdfunding or at least simple, unobtrusive pop-ups on the new website we’re building this year. But even large news outlets like the Guardian are doing it. Because news production is expensive and profit margins for newspapers like DigBoston are razor-thin. We put out a fine product every week with a handful of (shall we say) modestly paid regular staffers and dozens of “stringers” (freelancers). No one is making big bucks. We’re all doing it because we believe in the importance of good community journalism to the democratic society we’re trying to help save. If you’d like to see us expanding our news operation and bringing you more and more news you can’t find anywhere else, definitely toss us a few bucks when we ask for it. Because donations help us pay for the kind of longer-form hard news that a weekly paper like ours couldn’t afford to produce regularly without some extra cash.

 

Give us credit

This one applies to a very specific subset of our audience. We understand our role in the metro news ecology includes acting as an early warning system for larger outlets like the Boston Globe. But that doesn’t mean we think it’s cool when our colleagues at the “bigs” get “inspired” by our work and basically replicate it without granting us the simple courtesy of listing us as a source. We may kick such outlets around from time to time on political and journalistic grounds, but we still mention them as sources all the time. Some reciprocity would be nice. For real.

 

So that’s our list. What’s the takeaway? It’s not “data” or “algorithms” or certainly not robots that are going to keep journalism relevant in 21st-century America.

 

It’s people. Working together to make sure that DigBoston, and other news outlets like us all over the nation, can keep doing what we’re doing… in the public interest.

 

And it all starts with each of you, taking the time to read our work. Every week.

 

Thank you.

 

Jason Pramas is executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston.

QUICK & DIRTY CAMBRIDGE CITY COUNCIL ELECTION GUIDE

collage of 2017 Cambridge City Council candidates
collage of 2017 Cambridge City Council candidates

Because in a race with 26 candidates, you’ll only remember slogans

 

November 1, 2017

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

 

Everyone outside Cambridge thinks they understand why it’s kind of a weird place. But to truly apprehend how odd the city is, you really need to vote in one of its municipal elections. Especially this one. Where else in the area do you have a ranked choice voting system where every candidate is an at-large candidate with a theoretically equal chance of winning one of the nine seats on offer, and every incumbent has to run for reelection in every election? What makes this year’s council race particularly wild is that there are three open seats. Meaning that there are six incumbents running, including the current mayor (a councilor who is elevated by a vote of her peers), and no less than 20 other candidates.

 

Having attended a recent debate with most of the candidates in attendance, I can assure you that it’s no easy task to even remember anything about individual candidates, let alone choose one to give your coveted #1 vote to (and then assign your #2 through #26 votes—although few people bother to go further than picking their top four or five choices).

 

So, as a public service to DigBoston’s Cambridge readers, I’ve put together the following list of all 26 city council candidates with one line or two to three phrases for each that I think encapsulates their campaign material, and a link to their website. Each of the six incumbents is noted with an asterisk. Hope it helps. Just try not to remember that an appointed city manager actually holds much of the power in the “People’s Republic.” (D’oh!)

 

Ronald Benjamin: wants to create community, votebenjamin2017.com

 

Josh M. Burgin: 25 ideas for Cambridge, votejoshburgin.com

 

Dennis J. Carlone*: manage new development, true to community values, denniscarlone.com

 

Olivia D’Ambrosio: arts, but not a one-trick pony, vote-o.com

 

Jan Devereux*: civic engagement, sustainable growth, jandevereux.org

 

Samuel Gebru: entrepreneur, community organizer, gebruforcambridge.com

 

Richard Harding Jr.: advocate for working families, voteharding.org

 

Craig A. Kelley*: vibrant local democratic institutions crucial to US, craigkelley.org

 

Dan Lenke: little city halls, nano city halls, potlucks, danlenke.com

 

Ilan Levy: activist since 2006, fought for the Foundry, critic of the Volpe plan, vote1ilan.net

 

Alanna M. Mallon: prioritize public service by strengthening social safety nets, alannamallon.org

 

Marc C. McGovern*: for collaboration and social/economic justice, gets results, marcmcgovern.com

 

Gregg J. Moree: concerned about lack of options open for our young people, greggmoree.com

 

Adriane B. Musgrave: fight so everyone in Cambridge has economic opportunity, voteadriane.com

 

Nadya T. Okamoto: protect the concept of home for all Cantabrigians, votenadya.com

 

Hari I. Pillai: not selling out values just for more economic growth, cambridge2017.city

 

Jeff Santos: progressive broadcaster, backs affordable housing and a living wage, santosforcitycouncil.com

 

Sumbul Siddiqui: affordable housing, economic development, civic engagement, votesumbul.com

 

Denise Simmons*: understands unique needs of residents in our community, denisesimmons.com

 

Vatsady Sivongxay: bringing diverse voices to the decision-making table, vatsady.com

 

Bryan Sutton: can analyze complex systems and make data-driven decisions, bryansutton.org

 

Sean Tierney: experienced public servant, dedicated to Cambridge, seantierney.org

 

Paul F. Toner: engaging people with a diversity of opinions to find solutions, tonerforcambridge.com

 

Timothy J. Toomey Jr.*: experience and vision to guide Cambridge’s continued growth, timtoomey.org

 

Gwen Thomas Volmar: for affordable housing, against luxury high-rises, votegwen.org

 

Quinton Y. Zondervan: environmentalist, helped create the Net Zero Action Plan, votequinton.com

 

*indicates incumbent