Diary 2/13/24
Up! Awake around 7:20. Been trying to avoid setting an alarm unless necessary, which means I’ve usually have been waking up around first light. Fortunately, my schedule usually allows that and it’s working okay for now. Let’s see how it goes when first light is 5:30 AM in June.
In the kitchen, I cut up and eat a half of a grapefruit while water for tea boils. Grab a banana and my tea and sit in the family room. This is when I remember it’s a diary day, so I start writing notes on the day, which I’ll flesh out later. I put the TV on—Morning Joe, obsessing about Trump, so I mostly tune it out while I weed out spammy morning emails. It remains background noise while I read through morning papers on my ipad (Star Press, Post, Times, plus the Athletic). I call them morning papers, but they’re not morning any more, they’re 24-7, and obviously, they’re not on paper anymore. I grew up reading a hard copy newspaper over breakfast every day, and I still associate newspapers with the morning, even if they’re digital. I sometimes miss the feel of holding a newspaper, but I also appreciate how much more I can read now than in pre-digital times. After about 20 minutes, I turn the TV off, the background noise becoming bothersome.
I make a couple of slices of toast and another cup of tea. I start reading a book for work., That lasts about 30 minutes, then I chat w B for 5-10 about a local development project, in which BSU is remaking “the village,” the bar-filled commercial area adjacent to campus. There’s an event tonight that she plans to attend. I went to something similar last night. I make my lunch—the usual turkey sandwich—then shower, shave and hustle out the door. It’s around 9, and now I am hurrying to get into the office. On the way, I stop at the bank/credit union, but it’s not open until ten, so I wasted time trying to deposit a check. I need to remember to get to the bank later, or first thing tomorrow. The fact that they randomly open at 10 instead of 9 on Tuesdays is annoying. No idea why, but it makes me think about how everything seems a little worse than before. A larger institution bought our local credit union, which has only made the place less efficient and accessible, even as they tried to pretend this change would improve things. A symptom of broader decay?
On the way into the office, I run into S, a colleague. We have a short chat about an event we are co-organizing for next week. Everything proceeding as required, for now at least.
Around 10, I start in on prep for a class I will teach at 12:30 pm. That takes around a half hour, since it’s not a new prep and I did most of the work for it yesterday, and then I catch up on the diary notes writing for this diary.
Next up on the task list is finishing off a report, which I manage to do. It’s not what I want to be doing but it’s not optional.
At 11:10, I bolt for the gym. It’s the only chance for any exercise today. It’s a 5+ minute walk, which I will consider part of the workout. I quickly change into shorts and t-shirt and do a quick circuit of weight machines, upper body and core. It’s rushed but feels good to get a little something in. Through all this I listen to a podcast recapping the Super Bowl. The consensus is that it was a good game, entertaining and competitive. Some of the now-standard blather about Taylor Swift. I’m the only non-Swiftie in our family, and the only football fan, so that topic has made for some amusing family conversations recently.
I hustle back to my office, stopping to buy drink. Time is tight before class. Only time to eat half of my sandwich and review my notes. Then off to class.
It’s a good one. I’m team teaching this one and C. leads today. That makes it comparatively relaxing. He does a great presentation, the students are very engaged, and we end up having a very rich discussion toward. All of which is very satisfying. I’m enjoying the class, which ends at 1:45 pm.
I dash off to a very quick meeting after class to discuss technology and logistics for next week’s event, then back to my office for office hours. I meet with a bright student about whether he should attend grad school in History and how he should prepare to do so. I give him The Speech, explaining about the declining job market for academics, especially in a humanities discipline, as well as the current and ongoing efforts to lessen pay, job security, and independence for college faculty. (More on that below!) We have a good discussion. It’s depressing to have this kind of exchange with a bright young person. I feel a little bit guilty about leaving things worse than I found them, both in my field and at this institution. It’s not really my fault, of course, but nevertheless….
Another student stops in to review expectations about an upcoming assignment and we chat for a few minutes. Sounds like he will be on top of things.
I am doing a talk tomorrow about a project we did a few years ago, so I start working on that. It’s mostly ready anyway, since I spent some time yesterday digging out old notes and reviewing them. The project was collaborative and involved statistical work and it takes a while to wrap my head around what we did and to make sense of the data visualizations we prepared. I’m not the stats person who did the computational parts so it takes a while to recall some of the details. I spend about 90 minutes on this and by the time I finish it’s about 5:10.
I text with B. She is going to the event downtown in which the university is presenting its plans to revitalize the village. We agree to touch base about meeting up for dinner around 7, when her event will end.
I head off to a meeting organized to inform students (and faculty) about the latest effort of the Indiana legislature to weaken tenure, control university faculty, and eliminate efforts to make promote diversity. The bill, SB 202, which addresses “state educational institution matters.” Behind that benign title is something pernicious. It aims to give our far right-wing-run legislature more control of the boards of trustees of state universities, to impose an ideological test for faculty, including (or especially) those with tenure, and limit DEI efforts. It would set up a review process where every five years all faculty would undergo a review of their teaching to ensure they were exposing students to ideologically diverse arguments about their topic. It also sets up a snitching process where students, or others, can report faculty for perceived bias in their classrooms. This is probably not the space to rehearse all the problems with this proposed law. It’s transparently dishonest when it claims to be protecting intellectual diversity and will create a bureaucratic mess that is ripe for abuse. Its aim is to intimidate faculty and staff, not to promote honest scholarship and teaching. (I do think there are some problems in these areas but this bill will not solve them, only make things worse.)
Anyway, I arrive at the meeting a bit late. It began at 5. The room is full, with a mix of students and faculty. I stand against the wall in the back. The forum is designed for students to speak, which they eventually do in substantial numbers. There are lots of arguments about the problems with the bill. A senior campus leader in the audience tries to reassure people but they’re not having it. It’s all very depressing, and while this event is helpful, it has attracted the selection of people on campus who are already pretty engaged. The majority of students and, sadly, faculty are not all that engaged. It’s clear the bill will pass in some form.
I leave before it’s over, once the comments begin to get repetitive. I’m disheartened (which is part of the purpose of the bill) and angry. Back in my office, I set that aside and finish off a proposal for a conference paper next year and submit it. As I do, I text B and propose to meet her at Savages, a local pub. The online submission portal is glitchy so it takes me a while to get it in, and I’m late, arriving at the restaurant around 7:40.
B has grabbed a table while waiting for me. I apologize for my delay. We order food and drink (chicken club sandwich and a nice beer for me) and review our experience at the two events. B. not terribly impressed with presentation she saw and is skeptical of the larger project—she thinks they should just do the hotel and performance center. I share my glum thoughts about the meeting on the bill. Then we turn to our daughter’s crowdfunding effort for a play she is directing, and then to my sister’s trip to Morocco, about which she has been posting on social media. As we are finishing we run into friendly acquaintances, not quite friends but people we see occasionally. They update us on some developments in Muncie’s downtown, where they live. It’s always fun to run into people like that and catch up on things.
Home around 9:15. B. heads to bed. I’m tired, but can’t go to bed so early. Instead, I watch an episode of The Tourist, on Netflix (started off well but descended to meh), read for a while, and headed to bed. I notice that it’s past midnight, which is later than it should be.