Shots in the Dark

Foals. Late Night. From their new album, Holy Fire.

Been listening to this a lot…

So I just got a call at work from a PR person for a prominent private bank—you’d know it—and, as one does, I Googled her for a little background information before calling back.

Here’s the picture that popped up from her active Twitter feed:

Cute, right? Not too professional, though.

I’m always confused when younger people who do this sort of thing—and I see it a lot. I had one young woman come in to apply for a position at Worth who described herself on her Facebook page as a Communist. (Did she think I wouldn’t look?)

She didn’t get the job.

People who post this stuff either don’t realize that other people can see it (but they’re so social media savvy!), in which case they look dumb, or they do realize and don’t care, in which case they may be making a political statement (though probably not intentionally) about the arbitrariness of professional and personal life distinctions in the age of no privacy.

Which is all well and good, but somehow I don’t think this private bank, a conservative institution, would appreciate the argument. (And how can the bank not know? Yikes.)

The phenomenon that seems to me to explain this is the idea, which I find common among twenty-somethings and younger, that one should never have to make any sacrifices regarding the expression of personal identity just to make it in the work world.

I think I’d put it the other way around. If you want to make it in the professional world, it’s probably best not to post anything on social media that fundamentally undercuts one’s professional image.

But it’s also possible that I’m just old-fashioned that way…

“We are very proud to be called Redskins.”

—a press release from the Washington Redskins, defending the team from criticism of its racist name.

One of my favorite people in the world is an anthropology professor at St. Michael’s College in Vermont named Adrie Kusserow. We met at Harvard in graduate school almost 25 years ago (yikes)—she was studying anthropology, as you might expect, and I history—and quickly became fast friends. Over the years I’ve watched her grow into a gifted professor and a passionate human rights activist, especially in the case of the lost boys of Sudan. She is the kind of Harvard graduate there ought to be more of.

Adrie is also a poet and is shortly publishing her second book of poems, Refuge. I’m neither an expert on poetry nor even a huge fan of it, but I know enough to know that her work is beautiful and thought-provoking.

You can find Refuge on Amazon. Give it a shot—her work is really moving.

I’ve got some stuff to crash on at work, so for the moment, let me just recap news coverage of the apparent resolution of the Harvard cheating scandal.

First, Harvard, in classic Washington-corporate America fashion, disclosed the news on the Friday of Super Bowl weekend, so that it would receive the least exposure possible. Come on, guys-you’re better than that. Or you should be.

The Times: “Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal.”

Harvard has forced dozens of students to leave in its largest cheating scandal in memory, the university made clear in summing up the affair on Friday, but it would not address assertions that the blame rested partly with a professor and his teaching assistants.

…Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education who has spent much of his career studying cheating, said that eventually, the university should “give a much more complete account of exactly what happened and why it happened.”

The Globe: “Half of Students in Harvard Cheating Scandal Required to Withdraw from College.”

In an apparent disclosure about the Harvard cheating scandal, a top university official said Friday that more than half of the Harvard students investigated by a college board have been ordered to withdraw from the school.

Bits and Pieces (Harry Lewis’ blog): “Lingering Questions about the ‘Cheating Scandal.‘”

What troubles me, and what deserves discussion, is purely a matter of judgment: why harsh penalties were meted out to more than a hundred students (even probation has to be reported on law school applications, for example) when there were so many shades of gray in what students did and so much room for misinterpreting the course’s rules and policies. If there were ever a case that called for judicial restraint, this was it.

Slate: “There is no Harvard Cheating Scandal.”

The students should be celebrated for collaborating on an unfair test.

The Telegraph: Dozens Disciplined over Exam Cheating Scandal at Harvard.

Thomas Stemberg, a Harvard graduate whose son is a student, on Friday criticised the university’s handling of the probe.
“If you challenge the entire faculty at the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Law School to come up with a process that took more time, cost more money, embarrassed more innocent students, and vindicated guilty faculty … that could not have outdone the process that took place,” he said.

The Australian: Dozens Suspended in Harvard Cheat Scandal.

Harvard, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of the most exclusive universities in the world. Students pay about $US63,000 ($A60,700) a year to attend after winning places in a highly competitive admissions process.

The Atlantic: Harvard Forces Students to Get Jobs as Punishment for Cheating.

Literally every other college kid in the world is laughing right now because of a bunch of Harvard students were dumb enough to copy answers on a take-home….

Boston Business Journal: “Harvard Stops Short of Expulsion in Cheating Scandal Verdict.”

The Washington Times: “Harvard Wraps Cheating Probe; Fate of Cheaters Unclear.”

The Wall Street Journal: “A Major Sports Scandal at…Harvard?”

A couple quick thoughts: Judging from the confusion of all these stories, if Harvard intended to deal with this scandal in a straightforward and transparent way that emphasized its academic values and integrity and sent a clear message to students about the university’s priorities, it has failed.

But if Harvard meant to muddy the waters as much as possible, obscure the truth and confuse the general public about what actually happened, it has done so quite effectively.

FInally, I’ve just read Harry Lewis’ blog post, cited above, which enlarged my knowledge of some of these issues considerably. It’s hard not to read that post without concluding that everything about the Gov 1310 was so poorly run, Harvard should have let the students off and focused on reforming teaching and departmental procedures. And also maybe re-think the whole idea of take-home exams.

A friend sent me this video of a human-gorilla encounter in a Uganda rain forest. Astonishing and, I think, deeply moving.