Re: alt process at the university level
Mark and others who replied to this thread--I thank all of you. I have saved all emails.So it seems to me we ought to be asking, SHOULD there be a specialized alt process program at the university level rather than is there one? Mark Maybe I didn't word my initial request clearly: what university level programs are alt-friendly with a prof who specializes in alt? For example, one wouldn't go to Yale if one's area was alt. Yale is decidedly large digital works. One would go to Osterman's program he is instituting at Eastman House/is it Ryerson or RIT...and I can guarantee that program would still teach content. I am not making a request for a process-not-content driven school, but an alt-FRIENDLY (with expertise) school. The second issue you bring up in your email--the existential student story--I'm right there with you on this one. I have bemoaned the fact (and noticed it even more clearly in the span of time from 2003-2005) that students in general read less and less, and what reading they do might be, say, Wikipedia or Google stuff. This is an exaggeration of course but the point is made. I used to be shocked at this because I grew up in a reading culture. Books. This year in teaching I instituted a couple different methods of getting students to the library more. But my learning was based on books and history and what went before. I see a profound shift in the way students assimilate information and in what information they assimilate. Students are certainly not dumber nowadays. In fact, I'm amazed sometimes at what they know. But I have to be careful to weigh this morph of learning style correctly so I don't become one of those people who says, "In my day I had to walk to school barefoot 5 miles uphill both ways--while reading Montaigne and Moliere in French...." In other words, I see the same situations you do, and I am watchful of the changing culture, and trying to remain open minded about what is good about the times and what is not, without my generational bias if that is possible. I can't believe some students don't want the pleasure of curling up with a good book for hours on end! I sure don't have any bottom lines yet on this one. Chris
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