Uphill and into the Wind

The Undergraduate Research Creative Achievement Day.  Sexy title, eh?  The Provost’s office sponsors this event where they allow undergrads to do research in a field of interest which is a pretty neat concept.  A friend of mine went to a bunch of different concert venues and took samples of the acoustical qualities of the space to use for recording so by clicking a button in your one room studio you can sound like you’re performing in Carnegie Hall.

I know a lot of people who use the money (about $1500) to go to summer festivals and stuff like that.  I decided to do some research on pacing a solo recital essentially trying to develop a set of criteria that will allow a vocalist to optimize a solo program for audience enjoyment, technical challenge, and feasibility of completion by interviewing different voice teachers  and doing some score study and analysis to identify points in standard literature that present problems for developing singers.

I’ve been wracking my brain for the past couple of weeks trying to synthesize all of the information and write this proposal but fortunately I finally got it cranked out.  I’m thinking the idea itself is pretty cool.  Hopefully the folks over at the Office of Undergraduate Education will thin so too and let me do it.

I absolutely without a doubt do not understand UMBC’s inclement weather policy.  Apparently a half an inch of ice on the ground is only worth a 2 hour delay in UMBC land but in Morgan State University, Towson University, Coppin College, Baltimore County Public Schools, Howard County Public Schools, the Baltimore County government and just about…well everyone else’s world, that kind of weather is grounds for closing.

This is my 6th semester at UMBC and I can’t recall an occasion in over two years where we’ve closed for bad weather–even when everyone else is closed.  Now I understand some school systems and organizations close for absolutely nothing, but 295 was closed this morning, most other major universities were closed today, and it took me over 20 minutes to walk to class without falling.  I think that says something, don’t you?

Don’t email me to tell me the sidewalks are treacherous.  I’m aware that the sidewalks are treacherous because that’s what happens when ice falls from the sky.  Throwing a bunch of salt on it doesn’t solve the problem either.  People still can and did fall today and yeah, it was funny but I don’t think it should ever come to that.

When I was in high school, I used to get really irritated when other school systems would close and we’d have an hour delay or something ridiculous like that purely because I didn’t feel like going to school.  A few years out, I have a different reason: it’s not safe!!!!  People always say “oh well the roads are fine.”  Really?  All of them?  If you can’t guarantee me that no one will have a weather-related accident on ANY road a driver would use to get from point A to point B, don’t say “the roads are fine.”  Some professors and students travel great distances to get to work and the roads may not be fine where they’re coming from.  Why else is that statement unacceptable in my book?  Just because the roads are “fine” does not mean the sidewalks are traversable.  Cars only take you from parking spot to parking spot and in most instances–especially at a university–you’ll have to walk a good distance before you’re in the safety of a building which means the sidewalks also need to be safe and they weren’t today nor were they last week when we had those icy conditions and you know what?  You can count on that being true all the time.

Classes were pretty empty today, right?

I was reading this article in the Washington Post about the life of adjunct faculty.  Adjunct faculty are part-time teachers at the collegiate level and it’s a real shame the lives some of them lead.  These are dedicated ambitious people and many of them are seeking full-time tenure-track jobs but apparently there was a huge phD boom in the 90s that left academia with a surplus of qualified potential professors to lead the nomadic and financially unrewarding life of an adjunct.

Check it out 

Why is it so difficult to get registered for more than 19.5 credits?  If you go through the process a few times, you start to wonder why the powers that be haven’t come up with an easier way to handle this “unique” situation.  First you fill out a form listing all of the classes for which you’re currently registered and the classes you have yet to register with all that great information like your name and such.  You then take it to the advisor for your department who signs off and tells you to take it to academic services for them to review.  Now here’s the thing that gets me: after all that running around with a piece of paper, Academic Services puts an ELECTRONIC authorization through for you to register for excess credits.  Isn’t that a little weird?

It’s actually easier to register for a class after the add date than it is to do so before that deadline.  I needed to register for two additional two credit classes but unfortunately myUMBC was acting kind of funky Friday afternoon (probably with all the other people logged on trying to add classes) and I wasn’t able to do so.  With two short emails and a couple hours to let things settle, the issue was resolved as opposed to the three days of running around to get the original excess credits situation sorted out.  That’s completely backwards, right?

I’m not digging it…

As a performer and director, I’m an artist.  I practice theories and techniques that are already in place and throw in a few of my own on stage and at the podium but as an artist it’s not often that I’m challenged to theorize.  As a result, lecture and sit-at-a-desk classes are really really boring for me because it’s just not my thing but today I think I found a new appreciation for courses like that and people who process that way.

I’m taking this sociology class (Sociology 101 to be exact) that has the potential to be excruciatingly boring or ridiculously exciting.  Today was one of those ridiculously exciting days because we did what the professor asks us to do all the time: voice your thoughts/opinions.  It started out pretty dry, but everyone was really interested in the topic of discussion (equality in society) so we all–this 70 person lecture course–talked and voiced our opinions and it was great!

It makes me wonder if every class could be that interesting and if you could learn that much by simply just letting go of your inhibitions, raising your hand, and saying what you think.  Even in a course that requires some technical know how and you really don’t “know how” it’s amazing how making one comment, posing one question, offering a single suggestion, or presenting a thought can motivate others to participate and change the entire climate of a course that is generally perceived as boring and useless.

So I’ve been thinking lately about teaching college.  University jobs in music seem so difficult to maintain as a vocalist.  Everything at the university level is about research and doing research as a singer means nothing other than singing, right?  The problem is that doing legit singing–”research” caliber performances–means doing 6-week runs at opera houses and such.  How are you supposed to teach if you’re gone or 6 weeks at a time?

I looked at the other end of it: teaching at a 2-year college.  Apparently at community colleges, it’s all about your teaching and not so much about your research.  It’s still important but not nearly as important as it is at a 4-year institution, but you sacrifice some of that perceived professorial prestige and of course take a little pay cut by not teaching at university.

What to do? What to do? What to do?