The Most Difficult Semester

I am not the type of person to speak in absolutes, especially since the work that I do is the kind of work that always reminds folk that context is a thing. However, the conversations that I have been having with instructors, students, graduate students, and other people tangentially connected to higher education, including parents, suggest that this semester has been the most difficult semester for so many. There are many reasons for this and I am going to use this last blog post of 2023 to think through a bit of these reasons and open it up to your thoughts and ideas. I will put them in list form for now, cause folk like lists, and I may add to this as the week goes on if other things occur to me.

1. Year Three of Being Highly Reactive Instead of Proactive

So we are now year three of higher education being ridiculously reactive to things instead of being reflective and proactive to needs. I will talk about GenAI next because that is whole other category, but in general this semester has been a continuation of trying to patch holes in leaky barrels with Dollar Store masking tape, instead of taking a more holistic view of needs. This is happening in many areas, staffing (not enough people to support more students and instructors), tools and technologies (just using the tech that everyone else is using because it must be good right, instead of actually vetting it properly), social supports (programing that other spaces are doing that are under attended because it is not demographic specific). I could go on, but you get the idea. Since the pandemic started (and news flash it is not over), what has been happening on a massive scale is folk just doing the same kind of programs, sharing the same sorts of resources, and echoing the same kinds of press releases, because folk figure that if it works in one place it should work in another place. And of course that is not true, because context matters. So instead of folk getting the resources and supports they need, they end up getting resources and supports that an R1 needed instead of institution specific needs. It is hard to keep up this pace and keep asking for things for students and instructors and staff that you never receive. 

This also plays itself out in terms of what events, days, and commemorations happen at your institution. Ever feel like something important that should have been mentioned by your school hasn't or was put together last minute? That's because HigherEd reactive wheel is turning quickly and no one is thinking about how a lack of a statement, event, or acknowledgement in turn means that learners, instructors, staff, librarians, grad students who identify with that community that is being forgotten or silenced or erased come to feel like they absolutely do not belong where they find themselves. Reactivity has real outcomes in terms of health and general well-being.

2. Generative Artificial Intelligence Chatter

There has been so much talk on GenAI that the focus about the pedagogy, and more importantly inclusive pedagogy, has been lost in the chatter. Similar to the reactive point above, in order to have assessments and pedagogical strategies that work in the context of the course, seminar, lab, that needs time and deep reflection. Of course there is no time for time and deep reflection, so what happens is, this is what you can do quickly top ten, greatest hits type ideas that get shared over and over again, by the same people who keep getting paid ridiculous money to do high profile keynotes at international conferences where they can keep giving the same advice that has no real use in the context of the courses people are supporting. So what happens instead is more chatter and more policing discourse, instead of more small group discussions on assessment design, inclusive implementation, the ethics of GenAI use, and the future of certain disciplines with the support of GenAI. We can't ostrich our way out of this as much as folk in certain disciplines want to.

3. Everything is Ridiculously Expensive

We have a housing crisis everywhere, we have food insecurity everywhere, and particularly for our students, so people are working 2 or 3 jobs and then are also trying to take 5-6 course load and balance the requirements of those courses along with scheduling shifts to pay rent and buy food. This is of course an impossible situation. Something eventually has to give, and often the thing that does is assignments for courses and of course overall attendance. This means group work becomes harder to do, gaps in knowledge and support needs become more apparent, and no matter what instructors do to try to engage and meet learners where they are, it is not enough to overcome the many many hour work weeks they are putting in on top of full-time course enrollment.  And what happens is then they fail the course, and then have to pay more tuition, and work even more, in order to pay for the course they failed because they were working too much to have housing and food. As you can see this is not a sustainable situation. And many folk in precarious positions in higher education are doing this as well. They are working at 3 or 4 institutions to pay rent and buy food, and take care of ageing parents, and children who need things like clothes, and it's all too much. And the support they need becomes just in time hey have you thought about calling the employee help line which is also a subsidiary of a major telecom company.

4. People Increasing Ableist Eugenic Racist Discourse and Actions

The world is hurting right now, and we cannot pretend that learners, instructors, staff are not from the groups that they identify with just because they are in some ways part of a higher education institution. The ableist, eugenic tendency to not even have a masking policy to events says something to immuno-compromised folk that work and study in those spaces every day. As mentioned in point one above, ignoring events, not identifying that folk are hurting because of whatever violence and hate is happening in the world and expecting people to just carry on with what they are supposed to do, write an essay, send an email, do a presentation, facilitate a meeting, is harmful. We bring our whole selves to spaces, or spaces actively tell us where we belong or are unwelcome, so how are we supposed to ethically continue being and pretend that it is okay to be working in spaces where that is the case. 

These are only 4 things but there are so many more things. What if someone moved? What if someone had a divorce? What if someone you cared about died? What if Long COVID means that you couldn't work as much as you did last year? Now add that to all the other things mentioned above. Of course this was the most difficult semester, and part of it is because instead of stopping to see where we could embed some grace, care, and support, the systems kept systemming and people were expected to keep on going. 

Maybe 2024 is the year that for all the discussions of pedagogies of care and trauma-aware pedagogies, that the actual practice of that is put into place in a more holistic way. Not just one class or lab or seminar here or there. Larger scale, whole departments, faculties, thinking about how to put real practices in to help support folk, more inclusive practices that identify and put an end to precarity loops, more discussions of how mutual aid can work in some places. 

I write this as I am about to go get another booster tomorrow and I know that if I am sick no one is here to help me. I am writing this a few days early because I don't know if I will have energy to write it this weekend, and the feelings feel real to me now and have for a few weeks. I write this knowing that I had to be strategic about when to get it so that I could still be able to do all the things I need to do next week to end the term within the due dates, final grades for the students, meetings with different people. The system is not made for folk taking a day to do the things they need to do to care for themselves. The system does not readily identify the people who would be happy to support if you need support. The system is set up to reward those with the "ins", those with the cliques, those who "know a guy." This was the most difficult semester for so many because we have not learned anything in three years about how to be in community and find community and support care for each other. It was the most difficult semester because care does not trade on the TSX. The students know this, the precariously employed instructors know this, the ones who don't have easily identified systems of support know this. So until we learn to slow down, to care, and fight against the systems that will always have folk jumping to make poorly thought out decisions to empty an inbox, or a queue of outstanding asks, it will always continue to be the most difficult semester.