Responsibility in an Adversarial Environment

Entry by jeanne

This is my first journal essay, written out of passion, and straight out of my head. I will add references, but I won't take time to link them at this point. Mostly, I am writing this to satisfy my need to talk about what it is not appropriate to talk about, that is, my sense of exclusion from the academy, whose responsibility that is, and to what extent it is structurally violent, and to what extent it is actually violent. This is part of the thinking I need to do to teach my new course in Transforming Discourse.

The Story

What prompted me to think on this situation was the sluggishness of the only computer to which I have meaningful access, the one on which I now write. There is one in my office at school, but there are rules and channels and red tape that are so formidable to me, I have never successfully gotten up my school e-mail, or an FTP program, or an html editor. Each piece of what I need is handled by someone else, so that there is a maze of procedures before which I gave up. That not only means I can't work at school, or pick up or send e-mail, but I can't teach my students how to maintain this site.

I can't afford to set up a scanner (more time and finding a tech than money), so I used the scanner in the student computer lab. Some students, putting up dozens of family pictures were kind of snippy about letting me scan in an image, but overall, we managed pretty well. But when last I went to scan in a student's drawing for the other students, there was no more scanner. I asked where I could find one to which I could have access. There was none.

I wrote two grants to get a lap top so that I could allow my students to check the Dear Habermas site in class. We didn't need to actually read files in class, just have the computer there, so the students could ask questions about the site structure, and I could help them find their way around the site. There are no computers in our classrooms. I went to meetings on the ASI tech grants. My students went to meetings on the ASI tech grants, which now control all the tech money for our school. They awarded me a teaching computer. But when I tried to order it, the President of ASI refused to let me. They had stopped all grant money. Then they released the money. But it was a different President from the previous year, and she wouldn't let me have the grant money unless I could produce a letter saying I had won this award. They, of course, had no records of tech awards.

I appealed to Guy Witherspoon, the professional in the ASI office. He claimed no authority. Since I had meanwhile been constructing the site on the only computer I had that would do so, and teaching with the site, my library was a mess, and I couldn't find the letter. I was recovering from a broken neck, and filing is very painful. So I don't do it. So it was "my fault." I had no computer to teach with throughout the 2000-2001 school year. But it was "my fault."

I asked my Chair about the software I needed. Somehow there was never enough time to go into the question of how we would get the software. The department spent money on office furniture and goodness knows what, but no one ever mentioned my request for software, and I didn't put the request in writing. My fault. I should have demanded what I needed. But Alan didn't have even two minutes to look at the site, and listen to what I needed and why. Ours is a very difficult department to run, and there was a lot of important stuff to do.

The Help desk tried sincerely to set up my e-mail. But they needed me there in my office, and I was teaching 200 students and a teaching overload. I didn't have the energy left to pursue these channels which kept changing. Amir did come one day. I was so grateful to see him. But he said my Windows 2000 was corrupted and needed to be reloaded. But he couldn't do it that day because Augustin had the password and/or he didn't have the software with him. And he couldn't hook up my printer because that was a different request for help and I had to start over. And he couldn't hook me up to the printer in the Sociology office because that was a different request for help, too. There were three students waiting to talk to me, and they really did need my attention to discuss theory. I didn't have a working printer all year.

So I gave up. I was tired, and recovery from a C2 fracture in your sixties is not easy. There were students, and there was excitement with our learning. So I consoled myself by enjoying the students. Merton's old American myths: All the goodies are available to everyone. You can get the goodies by working hard. The only thing you can do wrong is to stop working hard. Gee, I'm glad Merton said those were myths in 1935. Sorry, kids. I gave up.

This led to a certain bitterness on my part. There are clerical and administrative workers on this campus who have far greater access to technical equipment than I do. And I teach technology! But I gave up.

Analysis: Transforming Discourse on Technology

Now as I pondered the issue of responsibility and structural violence, I began to wonder who's fault it really was. Not in the sense of blaming, but as an attempt to understand how we might alter this intense adversarialism to a cooperative stance.

In giving up, I had formed expectations of the system that were pretty realistic. Those expectations viewed the campus system as adversarial. That is, we were asked to compete for resources, with each other. I was horrified that the only printer in the Sociology office was an ineffective clunker. But the office did get a Hewitt Packard printer, and I got nothing. Hmm, relative deprivation. I asked to have my machine hooked up to the printer. But my overload meant that I couldn't satisfy the procedural demands of the various people who could have done that. To this day, I'm not even sure which people should have been able to do it.

The more responses I received from the system that failed to meet what I considered legitimate teaching needs, the more I saw the system as adversarial. This puts the older worker at a tremendous disadvantage with the newer worker who has not met with so many disappointments in support. So as an older worker, I could take responsibility for reassessing the situation, and not allowing my expectations to discourage me. Hard, but possible.

What about a non-hostile environment, where a severely injured worker might need support? Or where a teacher who is not a tech might need some tech help to express a validity claim to tech equipment?

What about not writing teachers off in favor of staff and administrators who do "real work"? Maybe we need to redefine "real work".

The Story Continues:

Then one day in the Spring, as I rushed into an administrative office, trying to get in my retirement papers, I ran into Dave Karber in his office. I told him how disappointed I was that no one on my campus followed Dear Habermas, or was interested in it. That was a little unusual for a teaching site with a thousand hits a week. And I told him of my dismay over not having access to a laptop that we could use for reference in the classroom. I reminded him that he had been on the ASI committee that had awarded me the lap top, the one that had been refused. And so I had spent another year with no computer access in my classes.

Dave said I should apply for another ASI grant. It was different now. There were different people. There was money. And I should ask them to make good on the laptop. I went immediately to Guy's office and asked about the tech grants. I had, of course, missed the deadline because I wasn't planning to apply a second time and have the grant not honored again. But they had pushed the deadline back, and so I was told that I could have a week to get the grant application in. I was leaving shortly for South Africa, but access to a computer in the classroom was so important I was willing to try again.

I downloaded the application form on that weekend as I returned from The Western Social Science Conference where we had six or seven students from CSUDH and Wisconsin presenting panels on the Dear Habermas site and theory. I filled out the application as well as I could, given the unusual circumstances of asking that they make good a grant previously awarded, and I asked that they provide the technology that would let me teach my students to run the site from my office. I was tired. I guess I didn't say it well. I am not a tech, and I could not give them much more than rudimentary indications of the cost. But I thought they might be understanding after what had happened, and since, Dave, who was on the committee, could explain the situation.

I was wrong. I received a curt, formal letter from ASI in May informing me that I was disqualified for not having properly followed application procedures. No recognition of the need to apply, make numerous copies, without any assistance, and then to be refused the award once given. It was "my fault" again. I was so angry I wanted to spit. Maybe I'm related to a camel, hmm?

Analysis Continued: One of the ways to kill a revolutionary is to wear him/her out by refusing to grant ascribed status. If you treat an Other as though he/she does not know anything, then you have ascribed the status of "not knowing" to him/her, and your expectations of that Other will reflect the labeling in which you have engaged. He/she must therefore prove with every task undertaken that he/she does know something, is competent. By insisting on the label, you squander the energy of the revolutionary, who is forced always to be on guard.

Now with respect to the computers: If office work, and the work of others, is valued as "competent," then that work will be more likely to gain technology resources. If I must prove at every task that I am competent and need the technology, then my energy, like that of the revolutionary, is drained.

This has been my dilemma with students. Their work is seen as less valuable within the institution, and is given less status than that of faculty, especially publishing faculty. Teaching is also seen as less valuable than "running the university" or "publishing," and so is given even less status. Persons on a fixed, staff or administrative schedule, have only the same number of hours in a day as students and faculty. But staff and administrators are allowed part of their official work time for pursuing the procedures to get grants for technical equipment, and for learning to use that equipment. Their work day is simply restructured. Teachers and students do not have that luxury. Applying for equipment and learning to use it must be afforded in addition to their traditional work day. This leads to unequal and unfair access.

The Story Continues:

A young staff member at CSUDH has been sent to a Washington program in some capacity relating to Women's Studies, for over a month, expenses paid. Administrators are sent to conferences, expenses paid, presentations or no. Students and teachers do not enjoy such advantage. At some point this demands discussion. We don't want to not give equipment and training to staff and administrators. We want representation and accountability in parcelling out those resources. How do teachers and students get information to those making budget decisions? Without the process becoming a major drain on time and skills?

When I first requested the computer for my office, Carla Gonzalez, since graduated with MSW from UCLA, attended meetings with me. We wrote explanations of our need. We attended workshops on how to fill out the forms. We discussed our filled-out forms at ASI committee meetings. We got the grant. Then next year's student President countermanded the grant, with no particular explanation. All the time and energy that Carla and I put into that effort went uncompensated and unappreciated. How many faculty have received training in Women's Studies fully paid with time off from teaching? How would I have known that such a possibility even existed were it not for an accidental comment? Does anyone ever look at where our money has gone and compare the relative constraints on resources?

The application to restore our ASI technology grant that received such a snippy reply in May 2001, was not properly done. I confess. I no longer knew model names and exact quotes on prices, and which outlets we were presently doing business with, and which precise technology changes required attention for purchasing the needed computer. I am not a tech. But the tech grant process at our school required all that information, which I tried to gather in a couple of hours in the midst of the end-of-semester hubbub. I failed. But that failure was inevitable. I still had to get us through the end-of-semester. And I did not have access to a staff member who could help with that, and I had no authority to demand such access.

My failure resulted in a letter that clearly suggested my lack of competence in even asking for what was needed. No wonder I felt like a camel! There was no indication that anyone had taken the trouble to consider the actual story and its effect on both teacher and students. Instead we were held to the same rules as schools, departments, vice presidents, and anyone else who commanded a staff. Form letters that do not take the humans to whom they are directed into account are structurally violent.

I complained to Guy at the ASI office. He suggested I put this in writing so that he could work with ASI members so this might not happen again. But there was end-of-semester for more than 200 students, and a trip to Africa looming.

Guy, here is my account. The ASI letter hurt. It was offensive to someone who tried so hard to comply with ever-changing rules. It hurt that Dave Karber, who was on the committee, had apparently not intervened to explain the reason for my lateness, since he was the one that suggested I try this insane last-minute effort. You have discouraged me and my students from ever getting the equipment we need through the State Universities Technology Grants. Sure, it was our fault, too. But in your refusal to listen fairly to our validity claim, the ASI becomes complicit in the structural violence. So does Dave Karber. So does the whole school administration. The incident hurt. It still hurts. It needs to be corrected.

Analysis Continues:

It's mid-July now. Notes on Africa must go up. The site must be re-constructed. It was tempting to just forget the hurt of that ASI letter. But that hurt, unexpressed, stands in the way of ending the structural violence and listening in good faith to one another. Not completing this file, and not sending it on to Dave and Guy, is to become complicit myself in the structural violence in which so many are harmed.

We each have a responsibility to increase our awareness of the harm we cause to others, even when inadvertent. And we each have a responsibility to all of us to not be complicit by silence. There are no easy solutions. But there are no solutions if we are all complicit.

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