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(Tenured Radical)

Thursday, April 29, 2004

29 April 04


TO: Alliance for A's Members

FROM: Janice Sidley [for background, see various posts below]

SUBJECT: COMFORT

If our organization had an enemies list (which we never will because it is so not nice), the name Stuart Rojstaczer would be right up there. This guy, a professor at Duke, has done all he can to attack grade inflation - and the culture of student comfort of which it is a part. Here's a typical quotation from him: "[College life is] pleasant for the type of students we attract, but is making students comfortable what education is about?"

I guess Professor Rojstaczer considers that a rhetorical question, but for us the answer is Yes. Yes, the American student tends to be majorly stressed out; and yes the American university should be a beacon of calm and comfort to him or her.

Knowing what your grades are going to be every semester is only a small part of that comfort-environment, however. As part of our outreach to university departments around the country, some of us have recently touched base with Peace Studies programs and asked them for suggestions as to how we can deepen the sense of student serenity at American institutions of higher education. We've already elicited a number of intriguing, and, I think, useful ideas.

Since the most stressed locale on the American campus is the classroom, most of our respondents concentrated on ways to make these environments more relaxed and welcoming. Here, in no particular order, are some of the things that arguably ought to be in every American college or university classroom:

1. Blood pressure stations of the sort you now see in larger supermarkets. At any time, students could check to see whether a turn in classroom discussion has disturbed them.

2. Barcaloungers.

3. Recessed, adjustable lighting.

4. Voice coaching for professors, with an emphasis on sustaining a low warm rich tone.

5. Downplaying "conflictual" words and unpleasant dialectic in lectures.

6. Cell phone lounge.

7. Smokers' lounge.

8. Restroom [Unisex, equipped with aromatherapy candles - should be located immediately adjacent to classroom.]

9. Large photos of yoga positions displayed above blackboard.

10. Food, drink, always available (goes without saying).

11. Classroom television always on - either to

a.] soothing ocean waves breaking on beach; or
b.] home movies of selected students as toddlers.

12. Plenty of Thank you/Suggestions for improved service cards always at the door to the classroom.

13. "Time out" (voluntary) cubicle adjacent to classroom: dark, semi-enclosed place just to be alone with your thoughts, collect yourself.

14. Translucent beige windowshades.

15. Professor-administered head massages for students who have just made particularly difficult points.

16. Soft white noise piped in.

17. Hot aromatic towels for face and hands distributed by professor after class (as in airplanes at the end of long flights).

18. Also at the end of class, professors would raise both hands high anglican style and say GO IN PEACE.

I have to admit that my favorite is number eighteen! As always, we welcome your thoughts...

Love,
Janice