Blog Archive » 2006 » August

The Chronicle of Higher Education just posted an online news item about "Project Strike Back," a program in which the U.S. Department of Education shared with the F.B.I. information about students who applied for federal financial aid. The article goes on to say that this data sharing was in response to an F.B.I. request after September 11 to find out if terrorists were stealing identities through the financial aid system.

Now, the news item all by itself might not have raised any concerns. It seemed as if the F.B.I. had some information that needed checking, and only about 1000 records out of many millions were involved. Surely, for the sake of national security, we all must understand that sometimes we need such investigations.

But there's a much bigger issue at stake. For some time now, proposals have floated around to create one gigantic national database of all students in all colleges and universities — this is called the "unit record system" — so that all of the data can be more easily tracked over time. Proponents, such as the recently-completed Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education, believe that this will make information more "transparent" to student consumers of higher education. A distinguished college president wrote favorably about this yesterday in the Washington Post, pretty much dismissing anyone who sees a danger in creating a standardized national database of all college students.

I confess to being one of the private university presidents who just doesn't get it about the link between "transparency" and one more gigantic federal database of personal information. I know how hard it is sometimes to keep track of our own students here at Trinity — 1700 strong — imagine a data base that would quickly grow to millions of student records. Imagine a regulatory world in which student performance data was then "standardized" such that student academic records would be all the same, whether from Trinity or SUNY or Dartmouth or Long Island University or Bennett or Miami-Dade. The mission of the college, the method of the faculty, the unique qualities of the students would not matter — all learning outcomes would be homogenized into a hierarchical set of measurements, just as a certain magazine uses what are largely financial and popularity benchmarks to rank colleges (and sell magazines) today. The cost of doing all of this will also surely drive tuition prices even higher as institutions will be forced to hire more staff and convert software (again!) to comply.

Proponents say that this giant database will lead to better information about what students are learning and how well universities are performing, and this will help consumers of higher education. My answer is that we already have numerous processes to do just that, from our own internal assessments to accreditation to competitive grants programs and the judgments of graduate schools and employers who take our students after graduation. Prospective students and their families are inundated with information about colleges, and they are largely smart and probing when it comes to finding out more about the schools in which they are really interested.

We don't need yet one more level of federal bureaucracy that will raise even more dangers to personal privacy. "Project Strike Back," however well-intended, is a sobering reminder of the reasons why a national student record system is a real strike-out for students and their institutions of higher education.

See Spellings Commission

"My mother has taught me how to deal with life and its obstacles. She personifies…Maya Angelou's 'Phenomenal Woman.' We have overcome so many obstacles. She is my motivation and source of my thirst for success." (From an application essay written by a new student entering Trinity College of Arts and Sciences in Fall 2006)

Every year, I read the application essays of the new students entering the College of Arts and Sciences, and every year I am deeply impressed with the tremendous ambition, courage, pride and sense of challenge our students bring to their college days. Particularly noteworthy is the role that strong, courageous women have played in the lives of the young women who are now Trinity Women. Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, nieces, guardians, friends — our new students write about their inspiration, their struggles, their courage, their triumphs over hardship.

"Being a single grandparent, my grandmother made sure I had a good life — making sure I had friends and was always active. Living in a brownstone over seventy years, my grandmother has been through it all — remembering the days of Martin Luther King and living through the Harlem Renaissance, she has become a stronger African American woman today. She walks with pride; she is my inspiration." (From a new student essay)

During the last two weeks, Trinity has welcomed hundreds of new students to campus in the School of Education, School of Professional Studies, and College of Arts and Sciences. The new student group in CAS is our largest since the late 1960's — we're still counting, but the number is certainly more than 200 as of this writing.

The young women enrolling in Trinity College (our historic name for our historic women's college) bring many talents and amazing personal stories to our campus. During the next week I will introduce them to you through sharing some of their essay quotations and achievements thus far in their young lives. They are a credit to their families — and to the phenomenal women who taught them, raised them and inspired them all along the way.

"My mother worked hard to bring my siblings from Africa so they would be able to have a better education in the U.S. My mother…taught me the importance of education, and that if I focus I can accomplish my dreams…" (From a new student application essay)

From all of us in the Trinity community, a big THANK YOU to all of those wonderful women who have meant so much to our students.

Keep watching this blog for more on Trinity's newest generation of students who will also earn the right to wear the mantle "phenomenal women" through their achievements in the months and years to come.

See Maya Angelou

Back in the day, when "diversity education" was still a relatively new concept, some teachers would do an exercise with their classes that involved separating the brown-eyed and blue-eyed children to simulate the idea of segregation in society. Often, things went bad — one group invariably took the game too far. This artificial separation almost always led to tears and embarassment among children who did not like being taunted by children of the opposite eye color. While some observers might say, well, that was the whole point, for the most part the exercise was cruel and only reinforced childrens' aversion to talking about difference.

Fortunately, pedagogy has evolved and teachers have more effective tools today to teach students about living with people of different races and personal characteristics while constructing a peaceful, productive society.

Other venues: summer camps were (perhaps some still are) breeding grounds for games constructed around ethnic stereotypes — usually with the names of Indian tribes, e.g., Iroquois versus Sioux in capture-the-flag. And of course, in a town that still approves of cheering for the Redskins, we know that professional and intercollegiate sports have long been fond of team names rooted in racial and ethnic stereotypes, in spite of efforts by the NCAA and various advocacy organizations to change this practice.

So, why should anyone be surprised that the producers of the television show "Survivor" have now come up with the most heinous idea yet for this truly ridiculous "entertainment" vehicle: in the new season they will separate the contestants by race. Yes, a few seasons back they did the gender contest thing, and that was bad enough. But in a nation where racial conflict and even hatred still courses beneath the surface of so many parts of the community, the exploitation of racial conflict for the commercial gain of television shows and their advertisers seems particularly disordered.

"Reality" television being the wasteland that it is, I suppose one response is to acknowledge the free market impulse of the Hollywood moguls who will stop at nothing so long as they find a group of willing adults to play the game and others who will watch the show (and sponsors who will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to advertise). Those of us who find it distasteful can simply click to some other channel (or "Off" which is my favorite button!)

But seriously, folks: isn't it time for some serious conversation about what this latest "Survivor" gambit suggests about the state of the culture, or at least the state of television? I welcome your comments on this topic. As for me, I think the solution is clear: "Survivor" must die, and if we stop watching this idiotic assault on the human intellect, it will.

See Survivor, television,

August 20, 1897: Six Sisters of Notre Dame sign the Certificate of Incorporation that establishes Trinity College:

CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION

Know All Men By These Presents, That we, the undersigned, members of the congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, citizens of the United States, to wit:

Ella Taylor, Margaret Callahan, Mary O'Shea, Margaret Dempsey, Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, and Mary McHugh, known in the above-named Religious Order under and by the names, respectively, of Sister Euphrasia, Sister Teresa of the Sacred Heart, Sister Saint Agnes, Sister Gertrude of the Blessed Sacrament, Sister Cornelia and Sister Ignatius Marie, have associated, and do hereby associate ourselves together the purpose of establishing an institution of learning in the District of Columbia for the higher education of young women; and in order to become a body corporate under the General Incorporation Act of Congress enacted for said District of Columbia we execute these presents, and we do hereby certify as follows:

Section I

The name by which the said institution of learning or body corporate shall be known in law is "Trinity College."

Every time I read the opening sentence that records the secular as well as religious names of these women, I marvel at their courage and commitment to what was then only a bold idea. As part of their religious humility, an SND at that time normally did not identify herself in public except as "A Sister of Notre Dame." These women felt so strongly about women's right to have a higher education that they boldly signed their names, providing for just one critical historic moment a brief but revealing glimpse into the identities and personalities of Trinity's Founders.

Trinity's founding was not easy. The Sisters of Notre Dame believed that women had a right to as much education as they could achieve, and their decision to establish Trinity was in direct response to the fact that women at that time were denied admission to Catholic University, which even then-Cardinal James Gibbons acknowledged as "an embarassment" in a letter to Trinity's Founder Sr. Julia McGroarty. Cardinal Gibbons and the priest leaders of Catholic University approved of the SND plans for Trinity. But as we learn in the late Sr. Columba Mullaly's history of Trinity (available in the Library) and other sources, some right-wing factions in the Church felt that the whole idea of higher education for women was a scandal, perhaps even a heresy, and so they appealed to Rome to block Trinity's founding.

In one of my favorite passages in Sr. Columba's history, we read of the trip to Atlantic City that Sr. Mary Euphrasia and another sister took in August, 1897, to persuade the Papal Nuncio that Trinity should be established. Imagine taking a "day trip" to Atlantic City even today! But those sisters went round trip on a 19th century train — no air conditioning — wearing full habits! Imagine going to the "summer retreat" of the Pope's ambassador (the modern idea of the Papal Nuncio) to argue personally, eyeball-to-eyeball, for a concept that was very strange to the Italian bishops who were the Pope's representatives in those days! But these brave women were so motivated by the idea of women's education that they got on the train and went straight to the Nuncio's breezy house at the beach to argue the case for Trinity.

They won. A month after this visit, the Pope sent a message to Cardinal Gibbons that indicated that the Vatican would not interfere. If not a ringing endorsement, the message conveyed at least tacit approval. It took three more years to construct the first building, the South Hall of Main Hall, and to admit the first students. Classes began on November 6, 1900.

We are here today at Trinity because those SNDs who signed that document were bold, persistent and tenacious. I think they would be so proud of Trinity today in all of the marvelous ways we still live the mission they launched, now a university with many programs, welcoming men as well as women, welcoming people of all faiths and backgrounds, but still promoting the education and advancement of women as a matter of social justice. Those Founders would also remind us not to be comfortable, not to relent in pursing Trinity's mission, which also continues as the 200 year-old mission of the Sisters of Notre Dame, to work for justice, to serve those who do not share equally in the riches of the world.

Today and this week, as we open another academic year, let's give thanks for the courage of our Founders, and let's toast Trinity on the occasion of her 109th birthday!

See women's colleges, women's education

Hooray for Indra K. Nooyi who will become Pepsico, Inc.'s new chief executive officer. When she moves into the corner office in October, she will be only the 11th woman CEO among the Fortune 500 companies. Progress? 2% female representation in the most powerful corporate jobs in America is, in the kindest light, a modest position at best. As reported in my August 13 blog, women continue to face many hurdles to true equality in the workplace. But let's celebrate Ms. Nooyi's advancement — whatever cola you drink, Pepsico has surely added some fizz to the story of women's leadership in corporate America.

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