Nighty Night Light

My formerly sleeping-through-the-night toddler has, well, gotten out of that habit a bit.

Gone are the nights that she goes to sleep before 8 pm and I don't hear a peep until the 5 am hour.

"Those were the days ... "

There were several hints that she was becoming afraid of the dark.  One was the screaming.  Others were: the complete hysterics at being left alone in a dark room if she wasn't back asleep, the need to be touching mommy constantly in a dark room if brought to mommy's bed in the middle of the night, and the complete inability to soothe herself back to sleep in a dark room.

Friday night I left a light on in her room, and she woke up once, soothed herself back to sleep, and slept until 5:30.  Hurrah! 

So I am now in the market for a night-light.  Given the crib light that I left on for her will probably burn out very soon, we will need a professional night light to continue the job.

Now, in case you missed it, I teach physiology for a living.  I love my job - but I hate knowing stuff sometimes.

A structure in your brain (the pineal gland) secretes a hormone called melatonin.  This hormone, among other things, helps to regulate your circadian rhythm, and helps with sleep-wake cycles.  The protein synthesis process is light-sensitive: when light comes in through the optic nerve, the production of melatonin is suppressed.  When light is not coming in through the optic nerve, melatonin can be made.  It makes you sleepy, which is why you want to sleep at night.

There is lots of cool stuff you can do with this information.  You can help shift workers not be sleepy at night, and instead be sleepy during the day.  You can help shift people's circadian rhythms so they recover from jet lag faster.  All by manipulating the timing of light in the eyes and the amount of melatonin produced.

This is also one reason they tell you not to turn on bright lights when you get up in the middle of the night, and why they think exposure to bright computer screens in late evening disrupts people's sleep cycles - see here for some evidence of that.

So I'm concerned about a night light.  I had a very hard time getting her sleep-wake cycles regulated when she was a newborn.  She liked to sleep during the day and nurse all night long.  So I'm concerned that exposure to light at night will suppress the melatonin that her brain needs to (a) know that it's nighttime and (b) sleep.

I found several really cool night lights.  One is a clock and a night light, with a color feature so you can teach your child not to get out of bed until it turns green (OMG I might actually be able to sleep until 6 am on a Sunday someday?) 

So to satisfy the inner scientist, I started doing more reading.  This is an interesting article looking at different wavelengths and irradiances of light on melatonin production.  Now, while I understand the physiology, I don't understand the physics.  I believe that irradiance is a measure of brightness, but I could be wrong on that.  At any rate, I think what the results show is that brighter light suppresses melatonin more than lower intensity light, and shorter wavelength light had more effect than longer-wavelength light, which is also what the first abstract showed.

(This psycho just has too much time on his hands - but it's an interesting read if you're interested in night light processing by retinal cells.)

So I reassured myself that a night light might be okay as long as it isn't a blue light, as long as it is green or longer wavelength.  This night light clock glows yellow, so I think that's far enough away from the blue light length on the spectrum so it won't disrupt her sleep too much.

As long as it helps her not be afraid and to soothe herself back to sleep, I'm in.

Not A Real Post

One requirement for my online class (in lieu of tests) is participation in the "discussion board".  While I"ve taught online classes quite a few times, and am currently teaching a hybrid course and two web-enhanced courses, I've never actually TAKEN an online course.  This is my first one.

So I started out a little bit ... anxious.  Excited, but anxious.  I'm an intellectual, I love books and discussion, I've been in higher education my entire adult life as a student, researcher, and faculty member.  I've worked in higher education for over almost 10 years.  This should be fun, intellectually stimulating, and while it may be challenging, it shouldn't be impossible for me to do.

Then came the 17-page syllabus, and rubric after rubric that somehow manage to not exactly say what they're really trying to measure. 

I calmed myself down, and wrote my discussion board post.  The syllabus recommended that you post "early in the week" and return often to comment on others' posts, so I posted mine on Monday.  I thought it was a bit nerdish, but I thought others would follow within the day.  Nope, noone posted until Wednesday or Thursday, so I looked like a big fat giant nasty nerd for three days.

Then I found out someone from my past, someone that I worked with at a former institution, but who was also involved in a personal event in my life, is also in the class.  This person and I have not always had positive interactions due to the personal event, but when we last parted ways it was amicable and pleasant.  On the surface.

She's in this class (that's what this tweet was about).

So now, whatever anxiety I was having, whatever worry I had about my capacity to do the work and contribute meaningfully to the class, is now wrapped up in this blast-from-the-past.

This week my task is:

Using Birnbaum, Mintzberg and your own experiences, please respond to some of these topics: What are the distinctions of academic institutions that make them so unique in their organizational aspects? What are the influences (and potentially competing values) of multiple constituencies? What are the unique issues of governance? How have you experienced any of these in your work/studies within universities and colleges?

(That's what this tweet was about.)

The reading was really interesting, and I wrote tons of notes in the margin.  But to meaningfully contribute my experiences within colleges, I will have to speak of events that occurred at my previous institution.  Where another class member currently works.  Which might make for a great discussion.

Unless there's still tension from the personal thing.  In which case she'll be like a spider waiting to sink venomous fangs into me.  On a discussion board.  For a class that I really want to do well in.

I got home last night and had a phenomenal headache.  I checked my blood pressure, which was higher than the number it was when they put me in the hospital when I was pregnant.  I spent the evening doing deep breathing and then I went to bed early.  Today the headache is gone, but I still have to do this stupid discussion board post that is probably the cause of the stress.

It's Thursday, and noone has posted yet.  I'm not going to post first this week, so I obviously still have some time to work on it. 

(All the while wondering what she'll think when she reads it.)

So this is what you get instead of a real post.

Accepted

In 1991 I applied for colleges.  I still remember sitting on the patio in the sun the summer before my senior year, painstakingly filling out applications.

In 1995 I applied for graduate school.  I had worked in the Department of Pathology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine doing a paid internship the summer before my senior year of college.  I had been invited to meet with the Head of the Graduate Program, who handed me an application and strongly encouraged me to apply.  Even so, driving to Cincinnati for the interview was the most nerve-wracking trip of my life.

In 2001 I defended my Ph.D. dissertation.  I figured I was done with my education.

I have been a faculty member in a State institution for a number of years.  One "perk" is that I can take classes from any state institution for free - I get 6 credit hours of tuition remission per semester.  At my previous institution, noone seemed to take advantage of the opportunity, so I never thought much about it.  Then I moved to a new college, where folks take great advantage.

There are classes I am interested in taking at the local University.  To take them, you need to apply to the graduate program.  I didn't think much of it, until ....

I have been accepted into the MA in Higher Education program at the University of Louisville.

I'm "working on a Master's Degree".  With a one year old.

What the hell am I doing?

Tenure, or Not To Tenure

Tenure is a big deal in academia.

If you've ever experienced the decisions related to tenure, then you realize what an understatement that was.

Tenure is job security.  In the days when faculty and students would go to the university and live there and train there and remain there most or all of their lives, tenure was the guarantee that the university would house you and feed you and let you read in the library until you were dead.  With one university in a given geographical area, and faculty not changing jobs or geographical areas like we do today, tenure was essential for feeding/clothing/housing yourself for the rest of your life.

That was a long time ago.

My personal opinion is that tenure is a throwback to an archaic system of higher education when universities did much more to support the livelihood of their faculty and therefore had much more power over lives.  It has, in more recent history, allowed faculty to feel free to teach topics that might be controversial, or to research topics that conflict with the status quo, and not feel threatened that they may lose their job in their pursuit of the truth.

That all sounds well and good.  These days, I haven't seen any faculty member feel that their job is threatened because they teach about controversial topics (evolution, anyone?).  In fact, I have only seen "tenure" allow incredibly poor, lazy, and sometimes incompetent faculty hang around.

To "get" tenure in most colleges and universities, you work your rear end off incredibly hard for some number of years - usually around six or seven.  At the end of that, a committee of faculty members gets to decide your fate based on a notebook you put together.  To make matters worse,  most colleges and universities (mine included!) have an up-or-out policy.  If those colleagues decide you are not worth of tenure, you will receive a terminal contract - basically you have a year to find another job because you're being fired.

I was hired for my first full-time faculty position in 2003.  The college where I was hired did not hire on tenure-track positions, only on term contracts.  At the time, I thought I would only be there a couple of years to get some experience and then move on to a "real" university for a tenure-track position.  Fortunately, I thrived in the environment and was very successful.  I loved what I was doing, and felt like I was really where I needed to be.  Because I loved what I was doing, I did a great job.  I took on new and varied projects in addition to my teaching.  The college was very small and there was great opportunity to work on committees and teams.  I basically did all the things one does when "going for" tenure.  I had good student evaluations, had excellent feedback on academic advising, chaired committees and worked on projects, impressed my bosses, got things accomplished, and felt great about myself in the process.  I moved up into academic administration and really felt like I was making a difference.

If I was going for tenure, I believe I would have gotten it.  However, that wasn't an option for me at that college.  Even if it was, I didn't care.  I personally don't really believe in tenure.  As I said, I think it just keeps bad faculty in place for way too long.

I changed colleges.  It was the best thing to do for my daugher and I at the time.  The position was also a term contract position - in fact, it was exactly the same as my previous position, only at a different college.  Over the past year I have adjusted to going back to work after the life-changing event of having a daughter.  I am slowly assimilating my "two lives" - one as professor and one as mommie.  I'm starting to get this balance thing as best I can right now.

Then I receive a letter that my position has been identified as tenure-eligible, and I have the one-time opportunity to convert to tenure-track and apply for tenure.

OMG.  So what do I do?

To turn down an opportunity to "go for" tenure is a ridiculous decision to established academics.  Why would I turn down the opportunity to basically never be fired?

However, it will require time and effort that I would rather put toward teaching my students (sometimes) and raising my daughter.

I have gone back and forth in making the decision over the past few days.  I have done the pros and cons list (there is always a "but" that supports the other side!)  I have talked to my family who have always been my biggest supporters.  Here was the deciding factor: my ultimate career goal is to get back into academic leadership and administration.  To lead faculty - or any group - you need credibility.  You need to represent the group, and be able to speak to the experiences of the group you lead.  Having tenure may not help me in leading a group of tenured faculty.  But I can guarantee you that not having tenure may have a huge impact when leading a group of tenured faculty.

It also doesn't hurt that it's guaranteed job security in a job that I really like in the area where I have decided to build my life with my daughter.

So I turned in a piece of paper today that says I have three years to demonstrate that I meet the qualifications of tenure, or I lose my job.

OMG I hope I made the right decision!

(I'll know in three years.)

This looks interesting

A few weeks ago, our Natural Sciences and Mathematics Division had a Seminar Day.

When I was in grad school, we had to go to seminars at least once a week. Some person doing research would come to our department and talk about their research and we would listen politely. I would wrack my brain for an intelligent question, because usually the grad students would have an hour to spend with the person, and it was really freaking boring if noone had anything to ask. You also got a mean look from one of the profs if you had nothing interesting to say.

During one such seminar, I realized that I liked being in an educational environment where people talked about the things they found interesting and other people asked questions about the parts they found interesting. I decided that I would like to stay in such an interesting educational environment. But not do research.

Eventually I found teaching. And I'm actually quite good at it. Nominated for awards, yo. That's pretty cool.

But being in the community college environment doesn't lend itself to seminars, or listening to people talk about their research. You have to go to conferences for that now. And that involves requesting travel. And there is nothing worse than having to justify travel to try to get reimbursed from the state of Where I Teach. Ugh. Torture. Usually I just pay for most of it myself.

So I actually really enjoyed the seminar day we had a few weeks ago. It was interesting hearing a geologist talk about things he is interested in. And to think about the environmental impacts of what he was discussing from a biologists perspective. It was just interesting. And I thought "I need to do this more often."

There is a large 4-year university nearby. I'm sure I can find people there wanting to talk about their research. But I thought I'd start paying attention in case other divisions started advertising seminars close to home.

You see, now that I understand things better ("things" being such a specific term, you know) I can even see interdisciplinary connections to alot of the ideas that I hear people discussing. So maybe even non-science seminars would be interesting.

In my email this morning, the Social Scientists are having a seminar, and a woman named Drucilla Barker is giving a talk entitled Caregivers and Other Dangerous Strangers: Rethinking the Paradox of Caring Labor.

(A principle of education is that you can understand an argument at a higher level than you can make an argument. So you can read something and understand it and then not be able to discuss it in any intelligible way. I'm about the prove that.)

So, I've read some things that some feminists write about economic equality. About how the jobs that women get don't pay the same as what the jobs for men pay. And how a single mother is more economically disadvantaged than a single father simply because she is female. I've both read about and experienced how short-changed educators are in our society in the paycheck department, and I'm actually one of the lucky ones because I'm on the higher education side of that issue. If I were a high school teacher I'd be in real trouble. An early childhood educator?

So I'm not sure what the paradox of caring labor is. I'm not even sure that what I think "caring labor" is is in fact what it really means. But her background is intriguing. She is tenured in anthropology, writes about feminist economics, and is head of a women's studies program.

Bet its going to make me think. I'll let you know how it is.