Volume 14, Number 1 In This Issue Maxwell College The Agora Faculty Notes Many Professors Shun Facebook, But One Gains Collaborations National Attention as a Pioneer By Ron Howell, Journalism In the halls of academia, the talk about author, Professor S. Craig Watkins of the Facebook often betrays an undercurrent of University of Texas at Austin. suspicion, even hostility. “Evans’s experiment with social media And the feelings are not baseless, for made her a celebrity in the library world,” he there are cautionary tales aplenty about continued. the mushrooming social network, including Four years ago — the remote past in allegations it has allowed breaches of this new digital age — MySpace was the personal data in the profiles of its users. major site for those seeking to network Advocates for Internet transparency have online. In the past two years, however, the organized boycotts against Facebook, and have protested its “creepy” efforts to get users to expose information about themselves. But there are faculty members, here and beyond, who see Facebook as a global high- speed train, heading non-stop into the future of communications. Get on board, they say, or get left behind. Brooklyn College Library’s Professor Beth Evans, for example, has been lauded as an “early adopter” of social networking, and she Beth Evans, has written and spoken widely about it. Library Evans is cited throughout a recent book about the online social networking trend that Rupert Murdoch-owned MySpace has been is transforming young lives and businesses overtaken and left out of virtual sight by around the world, The Young and the Digital: the explosive growth of Mark Zuckerberg’s What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Facebook. Games and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means In an interview with the Faculty for Our Future (Beacon Press, 2009). Newsletter, Evans said using MySpace and “In March 2006 her [Evans’s] library Facebook has been part of an effort to became one of the first in the nation to be “proactive,” reaching out to millennial establish a presence in MySpace,” wrote the students who are less familiar than their 1 Facebook earlier counterparts with the traditional Both the Winkilvosses and Saverin sued intricacies and protocols of information Zuckerberg, receiving reported tens of millions searching. of dollars in settlements for Zuckerberg’s “There’s a real concern that we not just alleged wrongful acts, including (in the case wait for people to come to us, but that we of the Winklevosses) theft of their online try to get out there where they are, because networking idea and (in the case of Saverin) they’re not finding out things on their own,” cheating him out of his initial investments. Evans said. What might be the perception among Like any true scholar, Evans came to her Brooklyn College faculty of the young insights by observing the world around her billionaire and his business? Do they see — especially her four children, the oldest Facebook as a potential teaching tool? of whom is an architect. Evans believes that For answers, where better to turn than one of the most positive things about their the college’s Roberta S. Matthews Center Facebook obsession is that it keeps them for Teaching, which examines “innovative writing and reflecting (even if millennial and creative methods and techniques that reflecting can be, well, speedy as a mouse directly affect the lives of students”? click). We asked the chairperson of the Center’s Of course, one can easily forgive or, board, English Professor James Davis, who indeed, empathize with other professors not answered promptly. so favorably disposed to Facebook. “I’ve actually never been on Facebook . . .,” Suspicions about the network and its Davis replied in an e-mail. founder were seemingly justified in the recent movie, The Social Network, as well as in the book on which it is heavily based, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal (Doubleday, 2009), by Ben Mezrich. Founder Zuckerberg has been portrayed in both as insincere, deceitful, secretive and misogynistic; and there are hints in the movie that his abbreviated experience at Harvard (he is a drop-out from there) was characterized by latent hostilities Fabio Girelli-Carasi, Modern Languages and Literatures toward classmates of other ethnic groups, such as the twin brothers Cameron and Davis then graciously offered to pass Tyler Winklevoss, quintessential legacy the query on to another Center board Harvardites, and Eduardo Saverin, a Brazilian- member, Modern Languages and Literatures born co-founder of Facebook. Professor Fabio Girelli-Carasi, who (Davis 2 A Ohio State University survey found that undergraduate wrote) “knows a great deal about the various But more numerous than total abstainers Facebook users had internet-based platforms for instruction might be those professors who use Facebook GPAs between 3.00 and these days, and . . . may be able to shed some discriminately, confining it to a circle of 3.50, compared to GPAs light on the Facebook angle . . .” friends and family who are, well, really of 3.50 to 4.00 for Girelli-Carasi also responded quickly, non-users.. saying he was not on Facebook, did not like Facebook, and believed Facebook conflicted with his professional values. Said the professor in his e-mail: I haven’t used Facebook for a variety of reasons, first of which is that I find it confusing and poorly organized. Moreover, unless you are careful, it’s hard to know intuitively what is going to be public Brett Branco, (even in a restricted environment) and Earth and what will be seen by the entire group of Environmental Sciences participants. Unless it is used only for tasks clearly intended to be in the open, it could friends and family. Even here, however, present some problems. Also, but this is there is a cloudy mat at the front door: No a purely subjective response, I think the Students Welcome. entertainment purpose of the medium Professor Brett Branco, for instance, would put academic content in a context who teaches geology and other courses in that is at odds with my personal goals for the Department of Earth and Environmental my classes. Sciences, thinks it’s inappropriate, at least for Those in the anti-Facebook contingent, him, to be sharing personal information on like Girelli-Carasi, may find some backing Facebook with students. for their hard-line stance in recent research. “I am not comfortable with the idea of Last year a doctoral student in education at being in a social network with students, Ohio State University did a survey suggesting particularly undergraduates,” Branco said. college students may be sacrificing academic “I like to maintain some barrier of achievement in their regular use of Facebook. formality. It makes it easier to be objective in Undergraduate Facebook users had GPAs terms of grading.” between 3.00 and 3.50, the study reported, The professor acknowledged that his compared to GPAs of 3.50 to 4.00 for non-users. desire to avoid fraternization with students The study also found that 85 percent of might seem militaristic. And there’s a reason undergrads used Facebook, while only 52 for that. Branco was in the U.S. Navy before percent of graduate students did so. pursuing his graduate studies. All grist, some professors might argue, for *********** staying away from the site. 3 Facebook Facebook, like its 140-character, little word around here . . .” But the CUNY network protégé, Twitter, may be frequently derided itself continues to draw updates from by serious writers and thinkers, who see it professors who bond online with counterparts as a reflection of the new, lightning speed at their own and other CUNY campuses. culture that is hastening the “death” of The home page of the Commons is: newspapers and books. http://commons.gc.cuny.edu. But, looked at from another perspective, What’s more, with the cloud of knowing it might be said the networks are ushering in expanding as it is, opportunities for group new platforms that will take society beyond sharing will almost certainly grow; and the restrictions of the post-modern world. assumption is that more and more professors Marketers certainly see the potential, will step into the pond, even if hesitantly at first. which is why Brooklyn College — and many You’ll have a long wait for me, some other colleges trying to attract and hold professors are surely saying. onto students — have joined Evans and But not all the published material about have begun reaching out via FB (forgive the Zuckerberg and his billion-dollar baby is thumb-friendly abbreviation). negative, and some of it certainly should be On October 26, a little after noon, as I read. wrote this article, Brooklyn College placed It’s important to keep in mind, after all, its latest “update” at the top of its Facebook that while Accidental Billionaires and The page: “Brooklyn College is calling all you Social Network drew great media attention, undiscovered singers and unpublished poets. there is also The Facebook Effect: The Inside Reveal your talents at tonight’s Open Mic Story of the Company That is Connecting the Night . . . [Y]ou’ll receive refreshments and World (Simon & Schuster, 2010), by Fortune the opportunity to show the world what magazine writer David Kirkpatrick. you’ve been hiding . . .” Kirkpatrick, unlike the author of Beyond the outreach to students, Accidental Billionaires, interviewed colleges and universities are also attempting Zuckerberg and seems to believe to engage administrators and faculty, Zuckerberg’s motives are sincere, that he encouraging them to create online forums. wants to bring people together, in their For example, faculty and administrators hometowns and around the world. can now join what is essentially a CUNY-wide In his introduction Kirkpatrick asks of version of Facebook. It’s called the CUNY Facebook, “Could it become a factor in Academic Commons, and those who sign helping bring together a world filled with up, using an e-mail address from one of political and religious strife and in the midst the 23 campuses, form groups and carry on of environmental and economic breakdown?” discussions about whatever seems pertinent He answers with another question. “A at a given moment. Recently one participant, communications system that includes people from Hunter College, made the observation of all countries, all races, all religions, could that “. . . Facebook is something of a dirty not be a bad thing, could it?” 4 News Flash: Facebook is a Part of Brooklyn College’s Heritage Finance and Business Management faculty knew there was something unique about their department. Interconnectivity and sharing are among their watchwords, as they create new courses and teach them along with faculty members from other departments. “Some of our faculty use Facebook in courses,” declares Professor Veronica Manlow, of Finance and Business Management, with a measure of pride. “Certainly some faculty worry that the human element will be lost, should As for Beth Evans, she accepts that the we go too far in the direction of digital technologies and social media,” Manlow road ahead is being paved by learners as much concedes; but she argues that technologically aware professors can incorporate these technologies in the classroom without sacrificing the need for a personal as by teachers. The trick, she says, is to watch, connection. guide and be a learner as well as a teacher. What Manlow learned recently was that her department’s passion for The younger generation seems to have an interconnectivity on- and off-campus is embedded in the genes of Brooklyn College. interest in “self reporting,” she says, referring The parents of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, are graduates of Brooklyn to Facebook’s main attribute. Then she adds — College. His mother Karen Kempner Zuckerberg, a psychologist, is an alumna from addressing in-classroom professors as much as the Class of 1979, his father, Edward Zuckerberg, a dentist, is an alumnus from the Class of 1975. those in the library — that the challenge now is Not only that, Mark Zuckerberg’s maternal grandfather, Sidney Kempner, also this: to discover how to use that self-reporting attended Brooklyn College! drive in furtherance of a course’s goals. Manlow is happy to learn about the College’s connection to Mark Zuckerberg, “How can we take hold of that and and while she is understanding of the skepticism that some of her fellow expand it so that . . .[the student’s world] can academicians have about the social network Facebook, she believes it serves a be bigger . . . so that we can be effective in worthy purpose for both students and faculty. teaching about bigger things?” “Facebook allows students who are often rushing to the next class or to a full- time job, or perhaps who are off-campus entirely, to connect with classmates, to post relevant information, and to interact more freely with their professor,” she says. “It permits faculty, many of whom teach the same courses, to exchange information and to collaborate on projects.” Manlow believes such networks will be driving forces in the implementation of successful pedagogies, as she and like-minded colleagues embrace those networks and strive to make the School of Business an even more effective place of learning. Professor Hershey Friedman, deputy chairperson of the Finance and Business Management Department, adds that networking platforms will be sources of nutrition for higher education as a whole. Cooperation and exchange, hallmarks of social networking, are keys to the survival of learning institutions, he maintains. Friedman recently created a course “New Media and Business,” which is cross- listed with the Television and Radio Department, as well as with the Computer and Information Science Department. Such cooperation is necessary in an age that is seeing an astounding convergence of interests and duties across disciplines and professions, he and other researchers say. “I see social media in general as helping colleges. One sees how powerful people can be when they work together,” Friedman asserts. Moving in this direction of interdisciplinary teaching and collaborative learning will connect more people at Brooklyn College and will create links with other institutions. This will make the college a better, more productive place, according to Manlow. She says: “Communication has always been inherently flexible and dynamic. Today we have more tools to carry it out. Individuals are purposeful agents capable of creating shared meanings. Each of us carves out social spaces in which we Veronica Manlow and Hershey Friedman, both of can interact comfortably and in which we can reach our goals. Aided by the new Finance and Business Management. technologies, we are trying to make the classroom, our departments, and the School of Business true learning spaces.” Gone But Not Forgotten: Maxwell College By Joe Fodor “We thought it was a joke when we first heard,” remembers Grace Goldstein Brown, ’35, who was a sophomore at Maxwell Teachers Training College when the school was closed in 1933, and all 670 female students transferred to Brooklyn College. The men enrolled at Maxwell, some two dozen, were transferred to CCNY. In the end, Maxwell was killed by budget cutbacks at the Board of Education. As the Depression worsened, school budgets tightened, and the city had an unexpected surplus of 5,000 certified teachers who could not find jobs. Dr. George J. Ryan, president of the Board, framed the problem in dramatic terms: The Brooklyn Training School for Teachers, circa We are confronted with a tragic 1932. problem of unemployment among the graduates of our training colleges. The Board of Higher Education, which at There are enough young men and that time oversaw Hunter, City and Brooklyn women on eligible lists to meet the Colleges, resolved that it “accepts from the needs of the school system for at least Board of Education the functions of the five years, possibly longer. Teacher-Training College, receives the pupils “The sound and businesslike thing to now being educated therein.” do,” Ryan concluded, was “to stop adding to Soon, Brooklyn College had devised a the oversupply of teachers.” And so, starting curriculum for a B.S. in Education, and the in 1933, all three New York City municipal women from Maxwell were welcomed at training colleges — Jamaica Training School Brooklyn College. for Teachers, the New York Training School But much was lost in the process. for Teachers, and the Maxwell Training Maxwell was a historic institution — the College for Teachers — were dissolved and first municipal teachers training school in their faculty reassigned to the public school New York, founded in 1885 — two years systems. earlier than the privately-funded New 6 DID YOU KNOW? The William H. York College for the Training of Teachers. himself into newspaper work, first at the New Maxwell Career and While that institution, now called Columbia York Herald and then as managing editor of Technical Education Teachers College, is already planning lavish the Brooklyn Daily Times. An engaging writer, High School is right 125th anniversary celebrations for 2012, he wrote frequent editorials, decrying the here in Brooklyn on this article will likely be Maxwell Teachers state of the educational system, and urged Pennsylvania Ave. Training College’s only quasquicentennial that testing and standards be used in hiring remembrance. teachers. In 1881, he started teaching history in the Who was Maxwell? Brooklyn school system, and the next year, The school was the brainchild of William H. became assistant superintendant. Five years Maxwell (1852–1920), an educational reformer later, at the age of 35, Maxwell was made who blazed into New York City from Galway, Brooklyn’s school superintendant, in charge Ireland, with a master’s degree in philosophy of one high school, 68 elementary schools and political science. Denied a teaching post (including three “colored schools”), 1,520 because he was a foreigner, he instead threw teachers and 75,290 students. In short order, Maxwell also oversaw the opening of the first vocational training schools, expanded instruction for German and other foreign language students in the schools, started the first kindergarten classes, and ushered in basic academic standards and a fair hiring and firing process for teachers, including a 1895 law that required teachers to be “graduates of a recognized high school and also of a school for the professional training of teachers or from institutions of equal or higher rank offering similar instruction.” In 1898, Maxwell was appointed New York City’s first superintendant of The bronze sculpture of William H. Maxwell, public education, and was in charge of by Charles Eugene Tefft, which once stood in public schools for nearly two decades. In the American Museum of Natural History, was 1912 a celebration of his 25th year as a installed in 1923, and paid for with $30,000 in superintendant of education was held at contributions from teachers and schoolchildren. Carnegie Hall and featured a chorus of 550 In later years Maxwell’s head, with part of his students from all across the city and a parade neck, was removed to the AMNH library — the of distinguished speakers. rest of the sculpture was scrapped. 7 Maxwell College The Little Grey Home on Park Place In the beginning, the Brooklyn Training School for Teachers offered one-year training courses that were supplemented by practice teaching in the local public schools. Besides courses in penmanship and rhetoric, the school taught about exercise and gardening, and, starting in 1911, began offering the first classes in New York for training teachers of special needs students, who were called in those days “defective children.” Maxwell died in 1920, and the following year, the Brooklyn Training School for teachers was named in his honor. By this time, the course of study at the Brooklyn Teachers Training School had been expanded Grace Goldstein Brown, ’35, a proud Maxwell to two years. Home was a four-story building, College alumna. built in 1904, on Park Place in Crown Heights, which included a model school, P.S. 138, from Erasmus Hall High School, Grace for practice teaching. In 1923, Maxwell Goldstein enrolled at Maxwell, a short trolley adopted a three-year program, and in 1931 ride from her home on Eastern Parkway. it became an official four-year college, with “I remember it was like a finishing an option for students who wanted to teach school,” she recalls today from her home in in the elementary schools to receive three- Maine. “Once I was putting my lipstick on in year degrees. The college, which had an the back of class, and the teacher noticed enrollment of over a thousand and more me, and had me come to the front. Then she than fifty faculty members during its peak demonstrated to all the girls the proper way years, boasted a large auditorium, a women’s to apply lipstick. That was the sort of school basketball team, yearbooks, a school song, it was.” and a gossipy newspaper, The Commentator. On another notorious occasion, she was There was little doubt to where Grace summoned to Dean Holden’s office. “She Goldstein would go to school. “I’ve always made me stand in front of a sunny window,” wanted to be a teacher — since I was a child,” Grace recalls. “It was a hot day and I was she says. Her father, an electrician for the wearing a wool dress and no slip and I didn’t Edison Company, didn’t make enough money think anyone would notice. I remember she to send his daughter to a private school, but said ‘You know we have gentlemen in this Maxwell was free, and after she graduated school, too,’ and sent me home to put on 8 more underwear. I came back and went to galoshes), ribbons on either leg (red on the her office, and flipped up my dress and said, right and silver on the left), long earrings, an ‘See?’” The incident made Grace Goldstein old feather hat with a veil and “two heavy infamous among the Maxwell girls, and beauty marks” on her face. She wore the even merited a cryptic reference in the 1935 ridiculous costume into the crowded subway Broeklundian yearbook. station and waited until rescued by her And then, in the summer of her sisters, and remained close friends with many sophomore year, Maxwell was dissolved, of them for years, long after she had become and the grey stone building on Park Place an elementary school teacher and moved was taken over entirely by Public School to Brookline, Massachusetts to start her 138, which remains there to this day, and the family. And now, she believes, she is the last name “Training School for Teachers” can still surviving Alpha Omega. be seen above the school’s doorway. Should Maxwell College have been shuttered? The oversupply of teachers in The Stranger in Our Midst 1933 was short-lived, and within a few years Brooklyn College tried to make life more there was again a shortfall — one that, with welcoming for the Maxwell students, even the arrival of the Baby Boom Generation, sponsoring a luncheon for them at the became a crisis. In 1948, the Brooklyn College Plymouth Institute. Grace Goldstein did School of Education was founded with not attend. “Maybe we were snobs,” she considerable support from the state of New says. “We liked our old school.” Brooklyn York, and remains one of the most important College, at the time, was housed in rented parts of Brooklyn College, training thousands quarters scattered throughout a grimy of teachers who have raised standards and area of downtown Brooklyn, making their helped make the public schools of New York “little grey home on Park Place” seem idyllic City “the furnace under the melting pot,” in in comparison. Indeed, the women from Dr. Maxwell’s formulation. Maxwell would defiantly wear their “M” Happy 125th anniversary, Maxwell medals throughout their Brooklyn College Teachers Training College! years, and even formed a sorority, the Alpha Omegas — a tribute to their special status as the first and last students of the four-year Maxwell College. Grace Goldstein Brown still has the letter she received as part of her initiation to the Alpha Omegas, which instructed her to go to the DeKalb Avenue subway station and stand there until given further instructions, wearing summer shoes, woolen socks, zippers (rubber 9 The Agora From the Editor: This is a space – the Agora – where Are There Folksingers/Musicians Out There? by Len Fox faculty can appear from time to We sometimes refer to ourselves as the persistence, and a bit of time, for me to figure time and call out “Brooklyn College community,” but I think out the three chords. for like-minded in fact we don’t have that much opportunity In my high school, the Bronx High School colleagues to join to act like and feel like a community. For of Science, kids used to bring guitars and them in activities, myself, I remember that many years ago we sit around on the grassy hills outside after such as the folk had an Anti-Bigotry Teach-In at the college, classes, and they’d sing songs at parties and music sessions which was a day of presentations about at friends’ houses. proposed here by problems related to bigotry in the borough It had lots of meaning for them — and English Department of Brooklyn and in the U.S. as a whole. It was me — that went beyond the mere fun of Professor Len my first opportunity to meet and to work rhythmic bouncing. Rather than just singing Fox. The idea of with faculty from departments other than songs for fun, kids would sing out lyrics that, this metaphoric my own. It did actually make me feel more for us, had deep meaning, songs by Pete and inclusive like part of a community. And I have felt that Seeger and the Weavers, songs about past reincarnation of way, too, when I’ve worked on the Faculty fights of union workers, songs about freedom the ancient Greek Day Committee, and especially when I’ve also and social justice, songs of protest against marketplace is to participated in events of that day. war, songs against corporate greed and the foster spirit-boosting I think, however, that faculty members destruction of the environment, songs from camaraderie often should have more opportunities to act and all around the world, in different languages, elusive in an urban feel like a community. intended to encourage us to respect the art campus setting. One way for us to do this would be for and beauty of other cultures. us to reach out and try to find others who But then came the busy-ness and the have a common interest, and then try to get responsibilities of adulthood, and my poor together, at the college or one of our houses old guitar and banjo would lie in the corner or a neighborhood meeting-place. for long stretches, gathering dust, and I In a community as talented and diverse would lose the dexterity in my fingers and as ours, the interests must be legion. For the calluses that made the playing sometimes example, an interest of mine is singing and seem effortless. playing folk music, with a guitar or banjo. However, in recent years I have been This pastime goes back to younger years picking up the old instruments more when, as a high school lad, I would listen to frequently, and getting back my calluses and enjoy the Kingston Trio. and some dexterity, which leads me to the I would spend hours listening to their main point of this article, which is to ask if records and trying to play along. It shouldn’t there are other folksinger/musicians among have been very difficult, since they never the faculty who might like to get together, seemed to use more than three chords; from time to time, to play and sing some folk but for some reason or other, it took some music. 10