Doug Robertson Keynote
AVOIDING
CHRONIC
OVERLOAD:
Toward a Sane
Productivity
Douglas Reimondo
Robertson, Ph.D.
Northern Kentucky
University
Rochester Institute of Technology
May 27, 2008
CHRONIC
OVERLOAD
Why such a problem? C. Wright Mills’s
Sociological Imagination
Individual
TROUBLES
Social
ISSUES
When a few individuals have a problem When lots of individuals have the same problem For example, unemployment, health insurance, heart disease...chronic overload. A Changing Higher Education
Environment
A FULL PLATE...getting FULLER
• Assessment
• Strategic planning • Accreditation
• Compliances
• Technology
• General education reform
• Budget reductions • Good research, teaching, service:
AND not OR
Eisenhauer, as President of
Columbia, to his Provost:
“The university should just tell the faculty what to do.”
Provost:
“General, the faculty are the university.” Traditions of faculty autonomy and governance:
we like to do it ourselves
CHRONIC
OVERLOAD:
Pernicious
Norm?
An indicator of professional quality?
Tending to cause death, serious injury, or great harm; deadly or destructive. A state which is expected of us and which does us great harm. The standard, usual, or expected state; typical. HEGEMONIC
ASSUMPTIONS
“Killing me softly with your song...”
“Hegemonic assumptions are those that we think are in our own best interests but that actually have been designed by more powerful others to work against us in the long term.”
Stephen Brookfield
“Hegemonic assumptions about teaching are eagerly embraced by teachers.
They seem to represent what’s good and true and therefore to be in their
[teachers’] own best interests. Yet these assumptions actually have the effect of serving the interests of groups that have little concern for teachers’ mental or
Stephen Brookfield physical health.”
Freud was asked what a person needs to live a healthy life, to which he replied,
Sane > L. sanus, healthy Good work:
Healthy work:
Sane work
Our interest:
HEALTHY
PRODUCTIVITY
“To
CHRONIC
OVERLOAD:
Toward a Sane
Productivity
Douglas Reimondo
Robertson, Ph.D.
Northern Kentucky
University
Rochester Institute of Technology
May 27, 2008
CHRONIC
OVERLOAD
Why such a problem? C. Wright Mills’s
Sociological Imagination
Individual
TROUBLES
Social
ISSUES
When a few individuals have a problem When lots of individuals have the same problem For example, unemployment, health insurance, heart disease...chronic overload. A Changing Higher Education
Environment
A FULL PLATE...getting FULLER
• Assessment
• Strategic planning • Accreditation
• Compliances
• Technology
• General education reform
• Budget reductions • Good research, teaching, service:
AND not OR
Eisenhauer, as President of
Columbia, to his Provost:
“The university should just tell the faculty what to do.”
Provost:
“General, the faculty are the university.” Traditions of faculty autonomy and governance:
we like to do it ourselves
CHRONIC
OVERLOAD:
Pernicious
Norm?
An indicator of professional quality?
Tending to cause death, serious injury, or great harm; deadly or destructive. A state which is expected of us and which does us great harm. The standard, usual, or expected state; typical. HEGEMONIC
ASSUMPTIONS
“Killing me softly with your song...”
“Hegemonic assumptions are those that we think are in our own best interests but that actually have been designed by more powerful others to work against us in the long term.”
Stephen Brookfield
“Hegemonic assumptions about teaching are eagerly embraced by teachers.
They seem to represent what’s good and true and therefore to be in their
[teachers’] own best interests. Yet these assumptions actually have the effect of serving the interests of groups that have little concern for teachers’ mental or
Stephen Brookfield physical health.”
Freud was asked what a person needs to live a healthy life, to which he replied,
Sane > L. sanus, healthy Good work:
Healthy work:
Sane work
Our interest:
HEALTHY
PRODUCTIVITY
“To