A Spade A Spade

OK, Yes! I'm still trying to wrap up my postings here. I'd like to close with the broadest level of questions that remain for me personally. This is a dialogue that's had only narrow, narrow slices aired or explored, and I think the community has lost on that score, while it's reaffirmed for some that they have a stake and confirmed for others that they are not CLIS "stakeholders". [Re-?]Clarifying boundaries can sometimes be very good.

My opinion is that CLIS is not a culture where one can call a spade a spade, and in the knowledge production business that's fatal. This is not the result of one, or even a string of deans. It's a status quo that people in all roles accept and then operate within as an unconcious ideology, as some philosophers of knowledge call "received". Again fatal for a knowledge, I won't say truth, production system. When you reach into that realm, people get scared and defensive, it's part of the way change happens. That has definately has happened here, and not always in ways to celebrate. I think what current students accept as received knowledge is the intellectual space that the Provost should worry about, more than the physical space - and to his credit in 2003 he began the educational outcomes commission. I hope CLIS is participating in that somehow, someway.

OK, enough! of this. I have three points that as an interested observer-participant of CLIS, of the Wasserman Closure Project, of student organizations at CLIS, that I'd like ot close with.

1) CLIS needs to be able to call a spade a spade. [Concrete example: Wasserman is closing not being "reconfigured". Your transcripts mailed to your employers still read Library School, yet the web page says Information Studies. It goes on and on, I think.] That needs to be true not only of administrators who hold cards very very close to the proverbial chest, but it also needs to be true for pesky, or worse, recent graduates. Truth is not in a committee, not in the person hoarding the most information.

2) In CLIS (elsewhere on campus as well), there's a great contradiction in information technology that exists when you compare the scholarly articles and the skill-base that reflects and what appears to be a fear in applying those technologies and knowledge-bases to the operations of the college/University and the give and take of ideas inside and outside the classroom. You can't be scared of something and teach it simultaneously, and the collective soul of CLIS is very insecure about it's technologies, human and otherwise. Again, I wish the college good speed in its collective continuous improvement. The individual talent is blockbuster. [Concrete example: how many times have you noticed the lack of effective automation in the college listservs, in student files, in its own records management process?]

3) And this last one includes me as much as it does anyone else: The ethical implications of remaining in this state has consequences (thank Goodness, I'm not the judge, just one participant-observer like the rest). Good will is difficult to maintain, let alone increase. Credibility/truth becomes compartmentalized and a dehumanizing tool faction uses against faction--BOTH "sides" in this debate have done that. Intentions and actions get more and more easily separated and further the collective drops into a more difficult position than it was in before-and then the blame game starts; "those raskal-ly kids," "that trouble maker". [Concrete example: the college has amazingly successful alumni, why do they appear to be alienated? Because they don't have the big-bucks? Everyone can contribute, if the infrastructure is there.]

On that note of uplift and, I'm closing my participation here, at least for a while. Doubtful, but if a group wants to keep this space as a unifed, continuous, speaking space, I'm more than happy, as I have always been, to share this space.

At risk of sounding disingenuous, good luck one and all. NOW is a curious, curious time to be an information, information technology, knowledge worker, on the line or in the ivory (not so ivory) towers. People are the best "technology", not institutions, or policies, or whathaveyou, and CLIS/UMCP has some great (yes) people.

[Comments permissions have changed only because of spammers....if on the great improbability anyone feels compelled to respond here, I am happy to find a way for you to do so....]

Post Town Hall No. 1

I'm working on tapering off my Save Wasserman blog activities, but below is a recent CLIS list posting"inspired" by the Town Hall Meetings, for which Rob Jensen deserves much much credit [the meetings not the posting]. My posting on Tuesday about the "Space" Committee [quotations supplied by the committee] might go up later.

It was a very successful community meeting, perhaps, sadly enough, the most substantive communal and public give and take between administration and students about the program itself I have ever seen.

That being said, it was in whole unquestionably "the party line." Students were asked to accept a littany of inconsistent and unsupported assertions about budget, continued partial disclosure of activites --the CLIS list archives is now password protected--and methods of communication that are just about impossible to track.

It did not escape me that the Save Wasserman blog already provides a list of services valued at Wasserman from May graduates, a suggestion that was greeted with an enthusiastic response and that I offer to counter any who charges this site or I am only interested in trouble and not constructive contributions to the debate. The administration holds all the information of past committee reports, user statistics, faculty recommendations, budgets, so it's a difficult stance for anyone to partner with, I'd guess.

This morning's:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Dean's Confusion on Dissemination of I-School Definition
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 08:06:22 -0400
From: Kevin Stone Fries
To: UMCLIS-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU


Dear Colleagues,

Jenny's comments at the Town Hall Meeting about being surprised people
weren't sure what she meant about I-schools because she had a single
minute-long or so conversation with me about it seemed odd, so to
clarify, I infact *posted* publicly some information to my peers and let
her have space as the authority on her own school's listserv to address
her student's honest question. The best I can do in this framed
dialogue, I did weeks ago, and if you're interested, please read the
posting, with links, below.

http://savewasserman.blogspot.com/2005/08/september-i-schools-conference.html

The range and depth of the issues, and at times passion of
conversations, over this loss of student resources makes keeping
conversation timely and relevent very difficult for all parties. We
have moved into the "solution" phase, and I wish those with a role
success in making the best of an extremely unfortunate position. As one
student observed/questioned at the meeting, "Isn't closing Wasserman
just a band aid?" So there's lots to do, and I'm happy to turn my
attention after three months finally to my studies, where I'm sure all
parties agree they belong.

Best,
Kevin Fries
CLIS '05

Tuesday's:

To Be Posted

It's also good to see that Mara and I are still collecting signatories to our letter. I have never seen myself in this situation as a diplomat, that's absurd really given the aggressive stance I knowingly took from the beginning, but rather as an advocate in a community that discusses but does not always model advocacy.

I think there's plenty here to show what not to do. I hope the hundreds of current and future information professionals of all stripes truly grapple with the questions related to being quiet, slightly vocal, as well as outright radical advocates for the profession because if there's anything I'm taking away from this is that even in the places that you'd think wouldn't need advocacy and "teaching moments", they are in fact most beneficial.

Best to one and all.....