How Paying Taxes Help Everyone

In honor of tax day (when most of us are depressed about our tax liability), I thought that it might be useful to remember how paying taxes does contribute to our own quality of life and that of others in our community. The folks "Government is Good" do a great job exploring how government internvention and your tax dollars improved your day. Check it out: http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=1!

Supreme Court Nominees

With the announcement of Justice Stevens retirement begins the forecasting season for who the next nominee will be. Slate.com offers a nice list of possible nominees at http://www.slate.com/id/2250251?obref=obinsite. While I don't have any special insight, my suspicion is that Obama will go for someone like either Sunstein or Warren. They both possess the academic credentials that Obama seems to like and seem like relatively centrist picks (based on what I read on slate). I just cannot imagine that Obama wants to repeat the battles he faced with Sotomayer. I am curious how other folks interpret the situation.

Finding the Right Mentors

A few weeks ago, my graduate department held a party for a retiring faculty member, who just happened to be one of my mentors. What is interesting is that I never took a class from him but he was one of the biggest influences on my career. He taught me about higher education, administration, research, and teaching. There is not a week that does not go by where I don't rely on some morsel of wisdom he shared with me. I had also had the good fortune of having another 3 or 4 other faculty from PhD department who helped in significant ways as well. (For what it is worth, I graduated with law school without having any faculty mentors on the law faculty. I did manage to find one in the English Department even though I was in law school but that is a long story)

I write this post for two reasons. First, it seems like the national conversation about teaching and higher education seem to forget advising and mentoring as a key element of teaching. I realize that part of this is because mentoring doesn't really fit the requirements for tenure at most R1 institutions. On the other hand, I think that we, as a country, will continue to "waste" money in higher education if we keep thinking that the all that matters about college degrees is "value added learning". I am particularly concerned that all the talk about reducing costs in higher education will make it more difficult for other student to find the kind of role models and mentors they need for professional and personal success. This, at least from my point of view, is where the turn to adjuncts hurts the most.

This leads me to my second reason for sharing this. I want to encourage all my current students to find not one but a couple of mentors. Obviously, not every faculty member wants to become a mentor or has the ability. While it may take time to do this and get used to having a mentor, the benefits are simply huge. Mentoring, however, is a two-way street. The "mentoree" needs to do his/her homework about faculty and take the time to cultivate these relationships. It is not easy but a key part of having a successful college career. Certainly, a mentor can write letters of reference, help you pick classes, and aid in finding internships. The biggest benefit, however, is the wisdom and guidance you will receive.

"Keeping it Real"

Because I am teaching it, I had the pleasure of re-reading Imani Perry's Prophets of the Hood. I had forgotten just how good the book is and her effort to do justice to the full complexity of hip-hop styles. I am also reminded that her thesis - hip-hop lyrics engage in a systematic critique of American life from an African American political location via African American Vernacular English - is an important given I still encounter many friends, families, and acquaintances that are baffled by my scholarly interest in hip-hop.

One part that really jumped out at me was her take on "realism" in hip-hop. I found her take interesting because I currently writing something about authenticity in contemporary African American literature. Perry defines realism as assertion of "allegiance to black youth populations, or subgroups within the community." She further states that being real is "a political rather than purely sociological stance that gives testimony to the emotional state resulting from the experience of poverty, blackness, and the crises of urbanity" (87). For Perry, realism is about staying connected to one's community (94), avoiding sanitized and stereotypical versions of African American life (95), and speaking truth about one's experience in a way that reveals greater and/or communal struggles (96). I thought that she really nailed it.

The flipside of her approach is that many of the commercial rappers are not socially connected or merely in the game for their own personal economic benefit. Unfortunately, these folks are not "keeping it real" no matter how frequently they reference guns, drugs, or sex.

Definitely a good book. I highly recommend it!