Re: Professionalism -Reply

[Sara Kimball <skimball@uts.cc.utexas.edu>]

On Tue, 8 Jul 1997, Jim Bell wrote:

> Thank you to those who have contributed to  the discussion on 
> professionalism: it has 
> helped me think about the concept. I kept getting flashbacks to Joseph 
> Harris' article on "community" and how the concept might be doing us more 
> harm than good. I also thought of what happened to the term 
> "empowerment," going from its roots in peasant revolutions etc. to 
> meaning anything we wanted it to mean, preferably trivial and safe.

Perhaps the point is to seize the definition and do the defining
ourselves.

> 
> I am not going to use the term professional as in "I'm glad the writing 
> center field 
> is becoming more professional." If by professional we mean some internal, 
> self-generated definition, then I think it is meaningless. Loggers can 
> call themselves a profession, pharmacy technicians can call lthemselves a 
> profession, the world's oldest profession can call itself a profession . 
> . . If by profession we mean as traditionally defined (e.g., doctors, 
> lawyers), then I sense that a lot of writing center people think the 
> disadvantages of moving in that direction are great. Furthermore, I don't 
> think it is possible that, say, by the year 2022 people will say the 
> professions of law, medicine, and directing writing centers in the same 
> breath.

Well, a healthy organism continuously engages in the process of defining
what is self and what is non-self.  It interacts with its environment,
incorporating some parts of it (e.g. by eating) and rejecting others.  The
thing to watch for is when that definition process goes haywire (e.g. what
my silly immune system is doing right now by treating plant pollen as a
dangerous toxin or by the organism attacking itself as with arthritis). 

 It does not matter to me. I am more concerned that the writing 
> center field improve in certain specific areas. For example, I think we 
> need to pay more attention to evaluation and become more accountable to 
> students, funders, and administrators. I know some WC folks see this as 
> becoming less professional; others welcome it as being more professional. 
> The term, however, mainly clouds the issue.

Jim, I agree with you on this, but again, I'd say, watch how people define
accountability.  To me, accountability has to cut both ways.  One of the
reasons I've been battering my brains with numbers for our annual report
is that my writing center is unusually fortunate in being generously
funded by a student fee.  The annual report will also go up on our Web
site to make it available to the public we serve--students and the wider
campus community. I figure we're a bit like a corporation that way.  But
if I were caught in some dark version of writing
center hell--say in a broom closet in a dark basement with no budget, no
release time and no recognition--then I'm not sure I'd see the point in an
annual report.  

Last year we had a big to-do about post-tenure review.  A bill was passed
by the legislature, and now we're going to have some sort of review every
five years in the name of "accountability." My anger about this is not
just that it started happening a year after I finally got tenure, but that
it offers nothing for a good performance. Although initially there were
some conciliatory murmers about using the review for significant pay
raises or awards, nobody called the system on that; the big boys on the
faculty council were too busy running around trying to decouple the review
from dismissal (one wonders what the point is, then).  In the meantime, we
have no regular provision for cost of living increases for faculty or
staff. The legislature does dribble out bits and scraps for "merit"
raises, but we all got a pittance this year, and it's quite possible there
will be nothing next year.

I guess my point is that being professional means not only acting like a
professional, it also means being treated like one.  That was the basis of
my skepticism about the word in grad school. 

Sara



> 
> Jim Bell
> Editor, Journal of College Reading and Learning		Ph. (250) 960-6365
> Learning Skills Centre					Fax (250) 960-6330
> University of Northern BC				email jimb@unbc.edu
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