Re-Orientation

I've missed orientation for a couple of years. I think. My recollection is that last year I was finishing up a house in Chicago - I could be wrong. I just looked at last august's posts and it appears I was here. A little bit though I think Tina did it.

A lot of it is the same. We still have to talk about the same things: check your email, call if you go to the hospital, don't turn in other people's work as yours. Much is different too. We used to center the discussion around our strategic planning pillars: Leadership, Experimentation, Community, Diversity, & Education. Sometimes that got a little wonky, but I did like always having a hook to hang things on. We used to do a balloon launch, now we plant a tree.

I talked about grading. I did it without saying "The Bradley Scale." I started by saying that left to our own devices we wouldn't start the year talking about grades but that the students really seem to want to hear it. Next I said that as a metric the quantitative feedback of a grade is some of the least useful feedback you'll get and that qualitative feedback from your instructor on an ongoing basis is much more useful. I told them an employer has never asked me how someone's grades were, but I conceded that someone might if they apply to grad school. I forgot to tell them that a bad grade isn't a punishment and a good grade isn't a reward. Then I explained that due to the rarefied air the school occupies and the level of talent we select that our standards are higher - that the scale is higher and the expectations are higher. It might take a 94% to get an A or a 70% to pass a class; that if you show up, awake, follow all the instructions and do everything you are supposed to do you might earn a C. If you want a B you have to do all those things well. I think I heard a small reaction to that. Finally I told them we expect them to do those things well and that they are expected to get B's. They seemed to take it in stride. Won't know until semester reviews I guess.

One thing that really struck me was accidental and not really part of the orientation. I noticed that we did a long bit about academic honesty and plagiarism, and then we followed it with a bit about the necessity of collaboration; sort of saying "You may not work together" followed immediately by "It is of paramount importance that you work together."

That reminded me of this:

If you've got 12 minutes you should give it a watch.