Foot falls

“Oh no! The Silver Lake Foot has fallen down the steps at the #MetGala.”

Thank you, Rachel.

Related reading
All OCA Foot Clinic sign posts

George Wein (1925–2021)

Maker of Newports, Folk and Jazz. The New York Times obituary focuses on the Jazz, but I’d venture that the Newport Folk Festival, via Dylan and “rediscovered” blues musicians, made a far bigger dent in the shape of American culture.

“Individually wrapped treats”

About “tangible inducements” to get students to wear masks at the University of Austin at Austin: I went to the source and found the details in FAQ for faculty. It’s far more complicated than bringing cookies to class:

Can instructors, departments, colleges and schools offer incentives to students to encourage masking?

Yes, although with some limitations, namely:

Positive incentives/rewards are permissible while negative consequences/ punishments are not.

Instructors can only offer non-academic incentives of a de minimis value (less than $50) per reward during a given semester.

Incentives can NOT be paid for with university/State funds.

Incentives cannot result in academic benefits to any student.

Incentives cannot result in heightened stakes creating coercion.

Incentives should be delivered outside of the classroom.

Incentives cannot result in differential treatment in the classroom between those that mask and those that do not. The following examples ARE permissible and comply with the guidance on incentives:

E.g., The instructor offers that everyone who wears a mask for two weeks of their class can stop by the courtyard to pick up a gift certificate for a free item from a nearby bakery.

E.g., The instructor offers that if the class maintains 85% masking by attendees for the next two weeks, then after the following Thursday’s class period, individually wrapped treats from a certain bakery can be picked up by every student in the courtyard (i.e., not the classroom) where all can still socially distance.

Examples of incentives that would NOT be permissible due to violating at least one of the criteria listed above include:

E.g., An instructor directs class that if all students do not mask, then the class will be taught online. (negative consequence, academic impact and heightened stakes creating coercion).

E.g., An instructor directs that any students failing to mask will not be allowed a partner on the team project. (negative consequence, academic impact, heightened stakes creating coercion).

E.g., An instructor offers that there will be no final in the class if everyone wears a mask. (Academic impact/benefit and heightened stakes creating coercion).

E.g., An instructor offers those who mask during each class meeting for the semester a 5-point increase in their final grade. (Academic impact/benefit and heightened stakes creating coercion).

If raffle-style incentives are used for masking, organizers should not collect or maintain any protected health information (e.g., vaccine records, list of vaccinated applicants).

It’s astonishing to think that several administrators, probably all making six-figure salaries, must have pooled their intelligence to develop these guidelines. Nothing half-baked here: they’ve really thought it through, even if they don’t know how to use e.g. properly.

These guidelines call for considerable diligence on the part of the faculty member, who must monitor masking (a COVID-era form of “taking attendance”), place and pay for orders, and distribute gift certificates or individually wrapped treats, but not in the classroom. Or maybe the faculty member can palm the work off on a TA. I think of the absurdity of students lining up, six feet apart, maybe in the rain, to receive their individually wrapped treats. Here ya go.

And there’s the detail that gets me: “individually wrapped treats,” presumably to assure proper hygiene, on a campus where neither masks nor vaccinations are not required.

And what’s with that reference to “a certain bakery”? Is it reasonable to suspect that at least one these guideline developers has flour on their hands?

Rural hospitals and COVID-19

I was startled to see a doctor from a local hospital on MSNBC’s The Week with Joshua Johnson. Jeremy Topin, MD, is respectful of local reality at every turn, but you can sense his exasperation about life here in COVID times.

The most recent ICU numbers at this hospital, from The New York Times: 93% occupied, with 29 COVID patients and one available bed.

A Douglas Ewart exhibition

Good news from Chicago:

Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) is pleased to present a retrospective of the virtuosic artist and educator Douglas R. Ewart, alongside Ewart’s recent large-scale audio-visual work Songs and Stories for a New Path and Paradigm, created in collaboration with NOW Society of Vancouver and 36 artists from across the globe.

The exhibition runs through December 11, with concerts scheduled for mid-October. Here’s more information.

Related reading
All OCA Douglas Ewart posts

Performative again

Arts & Letters Daily recently linked to a short commentary on the word performative. The commentary is crotchety and overwrought, with talk of corruption and senseless violence and infestations of body lice. I’m not linking.

It so happens that I wrote what seems to me a far clearer, more helpful, and less wrought commentary on performative back in March. That commentary I’ll link to: here it is. I’d say I got there first.

What, no candy?

I was so struck by the story of an eighty-eight-year-old professor’s encounter with a student who would not wear a mask that I missed this choice bit in The New York Times about “tangible inducements” to get college students to wear masks in class:

The University of Texas at Austin told professors that they could offer nonacademic rewards, like cookies, to cajole students to wear masks. (A university spokeswoman, Eliska Padilla, said this was informal, not an incentive program.)

Good thing UT Austin has administrators to clarify these points for the public.

A related post
On games and candy in the college classroom

Recently updated

Hi and Lois watch Now with no Odie.

Recently updated

Teaching the unmasked More on an eighty-eight-year-old professor’s last day in a classroom.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is yet another week’s worth of evidence, the sixth, that the Stumper is back. It’s a good puzzle, filled with smart clues and novel answers. The clue that somehow, I don’t know how, opened up the puzzle for me: 62-A, ten letters, “International Emmy category.”

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

13-A, ten letters, “Fancy low-level furnishing.” I was wondering if it had something to do with a conversation pit. But of course not.

21-D, four letters, “Audio equipment.” GEAR?

22-A, three letters, “British Columbia’s 1000-year-old Big Lonely Doug.” The answer is guessable, but the clue adds value.

23-A, seven letters, “Secured a bill, perhaps.” Clever.

33-D, four letters, “Like some stand-out characters.” The clue works in a couple of ways.

42-A, nine letters, “Sent sideways.” I was thinking boxing, or something to do with pool. No.

53-D, four letters, “Enhance unnecessarily.” Like, how often do we see this word?

55-D, four letters, “Suited to following.” Pretty Stumpery.

59-A, ten letters, “Very early arthropods.” I don’t know what arthropods are, but I know my Clark Coolidge.

And my favorite: 10-D, eleven letters, “Group hitting the bottom of the barrel.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.