Raw Data Part 2

Organization of Discourse Analysis
Three basic dimensions; first part is looking at the empty text, which are the easiest to remember, a short intro to the words that serve as mottos and how they work.

The second is the use of technology and how context creates the meaning of the words, also the introduction of new ways of talking. Further applications of Fairclough's critique that touches on the conversationalization of public discourse. Think McDonald's: Have it your way.

Third part is relationships and notions of ownership and agency. How does the text regulate and negotiate the university's autonomy and power to provide a definitive description of reality? Where is there room to negotiate?

Last part, not included yet, covers Chapman As a case study. Will provide a copy of the internal/ hidden university discourse, including the regulations for workers. Will integrate notes from taking the school tour and describe how it illustrates all three components, relates back to the interviews, is the clearest example of promotional discourse rooted in history. PR started with interpersonal interaction, which has then been disembodied and utilized in formats where it's possible that there will never be interpersonal interaction.

Note: Maybe rewrite and write to set up paper as a school tour?

Data below, skim and tell me if I missed anything, thanks.

I chose nine schools to look at for this project; five are private, four are public. The private universities are: Boston College, Colorado College, University of Rochester, Chapman, Boston University. The public universities are: San Diego State, University of Arizona, Ball State, University of Vermont. From each school I pulled a piece of text from the website to examine. I've attached these pages as appendices to this paper. I also conducted an observation of a school tour for Chapman University and provide an analyses of this event.

Written to be read: Words that Carry Ideology
If there's a particular motif among every piece of text encountered is that the Universities produce a definitive description of reality. There's a picture I've included in the appendix. It's an advertisement for a British University in 1881. The caption underneath the picture reads,
“The prosperity of the university is now so flattering, the completion of this structure is in the near future. It will be an ornament to our town and a suitable monument to the pluck & skill of the founder of this great institution.”
“To nurture the dreams and open the minds of students, preparing them for a
creative life in the film and television arts.”
a piece of text which carries culture and ideology. Nothing more than an empty slogan. Also, this is the text verbatim. The “to,” with no real person or entity in the place of this responsibility
“The global citizen,”
“Top tier” by US News and World Report
“Building character, transforming lives,” whose building it, how they transforming
drowning out the “propaganda,” as Nicki called it.
“discover, build, dream, achieve, excellence,”
Vermont: The Greatness within Our Grasp; Clemson's use of US News & World Report, “One of the top public schools in the country.” accountability to think of when colorado College heads one of its core valies with “our promise of a distinctive experience,” which is who is responsible for these promises being filled? San Diego State University, “Beyond the norm” and “Minds that move the world.”
glossy packets, relates back to an interview where they appreciated the websites more than the packets, because the information can be accessed at any time. The information is still that of the school and being controlled
The Global Citizen: we try to define it; in a Focualdian way, it's been defended using those words, as opposed to creating and using an alternate text that would mean global citizen, rather than using this empty buzzword. That's the power the word has.

Interdiscursivity, Intertextuality and Genre
Baudrillard's theory of cyberspace, where the page can outlast the reality
first presented this someone asked me how it was deceptive and I was at a loss for words. It's not deceptive, so much as its empty of any real meaning except being able to culture allegiance.
Complex practices stemming from refining these tools made it possible to not only target the reader, but also write texts based on the way they are supposed to be read. Glossy packets are specifically designed with the knowledge that they will be flipped through rather than read carefully, so the creators format information to fit this genre (Fairclough 1993: 156) This process indicates the importance of negotiating relationships from a distance.
Images and Ivy-- students in the sunlight
Boston College: “Googled: Maria Tecce '90, torch song bearer.”
“@BC” indicative of the emerging technological discourse
also the present informality of “BC”
webcams-- first, taking on the recognizable name, second the way that they approach its justification
The Colorado college, “meet” with the second “e” backwards, sets the tone of the text
multicultural appeal in the pictures being shown
heavy use of synthetic personalization; directly stated to “you” in the case of the student testimonials
“A typical day for my current students shows how the block plan is a fully immersive experience where they can be intellectually engaged and stimulated by one focused topic for the entire day.”
“I love going to a small school. I think a small school allows for closer connectiosn with your professor, more time to interact andhav really good conversations in the classroom.”
“People are really passionate about what they do but no one is judgment about others who don't share their interests.”
information; webcams and surveillance; vigilance over a reality
blogs-- interdiscursitivity; crossing genres and technology to appeal

Relationships
Most of the time, resources were not available at less-prestigious schools, a challenge called the "recruiting problem" (Wood 1939: 413). What colleges ended up doing was send out field scouts to talk to students personally and gained momentum this way. As marketing practices evolved, this voice was canonized into a familiar and friendly voice from a distance, which Fairclough (2001: 52) refers to as “synthetic personalization.”
representation of relationships; Boston University and its map of the world
Synthetic personalization is strategic in all aspects of university maintenance. Schools create language that appeals to a collective and self-identity, promoting a social cohesion (Swales 224). The authority of the language is as much a management tool as it is a reputation management tool. Having the university as a friendly and autonomous figure establishes a strong priority between internal and external self-promotion. This process keeps morale high from inside and composes a better image to the outside (Connell 460).
Definition of diversity
university of vermont:
definitive word choice commands authority. “No college and few universities,” or “there's no better location for a major university.”
the only time students are mentioned explicity are in the segment titled, “the campus that never rests,” for the most parts the students are place in the end of the segment, or their presence is implied.
“While it's true that the world changes with time, it does not of itself get better. The University of Vermont instills a combination of idealism and pragmaticism necessary to have a positive impact on the world.”
When students are mentioned, they are constructed as passive agents within the sentence. They are characterized and categorized. Or “they are chosen,”
in this way, the university has a kind of naming power and ownership that is present
Kiplinger's “Best Value” public university

University of Arizona
“UA Swimmer dedicated to success,” right off the bat ti's the same sense of ownership
legitimacy in being “Arizona's First University.”
“Discover, Build, Serve, Achieve.” falling into the empy discourse, but provided with narratives that are supposed to serve as examples
mostly reasearch-oriented discoveries, probably meant to appeal to graduate students. They aresure to mention first off that it was a AU scientist working on the project before anything else, even though that it was already probably assumed. In the case of the “discovery section,” students were at the very end
very conversational mood; anectdotal “next time you pull on your favorite cotton sweats, polo or t-shirt, thank the university of arizona.”
very much written to be skimmed through
taking things for granted amounted to a difficulty in being critical at times.
Also, because it's not read into too carefully it does its job

It's got a complex

"What are the messages of your U and its stated purpose?
They obviously want as much money as they can get from me and I think they're in a conspiratory relationship with Sallie Mae, Mohela, Bank of America and CitiBank."

The student who gave me this quote was obviously kidding, with a residual anger behind her words. At the time I thought this was a nice bit of humor, the same kind which has threaded through some of my interviews. The most rewarding part of this piece of text is that three weeks after I conducted the interview, the story broke that administrators high up in the financial aid departments of USC, Columbia and the University of Texas held stocks in the lenders they had been referring to students. The story follows below:

http://www.examiner.com/a-656872~Officials_at_Columbia__USC__UT_owned_stock_in_preferred_lenders.html

Here is another, from the New York Times, about Sallie Mae donating money to high school students for loan education programs. Ted Kennedy has high hopes for it. Kind of like when Phillip Morris gave money for kids' anti-smoking campaigns. Of course, my student loans are through Sallie Mae (quite the matronly name) too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/education/11loanscnd.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin

In addition to this, I stumbled across an author whose been writing on the funding of universities themselves. Jennifer Washburn wrote a book called University Inc: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education, which is an indictment of the lack of accountability of the way private money shapes the institutions. Pick up a copy of it if you can.

The Problem with Sexy

"Seeing all these kids well-off, it's almost sexy."

"[Sociology]'s not a sexy major, like film."

"It's slick."

Are the webpages sexy? The ones I've listed below are particularly attractive, they're dynamic, they move with well-groomed kids, often with shots of a bustling city and a nicely manicured campus. How do we determine whether they are a reality or just one of noam's necessary illusions that keep the wheels spinning? Sexy. The campus is desireable for what it can do. Or what it seems like it can do. If it's that different here, I'm not sure, but people don't come here for the degree, but for the social life. The interviews have fleshed that observation out pretty well.

The simulacra of schools. The coverage of the university on its website is kin to CNNs presentation of the first gulf war, as analyzed by Baudrillard. We accept the images, the words as representative of education, as we accepted the video game graphics of warfare for the blood and dust of desert combat. Click on BU's website. Or University of Vermont's. Ball State apparently has their own weblog, titled "Real Life at Ball State." The pages move with grace. It is a simulation of school, created to represent the university's reality, a simulation to touch and believe. It's a melding of popular technology, web 2.0, and the designated spirit of a new generation. Interdiscursivisity at its very best.

The amount of truth in any of these web pages is up for dispute. Most of the journals written for Ball State are specifically set up to flesh out what the school is, but they are written with a style too close to the promotional genre to believe entirely.

Lauren, for example, portraying a legitimate student:

"Now I am taking 5 real classes… no fun class for me:( I usually take one to keep my sanity, but it’s not going to happen next semester… well, unless you count the one I am “teaching” - that should be fun. Yikes, I’m a real senior next year! Where the heck did college go?"

That's a lot of information in a little block of text. Listed are the average number of classes a person takes (and apparently how many real ones are too many). This much stimulating education is to make me sad.

:(

She also mentions one of the opportunities available, like "teaching,"-- made ambiguous by the quotation marks. Though she assures us that it will not be dreary-- perhaps like some of the other class offerings-- and be a 'neat' alternative. Some expected reflections are characterized by the whimsical "time flies, I'm growing up." Exclamation point. She's a real senior as opposed to a pauper and will experience the joy of a minor mental breakdown as a result. The style of writing itself is approachable and most of her entries read with a wide-eyed enthusiasm about the school. This text is even tageed with the cold-war vernacular "heck" and "yikes!' for ultimate appeal and cuteness. archie is around the corner as well, hands in his pockets and kicking the ground, groaning an "aw shucks." It's obvious they picked these representatives for a reason, and I can only imagine the selection process. Because most of the entries are also highly promotional of the school, they evoke Fairclough's concern where the people reading fluff won't know if it's just friendly or also borderline manipulative.

I got a comment on this piece, asking me how else these things are supposed to be written. They're supposed to be informational, after all, and they are trying to offer a perspective on the school. The problem is that it's the perspective of the school. I was told that things have to be written this way. Which is true. It's just asking if this is acceptable, not if it's necessary. I obviously don't deny that schools provide an education on some level. Public schools need to support themselves some how or prove that they're worth the support they're getting. Private colleges need their donors. It's in the literature. Each facet of a school is a selling point and if it doesn't bring in money, it has no use. More on this later.

Before I post what's at stake for the student or their role as a participant of a hiearchy, I want to share something about today. I went into the facilities department at Chapman, where the workers are handymen and people who make sure this school doesn't burn to the ground from an electrical fire. They are as important to sustaining this school as any other part.

On a memo on their clip board was an advisement encouraging them to use the breakroom area for their lunch, and that it might be unseemly for them to congregate in groups of "more than 3" anywhere on campus that is not a university event. They are not to make themselves known on campus as anything but people driving carts and working, for anything else would break the delicate surface of the illusion. And the simulacra loses its appeal.

The problem with sexy is that it only last for so long and keeping up the presentation is more work than it is worth. Sexy exploits more than it attracts and the most important people suffer from this denial.

2 am

I'm apparently supposed to present in 10 days. April 19th. I thought this would be okay at first, but the workload this week is heavy. Nick wants some sort of draft due Thursday, and after working on this for 3 hours a day all of spring break, I have no desire to turn anything in. I finished semi-transcribing the interviews and am going through some screenshots from the website pages. It's two in the morning and I can't sleep because of the anxiety. It's almost done, but there's so much that has left me disappointed. Sometimes I love this project, many times I hate it and am still trying to figure out what the whole purpose of it is and if anybody is going to care. Is it going to really matter if people know they're segmented and sold to? People still buy Coke and Nike.

Prof (not Nick) has said this was one of the most complex projects she's seen, before it degenerated out of a lack of inspiration. Now it just seems like a standard treatise on the failures of capitalism. Thesis class is lethargic and drags. We're too concerned with our own projects to really pay attention to other people's, and I'm guily of this as well. Either that or it's a similar pattern of editing as last semester that I'm going through. It's been difficult to explain the feedback I've gotten; it's like when a parent looks at an painting their kid made that they don't quite understand and all they can say is "interesting" with a passing glance. It wouldn't be such a big deal if the comments made didn't make it seem so pointless or self-indulgent.

This week is hard. Next week is worse. Draft posted by Friday.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6080572

oh what the hell:
Do you think I can use this as part of a literature review?

"Because they don't teach the truth about the world, schools have to rely on beating students over the head with propaganda about democracy. If schools were, in reality, democratic, there would be no need to bombard students with platitudes about democracy. They would simply act and behave democratically, and we know this does not happen. The more there is a need to talk about the ideals of democracy, the less democratic the system usually is."

I miss Noam Chomsky.

Building the Work

From Chapman University's Publications Page:

3. I'm really tired of the logo. Can I use something else? OR: I really love the Chapman logo. Can I just tweak it a little bit for my brochure?
The window logo is a quick identifying symbol for Chapman University. We see it every day, so once in a while (the publications staff included) we're bound to get tired of it. Just as designers for IBM or Nike or CBS or NBC probably get tired of their logos. But it helps our audiences identify us. In the same vein, we don't like to tweak the logo. In other words, don’t try this at home. You shouldn’t try to squeeze images into the panels, turn it into a rectangle or generally abuse it. We are nice guys most of the time, but on this one, there’s no compromise.

A New York Times article from 2005 contains great insight on "branding" schools and brings up several different issues on how schools do end up distinguishing themselves. Do retention rates say more about a school than acceptance rates? Do the incoming test scores and High School GPAs matter more than the employment options? Perhaps what matters the most is how these numbers are eventually used in the publication materials. This piece also supports the idea that there isn't much admonishment in taking the educational process and transforming it into a clear commodity:

"There has been a sea change over the last 10 years. Marketing used to be almost a dirty word in higher education."

It's been time to do an analysis for some time and I've been putting it off because it's seemed like such a gargantuan task. Either way, I think I might just narrow it down and concentrate on websites and the available resources within the site, navigation, how things are labeled, etc. In addition, I will also cover some of the publicity material from each university given to US News & World Report, Newsweek, and the like.

For the next week:
(Private) Boston College (http://www.bc.edu/), Colorado College (http://www.coloradocollege.edu/index.asp), Brigham Young University (http://www.byu.edu/webapp/home/index.jsp), Chapman (http://www.chapman.edu/). Just for fun, I've included Boston University because of their unique website (http://www.bu.edu/)

(Public) San Diego State (http://www.sdsu.edu/), Evergreen State (http://www.evergreen.edu/), University of Arizona (http://www.arizona.edu/), Clemson (http://www.clemson.edu/), University of Vermont (http://www.uvm.edu/)

Artifacts Covered in Dust.

"A thousand years later, a second Egyptian scribe provides a succinct curriculum: 'Write with your hand, recite with your mouth, and converse with those more knowledgeable than you.' "
--Somewhere on here

I started this project informally, in the fall of 2005, while taking Social Research Methods with Dr. Starr. Our assignment was to keep a diary for the semester. In this diary, we would follow one question, determine how we'd try to answer it through different research methods. At the time the question was, "why am I in college?" It came out to a few thousand words, most of it now possessing a purely nostalgic value for me. Over time I would continue to wrestle with trying to articulate this answer, and eventually I'd see the question as mildly irrelevant. It was no longer a why, but a how.

Below are two excerpts. Excuse the constant hyperbole and gushing excitement. It was just after freshman year and I was really fascinated by everything around me:

Week 6: The Ethnography*
So we came up with this great idea. It's more of an outsider perspective than anything else, but I think it's pretty great. So far, I've enlisted my friend John and TK. The inspiration comes from this book called "The Underground Guide to the College of Your Choice," written in 1971. It does an overview of several dozen colleges in the country from a countercultural point of view: whether you can buy grass, get birth control pills and what kind of books people are reading. This particular aspect is listed under "Mental Environment." Chapman College has one sentence: "People don't read." Some things never change.

But what I want to do is get two implants at every university. Have them stay there for two years. Take courses, live in the dorms, join fraternities, get completely involved in the social life. I'd have them keep a diary for these two years, and at the end, they would consolidate all this information into one final report, the compilation of which would be turned into a giant book. Or maybe keep a website, with each author logging in information every two weeks. Or maybe one student who actually attends could write, and another who is there just for that assignment, see what kind of perspectives I'd get. This would be great to do for every university we could afford to do. It'd be brilliant. It would go beyond these stupid ratings the Princeton Review does, and would reveal some localized truth about the school, or at least lift up the curtain so people could look and say to themselves, "Jesus Christ." I'm not just interested in the "party scene," but the actual mechanics of education. How well do students organize their own education? That's the focus. I like this. It's gravy.

Week 14 Discourse Analysis
The best thing to happen to my study. I wish I had had this during the entire process. It would have been absolutely perfect for my question. I had been doing so, I guess, from the start: just mentally collecting what everyone was saying about college. I watched two episodes of The Simpsons that dealt with college; both had visions of an eastern school as models; gothic buildings, large lecture halls, an autumn-like atmosphere. This is the most common image I see whenever I see college mentioned. What kind of nostalgia does this produce, and is it responsible for my disappointment? I could have been doing so much in analyzing films that are about college and note that probably less than 10% of the movie actually takes place in the classroom. What does PCU say about the college experience? Not a single classroom scene.

Why does everyone conjure up the same imagery when the generic term, "college students" is used. This is supposedly a time for experimentation and self-discovery, but does the environment really foster this in a positive way? How do people talk about college? In a sort of "been there, done that," method, where we remove current students from the conversation. We are still in school, so we lack the perspective that the adults do when they talk about their time in school. We are never included in the discourse, unless we are on MTV or our female counterparts in Girls Gone Wild, and the multitude of "fresh-coed" websites online. Are we told that we actually have to learn? Commercials capitalize on the vision of kids going away to school, but it always focuses on the transition, like cell phone commercials, etc. What is college all about, and why do people want to come here? What disappointments are in store? I still have no answer for the general question, but I have so many starting points. I have destroyed and constructed paths to answer this question properly, which I eventually want to do.

*It appears that someone has already started their own version of this, and it's very interesting to see how it's approached and conceptualized. It's a very sleek and attractive site, which seems to be parent-friendly something that the original Underground Guide definitely wasn't. There's a book available for some colleges, with some grouped regionally. The contrasts in the work between these two eras is an investigation in itself. I am using text from the College Prowler profiles as part of corpus to study.

The Goods

One of the concluding portions, discusses some of the concepts at stake in transparency:

The nature of student- institution relationships is often muddied in the materials published and distributed. Many contain statements that appear to acknowledge the student-centered approach, but often do not do so in reality. Institutions are far from being decentralized and deconstructed, but maintain a tenuous relationship with its students, current and future, by saying so (Connell 1998: 461). Wood (1939: 413) writes about how universities don’t make certain information, such as graduation and retention rates, readily available, painting an incomplete portrait. These numbers are available, but they often must be searched for, a practice that captures some of the more immediate consequences of marketization and commodification. A serious problem of trust is at issue because such a commodity-centered practice has strong ethical implications, especially because of the vulnerable state the students are placed in. On one level, the issue is determining when information is friendly and not just instrumental (Fairclough 1993: 142). On a deeper level, the question comes up about the effects of the academic institution’s authority, as well as the effects on the relationships between the collective identity of the institution and its participants (Fairclough 1993: 143).

Rodintzky (1968: 337) wrote that it was in the interest of the university to honestly reflect faults of the wider community, and concede that the imperfections of the political structure are also expressed in schools. Recent policy and population-specific studies strive for reformation through the printing of high-quality information need for more knowledge of curriculum. Students are conceived as consumers in publication materials, a relationship which is automatic and seemingly apparent. They are placed in a position of dependence where they often are not enabled to gain critical thinking until the university says so says so (Connell 1998: 469). Incoming students criticize glossy information for not being helpful, mostly being superficial, and containing little information on actual programs and how to prepare for them (Venezia 2005: 32). These critiques capture some of the material consequences that makes the case for students’ acquisition of empowerment through information.

Discourse analysis has become a resource for those engaged within institutional struggles, a way to overcome a sense of helplessness (Fairclough 1993: 158). What's at stake in using this analysis is establishing an individual control over the social goods being offered, as well as having the ability to articulate them as social goods. The dimensions of education as a “good” includes access to real information for the prospective and a clear understanding of a current students' relationship with their university. This paper advocates the practice of everyday discourse analysis, because it use cultivates a critical awareness of one's environment. Below are some of the reasons it might be necessary to foster a consciousness which Fairclough (1993: 142) deems as a necessary prerequisite for democratic citizenship.