The Salty Professor

The #HLC Higher Ground conference came to a tragic end yesterday as the hopes and dreams of this educator were dashed on the rocks of bullshit. Yeah. The bullshit was so hard, it became rock-like.

It turns out that plenty of people went to the conference to fuck off and go catch one of the myriad sports teams in the Chicagoland area instead of actually coming there to learn about trends in higher ed or about assessment or accreditation as was the fucking point of the thing.

Of course, others used it as an opportunity to pad a CV (which is college for resume), with the line "attended HLC conference." Someone actually said that to me. "You can put this on your CV. You were here." Right. I can, but should I? I mean isn't "attended HLC conference" the equivalent of saying, "held down chair in room full of people?" I am not going to write, "successfully rode the Blue Line from the airport with luggage" or "ate overpriced breakfast without spilling coffee on crotch" on my CV, but I guess I could.

My CV actually could have "presented at two conferences" because that would be true. It is a HUGE big fucking deal to stand in a room of like-minded educators and share wisdom with them and most importantly, engage in conversation with them. Both times I presented, I talked for 15-20 minutes MAX and then I opened up the floor to conversation which lasted well past the appointed time. I showed people how to do things and they asked questions. It was sort of like, and this is going to blow your mind, teaching. Some people came to present which looks even BETTER on the CV. There are CV points and attending is worth 2, but presenting is worth 5 (not spilling coffee on your crotch is worth 1).

Unfortunately, only two of the 15 sessions I went to felt like I was learning anything at all. The rest could have been an email. Like, for real. They could have emailed the slide decks and I could have read them, and got all the information because they fucking read off fucking slide decks.

Slide Deck is the name of my zydeco band. I play punk accordion and slowly read the lyrics while they are projected on a white screen in black words, one line at a time, with no animation. #slidedeck

I would argue though for those of us who went to this conference with the thought in mind that we would learn something important to take back to our campuses, we were all profoundly disappointed. It turns out the conference exists as a sort of educational fight club. People who don't get to go, imagine what it could be. People who get to go, know it is bullshit, but they don't tell. They just got a free trip to America's Second City with the number one pizza. Don't fuck it up for the rest of us. You don't talk about HLC because if you do, everyone is in on the secret that it is a huge waste of time and money and if you do tell, someone will likely kick your ass.

4 days of metaphorical circle jerks and reach arounds and yet, there were no happy endings.