December 2014: Vol. II, Issue 3

Community throughdialogue, discussion,

and dissent.tcpublicspace.wordpress.com

Volume II, Issue 3 Monday, December, 8, 2014

KUO PING WEN, ALEGACY THAT STILL

LIVES TODAY

Exactly 100 years ago, Dr.Kuo Ping Wen became the firstChinese doctoral degree recipientat Teachers College. Soon after hisgraduation from TC, he returned toChina, and founded the NationalSoutheast University in Nanking.Dr. Kuo was regarded as the fatherof modern Chinese highereducation because of the manyfundamental changes he broughtwith him. Under Dr. Kuo’sadministration, National SoutheastUniversity developed into amodern university of many"firsts." It was the first universityin China to establish board-oversight in institutionalmanagement, to integrate teacher-education in a university-setting, toincrease institutional visibility byengaging social services, and toopen enrollment to both males andfemales. In 1926, Dr. Kuo alsowent on to found the ChinaInstitute. Dr. Kuo’s tireless workto advance China’s highereducation system and to buildSino-U.S. relations has had aprofound impact on China and theworld, which still inspires manytoday.

On October 25, 2014, co-organized by TC, the ChinaInstitute, the C.V. Starr East AsianLibrary of Columbia University,and co-sponsored by Ms. CarolynHsu-Balcer (Dr. Kuo’s greatgrandniece) and Mr. KaiyuanWang, Dr. Kuo’s legacy wascelebrated at the Kuo Ping WenSymposium, In Service toEducation: The Life and Times ofKuo Ping Wen, China’s FirstGlobal Educator. The day-longevent featured distinguishedspeakers including former ChineseVice-Minister of Education Dr. YuWei, Teachers College PresidentSusan Furhman, SoutheastUniversity Vice-President Bo Liu,and Teachers College William H.Kilpatrick Professor Henry Levin.Three panels of scholars frommainland China, Hong Kong,and Taiwan also convened todiscuss the history, philosophy,and present implications of Dr.Kuo’s legacy. Many high-level

Ji Liu

continued on page 3

HOW SAVING 6.4 BILLION DOLLARS AND GIVING STUDENTSFREE TUITION WON'T SOLVE ALL OUR HIGHER EDUCATION

FINANCE PROBLEMSChelsey Jones

Free tuition for all students would save $6.4 billion dollars—so, why aren’t we planning for a tuition free2015-2016 school year?

In January, Jordan Weissmannpublished an article in The Atlanticabout government spending onAmerican higher education; hewrites that our country couldactually save money if publiccollege tuition was free.Department of Education researchshows that 62.6 billion dollars werecollected from students for collegetuition. Here’s where things getinteresting: our current spending onstudent financial aid? Sixty-ninebillion dollars.

As someone who is carryingaround six-figures of student loans,Weissman’s article got me prettyexcited.

Conversations about highereducation costs and soaring studentdebt pop up pretty much anywhere—dinner parties, bars, nail salons—and everyone wants a quick fix.There’s quite a bit of unrest; we’reasking what we actually get for allof the money we’re spending.Creating a tuition-free systemwon’t offer any accountability. Thegovernment would struggle to holdinstitutions accountable andperhaps more importantly,institutions would struggle to holdstudents accountable.

The requirement of personalfinancial investment in highereducation reflects a belief thatindividuals will personally benefitand be wealthier after obtaining aBachelor’s Degree. To this end, theperson who benefits should take onthe cost and thus, our societyexpects students to pay their ownway. There are indisputablebenefits to a society with aneducated populace: less crime, morepolitical involvement, less need forpublic assistance, more economicgrowth. Still, the assumption istrue: people who graduate fromcollege will make more money.

What is uncertain is how longthat truth will remain. At everyfamily gathering I find myselfexplaining what I study and I ambombarded with stories of collegegraduates who are unable to findjobs or who are drasticallyunderemployed. "How do youexplain that," my relatives ask me.Students are taking on loads ofloans and are not being employed atwages that enable the loans to berepaid. As of May 2013, collegestudents and college graduates inthe United States have accumulated1.2 trillion dollars in loan debt.

This startling amount becomes evenmore daunting when coupled withknowledge that loans continue togrow and the pay-off is nothappening at a desirable rate. As ofMarch 2013, the Department ofEducation’s data indicate that 999billion dollars of loan debt isoutstanding. At the heart of it,college costs are exploding andgraduates are not getting jobs thatcan support loan payoffs.

Rather than providing tuition-free higher education, which wouldprotect students from spendingmoney to invest in education, itseems more prudent to implementmechanisms that hold institutionsaccountable. Colleges have a role inensuring their students aremastering relevant knowledge,knitting together curriculum andexperiences that make themmarketable in the workplace. Inearly 2013, President Obamaintroduced The College Scorecard.Feeling a bit like a hybrid between aranking sheet and a financial aidreport, The Scorecard intends tomake institutions more transparentabout the debt their studentsshoulder and their ability to pay itback. continued on page 2

Photo Credits: Yiqiu Zhou

TC PUBLIC SPACE Page 2tcpublicspace.wordpress.com

SAVING 6.4 BILLIONDOLLARScontinued from page 1

It’s a good start into highereducation accountability, offeringstudents valuable information aboutcollege finances, but there’s a darkside: colleges can use a need toboost their Scorecard as a reason tonot take on students who will needa lot of financial aid. Students whoare at risk of dropping out or ofgraduating without strong jobprospects can be viewed as aliability and institutions maysimply deny them admission.

It’s imperative that we begin toreflect on ways to hold institutionsaccountable to instruct their pupilsin challenging ways withcoursework that develops criticalthinking and reasoning skills,marketable skills in any workenvironment.

The College Scorecard is a goodstarting point but offers an easyway out for institutions, which canturn away students who mightthreaten their standing. If we wereto offer free tuition for students toattend college, the issue ofaccountability would not subside.As we begin to juxtapose the valueof academic freedom with theimportance of student learning inhigher education, it becomes clear:helping students pay for college isthe just the tip of the iceberg.

My first draft of this article wastitled, "Hello? AmericanGovernment? Hi! Can I have 62.6billion dollars? Trust me on thisone—I’ll fix everything."

It’s clear now how whollyinaccurate this title would havebeen—62.6 billion dollars won’t fixeverything. It is a misdirectedattempt to solve the problem ofpaying increasing tuition anddealing with crippling buyersremorse for the ever after. Whilemoney won’t fix the problem,finding ways to make sureeducational investments yieldappropriate dividends long-termcan make the debt seem worth it.

Ensuring institutions are heldaccountable for the success of theirgraduates and the usefulness of thedegrees they offer will yield alumniwho feel their money was wellspent.

"Just-ish" Artist: Nicole Elaine Avery, Doctoral Candidate, Year Created: 2014Commentary: Firearms out-date the camera, or the versions one considers a camera, by several hundreds of years.Therefore, the likelihood of capturing a villain red-handed would had to have happened in-front-of a painter or quicksculptor in society's "early-days." Yet, with today's ability to capture crime in mid-sentence through video surveillanceand high quality smart-phones, the validity of the crime caught on tape has recently been overwhelmingly negated inmany courtrooms across the United States as cops, who have brutally attacked civilians, have been cleared of allcharges. This piece speaks directly to the blind-eye placed on police brutality.

Disclaimer:TC Public Space is a forum for theTC community. Published contentdoes not necessarily reflect theopinions of the editorial board or

Teachers College.

A FEW WORDSFOR PROFESSOR

BONDDaniel Souleles

This is a reprint of some wordsshared at a departmental memorialfor Professor Bond last spring.

I’ve heard that when you speakin public, if you want people toremember what you say, you pickthree ideas and stick with them.And since I want people toremember Professor Bond, I’ll tellyou a bit about his scholarship, hismentorship, and his humanity.

Scholarship. I’ve been workingwith Professor Bond for a fewyears now. The title I’ve hadchanges from graduate assistant toresearch assistant depending on thevagaries of funding lines, yet thework has stayed the same. Thatwork has been helping ProfessorBond out on any of the researchprojects he was up to. He was up toa lot.

Last year, we’d determined thatmigrant remissions in North EastZambia are patterned along agnatickinship relations. That is, the stuffthat people displaced for laborreasons in Northern Zambia aresending home, often from sometype of mine, predominantly followthe father’s line. These arerelationships that much of modern

development and economic theorypredicted would wither with theexpansion of capitalist economies.They didn’t. We came to theseconclusions based on over fortyyears of survey data thataccompanied over forty years ofclose ethnographic field research.Professor Bond was having mecollate and tabulate his surveyresults. That’s not all, we were alsoplanning a conference, that wassupposed to have happened thisspring, to include a dozen regionalscholars which was to result in anedited volume.

Then, in the middle distance,there was the grant application wewere working on for the SpencerFoundation. We wanted to know thedifference between black and whitenetworks of elites after they passthrough formative institutions suchas a prep school or a college. Theplan here was to employ fourethnographers, two each in twodifferent cities to do a year or twoof field work to trace out elitenetworks as well as genealogicalinformation so we could see howhistoric familial access to propertyaffected socialization, classformation, and life opportunities.Just a minor, multi-year, team-based, ethnographic and historicresearch project. And anyone whohas tried to secure funding for asingle person, long term,ethnographic project, knows how

ambitious this all was.And then in the future we had a

plan to do some comparative workon the first generation of Frenchand American Anthropologists—thinking through the social andpolitical climate they were workingin. Perhaps we’d put together apaper or a panel. And then therewas the Tumbuku Bible which Ihad scanned and PDFed forProfessor Bond—all so that hecould do full text searching on Godand its various uses in Tumbuku.And then there were the shoppingbags of persistently overdue librarybooks I was steadily ferrying fromhis office to the return bin.

I think you’re starting to get theidea. Professor Bond had a restless,curious, exciting mind.

And these qualities were everybit as present in my mentoringrelationship with him. Rather thansuggest a book or a lone article,we’d talk and he’d tell me to go andread everything Mary Douglas, orEdmund Leach, or Robert Murphyhad written. We’d talk about the arcof their scholarship, what wethought they got right and wrong.With Professor Bond there was noexcuse to be ignorant of what hadcome before in anthropology. Andin my written work he was amongthe few professors I’ve had whoshared careful considered thoughtson my writing. He actually read

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A LEGACY THATSTILL LIVES TODAY

continued from page 1

Chinese government officials,scholars, and faculty andstudents at Teachers Collegewere also in attendance. Inconjunction with the centennialcelebrations, a book titled KuoPing Wen: Scholar, Statesman,and Reformer, co-edited by RyanAllen and Ji Liu, was compiledto narrate the remarkable lifeachievements of Dr. Kuo.

As highlighted by PresidentSusan Furhman, TC was the“birthplace of comparative andinternational education.” TC’sunyielding goal in educatingscholars and leaders hadtremendous impact on thedevelopment of education in China.Over the years, many instrumentalfigures in Chinese education hadstudied at TC, such as Tao Xingzhi,Hu Shih, Zhang Boling, ChenHeqin, Jiang Menglin, andcertainly Kuo Ping Wen. Inhonor of Dr. Kuo’s legacy,along with the generous supportfrom Carolyn’s familyfoundation, the Kuo Ping WenScholarship was established tosupport Chinese students who arepursuing graduate studies at TC, atrail blazed by Dr. Kuo over acentury ago.

China is a country experiencingunprecedented growth and immensechanges in every field, includingeducation. As China Institute Vice-President Thomas Moore pointedout during his closing remarks atthe Symposium on Saturday,“With increasing interconnectivitybetween the U.S. and China, theneed for mutual understanding andcooperation is more important thanever.” The significance of thissymposium was not only acelebration of Dr. Kuo’sachievements in education, but alsoa symbol and reflection of hisenduring vision for thestrengthening of Sino-U.S. relations.The privilege of peace anddevelopment that the new generationin these two nations enjoy todaycalls for a greater sense of jointresponsibility and mutual interest.Dr. Kuo’s wisdom and insight arestill an important and relevantmessage today, and in his ownwords, “let us hope that these ties offriendship will be preserved and I’mproved upon as the years go by, tothe end that these two nations maycontinue to live in a happy state offriendship.”

Ji Liu is a graduate student in theDepartment of International andTranscultural Studies at TeachersCollege, Columbia University, andco-editor of a recent book Kuo PingWen: Scholar, Statesman, andReformer.

HARLEM MINDFULNESSApril Empleo Frazier

Dharma-certified Yoga InstructorJ.E.E.P. Coordinator - Community Impact Department at Columbia University

Field Consultant-NYC Teaching Fellows 2014Master's Student of Mindfulness in Education at Teachers College

This semester, a handful of Teachers College students haveembarked on a journey within through a new partnership with MindfulHarlem. Students are completing certifications in Mindfulness BasedStress Reduction in exchange for supporting this new organization thatis dedicated to bringing mindfulness to Harlem, specifically to under-performing schools.

Mindful Harlem is located on 119th Street and Frederick DouglassBlvd. Feel free to check out the website to learn more:www.mindfulharlem.org . This nonprofit organization is quicklybecoming the go-to place for Columbia University students. Studentscan drop in any Saturday from 9 AM to 11 AM for the "Drop and Sit"class (come on time) or take an eight-week class in MBSR (MindfulnessBased Stress Reduction) for a more in-depth exploration into stressmanagement and healthy living! Mindfulness is a way to experientiallylearn to take better care of yourself. If you are willing to actively engagein your own health and well-being, we welcome your participation.

MBSR programs have been around for a long time. Introduced intomedicine thirty years ago by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor of MedicineEmeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center,mindfulness has become a successful mainstream influence in medicine,psychology, corporate environments, and now education.

Thirty years of research and, more recently, brain science, offercompelling evidence to support the use of mindfulness in education. Theapplication of mindfulness by students and educators has the potential toimprove academic achievement, mental health, and inter- and intra-personal relationships.

What is Mindfulness?Mindfulness is a particular way of paying attention. It is the mentalfaculty of purposefully bringing awareness to one’s experience.Mindfulness can be applied to sensory experience, thoughts, andemotions by using sustained attention and noticing our experiencewithout reacting.Mindfulness creates space, changing impulsive reactions tothoughtful responses.

We help to grow this space, enabling new, wiser responses that improveattention, learning, emotional regulation, empathy, and conflictresolution.

Benefits of Mindfulness

The benefits of mindfulness are manifold:Better focus and concentrationIncreased sense of calmDecreased stress & anxietyEnhanced healthImproved impulse controlIncreased self-awarenessSkillful responses to difficult emotionsIncreased empathy and understanding of othersDevelopment of natural conflict resolution skills

continued on page 4

STAFFPaula Davis ............................................................... Editor-in-ChiefMatt Hastings ........................................................... Editor-in-ChiefDerrick Hull ............................................................ Editor-in-ChiefJoe Marinelli ...................................................... Editor-in-TrainingDavid Perrett .............................................................. Layout EditorShannon Duncan .................................... Communications ManagerCatherine Hull .............................................................. Copy EditorShahida Arabi ............................................................... Copy EditorSeungHee Joo ............................................................. Visual EditorBeatriz Dixo Sousa Albuquerque Mendes .................. Visual EditorJulianna 'Charlie' Brown ............................................ Online Editor

SUBMISSIONSHave a response article to write? A letter to the editor? An

opinion you'd like to share with the TC community? A report orinterview you'd like to see in the paper?

Art to share?

TC Public Space is always open to a variety of submissions.Email us! [email protected]


PROFESSOR BONDcontinued from page 2

what I wrote and commented on it.He was adamant that I beabsolutely clear about my units ofanalysis, and the larger import ofthe work I was proposing. Evennow, his admonitions for clarityand concision ring in my earsevery time I write.

And what of the man? I foundmyself trying to explain a bitabout my advisor not too long ago.And the thing that most readilycame to mind was the way headdressed people. Everyone wasMr. or Ms. Or Dr. In the fouryears I knew Professor Bond I wasnever addressed by my first name,nor were any of my colleagues,nor were any but his closestcolleagues. And I don’t suspectthat this was some archaism oreven elitism. On the contrary Ialways read it as a levellinggesture, an attempt to address eachperson equally, and give them theopportunity and space for dignity.Often in an academic setting thosein positions of authority or powerwill go by a title of some kind,president, professor and so on, andrefer to their students or staff byfirst name. I can’t fathomProfessor Bond doing this.Manners and politeness were notexclusively affect. They were aninsistence on

treating everyone equally as ahuman being.

In the last week or so I’veexperienced a lot of contradictoryemotions. I haven’t just lost acolleague, I’ve lost a mentor—someone not only responsible formy academic research, butresponsible for my formation as aperson in the discipline ofanthropology. And the best I cancome up with is that I feel like anorphan. One author noted:

The death of fathers: When a fatherdies, his fatherhood is returned tothe All-Father, who is the sum of alldead fathers taken together...youmust deal with the memory of afather...At what point do youbecome yourself? Never, wholly,you are always partly him. Thatprivileged position in your inner earis his last “perk” and no father hasever passed it by. [DonaldBarthelme, The Dead Father quotedin Marcus 1992:173]

And while this author isapprehensive at his father’slingering presence, I feel lucky tohear Professor Bond, alwayswatching out for sloppy scholarship,careless thinking, and ill-gottenprivilege. I know these things werethe furthest from who ProfessorBond was. I’m glad I knew him,and I sure do miss him.

NAILING THEPSYCHIATRICINTERVIEW

Michelle WorthingtonM.A. Candidate, Clinical

PsychologyThe following is a fictionalizedaccount compiled from the storiesof others’ experiences. Mentalhealth is something many membersof our community struggle with andeveryone experiences it differently.Seeing different accounts of ashared topic can be useful indefining it more clearly for oneself.It can also contribute to the overalleffort to destigmatize mentalillnesses. Some may see a diagnosisas a barrier while others embrace itas a part of their identities.

I’ve been preparing for weeks.I’ve researched, practiced, andreviewed. The waiting area outsidethe office is minimally decorated,but welcoming. My whole body isantsy as I repeat my rehearsedanswers over and over. Thewindowless door finally opens and

a gentle voice calls, “Ms.Whitmore?”

That’s me“Yes, here!”“Hello, and welcome! I’m Dr.

Murdow. Please follow me.”Dr. Murdow is, in appearance,

everything I hoped from my firsttherapist. Everything from hersophisticated red glasses to hersensible choice of footwearimmediately puts me at ease. Myheart rate begins to steady and Ibecome aware of how dry mymouth has become. Dr. Murdowshows me down the short corridorand around the corner to an officewith full-length windows and a fewbookshelves -- not too many toseem intimidating or pretentious,but enough to reassure her clients ofher expertise. I can’t help but findmyself distracted immediately andfascinated by all the clinical-sounding titles. Was I somewherein those books?

After a brief introduction, Dr.Murdow gets to business.

“So, Maggie, let’s talk a little bitabout why you’re here. What’s beenbothering you lately?”

This is it. The question whoseanswer has possessed my mind formonths. Whenever I had a cold andfound myself at the urgent careclinic, the same question wasasked. “Why are you here today?” Ican’t leave out any details for fearof concealing potentially diagnosis-altering information. The diagnosisis the most important part, after all.It separates the colds from the flus,poorly managed stress from anunderlying anxiety problem.Yes,I’m congested, I’ve had a very sorethroat and headaches... (pausing towait for reaffirmation that there is,in fact, something wrong with me).

“Well, I’ve been feeling veryanxious lately. I get headachesalmost every day and I can’t focuson a damn thing. I’m worried thatnothing I do at school is adequateand that it won’t matter in thegrand scheme of things. I can’t planmy future. I can’t stand my friendsanymore. I can’t stand beingaround most people, really. Theyall irritate me. They irritate me, butI’m worried about losing myfriends and being alone, so I put upwith them...” and it goes on.

There. Surely The Doctor wouldbe able to come up with somesatisfactory label to explain mythoughts and emotions. If somepills came with it to ease mytroubles, that wouldn’t be so badeither.

At the end of the session, alongwith my shiny new prescription forKlonopin and a diagnosis of“Generalized Anxiety Disorder”, Ifeel a glimmer of satisfactionknowing that there’s a label for me.I still fit in a box within the mentalhealth world, despite the ways Ifeel on the outside of others’normalcy. Why does this feel sosatisfying? Being able to attributemy troubles to some external locusof control, some entity inside of methat was causing me to feel thisway, is an easier concept to acceptthan its opposite. Whether mentalillness even exists as an entity orsimply a cluster of symptoms, Idon’t worry as much because “it” isapparently treatable. “It” is not tobe taken lightly, but adds to theever-growing list of characteristicsand experiences that defines me asa person.

HARLEM MINDFULNESScontinued from page 3

Applications of MindfulnessMindfulness gives children access to some of the same techniques thatthe world’s top athletes, speakers, and musicians use to perform at theirbest under pressure-filled circumstances like:

Test Taking Public Speaking Sports MusicPeer Interactions Family Life

The Saturday class is free and the MBSR Classes are open to allresidents of Harlem as well as students regardless of ability to pay.Participants are welcome to join the Mindful Harlem "Work Exchange"program in lieu of payment. The work exchange aim is to involve localresidents in the growth and development of this community center whichincludes marketing, teaching, outreach, physical chores, blogging andother social media initiatives, administrative help and much more.Internships are available for students interested in a deeperunderstanding of creating a 501c3 with hands on experiences such asgrant writing, research and partnership building. Mindfulness is notsomething you have to “get”. You already have it. It is your own innerresource available to you any time. The MBSR program and the "Dropand Sit" program are both ways to cultivate that inner wisdom.

Mindful Harlem, founded and directed by Adrian Bueno and JayneGumpel, has an extensive outreach plan and vision to bring mindfulnesspractice off site and into the community. Hospitals, clinics, nursinghomes and schools are high on the priority list. A Mindfulness inSchools program is underway and facilitated by two Columbia Graduatestudents, April and Heidi.

Go to the website (www.mindfulharlem.org) to learn about thiscommunity resource and get involved. Learn to take the stress out oflearning, out of your chaotic fast paced life and begin again!

"Mindfulness is a love affair ~ with life, with reality and withimagination, with the beauty of your own being, with your heart andbody and mind, and with the world." Jon Kabat-Zinn

Please get in touch with April for more information!(917) 588-2797 [email protected]

Documents

December 2014: Vol. II, Issue 3