Head in the Clouds - 22 June 2011

Head in the Clouds


The internet has transformed teaching at AUB to such an extent that one may safely claim our heads are now in the clouds. Ever since the learning management system WebCT (now called BlackBoard) was adopted at AUB, our lives have been taking a different turn. The chalkboard and class handouts have been replaced with online course material within a much more interactive framework. Although we have not yet reached the stage of the “paperless faculty” envisioned by a former dean, teaching and learning will never be the same again at AUB.

Back in 2001 I took to WebCT like a fish to water although my computer experience was quite limited. I was the first teacher to use an LMS in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences though I’ll have to admit I didn’t plunge deeply into it till 2004. By that time my teaching had become substantially web-enhanced.

This year – after years of training in online and blended learning (most of it voluntary) - I have finally transformed one of my courses from face-to-face into blended/hybrid format, meaning I have placed enough material and activities online to actually eliminate more than a quarter of class contact hours in that course. Moodle, the LMS AUB now uses instead of WebCT, has definitely made its mark. Lecture notes and assignment submission, glossaries and discussions, team projects, wikis, videos, and other supplementary material are now all accessible on or through Moodle. Without it, most faculty and students would be like fish out of water.

I enjoyed teaching online – and still do – and when the process was still new, I researched it thoroughly, giving conference presentations and publishing a number of articles about it. The next step after web-enhanced and hybrid/blended courses would be a far riskier one: 100% online course delivery. I doubt that AUB will ever want to reach that stage. Besides, from my latest continuing education interactions with Illinois Online Network participants, I have gathered that many blended courses were created as a step back from the fully online format rather than the other way around.

Having one’s head in the clouds does not mean floating in the cloud altogether. One’s feet must be kept firmly on the ground.

Note: While the term “cloud” is used metaphorically here, “cloud computing” in the strict technical sense of the term could mean hosting of data and applications on remote servers such as those of Google and Microsoft. See, for example, this InfoWorld definition of “What Cloud Computing Really Means” and this University of London Computer Centre blog entry: “Moodle in the Cloud”.


Posted by May Mikati on 22 June 2011, 4:07 PM

To Blog or Not to Blog - 16 June 2011

To Blog or Not to Blog


The democratic nature of the internet is well-expressed through blogs. Ever since blogging came into fashion, I have admired bloggers for their initiative and courage, and for sharing valuable information and experience with readers. Such participation of ordinary people in the shaping of trends and opinions globally was still a dream a decade ago. Thanks to the internet, the dream is coming true.

Although I admired blogging, I was not enthusiastic about starting a blog myself initially – whether professional or personal. A professional blog would be time consuming – too much of an additional responsibility. It would require research, substantial investment of energy, and constant updates and follow-up. A personal blog would be – well – too personal; only extroverts would go for that kind of thing I thought, and I shrank from the idea. I do enjoy writing, however, so I finally started this blog: a record that is neither intended to be professional in the sense of a conventional “niche” blog nor strictly personal or diary-like, but rather a synthesis of the two extremes. I decided to focus it on my work and workplace in general rather than on anything else. Relatively unknown among colleagues despite decades spent at AUB, this could be a chance for me, I thought, to step outside the realm of anonymity. The text could also enlighten readers less experienced with AUB, and possibly provide a different angle on things to fellow old-timers.

As this blog evolves, it may drift from its initial purpose, but if it does, I hope it moves more in the professional direction rather than the personal direction. I also hope it becomes interactive, so please feel free to post your comments.

Finally, here’s a funny YouTube video on blogging: "To Blog or Not to Blog!!"


Posted by May Mikati on 16 June 2011, 9:52 PM

The Feline Population of AUB - 11 June 2011

The Feline Population of AUB


In my student days, the campus cat population was much smaller than it is now. No one ever really seemed to take much notice of the cats, let alone feed them as I occasionally did with “Picon” cheese while waiting for early morning classes. Their presence did not seem obtrusive, either, but you can’t really judge till you have an office where they can barge in uninvited. Why do they barge in if I longer feed them? Do some of them still remember me from back then? One would doubt that as they don’t live that long. It must be because others feed them, and they get used to it.

Times have certainly changed. Lately, the AUB cats have become a prominent campus phenomenon, something of a trademark. Having multiplied over the years despite seemingly serious efforts to curb their numbers, they now feature on university post cards and calendars, and in various publications, such as the student yearbook. They sleep in office buildings, such as Fisk Hall. One also suspects that they will soon outnumber the faculty members; as if it’s not enough that faculty have to compete with each other, they now find themselves competing with the cats for attention and recognition! A special cat budget was announced once, at a time when budgets were being tightened in other areas.

When the AUB administration decided to organize cat feeding, this seemed ironic: how could feeding the creatures help AUB? Wouldn’t it attract more of them to the campus? The answers are found in former AUB president Waterbury’s new book, A Photographic Remembrance of Lebanon (p. 138). He states that well-fed animals are less likely to fall ill and spread disease than neglected, sick ones. Besides, he confirms that many cats were spayed/ neutered over the years under the supervision of a university vet. Waterbury admits though that, after the 2006 war, AUB suffered from the effects of “a new surge in cat dumping”.

Personally, although I don’t like the creatures, I can easily recognize some of them. There’s an attractive white cat which, on close inspection, has different-colored eyes; you can see it on the 2010/11 AUB calendar. Sadly, a particularly charming grey Persian disappeared a couple of years ago; when I mentioned this to some animal feeders, they commented that its disappearance was a good sign – someone was probably taking good care of it.


Posted by May Mikati on 11 June 2011, 4:04 PM

AUB Campus Parking - 06 June 2011

AUB Campus Parking


There isn’t much to be said really about parking on campus except that it’s been a controversial issue ever since I first heard about it in 1992 when I applied to park on campus. The November 1991 College Hall disaster was still fresh, and although all my colleagues were still parking inside the campus (outside Fisk Hall) back then, I was told that for security reasons everyone would be moved to the peripheral parking areas soon, and I was one of the first to have to park in the periphery. Only deans and chairs kept parking in the same old spots for a while after that. My fellow instructors resented having to park in the periphery, especially when years later the convenient peripheral lot behind Fisk was completely evacuated (also allegedly for security reasons), but with some exceptions of course. Many English Department faculty members were then asked to park in places such as the lower campus, and later an area closer to the Medical Center, now used for public parking.

In case you’re wondering why I walk up and down the campus stairs every day, peripheral parking is the answer – very peripheral in some cases! My colleagues prefer to park on or near Bliss Street – and those who live near by just walk.

A very new development is student parking on campus. Though expensive, the possibility now seems to exist in the Olayan School of Business. One wonders how many students are using the facility and how many waste time daily looking for a place to park outside. From what I’ve seen, parking is a nightmare for some students.


Posted on Monday, 06 June 2011, 3:16 PM

Flashback Three: To Publish or Not to Publish? - 03 June 2011

Flashback Three: To Publish or Not to Publish?


Well into my thirties, I was often mistaken for a teenager on campus. Around the year 2000, during a Student Representative Council voting event, a student asked me whether I was a sophomore when I was merely passing by on the way to my office in Fisk Hall. Similarly, a year later, while queuing for an event outside the Assembly Hall, the then-Head of Public Relations at AUB pushed me forward in a manner that a military officer might use with an impudent teenager. I don’t know if anyone noticed or reprimanded him, but when he passed by me at the next such event, his expression was one of someone whose head had just been struck with a hammer. It was clear to me that something was amiss, and that I’d have to work doubly hard to prove myself in the workplace.

One way of proving oneself in an academic setting is through publishing. At the very beginning, no one ever told me to conduct research or publish, and the idea of academic publishing did not cross my mind. Being young and relatively naive, engrossed in teaching and marking, and from a non-academic family background (though academically inclined since early childhood), the closest I got to publishing was flirting for a while with the idea of writing a novel about AUB – something akin to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, except revolving around aliens from another planet landing at AUB and reporting about it.

In the mid-to-late nineties an opportunity finally presented itself. Along with a number of other AUB faculty members, I was selected to work on a national curriculum English language textbook committee. Over the next three years most of my energy was focused on this project, and by the end, I had emerged as the published co-author of a number of English language textbooks, each with its workbook and teacher’s manual. At an early stage in our work though we were advised to withdraw from the project or remain only as individuals rather than as representatives of AUB; tensions had developed between the university and the National Center for Educational Research and Development, and although the nature of the tensions was not disclosed to us, it later dawned on me that foreign publishers had opposed the project as they wanted their books on the Lebanese market instead. When we finished the first book, a couple of outside “readers” were hired to edit it before it was released. Luckily, I got a chance to see their work just before the book went to the printers. Those “readers” had clearly left certain things unread: they had modified the student book without making the necessary parallel adjustments to the workbook or teacher’s manual, leaving a trail of discrepancies behind. “They’ve messed up their book!” exclaimed an NCERD employee when I brought this to their attention. A compulsive perfectionist by nature, I volunteered to repair those discrepancies after everyone else on the committee had disappeared for the summer holiday, the co-authors and the so-called “coordinator” of the textbook.

The episode with the government textbooks was a great learning experience though I’m not sure I’d want to go through that kind of tunnel again. Since then, I have published only teaching-related articles, many of which were initially presented at English teachers’ conferences. The course material one posts on course web sites is also a form of publication, albeit much less formal, and I’ve been involved in that for years, initiating and contributing to various English Department metacourses - sites available to multiple sections.

It is easy to begin slacking after such accomplishments, deluding oneself that there is nothing more to be done, but complacency is the enemy of progress. For the motivated, new vistas are always on the horizon.


Posted by May Mikati on Friday, 03 June 2011, 1:06 PM

Flashback Two: Coordinating the Extension English Program - 01 June 2011

Flashback Two: Coordinating the Extension English Program


A few months after joining the English Department, I was asked to coordinate the English Program for the AUB Extension (now known as the Continuing Education Center). That was over and above my full-time departmental teaching load. I was grateful for the opportunity, and I did that for three consecutive years before finally extricating myself.

The Extension job involved dedicating afternoon office hours to seeing Extension English teachers and coordinators, checking all exams, and revising the curriculum. I wrote detailed course objectives for the five levels, changed all the textbooks, and produced an elaborate new placement test, along with placement criteria. I was also involved in the placement of students; while most of the questions were multiple choice, there was a writing component that had to be checked before finalizing every student's placement. Additionally, I was consulted regarding the aptitude of instructors.

Did I leave a mark on Extension? Probably, because I was told that the then-Director of REP (Research and External Programs), the higher body in charge of Extension, was surprised I had left them. Additionally, a decade later, one of the Extension instructors brought to my attention that the placement test I had created was used for ten years after my departure.

The then-Director of the Extension, Antoine Kassab, also an Arabic Department faculty member (now deceased), had informed me that I had been asked to coordinate the Extension Program as a form of preparation for coordinating the English Department's Communication Skills Program in the future. Was I ever asked to do that? Never formally; rather, the possibility was flung at me very fleetingly and somewhat comically (in question form) once in the Department, a year after leaving Extension, when we were being individually consulted regarding the rotation of the Department's program coordinator - and you can imagine my reaction.

After the initial bumpy start there were many more puzzling moments as you may have gathered. AUB can definitely be a mystifying place, and as one of my AUB professors, in the eighties, once rightly remarked, "The Lord works in mysterious ways [at AUB]."


Posted by May Mikati on Wednesday, 01 June 2011, 11:05 AM