#alvernoink

[walterstj-blog]

The Essential Guide to the new AEO Program!

The new Adult Evening and Online (AEO) program at Alverno College

When:  Wednesday evenings. First class is 5:30-7:15; second class is 7:30-9:15.

How Long: Each class is eight weeks, then there is another set of two classes for the second eight weeks of the semester.

How Many Credits: Each class is 4 credits, allowing up to 16 credits per semester.

Expectations: Alverno has always been diligent about setting high standards for student learning. That high standard holds in this program.

How High: The in-class portion covers a lot of content, theory and discussion; the online portion builds on that and introduces new material. It includes interactive course forums, readings, videos, assignments and quizzes.

Flexibility: The AEO is not a cohort program; while there is a sequence to classes and certain required courses. Students can take fewer than 16 credits, might have transfer coursework that is accepted in lieu of a class, and have flexibility with electives.

Required Classes: of course there are a few courses that are must-haves, including a series of Leadership courses that sound very intriguing.

Can I Join: Weekday students can’t register for an AEO course; they are only open to those in the AEO program because of the different course prerequisites and structure.  

The Exception: WEC students who need a course offered in AEO but will not be offered in the weekend time frame before her graduation date. She would need to work with her advisor and get special permission, but Alverno is committed to helping the weekend students progress to graduation.  

AAA to DC: This program is separate from, and won’t replace, the Alverno Advantage Associates to Bachelor’s Degree (AAA) program. The AAA program, however, is now called the Degree Completion (DC) program. It continues to run in cohorts, with all DC students taking the same courses in sequence with others in the major.  

Why: the impetus for this was the change in what women want, coupled with Alverno’s long tradition of trying to meet the needs of all women, including the many for whom a traditional weekday class schedule will not work.

[riverayn-blog]

Bob Dylan begins his 1974 hit song “Forever Young” with, in my opinion, the most memorable opening lines:

“May God bless and keep you always “

“Forever Young” was a song written for Dylan’s son as he missed many milestones from touring.

However, it stood out in a time where self-identity and self exploration were in high demand. The 70’s was the age of protests and standing for what you believe in and the younger generation were the focal point of the movements.

Dylan’s diction choices throughout the song enhance the theme of being forever young and standing true to who you are and what you believe. He uses words such as “always”, “true”, “righteous”, “courageous” “upright”, and “foundation” to emphasize this.

As many songs mirror the form of poetry, I notice many poetic elements within “Forever Young”. There was the use of anaphora within the first three lines of the each verse with “M”. There is also a trochaic rhyme within the verses rhyming “young” with other words such as “rung” or “sung”.

Lines such as:

“May you always know the truth

And see the lights surrounding you”

suggest that you should always be aware. To stay “awake” in light of what is going around you.

He also believes in holding on to beliefs even in the face of disbelief or those who are against you:

“May you have a strong foundation

When the winds of changes shift”

Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” is relevant until this day an age. As more events are occurring where people must speak up and hold true to their beliefs and stay “forever young”.

[printtopub-blog]

Stranded in this spooky town Stoplight is swaying and the phone lines are down Floor is crackling cold She took my heart, I think she took my soul With the moon I run Far from the carnage of the fiery sun Driven by the strangle of vein Showing no mercy I'd do it again Open up your eyes You keep on crying Baby I'll bleed you dry Skies are blinking at me I see a storm bubbling up from the sea And it's coming closer And it's coming closer You shimmy-shook my boat Leaving me stranded all in love on my own Do you think of me Where am I now Baby where do I sleep Feels so good but I'm old Two thousand years of chasing taking its toll And it's coming closer And it's coming closer And it's coming closer And it's coming closer

          Closer is a song featured on Kings of Leon’s fourth studio album “Only by the Night.” The album is more famously known for the raunchy song Sex on Fire and Use Somebody, which both dominated the pop charts in 2008. While the entire album is full of songs with rich meaning and creative lyrics, Closer stands above the rest with its short powerful verses and beautiful storyline.

          At first listen, the true meaning of the song might be missed by audiences entirely. Nothing is said outright. The narrator does not reveal his own identity or the identity of the woman he is singing to and/or about. His vocals remain strained and the chorus remains simple. The standout line from this song is its chorus, which mimics the title, “And it’s coming closer.” Before I go into what “it” is that the narrator is talking about, let’s take a step back into who the narrator is.

          Taking several clues from the song, I determined that the narrator is a heartbroken, suicidal vampire. This is an archetype, of course. However, although there have been endless representations of vampires longing for death after the loss of a loved one, I have not heard many songs that take on this anguish as it’s about to happen. We receive this suicide well in movies and literature, but it often is missed in music. Even with musical representation, the music videos are often the channel that tells this story rather than the lyrics themselves. This is why this song is so good.

Here are a list of clues that we receive that tell us that the narrator is a vampire, and their meaning:

“With the moon I run, far from the carnage of the fiery sun” – the narrator remains with nighttime and avoids daylight

*Driven by the strangle of vein” – he longs for blood

“Two thousand years of chasing is taking its toll” – he’s two thousand years old

These are just a few of the breadcrumbs the songwriter leaves for the audience members to paint picture of what is happening.

Well, if the narrator is a vampire, then who is he singing to? That question is answered in the first and second verse. In the first verse, the narrator is singing about her and she is revealed to be the woman that he loves. Because of her, the narrator is confused, stating, “She took my heart, I think she took my soul.” The key phrase in this is “I think…” which implies that he is disoriented and suffering. Instead of stating it outright, the songwriter was sure to keep the character’s wording as loose as possible. At this point in the song, he still wants to live as he mentions “with the moon I run,” meaning he is sticking to nighttime.

          During the second verse, he goes from singing about the woman to singing to the woman. Judging from the verse, “You keep on crying, baby I’ll bleed you dry,” it is revealed that this woman could possibly be human, or at least unhappy with being a vampire. “Driven by the strangle of vein, showing no mercy, I’d do it again.” These two verses together come before his words to the woman and suggests that she is unhappy with his killing or bloodlust. At this point, the narrator notices the sun and has stopped chasing the night.

          He goes from action to non-action, noticing the sky and the rising sun. The chorus begins here. “And it’s coming closer,” meaning the sun, and death, are closing in on him.

          During the second verse, the narrator noticed the sun rising at the sea, and during the third verse, he reveals that he is on a boat. Instead of running away from the sunrise, the lyrics strongly suggest that he is going towards it. The woman “shimmy-shook” the boat. Shimmy is an old 1920’s dance that causes the entire body to shake and wiggle. Using this word describes the intense manner in which the boat is rocking. The verse that follows is, “…leaving me stranded all in love on my own.” The woman was out at sea with him and possibly jumped overboard. If she is human, then this is her method of suicide while his is burning at daylight.

          Her death is followed by a series of questions. “Do you think of me?” “Where am I now?” “Baby where do I sleep?” This is where the narrator reveals his age as being two thousand years old. This makes the question “…where do I sleep?” irrelevant due to his age. A vampire that old should have no problem finding a place to sleep. The real question that underlines this statement is, “how do I sleep?” Without the woman, the character goes back to that disoriented stage.

          This is followed by the chorus “And it’s coming closer.” The character can only watch heartbroken as his death arrives.

          This song is very powerful. It is approximately 4 minutes long with very short verses, but the story that it tells could fill an entire novel. The cryptic messages that lie beneath the verses are vivid yet obscure. It evokes sadness, suspense, and passion all at once. It follows the traditional tales of romanticized vampires while feeding its own originality with beautiful vagueness.

[hardworking-lily]

The Murderer and the Manuscript

[walterstj-blog]

Interview

Dr. Harry Fleddermann, Professor Emeritus, joined the Alverno faculty in 1985, teaching every semester for 25 years. He enthusiastically taught Arts & Humanities courses that included Film Around the World and the classic WEC requirement, Bridging the Cultural Gap. In fact, it was through the latter class that I first met him. Our regular instructor, Jonathan Little, had to be out of town the day our class toured the Hindu Temple of Milwaukee, so he arranged for Fleddermann to meet our class there instead. We were bowled over by the bundle of cheerful energy who enthusiastically introduced himself to each of us. So thoroughly did he relish his stint as our substitute teacher that he positively grinned throughout the entire afternoon, radiating an infectious joy that I later learned was part of his trademark style. I can only imagine what his classes must have been like.  

One of the first courses that Fleddermann taught was The Experience of God, which had 60 students enrolled in it. Unlike what you might expect from a Catholic institution, but not at all surprisingly from Alverno, the course was designed to explore individual experiences with God, not promote an institutional view. Fleddermann explained that many students entered the class having had negative experiences with religious institutions, but through exploring numerous personal, historical accounts of American women of all faiths from Catholic to Buddhist and even atheists, the students would discover their own personal view of God. This was just the sort of magic that kept him in love with teaching for all those years.  

It’s part of a phenomenon he calls “the magic of teaching.” To paraphrase his educator speak, the classroom experience is a unique social phenomenon in the world. Nowhere else does a group come together to discuss some mutually important topic, having agreed to prepare in advance for that discussion. The sole purpose of their meeting is to create a dialog between an expert in the field and those wanting to probe that topic for more information in order to expand their minds. As interesting as that thought is, I prefer his shorter description of the classroom education process as he believes it should be: “magic.” He talked about how there would frequently be that magic moment in class as his students were struggling to understand an idea, but couldn’t quite make the connection. By suggesting insights, Fleddermann would guide the class to that “ah-ha” moment when they would discover the connection for themselves in that breakthrough moment of understanding.

The hallmark four-hour class format of the weekend classes was a huge asset in that type of guided learning. The extended class length allowed the opportunity to probe an important topic fully in one sitting, rather than disjointedly over the course of a couple classes. For the Film Around The World course, that longer block allowed the class to view an entire film together and still have ample time for constructive critiques and other activities, allowing for a depth of study which would be impossible in a shorter class. Further, even the more shy students would have enough time to become comfortable in the group and join the conversation.

And how he loved engaging students in conversation. One of his favorite “tricks” was to throw a party on the last day of class. The papers and presentations were all in the past now and the pressure was off. However, Fleddermann didn’t miss the last opportunity to lead the class in a little more learning. This time, he wanted them to learn about themselves.  

Knowing that each student had dashed off an end of semester course evaluation and self-assessment, geared to saying what they felt they ought to say, he would guide the conversation toward the last question of the semester, “What was the best thing you learned this semester?” He wanted them to see it and own it. At one memorable party, one of the students struggled to describe her transformational learning experience in the classroom. Finally, she blurted, “The only thing I can compare it to is sex.” As the rest of the class laughed, Harry smiled to himself knowing that she had discovered the exhilaration of being a lifelong learner, and it would change her life.

That story compelled me to ask the question that had been on the tip of my tongue throughout our conversation. “What was it like to be a male teacher at a women’s college?” Laughing, he shared a story from his first semester at Alverno. He was teaching a weekday class of about 25 women, mostly 18 year olds, and they were giving presentations on the topic of coming of age, a “who am I” piece. One student was a 29 year old divorcee who talked about the birth of her first child. Fascinated, a classmate asked her what she considered the most amazing part of becoming a mother. She responded by talking about her worries that she would not be able to produce enough milk, and her surprise and delight to realize that she was able to nourish her child. It was definitely girl-talk, and Fleddermann had a few uncomfortable moments, wondering if he was out of place, but he quickly realized that none of his students were concerned about his gender at all. “The natives accepted you?” I

prompted, smiling. “Yes,” he laughed, “I was accepted.” And that was the moment when he knew that his gender was a non-issue.  

Ever the educator, after our interview ended, he asked me about my own course of studies and future plans, and wished me the best, assuring me that he knew I would do well. His genuine smile as we parted emphasized the one thing about education that hasn’t changed over the decades: the importance of it being delivered by one who truly has the heart of a teacher.  

SIDEBAR

I’ll never forget that first exhilarating class in Weekend College. I was apprehensive about returning to school–again–at my age. But looking around the Alverno classroom, I realized that I fit right in to this group that had only one common denominator: we were all women. Otherwise, we were not a homogenous group: our ages, our skin color, our styles were all different. And as the semester progressed, I discovered that we also represented a wide range of income levels, educational backgrounds, and even religious beliefs .  That was the beauty of learning together – we brought so many different viewpoints to everything we discussed in our four hours together every other weekend. Together we forged our own personal learning community, each contributing to our shared pool of knowledge. Sharing our strengths with each other didn’t make us weaker, like you might expect when you give something away. Instead what we gave made us stronger, as a group and individually. And that’s another bit of classroom magic.

[walterstj-blog]

The Fall 2015 semester brought a monumental change to the Alverno campus. The Alverno on the Weekend (WEC) program began phasing out as a new Adult Evening and Online (AEO) program, a blend of in-person and online classes, was launched. Creating this new program posed an intricate challenge to the staff at Alverno -- how to meet market demands for a rapid degree-completion program for adults with day jobs, without sacrificing the non-negotiables at Alverno: outcome-based education incorporating the eight abilities, the creation of a strong sense of community among the students, and the essential face-to-face component. Fortunately, the committee of dedicated Alverno faculty was ready to meet the challenge.

When I heard the news that Alverno was closing its Weekend College (WEC) program and offering a new blended-learning program of evening classes instead, I panicked. As an intermittent Alverno on the Weekend student with a dozen classes standing between me and a Professional Communication degree, my hit-or-miss approach had me on a trajectory of graduating sometime around 2021. Although Alverno wanted to honor its commitment to WEC students like me, they couldn’t hold the program open that long. Instead, my academic advisor and  I mapped a course that included taking some weekday classes and switching my major to Integrated Studies. With that change, much more of my transferred coursework counted towards my degree, bringing my graduation date up to December 2015. Not only would I have my degree before reaching retirement age, I’d have it before Christmas.  

As ecstatic as I am about graduating in a few weeks, I’ll miss being a student. It was an amazing adventure in learning, making it bittersweet to close the door behind me, a feeling only intensified by the knowledge that I’m one of the last women to experience the unique Alverno on the Weekend journey.

Alverno’s Weekend College was founded in 1977, back when Jimmy Carter was president, the US median household income was $13,572 and Star Wars was shown on the silver screen for the first time. The Apple II computer was on the market, but I didn’t know anyone who owned one. How the times have changed since then. Education has vastly changed over the years as well.  

Dr. Harry Fleddermann, Professor Emeritus who taught Religious Studies at Alverno College for 25 years, joined the faculty in 1985 when the Weekend College was in full swing, with some classes enrolling up to 60 women. In the mid-eighties, Alverno offered the only college classes in town specifically targeted to non-traditional students. Its non-intrusive schedule of half-day classes held every other weekend allowed working women to pursue their degree without impacting their work schedule. According the Fleddermann, many of the early students were women in their 40s, 50s and 60s who had put their careers on hold to raise a family and were returning to college to do something to nurture their own selves. They had a hunger for the education that had been denied them for so many self-sacrificing years. One of Fleddermann’s favorite stories from those years happened on the last day of class, the day he traditionally asked students to share the best thing learned that semester. One student struggled to describe her transformational learning experience, finally blurting, “The only thing I can compare it to is sex.” As the rest of the class laughed, Harry smiled to himself, knowing that she had discovered the exhilaration of being a lifelong learner, and it would change her life.  

Over the years, the program evolved in response to students’ changing needs. Younger students flooded the program, and by the late 1990s Fledderman recalled that the majority of weekend students were women in their mid to late 20s. The Arts and Humanities support area gave way to more career-focused majors. Then enrollment began to dwindle as other colleges caught up to Alverno and began offering classes on nights or weekends, and later online, to appeal to the non-traditional adult student. Class

sizes eventually shrunk to 15-20 students, even in the core courses. Fleddermann found that this smaller student-to-teacher ratio brought a wonderful dynamic that allowed instructors to focus on each student more individually, but it also meant trouble for the sustainability of the business model.  

A team of dedicated faculty from across campus worked together to solve the dilemma. Headed by Jill Newton Moore, Professor of  Communications and Technology and Academic Director and the director of the new  Adult Evening and Online Programs, the new program is committed to upholding the best of the Alverno tradition, including that essential sense of community.  “We have not created a new school,” Moore said, “We have created a different way of enacting our ability-based curriculum to meet the needs of women. I like to remind people that all Alverno students are Alverno students. They come because they know that an Alverno education is exceptional.”  

Moore is approaching her 30-year anniversary with Alverno, and she  still has a powerful connection to adult  students. Moore struggled to put herself through college, and “always had to take evening courses when they were offered, juggle daytime courses around my work schedule.” She was haunted by a recurring nightmare that she would be broke and homeless. At last, she finally completed her degree and felt an almost overwhelming relief. “I know a lot of other women experience that. I am so proud that Alverno continues to enact our mission for women in many life situations.”  With that hard-earned understanding of the critical need for this program, Moore is enthusiastic about the new Adult, Evening and Online (AEO) program that Alverno unveiled this semester.  

Jonathan Little, Professor of English and Director of Film Studies at Alverno College, has taught in the WEC program since 1989. As much as he loves the Weekend College, he is optimistic about this new program, pointing out that many of the essential components are similar. For example, because of the two-week gap between classes in the Weekend program, there were elaborate expectations of the work that students would do between classes. Likewise, in the new program, students take an active role in their education. And the technology piece, while more prominent in the new program, really isn’t a new component. In the WEC program, during the several days between classes, email and Moodle were both important tools for communication between student and instructor, and among students collaborating on projects.  

The emphasis on face-to-face time and the careful incorporation of the abilities structure are components that will provide this new generation of Alverno students with the same sense of community that is so important, while also allowing them to quickly acquire the degree they need to thrive in the workplace. 

[riverayn-blog]

[riverayn-blog]

[riverayn-blog]

[riverayn-blog]

[riverayn-blog]

[riverayn-blog]

I'm hanging in there.

[riverayn-blog]

Shhhhhhh!!! Don't tell Carole!

[riverayn-blog]

Why wait? Travel the world.