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Grad Schools for Idiots or Idiotic Bureaucrats?

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I will never understand bureaucracy-speak. Here is an excerpt from an email I just received:

The award provides financial support in the form of tuition waivers to academically qualified individuals underrepresented in graduate programs.

The email seems to suggest that graduate programs lack academically qualified people and that it’s so extremely rare to find one that he or she should be given an award. But that would be too bizarre of a statement, so I’m guessing the email tries to communicate something different.

For the huge sums these paper-pushers get for doing absolutely nothing, they could at least learn to write emails.

28 responses to “Grad Schools for Idiots or Idiotic Bureaucrats?”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    I think I got it. Those are members of minorities (those to whom positive discrimination applies) who excel academically.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      That’s not what it says, though. Why not just say it directly? I know why: these are careless people who hate their jobs and believe they are entitled to get paid without doing a stroke of work.

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        \\ Why not just say it directly?

        May be, the words “minorities” and “(positive) discrimination” aren’t seen as suitable, “decent” ones to use? I would prefer to be referred to as “individuals underrepresented” rather than “minorities”. Besides, other groups except minorities may be included. In Israel it could be minorities (Arab, Druze), Ethiopian Jews, people from peripheria (small, poor towns far away from Tel Aviv area).

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          But the problems is precisely that individuals cannot be either represented or underrepresented. They are individuals, so nobody can stand in their place. Only groups can be represented. By individuals.

          And if people are too shy to express the idea in question, something is wrong either with them or with the idea.

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  2. Evelina Anville Avatar
    Evelina Anville

    Yes. Minority is a word going out of favor. “Underepresented in . . . ” is gaining much more currency.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      My question is: why doesn’t the email say “individuals from underrepresented groups” instead of the completely meaningless “underrepresented individuals”?

      Besides, one would need access to very detailed enrollment statistics and a very profound analysis of them to see which group is underrepresented. I wouldn’t dare venture such a guess about my campus, for instance. Hispanic students? But that’s only because Hispanics don’t live in the area.

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  3. Evelina Anville Avatar
    Evelina Anville

    Well nationwide groups that are underrepresented in graduate programs (and even at the undergrad level) are African-Americans, Hispanics, and American-Indians. There are other groups of course (students from rural areas of the country for example) but those tend to be the major three.

    But I agree with you. The e-mail is badly written. I find myself cringing at the copy some of our

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  4. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    So, men in nursing, women in civil engineering, etc., is what this means??

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Who knows at this point? I’m wondering why they are being so cryptic.

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  5. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    Bureaucratic language is meant to be opaque to all but the initiated, it’s second only to military public relations in hiding the meaning to outsiders while being perfectly clear to insiders.

    As a former worker inside a smallish bureaucracy (inside a huge one) it was completely obvious “qualified individuals underrepresented” means what are more crudely referred to as NAMs (Non-Asian Minorities).

    The reason for the obfuscation is that a large group of the public is against affirmative action and votes against it any chance it gets so they want to keep the form but change the name and surface structure enough to work for a while until the rubes catch on.

    There’s also an institutional assumption that NAMs will remain “underrepresented” for the foreseeable future so the name works. The fear behind the assumption is that nothing can be done to make a dent in representation percentages so extra layers of euphemism are called for – a kind of psychic defense for those waging an effort doomed to failure.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      “Bureaucratic language is meant to be opaque to all but the initiated, it’s second only to military public relations in hiding the meaning to outsiders while being perfectly clear to insiders.”

      – To outsiders, this kind of language sounds completely insane.

      “There’s also an institutional assumption that NAMs will remain “underrepresented” for the foreseeable future so the name works. ”

      – And this is especially bizarre at my university. 15% of our students are black, and that’s bigger than the percentage of African Americans in US population. That’s anything but underrepresented.

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        \\ And this is especially bizarre at my university.

        But what is important is total, nation-level statistics.

        \\ The fear behind the assumption is that nothing can be done to make a dent in representation percentages

        What are the reasons? Only (culture of) poverty and lack of investment in schools in poor neighborhoods? What could be done to improve it?

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          ‘But what is important is total, nation-level statistics.’

          – You are forgetting that we are a regional, state university. We serve students from out geographic area. And our demography is what it is. Comparing us to, say, Alaska or new Mexico would be absolutely bizarre.

          “What could be done to improve it?”

          – If only anybody knew. . . This is one of the greatest tragedies of this country. And the answers about the reasons are far from obvious. What helps are universities like mine, of course.

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  6. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “What are the reasons? Only (culture of) poverty and lack of investment in schools in poor neighborhoods? What could be done to improve it?”

    Basically everything that non-members of the groups in question can do has been tried and with pretty indifferent results. I read once that the dirty little secret of that branch of education reform is that almost anything works short term and almost nothing works long term.

    If I knew answer to the last question I’d be the messiah of American education and not reduced to making snarky comments on blogs…

    The only clue I can give is that IME and AFAICT education for its own sake is not a strong value in any of the underrepresented groups.

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    1. el Avatar
      el

      If you’re interested, I found those articles on “Mike the Mad Biologist” blog:

      How One Principal Is Solving D.C.’s School-To-Prison Pipeline Problem
      http://dcist.com/2014/05/how_to_solve_dcs_school-to-prison_p.php

      Schooled: Cory Booker, Chris Christie, and Mark Zuckerberg had a plan to reform Newark’s schools. They got an education.
      http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/05/19/140519fa_fact_russakoff?currentPage=all

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        Schools, schools, schools. i have no idea why schools are always discussed in this context. While a child lives at home, the only significant influence is the family. After the child leaves, it’s too late to be in school and there is college. Schools cannot stand in lieu of parents, so this entire discussion is moot.

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      2. el Avatar
        el

        // While a child lives at home, the only significant influence is the family.

        So nobody can do anything at all, except parents? No need to even try?

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          One can try. But it is what it is. We come from our families, we carry the histories of our families inside us, we receive our very first, most formative experiences in our families. Not even the most phenomenal math lesson in the universe can even begin to counteract that.

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      3. el Avatar
        el

        I forgot in which Europian country it was, but I read about almost all year round (few holidays) schools till late hours (4-5 in the evening, iirc). In that country school students showed good results. Most waking hours are spent at school, and it can’t not influence, imo.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          It really isn’t about the amount of time. One can (and pretty much everybody does) carry a single hurtful comment made by one’s mother until the day one dies and not remember hundreds of hours spent in a classroom in any sort of detail. That’s just how it is.

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      4. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “i have no idea why schools are always discussed in this context”

        Because the (more accurate) alternatives are too painful to bear thinking about.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          “Because the (more accurate) alternatives are too painful to bear thinking about.”

          – Exactly. As I discovered, there is no greater taboo in this culture than to say that parents are responsible for raising their own children.

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      5. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        Third rail, this is Clarissa.

        Clarissa, here, meet the third rail.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          I don’t understand the third rail comment at all. Is this still part of the Americanization contest? 🙂

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          1. cliff arroyo Avatar
            cliff arroyo

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail_of_politics

            In education the third rail is to suggest, even obliquely, that underrepresented groups bear any responsibility for being underrepresented…..

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              Ah, got it, people fear this will make them look racist. Of course, if nobody wants to discuss, then the issue is not likely to go away.

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  7. el Avatar
    el

    OK, what can one do to / with parents to help their children? I read about poverty culture and how it gets transmitted in families, one must break this cycle somehow.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      The biggest thing, I believe, would be to change this general societal attitude that insists that people are just born the way they are and upbringing has zero influence beyond the purely physiological. But this is such an entrenched attitude that I don’t even know how to shake it.

      Poverty per se doesn’t cause these issues, and this approach is wide-spread among all income groups.

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