Being Dr. StrangeScholar - Embracing Chaos

Well…I think I’ve found another “name” for my scholarly identity. Last year I came up with committed technofile (the name of this blog). And I definitely think of myself as such; however, as I’ve started to develop my scholarly interests and projects along the issues of the future of scholarship, media and scholarship, and scholarship at/as two year college/s faculty I’ve found another. I have found that I like, and have more fun, presenting scholarship (in person or on paper) with a narrative framework. I have played with these things for a while now:

• Once upon a time I did a workshop on basic online design strategies using Superman as a narrative metaphor;


• I reported out on my year as Ocotillo Queen of Hybrids (obviously that wasn’t the title) using The Matrix as a metaphor,
  
  
  
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    Take the RED Pill
    You stay in wonderland and we show you how deep the hybrid learning goes; OR

  
  
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    Take the BLUE Pill
    The learning ends. You wake up in your office and believe whatever you want;

  
  


• I’ve been using the phrase “Keeping up with the Jetsons” to refer to my various projects (starting with the dissertation, including a presentation to fellow rhet/comp folks, and currently with my Ocotillo R&D work) to easily describe my research on how/why faculty can keep up with the exponentially increasing number of new technologies;


• I’ve co-authored piece coming out in an edited collection called Resident Franchise (playing with the Resident Evil narrative);


• And now, I found myself somehow identifying with Dr. Strangelove as a scholar studying scholarship in the 21^st century.

If you’ve seen Dr. Strangelove or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, I’m sure you are saying “eek—Dr. Strangelove was a Nazi.” You are right, but that didn’t first draw me to the narrative. First, I love the second half of the title. There are still major technophobes out there; and I really think they would be happier individuals if they learned to stop worrying and love the technology. This doesn’t mean they shouldn’t engage it critically; however, like nuclear bombs, computers are here to stay.

Second, I think the various characters at play in the film do nicely parallel folks we have in the academy and how they react to digital scholarship: “We must preserve our precious peer reviewed print journals.” Admit it…you know these people, right?

Finally, and back to Dr. Strangelove himself, I do identify with him. He has accepted that the bomb has dropped and computer technologies are here to stay. Instead of wistfully dreaming of a prosaic past (which was never that good), he starts dealing with the situation as it currently stands and offering up ideas. Instead of studying a problem to death before making decisions on what works best, he knows that there isn’t that kind of time and we have to act with haste. But that is why scholars specialize right, so people/leaders can ask for their trained opinion instead of learning it all on their own. And yeah, he has a dark past; however, that past informs his current understanding of the future.

Translation: Computers in education are here to stay. They also advance quickly enough that we can’t study something to death before deciding whether or not to implement them (or at least try them out). And yes, I am scholar from the dark side of the academy, the two year college; but folks at the R1 institutions, that experience gives me insight into things you may never understand. If anything, I am not entrenched in the current scholarly processes at research institutions; my outside status occasionally allows me to see parts of the process that those of you living in it are blind to.

Ultimately, what I like about my new Dr. StrangeScholar persona is that I blatantly admit to embracing the chaos. Chaos is messy. Sometimes strange, or even half-baked, ideas emerge; however, I also think that interesting connections are also made out in that messy area. I’ll stay there for a while, and continue with my work on the scholarship of the 21^st century. Keep an eye out for my new chaotic connection between Just-in-Time Teaching and the future of scholarship: Just-in-Time Scholarship.

February 01 2007 | Posted in 21st Century Scholarship