I’ve talked about finding a natural stopping point and conclusion multiple times on this blog and in class, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot as the course comes to a close. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of my life, and especially this semester, in rehearsals for various instrumental ensembles. Rehearsals are an opportunity to develop and refine the music; moments of perfection can be found in rehearsal if only due to pure repetition. Concerts, however, have little room for perfection, because of energy, nerves, human error, and countless other reasons. This is a kind of imperfection I’ve pretty much learned to live with, if only because there’s still half a program left to play or a completely new program to be performed in a couple weeks.

I think it’s partly because of my acceptance of this imperfection that I’ve allowed my perfectionism to run rampant with this project; WordPress’s seemingly endless customization possibilities have also helped. All of these options make it even more difficult to determine when any aspect of the site is finished, as “completed” or “polished.” Currently most of those decisions are about minor details including image placement, font size, and menu order, but sometimes I look at the site and wonder if the larger design features, like the theme, are actually the best out there, and if there’s not better plugins or images than what we’re using. My hesitance to declare the site “complete” extends to the research side of the project, though I’ve resigned myself to what’s on the site already do to the time constraint. There are relevant sources and topics I was barely able to touch on in the site due to lack of time, and conducting interviews about the public liberal has never seemed more important.

To return (sort of) to my original topic, most music has clear and natural endings marked by double barlines that are frequently telegraphed tens of measures in advance by the harmonic structure. Right now, this project has its own double barline approaching in the form of our presentation on Thursday, and I can already hear the crescendo of the V-I cadence. While I have no doubt that the site will be satisfactorily completed by the presentation, there’s a chance I’ll be changing minute, barely visible details until 1:59 on Thursday.

That being said, I’m astonished at how the site has turned out–I never really thought it could be so coherent and professional. This course has taken me farther out of my comfort zone than anything in my academic career, and I’m incredibly grateful.  While the significance of the work this course is doing increases daily, and I hope more students have the opportunity to participate, I need an intermission.

Thanks to anyone who has been following this blog (and actually made it through this post).

This week I’ve mostly been trying to make something coherent out of my research from the past several weeks. On the site, this is most visible in the timeline, which I’m continuing to revise to provide sufficient context for the rest of the content.

Deciding what to include in the timeline has not been an easy process, as there are countless events that be helpful and provide further insight to Geneseo as an institution. I’ve been trying to select events that are interesting and varied but still create a framework for our more detailed discussion of curriculum. Another difficult aspect of creating the timeline is the sources I’ve been relying most heavily on: Mahood’s  SUNY Geneseo: From Normal School to Public Ivy, 1871-2007 and Fisher’s …the stone strength of the past… Both of these histories of the school are incredibly informative and factual, but they are also written by long-time professors at Geneseo with inescapable biases in favor of the institution. While working on the timeline, I’ve had to continually remind myself that the events highlighted in the histories are likely those that were the best for the school. Of course, there are worse problems to be had, and I’m very grateful for Fisher and Mahood’s work. I’ve also added some explanation and analysis to the “General Education and Humanities” page to accompany the booklet containing the developments in general education. I’m planning to pay special attention to the revision of the Common Core in the late ’70s that included the addition of the Humanities sequence, and I haven’t decided if that discussion will be on the same page or treated separately.

As for the site itself, John and I have spent a lot of time this week working on the general organization of content and finding the best theme. The organization will likely stand as it is on the landing page of the site currently, with more content–images that reveal quotes from our interviews that lead to related pages. I think we’ve narrowed it down to two themes, both of which are very customizable and generally clean and minimalist.

During this past week, we had two really insightful and informative interviews with Humanities professors. Our interviews this week will come from different perspectives. We have two definite interviews set, and are attempting to schedule a time with an administrator. One of the interviews is with a student, and I’m expecting that we can use many of the same questions we asked the professors we’ve interviewed with some reframing. The other interview we have this week with Professor Brooke McCorkle of the Music Department is of particular interest to me. Geneseo has not been particularly to kind to the fine arts in recent years (as can likely be said at most public schools), and the most recent blow came just this weekend when President Denise Battles announced (through email) that the college will no longer be funding Finger Lakes Opera (FLO). FLO is a relatively new organization that has provided the college and the surrounding community with access to an art form that is often inaccessible and  considered elitist. To me, this type of access and exposure to the arts is one of the most important aspects of a liberal arts education. This latest cut is particularly discouraging considering the election, the results of which do not bode well for education as whole, and when education suffers, the fine arts usually suffer first. If these are the decisions being made before the effects of a Trump presidency are felt, I greatly fear for the fine arts at Geneseo in the next few years. I am very interested in hearing Professor McCorkle’s thoughts on these events and the state of the fine arts at Geneseo, in addition to our regular questions about general education.

I think I’ve actually finished my research. After our class discussion on Thursday, I decided to limit my most in-depth research to 1948-1979. Within these years, Geneseo transitioned to a liberal arts college (1962) and later substantially revised the Common Core general education requirements(throughout 1976-79). These two events are of the most interest to me, and I’ve yet to decide how much information about the curriculum prior to 1948 I will include. I also found a flip-book plugin (WP Booklet) that I will experiment with next week after I start scanning the relevant pages from course catalogs, Faculty Senate minutes, etc.

Additionally, I decided to present the general history of Geneseo solely through a timeline, using TimelineJS. I think this is a more visually interesting way to display this information, and it gives me further encouragement to incorporate images. I currently have a draft of the text for the timeline completed, and on Monday, I’m meeting with the special collections librarian to go through images from the archives that I plan to incorporate into the timeline. I’ll also be looking for anything that could be used or incorporated into a header for the website.

This week we have two interviews scheduled, both with professors who frequently teach the Humanities. While our first interview was great (better than I expected), I would like to be a little more organized and have more scripted questions for these interviews–I expect little variation will be necessary between the two. I’ll also be scheduling firm times for two other interviews: one with a music professor who teaches several general education classes and is fairly new to Geneseo and the other with a student. I would also like to start preparing for these interviews this week (although they likely won’t happen until next week), since we are approaching these interviews from very different perspectives than the others.

I’d like to have a completed draft of the timeline and some form of the flip-book of gen. ed. requirements up on the website by class on Thursday. I’m imagining some amount of text will accompany the flip-book, but I will base that on how the flip-book comes out. As reflected in the title of this post, I feel like I’ve been making actual progress this week and that’s really encouraging. I will also be perfectly happy if I never have to go through Faculty Senate minutes ever again.

I think I’ve actually finished my research. After our class discussion on Thursday, I decided to limit my most in-depth research to 1948-1979. Within these years, Geneseo transitioned to a liberal arts college (1962) and later substantially revised the Common Core general education requirements(throughout 1976-79). These two events are of the most interest to me, and I’ve yet to decide how much information about the curriculum prior to 1948 I will include. I also found a flip-book plugin (WP Booklet) that I will experiment with next week after I start scanning the relevant pages from course catalogs, Faculty Senate minutes, etc.

Additionally, I decided to present the general history of Geneseo solely through a timeline, using TimelineJS. I think this is a more visually interesting way to display this information, and it gives me further encouragement to incorporate images. I currently have a draft of the text for the timeline completed, and on Monday, I’m meeting with the special collections librarian to go through images from the archives that I plan to incorporate into the timeline. I’ll also be looking for anything that could be used or incorporated into a header for the website.

This week we have two interviews scheduled, both with professors who frequently teach the Humanities. While our first interview was great (better than I expected), I would like to be a little more organized and have more scripted questions for these interviews–I expect little variation will be necessary between the two. I’ll also be scheduling firm times for two other interviews: one with a music professor who teaches several general education classes and is fairly new to Geneseo and the other with a student. I would also like to start preparing for these interviews this week (although they likely won’t happen until next week), since we are approaching these interviews from very different perspectives than the others.

I’d like to have a completed draft of the timeline and some form of the flip-book of gen. ed. requirements up on the website by class on Thursday. I’m imagining some amount of text will accompany the flip-book, but I will base that on how the flip-book comes out. As reflected in the title of this post, I feel like I’ve been making actual progress this week and that’s really encouraging. I will also be perfectly happy if I never have to go through Faculty Senate minutes ever again.

I’ve had an incredibly hectic week for reasons unrelated to the project, but the chaos has managed to find its way into my research and other work for the course.

John and I decided to narrow the scope of our website even more and focus on general education and especially the Humanities sequence (HUMN) at Geneseo. Due to this change, we are planning to eliminate the local history page noted in the project contract and add a page specifically about general education and HUMN. I plan to include the most relevant aspects of local history into my page about the college’s history. We also discussed the role of the timeline, which we still need to figure out. From what I can tell, TimelineJS, while very user-friendly, won’t do exactly what we explained in the contract. I still think a timeline of some sort would be a helpful visual on the site, even if as a general introduction to some topics. I’ve yet to work up the courage to check the schedule laid out in the contract in the past few days because I know I’m so behind, but I’m hoping to finish my print-based research by the end of this week and start creating the pages next week.

As for my print-based research, I’m still buried in the archives. While I’ve been fairly productive, there’s a lot more I want to get to (mostly Faculty Senate records and newspaper archives) that I feel like I won’t be able to move through quickly. I’m also worried that there won’t be a natural stopping point to my research and I’ll miss something important. Hopefully any gaps in my research will be filled by the interviews (which will hopefully be completed by the 18th–scheduling is a nightmare).

I’ve also become slightly concerned about the visual appeal of my pages on the website. I’ve mostly been going through course catalogs and faculty bulletins, which are very informative but aren’t visually interesting. I’d like to avoid a wall of text followed by a picture of another wall of text. Photos of the campus are always an option, but I’m not sure how appropriate sunset pictures (of which there are an abundance at Geneseo) would be for a page about gen. ed. I’m planning to ask Liz Argentieri, the special collections librarian, if she knows of any images in the archives that might be useful.

In addition to continuing (hopefully finishing) my research this week, I’m hoping to go back through my blog and make any changes I feel necessary, including changing post titles and maybe adding a few pictures. I’d also like to change the name of my blog, which I’ve never really liked, and get a new header–hopefully I’ll remember to take a picture on a day with good weather.

This week I’ve been looking at yearbooks from years that I feel are most relevant to changes in Geneseo’s curriculum and higher education in general, as determined by my previous research. I’ve started with the yearbooks from 1949, ’51, ’61, ’62, and ’76. These are years that, respectively, were affected by the GI Bill and the end of World War II and then the transition to a liberal arts curriculum were made, and, by ’76, in fuller effect. Since most of these changes were gradual and not fully felt in a single academic year, I may go back and look at other yearbooks from the same time periods at another time.

1949, ’51, ’61, ’62,and ’76 editions of Oh Ha Daih–the name adopted after Geneseo became a state teachers college recognizes regional Native Americans (Mahood, 130)

My current interest is the curriculum, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, this was not a major focal point in any of these yearbooks. While not unacknowledged, the curriculum is primarily noted in the pictures of the faculty, divided by department.

The English Department’s pages in the 1961 Oh Ha Daih (40-41)

The pictures are accompanied by short blurbs about each department, and while some include changes made to the specific curriculum of the department, such as English in ’61, it is difficult to discern any changes made to the college’s curriculum as a whole. While I didn’t read every book cover to cover, I didn’t even find a mention of any form of a liberal arts curriculum in the ’61, ’62, and ’76 yearbooks.

Changes in the English Department noted in the 1961 Oh Ha Daih (41)

This academic reorganization could perhaps be attributed to Geneseo’s transition into a liberal arts college, but no such assertion is made in the yearbook (1972 Oh Ha Daih, 37)

Of course, the point of a yearbook isn’t to provide detailed descriptions of the curriculum, but rather to capture the culture, community, and personalities of the college in that year (likely in a positive and nostalgic sense). Before I approach that aspect of my research, I want to have a firmer grasp on the changes in Geneseo’s curriculum, which I will hopefully have in a greater sense after I visit the archives later this week. While the source I have mainly been using in regards to the curriculum (Mahood’s ) is incredibly helpful and comprehensive, it has its own narrative, and I would like to go through old undergraduate bulletins and other primary sources to create my own narrative for the website. Currently I think that the curriculum will be the most important aspect of my (print-based) research, and I plan to allow my findings in this area to inform how approach the greater college community and culture that the yearbooks are more concerned with.

Beyond my research, I started playing with themes on the website and added a placeholder title and header. I found several themes that I didn’t like and one that works for now (Datar), although since we don’t have anything of any significance up yet, it may need to changed in the future. I do like the theme’s minimalist layout and flexible header, so I will probably look for themes with similar features should the need to change it arise.
I’m expecting my visit to the archives to be the highlight of this coming week in research, and I also hope to move forward in the process of planning and scheduling interviews—pending, of course, on IRB approval.

Our class discussion today about the “sympathetic researchers” in Buurma’s article made me think about the Humanities sequence at Geneseo, considered to be (and advertised as) the cornerstone of our liberal arts curriculum. The sequence consists of two courses that examine the development of western civilization primarily through “Great Books,” and are primarily taught by English, history, and philosophy professors (more in-depth description here). Most relevant to our discussion is the fact that all students are required to take these classes as a graduation requirement, and students of all majors and backgrounds end up in the same classes. This mixture of students often produces the variety of insights that Mark mentioned when discussing interdisciplinary classes. I’m currently taking Humanities II, and the range of opinions in what is still mostly an English class (I will admit I’ve purposefully taken both courses with English professors) is refreshing compared to my major classes, where everyone is trained to look at the texts in the same ways (not that this leads to everyone having the exact same thoughts).

In terms of my site, I’m still not exactly sure how Humanities will figure in. I discovered through some (very brief) googling that at least among the SUNY schools, our program is quite unique; several schools have humanities general education requirements, but a number of different courses that fulfill them (including Albany, Binghamton, and Purchase).

Furthermore, the history of the program at Geneseo is more than a little contentious. As I learned when researching for my first blog post about the college’s history, the program took several years to fully establish after its conception. From what I can tell, the curriculum has not drastically changed, but I hope to find further information on this in the archives (which I plan to visit within the next couple weeks). On the first of class this semester, my Humanities professor told the class that since its establishment, various forces have been trying to remove the sequence from the graduation requirements. While I currently don’t have much to back this up, I think it’s entirely believable, because most current students dread taking the courses (I will attribute this partially to traumatic registration experiences).

In my interviews with current students and alumni who took the courses, I definitely intend to address this aversion to Humanities; the requirement certainly isn’t kept a secret during the admissions process, so why choose a school like Geneseo if you know you will hate these classes? I also want to discuss this with the professors who teach the courses. While I’ve gone back and forth on the possibility of interviewing a greater ratio of English professors than those in other departments, I currently feel that interviews with a number of different professors who teach/have taught these courses may be more beneficial to the project as a whole than a more equal spread across the disciplines.

My research has been at somewhat of a standstill this week as I’ve had a number of papers and midterms, but, as I mentioned earlier, I’m hoping to visit the College Archives after my break this weekend. Over the weekend, I’m going to try looking more closely at some of the specifics of the site design—this may be more easily and efficiently done once I’m farther along in my research, but becoming more familiar with WordPress and the like can’t hurt.