Thread by @karenraycosta

so I woke up thinking about the "rigor wars," as one does

and I kind of feel like the debate over rigor, not to be dramatic, but it feels symptomatic of a (the?) battle for the soul of higher education

I want to give this "what do we talk about" a v.2.

What do we talk about when we talk about rigor?

-who we believe should get access to higher education
-who we believe should get access to complete their higher education
-our internalized biases around race, class, gender, and disability

I guess what I'm chewing on is that it feels really important to dig at the root of this, and I don't think whether or not you like the word rigor or believe in flexibility is really the root of these "wars."

And when I think about how we move forward and develop solutions, it feels really freaking important to make sure we know what the problem is that we're trying to solve. If not, it's just a bunch of band-aids.

oh! and I forgot to add, I'm also thinking about how institutional forces and beliefs about faculty success influence the extent to which instructors can defy pressure and norms around rigor...

how does our increasingly contingent workforce influence the rigor wars? who has the bandwidth to facilitate more flexible, supportive courses?

and burnout, of course. I don't feel like we can have any conversations about faculty and student success w/o acknowledging what I see as an epidemic of burnout for educators in higher ed.

what we know about burnout is that it leads to a cynicism about our work, an inflexibility as the person experiencing burnout's nervous system enters survival mode and seeks to self-protect. can't talk about rigor w/o talking about that.