State of the Discipline

Things are changing, and from the looks of it, not for the better.
Membership is down, participation in annual meeting is down, programs are being closed and dismantled. Even worse, no one seems to know what or who we are, or even that we exist. Some even think that cable television is a suitable replacement for our long dead profession.
The state of the discipline is weak and uncertain, but not without hope.
Annual meeting must not simply be a social club, but also a place where serious work gets accomplished, and like-minded individuals can connect. We must leave feeling that we learned something of value that we couldn't have learned someplace else.
Research must be more than a word that is carelessly tossed about, it must be a passion that is rigorously pursued. Research, especially interdisciplinary research, must become a central part of our mission.
Policy, especially family policy, must be something that we take seriously and develop our own positions on (and, dare I dream, advocate for those positions?). Restating other organizations' position statements or recommendations does nothing but prove our own redundancy.
Controversy is not to be feared. It is to be tackled head on. We are adults. And if we're not, we don't deserve to call ourselves professionals.
Looking backward only serves us if we intend to use the past to inform the present and future.
To survive, we must first answer one simple question. What does AAFCS provide that is unique? The answer, in my opinion, has to do with the interdisciplinary and applied nature of the field. Let's focus on doing that well.

Who am I to give the state of the profession? I am the profession. So are all of you out there. Let's not wait for others to define us or write our obituary.

Isn't it Quaint? More Nostalgia for Home Economics

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/23/132230490/elegantly-old-school-nostalgia-books-on-the-rise
Isn't it sweet and old fashioned? In this book review on NPR's morning edition, I heard more nostalgia for what we are left to assume is the long dead field of Home Economics. And, of course, Martha Stewart was mentioned yet another time as the modern instantiation of Home Ec. What is most disconcerting to me is that our field has not become irrelevant, but invisible. If Home Economics is seen as old fashioned, Family and Consumer Sciences is not seen at all. As schools continue to make budget cuts, FCS programs remain vulnerable. No one can support programs that they apparently do not know about. Family and Consumer Scientists: let's stop rebranding and start advocating. Strongly.

Consumer Education, Economics, and Resource Management: Lessons from Seinfeld

This could be really useful for teaching any FERM related class--on any level. http://www.yadayadayadaecon.com/
What could be more relevant than sitcom reruns? This is gold, Jerry! Gold!

Gender Equality and Fair Pay

One reason that Home Economics (now Family and Consumer Sciences) has been called a femal ghetto is because the professionals, mostly women, who work in these fields are so underpaid. Even within universities, professors teaching in FCS units are among the lowest paid. For me, the Paycheck Fairness Act was a refreshing and welcome acknowledgement of what most women know all too well: women work more cheaply than their male counterparts. The irony is, in these troubling times, our willingness to work cheap, take on the jobs of more than one person, and our increasing majorities among recipients of bachelors and masters degrees have advantaged women in this highly competitive market place. It's a sad irony, to be sure. There are those who do not beleive that gender inequality exists anymore, if it ever existed. In fact, there are those who disagree vehemently with anything resembling civil rights legislation, and those voices seem to get increasingly louder.

Promoting the profession

"Home Economics has made a large place for itself in our public school system, the people's college. School boards need no longer be bribed with hot biscuits and well broiled steaks served by the children to show how "practical" Home Economics is." -1911 Isabel Bevier

FCS Relevance and the Millenial generation

http://www.ncfr.org/about/news_read.asp?id=1647

This little "digital ethnography" got me thinking about the perceived relevance of our profession(s) to the new generation of students. I think that this is our strength, and should be a major focus of ours--getting the word out that our classes are relevant, timely, and needed. Gets to that "life skills" idea that AAFCS has been promoting, but I think goes beyond that as well. Our classes are tailored to professionals and promote knowledge and skills they can use in both their professional and personal lives.

Watch the short video and let me know what you think. Another issue that the video brings up that I'd like to explore is modes of learning. How should we best deliver course content? What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of on-line classes as opposed to the traditional lecture class? Are there other alternatives? If students are texting, blogging, facebooking, e-mailing, websurfing, etc. during class, and spend far more of their time on the computer, what are the practical implications of this for teaching and learning (and how prepared they will be for professions that involved actual physical, real world contact with human beings)? Things to ponder as we move forward.

The Ghetto Ignored

The National Resource Council offers the best assessment of doctoral programs available, but ignores programs that generate about a quarter of doctorates. These fields, including "Home Economics," share "a professional and applied orientation" and attract a higher percentage of women and minorities. What does this bias reveal? What does this mean for disciplines that are excluded from the analysis? Read the entire Chronicle of Higher Education article and decide for yourself:

http://chronicle.com/article/Assessment-Denied-the/48233/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en.

Remembering Ted

What does Ted Kennedy have to do with FCS? I'm not sure right now, I'm just sad that he's gone. Although, come to think of it, he stood for everything we in FCS have stood for and ought to stand for now: making sure that people's basic needs are met, fighting for healthcare for children, fighting for civil rights, early intervention...standing up for those who are too young, old, frail, or just plain powerless to stand up for themselves. He did this tirelessly until he was old and frail himself. We could borrow some of that spirit.

I'm not just sad about Ted--I'm sad about losing all three Kennedy brothers. But the best thing we can do to honor their memory is to carry on their work. Otherwise--what's the phrase? The terrorists win? There are all sorts of terrorists: Some assassinate great leaders in the prime of their lives. But there are less violent forms of terrorism. Some try to scare people into voting against their own self interest. Some try to shout people down in town hall meetings. Others threaten to pull out of AAFCS if we dare to discuss topics they view as off limits. Surprising how effective scare tactics can be.

But now it's finally time to do the hard thing, and stand up for issues that aren't always popular with all of our members. I know so many of our members think the way I do. I have no patience with the passive complicity of silence. We must not be afraid to say what we know is right. As Ted so eloquently put it, "...For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Good Sources of Information on Healthcare Reform

Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC)HSC is a nonpartisan research center dedicated to informing "policy makers and private decision makers about how local and national changes in financing and delivery of health care affect people."
Congressional Budget Office (CBO)The CBO "provides Congress with nonpartisan analyses for economic and budget decisions." This links to the CBO's preliminary analysis of H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.
HealthReform.govHealthReform.gov is a U.S. Government website managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. It includes the Obama Adminstration's messages on health care reform.
Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF)KFF is "a non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on the major health care issues facing the U.S., as well as the U.S. role in global health policy." This links to the foundation's "Side-by-Side Comparison of Mayor Health Care Reform Proposals."
Tax Policy Center (TPC)The Tax Policy Center is a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. It offers "timely, accessible analysis and facts about tax policy to policymakers, journalists, citizens, and researchers." This links to a "The Numbers" analysis done by the TPC titled, "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 Surcharge on High Income Individuals."
U.S. House of RepresentativesThis links to the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which is handling the markup of the current health care reform bill. The committee's chair is Congressman Henry Waxman (D - California). Many of the committee's latest news updates focus on health care reform.
U.S. SenateThis links to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions. The committee's chair is Senator Edward Kennedy (D - Massachusetts). Many of the committee's latest news updates focus on health care reform.

Explaining the 'Ghetto'

One might wonder how I arrived at my blog name--although I suspect any Family and Consumer Scientists probably understands. Our discipline (or collection of disciplines) has long been as invisible and marginalized as women themselves. I want to be clear: I did not coin this term. Anyone who's visited the Cornell Home Economics Archive website (http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/) has seen the quote by Joan Jacobs Brumberg from her book, "The Body Project: an Intimate History of American Girls." If you read the entire excerpt that's found there, you'll see that our history is long and proud. Home Economics has helped to change the world for the better and create opportunities for women that otherwise never would have existed. Is Family and Consumer Sciences the same cutting edge discipline that Home Economics once was? It might sound ironic, given what comes to mind when one thinks of Home Economics (housewives baking cookies, that sort thing), but I think perhaps we lost our edge. I don't think we lost it because of our name change. Quite the contrary: I think our name change was necessary in part because we lost our edge. We stopped being an organization of firsts: the first academic discipline to study home and family life, the first female university deans, the first female faculty trustees... and I guess we became complacent. After all, when you do good work, people will notice...right? Unfortunately, no. We faded into obscurity, and the name change helped to speed that along.

What do you think about Family and Consumer Sciences today? Should we reclaim our feminist roots? What are the issues today that Family and Consumer Scientists should take a leadership role in shaping? What are the issues that we aren't discussing at annual meetings but should be?

I don't want this blog to be about me. (Strange, I know, since blogs tend to be an exercise in narcissism.) I want to get people inside and outside of FCS talking again. In my wildest dreams, I'd like to get us mobilized. I'm new to this blogging thing. If you're out there, say something.

Free Radicals

What could be so radical as something so traditional? We are Family and Consumer Scientists. What does that mean? Are we Home Economists? I'm not going to give you the "5 minute elevator" explanation. I'm going to give you the truth: we don't know what we are or who we are. Ellen doesn't live here anymore. Who's left? Just folks like me. Not strong and special like Ellen Richards, just ordinary and flawed. It's the ordinary and flawed folks that need to stand up and take notice right now. We need to figure out who we are and what we stand for. We need to reclaim Family and Consumer Sciences in the name of all the things it used to stand for: women's rights, support for families, nutritious (whole) foods, and a livable environment in which people can actually grow and thrive. We defined the family in a way that is still just as relevant and timely today as it was back in the 70s, but now we can't talk about diverse family forms without someone threatening to walk out of the room. Shame on us. We evolve, or we die. The flawed and ordinary among us must make a choice: do we wait for Ellen to rise from the ashes, or do we reclaim Family and Consumer Sciences, the discipline formerly known as Home Economics, in the name of the here and now? The choice is ours.