Life@Lane is a “student moderated blog” at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon. I happened to stumble upon the site while checking out some summer classes at LCC. The blog is prominently advertised on the Lane Community College homepage.

I scrolled down through several posts and was intrigued by a post titled “Would The World Be Better With Women As Leaders?” The post basically says that women are emotional and therefore are not capable of being leaders. Jeffrey, the writer of the post and student at Lane, states in a response to a comment that “i don’t think my gender is superior i just don’t think women would be a good world leader.” Unbelievable. How can Lane Community College support this blog? How can Lane Community College stand behind this overtly sexist post/comment?

Here is the initial blurb about the blog via the LCC Marketing and Public Relations Office:

LIFE@LANE, A STUDENT MODERATED BLOG, launched from Lane’s homepage. Topics are generated by Lane’s Student Service Associates. Student blogs are common at four-year institutions. Lane is among the first community colleges to host a student blog. The purpose is to provide a communication tool primarily for current and prospective students and to increase “community” access.

How in the hell does this blog “increase ‘community’ access”? Student blogs are a common method of providing student insights into the student experience at a college/university. Student blogs are supposed to build community. They are not supposed to perpetuate stereotypes. It seems that Jeffrey, the student blogger at Lane, wanted to generate controversy and not build community. Marketing and Public Relations officials at Lane Community College should post an apology on the Life @ Lane blog, fire Jeffrey, and start moderating the commentary of the Life@Lane blog. I highly doubt that this is how they want life at Lane Community College to be represented.

I was recently at a higher education conference for academic advisors where every time the campus tech support office personnel were referenced, they were called “tech guys.”

For example: “Our tech guys are going to be configuring our database.”

I was asked to be on a technology panel on academic advising and Web 2.0 technologies. During what was probably a long-winded answer to an audience question, I decided to point out that our campuses have “tech people” or “tech folks” on staff in our IT offices. I said something about the fact that tech guys is such a sexist phrase as it makes women invisible and centralizes men as being technology experts.

On a related note, Jason Kottke has been keeping track of the gender diversity at some of the most well known and attended web conferences… WebVisions, a web conference in Portland, Oregon seems to contain a bit more gender variation than some of the conferences that Kottke references, but not by a lot. Of 38 total speakers, only 8 are women.

• College of William and Mary replaces logo to shed Indian feathers
• Undocumented students in U.S. could pay in-state tuition
• Oregon Panel Explores In-state Tuition For Undocumented Immigrants
• Northeastern State University revises graduation policy and allows Native American students to wear items such as feathers, beads, medallions, stoles, or other relevant tribal insignia during NSU commencement ceremonies.
• N.C. Community Colleges President Defends Undocumented Immigrant Policy
• Tenure at MIT still largely a male domain

Welcome to the 19th Erase Racism Carnival.

Dennis Dugan presents Robert Jensen on Thanksgiving - White supremacist holidays and the genocide of indigenous peoples

Therapydoc presents Zarganar - Global oppression, privilege and activism

Forgiven presents The Sin Is Pride - Internalized oppression, horizontal hostility and Ward Connerly

Rachel and guest poster, Atlasien presents A serious question [about white supremacists]

Seattle Slim presents 21st Century Blackface: Hideous Imitation Or Flattery? Harmful or Harmless?

Kai Chang presents The White Liberal Conundrum - white liberals and anti-racism

AllyWork presents Qualities of an ally

Carmen Van Kerckhove presents Addicted to Race 87: Race, TV, and Gossip

Ian Welsh presents Katrina and the Wildfires

Greg Laden presents “Like the tree that stands beside the water … - A history of activism

Marcella Chester presents Horror Movie Mythology Hurts Megan Williams And Many Other Victims and Anti-Feminism And Rape

Michael Faris presents more on nooses, blackface, and OSU

Dennis Bennett presents On Dad’s Weekend, No Less - blackface and administrative silence

Eric Stoller (yes, that’s me) presents Building Community - non-apology apologies and intent vs. effect

Changeseeker presents It’s Predictable And I Told You So! - white privilege and white supremacy

DaisyDeadhead presents Orangeburg Massacre governor dies

The 47th Carnival of Feminists is up at Ornamenting Away.

This clip is amazing. It gave me chills.

I’ve been subscribed to the University Web Developers (UwebD) listserv for quite a while. It’s an interesting mix of design/code tips, recent data, job postings, etc. I wanted to post a brief exchange that occurred a little while ago on the list.

Chris posted this:

Hey guys,

We’re looking for a motivated web developer who loves what he does. ‘We’ being the guys at Arc90, based in NYC…

Missy responded:

I take it female web developers need not apply? Thanks for the heads up. Most of the time we don’t even know we’re not being considered due to our gender.

(continue reading…)

The illustration is from the cover of Redmond Magazine, the “independent voice of the Microsoft IT community.” At some point in my techie journey I was placed on the Redmond Magazine subscription list. I usually skim through the magazine and analyze the content from the social justice techie perspective. The magazine primarily features white men in various information technology roles. The latest edition features the heading “Secrets of the Windows Gurus.” The illustration consists of 12 men in wizard robes. Apparently there are no feature-worthy windows gurus who are women. So either there are no women who are windows gurus or there are women who could have been featured but were not.

(continue reading…)

Roger Williams University has apparently been planning to include people of color on its board of trustees since the early 1900’s (note the sarcasm). Unfortunately, the plan had never been implemented. I guess it takes a lot of “planning” for an all white board to include people of color. Perhaps the implementation was delayed due to the overt racism of the board?

(continue reading…)

Update: NASPA seems to have received the message from its members that a partnership with Abercrombie & Fitch was a bad idea.

After the announcement last week about a partnership with Abercrombie & Fitch, we heard from a number of members who objected to NASPA partnering with this particular corporation. It’s important to know and to inform your constituencies that your voices have been heard. NASPA will not be going forward with the partnership. No agreements have been signed and no funds have been received. While the original decision to enter into the partnership was based on numerous conversations with the management of A&F and with many NASPA members and
leaders, based on additional information we received in regard to the business practices of A&F and the reaction of several members, I felt that it was in the best interest of NASPA not to move forward with an agreement. But most importantly, in walking away from the potential partnership, I respect the KC chairs and other leaders who, while perhaps uncomfortable with the partnership, wanted to support their professional association. I regret that they and other leaders received the brunt of some of the more vocal objections from some of our members.

Before the potential for this partnership was realized, the NASPA Board, at its July meeting, established a task force to review sponsorships for the associations. Any guidelines developed by this task force will be shared broadly with the NASPA membership.

We, in the NASPA office, want to note that in order to keep costs down for our members, we will need to continue to look for corporate sponsorships. However, we will work within guidelines established by a committee of the Board that will help us avoid situations such as we encountered with the potential A & F partnership.

NASPA remains committed to the values of diversity and inclusion. We continue to hear and respond to the concerns of our members. NASPA _is_its members and we thank you all for your support.

Apparently NASPA is for sale to the highest bidder. NASPA is one of two higher education associations for Student Affairs professionals. It was recently announced that NASPA was partnering with Abercrombie & Fitch. Specifically, A&F would be providing monetary support for the NASPA Multicultural Institute (a conference on social justice issues for student affairs practitioners.). I am stupefied by NASPA’s decision to take money from Abercrombie & Fitch. The Diversity link at the bottom of the A&F homepage focuses on the diversity (in this case, race and ethnicity) of A&F’s employees. My question to NASPA and A&F is what about the marketing of A&F products. The only people of color on the A&F site (that I see while currently browsing their site) are on the Diversity page!

A&F’s advertising (via the web and in store) is about as diverse as a klan newsletter. It appears to me that NASPA (and several other well-known and respected associations) are for sale to the highest bidder. I think that the A&F PR machine is donating large amounts of money in an effort to deflect criticism of their sales and marketing scheme. Increasing the number of employees of color from zero to more than zero does increase the diversity (see the percentage in the press release below) of the A&F workforce, but it does little to eliminate an institutionalized discriminatory corporate culture that utilizes white supremacy and sexual objectification to sell a product.

The official release from NASPA is after the jump.

(continue reading…)