Monthly Archives: March 2012

March 29, 2012 · 8:08 pm

Strange Bedfellows: Questionable Alliances in Higher Education

March 29, 2012

University of New York Tirana

Tell me something, why do perfectly fine and accredited universities align themselves with shady start-ups in far-flung corners of the world? I ask this question because a week ago I came across an article in the NYT “An Albanian College Relying on U.S. Cachet” that speaks of exactly this very issue. Just the opening paragraph introducing this Albanian College as situated in a “dingy backstreet” in the Tirana, the Albanian Capital, is enough to give you the creeps. Yet, there it is: The University of New York, Tirana boasting an “arrangement with Empire State College, a division of the State University of New York system that is based in Saratoga Springs and is devoted to adult education and non-traditional learning.” Mind you, these “arrangements” are not unique to our accredited U.S.- based institutions. We are not alone; our counterparts in Britain and Australia are just as busy setting up “arrangements” with private education providers in the developing world.

An alumnus of the University of NY, Tirana, now attending Southern Methodist University in Dallas, complained that the courses he had taken were on a par with high school level subjects offered at an American high school. And that says a lot! It’s not about the content of courses and teaching staff, it’s the fact that a degree from an institution with an American-sounding name carries a great deal of cachet in a place such as Albania.

These so-called “arrangements” got a once-prominent academic institution, the University of Wales (founded in 1893), into hot water, so hot that it lost its accreditation in 2011 and was completely abolished. Thanks to an investigation by the BBC (nice to see journalism doing what it is meant to do–but I digress) which discovered that the University’s validation of programs offered by Fazley International College in Malaysia was being used to fraudulently award degrees and was even allowing students to obtain visas in order to work in the U.K.

Of course, these chummy arrangements are all about money. Students at the University of New York, Tirana pay more than $32,000 and for “an extra $100 or so per credit hour,” students taking classes in English can graduate and receive an American diploma. The same alum mentioned above says the following in the NYT article: “We didn’t even learn how to use a financial calculator. You are graduating with a degree in finance, and you don’t know how to use the calculator.” Here’s what Kevin Kinser, an expert on cross-border education at SUNY Albany is quoted as saying for the University of New York, Tirana, that the “connection with Empire State College is a way of developing legitimacy – a branding issue.” Someone’s definitely paying someone for the brand name or being associated with the brand.

I’m reminded of the saying “you are who you associate with,” and it seems it’s alive and well at our institutions of higher learning. Desperate for the almighty dollar, they are willing to give a part of themselves away, undermining their own credibility, and perhaps even contributing to their own demise. Let’s not forget what happened to the University of Wales.


The Frustrated Evaluator
www.acei1.com

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March 22, 2012 · 7:21 pm

Now-Ruz: A Celebration of Life

March 22, 2012


Photo of Haftseen by Firooz Saofoura Zoroofchi

According to a recent post by Shirin Sadeghi on HuffingtonPost: “The talk of war (against Iran) walks tall amongst the rhetoric of Washington.”

As the U.S. and Israel increase the volume of their threats of war against Iran, Iranians in the diaspora and those living under the theocratic stranglehold of the Islamic Republic celebrated the arrival of the Persian New Year on March 19th at exactly 10:15 PM PST. The celebration of Now-Ruz (New Day), takes effect at the exact astronomical beginning of Spring, known as the vernal equinox. Now-Ruz has been celebrated for nearly 3000 years. Its rituals and traditions date back to Zoroastrianism, the ancient Persian religion that existed until 7th century A.D. before the Arab invasion and the enforcement of Islam.

In preparation for Now-Ruz, Iranians embark on the spring-cleaning of their homes, even make or buy a new set of clothes (my brother and I loved getting a new outfit or two), and bake pastries in anticipation of visiting guests when gifts are exchanged and feasts enjoyed. The rituals surrounding the celebration of Now-Ruz are rich with symbolism and ceremony. They begin on the last Wednesday of winter with Chahar-Shanbeh Soori (Eve of Wednesday), a fire-jumping festival, where people create small bonfires in their neighborhoods and jump over them as the sun sets. Parents join in with their children and jump over the flames inviting happiness and abundance while releasing and letting go of darkness and negativity by chanting: “Offer me your lovely red hue and take away my sickly pallor.” With fire signifying light (day), the symbol of all that is good, and dark (night), the unknown and all that is evil, celebrants partaking in the fire festival look forward to the arrival of spring bringing longer days and new beginnings.

As a child growing up in Iran, I remember the minstrels or troubadours, known as Haji Firuz, who sang and danced in the streets dressed in bright red and yellow satin poufy pants and shirts, spreading good cheer and bringing merriment to neighborhoods. Another tradition, somewhat resembling the trick-or-treat of Halloween, included young men who disguised themselves as women under chadors (long veils) and went from street to street banging on pots and pans, shaking tambourines and raising raucous. All this was done in jest as seeing a boy or young man in such a disguise invited laughs and more laughs.

Now-Ruz celebrations last for 13 days. As a child, Now-Ruz meant a school holiday lasting for 13 days. In fact, most businesses throughout the country would shut down for the duration of Now-Ruz. Everyone was on holiday!

A major feature of Now-Ruz is the preparation of “Haft-Seen,” (seven “S’s”); a special display of seven specific offerings each beginning with the letter “S” in Farsi. Typically, the “Haft-Seen” includes the following: “seeb” or apple (promotes beauty and good health), “seer” or garlic (wards off bad omen), “samanou” (a sweet pudding, symbolizing affluence), “sabze” or wheat-germ (representing rebirth) grown in a flat dish a few days before the New Year, “sek-keh” or coin, preferably gold (for wealth and abundance), “senjed” (dried fruit from lotus tree, symbolizing love), and “somagh” or sumac (color of sunrise). In addition, there will also be a mirror (symbol for the sky), a goldfish in a bowl (life force), lit candles symbolizing fire and promoting enlightenment, colored eggs (symbol of fertility corresponding to the mother earth), sweets to spread sweetness and a book of poems by Hafiz or Rumi.

The Now-Ruz festivities end on the 13th day known as “Sizdah Bedar” (out with the 13th), and it is celebrated outdoors. Staying indoors is seen as a bad omen and families spend the day outside in parks and in the countryside near streams, rivers, and lakes, enjoying a festive picnic. The “sabze” or plate of wheat-germ that was the centerpiece of the Haft-Seen is taken on this picnic so that young unmarried women wishing for a husband will tie a knot between the green shoots (symbolizing a marital bond) and toss it into running water.
Despite the Islamic Regime’s attempts to do away with Now-Ruz, calling it un-Islamic and pagan, the ancient tradition of celebrating the arrival of Spring continues in Iran. The Iranian people have endured and survived invaders and conquerors like Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and with time will overcome the Muslim conquest.

I see it only fit to close by quoting Shirin Sadeghi who says: “According to top US government officials, April’s showers will bring superpowers to Iranian shores. The war has been penciled in, they tell us. But Now-Ruz is in ink. And as is its habit, it is a reminder that the darkness is fleeting: the day will soon be longer than the night.”

Happy Now-Ruz!

Jasmin S. Kuehnert
President & CEO ACEI, Inc.
www.acei1.com

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March 15, 2012 · 7:13 pm

Dumbing Down of the Electorate: Idiocracy in the Making

March 15, 2012

privacybooths

I once saw a bumper sticker that read “Stupidity Should be Painful”. This was years ago and I still remember it. And agree with it too.

I don’t want to sound like an overeducated snob. But I believe that an electorate that turns solely to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh instead of reading and listening to a variety of news sources and books will be a dumb and irresponsible public. The fact that we live in times where access to information is at its best, there is no excuse to resort to the basest and lowest common denominator, one geared to generating ratings and advertising dollars rather than educating and enlightening it’s viewing and listening audience.

I’m now reading an interesting book by Stephen Greenblatt called The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. The book is about an Italian’s discovery, in Germany in the early 15th century, of an ancient Roman philosophical and epic poem by Lucretius called On The Nature of Things. Lucretius’ manuscript–De Rerum Natura—follows the writings of Epicurus, who told us to enjoy this life, that there was no afterlife, heaven, or eternal punishment in hell. The late Christopher Hitchens, in his book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, often refers to Lucretius and his mentor Epicurus. The latter is now more associated with good living and fine dining than what the original ancient texts were about.

Returning to Greenblatt’s book The Swerve, I was appalled by how early Christians in monasteries erased centuries of learning from the Greek and Mesopotamian cultures. Often this was for a lack of vellum and papyrus, the materials on which the codices or scrolls were written. And, in a more sinister fashion, writing over the older texts—the layering is called a palimpsest—was a way of erasing history and learning so as to obliterate knowledge and promote credence to the early biblical manuscripts early Christian fathers were writing.

Later in the book, Greenblatt talks about how the magnificent, well-organized and scrupulously maintained Great Library in Alexandria, Egypt—then the capital city—was burned and pillaged, not by looters but by illiterate Huns and Christians who believed that the great citadel of learning was the repository of pagan texts. Hypatia, the great female mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and last head librarian of the library in Alexandria met a gruesome death at the hands of a Christian mob who flayed her body with broken shards of pots and shells. Her crime: being an educated woman who had the nerve to have taught other men! Once again, superstition and ignorance ruled the day, and the ancient wisdom—that the earth was round, not flat, geometry, astronomy, algebra, history, poetry, and literature—bequeathed to humanity by the ancient world—was destroyed.

You don’t, however, have to go far back in history to see this kind of ignorance. We see evidence of religious intolerance and superstition every day. I heard it on the news this morning, from a Republican from the south who said she felt it her Christian duty to get rid of a Muslim president. This woman stated: “I really don’t think that a nation that falls on Muslim leadership, potentially, is going to be a nation that’s going to survive.”

Another southerner erroneously stated that Obama shouldn’t have been elected because his father was Kenyan. In fact the Constitution says that only one parent has to be born here. Before making such nonsensical comments, one should know the facts, in this case the U.S. Constitution. Obama’s mother, herself a wonderful and fascinating woman—she was the cover story in a recent New York Times Sunday Magazine — was born in America’s heartland: Wichita, Kansas.

People around the world risk their lives to get the right to vote and to fair elections. Just look at recent elections in Congo or Senegal.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote that “democracy is too important a matter to be left to the people”. When I hear such stupidity on the radio or read it in the newspaper, I’m inclined to agree.

It all takes me back again to what happened to the Great Library of Alexandria.

Tom Schnabel, M.A.
Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Host of music program KCRW 89.9 FM Sundays noon-2 p.m.
Blogs for KCRW (rhythm planet / KCRW)
Author & Music educator, UCLA, SCIARC, currently doing music salons
www.tomschnabel.com

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March 8, 2012 · 8:46 pm

Turning Our Back On Education: Way to go America!

March 8, 2012

St. William Elementary School Olympic Week- Art & Culture Day

In a recent NYT article “Where the Jobs Are, The Training May Not Be,” Catherine Rampell reports that even though technical, engineering and health care specialists are in great demand in today’s weak job market, these fields happen to be the most expensive subjects to teach. “As a result, state colleges in Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, Colorado, Michigan, Florida, and Texas have eliminated entire engineering and computer science departments.” The situation is so dire that Ms. Rampell writes: “At one community college in North Carolina –a state with a severe nursing shortage—nursing program applicants so outnumber available slots that there is a waiting list just to get on the waiting list.”

Why is this happening? For the past twenty-five years, the states have withdrawn from higher education and slashed financing for colleges during and immediately after the last few recessions. And even when the economy did recover, the states never restored the money that had been cut from education and now with the current recession the problem has been amplified.

According to Ronald G. Ehrenberg, the director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute and a trustee of the State University of New York System: “There has been a shift from the belief that we as a nation benefit from higher education, to a belief that it’s the people receiving the education who primarily benefit and so they should foot the bill.” Really? Is this what we’ve become as a people and as a nation? So the nurse graduate who received four years of education and practices as a registered nurse is the sole beneficiary of her education? What about the patients whom she tends to and the medical centers which use her services? Don’t they too benefit? How can we be so crass as to think that all that we do is for our own benefit and has absolutely no impact or ramification on the people around us, the community, the environment, the world? How dare we operate from such an ego-centric mindset?

In fact economists have found that higher education benefits communities even more than the individual with the degree. Let’s not forget the G.I. Bill which helped bankroll the college education of Americans following the post- World War II economic boom. An educated people help the economy grow faster and foster a more stable democracy and aid the neediest workers. By cutting funds, states reduce the ability for the poor to receive an education and more training to prepare them for skilled labor. They also limit access to the field such as sciences, engineering and health care that are most important to economic and job growth.

As an educator and one who deals with domestic and international students, I am dumbfounded as to how our country turns its back on these key educational programs. President Obama speaks for keeping America on the forefront of science and engineering so that we can remain competitive with the rest of the world, yet at the same time funding is taken away from the very programs that will train and nurture future scientists, engineers and health practitioners. What does this mean? It means that US would have to recruit its scientists, engineers, nurses and doctors from overseas, diminishing the chances of US students from pursuing studies in these fields and ultimately finding gainful employment.

So the next time xenophobia kicks in, and angry fingers are pointed at skilled and educated professionals immigrating to the US who’re filling engineering and health care positions, best we take a good look in the mirror. The problem is not “them” but “us” and our collective attitude and diminished respect for education and the teaching profession.


The Frustrated Evaluator
www.acei1.com

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March 2, 2012 · 12:36 am

From Iran to Irangeles: A Tribute to Iranian-Americans

March 1, 2012

azadi tower in tehran, iran

At this year’s Academy Awards, the Oscar for the Best Foreign Film was given to the Iranian filmmaker Ashghar Farhadi for his film “Separation.” In his acceptance speech, he spoke of how in the midst of the chatter between politicians and heads of states, the world forgets to see and appreciate Iran’s rich culture and history. I was heartened to hear these words, as so few of us have the opportunity to experience Iran’s cultural contributions at first hand given its strained relations with the USA.

However, while the Academy recognized Mr. Farhadi’s film for an Oscar, the Bravo channel is introducing a reality show called the “Shahs of Sunset,” depicting an Iranian family living in Beverly Hills in all its gaudy in-your-face obnoxious splendor. Sadly, as it is expected of a cable channel that peddles reality shows where good taste and educational value are not its primary concern, we cannot expect an objective portrayal of the Iranian community living in the USA.

There are an estimated 1-1.5 million Iranian-Americans living in the U.S. with the largest concentration—about 700,000—living in Los Angeles. No wonder the city is commonly referred to by Iranian-Americans as “Tehrangeles” or “Irangeles.” But, you can be sure that not all 1.5 million Iranians in the USA live ostentatiously in Beverly Hills like the family depicted in Bravo’s reality show.

Here are three outstanding Iranian-Americans who have had an impact on my life on a personal level.

Hooshang Pak, MD



Dr. Hooshang Pak is a board certified neurosurgeon and practices in CA. Having received his medical degree at Tehran University he continued his postgraduate training in New York in 1975 where he completed his surgical internship at Saint Vincent Medical Center of Staten Island. He completed his neurosurgery residency at Henry Ford hospital in Michigan. He has an extensive and impressive bio which is just what you want when facing a life and death situation as I was when I was 25. A freak accident in a Tae Kwon Do class had triggered headaches that over a course of six months accelerated into such debilitating pain that neither a CAT Scan nor the physicians who had examined me were able to diagnose the problem. A friend of our family recommended that I visit her brother-in-law, Dr. Houshang Pak, a neurosurgeon, for another opinion. It was Dr. Pak’s insistence that I seek an MRI, a process which two decades ago was still considered new, that showed the source of the problem. I was diagnosed with subdural hematoma (collection of blood on the surface of the brain). “Given the significant amount of bleeding and swelling of your brain, it’s a miracle you’re not in a coma and alive. But the bad news is that we have to operate,” is how I recall Dr. Pak breaking the news to me and my father who had driven me to the MRI clinic. It was Dr. Pak who drove me to Long Beach Memorial Hospital where within minutes of our arrival I was prepped for surgery which lasted about eight hours. Needless to say, I am here today because of Dr. Pak’s expertise and his team at the Long Beach Memorial.

Atossa Soltani



Atossa is the founder and Executive Director of Amazon Watch http://www.amazonwatch.org , a non-profit organization founded in 1996 to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. I first met Atossa about seven years ago at a fundraiser for Amazon Watch and since then I have been a staunch supporter of her organization’s endeavors. But it is also her tenacious spirit and fearlessness as an advocate for indigenous rights and for standing up to the oil companies who have and continue to pollute and ravage the Amazon basin that have won my utmost respect and admiration. Her commitment to bringing awareness to the plight of the indigenous peoples in the Amazon means that she will attend an oil company’s shareholder’s meeting and not only speak to those in attendance but invite members of the indigenous tribes to do so as well. Two years ago, after attending a screening of the film Avatar hosted by NRDC on the Fox Studios Lot in Century City, my husband and I ran into Atossa and her husband and together we encouraged her (not that she needed it) to approach the director James Cameron for a brief interview. She wanted to tell Mr. Cameron that the real Na’vi are living in the Amazon basin and struggling for their survival against the polluting oil corporations. Atossa is petite and diminutive, but she pushed through the crowds with the three of us her wingmen and for the next twenty minutes she had Mr. Cameron’s undivided attention. Mr. Cameron was so moved that he gave her his business card to contact him, because this was exactly the kind of cause he wanted to be involved in. Two weeks later, there on the front page of the NY Times, was a photo of Mr. Cameron, his face sporting warrior paint treading carefully through a grassy field in the Amazon flanked on each side by tribal leaders! His journey to the Amazon to speak out against the building of the Belo Monte dam would not have occurred had it not been for Atossa. To follow Atossa and her organization’s on-going endeavors, please visit http://www.amazonwatch.org and even better, show your support with a tax-deductible contribution.

Nader Khalili



I never had the honor of meeting Mr. Khalili who passed away in 2008. I first learned of Mr. Khalili and his earth-friendly building designs at a green festival in Los Angeles about six or seven years ago. Born in Iran in 1936, Mr. Khalil was an architect, writer and humanitarian. He practiced architecture in the U.S. and around the world and was known for his innovation of the Geltaftan Earth-and-Fire System known as Ceramic Houses and the Earthbag Construction technique called super adobe. Click here to see some images of Mr. Khalili’s creations. Inspired by traditional arid house designs in his homeland Iran, he applied these concepts by developing his Super Adobe system in response to a call from NASA looking for designs that would accommodate human settlements on the Moon and Mars. Initially, the project was purely conceptual but he was soon able to actualize his designs by partnering with the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees by helping build emergency shelters modeled after his designs. In 1991, he founded the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture (Cal-Earth) which continues to teach his Superadobe building techniques to students from around the world. Three years ago, on hearing that the Ojai Foundation was offering a week of hands-on training on building an earth-dome following Mr. Khalili’s techniques, my husband and I both jumped at the opportunity. The weekend happened to fall on Valentine’s Day and proved to be one of the most memorable ways of spending the day: outdoor in nature and playing in the dirt! Of course, one weekend wasn’t enough to complete the construction of the earth dome, but working together with ten other volunteers and learning the basics of Mr. Khalili’s philosophy and techniques has me convinced that earth-friendly designs are not only affordable, but sustainable and habitable.

For a list of some notable Iranian-Americans living in the USA, please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Iranian_Americans. Share with us your personal experience with Iranian-Americans who have had a positive impact on your life.


Jasmin S. Kuehnert
President & CEO ACEI, Inc.
www.acei1.com

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