Always True
(After this cottage at Harwood and Bidwell in Vancouver was emptied out prior to demolition fifteen or more years ago, it was covered with delightful tags.)
Teaching
This week I start my twenty-first year of teaching at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Artificial Intelligence technology like ChatGPT has required that I prepare a layer of adaptations to my curriculum this semester. It will be a new experience and perhaps a fun one.
I started university teaching forty years ago, at Stanford – as a graduate student TA in Larry Friedlander‘s famous Shakespeare class. Heavenly bliss (and no personal computers, let alone no internet). I went on to create and teach my own classes there.
Before Kwantlen and after my initial Stanford years, I had taken a couple of lengthy breaks from teaching but stayed in the same mental neighbourhood (writing, editing, mentoring, and publishing). I have always known what I wanted to do.
A career highlight
I was a guest on the original version of “The Jerry Springer Show,” in 1991, before it was transformed a couple years later into the outlandishly vulgar circus that became so popular. The producers did, however, encourage some pugilism in a way that the people working for “Larry King Live,” for example, did not.
I believe the topic was “Near Death Experiences.” In these TV discussions I was typically presented as “the skeptic” and, more often than not, I would appear after the first commercial break, after the true believers had had their say. As I was getting ready to go onstage on the Springer show, a producer told me that Jerry would start the segment by asking one of the earlier guests a question and that, before she started her second sentence, I should raise my voice and call her a liar. (I didn’t.)
Springer had an unusually varied career. When I met him and in interviews I saw later on, he seemed like a very nice man. RIP.
Ô Canada
… where Good Friday and Easter Monday are national* holidays. I will always find this odd (and oddly satisfying). I love my home.
*Exceptions: Folk from Quebec have to choose just one of the two days for their holiday. In Alberta employers have an “option” to give their employees Easter Monday off; in Medicine Hat everybody sleeps in on Good Friday.
Arley
My Kwantlen colleague Arley McNeney was a visionary who welcomed all manner of detail with a humbling level of attentiveness and who accepted everybody, and she made the people around her better. Such a strong good spirit.
Almost all of our interactions were via correspondence or social media, though I finally met her at The Commodore in Vancouver back in 2019. She was there for the headlining Mountain Goats, me for Lydia Loveless, who opened for them.
From our school’s announcement:
It is with profound sadness and a deep sense of loss that we share the passing of our friend and colleague, KPU instructor, Arley McNeney (Cruthers). Arley was a mother, a sister, a daughter, and a friend. She was a highly respected instructor and beloved colleague to those who were fortunate to collaborate and work alongside her. She was a decorated Paralympian and parasport athlete, a talented writer and novelist, an unending builder of community, an advocate for inclusion and disability justice, and a creative linocut artist.
Arley instructed business communications, public relations, and entrepreneurial leadership at KPU. However, her journey into becoming an educator was winding: in 2001 she joined the Canada women’s national wheelchair basketball team and won gold at the Wheelchair Basketball World Championship the next year. She was the recipient of BC’s Premier Athletic Award for New Westminster and in 2004, she was named to Team Canada’s national wheelchair basketball team to compete at the 2004 Summer Paralympics where she helped the team win bronze. In 2006, Arley was named to Team Canada for the 2006 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship. In 2014, Arley received the BC Wheelchair Basketball Society’s Coach of the Year award.
Not only was Arley a successful athlete and coach, she was a former communications/marketing/PR professional for parasports, the founder of an adaptive soccer team that uses disability justice principles, and the author of four novels. Arley’s first novel was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Foundation. She attended the University of Victory and earned an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Arley was an innovative leader in open education, Open Educational Resources (“OERs”), and open pedagogy. In 2019, Arley presented an open-licensed game developed by her applied communication students that focused on instructors developing compassion and empathy for students struggling with (unaffordable) textbook costs and the role OERs can play in supporting students’ well-being and success. Arley’s work was pivotal in the open education movement and the continued work in the area of Zero Textbook Costs (“ZTCs”). That same year, Arley was awarded for Excellence in Open Education by BC Campus.
In addition to being widely recognized as an advocate in the areas of open education, Arley was a tireless scholar and advocate in the areas of decolonization, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), anti-racism and anti-oppression, and disability justice. She collaborated with colleagues across KPU through her work as an Open Education Teaching Fellow, decolonization and Indigenization faculty champion, and disability justice activist. She was an early leader and mentor in developing Open Educational Resources at KPU, and published Business Writing for Everyone in 2019, an inclusive guide to writing in the workplace that has since been adopted, adapted, and remixed by KPU faculty and countless educators around the world. She was regularly consulted on questions of accessibility and UDL in course design and program review, and her expertise and the generosity with which she shared it, are irreplaceable. In recognition of her contributions to supporting social justice, in 2021, Arley was an inaugural recipient of KPU’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion awards.
Arley’s focus on supporting students in all aspects of their lives from UDL to food security was unparalleled, and her supportive, non-judgemental, and student-centred approach to teaching and focus on student success, has inspired us to do our best in our work at KPU.
Arley sought to truly understand and engage her students, co-creating empowering learning opportunities with them each semester, and often bringing food to share in the classroom. She was incredibly generous with her time and energy, supporting students and colleagues alike, and sharing her expertise and teaching resources freely.Arley’s legacy is immeasurably rich and will continue through the inspired work of her friends and colleagues, and the thousands of students she taught. Her work and contributions embody the highest values of our university’s motto, and are something we should all aspire to: “through tireless effort, knowledge and understanding.”
The outpouring of emotion and admiration on Twitter has been really something. I am at a loss for words, mostly, or at least for the adequate ones. My colleagues have helped me out in that respect. Melissa Ashman’s thread is close to perfect:
Family in Nashville
“Prepare for mass casualties…. coming to children’s hospital” was the message that we received at work this morning. Immediately my heart stopped beating and I nearly threw up.
The thought of any harm befalling these two boys is paralyzing and all consuming. I’m shattered and completely devastated for the families in this beautiful city who hugged their own “Basil boys” for the last time.
I’m at a loss for why we continuously tell ourselves we live in “the greatest country on earth” yet we reside in the one country that routinely witnesses the slaughter of our own children for the sake of… “freedom?” It will never make sense.
Barack Obama once said our children are like our own hearts beating outside of our chests, out in this dangerous world. To the families and the victims of this atrocity, and to my colleagues and the first responders who will never be the same, my heart breaks with yours today.
– Miles Basil
home soon & joy now
On March 7 Amtrak started up its Vancouver, BC – Portland line again – the Amtrak Cascades – almost exactly three years after the pandemic shut it down. This filled me with profound joy.
The line gives me to my love & the line brings me home.
Crossing the Fraser River last night, about forty minutes from English Bay.
I hope you hear them coming
I’ve never had writer’s block, but I find it difficult *to write well* on a topic that makes me angry. Attacks on transgendered people make me angry to a staggering degree.
I am grateful for the work of Parker Molloy on this and other topics.
—
Brynn Tannehill, the “harbinger of doom” I noted last year, also writes about this topic in a way that keeps me up at night.
Nan Goldin
I watched Laura Poitras’ documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” about photographer Nan Goldin, yesterday evening – and though it runs about two hours, it took me more than three to finish it, having to pause, sobbing, and also in gratitude. God bless Nan Goldin for her art, her activism, her genius, her revelatory photography, and for her love of others.
Here she talks with Terry Gross on “Fresh Air.” How wonderful I am alive to hear these two in conversation. I will try to write more about these things soon.
The Brooklyn College Cancer Center gets $2.6 million grant
My sister, Professor Jenny Basil (in red), is the Associate Director of Community Outreach for this terrific and growing initiative.
The Brooklyn College Cancer Center, BCCC-CURE, will be training, building, and supporting its network for the next generation of diverse cancer researchers thanks to a $2.6 million grant from the American Cancer Society.
Specifically, the Diversity in Cancer Research Institutional Development Grant (DICR IDG) titled “Supporting Cancer Research at Brooklyn College Cancer Center, a Highly Diverse Institution,” will support early career cancer researchers through $2.6 million over four years. The funding will go toward four areas: pilot grants for faculty who are in the early years of their tenure track; support for clinical scientists’ research and training; and offerings of two postdoctoral fellowships and six master’s scholarships over the length of the grant program.
Other funding earmarked for the center itself will support the mentoring of junior faculty, clinician scientists, and other early career scientists, travel to conferences for BCCC-CURE researchers, plus trainings and seminars on different areas of cancer research. It will also support the launch of the BCCC-CURE Molecular Modeling Laboratory for Cancer Therapeutics lead by Dr. Emilio Gallicchio, professor of chemistry at Brooklyn College and Dr. Shaneen Singh, professor of biology at the college.
“This grant constitutes a unique opportunity for Brooklyn College and the Brooklyn College Cancer Center to support cancer research activities, most specifically for early career scientists in a moment when we are hiring assistant professors,” said Maria Contel, director and research area leader of BCCC-CURE. “The money will support principal investigators and their research groups and allow us to train new experts in the field of cancer research. The support included in this grant for clinician scientists is key, as we will be able to recruit and collaborate with clinician scientists in research areas like cancer disparities, clinical translation of drugs, or cancer immunology.”
It’s a sweet gig!
Applications for two full-time regular faculty positions in my department – Applied Communications – are being accepted until February 10. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please encourage them to apply. This is the link to the job posting. Kwantlen Polytechnic University is a fine place to work.
My train
My friends know I love a good train ride. And more than that, I count on one particular line, the Amtrak Cascades, to bring me to and from loved ones in the States. Discontinued at the start of the pandemic, Amtrak restarted partial service a few months ago, and in March Amtrak is bringing back the second train – early morning southbound to Washington State, night-time return to beautiful Vancouver. They’re hiring, and I could not be more pleased.
Below are photo tributes I made to my home stations, in Vancouver and Seattle, a few years back.
The new year
Literally nothing has gone according to plan during my holiday break, except for the love shared with my family and friends. I had to throw away Plan H earlier today.
Classes start next week – two sections of Advanced Professional Communications and one of Technical Report Writing (more fun that it sounds). I am looking forward to meeting my new students.
This did my heart good
My partner sent me the link to “The Junky’s Christmas” today. Somehow I had missed this! God bless William Burroughs.
Thy neighbours
“Effective Altruism,” so called, takes a utilitarian approach to philanthropy. Proponents argue that rich people can save more people than poor people can, so get rich; AND, their wealth can save more people in the future than it can people in the present, SO invest in caring for generations not to be born for millennia. Looking after people who are suffering now is inefficient and indeed sentimental.
“Look, there are a lot of things that I think have really a massive impact on the world,” Sam Bankman-Fried said. “And ultimately that’s what I care about the most. And, I mean, I think frankly that the blockchain industry could have a substantial positive impact. I was thinking a lot about, you know, bed nets and malaria, about, you know, saving people from diseases no one should die from.” …
To hear Bankman-Fried tell it, the idea was to make billions through his crypto-trading firm, Alameda Research, and FTX, the exchange he created for it — funneling the proceeds into the humble cause of “bed nets and malaria,” thereby saving poor people’s lives.
But last summer Bankman-Fried was telling The New Yorker’s Gideon Lewis-Kraus something quite different. “He told me that he never had a bed-nets phase, and considered neartermist causes — global health and poverty — to be more emotionally driven,” Lewis-Kraus wrote in August. Effective altruists talk about both “neartermism” and “longtermism.” Bankman-Fried said he wanted his money to address longtermist threats like the dangers posed by artificial intelligence spiraling out of control. As he put it, funding for the eradication of tropical diseases should come from other people who actually cared about tropical diseases: “Like, not me or something.” [NYTimes]
I despise these people as much as I do people who want to colonize space.
Earth is our home. Our neighbours are now.
People who want to deracinate us from our home or look past the struggling people down the block to focus on greater things believe that evil things *are* the greater things. We’ll foil the dangers of artificial intelligence and get our way, to colonize space with generations of slaves who depend on us for air.
Grandsons and brothers
With my partner I’ve endowed a student scholarship at my workplace, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, “The Luke Melvin Basil and Colby Joseph Basil Health Sciences Student Award,” to honour my miracle genius grandsons, their parents (both in the health sciences), and their great-grandparents who were so generous to those seeking postsecondary education. The $1,000 student award will be presented each year to a student in KPU’s Health Sciences (Honours) Program whose project thesis is audacious and advanced. This is the third endowed award I’ve supported at Kwantlen.
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