Originally, I was going to write that I was most afraid of militarism, but I realized I actually most fear hierarchism. I chose hierarchism as a term because it felt onerous and flatfooted to connect militarism to our work as professors, and militarism can be thought of as an expression of hierarchism, a broader concept which, to my knowledge, has received less, or perhaps more indirect, theoretical attention. When I google hierarchy theory, I get the following link, which offers some interesting “see also” links (see deep ecology, but the others are also fun), and then, as one might expect, links to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Hierarchy, one could argue, is axiomatic. In animation, there is always a kinetic hierarchical top of a biped character, and, if you don’t believe me, I encourage you to try to move across the room you’re in without moving your pelvis. Or, if you’d rather not try, you could just accept that walking is “controlled falling,” in which the walker throws the pelvis forward with one foot and catches it with the other. If the pelvis doesn’t move, then the body cannot move. Hierarchy as axiomatic is also interesting to think about with respect to parenting (see Maslow) – in pregnancy and caretaking – as causal/authoritative; the point with parenting being that kids (a) don’t make themselves and (b) can’t take care of themselves and depend upon hierarchy for survival.
Maybe it surprises you, my handful of readers, that I’ve struggled to manage anxiety throughout most of my life, from childhood into my late 40’s. After all, I am able to get up in front of the Senate, at faculty meetings, speak at graduation, wear brightly colored blazers and obnoxious sunglasses, and somehow seem to calmly just keep going with all that. I do still get anxious, but now I am able to do these things because of how I’ve learned to manage fear – and it’s by imagining the worst possible thing happening, and working back from there. So, for example, if you’re thinking “this is a stupid article” right now, I accept you might think that, which gives me license and energy to sit in that metaphorical dirt and work with it. I do also imagine you might enjoy my writing – at least, I hope you do.
If hierarchism is so embedded in experience and it’s what I fear most – and I game out worst-case scenarios to stay calm – be assured that I envision the most draconian expressions of power, so I can navigate ordinary hierarchies; and, yes, I do live in sort of a constant state of heightened alert. In Senate work, I maintain my sense of calm about recent legislative changes by reminding myself that public higher education in California is being reorganized, not eliminated.
Anyway, the specific fear of hierarchism I mean to talk about is around parroting in language. Of late, emphasis has been placed by system leaders and consequently at the local level on equity as a singular, guiding value for community colleges, and we speak, read, and hear the word every day like it’s a pop song. I am proud to work with so many passionate, smart people who oppose an unfair society based on taking rather than sharing, and I do not question the authenticity of my colleagues’ commitment to equity or the idea of equity being a core value. I do also think that our college is getting the job done in many ways. But I wonder if, in our tendency to connect with colleagues and celebrate our commitments to our managers, we participate in equity-speech, but miss cases in which equity might not be served – and that some policies and practices may be amplifying inequity for our students. Is the expression of hierarchism in language convincing us we are doing something we may not be doing?
In my non-Senate job at GCC, teaching digital character design and animation, the 2012 elimination of repeatability, combined with the Guided Pathways and Vision for Success –an aligned push to ensure swift student completion of required coursework for degrees and certificates – has reduced access to highly discounted instructional service in the subject I teach. Animation and Visual Effects instruction is very expensive. Students were formerly able to repeat animation sections up to 3 times, which was advantageous to them from both a skills-development and cost standpoint, in that what might be a $2000 course could be taken for under a tenth the price. Because students could repeat, enrollments were steadier too so we could offer more sections, hence access, per term. From a career standpoint, an animation student’s abilities could be honed over a reasonable, rather than absurdly compressed, time period, so that they were on firmer footing when they went on to more advanced skills training. The program, as it was, helped my system-impacted students develop a bit more before moving on to other schools and then into entry level Disney-artist positions.
Relatedly, at the most recent Senate Area C meeting, a colleague in Math at LACCD shared a report about AB705 student outcomes which indicated that completion and performance metrics in entry-level Math and English for impacted students have declined since the implementation of the law. Questions were raised at the meeting regarding whether metrics were the result of the law or the pandemic, or some other factor – but shouldn’t an equity-aligned law reduce rather than exacerbate inequity, no matter the external influence?
I still wonder if it is actually more equitable to accelerate students through pathways (hey, it’s another parroted word!) toward a credential. Once upon a time, community college students were under much less financial pressure to complete their courses of study and could take time to meander through our courses, slowly remediate their Math and English skills, and enjoy some art on the side. I am aware there were problems with the system as it was. I guess I just feel like the solution to inequity may equally lie in ameliorating economic conditions, so that impacted students can still, if they need to, take the same amount of time afforded to the privileged students of the past. So, when I end up thinking things like “the pathways model is cost-reduction masquerading as equity,” I think of my relationship with hierarchism, how it influences the way we speak, and how everyday terms may not align with the real.
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