Author: Jack Stachura

In the Beginning of INTD 105 our class was asked for our thoughts on the course’s epigraph, a small quote from Bloodchild by Octavia Butler, which states “If we’re not your animals if these are adult things, accept the risk. There is risk, Gatoi, in dealing with a partner.” The class came up with several potential meanings due to the ambiguous nature of the quote in addition to the lack of context. However, later in the semester after we finished reading the Bloodchild I feel the quote was brought into focus. In the context of the story, the quote is a plea from the story’s protagonist Gan in which he’s asking T’Gatoi, the antagonist of the story, to trust him to act like an adult and treat him like one. This idea of encouraging open-mindedness can be related to the work we’ve done throughout the entirety of INTD 105 because we’ve constantly been challenged to be adaptable and to look at our perceptions from different angles, but this connection wasn’t always obvious to me.

When I began INTD 105 I wasn’t expecting to be challenged to grow or change my habits in the way that I would be. I believe this can best be characterized by events from early in the semester, especially when we were shown the video about open versus closed mindsets. When I first saw that video, I arrogantly assumed I had a relatively open mindset simply because I could learn new skills, for example using a micropipette or titrating an unknown a base; however, looking back now it would appear more closed than open. An example of this mindset was pointed out to me by Dr. McCoy in her comment on my Goal setting essay because I had identified myself as a bad writer in a meeting with her simply because I’d struggled with writing in the past. Another initial shortcoming was that I failed to see the bigger picture when it came to feedback, more specifically I saw feedback as a list of flaws with an individual essay rather than flaws in my writing habits. To elaborate, I was addressing problems in my writing as they arose rather than trying to fix the source.

My closed mindset resulted in a lack of success and growth. This is shown between two quotes from Dr. McCoy on my goal setting essays “Do you have work to do in attending to detail, especially in mechanics? Yes—but everyone does” and later “mechanically, many evaluators would reject this document entirely. I take no pleasure in reporting this.” These comments show how there was a lack of improvement in regards to mechanics between essays. This demonstrates a missed opportunity to fix a bad habit because I wasn’t fully thinking about how to improve.

 However, once I accepted this fact, I was finally able to move forward by addressing the root of my issues and trying to form better writing habits. This led to me taking the steps necessary to become more open-minded, steps that INTD 105 was guiding me to since the beginning. I think my first major step was my work on my Bloodchild essay rewrite where I finally fully focused on the reflection process by trying to shift the overall theme of the essay to what I was originally thinking but couldn’t express. This was shown when Dr. McCoy commented on the revision “I can’t go back now and look at the original essay, but my memory of it indicates that you have improved it a great deal with some restructuring and reducing of static. You’ve also made a more meaningful conclusion.” This quote shows how I was finally able to fix the issues I had been struggling with earlier in the semester. Additionally, I think I took another good step towards improvement and becoming more receptive to critique was my heating plant essay. This is because as I was writing and revising, I was also trying to apply the feedback from my previous essays which helped in forming better habits. These are just a few ways in which this course has helped me to become more open-minded and adaptable.

Additionally, my time in this course has led to growth as a result of events that haven’t been planned. I am referring to the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent distance learning period which has tested everyone’s ability to adapt. This idea is shown during our talk regarding consent with professor Joe Cope when he says “The college has pretty strict rules about pass/fail grading, you have only a certain number of classes you can elect pass/fail, can’t apply them to your program major, and we changed all those rules.” This demonstrates how the Covid-19 Pandemic fosters the growth of adaptability among students and faculty. In addition, this shows the importance of overcoming real-world issues for growth as a learner similar to the idea express by the Association of American Colleges and Universities regarding integrative learning.

I believe the values expressed through this course’s work are strongly tied to the GLOBE`s claim that Geneseo students should “gain practice in the ability to reflect upon changes in learning and outlook overtime” This is because throughout the course we have been pushed to be more openminded and adaptable as a result of both planned and improvised events. Moving forward, my main goal is to continue referencing previous feedback and working on areas where I struggle, like reducing wordiness and losing the focus of my original theme. Regarding my growth, I no longer dread writing essays the way I once would have; I now see them as an opportunity to grow my skill set.

Recently in Intd 105 I’ve been introduced to the idea of integrative learning, a learning style with the intention of teaching and reinforcing the real-world application of skills that are taught in a classroom. One may wonder about the importance of integrative learning and how it’s achieved. To start, a key to integrative learning is the development of student’s abilities to form connections between separate disciplines and ideas. The Association of American colleges and universities statement on integrative learning reinforces this idea when they say “Because integrative and applied learning is about making connections, this learning may not be as evident in traditional academic artifacts such as research papers and academic projects unless the student, for example, is prompted to draw implications for practice. These connections often surface, however, in reflective work, self-assessment, or creative endeavors of all kinds.” This explains the importance of having students practice developing connections between ideas that may not initially appear related. An additional goal in achieving integrative learning is expressed by the AAC&U when they claim “Fostering students’ abilities to integrate learning—across courses, over time, and between campus and community life—is one of the most important goals and challenges for higher education”. Here the idea is presented that not only should connections be formed between sperate courses but between campus and community life as well. Furthermore, another key to achieving integrative learning is presented by this AAC&U statement “Indeed, integrative experiences often occur as learners address real-world problems, unscripted and sufficiently broad, to require multiple areas of knowledge and multiple modes of inquiry, offering multiple solutions and benefiting from multiple perspectives.” Here the AAC&U discusses the importance of exposing students to real-world problems and situations because it helps students become more adaptable. I believe these are several important requirements in achieving integrative learning. Throughout the heating plant essay for Intd 105 I noticed much of the work done can be related to integrative learning, largely through how the class has been pushed to form connections between seemingly unrelated concepts as well as how we’ve had to adapt the class as a result of unimaginable circumstances.
These points can be related to our work on our heating plant essays in several ways. First of all being the connections we’ve been pushed to develop between concepts we’ve been introduced in Intd 105 and our campus community. This is illustrated in our first step discussion where Dr.McCoy asked the class to “Visit the Geneseo Facilities Services homepage. There is a short video embedded in the page. Please read the page and watch the video carefully and alertly. As you read and watch, actively keep our course concepts of risk, reward, and academic partnership in mind.” Here we were asked to draw a comparison to the idea of academic partnership and the role of Geneseo’s facility services staff. This led me to draw a comparison from a statement by Karen Rockwell, Academic Head Custodial Supervisor at SUNY Geneseo “There’s a lot of opportunity for growth if your willing to work hard and be apart of a team”. I related this quote to the team mentality we demonstrated in Intd 105 when we comment on and review our peers’ work. I believe this exercise demonstrates the forming of connections between campus and community life.

Additionally, another step we’ve taken toward integrative learning that we’ve worked on during our heating plant essay was forming connections between two seemingly unrelated ideas. This is shown in Dr.McCoy instructions “Now that you’ve spent some time thinkING about your partnership with facilities planning at Geneseo in general and the college’s heating plant in particular, please begin to apply that thinking to your understanding of ‘Bloodchild’.” Here we were asked to view the events of the Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild through the lens of what we had learned about Geneseo’s Facility Staff. This resulted in me realizing that Gan and T’Gatoi as well as Geneseo Students and their Campus require each other to survive. Gan and T’Gatoi demonstrate this relationship when T’Gatoi says “You know these things, Gan. Because your people arrived, we are relearning what it means to be a healthy, thriving people. and your ancestors, fleeing from their homeworld, from their own kind who would have killed or enslaved them-they survived because of us.” This statement explains that both groups would have perished if not for their relationship with each other. A similar relationship exists between Geneseo Students and their campus because students need facility staff if students are going to safely live on campus and without students SUNY Geneseo would be unable to employ staff. I believe this shows a connection between what appears to be two distinct ideas, similar to how one might draw connections between two disciplines.

Finally, during our time writing the heating plant essay we’ve had to overcome several real-world problems. These problems are a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic and subsequent distance learning period. The main obstacle this created in our heating plant essay was our inability to participate in our planned tour of the heating plant as well as losing the opportunity to meet face to face. However, this was overcome for the most part by the arrangement of online class conferences and chats. This can also be viewed as a demonstration of why adaptability is stressed in the AAC&U statement. All in all, a silver lining can be found in the experience in adapting to real-world problems gained as a result of the tragedy we currently face.

Throughout the writing process of our heating plant essay, we’ve formed several connections between our campus community as well as less obvious connections in Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild. Additionally, we’ve worked through several real-world problems created as a result of the pandemic we are living through. In conclusion I believe our work on our heating plant essay is an example of applied integrative learning.

Since the beginning of our time in INTD 105 we’ve sought to understand the interactions and elements that make up a good academic partnership. I believe trust’s importance in any relationship can’t be understated, this includes academic partnerships like those formed by students and their universities. I believe a good example of what happens when this trust is breached is shown in the situation described by Drew Harwell in his article “Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines, tracking the locations of hundreds of thousands”. Harwell’s article focuses on schools tracking their students via their cell phones. The article identifies the service in question as SpotterEDU; SpotterEDU is a tracking service developed by Rick Carter, a former basketball coach, as a way to track the attendance of student-athletes. The service functions by using an array of short-range Bluetooth phone sensors and campus Wi-Fi networks and is currently used by several universities to track student’s class attendance, their time in common spaces, time in their room, etc. Harwell writes how the school’s then use this data to develop personal “risk scores”, which schools can then use to arrange real-world interventions. You’ll see this situation can be related to that of Gan and T’Gatoi in the story blood child. Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” demonstrates the importance trust, more specifically in the process of letting a someone become the adult their trying to be.

A sentiment expressed throughout Harwell’s article is discontent with schools that have implemented the SpotterEDU system and several students explain how they feel it’s an invasion of privacy. On the other hand, those who favor the service may claim that it increases the motivation of students, citing the quote “Rubin, the Syracuse professor, said once-thin classes now boast more than 90 percent attendance.” However, this increase in the ability to track attendance is overshadowed by the distraction it creates in the classroom. Harwell demonstrates this when he writes “a freshman athlete at Temple University who asked to speak anonymously to avoid team punishment, said the SpotterEDU app has become a nightmare, marking him absent when he’s sitting in class and marking him late when he’s on time.” The Freshman later commented that they’d missed out on lectures while fumbling with the app in an effort to be marked present while being berated by frustrated professors. I believe this incident demonstrates how a lack of trust weakens a relationship. Another concern raised is that the increased surveillance placed upon students is stunting their development into independent adults. Joanna Grama, an information security consultant and higher-education specialist, encapsulates this when they state “At what point in time do we start crippling a whole generation of adults, human beings, who have been so tracked and told what to do all the time that they don’t know how to fend for themselves. This presents the possibility that colleges are not only harming students’ ability to learn in the classroom but also growth into independent adults as a result of their lack of trust in students’ ability to self-motivate such as attending class without being monitored. I believe this article by Drew Harwell demonstrates the Importance of trust in maintaining a healthy academic partnership.

In Bloodchild Gan and T’Gatoi have a relationship that is constantly evolving as a result of their trust in one another. In the beginning Gan and T’Gatoi appear to be fairly close; This is demonstrated by when Butler writes “T’Gatoi and my mother had been friends, all my mother’s life, and T’Gatoi was not interested in being honored in the house she considered her second-home”.(Butler 4) T’Gatoi is clearly very close to Gan’s family and views herself as a part of the family. The close relationship between T’Gatoi and Gan is again expressed when Gan says “I’m told I was first caged within T’Gatoi’s many limbs only three minutes after my birth. A few days later I was given my first taste of egg. I tell Terrans that when they ask whether I was ever afraid of her.” (Butler 8) Here Gan explains how T’Gatoi has been in his life since the beginning and so he has never been afraid of her, thus demonstrating his trust.

 However, their relationship is complicated when Gan gets more information about what awaits him, which causes him to develop distrust of T’Gatoi because of the withheld information. Gan’s views can be seen shifting when he states “I had been told all my life that this was a good and necessary thing Tlic and Terran did together—a kind of birth. I had believed it until now. I knew birth was painful and bloody, no matter what. But this was something else, something worse.” (Butler 16-17) Here Gan witnesses the harsh reality of the task he is being guided towards by T’Gatoi. Shortly after this Gan is also affected by a statement his brother makes “I saw them eat a man”. (Butler 20) Here Gan’s brother explains how he witnessed a Tlic sacrifice their Terran companion so they didn’t lose their grubs inside him. This distresses Gan triggering what appears to be an existential crisis during which he argues with his older brother whether the process has any greater meaning than Tlic just taking advantage of Terran.

These events affect Gan’s relationship with T’Gatoi which is demonstrated by his reaction “‘I don’t want to be a host animal,’ I said ‘Not even yours,’”(Butler 24) at this point Gan refused to be impregnated by T’Gatoi because of what he’d learned. Then T’Gatoi suggests replacing Gan with his sister, this causes Gan to retract his statement because he didn’t want to hide behind his sister. Gan then accepts T’Gatoi’s egg and then explains how he was afraid which leads to an important conversation between Gan and T’Gatoi “‘Terrans should be protected from seeing.’ I didn’t like the sound of that—and I doubted that it was possible. ‘Not protected,’ I said ‘Shown. Shown when we’re young kids, and shown more than once…’”. This leads to the revelation that for a relationship to be successful, there must be trust. Gan demonstrates this because he won’t accept the egg until he has all the information on what he’s in for. He also advocates for the birthing process to be more comprehensively taught so others can make an educated decision.

                In Both of these situations the main problems stem from a lack of trust in one’s ability to act like an adult. However, the solution is demonstrated when Gan says “If we’re not your animals, if these are adult things, accept the risk. There is risk, Gatoi, in dealing with a partner.” Here Gan explains that the only way that his and T’Gatoi’s relationship can work is if she can trust him to act like an adult. Another way of looking at it is that Gan can only truly becomes an adult once T’Gatoi can put her trust in him. This compares to the idea presented by Joanna Grama in Harwell’s article where she claims that universities that force their students to be less independent are preventing students from truly becoming adults. In regards to the academic partnership I think this teaches us that if you want someone to become an adult you have to be willing to treat them like one first.

  On my first day of class in INTD 105 my Professor Dr. Beth McCoy asked the class for our thoughts on the course epigraph in the class syllabus. The epigraph was a small excerpt from the book, “Blood Child” by Octavia Butler, and is stated here: “If we’re not your animals, if these are adult things, accept the risk. There is risk, Gatoi, in dealing with a partner.” During class due to the quote’s ambiguous nature several interpretations arose, however I believe this quote could be used to characterize a mutual unspoken agreement between students and our teaching institution.

            I believe this agreement leads to a partnership built upon trust and accountability from each party, and if observed it’ll lead to a successful learning process. First of all, us students need to be able to trust in ourselves, as well as the learning process that has been laid out for us by our professor. We’ll be expected to push the envelope in terms of our current abilities. These heighted standards are shown in Dr. McCoy’s syllabus for INTD 105 where it is listed under Values“Learning: embracing high expectations for intellectual inquiry, scholarly achievement, and personal growth”. I believe that if us students are unable to have faith in ourselves and the process, we won’t be able to grow as learners. I think this situation can best be represented by a quote from Henry Ford, “whether you think you can or you can’t, either way you’re right.”  This is why I feel trust is important for student success.

Secondly, students must remain accountable, “if we are adults”, we are expected to act as adults would which means taking responsibility for our actions and inactions. Along our academic journey we will inevitably stumble at one point or another, whether it be missed classes or a failed exam. However, the real test of whether or not we are achieving accountability comes from the actions that we take after we stumble.  We can take a mental inventory of what happened, why it happened, and how it happened, then use that information to better ourselves in the future and prevent it from happening again.  On the other hand, we could choose the unaccountable reaction, which is taken by many students, which would be to forget about it and simply hope that it doesn’t happen again, because the thought of it makes us uncomfortable. The key distinction in the mind sets listed above can be demonstrated in Dr. McCoy’s syllabus where she writes in the Goal Setting Rewrite section “feedback does not constitute a list of things to “fix.” Rather, feedback offers you the opportunity to slow down, think, and unpack so that readers (none of whom can get inside your head) can follow you responsibly”. I believe this quote states the importance of the ability to learn from mistakes, rather than just doing the minimum to fix them, which is a part of being accountable. Being accountable also means that we won’t cheat, because in doing so we’d be circumventing the learning process that has been laid out for us by our instructor and thus preventing ourselves from growing. This is shown in the Course Syllabus under the section Academic Integrity and Plagiarism where it states “Milne Library offers frequent workshops to help students understand how to paraphrase, quote, and cite outside sources properly. These sessions are meant to educate about the importance of using original ideas and language, and how to incorporate paraphrases and quotes into writing”. This quote gives information about classes that teach how properly cite information to avoid plagiarism, thus stressing the importance of academic honesty.  Further more students must remember that to be accountable we must respect ourselves and those around us. That means giving our full attention to a lecture and not allow ourselves to get distracted with phones or side conversations. If we do allow ourselves to do these things, we’d be disrespecting ourselves by not getting the most out of our education and those around us by becoming a distraction to their education. This claim is supported by the participation grading listed in the syllabus which states “E. Absent frequently and thus unable to contribute. May be present but is watching sports/shopping/checking social media.” This grading procedure places an emphasis on keeping students engaged and therefore keeping them accountable for their own education. This is my opinion of what’s necessary of us student in order to ensure the partnership with our intuition is a beneficial one.

            For the learning process to work, trust and accountably is also required from our teaching institution. Our teaching intuition is required to trust in its student and our abilities to meet our responsibilities. If an institution’s trust is misplaced in a student that doesn’t live up to their expectations, then they would potentially be giving that student the spot that another, more deserving, student could utilize to a higher potential. This scarcity of resources is also expressed in the course syllabus when Dr. McCoy talks about Office Hours “The office gets extraordinarily busy; it is not unusual for students to show up unannounced and find six or seven people in front of them. If you make an appointment, I can reserve a slot for you.” Our teaching institution also needs to be held accountable to provide its students with the tools and information they need to be successful. I believe this means that they should be able to provide adequately sized rooms for classes to be held as well as areas for students to study. In addition, they must make clear what they expect from their students as well as what their students can expect from them. This means making information like how grading is done as well as assignment due dates readily available to students. The importance of making information and expectations known to student was proven when Dr. McCoy stated in class that the reason her syllabus is so long was because each section of it has a story behind it. This shows the importance of information in keeping both us students and our teaching intuition accountable. I believe this is what’s need from the teaching intuition in order for the learning process to run smoothly.        

     I believe this proves that good academic partnerships are built upon mutual trust and accountability. In addition, as I was writing I began to think how I played a role in this proposed relationship as a student. This led me to my goal for this course which is to learn to be more trusting and confident in my thoughts and abilities as well as to becoming more honest and reflective with my short comings.

On my first day of class in INTD 105 my Professor Dr. Beth McCoy asked the class what we thought of the course epigraph listed in the class syllabus. The epigraph was a small excerpt from the book “Blood Child” by Octavia Butler and is stated here: “If we’re not your animals, if these are adult things, accept the risk. There is risk, Gatoi, in dealing with a partner.” During class due to the quotes ambiguous nature several interpretations arose, however I believe this quote could be used to characterizes a mutual unspoken agreement between students and our teaching institution.

                I believe this agreement leads to a partnership built upon trust and accountability from each party, and if observed it’ll lead to a successful learning process. First of all, us students need to be able to trust in ourselves, as well as the learning process that has been laid out for us by our professor. We’ll be expected to push the envelope in terms of our current abilities. These heighted standards are shown in Dr. McCoy’s syllabus for INTD 105 where it is listed under Values “Learning: embracing high expectations for intellectual inquiry, scholarly achievement, and personal growth”. I believe that if us students are unable to have faith in ourselves and the process, we won’t be able to grow as learners. I think this situation can best be represented by a quote by Henry Ford, “whether you think you can or you can’t, either way you’re right.”  Secondly, students must remain accountable, “if we are adults”, we are expected to act as adults would which means taking responsibility for our actions and inactions. Along our academic journey we will inevitably stumble at one point or another, whether it be missed classes or a failed exam. However, the real test of whether or not we are achieving accountability comes from the actions that we take after we stumble.  We can take a mental inventory of what happened, why it happened, and how it happened, then use that information to better ourselves in the future and prevent it from happening again.  On the other hand, we could choose the unaccountable reaction, which is taken by many students, which would be to forget about it and simply hope that it doesn’t happen again, because the thought of it makes us uncomfortable.  The importance of accountability in the learning process can’t be understated, I see this mentality is demonstrated in the Dr. McCoy’s syllabus simply by viewing the essay assignments, which all offer an opportunity for a rewrite. I believe these opportunities could help guide students towards being able to better self-reflect and assess. Being accountable also means that we won’t cheat, because in doing so we’d be circumventing the learn process that has been laid out for us by our instructor and thus preventing ourselves from growing. This sentiment is also expressed In the Course Syllabus for under the Academic Integrity and Plagiarism section where it states the importance of originality. Further more students must remember that to be accountable we must respect yourselves and those around us. That means giving our full attention to a lecture and not allow ourselves to get distracted with phones or side conversations. If we do allow ourselves to do these things, we’d be disrespecting ourselves by not getting the most out of our education and those around us by becoming a distraction to their education. In my opinion this is what’s necessary of us student in order to ensure the partnership with our intuition is a beneficial one.

                For the learning process to work, trust and accountably is also required from our teaching institution. Our teaching intuition is required to trust in its student and our abilities to meet our responsibilities. If an institution’s trust is misplaced in a student that doesn’t live up to their expectations, then they would potentially be giving that student the spot that another, more deserving, student could utilize to a higher potential. Our teaching institution also needs to be held accountable to provide its students with the tools and information they need to be successful. I believe this means that it should be able to provide adequately sized rooms for classes to be held as well as areas for students to study. In addition, they must make clear what they expect from there students as well as what their students can expect from them. This means making information like how grading is done as well as assignment due dates readily available to students. The importance of make information and expectations known to student is demonstrated by the sheer length of the course syllabus as well as when Dr McCoy mentioned in class that most of the expectations listed in the course syllabus have a story behind them. This shows the importance of information in keeping both us students and our teaching intuition accountable. I believe this is what’s need from the teaching intuition in order for the learning process to run smoothly.

                These are a few reasons why I believe the epigraph could be a characterization of the relationship between us students and our teaching intuition which is built upon mutual trust and accountability. In addition, as I was writing I began to think how I played a role in this proposed relationship as a student. This led me to my goal for this course which is to learn to be more trusting and confident in my thoughts and abilities as well as to become for honest and reflective with my short comings.