Pick One

The more preferable of two goods.  In an electoral world of objectionable choices, this one seemed welcome.  Two invitations arrived by email, one directly with ample notice, the other in a more backhanded way on much shorter notice.  Neither anticipated.

First, a program on addressing anti-Semitism to be held at the Museum of American Jewish History on a Wednesday evening.  The topic interests me, though as an American, my Jewish identity has been mostly secure.  A few snide comments by fellow university classmates along the way, but no personal threats, or even limitations.  Yet, the past several years have added to my exposure.  The physician gunned down at the Tree of Life massacre I knew well in college.  On a trip to Pittsburgh to visit family, I reserved a Saturday morning to worship at the repackaged Tree of Life Congregation.  Four years later, it was no longer the multiplex of several simultaneous services in a single building.  The survivors assembled as a single worshiping community in a rather opulent space, part of a more cathedral-formatted Reform synagogue.  The President introduced himself to me as a visitor.  No one else did.  They still spoke of that fateful day, after four years, during their Dvar Torah discussion.  

The Monsey Hanukkah attack enabled me to generate an essay for our local Jewish magazine.  I knew the geography well.  I kept up with its transition from secular Jewish of my childhood to the Haredi dominance today.  Animosities are understandable.  They seem more generated by the experience of proximity and negative consequences for a secular minority than to scripted anti-Semitism.

I've had minor interactions with Islamic anti-Zionism repackaged as a form of negative transference reaction to American Jews like me committed to a vibrant, secure Israeli nation-state.  There seems little role for education where people are pre-scripted, yet that has remained the focus of our own legacy advocacy agencies.  Protective, enforceable laws and an unequivocal national policy with minimal wiggle room seem a better option for keeping everyone safe.  Some, however, rationalize the compromise of physical safety in the guise of free expression.

While this forum took some planning, and I am grateful for the invitation I received, I never received a formal agenda.  The session had been assembled by an educational institution of Jewish auspices, but I did not know whose presentations I would hear.

On much shorter notice, a brief mention in the weekly OLLI newsletter that arrives by email every Monday morning disclosed that Robert Putnam would be speaking at the University's main campus at a time that largely coincided with the Jewish event.  Like many others, I have held this Harvard professor in high esteem for a long time.  In addition to becoming thoroughly engaged as I read through his landmark book Bowling Alone, I've had occasion to hear him speak.  He came to my town about five years ago.  I paid $30 for seats in the auditorium, along with a minor parking imposition.  He did not speak about Bowling Alone, which I had read maybe three years earlier, but about his latest work focusing on childhood poverty and economic inequality's harmful effects that pass down through generations.  As compelling as his presentation was, the benefit to me came afterward.  The Delaware Community Foundation, which sponsored Prof Putnam's appearance, set up tables in the foyer outside the auditorium.  They had representatives recruit those in attendance for the many ongoing projects that the Foundation oversees.  I expressed interest in reviewing scholarship applications.  Once signed on, I remain active with this project.  Each spring for five years, I review some twenty-five applications.  Some come from high school students seeking assistance with college.  Others originate with people already attending medical and law school, needing some relief from tuition and loans.  Along the way, I've made a couple of friends and offered suggestions that get implemented for subsequent years.

This time Bob, which is what the Professor likes to be called, has a new book and a Netflix movie called Join or Die.  I got to this in a very indirect way.  After supper, I often retreat to My Space, where I watch YouTube videos.  I particularly learn from Rev. Dr. Russell Moore, who produces a new podcast on modern evangelical Christianity each week.  His podcast usually interviews authors of new books with a social message.  While the host is an Evangelical, though one who has kept his distance from the political alliances of the Christian Right, the people he interviews originate in many backgrounds, including Jewish.  He recently interviewed Bob Putnam, a show I had to watch.  When Bob told Russell his brief bio, he noted that as an undergrad he took a liking to a sweet Jewish girl of the opposite political party who sat behind him.  They went on an outing to the Kennedy Inauguration.  After graduation, they married, he converted to Judaism, and more than sixty years together brought them an expanded three generational family and shared professional accomplishments.

After the interview, I watched the Netflix movie, taking three sessions to match my limited attention span.  Only after seeing the movie, did I notice the OLLI announcement of his visit.  I contacted the University sponsor, which offered seats in the rather limited auditorium for my wife and me.

Which to attend?  From a content perspective, I think my prior fondness for Bob Putnam's insight and my appreciation to the Delaware Community Foundation for welcoming me as a participant gave them an advantage.  So did my wife's interest in accompanying me to that event.  Logistics cannot be discounted either.  I've been to both the National Museum of American Jewish History and the University's Trabant Center in the past.  The University placed its parking garage adjacent to this student union where Bob would speak.  Some traffic anticipated, minor annoyance registering my car and paying the fee at the garage kiosks, but just a minor stroll from my car to the event.

Philadelphia requires more planning.  I have an unlimited transit pass and the event planners made provisions for use of a garage a block or two from the museum.  To get there and back by public transit, I would have to take light rail from a station near my home, sit on the local train for multiple stops comprising a little under an hour, then transfer to either the city subway or bus to the Museum.  The driving option would require me to deal with some city traffic and with a significant diversion from the interstate to city streets before accessing the garage, then walking as darkness approaches going and fully established on the return.  The light rail schedule would leave me with either slack time with an earlier train or a rush with a later one, then return well into the evening.

Both content and logistics favored Prof. Putnam.  That's where I went.  He gave a suitable presentation.  At the end, I got to ask him a question.  I also got to greet the CEO of the Delaware Community Foundation to remind him that Bob's previous presentation connected me to his agency.  Some light snacks at the end with small talk with a contemporary who I had not met previously.  Then uneventful drive home.

I made the right choice.

Assigning Scores

For several years I have served on a committee that selects scholarship recipients.  A local community foundation administers philanthropic endowments of all types. Some donor largesse seeks worthy high school seniors and later students pursuing professional degrees to defray their university expenses.  Most awards barely nudge the astronomical tuition of private colleges or medical schools but would probably cover books or allow a graduate student to maintain a car.  Each season, the Foundation assigns me about twenty-five applications to review.  This brings me to the intersection of efficiency and effectiveness.

Applications have a standardized format.  Biographical information.  Classroom grades, Test Scores.  An open-ended activity statement.  One recommendation.  An essay whose topic changes each year.  The reviewer assigns a grade to each section, usually a 4 or 5.  The computer scores the composite, which the committee largely skims the top scores for the awards.  No unworthy person has ever gotten an award.  Unfortunately, some very worthy people, in fact many who would be at the top of my list to receive a grant, get swept away by a B or two on the transcript or the inexperience of the mentor who submitted the recommendation.  Having done hiring, skimming the top data does not segregate the people you would be most eager to bring aboard.  There is something not quite just about penalizing somebody who challenged himself with a course or two outside their strengths but fell short in the process.  The most successful people all failed at something.  That should reflect growth, not disqualification.

The applications in some ways expose larger problems with America's educational processes.  Several prestige universities suspended their SAT/ACT application mandates.  Most restored them when they found that kids who did not submit them underperformed in the classroom once on campus.  The applications I review are replete with disparities between grades and tests.  Some high schoolers take six AP Courses but don't score above a mediocre 3 on any of them, which suggests that either their enrollment in that class was premature or they were really not ready for college's academic rigor.  Yet in all six, their class grade was A.  People with stellar classroom scores have marginal SATs.  Even medical students already accepted with no B appearing on their transcript had mediocre MCATs.  There are certainly reasons why some students underperform relative to their abilities on timed high stakes testing, but the extent of this disparity really makes me wonder less whether the tests are right but the classroom assessment of performance is faulty.

I think final decisions on who gets money should basically abandon the algorithms, no matter how expedient.  Accept some realities like grades are inflated, though not universally inflated, so accepting at face value does not always isolate the best talent.  A better way to do this would be to have a threshold that keeps people in a pool to go on to the next step.  There is something amiss about penalizing somebody for challenging themselves or rewarding somebody for somebody else's leniency.  Dealing with mismatched grades and testing is much harder but university admissions committees have created their own methods for two generations.

Recommendations have gotten too automated.  I think they would be better evaluated as part of the application package by scoring them as subset scores instead of the current gestalt composite that really does not separate the candidates very well.  Perhaps separate scores for relation of person to applicant, or at least degree of familiarity, detail of specific activities to support the endorsement, difficulties or challenges that the applicant managed irrespective of success, evidence of tenacity, evidence of relations the applicant was able to form.  Replace a composite score with a scoresheet.

The one part I would leave relatively unchanged is the essay, but again scored by subsets.  Caliber of writing, creativity dealing with the assigned topic, specific illustrations.

And finally an interview with two or three committee members, the same number that currently score each individual's application, though not the individuals doing the written scoring.  A chance to assess understanding, explain mismatches of grade and test performance, find out what motivates the person.  Certainly the people in professional school programs have already acquired experience with this, though the high school seniors may not.

Reviewing the applications from medical students for several years, differentiation was difficult.  They all went to but a few schools for college and medicine, all had the same grades, all had a recommendation by somebody experienced at writing them.  Those are screenings.  We would do better having an assessment of the person, as each person is different, even if their paper credentials are not.

Getting Invited

Non-Profits need to have a reckoning of their accomplishments each year.  They also need to take notice of their volunteer and contributors.  Some of this clusters in June, after the universities send their new grads into the world but before the families send their younger ones off to camp for the summer.  As much as I had hoped for a travel day in the coming week, PM invitations that I could not ignore fill the entire mid-week.  

My synagogue holds its annual meeting on Tuesday.  Relations with the leadership are mixed, but they offered me a spot on their Board of Governors, which I accepted.  There is perfunctory business, voting on the slate, renewal of a non-controversial contract, and sale of a real estate asset that is more useful as cash than as property.  This one takes place by Zoom.  It is primarily a business meeting.  There are advantages to in-person meetings which allow for better community building or at least getting to know other members, to say nothing of better give and take as people express their thoughts on the three agenda items.  But mainly this meeting is obligatory by by-laws.  Expediency rules the day.  I have skipped it, but as one given a spot going forward by a Nominating Committee that has often received my skeptical comments, I really need to sign on to the electronic forum that evening.  I suppose I can still take SEPTA to some Philly attractions and get home in time.

The following night comes the reception that I most want to attend.  For a few years, I have scored scholarship applications and critiqued the application process for the Delaware Community Foundation, a non-profit that distributes funds on behalf of local philanthropists.  They host a semi-annual reception for staff and volunteers that I always try to attend.  I invariably encounter a mixture of familiar and new people while I sip something with alcohol and sample some nibbles from a buffet.  The people, some staff, some community, are mostly more interesting folks with unique personal stories.  I find it easy to bond.  It's one of those wouldn't miss this events.

Then came an invitation that I did not expect.  My charitable giving goes to places that I think do important work.  While United Way and Federation have each earned a share of my scorn, the communal work they support still has to be done. The DuPont Company aligned with United Way, shaking down its employees, including my wife, for as much as they could coerce.  It made a mostly worthy, even essential effort something of a charitable cliché.  In retirement, I have a contribution for them each summer, as does my wife independently.  Unknown to me, if you donate above a certain threshold you get invited to their June reception.  While both my wife's and my individual donations fell beneath that amount, the staff elected to combine the household contribution, which got us one ticket.  For logistical reasons, I am the recipient.  Ordinarily, I do not engage in social climbing, but it has been years since I was invited to a place where everyone who's anyone will be on site.  Why not attend?

That gives me a busy week, one in which I have a few other ongoing projects to complete, including slides for an upcoming presentation.  But maintaining social interactions, particularly with people unfamiliar to me and likely more accomplished than me, has its own importance.  

DCF Gathering

Rewarding evening.  One of my defenses against post-retirement loneliness has been activity each spring to review college scholarship applications for the Delaware Community Foundation.  This organization has functioned for decades, engaging in direct and indirect philanthropy.  Some years ago they invited Robert Putnam, whose landmark book Bowling Alone, captivated me, as their annual guest lecturer, having published a more recent work on disparity in American culture.  Despite a fee for the lecture and a little more for parking, I had a captivating evening.  After the speech, not being important enough to have access to the speaker, I headed to the foyer where the Foundation had set up tables with sign-up sheets.  They have paid staff, but they also seek volunteers.  I made rounds on the available projects, deciding to help out with their scholarship fund.  A short time later, somebody contacted me to confirm my interest, then started sending me each spring about thirty scholarship applications to review and score among a number of categories.  Most came from high school students entering college, but a few came from people already in college seeking medical school admission.  Being the only physician on their panel, some of those went to me.  In subsequent years the number of endowed scholarships administered by the Delaware Community Foundation has expanded, along with two scholarships dedicated to current medical and law students.  

The initial year of my involvement preceded the pandemic.  We met in person at a downtown building which houses many of our state's non-profits.  After Covid sidelined meetings, we met by Zoom, so despite doing this for a few seasons, I never really got to know anyone other than the person in charge of the scholarship program, and she lived downstate about a hundred miles away.

I never returned to any of their annual guest speakers, all unlike Professor Putnam, unfamiliar to me.  Yet when they decided to have two early evening in-person gatherings, one near me, one downstate, I eagerly accepted the chance to meet some of the people I had only seen electronically.  The reception took place at a niche State Park, a place dominated by a building and grounds of historical rather than natural interest.  Despite living only a short drive away and having a lifetime pre-paid State Park Pass, I had never been there.  GPS directed me uneventfully.  Followed the paths to the parking lot where there seemed to be ample people who arrived before my wife and me.  It was unclear where the gathering would take place, as the lobby seemed vacant, not even a person at the front desk to direct people or call 911 should anyone appear dangerous.  We went upstairs, there being nobody in the other room on the ground floor either.  At the upper elevator door, a few people clad in black and white uniforms suggestive of the catering service mingled with each other.  The hall only went in one direction, so through the next entryway we found the person who hands out the name tags.  Mine came pre-printed.  My wife had to create hers with a Sharpie Marker.  Then into a small foyer where they had beverages, a choice of wine, several beers, and soft drinks.  Not clear whether open or cash.  Then into the next room where they had food displayed on a long table, much like my synagogue's Kiddush, surrounded by several chest-high round tables without stools capable of accommodating about five people each.  My scholarship coordinator had driven here for the occasion.  I'd not actually seen her since the pandemic.  Quick hug, introduced my wife, some chat about the scholarship process and how it meshes with the Delaware Community Foundation mission in some respects but holds a unique place in other considerations.  

Some nibbles.  Sufficient vegetarian options with vegetables, dips, a cheese board, bread assortment and small hoagie portions.  I recognized the caterer, an offshoot of one of the premier restaurants where we used to go for supper after the Medical Center Holiday party, though have not been for at least ten years.  Still attractive and tasty samples.  We went over to an unoccupied standing table.  Two women came over, one unknown to me who did not stay very long, the other known to me from my days of local medical practice and known to my wife through a Jewish organization.  We chatted, mostly about the Foundation for which she once worked.

Then time for liquids.  Quick walk to the bar.  White wine for my wife.  For me, the local brew, a bottle of Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, the recipe that brought them to prominence.  Back to the table to sip it.  I offered to pay for these, but apparently the DCF opted for an open bar.  Good Beer.

While in conversation, the organizers moved the crowd into the large room where the CEO would be giving his presentation.  He described philanthropy in its many aspects, managing money, approving proposals, creating a balance of projects, though primarily enabling access to better health, social stability, or communal initiative for those who did not already have these things.  And that's a lot of people.  By then we had reassembled to new tables.  My wife, myself, the lady we were with, a DCF Board member who turned out to be the mother of our State Senator, and a staffer from the DCF.  After the talk the CEO posed for publicity photos, then headed out toward the food.  I followed him to ask him questions about his talk.  What was missing was something very elementary in my medical world where we measure everything.  How does he know how successful a project really has been?  When they apply for grants, do those seeking funds have to specify in advance how they will determine whether their purpose was fulfilled.  Some things are easy to measure.  How many people apply for the scholarships.  How many kids from a neighborhood attend a community center after school.  Some things are harder.  When a health initiative is offered, how much healthier do people become?

There's another tough determination.  Not all projects succeed.  In some way it appeared to be like a stock which may be declining low enough to never rebound to profitability yet investors acquire those stocks because they believed in the company and retain ownership of their decision as well as the failing investment.  There is a time to move on.  As expected, he understood this, but grants have a life of their own.  Those who acquire them assume ownership, not just temporary stewardship.  This may be one of philanthropy's Achilles Heels.  

Back to the table with a little more food, but no more drink.  Some chat with the new people at my table, with considerable praise on my part for our State Senator.

Time to go.  Dessert tidbits on the way out.

The last evening reception I attended had been about three months earlier, another very pleasant evening with new people.  I don't get to do enough of that.  My synagogue has mostly the same people who segregate with their Besties.  I can make an effort to capture the attention of a different person at kiddush from one shabbos to the next, though with only partial success.  And I've not been invited to a cocktail party in years. This was the closest I've come.  And I found it immensely enjoyable.

Post-Pesach

A few demarcation points passed.  Pesach, birthday, hopefully self-limited respiratory illness, taxes filed.  Dishes away, kitchen not fully restored to function.

I feel a little tired, maybe even notably despondent a few days, though not in a disabling way.  Pesach begins Omer.  For some reason I remain committed to the daily count, maybe to convince myself that I can do it, though maybe to focus myself of spring which generates its own post-Pesach initiatives.  My garden is no longer part of my semi-annual projects, nor is monthly financial review or date generated donations, though they continue.  It's the week that determines the vegetables and herbs I would like to have later.  Each of the last few springs I review scholarship applications for the Delaware Community Foundation.  It helps them and it engages me.  I have a Torah Talk to present, maybe the only meaningful invitation I will get from my own congregation this year.

Warmer weather shifts my wardrobe to lighter clothing with more exposed limbs.  An exchange needs to be done.  I've not been fishing at the better but more distant state ponds, since losing one of my rods on their pier.  That needs revival this spring, though not likely this week.

This semi-annual cycle has about ten weeks remaining.  Have done mostly better than other cycles with some focus needed for the languishing ones.  And for the first time in a while, I think my focus has been better. 

Disposition Upturn

As I begin my endoscopy prep and anticipate Pesach, I've also noted a small upturn in my disposition, perhaps my demeanor as well.  I feel more connected, loneliness periodically interrupted with decent conversation.  Upcoming medical care guarantees some interaction, competing I think with the few minutes of anesthesia for the highlight of that day.  A few days after, I have my first annual meeting with the Delaware Community Foundation to review scholarships that they manage.  Synagogue, my common irritant, can go on hiatus.

As much as I like OLLI, I also take advantage of each semester's intercession, usually travelling somewhere.  I think I'll go fishing on the Cape Henlopen Pier unless the weather makes that ill-advised.  Beyond that, I have some 50th Anniversary college activities, then a few days on the West Coast.

My physical health seems on the upswing as well.  Arthritic symptoms not burdensome.  I miss very few treadmill sessions, with the duration and intensity mostly advancing with a few health related retreats.  I've incorporated an 8-minute daily stretching routine, following on my big screen in My Space at a reasonably set time every afternoon.  I don't feel more flexible, but keeping up with the schedule makes me feel a tad more accomplished.

Self-expression has not gone as well, at least in the public sphere, but I am starting to get more specific about dedicated sessions to pursue fragments of those Semiannual Goals that I set at the close of the last calendar year. 

So feeling more the way I'd like to feel.  7 Habits Physical, Emotional, Social spheres all better, Mental lagging behind slightly but remediable.

OLLI Break

Osher Institute scheduled its Spring Break the final week in March.  Ordinarily, I schedule a few nights away, having gone to the Pocono's one year and to DC last year.  No major driving or planes for this one. Travel may not fit in as well this year.

The weeks leading into this week off have more than the usual obligations.  This week Purim and some synagogue activities.  Next week the Voices of UD meetings.  The following -week my somewhat overdue endoscopic studies as well as the first meeting for the Delaware Community Foundation Scholarship Program.  And probably need to squeeze in some Passover shopping and other preparation before other shoppers deplete Shop-Rite's supplies of the hard to find.

So by the time classes suspend, either I will look back with accomplishment or have to deal with whatever the GI endoscopists find and with Passover which begins the week classes resume.  So what might I do under more pressured circumstances?  A day trip for sure.  Maybe fishing at a downstate pier.  Maybe the Chinatown Bus to NYC.  But only one day.  Passover cleaning can be paced a bit more than in prior years.  Maybe visit with a travel agent for visiting Paris with my wife.  Maybe begin the seasonal gardens.  Maybe choose my art:  watercolor, pastels, pencils black and colored, neglected violin, neglected harmonica.  Or seek the more audacious.  Not really a blank canvas of time, but one with a lot of area to fill in with things I most want to do but not want to do enough to have incorporated them into busier weeks.

Repackaging Community

On my Whiteboard, at my line of sight when I gaze left, is a column of core values listed on the right third in multiple colors.  It includes Kehillah, or Community, something that has challenged me, as my experiences when there have often prompted me to seek community someplace else.  I have my loyalties, though.  Banding together was probably an evolutionary residual to enhance the likelihood of personal and species survival, which it still might.  But as threats to defend become less, the willingness to trade off some personal autonomy wanes in proportion.  Defections from previously established communities have accelerated over about fifty years, quantitated in a compelling way by such works as Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, now thirty years post-publication.  Moment Magazine recently examined the changing nature of community with comments from about twenty or so distinguished and accomplished minds.

https://momentmag.com/community/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=getresponse&utm_content=Why+Debates+Don%E2%80%99t+Solve+Problems&utm_campaign=Moment+Minute

Many of the swamis, as agency heads, focused upon and promoted their agencies.  Others took a more abstract approach to communities, including a co-author with Professor Putnam of a recently released book that offers contemporary solutions to the challenges that Bowling Alone exposed. Affiliations exist for the evolutionary purpose they always have, attaining security or compete amid perceived scarcity beyond what individuals could do for themselves. The process of assembly seems to me ethically neutral  though the social results are not, nor are the affiliations entirely voluntary.  Military drafts existed in the USA and still do elsewhere.  Most of us have a nationality or a religion into which we were born and for which some type of permanent imprint was offered.  Groups can be small like nuclear families or large like a national political party.  Most people seem to find more meaning, though, from being with identifiable people who can be recognized though the senses of appearance, voice, handshake.  Moreover, the second half of the twentieth century with its mobility and communication enhancements have redefined groups.  Geographic and employment mobility, less permanence to marriage, our fickle nature as consumers, transience of our ideologies, and the option of electronic friends whose interest overlap ours but we will never meet personally have all redefined our voluntary affiliations.

Of the various comments, the theme that captured my attention most categorized allegiance to a group either as a consumer of what that organization offers or as a contributor to the offerings.  As we recover from Covid-19 restrictions and my synagogue plans to reopen, I'm not ready to return.  They are not evil people, they just excluded me from development of anything meaningful.  Instead, the weekly email announcement comes as a menu of activities for me to select from their buffet.  I feel as a pure consumer, which gives me about as much loyalty as I have to which loaf of bread I prefer.  At my doctor's she needs to be in charge, but she cannot function professionally if I fail to provide the information she needs and volunteer myself for exam and lab work.  It's a partnership, though of necessity not an equal one.  She has my interest paramount but needs me to provide the information she needs to function on my behalf.  The shul has me more as an interchangeable customer, part of an attendance figure if they care to take attendance at all.

At the other extreme has been my favorable experience with the Delaware Community Foundation, a community resource that distributes funds for current benefit.  Ironically, I latched on when I attended a public presentation by Professor Putnam himself a few years ago.  After the speech, they solicited volunteers at tables in the foyer.  I thought it would be interesting to review scholarship applications of high schoolers.  They seemed appreciative of my interest, invited me aboard, and this spring I completed my third year of application review.  I take nothing in return other than a parking voucher.  My purpose for being there is entirely contributory.  The psychic dollars of what I do there far exceed anything I could possibly derive as a passive attendee of any event from the synagogue buffet, worship included.  People know when they do something important and they know when they are more convenient or inconvenient in lieu of important.  Not to mention the Kavod that comes with being invited to do something.

From a Jewish perspective, which is what the Moment Magazine forum focused upon, I had an interesting encounter with a venerable agency that does important work well.  They have an Executive Director of world prominence whose work I greatly admire.  Not being a great Twitter enthusiast, but finding it selectively useful, I put his comments as my premier Go To tweet, as they generally come by in the morning.  He generated a few comments, occasionally mine, never the hundreds that a famous author or entertainer or elected official would get.  Then one day I found the response option blocked.  Well, not really blocked but blocked to me and any other peasant he thought too much of a Nobody to be worthy of expressing a polite, though sometimes challenging remark.  He was very effective.  His feedback went down to zero.  I Unfollowed him, but opted to follow some of his younger subordinates who would often retweet the boss's message without the feedback exclusion.  But I very much resented being excluded that way.  I was no longer a contributor, other than financial, but a consumer of what he had to express on behalf of his agency.  He must have gotten some feedback similar to my thoughts, since when reconsidering a couple of weeks later, the restriction on having to be a Somebody to express a thought to his agency on his behalf had been lifted.

At present I am nearing the end of a respite from Facebook and Twitter.  I thought they would be communities, particularly FB where I knew all the Friends personally, nearly all from my high school, but over about ten years of subscription, people either established themselves as sloganeers, got fed up, perhaps resented the many successes that some of us have had.  High School comprised real people. While my close group was smaller than many, I knew everyone else well enough to carry an impression from forty years back.  Some reinforced what I thought, some enhanced my impression, some detracted, but a virtual community, even with a fundamentally fond common link, falls short of the real thing.  On Twitter I don't know the people.  Mostly I find them interesting but the exchanges of ideas have been minimal, mostly perfunctory.  I doubt if I will return there in any meaningful way.  The people on my FB list really were part of a viable community, some valuing me at the time, all at least tolerating me.  I always had my own niche, never a pure consumer.  And even on FB now, it's always an exchange of ideas, valued greetings for notable events, admiration for their achievements with no resentment on my part, and a little pleasant banter or electronic small talk.  It's community repackaged in a decent though far from ideal way.  I'll be back if I can manage my own presence more wisely.

Scoring Scholarship Applications

This has been my third season scoring applications for scholarships through the Delaware Community Foundation, one of the eminent charitable agencies of our region.  Most come from high school seniors planning to enter college, though a few are assigned to medical students either already in medical school or accepted for the following year.  These are good kids, the people who make my generation optimistic for the trajectory that humanity will take.  Scholarships often have a need basis, but I try to fill out my scorecards blindly.  DCF went to a new format, one that sort of makes my process easier.  First I look at courses and grades, SAT scores, and the letter of recommendation which are separate from the application.  Then I look at non-scholastic activity, then finally the required essay, jotting notes and selecting a score for each category.  I don't even look at the finances as there is an adjudication committee that makes the final award determination which they weight in a substantial way.

Who gets the highest automated score, at least from me, is not necessarily the person I would deem most worthy of an award.  These applications taken as an N=33 may expose more about America's educational process than they do about individual candidates.  First, I see a fair amount of inflation, either of grades, which I assume are earned for each student, but also of course titles.  If AP means college level and all kids have three AP courses each year, then the folks are being pushed too hard or college isn't hard enough.  If AP courses are offered before senior year, then the known AP exam scores need to be part of the scholarship application too.  The arbiter to grade and course description inflation has generally been exam scores.  There are legitimate reasons for a mismatch and it is hard to tell if a mismatch reflects on the student or the school.  But if there is a serious interest in having schools accountable for student performance and grades that typically far exceed test scores, the problem lies with the school.  I saw a lot of that each of the three years I reviewed the data given to me, made more difficult by the increasingly optional nature of including standardized testing results in the application.  SAT scores may be less valuable perhaps than Achievement Test or SAT II results which can be more easily matched with specific grades.  Again, this may reflect more on the school and how the local teachers create their grades than with the students who receive those grades.  A few kids from my medical school class conducted such an experiment.  Since we had a note taking service, a few opted not to attend lectures but to study texts and the lecture notes.  They underperformed on class tests, overperformed on Board Exams.  But the scholarship applications with their divergences between grades and standard scores raise serious questions about either what is taught or how class performance is assessed.  

I also got the sense that some of these kids were aiming for an intermediate future below their capacity.  I didn't encounter any applying to the Ivies or related highly competitive colleges, though from performance they could have.  The geographic distribution of their choices also seemed a bit more restricted than I might have expected from their level talent.  Makes me wonder about the guidance they receive. 

And finally, some people write more effective letters of recommendations than others.  I like to read illustrative vignettes that move talent to performance.  I wonder if schools coach their faculty on how to convey performance effectively, or if DCF gives a heads up to the Recommendation writers, as many are not faculty, as to what types of comments catch attention from readers.  If not, this would be a useful addition to the process.

While interviews might be a tempting addition, for kids in their late teens this could be intimidating and perhaps even misleading as poise often develops as part of the college experience.  There is also a volume of applications and limited experience of interviewers that might make this addition unrealistic or even detract from the student's assessment.  Best to keep it all in writing on the screens for now.

Scholarship Applications

For the past two years I have volunteered to review a few dozen scholarship applications on behalf of the Delaware Community Foundation.  I do my best to blind myself to the personal information and just look at the transcripts, recommendations, activities outside the classroom, and essays.  I particularly like reading the essays.  This year the students had a relatively open challenge of picking a problem and solving it.  Subjects ranged from saving the honeybees to ending bullying to the correction of climate change.  The topic really mattered less than what they did with it.  Some very clever and insightful kids and some that spouted uncritically what they read on the internet.  All but one had a job.  I do not know how many had cars.

I think like a doctor, looking at each presentation as an individual but keeping an eye out for patterns.  I wonder if grading should be more uniform across Delaware.  There were far too many outstanding transcripts that did not match SAT scores, some not even close.  All recommendations got a top score by the person writing the recommendation but what distinguished one student from another may be the detail of what was written or even the caliber of the writing than an accurate verbal portrait of the student. 

These applicants all had motivation and focus, at a time when peers of the same age acquire untreated depression, assaults to their self-esteem, or other forms of rejection.

The people who should be looking at these summaries of achievement might not be me, but professors from the Schools of Education at the University of  Delaware or University of Pennsylvania or perhaps the state Department of Education.  Our schools nurture some very worthy kids but opportunities to design studies that examine some of the results more thoroughly and more systematically can upgrade further.

Staring at the Screen

At mid-morning, my productivity and my motivation have faltered.  I completed by scheduled e-book, Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott but still want to read the notes which I think were also written by the author.  The scholarship applications I agreed to review for the Delaware Community Foundation have proceeded on schedule.  And I am only one article short from last week on my weekly quota of two articles.  But I don't feel accomplished.  A major writing piece on coronavirus hangs on my daily not done yet list and my attempt at indoor container herbs has gotten off to a false start.  I should exercise on the treadmill, and likely will as a matter of basic health which I have not forsaken despite my case of the blahs.  Need to check off the to-do items that once done do not return for another week.  There are some.