Rant of the Day

[Violet]

I'm not only bothered by the "spinsteress" attack on etymological grounds. I think that it's so very obvious that single, childless women are those who are least bound by the double shift and unequal expectations, so no shit that they're more likely to advance in academia, much less MORMON ACADEMIA.

Attacking the messenger, who has literally no institutional power to change policy (the Board of the university is literally tied to the Priesthood, and women can only access that institutional power through marriage in a Mormon framework) is such a garbage argument. The misogyny among ex-Mormons gets old.

Not to mention, it's entirely incorrect. Yes, it's a gendered attack based on the idea that only childless women can advance, and sure that's logical for most things in the church. However, not for Carri Jenkins. Guess what? She has kids! Yes, she worked outside the home. Shocking. I'm over the fact that even though all of these exmormon guys think they're so progressive, they don't recognize their own shortsightedness.

I had classes with one of her kids and dated one of her kids' mission companions. This is the only reason I know this.

[Zedability]

Zed, here's the story of a guy who participated in the beard ban protest a couple of years ago. Fair warning, it's posted in /r/exmormon and there's swearing, but at the time he was mostly just a liberal progressive mormon, not an exmo. An acquaintance from his mission turned him in solely on the basis of his beard and some FB posts supporting some university reforms (this was during the accreditation renewal thing). Just as he was about to graduate and move away, they made getting his degree a humiliating nightmare for months.

Be honest, but be careful.

Hooooooooooooooly...

It's like their literal goal is to alienate people so thoroughly from the Church that even a personal appearance from God would have a hard time convincing them to go back.

I know, people act like the Honor Code is the bastion of all righteousness and Church-sponsored-ness at BYU, but I think its existence in its current form blatantly works against everything the Church should be trying to accomplish at BYU, ie giving students a faith-promoting environment to study in.

[Portia]

I'm not only bothered by the "spinsteress" attack on etymological grounds. I think that it's so very obvious that single, childless women are those who are least bound by the double shift and unequal expectations, so no shit that they're more likely to advance in academia, much less MORMON ACADEMIA.

Attacking the messenger, who has literally no institutional power to change policy (the Board of the university is literally tied to the Priesthood, and women can only access that institutional power through marriage in a Mormon framework) is such a garbage argument. The misogyny among ex-Mormons gets old.

Not to mention, it's entirely incorrect. Yes, it's a gendered attack based on the idea that only childless women can advance, and sure that's logical for most things in the church. However, not for Carri Jenkins. Guess what? She has kids! Yes, she worked outside the home. Shocking. I'm over the fact that even though all of these exmormon guys think they're so progressive, they don't recognize their own shortsightedness.

I had classes with one of her kids and dated one of her kids' mission companions. This is the only reason I know this.

Bah, this is so perfect and it's only Monday

There is no end to sexiiiism ...

[Shrinky Dink]

Zed, here's the story of a guy who participated in the beard ban protest a couple of years ago. Fair warning, it's posted in /r/exmormon and there's swearing, but at the time he was mostly just a liberal progressive mormon, not an exmo. An acquaintance from his mission turned him in solely on the basis of his beard and some FB posts supporting some university reforms (this was during the accreditation renewal thing). Just as he was about to graduate and move away, they made getting his degree a humiliating nightmare for months.

Be honest, but be careful.

Hooooooooooooooly...

It's like their literal goal is to alienate people so thoroughly from the Church that even a personal appearance from God would have a hard time convincing them to go back.

I know, people act like the Honor Code is the bastion of all righteousness and Church-sponsored-ness at BYU, but I think its existence in its current form blatantly works against everything the Church should be trying to accomplish at BYU, ie giving students a faith-promoting environment to study in.

After graduating BYUI, I've realized that I have a testimony of the church, but I don't have a testimony of church schools. In fact, I think I have an anti-testimony of the schools.
They say how wonderful it is that the church is the same everywhere, yet at the schools, the dress codes are different even when you're in the same climate, the curfew varies, and if you transfer schools your foundations/generals are likely to get mixed up. Even though we believe in agency and following Heavenly Father's plan of happiness, the schools rely heavily on forcing people to choose good which sounds an awful lot like another plan that we don't follow. The schools care more about appearances than actual practicality. My husband is in a major that will likely result in him working in rough conditions for most of his life, think construction work, oil drilling, that type of stuff, and his face will be much better protected from the elements with a beard than without. Lastly, at least at BYU-I, the school cares far more about getting people degrees than actually making them worth anything, doesn't listen to feedback from professors, and is already on thin ice with accreditation agencies because of the credit cap crap.

[Zedability]

Part of the reason I'm glad Mr. Z plans on going to more school after BYU is that I genuinely wonder whether it will be able to stay accredited. So I want him to at least be enrolled in another program before that happens.

Since my studies concentrate so heavily on programming, I think I'd be good even if BYU lost accreditation because work experience/skills are so much more valuable when it comes to coding. As long as I can get a job and stick with it for a while before BYU has issues, I think I should be able to figure stuff out.

But yeah, I've actually put serious thought into this, because some of the stuff about BYU just seems unsustainable to me.

[Whistler]

Part of the reason I'm glad Mr. Z plans on going to more school after BYU is that I genuinely wonder whether it will be able to stay accredited.

I work at BYU, but I had no idea they were in danger of losing their accreditation. Is it with respect to certain colleges?

[Katya]

Part of the reason I'm glad Mr. Z plans on going to more school after BYU is that I genuinely wonder whether it will be able to stay accredited.

I work at BYU, but I had no idea they were in danger of losing their accreditation. Is it with respect to certain colleges?

BYU renewed their accreditation very recently (within the last 2-3 years). I've heard that the College of Education was on probation for some reason (maybe it was during the previous accreditation cycle), but I haven't heard about any other problems in any other units (including the university as a whole).

The most interesting issue on that front has been a challenge to the law school's accreditation on the basis that refusing to admit ex-Mormon students is discrimination on the basis of religion. (BYU, as a religiously affiliated institution, can discriminate in favor of Mormon students/staff, but not in any other way.) I believe that challenge is still pending.

That said, I have no doubt that BYU's Title IX issues will come up during the next accreditation process (which I think is every 8 or 10 years).

On the other hand, based on what I've heard about the working conditions of BYU-I faculty, I wouldn't be at all surprised if their accreditation status was on thinner ice.

So, I can see how you would feel frustrated by a lot of recent events, Zed, but I think that the odds of BYU losing their accreditation in the foreseeable future are extremely low.

[Zedability]

I think the law school was having issues recently. But yeah, any challenges to accreditation of the university as a whole are probably quite a ways out...but I'd still be more comfortable if BYU wasn't the most recent education on my resume if that were to happen at any point.

Losing accreditation was the bogeyman at the Office of Compliance when I worked there, haha, so I might be a little more sensitive to that possibility.

[Katya]

Losing accreditation was the bogeyman at the Office of Compliance when I worked there, haha, so I might be a little more sensitive to that possibility.

Well, I guess it's the Office of Compliance's job to worry about losing accreditation!

[Portia]

Part of the reason I'm glad Mr. Z plans on going to more school after BYU is that I genuinely wonder whether it will be able to stay accredited. So I want him to at least be enrolled in another program before that happens.... but I'd still be more comfortable if BYU wasn't the most recent education on my resume if that were to happen at any point.

I know you and Mr. Z are still active in the Church, but it's hard to describe how psychologically important it is to have a secular school be the highest line item on my résumé. Especially in a creative field, it's just ... awkward.

[Craig Jessop]

To pile on, I'm applying to law schools and BYU is high on my list (so cheap! Decent employment opportunities from the Mormon mafia!). They are SO FRUSTRATING. They require this obscure little certification from my undergraduate dean that literally no other school requires, not even Harvard, and it has to be printed by me, snail mailed to the dean, who has to snail mail it to BYU--such a pointless hassle. Their application opens WAY later than everybody else, and they don't inform applicants about admissions decisions until the very last possible minute, and heaven help you if you want to know scholarship info in time to make an informed decision about rejecting offers from other schools. I love BYU, but I'm beginning to hate the sanctimonious "we are special and you must conform to us and we don't follow standar procedures in even trivial matters" attitude.

[Craig Jessop]

Also, what sorts of problems exist at BYU-I that could put accreditation at risk?

[Shrinky Dink]

Also, what sorts of problems exist at BYU-I that could put accreditation at risk?

Mostly the awful credit cap. I graduated in mechanical engineering and my professors have mentioned many many times that ABET has been always been concerned about whether or not a school could churn out decent engineers with just 120 credits and 12 of them being religion. Also, apparently BYU lets you still continue your education even if you have too many credits, BYU-I will basically force you to change your major to something useless so you can graduate with fewer credits once you hit the credit ceiling.

[yayfulness]

I know it's trivial, I know I can easily recreate the one page of writing that I lost, but it is really pissing me off that Microsoft Word keeps crashing on me. For some reason, this now happens every time I try to close a document; if I'm not lucky, it happens when I try to open one too. And randomly, just because it feels like it.

Microsoft Works? No, not really.

[yayfulness]

Hallelujah autorecover actually did its job this time. Usually when Works crashes I end up losing everything.

[Digit]

OpenOffice Write if it must be a .doc with formatting is a free option. When I need a nice document, I write using a plain text editor to write a .tex file and then pdflatex to make a nice PDF document.

[yayfulness]

After further investigation, it looks like the issue is probably connected to my OneDrive account. I can get stuff off of it but it freezes when I try to upload anything (or when it decides something of mine needs to be uploaded, for instance, every time I close a document). Does anyone know how to just disable that entirely?

I'd switch to OpenOffice if I weren't such an Excel addict, but as I recall (from a couple years ago, so it may have changed), I couldn't stand their spreadsheet editor.

[Shrinky Dink]

If I could sleep for more than 5 hours at night, that'd be great.

I hate having a cold.

[Digit]

A spreadsheet power user is something I've never been. One time I made a Google Docs spreadsheet that on one sheet would automatically keep charting new data added to a pair of columns on the first sheet, but that's about it.

[yayfulness]

The good news: Word works just fine now.

The bad news: This came at the cost of my computer spending an hour and a half installing an update, then telling me it couldn't install it properly, then spending the next hour and a half uninstalling that same update. This is the second time it's happened. This is a brand new computer. I'm just glad I don't have any major assignments due tomorrow.