Reflections on Hacking and Teaching at State Universities

by Diana Kanecki

This New Year's, I was thinking of a Christmas greeting I had gotten from a friend who recently retired as a professor at my alma mater.  We are similar, and both of us started the same way - working in the field and then moving into the role of professor.  Another friend who is still teaching at our alma mater interviewed for the same professor position as me in 2000.  I was offered the position first and, at that time, I felt the greatest use to the future was for me to stay in the private sector.  My friend accepted the offer to go into the public sector from the private sector as a professor.

I visit my alma mater about once every two weeks to talk with friends who work within the university, and they talk with me about being semi-retired from the private sector, albeit my additional studies included the University of Phoenix where I earned an MBA and have a Doctor of Management (DM), all but a dissertation.  When I compare how computer science and even Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) work towards making and understanding how things work, rather than just Android programming and JSON, I am shocked.

Let me explain.

As part of my semi-retirement, I audited classes in theater and communications, which included a program on the college radio station WIPZ called Ideas with Diana that I did solo, and later was joined by friends Ron and Nikita.  The three of us would bounce off each other - and to the students were considered the unofficial "real" professors they wished they had in their classes.  As part of the opening, Ron would read from the Chicago Tribune about this day in history, I would read and summarize articles from local papers like the Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Kenosha News, Racine Journal Times, and the student newspaper The Ranger News, discussing things like financial planning for living off campus.  Nikita would add humorous comic relief.

Also, the three of us would talk about our careers and our service.  Ron is a former non-commissioned officer in the Navy (serving during Vietnam) and prefers to hear "I respect your service" rather than "I thank you for your service," as Ron feels it to be true and not PC.  With me, it was the first Gulf War of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, medical support, and solving problems for the Navy and Air Force as a civilian who worked closely within the current environment.  Nikita is an artist who studied in New York at Parsons and received her degree from there, having an art career and being a businesswoman working for a major health supplement company.

So, on our show we would discuss events that the students needed to know, along with occasionally playing music.  One time, I heard a remake of I Will Survive made in 2018.  Afterwards, I modified the playlist and put on the original Gloria Gaynor I Will Survive and it was fun to see everyone get up and dance.

In addition, we would talk with the students about the dangers of certain types of employment contracts and schemes such as sweetheart contracts, and the hazards of being hired at will and at term, along with the consequences of each.  Most importantly, we would encourage students that it is O.K. to question your professors.  The reason we had to state this is because even from 2016 to 2020 when our show was on the air, the 1960s attitude and awareness was being washed away.  Ron had gone to college in the 1960s, Nikita in the late-1970s, and I had gone to college at age 14 in the 1970s and matriculated in the 1980s.  When we went, we were encouraged to chat with our professors and ask questions, along with the idea that everyone was human and no one was a god, even if they were a "scholar," as they say.

Also at my alma mater, all of our professors encouraged us to address them by their first name.  So, my professors were Alan, Norbert, Gene, Beecham, David, George, Alma, and Anna Marie, instead of today when I talk with students who address their professors as "Dr. Dean" and such.  All of my professors had advanced doctorates as well and were leading researchers in their day, but they thought it was pretentious to have someone be forced to say "Dr. Dean."

WIPZ was a victim of China COVID-19, and we were a victim of the PC culture, not by students but by others feeling the students needed a filter and monitor - in essence, treating the students as children.  The students appreciated that we talked to them as one would talk to another adult - and in a professional manner.  Some of the students would rearrange their class schedule to listen to our show and really liked that we said what they were afraid to say - almost like a college/state university (((Howard Stern))).

But we were given the waving finger like The Doors were on the old The Ed Sullivan Show when the word "higher" was used in the song.  With us, the word was "blackhole" when discussing a current event during the last administration.  Our show was suspended for one month prior to being subjected to private talks after the show with the student station director being the one designated to pass the word from the power tower.  Also, a few times there was a phone flashing from the power tower chiding us to drop our discussion about preparing to live off campus and whatever we were reading in the established newspapers mentioned above.

So our experiment of teaching within the resources of the university was greatly liked by the students and most of the professors, but they seemed hesitant to admit when they felt they could not talk tête-à-tête.

Turning to education, I went to talk with a friend who had originally started as a professor back when my alma mater had an EECS department (then known as Applied Science and Computer Science [ASCS]) and asked what was being done with XBasic on Android and open-source, and nudged that maybe it was time to re-teach the way we were taught, rather than just teaching Android and JSON.  My friend liked what I said, yet his reaction was as if I was a heretic who had come from the nether world.  He even cringed about teaching BASIC again.

I wondered why that was his reaction and I asked him.  He, like other professors I talked to, first looked around to see if we were talking one on one without others present and shared that the administration of the business, economics, and computers department did not want to make waves.  It was always like living the song Der Kommissar from the 1980s when Berlin had two zones during the Cold War.

So my solution was something I learned a long time ago: innovative ideas start with hacking and with the private sector.  This is where I asked Ron and Nikita to help add this to our radio and provided course material via social media.

In another example, as part of continuing education, I had a graduate computer science course at my alma mater on computer security.  The course was taught by a friend who had recently retired.  During the course, there were days that I could not attend due to my health issues, and sometimes for travel reasons as I did not have a car then; public transportation in the Midwest in mid-size cities is unreliable and very limited.  However, on the days I did not attend, the professor noticed that the students did not seem to try as hard and lacked motivation.  At one point, my friend called me and asked if there was a way I could come more often and that she could arrange for a ride back along with a lecture break sooner so that I could take care of my diabetic needs.

The main point my friend noticed was that when studying at the University of Phoenix, part of the studies included leadership which was missing in my alma mater.  Students are made to feel like they are just sitting in lectures and admiring the glory of their professors, forgoing their learning and development.

My friend asked me if, rather than being part of the course as a student, I would expand my role to act as a visiting professional to work with a group of students in the class.  The students were knowledgeable in their skill, yet they were not been challenged to develop their leadership compared to some of the guys in the class.  I accepted.

In a last example, while having theater as part of my continuing education, I noticed that there were two computer science curriculums, one based upon Android and JSON (which I feel is very limiting) and the other based upon theater.  The computer science program in the theater wing reminded me of computer science and applied science.  The students learned how to write code in many languages, build their own theater computer systems, and even integrate with hardware for theater effects.  Wow!

When I observed this, I thought if I had children, I would recommend that they study computer science in the theater wing.  I feel sorry for saying this, as many friends teach computer science in business.

My point from the various examples is that campuses are losing what many of us learned from the 1960s through 1980s that allowed us to grow beyond our studies, start businesses, begin publishing companies, and move society forward.

In the last year, I have become a maker playing with Arduinos and experimenting with old digital computer interfacing and development.  In one project, we made an 8-bit CPU using TI 74LS181 Arithmetic Logic Units (ALUs) - two 4-bit ALUs linked to 64k RAM with four registers.  We worked in biomedical engineering, where we built biomedical equipment from scratch for uses such as heart monitoring and sound/music.  We've designed projects that work with ICs, transistors, and biomedical engineering to port the Arduino and ESP32 units.

For me, it is an awakening and a welcome; yet, at my alma mater today, the methods I describe here are thought of as ancient ways that have disappeared into the nether.  But they shouldn't disappear, as makers, as hackers, as tinkerers - tyro culture is always needed to move society forward.