First Day of School

Today was my first day of classes. I feel like my brain has been stretched like a balloon, with a hand inside of it pushing and poking. It was a great day and I feel like my mind's appetite has been whetted and is now hungry for more.

My day started with navigating Portland's transit system to get to campus. I figured out which bus line to take and ambled out of the house with plenty of time to spare. When I got to the right corner, it took me a while to figure out where I was supposed to stand. Then I remembered I was supposed to have gotten bus fare before I left the house. I looked in my wallet and all I found were twenties. At this point, the bus was going to come in ten minutes. I could have raced home and tried to make it back in time for the bus, but I surely would have missed it. My other options were to beg the bus driver or pay make an $18 donation to the Tri-Met system.

So instead, I started waving a twenty dollar bill at the motorists who stopped at the stop sign. Probably five of the twenty cars who stopped rolled down there window enough for me to ask if they could break a twenty. The driver of the fifth car didn't have change but asked me how much I needed and handed me the two dollars. I asked "you're just going to give me this?" He replied, "yeah, Merry Christmas." I decided then there that these Oregonians are a friendly bunch. Granted, it probably would have been different if I didn't look like one of the area's mostly white middle class residents. But still I found the gesture quite welcoming and another good omen for our time here.

When I got to campus, I had enough time before my meeting with Tom to attend to some of my student life details. I went to the registration desk and made sure I was signed up for all the right classes. I got a student id, figuring this was probably good for all sorts of discounts. And I paid for a three month student pass on Portland's transit system.

Next I made my way over to Tom's office in the Graduate School of Social Work. It was great to see him again and start our work together. I could see the excitement in his face when he greeted me. We got started right away discussing what we wanted to accomplish together these six months. We looked at my class list and what research topics we wanted to pursue together. While we were talking about some of his previous studies, it suddenly struck me that I needed to learn not just about statistics and quantitative research, but also qualitative research. Some of his previous work that we had talked about digging into together involved qualitative research. I had also been quite impressed with some of the qualitative research presented at the 2007 Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring, particularly that of Renee Spencer.

So Tom and I looked at the offerings for qualitative research and figured out that the class would start in about twenty minutes. So we tried to track down the professor to see if she would let me into the class. We raced across campus, and found that the room assignment had changed. When we found the right classroom, the professor was very accommodating and welcomed me into her class.

It was thrilling. The class was small, with only four other students. All the other students were first year PhD students in the School of Social Work. When the professor introduced the course and said we would be exploring where philosophy and theory intersect with the mechanics of research, I knew I wanted to be there. Soon we got into questions of: what defines research? how do we find the truth? is there such a thing as truth? My mind lurched and keeled around, trying to get its bearings as it spun around in circles. This was exactly the kind of environment that I was looking for, one it which it's okay to ask the big questions, where it feels good to make my brain work in new and different ways, where my assumptions about the world are challenged and I have to look at life anew.

The two hours flew by and soon it was time to go to lunch. I remembered the Vietnamese restaurant nearby and dropped by for some yummy take out pho. I brought it over to the computer lab to get hooked up with my computer account and most importantly wireless access. Unfortunately, the system was down, so I went and ate my soup on the quad and watched people.

My next class was a statistics class for social work researchers. Very different than the earlier class. But again, my mind started to spin as we discussed the ethics of conducting research and how important it is to follow principles when engaging human participants in social work research. I thought about my work at Big Brothers Big Sisters and asked myself if we followed these principles when conducting our own program evaluation.

I think we do pretty well in the area of informed consent and confidentiality with data at Big Brothers Big Sisters. But on the issue of voluntary participation, it gets a bit grayer. Sure we will allow a parent to opt out of a survey if they aren't comfortable. But at at a basic level, there is some information that we have to know to be able to serve a child in our program. So in effect, participation in our program requires us to collect information from a child whether the parent wants it or not (like the child's birthday and information collected during match support conversations). This might not be the perfect situation, but we aren't conducting a major research project, just trying to serve the children in our program the best we can.

So where do you draw the line? Where do you say that this information is necessary to our ability to serve your child in our program - and no, you don't have to give us that information if you don't want to. I am sure that I will have many more questions like this in the months to come, and I am looking forward to all the conversations I will have on these topics with my new peers.

Tomorrow is another session of statistics, and my first class in research methods for social work. Plus Tom will be showing me my office for the next six months. Another exciting day awaits!