CSC 322.01, Class 02: Prepare for partner meetings

Overview

• Preliminaries
  • Notes and news
  • Upcoming work
  • Extra credit
  • Questions
• Context
• Working with real human beings
• Q&A

Admin

• Susan Sanning will be speaking to you in today’s class.
• The class Web site still has some work to go.
• Our community clients will visit Thursday’s class. Be on time and be respectful.
• I will take attendance. Either the thing you are most looking forward to in the community or the thing that might be the biggest challenge.

Upcoming work

• Get your résumé up to date. We’ll be using it in class next week.

Good things to do

Academic

• Community time today at 11:00 am in JRC 101.
• CS Table today in the Whale Room.
• CS Extras Thursday at 4:15 pm.
• Rosenfield Symposium next week.

Peer

• ???

Questions

Context

• You will be working with folks in the community.
• Susan is an expert in these things, so will be talking to you.
• Question for you - Exciting / Scary?
  • Lots of things are exciting, particularly working on a real project and having a chance to make a difference.
  • Lots of things are also scary, including time commitment

Community questions

• How many people live in Grinnell?
• What does Susan pay for Internet (leaving five miles outside of town)? About $400/month for 30 gigabytes of data. This is common in rural settings. In town, you can get DSL for a more affordable rate. But once you are out of the town, there’s less interest in providing service.
• Poverty rate is somewhere between 30% and 50%, depending on how you define poverty.
• 40% of students in our district are on free and reduced lunches (that probably under-counts).
• Drops in high-school because there is a stigma (and for other reasons).
• What is the unemployment rate in our community? About 2.8% percent?
• What does that mean about our demographics? People are underemployed and/or making very low wages. Most people work multiple jobs.
  • Sam won’t put particular examples in the eboard.
• Grinnell is a “food desert” - food may not be easily available outside of town. Access can be hard.
• No public transportation in Grinnell. No taxi. One Uber.
• What is a childcare desert look like? Also difficult to get people to take care of your children. How many child care centers are open a full workday?
  • Workdays vary significantly: E.g., night shift.
  • Only one is open for 9-5. And that has a waiting list.
• What infrastructure supports all of this? In a large, metro, area, there are options for support (e.g., for building software) when you are a nonprofit. You can ask a neighboring company or ask them for money or even rely on organizations designed to do this. While you are only working for only one organization, you are making a difference.
• If you want to know more about these issues and how to be involved beyond this class, talk to Susan and/or her colleague Keira.
  • We know that not everyone has the privilege to have time to volunteer without pay. Hence, we have workstudy service positions.
  • [sannings] and [wilsonke]
• What are your preconceptions of the community?
  • [Sam does not record these.]
• What does our community think about us?
  • “Rich, pretentious, jerks” - Many of them think that all of you can pay the sticker price. They do not know the demographics or need-blind admissions or financial aid.
  • What accompanies misperception of wealth: Arrogance, “You aren’t even looking at me.”,
  • People will project onto them
  • “Savior complex”
  • “They don’t understand us.”
  • The conversation is completely different when you are speaking as an Iowan rather than as a College student.
  • Students often suggest that they don’t like our town.
  • Do we understand community standards?

Why are we discussing this?

• To help us be more conscious of who we are and how we are percieved.
• Be intentional in how you behave and communicate.
• Try to overcome some of your own preconceptions.

Dress

• Do you need to wear a coat and tie? No.
• If you are meeting someone on a farm: Wear jeans, closed-toed shoes, etc. “I respect you enough to know what I should be wearing.”
• What would you wear to an animal shelter? (Maybe our current partner wouldn’t care about what you wear, but if it were somene else …?)
• How do you decide? Look at what they are wearing. What else? Google it! Check their Web site.

Communication

• What is the most professional mode of communication?
  • Face to face?
  • Phone?
  • Email?
  • Slack?
  • Facebook messenger?
  • Textbook?
  • See what their Web site says.
  • Whatever they prefer. Ask them.
• When can you text?
  • Business hours, unless you’ve heard otherwise.
  • Keep good boundaries.
  • Ask them. Some won’t want to be texted during business hours.
• How often should you communicate?
  • As often as they want.
  • As often as you are makng decisions.
  • Probably once per sprint.
  • More fun things for the inititial meeting: How often should I communicate with you to make sure that you are in the loop?
• Acronyms and coded language?
  • LOL, JRC, CLS, CS, DRY, “User Story”, NAA (Not At All), GitHub “Push”, “Pull”, “Deploy”, “Heroku”, …