The inestimable value of validation

 I have thought a lot about what I wanted to say in this message. I went back and reread my old posts to see if I was as redundant as I felt I might be. If there is a redundancy in all this it would be that I have been in a nearly constant search for an answer to what is truly important. It is simple. What is important is how you treat others. How we are remembered. What difference has our presence here made.

In my rereading I realized that I had not shared my Keith Miser story here. I know I have shared it with others from my grad program, with friends and trusted confidants. I am now including you.

If you have read earlier posts you know that I entered the profession of higher education with a great deal of trepidation. I was the blue-collar guy, a middling student in college (but I had fun), and unsure and without direction for a long time. When I was offered the assistantship/fellowship at UVM, I accepted with little idea of what lay in store. So I left a job, took a very pregnant Terri 700 miles from friends and family, and moved to an apartment we had never seen. (long story for another time). 

Once I arrived in Burlington and began to connect with my classmates, many of whom are still close friends, I was told by a classmate that I "had the top assistantship in the program", that the competition for the position was fierce. Oh, wow. (in the words of the late, great Joan Didion). No pressure for the guy who wasn't sure if he was good enough to succeed in graduate school, the guy who was unaware of the class migrancy he was experiencing, the code switching he would need to learn in this new environment. Graduate assistant to the Dean of Students, the "best" position among the fellowships.

Probably too much context for this story, but, now it starts. Keith, the Dean, and I were heading down College Street to a meeting on Church Street. As we passed many beautiful Victorian homes that were now fraternity and sorority houses one stood out from the others. Modern, new, it resembled a Pizza Hut more than a frat house. I asked Keith the story behind the odd house and he sighed...

Keith told me that the original house had burned during a bitterly cold Vermont January. As Dean he was called to the scene where the fraternity brothers stood, cold, in shock, some wearing only their underwear. Keith told me he had to find the frat president and do a headcount. He told me he was literally screaming into this guy's face (he was in shock) "do a headcount, do a headcount, tell me who is not here!" The student realized the importance of the roll call and determined that all brothers were accounted for except two. When the campus realized the fire, one of the missing brothers reappeared from staying with his girlfriend, but one brother was missing. Keith arranged for the students to be cared for and stayed with the firefighters to see what was next. What was next was awful. As the firefighters pulled down a wall to get at the flames they discovered the body of the missing brother. He had died in the fire.

Keith then said to me, "I have gone into classrooms many times to tell a student that their grandfather or grandmother, even fathers or mothers had passed. It is never easy, but we as children learn to recognize the mortality of our elders. The hardest phone call to make is to tell a parent that their child has been lost in some tragic accident. Parents aren't ready to outlive their children". He paused as though to let that sink in, and then told me something that has me emotional even as I write this nearly 40 years later. "Joe, I'm telling you this because some day you will be a Dean of Students and you will have to make that call."

Here was a man I respected, admired, loved, and he was telling the insecure, unsure new graduate student that he believed in me, that I would succeed. As I said, (after reaching for the tissues,) that conversation moves me to this day.

Keith passed away last year. Covid made travel impossible but I understand that there will be a service/recognition of his contributions once gatherings are possible again. Best of all, I know that I am not alone in having been touched by the kindness and wisdom of this great man. I can only aspire to have the impact he has had on others. I hope to be remembered as fondly.

After careful consideration...

I have been ruminating on this particular message for a while. In a post long ago I reminded myself that I had been admonished by a friend for thoughtful, but dark, posts about head trauma and the like. Recently, I had been thinking about some of the sociopaths I have encountered in my life, but will postpone that "less than festive" topic for a later time.

In the spirit of the holiday, I'd like to address gifts I have received. These gifts are not always tangible, but often the gifts of greatest value are not. Many years ago, one of my most cherished mentors provided a very meaningful and life altering affirmation for me. I believe I have written of this here before, but Keith's words to me resonate to this day, and I am forever grateful to him for leaving me that bit of his wisdom to try to "pay forward" when possible. Others have boosted me as well, not always professionally, but personally. A close female friend from college and I were in one of those reminiscing conversations some time back when I shared that during our college days I heard a lot of "confessions" from young women with whom we had gone to school. These confessions were really just conversations but took on an intimacy because of their content. They shared with me decisions they had made that left them with guilt and pain. I told L that I never really understood that. That maybe I missed a calling to the priesthood, but she said something that I have never forgotten. "They told you because you are the least judgemental person I have ever known. They knew you would listen". Years later another close friend and colleague once told me "you actually like women and listen to us. And, you read."

More recently, I received a message from a young woman whom I had hired in her first professional position. She is finishing her bachelor's degree and thanked me for believing in her when she did not necessarily believe in herself. She told me that my affirmation of her was transformational and I'd like to think that I have validated Keith's incredible kindness to me by "paying it forward."

So, a holiday wish to any of you who take time to read my ramblings. I hope that you too are affirmed, buoyed, and lifted up this season. And if you are so fortunate, please find someone who needs to see themselves for the special, unique person they are, and share your gift of kindness with them. 

BTW:

My two most recent gifts!

not an organ recital...

 The title surely requires some explanation. The phrase was shared with me by a very dear friend  who noted that as we reach a certain age our conversations, particularly with long-time friends, turn to a listing of our various aches and pains, our treatments and surgeries, our medications, and of course our failing organs. "I got heart problems" "I had to have my gall bladder out""my kidney stones are killing me" and on and on...

This is not about that conversation, but more importantly about the friends with whom we are comfortable sharing our stories. In June I had a seizure that took me off the road for 6 months. Anyone who has had their driving privileges suspended knows how difficult and limiting that can be. During this aggravating time I once said ala Blanche DuBois, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." But that has not been so. I have come to recognize the genuine kindness of friends who are willing to go out of their way to help. Friends have made this difficult time less lonely, less isolating, less painful. When first thinking of this I realized how many people had helped by being there, joining me for lunch, getting me to the golf course, keeping me engaged. Ed, Frank, Larry, Kurt, Bill, Ted, Jeff, John and John, Cliff, Matt, Steve and Kevin, Karen and Jenni. Each has played a part in keeping my spirits up for the past six months. That is not to say that time with Terri, Caitlin, AJ, Thomas, Ashley, Craig, Colleen, Addy, Elise, Helena (bunnie), William, and Sophie has not been a joy, but I never want to be a burden or an obligation. 

We might not always recognize the power of friendship. I have come to a new appreciation in reconnecting with a close friend from close to 50 years ago. Honestly, I was concerned as I had not heard from him in a very long time, nor could I find anyone who had news of his whereabouts. he reached out after news of my presidency appeared in an alumni article and reconnected. Our recent conversations have covered a lot of ground from our mutual interest in music (we like to think that we were alternative or grunge before it became a thing) and our divergent paths to where we are today. We have both come to a place of self-discovery, and perhaps most importantly self-forgiveness. We cannot undo the wrongs we have committed, but we can atone and perhaps make existential amends by focusing on those things we do in the future, how we live our lives moving forward, He and I have, in my parlance, chosen "helping professions", he in nursing and I in education. As I listened to him tell about his path back from the precipice I was relieved to find that he had come to this place of freedom and relief. His peace gives me hope and promise for others in my sphere. 

With the coming holidays I hope to maintain a spirit of gratitude, kindness, patience and forgiveness. Doing otherwise IS a burden I do not wish to carry.

Haven't gotten to Spinoza...yet

 I had hoped to spend time reading Spinoza to find why when asked "do you believe in God?" Einstein always answered "I believe in the God of Spinoza". I promise to come back when I have a revelation.

My thoughts recently have been far more mundane, and yet they have me questioning what is really important? I assume that readers know me personally (as who would read the rantings of an old man otherwise)so you probably know that my brother Bob is a professor at the University of Oklahoma. Bob will be at OU for 25 years soon, and he has had a tremendous impact on his field of water quality and the environment. That said, he has also been drawn into, albeit peripherally, the madness of OU and Big 12 football. Football is truly a religious experience there on the plains and his friends follow the Sooners like bloodhounds hunting a fox. The recent news out of OU, and recent outrage of OU football fans, has been the move from OU to USC by their head coach Lincoln Riley. The twitter sphere, the YouTube channels, and sports reporters across college football have analyzed and scrutinized this move to death. OU has moved on and hired an excellent coach from Clemson so the fire has died down, but the anger and vitriol directed at Riley has been astonishing. All this brings me to my point; what does any of this have to do with the business of the university? 

There are several possible answers to this question. Football generates a fun environment for those four years of deferred adulthood many of us experience. Football generates alumni support and creates a national audience for successful teams. Football can, and often does (again for high-profile, successful teams) generate revenue from TV, logo'ed items, gate receipts, and now, even beer sales. That answers in part the question as this all has to do with "business" but little to nothing to do with the university's mission of teaching/learning, research, and service. 

I got into a bit of hot water in my last position, president of a start-up college, when I said that vegan bars, climbing walls, and "lazy rivers" had nothing to do with teaching and learning. I was castigated in the press as abrasive, so be it. The simple truth is that higher education is engaged in an arms race that will seriously undermine the quality and desirability of American Higher Ed. Our spends on amenities to attract more and more students to "generate net tuition revenues" will result in fewer options as colleges unable to participate in the "arms race" will shrink or disappear, and institutions engaged in branding will spend more and more time and money on "the brand" while making inadequate investments in quality teaching. The war has already begun in classrooms across the nation where the battleground has been marked by donors trying to direct or re-direct curricula to fit a particular ideology or perspective. I can almost hear the collective eyebrows being raised as the defense is that "the damn liberals in the classrooms have brainwashed our young!", and that it is time that different values are inculcated in those classrooms.

What is the connection between football, an arms race for students, and ideology? Simple. Money.

As the federal government and states have pulled back support for higher education and opened up opportunities for marginal, high tuition, schools filled with empty promises while strangling state systems and opening up the area of accreditation which served as some measure of quality control, we see the arms race bringing in not just missiles, but tanks, howitzers, and even ground troops. Ask anyone who ever worked for a school that compensated their recruiting staff on meaning enrollment goals, they are the ground troops on the front lines and the attrition rate both for recruiters and the students they enroll are staggering. War without bloodshed, but plenty of casualties.

With tongue firmly in cheek I will close with this quote from my favorite work of fiction, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

“A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself. The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss.”

Thank you if you read all the way to the end!