The Idea of a University

Useful Knowledge then, I grant, has done its work; and Liberal Knowledge as certainly has not done its work,—that is, supposing, as the objectors assume, its direct end, like Religious Knowledge, is to make men better; but this I will not for an instant allow, and, unless I allow it, those objectors have said nothing to the purpose. I admit, rather I maintain, what they have been urging, for I consider Knowledge to have its end in itself. For all its friends, or its enemies, may say, I insist upon it, that it is as real a mistake to burden it with virtue or religion as with the mechanical arts. Its direct business is not to steel the soul against temptation or to console it in affliction, any more than to set the loom in motion, or to direct the steam carriage; be it ever so much the means or the condition of both material and moral advancement, still, taken by and in itself, it as little mends our hearts as it improves our temporal circumstances. And if its eulogists claim for it such a power, they commit the very same kind of encroachment on a province not their own as the political economist who should maintain that his science educated him for casuistry or diplomacy. Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentlemen, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life;—these are the connatural qualities of a large knowledge; they are the objects of a University; I am advocating, I shall illustrate and insist upon them; but still, I repeat, they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness, they may attach to the man of the world, to the profligate, to the heartless,—pleasant, alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in them. Taken by themselves, they do but seem to be what they are not; they look like virtue at a distance, but they are detected by close observers, and on the long run; and hence it is that they are popularly accused of pretence and hypocrisy, not, I repeat, from their own fault, but because their professors and their admirers persist in taking them for what they are not, and are officious in arrogating for them a praise to which they have no claim. Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.

—John Henry Newman (1852)

In which Piers Observes Institutional Disarray

What happens when a professional degree program in our college of Education, Health, and Behavioral Sciences finds that its students can barely manage the language requirements outlined in the university catalog? The difficulty is putting some of these students in a bind because their time to degree, retention, and financial aid numbers are all affected when they have to spend several semesters satisfying the foreign language requirement.

The astute reader will note the flavor of language I am reduced to here: that of the higher ed administrator reflecting on student outcomes.

So how is this issue dealt with? One might expect, for instance, that the department in question do some collaborative work with the persons responsible for foreign language instruction. One might also expect them to look at entrance requirements for their degree program, or perhaps even to request a curricular adjustment through the usual and appropriate channels by which such adjustments are usually made (in this case, through curriculum revision requests that are examined by multiple administrative and faculty committees before being approved by the full Faculty Senate).

This department in question did in fact take the final option. They requested that all language requirements be waived, period. Their request was voted down in a meeting of the Faculty Senate. I was present at the meeting and it was a pretty hot conversation at points (including, alas, the times when I was speaking). Faced with this setback, the department in question attempted to resubmit the same request again, whereupon it was turned back because Robert’s Rules of Order do not allow for denied motions to simply be resubmitted.

Today I find out that this double denial (which, I may add, might legitimately cause one to question one’s course of action in the usual course of life) led the department in question to simply request a “Course Substition” (which we use frequently for students who are transferring credits, for instance) that was administratively granted by their dean and then by the office of student records . . . to apply to all of their students and for all university catalog versions. They then simply started officially (but quietly) advising their students to just not take foreign language classes. This came to the attention of our colleagues in the foreign languages division of our department only by accident . . . someone let it slip.

Now the issue is being addressed by our dean to the provost, and I imagine that it will get very interesting. If I am in his shoes, I call the responsible parties in and absolutely read them the riot act. But that’s probably why career advancement for me is a lost cause.

labor omnia vicit improbus

Nec tamen, haec cum sint hominumque boumque labores
versando terram experti, nimil improbus anser
Strymoniaeque grues et amaris intiba fibris
officiunt aut umbra nocet. pater ipse colendi
haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque per artem
movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda,
nec torpere gravi passus sua regna veterno.
(Virgil, Georgics, Book 1.118-124)

I have developed a schedule this summer wherein every Wednesday I do the mowing and other necessary yard work inasmuch as I can get to it. It often seems zenlike in its completion — not because it creates in me a sense of peace, but because the act itself has to be the reward for all the lasting good it does. What I mowed two days ago will look untended by Sunday. The weeds will continue their inexorable march into the flower beds, and we will spray and hoe and pull and trim and dig to the best of our abilities, and the grass and the flower beds and the shrubberies will all require more of the very same treatment before we’ve managed to catch a breath.
Virgil says that the gods gave us agricultural labor to keep us from torpor, from sinking in laziness. I guess he must be right about that one.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 53

On Motivation

Every couple of years I am asked to serve on the faculty for the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Humanities, an annual event at my institution wherein some of the brightest rising HS seniors come to campus to take college humanities courses and engage in other “nerd camp” type activities. It has a long history here and I am glad to be a part of it when my turn comes around.

I find that the greatest difference between these HS students and my average college students is that this group is extraordinarily motivated to study and to learn. Even when they are overwhelmed or at least unpleasantly surprised by the pace and the intensity of the work, they attack what’s in front of them. It is as if, mirabile dictu, they value the experience of academic work not just for the credit it will get them, but for its own sake.

Lost in all the yammering about “what shall become of the humanities? How shall we make them relevant” is the most honest truth about it: the experience of learning is worthwhile most of all for its own sake. Grappling with Hobbes, for instance, or the assertions of an american anthropologist from the early part of the 20th century, needs no argument for its relevance—not if one actually cares about learning.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 49

General parental updates:

1. Number One Son has continued his running this past month. He ran an obstacle course/mud run with The Triathlete over the weekend and was just as proud as could be. He has managed to score some sweet new running shoes in the bargain too (we did not pay retail for those, no way).
2. Little league has dragged to a halt recently due to all the rain. Little Red has managed one game in two weeks, I think, and Lefty’s schedule hasn’t been much better. There has been some notice of whether or not a certain little girl has been a spectator at Little Red’s games, though he insists that he doesn’t care whether she is there or not (though he asks every inning). He went to her softball game the other night —- only to see Ms. A, his beloved first grade teacher. So he says.
3. Now that the children are all out of school we have a bit of schedule-jostling to do. Number One Son can come to campus with me, but he’s not really old enough to silently occupy himself. . . he tends to break into song, wiggle all over the room, ask for food every 15 minutes, that sort of thing. Needless to say, I’ve opted to just sit with him at home even at the expense of my own work.
4. We are discovering that Lefty is SUPER DUPER talkative if given a chance. The last couple of times Grammie has been here to visit, he has chattered her ear off, obviously enjoying every moment. It may have to do with having an appreciative audience that he doesn’t have to compete for . . . she is very accommodating and asks lots of questions.
   
5. We are also about to enter into summer camp and day camp season, right as baseball season wraps up. Good timing, and good to have them occupied with things other than Minecraft.

Hands Down Winner

In an earlier post, I wrote that I was reviewing several books as part of this year’s Hugo Award voting packet. I have enjoyed most of the selections very much and find myself in a bit of a quandary as far as the novel selection is concerned. If, however, the above book were eligible this year, there would be no contest. I picked this up thanks to my Kindle Paperwhite (I am a late adopter, but I have to say that it is a fantastic little device…and makes it embarrassingly easy to buy new reading material). It is a brilliant example of hard science fiction, and would easily emerge as the best of this past year (it was a 2011 self-published volume at first, which is why it doesn’t qualify for the award). . . still, with a movie deal in the works, it looks like Mr. Weir is getting plenty of notice. Good for him.

In which Piers keeps up the Effort

Doing my level best this month to catch up on some writing that I’ve been leaving on the back burner for several months. I’ve looked at some previous stuff — things I don’t remember writing, but apparently are the result of the end stages of the sabbatical I had in 2014.

Everyone who does writing for a living says that the steady and incremental approach is best — that the thing is to steadily keep at it every day. That has proven to be beyond what my schedule or my discipline will allow. I’m not giving up yet, though.

A Wealth of Reading

Yesterday the voting packet for the Hugo Awards was made available for supporting and attending members of the 2015 Worldcon. I would not have normally paid any attention except for the recent hullaballoo surrounding award nominations . . . and my fairly muted reactions to recent winners of the novel award (for example, Ms. Leckie’s book, which swept awards last year but I found better in its conception than its execution. Likewise with Jo Walton’s book). Just doing my part to send recognition where I think it is deserved.

As a result, I am reading as many of the nominated items as I can. Meanwhile, other books have arrived on my doorstep, notably the newest Ishiguro and Stephenson novels. I would be tearing into the Stephenson one at this second if I didn’t feel obligated to give the awards packet a thorough perusal.

All this is to say nothing of my continued wrestling with Elizabethan church history and many of the pamphlets that mark the decades of the 1580’s and 90’s.

Thinking Long Term Part Two

From today’s reading, a reminder from long ago much to the same purpose I was writing yesterday:

First, needful it is that he which desireth to excel in this gift of oratory, and longeth to prove an eloquent man, must naturally have a wit and an aptness thereunto: then must he to his book, and learn to be well stored with knowledge, that he may be able to minister matter for all causes necessary. The which when he hath got plentifully, he must use much exercise, both in writing, and also in speaking. For though he have a wit and learning together, yet shall they both little avail without much practice. What maketh the lawyer to have such utterance? Practice. What maketh the preacher to speak so roundly? Practice. Yea, what maketh women go so fast away with their words? Marry, practice, I warrant you. Therefore in all faculties diligent practice and earnest exercise are the only things that make men prove excellent. --Thomas Wilson, The Art of Rhetoric (1553)

Thinking Long Term

Writing—serious writing of the academic sort—probably does more to focus my mind on metaphysical issues than anything else. I imagine it’s because I’m avoiding the hard work of actually putting useful words down in an essay form. Writing is also a discipline, however, that forces me to think in terms of small increments and long time-lines. Needless to say, it’s uncomfortable. I have interesting material to work on, and I’m putting in the time, and I’m learning a ton of stuff. Also, it rubs very much against the general cultural grain to have a task that works on a timeline of months rather than days or hours.

Without veering too far into the realm of generalized and, frankly, not-too-useful cultural maundering, I recognize that my children and I live in a time where having to wait for results (of a Google search, a YouTube buffer, or a Netflix loading screen) seems almost intolerable. We can do so many things so quickly, and we want that immediacy to translate to every aspect of our lives. Part of wisdom is recognizing that very few things worth having in life actually work quickly. I think of the time involved in learning to play baseball (so intricate the movements and permutations of each time the ball is put in play); the patient practice that makes a guitarist able to fly through his chords; or the easy pace of Triathlete as she runs, developed over about 17 years’ worth of running shoes.

I can certainly accept and appreciate such things in my own career…the rub is how to prepare my children for their inevitable confrontation with the same hard reality.

The Return of a Two-Wheeled Object of Desire

With the end of the spring semester and the arrival of the warmer weather comes the biking season for me, and this year is already special because it features the re-introduction of a fine machine:

The Raleigh Record Ace. It is no specialty bike, or a custom made race machine (Speedvagen is just a pipe dream for me). It’s just a really pretty steel bike that keeps it simple, that matches my ability level, and that I could upgrade with new parts from time to time. It also happens to be within the realm of financial possibility.

To be fair, it doesn’t match the glory of the 2011 version, but I would still proudly ride it.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 48

In which we see the beginning of the end of childhood for Number One Son, but also give thanks that he has not quite finished with it yet.

Over the weekend, Number One Son got to attend two birthday parties…a sleepover at one on Friday night, and then a party at Sky Zone on Saturday. He came home from both of them just a ball of ten year old energy and overstimulation. Fine, fine, we can deal with that as long as it’s the happy kind of thing. And at this age, there’s a lot of that happy kind of thing because the self-consciousness really hasn’t set in yet.

Later that evening, after the children have been put in bed and as The Triathlete and I are watching our nightly episode of Psych, in comes Number One in the “I’m sleepwalking” attitude (which he totally was doing, in fact), collapses headfirst into the blue recliner, and goes right back to sleep. I noticed an instructive similarity:

Library Fun for the Summer

I recently read Emily St. John Mandel’s end-of-the-world novel Station Eleven. I was lured in by the blurb premise that the novel is about a traveling troupe of Shakespeare actors in the wake of a deadly pandemic. As it turns out, the novel doesn’t really do much with the Shakespeare angle, but it is an effective piece of work. One of the interesting little set-pieces in the story is the way a group of survivors sets up a museum of sorts for relics of the world gone by: electronic devices, for instance.

And that got me thinking: of what use could a person such as myself be in an apocalypse? What service could I provide? I’m a professional bookworm! So, if I look at my view every afternoon this month...

...there’s my answer. What kinds of books would I retrieve and try to preserve if things began to go sideways? What in a moderately sized library would be worth saving?

• Shakespeare
• Milton
• Dante
• Homer
• Virgil

…the literary figures add up quickly. But say we had to choose things that are not poetry or humanities in general? What would we need to squirrel away? I immediately think of more technical, practical volumes to remind us of how to do things that we now take for granted:

• Mathematics texts
• Physics texts
• Manuals for horticulture and animal husbandry
• Manuals for building structures and roads
• Books for identifying plants
• Medical texts

I’m sure I’m missing something. There are also several categories of things we could utterly do without. That’ll have to wait for another entry in Library Fun For The Summer!

Believing and Behaving like it's a Crisis

Every day around lunchtime, this is the scene on the East edge of my campus; employees from all over campus have driven golf carts to lunch at one of the several restaurants adjacent to the campus. It is a pain for them, I am sure, that they have to get out of the motorized conveyances and shuffle the rest of the way across the street on their own two feet.

It is a small thing, I know. Yet all day, every day, I see people zooming around this little campus (and it is little—at least the classroom and administrative building area of it) on golf carts and Gators and what-not. The housing office. Admissions. The print shop. Housekeeping. Athletics. Computer services. The campus cops…I think even the key guy has one. Every office, it seems like, has a golf cart or something similar, and they appear to be constantly in use.

We are told, repeatedly, that money is tight, that we are in a period of financial crisis and need to make sacrifices. Yet people ride their little golf carts to lunch—to save themselves the time and effort of a ten minute walking round-trip. Seems that if Those That Make Decisions were serious about saving money, they would cut glaringly obvious costs like this.

One of many reasons I’m pretty sure they’re not serious.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 47

So we have entered into baseball season, with all the blessings that entails—late nights at the rec park, keeping track of uniforms (especially hats), and many pretzels and handfuls of bubble gum. Lefty is starting tee ball and Little Red is doing his first year of machine-pitch baseball. The latter is showing some promise at least at the hitting part of the game, having surpassed in four games the number of hits gotten by his older brother in three years of playing (Number One Son has unsurprisingly decided to give up the baseball for other pursuits). It is fun to watch Little Red out there, though he admittedly has some work to do in the fielding and generally paying attention category.

Number One, meanwhile, has decided to go all in on the running. For the past couple of years, he has joined The Triathlete doing various 5k runs, and apparently (I get this second hand because you’ll never see me out there on the course) he talks the whole way. In order to help him, he has been allowed to join the HS cross country team during their practices (we know the coach). He had a brilliant time on Monday afternoon and plans to go out there again on Wednesday. I’m thrilled for him.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 52

Research isn't the kind of thing it used to be, that's for sure.  Today I set my composition classes to work on their research assignment. We met in the library--I was there to help them locate stuff or answer questions, but otherwise I let them handle their research however they chose.

I remember my long searches standing at the electronic catalog in Davis Library, the obligatory filling out of ILL forms for books and articles the library didn't have, the checking out as many possibly relevant titles as possible so that--and perhaps I was uncharitable here--others couldn't check them out before me . . . and then plowing through those stacks of books to find what might be useful to me.

Today? My students sat for a good 15-20 minutes looking at their smartphones before they did anything else. They scattered to computers and the stacks afterward, but I got the sense that they were actually doing searches on their phones.  Nothing necessarily wrong with that in the 21st century . . . it's just not what would have occurred to me. I've certainly benefited in my own piddling research from the fact that so much stuff is available online.

"May you live in interesting times"

Even setting aside the general atmosphere of institutional rot at every societal level I can think of--

Even setting aside the specific problems of bureaucratic inertia and strategic drift at my particular university--

Even setting aside personal problems both circumstantial and self-inflicted--

Even setting aside the usual pressures of the academic year--

I could at least pretend to manage.  However, the news that came over the email today, i.e., that my department chair is retiring effective June, is a significant blow.  It means that in addition to the university-wide upheaval, this department will be buffeted by extra winds and rain. I do not begrudge her a well-earned retirement after serving this institution for the bulk of her adult life . . . I just know that it's going to be a difficult task to replace her.

The quote in the title? Its supposed Chinese origin is apparently apocryphal

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 46

Number One:  facing the usual spates of 10 year old harebrainedness.  I just had a conversation with his teacher, Ms. N, who informs me that he is having a hard time paying attention to his work from time to time, and that he tends to try the class clown routine with irrelevant and irreverent dry commentary.  We are having to remind him to  PAY ATTENTION TO WHERE HE IS AND WHAT HE IS DOING.

Little Red:  stayed home with a fever today. We have had battle after battle with him over everything from waking up to attending school to putting on his jeans.  It makes him sad when he makes us angry, and we try to be reasonable and remind him that he doesn't like the outcome of his stubbornness, but apparently it's not particularly easy to convince him of this.

Lefty:  just a few days from turning five! He says he will stop sucking his thumb at that time.  We are not convinced.

From today's teaching . . . and today's parenting

The Collar

BY GEORGE HERBERT

I struck the board, and cried, "No more;

                         I will abroad!

What? shall I ever sigh and pine?

My lines and life are free, free as the road,

Loose as the wind, as large as store.

          Shall I be still in suit?

Have I no harvest but a thorn

To let me blood, and not restore

What I have lost with cordial fruit?

          Sure there was wine

Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn

    Before my tears did drown it.

      Is the year only lost to me?

          Have I no bays to crown it,

No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?

                  All wasted?

Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,

            And thou hast hands.

Recover all thy sigh-blown age

On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute

Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage,

             Thy rope of sands,

Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee

Good cable, to enforce and draw,

          And be thy law,

While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.

          Away! take heed;

          I will abroad.

Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;

          He that forbears

         To suit and serve his need

          Deserves his load."

But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild

          At every word,

Methought I heard one calling, Child!

          And I replied My Lord.

The poem so beautifully describes a person in the midst of a crisis that he has kind of made for himself, when he realizes that he is spiritually, emotionally, physically, professionally, stuck.  You've seen it, you've felt it.  In the end of the poem, the poet is so overcome with his own fit of spite and anger that he can hardly make sense . . . until he hears a voice saying "child."

"Child."  What a world of emotions and relationships there.  As is the case in so many other parts of life, you don't know something fully until you've been right there, in the circumstance.  I've been there many times in recent days with my beloved Little Red. He gets bent out of shape about so many things--having to wear jeans, having to take a shower, having to go to school, having to eat breakfast, having to wake up, having to go to bed--and he just doesn't know when to stop resisting and realize that we will win either way.  The heartbreaking part, and The Triathlete and I both know it's coming, is when he gets sad because he's made us mad.  And that's the moment for the hug and the reminder:  "Child."

and then of course the hug.

From this week's reading

there is a Herbert poem for every season of the soul.  This one struck me particularly deeply yesterday:

The Affliction (I)

BY GEORGE HERBERT

When first thou didst entice to thee my heart,

         I thought the service brave;

So many joys I writ down for my part,

         Besides what I might have

Out of my stock of natural delights,

Augmented with thy gracious benefits.

I looked on thy furniture so fine,

         And made it fine to me;

Thy glorious household-stuff did me entwine,

         And 'tice me unto thee.

Such stars I counted mine: both heav'n and earth;

Paid me my wages in a world of mirth.

What pleasures could I want, whose King I serv'd,

         Where joys my fellows were?

Thus argu'd into hopes, my thoughts reserv'd

         No place for grief or fear.

Therefore my sudden soul caught at the place,

And made her youth and fierceness seek thy face.

At first thou gav'st me milk and sweetnesses;

         I had my wish and way;

My days were straw'd with flow'rs and happiness;

         There was no month but May.

But with my years sorrow did twist and grow,

And made a party unawares for woe.

My flesh began unto my soul in pain,

         Sicknesses cleave my bones;

Consuming agues dwell in ev'ry vein,

         And tune my breath to groans.

Sorrow was all my soul; I scarce believ'd,

Till grief did tell me roundly, that I liv'd.

When I got health, thou took'st away my life,

         And more, for my friends die;

My mirth and edge was lost, a blunted knife

         Was of more use than I.

Thus thin and lean without a fence or friend,

I was blown through with ev'ry storm and wind.

Whereas my birth and spirit rather took

         The way that takes the town;

Thou didst betray me to a ling'ring book,

         And wrap me in a gown.

I was entangled in the world of strife,

Before I had the power to change my life.

Yet, for I threaten'd oft the siege to raise,

         Not simp'ring all mine age,

Thou often didst with academic praise

         Melt and dissolve my rage.

I took thy sweet'ned pill, till I came where

I could not go away, nor persevere.

Yet lest perchance I should too happy be

         In my unhappiness,

Turning my purge to food, thou throwest me

         Into more sicknesses.

Thus doth thy power cross-bias me, not making

Thine own gift good, yet me from my ways taking.

Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me

         None of my books will show;

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree,

         For sure then I should grow

To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust

   Her household to me, and I should be just.

Yet, though thou troublest me, I must be meek;

         In weakness must be stout;

Well, I will change the service, and go seek

         Some other master out.

Ah my dear God! though I am clean forgot,

Let me not love thee, if I love thee not.

(1633)