University Diaries

One of the blogs I read regularly is titled University Diaries. Written by Margaret Soltan, an English professor at George Washington University, the blog takes a critical look at the contemporary university.

Recently, one of Soltan's posts ("What's a University?") begins by considering the damage done when universities are viewed--and administered--as businesses. The same post concludes with Soltan's commentary on an opinion piece written by an undergraduate economics major. In this piece, the student articulates the conventional "What will all this stuff do for me?" question. (CF: Arthur Holmes.)

Soltan's post is worth reading, as is an article by Mark Slouka, titled "Dehumanized: When Math and Science Rule the School," which was published in the September 2009 issue of Harper's and referenced by one of the commentators on Soltan's post.

Links to both pieces are included below:

Soltan, Margaret. "What's a University."
Slouka, Mark. "Dehumanized: When Math and Science Rule the School."

If you visit University Diaries, be sure to click on the tag "Scathing Online Schoolmarm."

One Thing Leads to Another

First, gotta love the Fixx. Another one of those weird convergence moments hit yesterday. To explain it, I need to go back. Last year, I applied for and was one of three persons interviewed for a position at a large state university. The committee decided not to make a hire, which, objectively, I can see was a wise choice for everyone involved. While I believe I could have done the job well, it meant redefining my professional life in ways I wasn't sure I wanted to pursue so singlemindedly. And, from their end, I didn't have some qualifications they desired--like a publication record or administrative experience at a university with a larger, more diverse student body. (Of course, I could have simply come across as a moron. One doesn't really get feedback after such interviews.) In any event, I don't know that I would have been a good fit for the job nor the job for me. But, as I told some friends, "It's one thing to not want to go to the party. It's another to not be invited."

Fast forward back to the present. After reading Wendell Berry's essay "The Unsettling of America" and beginning to consider what it might mean to pursue "settlement" in my life, my profession, etc., I stumble across the web to find a brief announcement about the aforementioned position being filled. I wasn't experiencing much in the way of "settlement," I'm afraid. Mostly indignation and dissatisfaction. Not because of the person who was hired, but because I wasn't.

So what do I do? I start Googling. I skim a couple of articles from the new hire's admirable vita. Insecurities surface. Indignation. Resentment and regret over all the choices that led me to where and who I am. The prideful part of me starts to reassure myself that I could have the new hire's vita if I really wanted it. I consider downloading the new hire's picture and using it as a motivational wallpaper on my computer's desktop. I start thinking about the school loans that could have been paid with the salary I would have made. Should have made....

About half way through the second article, however, I begin to realize that--admirable as the articles are--they aren't the kind of thing I really want to do. They are the kind of specialized scholarship that simply doesn't excite me. Perhaps I've been thoroughly converted to the liberal arts mindset, but I still hope to find a way to write (and perhaps publish) regularly and productively without having to select a narrow academic specialty.

So, I never downloaded the new hire's photo for my wallpaper (but I won't rule it out just yet), and I'm in the process of re-establishing an awkward peace about the whole thing. The peace comes from knowing that my insecurities and indignation arise from a prideful desire for a salary and position that aren't really connected with what I want to do. The awkwardness comes from the questions that linger after reading Berry--questions about the distinctions between "settlement" and merely "settling."

Acedia

The following post was written a while back in the context of a group blog that never took off. I thought I would go ahead and repost it here, since the issue continues to linger.

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A recent thread on the ChristLit discussion list lead me to the following article: "Fighting the Noonday Devil," by R. R. Reno. Given the goals of USF and LAR, I found the article to be both convicting and fascinating. It focuses on the danger of acedia--"a lassitude and despair that overwhelms spiritual striving"--and explores the manner in which the modern academy, with its emphasis on critical distance, might be inflicting acedia upon students. Reno cites Dante's Purgatorio several times, and has prompted me to take a closer look. I ended up buying Merwin's translation not long ago.

In any event, the article is an intriguing read, and one that generates some questions in terms of LAR goals (particularly the search-for-truth aspect of the Christian liberal arts) and how LAR functions in the larger scheme of USF. Some quotations:

There are no intellectual solutions to spiritual problems. Like each of the seven deadly sins, acedia must be fought with spiritual discipline. Such discipline is profoundly alien to our culture, not because we have alternatives, but because we entertain the fantasy of life without spiritual demands. This fantasy is the most important legacy of modernity. For the great innovation of modern culture was the promise of progress without spiritual discipline.

* * *

We should rush toward our Lord, for we can never become too intimate, and we should wait patiently with Him, for He always has something more to give. To do so, we must place the pedagogy of critical distance and the dictates of conscience within a larger vision of journey toward the truth, a journey in which the warm and enduring embrace of love is to be cherished rather than mocked or feared.

How--at USF, in LAR, or in the academy generally--do we place our instruction of critical distance into this larger context? Or, do we handle the critical distance stuff and let other parts of campus handle the larger vision?

gad