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Grambling State University (Grambling, LA), an HBCU (Historically Black College and University), hired me for two years (2005-2007) as visiting professor in the foreign-language department, a chaos of bureaucrat mentality indifferent to the quest for veracity. My two colleagues, Chimegsaikhan Banzar and Encarna Abella (see cartoon), were brain dead from excess exposure to the thrilling subject of pedagogical methodology. They never used first names with each other or with me, preferring "Dr.," as if somehow that raised them up to the heavens, or at best above the toiling secretary and student mass. They were (and are) despicable human beings, though exemplary academic functionaries.
Below are articles authored by me, RISKING
the ire of flaccid, placid colleagues and administrators and, of course, future
employment. But we only live once,
so why the hell not live in the truth?! That's what I try to do. The
others, well, you'd have to ask them what it is they try to do. All the articles
were sent to the student newspaper, The Gramblinite. Some were
published, while others simply ignored—the editors were not
very communicative.
During my two years at GSU, only two professors ever responded to the articles,
both in private, proving that vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy, is
not prioritized by professors and administrators at GSU... to the great detriment of students.
But who cares about students? Faculty seem to care only about themselves.
By telling truth, the articles RISK, something most university professors and
administrators don't have the guts to do... to the great detriment of
democracy... though not to their pocketbooks. By the way, the many cartoons I've drawn on academe over the past several years were almost all sketched as a direct result of my experiences at GSU. In fact, I will be presenting an exhibition of some of them at the Concord Free Public Library this year. Some of them will also be shown at the Tsongas Museum in Lowell in the context of its exhibit on dissidence and, in particular, of the display set up on The American Dissident.
1. "Open Letter to Four Black Public-University Administrators" was sent to The Gramblinite in September 2007. Unsurprisingly, given the little value accorded to vigorous debate at GSU, nobody ever responded. Clearly, this was my most RISKY article because it was a direct criticism of four top GSU administrators. 2. "Post Scriptum: Open Letter to GSU Students" was sent to The Gramblinite in August 2007. Nobody responded. 3. "Grades, Grades, Grades: Or the Road to Monetary Success, Not to an Education Life" was submitted once in 2006 and once in 2007. The editors did not respond. 4. "In Search of Veritas" was published (with the title screwed up by editors) with the satirical cartoon on prayer at faculty meetings 5. "How to Muzzle the Student Newspaper" (title slightly altered by editors) was published 6. "A Violent Assault… and Some Consequent, Perhaps “Offensive” Thought" (title screwed up by editors) was published in December 2006 7. "Higher Education, Big Business, and the Failing American Democracy" was sent to The Gramblinite in 2007. The Editors did not respond. 8. "A Fundamental Value of American Democracy: Expressing Ones Opinion… Openly and Proudly" was sent to The Gramblinite in 2007. The Editors did not respond. 9. "A Pretense of Objectivity—Outstanding Teaching" was sent to The Gramblinite in 2007. The Editors did not respond.
Open Letter to Four Black Public-University Administrators President Judson, Provost Dixon, Dean Walton, and Assistant Dean Duhon If you do not serve truth, you do not serve higher education or the nation; instead, you serve yourselves. —G. Tod Slone, editor of The American Dissident
We do not approve of censorship or prior review, and we stand by our editorial decision to inform the students of Grambling State University of news events that effect them on campus, in the community and everywhere. —De'Eric M. Henry, editor of the student newspaper
Free speech at your institution is and has been, for the most part, tongue-tied. It is thusly so at probably most institutions of higher learning in America . Professors and even their students are tongue-tied in order to get those three letters of recommendation—so necessary for “success” in a professional career. “A long resume doesn’t guarantee good judgment,” had declared Barack Obama regarding Vice President Cheney. I might add that three letters of recommendation do not guarantee the courage it takes to “go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways” (Emerson).
Every instance you choose to tie your tongues is an instance of repressed human dignity. Our nation is the sum-total of tied tongues, as is the state of our so-called democracy. A morally strong and courageous person will tend to take that rope off his or her tongue, though it might mean job loss and/or other consequences. Nevertheless, that person will speak because to do so is to manifest his or her dignity as a human being. It is really quite that simple.
Likely, you will not comprehend this discourse, for to ascend as you have in the ranks of academe, you have had to keep that rope firmly tied round your tongues. “Collegially” demands it and those three letters of recommendation, shamefully, tend to certify it! Likely, you will believe your institution to be a bastion of free speech and vigorous debate. Your sense of self-worth demands that erroneous perception!
Unfortunately, the academic system itself strongly encourages you to trade free speech and expression for “collegial” silence. In other words, for money and the comfort of job security, you willingly choose to become careerist academic functionaries of pomp and circumstance. Sadly, the system’s very goal is to turn naturally questioning and challenging students into “professional” functionaries. Has that not been your goal too? Each of us has only one life to live, so why therefore do so many of us choose to live it as careerist functionaries? America is turning into a grotesque satire of democracy because an increasing number of its citizens choose that path over truth.
While at Grambling State , I was disappointed to discover just how little professors cared about free speech and vigorous debate. I’d authored a number of essays published in the student newspaper that urged debate on issues, including religious prayer at faculty meetings in a public university. Not one professor responded or otherwise deigned to enter into the arena of ideas and engage in vigorous debate. To do so would have required a conscious (and perhaps Herculean) effort to step out of the mold of the careerist functionary. Perhaps institutions of higher learning ought to be judged on the degree of democracy, free speech, and vigorous debate existing and encouraged in their hallowed halls, rather than on the football team, its coach, and unaccountable backslapping faculty. Grambling State ’s motto, "Where Everybody is Somebody," reflects the vacuity of the faculty and administration (for more on vacuous mottos see "Your [Lame] Slogan Here"). Why not be truly unique, alter the focus of your university from a professional training ground to a citizen training ground and establish a First Amendment core curriculum to be taught by professors who dare risk, as opposed to those who prefer existing as careerist academic functionaries? Why not change that motto to “Where Free Speech and Vigorous Debate Are Demanded!”
One of my essays, published in the student newspaper, was an account of my having been beaten and robbed by three black racist cretins last November in Baton Rouge . To this day, I am still surprised that not one black faculty member or administrator deigned to express his or her empathy. Contrary to the faculty, a number of students did so. Was the silence of black administrators and professors due to anti-white racist impulse?
On another note, I was promised a letter of recommendation from Dr. Duhon last May and have yet to receive it, despite my having written several reminders. Why make promises, if one does not intend keeping them? Why rehire someone for a second year, who you would not recommend? Currently, I am unemployed and certainly could have used that letter. But why would you care? I’m a white male and an ardent critic of academic careerist functionaries.
Post Scriptum: Open Letter
to GSU Students
This letter will likely not be
published, for such things tend not to be done in the world of higher
education. Former professors are rarely if ever permitted post-mortem voice,
especially if that voice is critical commentary. Just the same, I know some of
my former students might like to read this. So, why keep it from them? By now,
you are aware I am not returning to teach French and Spanish this year. It was
not necessarily my choice, since I did enjoy interacting with many of you.
Currently, I am unemployed and collecting unemployment insurance from the State
of Louisiana, though living in Massachusetts.
Dr. G. Tod Slone, founding
editor (1998) of The American Dissident, taught at GSU for two years
(2005-2007) and would love to hear your comments (todslone@yahoo.com).
Grades, Grades, Grades Or the Road to Monetary Success, Not to an Education Life But we lie to ourselves for assurance. And it is not they who are to blame for everything—we ourselves, only we. —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Live Not by Lies”
We all have good students, the ones who apply themselves, do the homework, learn, and actually ask pertinent questions. This essay is not about them. It is about the others, sometimes many others. Some students tried bribing me with a $10 discount certificate for Lowe’s, a bag of chocolates, a coupon for a free massage, a free tee-shirt with the logo of my choice, six chocolate bars, a $10 university-inscribed pen, a small bottle of whiskey, a small sachet of marijuana, a Starbuck’s coffee, and $100. As for the latter, the student stuck the bills right into my shirt pocket. I took them out and told her, no. Then she stuck the bills into my desk drawer. I took them out and again said, no, and asked her to please sit down on the other side of the desk. Partially, the bribes could be explained by the fact that I didn’t tend to cocoon myself in badges and diplomas or otherwise erect a wall between to keep students out. Oddly, at least as far as professors are concerned, I tended to think of the students as human beings, not as inferiors. One week prior to the end of my courses and during the week of finals, many of my students suddenly “panicked” with regards their grades, realizing they might not be getting the grades they wanted or “felt” they deserved, as opposed to the ones they actually deserved. Some of them never even had a textbook. Some never did the homework. Some didn’t even take all the exams or present the obligatory oral presentation. But somehow, they still thought they were entitled to pass the course… or even get a B. The barrage of phone calls and emails continued even after finals week. “Dr. Slone, I can’t believe you gave me a C,” wrote a student. Yet he’d never gotten anything higher than a C. Excuses like the following were numerous. Note all the errors in the email, yet that was a graduating senior.
As for another student, I caught him cheating on the final… red-handed! He’d kept moving his head from the top of his paper to the bottom, as if he were copying something. And indeed he was. He was holding a little file card. He saw that I saw. I asked for his test. He gave it to me and left. Since his average was a D prior to the final, I flunked him for the course, though didn’t report him. My assumption was that he’d cheated on the other tests too. And why shouldn’t I have assumed that? He was always seated in the back row. He wrote me several letters and even telephoned, pleading… begging.
Another student implied I was “cheating” her on her “education” because of the grade she received. Yet wanting a higher grade had nothing whatsoever to do with her “education.” Asking pertinent questions, not about grades but about the subject matter, had everything to do with “education”… and, as I recalled, that student never asked such questions at all. In other words, she was cheating herself of an education, not I. The following is the email I received from that student. It sums up nicely the grade inanity.
The excuses poured in, some valid, some less valid: deaths, sicknesses, auto accidents, basketball games, field trips, and even now and then an admission of no excuse at all. In the middle of final’s week, a coach called to inform me there would be a track meet the next day. She then sent me an email at my request.
Higher athletics or higher education? Well, I think we know the answer to that! Everything and anything seemed to automatically take precedence over the course. You name it. Students came up with it. Some even tried “playing me” with amazing transparency. Did they think I was really that stupid? The following email was written by a student whose final was almost blank. Note all the errors in the email.
What I did to get the persistently mendacious off my back, at least momentarily—and some were like veritable pit bulls of persistence—, was to have them write emails explaining why they thought they deserved the particular grade they wanted. That way, they were no longer in my face jabbering away at me, wasting my time, but rather quietly composing sentences. A certain number of my students did not have the textbook, nor did they even attempt to get one. Sometimes it was a matter of finances. Yet if students could not afford the course book, they ought to have gotten a part-time job to buy one. But that’s probably a politically-incorrect statement. If students were having severe family problems, they ought to have taken time off from the university. Ah, but that’s another politically-incorrect statement; besides, the university depends on maximum student enrollment to obtain maximum federal funding! So, indeed, there is a conflict of interest: money vs. truth. It seems that somewhere along the line students have been taught (the business ethic?) that a valid excuse means they should be excused from covering the course material and be permitted to pass the course… because the “tried,” even if they didn’t.
If students were graduating seniors, they (not all of them) made it a point to impress upon me that I did not somehow have the right to fail them in the course. Where did that rule come from? Was it in the student handbook? Were instructors generally complicit? One graduating senior could not conjugate the simplest of verbs and received an F on each exam (and I was certainly not a tough instructor). How had she managed to become a senior, let alone a graduating one? And, of course, I was the bad guy, the guilty one, because I actually had the nerve to flunk her, whereas her other professors had passed her on. Never would it occur to the student that she might have been the guilty one, the one who failed to learn the material. Another student implored me to change her grade from D to B because, otherwise, she would lose her scholarship. Again, I was the guilty one, the bad guy. Others informed me of similar potential “problems.” I am writing you in reference to the discussion we had following my final exam today. I understand that I am probably in no position to bargain regarding my grade in your class, but I am concerned about my standing at the university. When I came to Grambling, I was admitted on a probationary basis. After a few semesters, I was able to achieve good academic standing. After last semester, I received a SAP alert letter, and I have been struggling with my classes this semester. All I ask is the chance to continue my path into this last stretch of my collegiate career. I hope to speak to you about this matter, [xx] When students asked questions, 99% of the time the questions concerned grades, not the subject matter. How disheartening! Most did not seem like they gave a damn about what they were supposed to be learning. All that mattered was grades… grades, grades, and grades! How did they ever end up so obsessed? Clearly, it was indicative of the very direction of our society. Grades and diplomas seemed to count more in America today, than knowledge, the ability to think critically and individually, and the courage to stand up and speak the rude truth, especially when one was encouraged not to. That had become our America. Unfortunately, the university (the professors and deans) seemed to be encouraging that direction, as opposed to discouraging it. Indeed, most universities sought to be just like all the other universities and to follow the tie-and-jacket business model of growth, growth, and more growth—and to hell with ethics and truth! Most also seemed bent on keeping the children, children— insisting on attendance and excuses. If an adult student did not want to come to class, why force him or her to do so? Unlike high school, the university was not obligatory. But, again, it was all about money. Attendance assured federal funding, which assured growth, growth, and more growth.
Finally, my experiences as instructor have largely been at third-tier institutions of higher education. Perhaps things are better higher up. Hopefully, they are. The emphasis of educationists on self-esteem building has sadly rendered many students, at least in third-tier institutions, entirely incapable of effecting reality checks. In fact, one must wonder why third-tier institutions exist in the first place. They should probably be replaced with business-training, sport, and social-interaction institutions. To call them universities or colleges is a misnomer. Sure, all the trappings are present—the black robes, the sports brouhaha, the Dr. titles, the power hierarchy, the pomp and circumstance, the expensive computers and paraphernalia—, but they are not universities and colleges. How could they be when so many of those attending them can’t write a sentence without making an error? As a foreign language professor, I’ve told students that, for example, on every test they’d take in my class, they’d be asked to conjugate the verb “estar.” Amazingly, 2/3 of my students would not be able to conjugate that verb even on the final exam! Aren’t professors and deans doing students a grave disservice by handing those students university and college diplomas? Perhaps the professors and deans are more interested in their own careers than in those students…
In Search of Veritas (for my typed version, see below)
In Search of Veritas Critical dissent is acceptable—if it is left at home. My advice is—leave it at home. Keep it under the bed. With the piss pot. […] Let me make myself quite clear. We need critical dissent because it keeps us on our toes. But we don’t want to see it in the marketplace or on the avenues and piazzas of our great cities. We don’t want to see it manifested in the houses of our great institutions [i.e., universities!!!]. We are happy for it to remain at home, which means we can pop in at any time and read what is kept under the bed, discuss it with the writer, pat him on the head, shake him by his hand, give him perhaps a minor kick up the arse or in the balls, and set fire to the whole shebang. By this method we keep our society free from infection. There is of course, however, always room for confession, retraction, and redemption. —Minister [of Culture], from Press Conference, Harold Pinter, Nobel laureate
How not to agree with the African Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka: “The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism” and, especially, “criticism, like charity, starts at home.” Yet how many professors would dare submit an article to the Gramblinite critical of Grambling State? Instead, professors will opine on Bush policy or on whatever else might be risk-free to their careers. In general, professors throughout America dare not heed Soyinka with regards criticism. For the most part, they have become careerists, as opposed to parrhesiastic truth tellers. For the sake of democracy, their self-imposed, freedom-restricting taboo of criticizing the hand that feeds needs to be broken. Recently, I’d incensed a Grambling State English professor because I’d had the audacity to express an opinion he evidently did not share. He’d informed me and others of his intent to put together a newsletter to highlight the “important things that are done in the College of Arts and Sciences,” which is fine… but I wrote that higher education seems to have become an institution for self-vaunting and, especially, self-censoring. What about veritas, its supposed mission… or has that mission been replaced by image enhancement and distortion? In the name of freedom of speech and expression, I suggested he include a “tiny” space in the proposed newsletter for controversial, hardcore critique of Grambling State. His furious indignation, as I like to term the rather typical reaction of college professors and administrators when criticized, pushed him to respond and oddly list his college degrees. Yet I’d never questioned his qualifications at all.
In any
case, if we do not look at Grambling State with a critical eye, we simply cannot
expect to improve it. Sure, we can always pump tons of taxpayer money into it,
but does that really improve it, does that make professors more courageous, does
that enhance truth telling, does that diminish the iron grip of orthodoxy and
indoctrination? For the sake of democracy, Grambling State, like all such
institutions of higher learning, needs to be improved (and not simply with
regards the physical plant) or it will continue deviating from its fundamental
raison d’etre of veritas and consolidating into a corporate
training institution?
Will I
be demonized for evoking these issues? Will I lose my job for daring to express
my opinion in the public arena of a public institution? Hopefully, this article
might provoke other professors to step out of the conformist mold and actually,
now and then, “go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson). Last year, I’d written several critical essays also
published in the Gramblinite, yet only one professor and one student
responded. But that’s a start. Optimistically, this essay will not provoke the
gut reaction of furious indignation, the ole America (Grambling State), Love It
or Leave It refrain. Whether or not I enjoy teaching at Grambling State is of
course immaterial to the opinions expressed here. How to Muzzle the Student Newspaper
A Violent Assault… and Some Consequent, Perhaps “Offensive” Thought
To the Editor, Wendell Graves:
Perhaps it would be favorable
to respond to emails, especially since you request the college community
contribute thoughts. In any case, please publish the following op ed in The
Gramblinite. I have also attached it because the previous op ed I contributed
was published with serious errors made by your typist to the extent that some of
it made no sense at all. It was somewhat embarrassing, considering all the
honors The Gramblinite has received. You will find criticism in this op ed of
The Gramblinite itself. Do you permit that or do you only permit praise? You
wrote something demeaning to introduce my previous op ed, something like “he
needs to get something off his chest.” I noticed you do not do that for other
professors who publish op eds. Why did you do it for mine? I suppose I’ll
never find out… though I will certainly be able to take a good guess or two. In
any event, by writing you these things, I treat you as an adult. As mentioned
in my previous email, I thank you for publishing the cartoons.
Higher Education, Big Business, and the Failing
American Democracy The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. […] The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it—at no matter what risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change. —James Baldwin
Orthodoxy means not thinking, not needing to think. —George Orwell, 1984
To think is to differ. —Clarence Darrow
There was jabber in a recent issue of The Gramblinite on the fascinating European cartoon controversy. Indeed, one of the paper’s editors called for commentary. This op-ed and a very RISKY cartoon were submitted… to test the waters of democracy at Grambling State… but nobody responded. I even dared criticize the editors of The Gramblinite. But they wield the power and decided to kill my opinions. So, I thought I’d try again. That’s what one must do in a failing democracy. Try, try, and try again… John Gotto, New York City Teacher of the Year (three times!) stated “Compulsory attendance laws absolutely have to be changed. Nothing good happens from compulsory, unless you look at your fellow human beings as inferiors or serfs or slaves.” As a professor, I agree with Gotto. Never have I had to spend so much time taking attendance and checking homework in classrooms than here at Grambling State. Does such activity increase student learning? It probably decreases it. By treating students as if they were still in high school, can professors and administrators really be doing them any good at all? Higher education seems to have become anything but higher today… and by no means am I referring only to Grambling State. There must certainly be a reason. Does it profit students to make it lower education? Doubtfully. Does it profit faculty? No doubt. Does it profit the moneyed classes and corporate America? No doubt! Indeed, it implies a diminution of capacity and will to question and challenge. In my little department, the lack of intellectual exchange and debate is astonishing. As a writer, thinker, and polemicist, I find it mind-numbing to be assailed on an almost daily basis by mandatory inane paperwork and jabber about the need to take attendance, correct, collect, and grade homework, verify student lab work, and, in general, to track students, as if they were children. Why do my PhD colleagues seem so willingly accepting of this situation and, at least in one instance, even profess to enjoy it? Why don’t my colleagues, who like to flaunt their “Doctor” titles, actively seek intellectual debate and discourse? Why have they proven indifferent to me as a new colleague—to things I’ve done or written or places I’ve been? I’ve asked them questions, but they seem reluctant to respond to anything other than bureaucratic concerns. Why do they seem so accommodating of everything and anything, never questioning or challenging, just passively licking the hand that feeds them monthly checks? Is that what it means to be a university professor today in America? Higher education does not need more proud lifer company women and men with bookkeeper mentalities and apparatchik demeanors, afraid of thinking and speaking out whenever the slightest risk might be entailed—RISK to career, RISK to getting that grant, RISK of offending this one or that one, the dean, or whoever else. Academe’s corps is already overwhelmingly staffed with the fearful. In fact, given that reality, how can our institutions of higher learning possibly be, in the words of Professor Nasir Ahmed, “our best hope”? Declaring it thus is nothing short of egregious backslapping and self-congratulating, an activity in which higher education sadly excels. (Several front pages of The Gramblinite reflect the inculcation of this activity in the student body.) Excessive self-congratulating and backslapping lead to complacency and flaccidity, and otherwise serve to create an impervious wall against serious outside critique. How can we possibly expect professors, who dare not stand up in their own milieu to “challenge our political leaders, business leaders, intellectual leaders, and cultural leaders” (the words are Dr. Ahmed’s)? In fact, it seems to be the business leaders, not the professors, who are calling the shots in higher education today. Have they not been purchasing more and more professors and even entire departments? For the sake, not of the moneyed classes or individual PhD and DEd pocketbooks, but of the moribund American democracy, higher education urgently needs more professors who actively seek debate, question, challenge, think, and otherwise try to move the citizenry… and student body to a higher level of engagement, as opposed to a higher level of orthodoxy and corporate indoctrination. Hopefully, this op-ed will not provoke anger or who knows what, but rather debate. Hopefully, it will not result in grownups feeling offended, but rather in their rising above paralyzing intellectual lethargy, apathy, and bookkeeping duty. It ought to not be interpreted as “he doesn’t like being at this institution” or as a j’accuse against the entire faculty and administrators, most of whom I don’t even know, so can hardly personally accuse of anything. On the contrary, I have enjoyed the diverse exchanges with my students this past semester and would definitely like to return to Grambling State next year and have officially submitted an application, BUT I shall not compromise my duty to speak out against the tsunami of inanity inundating higher education both here and elsewhere today. As an untenured professor, I am well aware that speaking out in academe usually ends up in losing ones job even at a public institution held to the articles of the Constitution of the United States of America; in particular, the First Amendment. Nevertheless, how could I possibly compromise that duty when having discussed with my French students the following quote by Emile Zola: “Mon devoir est de parler, je ne veux pas être complice.” [My duty is to speak out; I do not want to be an accomplice.] Finally, this op-ed should be interpreted as a plea for less academic bureaucracy and for professors to behave less like automaton functionaries with minds concentrated on petty details. (e.g., Recently, I was requested to remove my office-hour sign, which had the new hours hand written, and replace it with a typed one, though reminded money was not available to buy new ink cartridges.) It is a plea for professors to act more like thinking human beings with minds wide open to inquiry and hearts with the courage to speak out against stifling bureaucracy. Sure, BIG BUSINESS NEEDS YOU NOW! But DEMOCRACY NEEDS YOU A LOT MORE… or it will become Big Business… if it hasn’t already!
For more on the thoughts presented here, you might wish to
visit the website of The American Dissident (www.theamericandissident.org),
a semiannual literary journal of critical thinking, founded in 1998. If you
find something false on the site, bring it to my attention, since I am the
journal’s founding editor. No doubt, you will find offensive thoughts,
especially if this letter has offended you. But offensive does not by any means
signify false. The American Dissident does publish poetry, but only
poetry that burns and has something visceral, something truthful, and something
risky to say. We do not publish self-serving congratulations, but only letters
critical of the journal. Grambling State students are certainly encouraged to
submit poems and short essays. Guidelines are on the site. Thank you for your
attention. A Fundamental Value of American Democracy Expressing Ones Opinion… Openly and Proudly It would be a great service to students if it was explained to them when they begin college that, although politeness may be nice, it is of miniscule importance as compared to robust discussion. As we often joke, being offended is what happens when you have your deepest beliefs challenged, and if you make it through college without being offended, you should ask for your money back. —Greg Lukianoff, Constitutional lawyer and President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Unfortunately, most university students are either entirely unaware or simply indifferent that expressing ones opinion openly constitutes the cornerstone of any thriving democracy. After all, it seems most university professors are equally unaware of that simple fact. Most students and professors, instead, are fully aware that the unspoken policy of most, if not all, universities is that it is best not to speak a truth if doing so might offend somebody in some way. Students have either never been taught or have simply been encouraged to forget the old nursery-school adage: “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names [i.e., words] will never harm me.” Today, the university, by example, wrongly teaches its students that names will harm them. It teaches them not to toughen up, but rather to complain if somebody says something they don’t like. Professors themselves will complain if somebody says something they don’t like.
To openly express an opinion, no matter what it may be, in The Gramblinite, for example, is to exercise a fundamental right accorded each and every American citizen. Some time ago, one of my departmental colleagues sneered at me, noting my article in The Gramblinite, and said, “so, you write that kind of thing?” Any truth exposed in public is apt to offend somebody, especially those without the courage to utter it! Perhaps this is why most professors keep their mouths shut.
As for my various guest editorials, besides the one who sneered, another colleague actually praised me in an email, while another in person. But that was all I ever heard from colleagues. Apparently, “robust discussion” does not form part of professorial agendas. Just the same, I can well imagine the names I’ve probably been called behind my back by others—egotist, fool, who knows what? And who cares, right?
As for students, a handful commented. “Dr. Slone, you’re crazy,” said one of them in my office, but in a nice way. Oddly, he didn’t think my ideas crazy at all. Several others said the very same thing… in a nice way. Being called “crazy” in this society would seem to be a compliment, not an insult. Nevertheless, the very implication of their conclusions as to my sanity is somewhat frightening because it is indicative of the state of higher education today, and even more so of our democracy. More than anything else, higher education should be about free and open expression and vigorous debate, yet it seems to have become anything but that… and students are well aware of it.
“You’ve got balls, Dr. Slone,” said another student, meaning it as a compliment. But why must it take courage to speak out in America and even more so at a public university? After all, this is not the Soviet Union where for speaking out a citizen could have been executed or sent to a hard-labor gulag starvation prison camp for a decade or two. The Russian poet Osip Mandelstam wrote a poem critical of Stalin. He was sent to a camp, then to another, eventually dying in transit. He was buried in an unmarked grave.
Professors, like poets, know precisely what they should not talk about in public, that is, if they want to “succeed.” Of course, their hoped for “success” is really nothing but failure in disguise—a Faustian deal. Indeed, what we do as professors is make a Faustian deal. We sell out truth and freedom; that is freedom to speak our minds openly, for job security. We sell out democracy itself for future promotions. We sell out our very honor and integrity as human beings for future pension, health benefits, and even emeritus designation. Today, it has become common behavior that professors do not normally express their opinions in public, unless of course what they have to say will in no way risk their careers—criticizing Bush, for example.
The harsh question must
therefore be posed: Are professors exceptional role models for student-citizens
of a democracy or rather for student-citizens of an autocracy, even a
thinly-disguised one? A Pretense of Objectivity—Outstanding Teaching The metrics that will be used to determine outstanding teaching will involve student evaluations, student performance, and peer reviews. —Faculty Awards Program brochure, Grambling State University
Corruption in higher education is ubiquitous and rampant. Why do so many professors lie down and simply accept it? Many books have been written about it, including The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses by Kors and Silvergate, The Goose-Step: Study of American Education by Upton Sinclair, The Graves of Academe by Richard Mitchell, How Teachers Colleges Have Destroyed Education in America: Education’s Smoking Gun by Reginald Damerell, Imposters in the Temple by Martin Anderson, Poisoning the Ivy by Michael Lewis, The Fall of the Ivory Tower by George Roche, Inside American Education by Thomas Sowell, Scaling the Ivory Tower by Lionel Lewis, Profscam: Professors and the Demise of Higher Education by Charles J. Sykes, and The Hollow Men: Politics and Corruption in Higher Education also by Charles J. Sykes. Professors, who are supposed to be intellectually curious, should read these books. But how many have? How many will? Corruption—not necessarily monetary, but intellectual—has become higher education’s very modus operandi… and because of it democracy suffers. Most professors seem to accept what is fed them without even questioning and challenging it… because they profit from it. Indeed, corruption pays their salaries and provides them with life-time job security and health benefits, that is, if they “behave” (i.e., keep their mouths shut)—so why should they question and challenge it? Sure, some do, but they are far and few and when they do, they often find themselves without a job, blackballed, or at best ostracized. Thus is the academic culture, which is not really all that different from the corporate culture. The concept of good teaching is an example of intellectual corruption in higher education because it is purposefully vague. For decades, the main criterium for determining teaching excellence has been student evaluations, which more often than not reflect an instructor’s likeability and personality, not his or her teaching excellence. Administrators favor this criterium because it gives them power, power to keep those they like and power to get rid of those they dislike. In other words, if an administrator doesn’t like an instructor (e.g., someone who has been outspoken and critical), but who has good student evaluations, he or she will simply ignore those evaluations and find another reason to get rid of the instructor. If an administrator likes a professor, who has poor student evaluations, he or she will simply find other reasons for retaining that instructor. Tenured professors, who receive poor student evaluations, will tend to dismiss this criterium as a joke, while those who receive good ones will tend to argue the contrary. By the way, if student evaluations do in fact determine good teaching, how does one explain the tenuring of professors who receive poor ones? Student performance, cited by GSU administrators (and professors), is yet another vacuous criterium for determining excellence in teaching. Performance is very difficult to determine and in most cases is simply not determined. To evaluate the performance of students in Spanish 101, for example, would require a thorough test of student abilities and knowledge prior to their taking the course. At Grambling State and probably most other institutions of higher learning, this is simply not done. Thus, if a student receives an A in the course, there is no way to determine if that was the result of an excellent teacher, an easy teacher, or simply prior knowledge. The student-performance parameter evidently exists to help give the impression that the evaluation procedure is objective, when in fact it is anything but. As for peer reviews, the third criterium cited in the Faculty Awards Program brochure, they also tend to be highly subjective. For example, a department chairperson will tend to like an instructor who does not question and challenge the status quo and dislike an instructor who does. Likeability is the key factor involved in peer reviews just as it is in student reviews, not excellent teaching. In fact, excellent teaching (e.g., likeability on the part of students) will probably provoke jealosy among peers, who might then write mediocre evaluations. On another note, instructors and administrators have become increasingly indoctrinated in the do-not offend liberal orthodoxy of the day. So how can we trust them to offend, that is, criticize a colleague with regards teaching? The logic is there. Indoctrination kills logic and logic is not what rules in higher education. Instead, vacuous terminology, fluff methodology, and fraudulent procedures tend to rule. Given the lack of objectivity in the evaluation criteria for excellent teaching, it would certainly not be surprising to hear a graduating senior with limited reading and writing ability declare his or her writing instructor excellent. What therefore constitutes excellent teaching, if not positive student evaluations, student performance, and peer reviews? “Well, you’ll know it when you see it,” was the answer I received a decade ago from a hostile chairperson at another institution of so-called higher learning. In other words, he would make that determination subjectively. Sadly, his is probably the same de facto definition employed today by the large majority of higher education evaluators. In the absence of objective criteria, designating excellent instructors is akin to designating the university’s annual beauty queen. These things said, the biggest problem confronting higher education is not really the lack of objectivity in the criteria for teaching excellence, but rather the rampant in-breeding (via networking) and proliferation of fit-in, collegial, yes-men and yes-women instructors, not apt to question, challenge, stir things up, and otherwise embarrass their superiors and disturb the comfortable and profitable status quo. Recall the silence of professors in Germany during the rise of Nazism and in America during that of McCarthyism.
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