Why Does Rush Limbaugh Call My Momma Names

My momma worked in the shipyards in Evansville, Indiana, right before I was born, building ships to fight the Nazis. She rolled up her sleeves and worked hard, side by side with other women, and men. She continued to work after the war; she ran a laundry and worked in factories in my home town.

From about age seven on, I was a latch key kid. Both parents worked hard trying to make a living, and I was responsible in the mornings for cleaning out the clinkers from the stove that sat in the middle of their bedroom, recovering the fire that had been banked overnight, taking out the ashes, and bringing in more coal. In the afternoon I came home from school by myself, cleaned out the clinkers, took out the ashes, brought in more coal, did my homework, played outside, and waited for my parents to come home.

It was not Ozzie and Harriett, folks.

My mother was not a good cook. My mother was not a good housekeeper—our house was always a mess. I almost never saw my momma wear makeup. Or a dress. She grew up on a farm as a tomboy. She was a chain smoker. She drank mass quantities of iced tea. She could cuss when the spirit moved her. She would take a drink when it pleased her. She did not shave her legs except when she wanted to.

She was a very strong “union man”, often saying to me, “There’s only two kinds of people in the world, Democrats and scabs.” She, in the heat of the moment, once hit her boss as he tried to cross a picket line.

She did not believe she was inferior to men.

Her friends who worked with her in the plastics factory seemed to be very much like her. I worked with them as well for a couple of summers. They, too, were working to support families. Some had husbands, some did not. They, too, were very strong, opinionated women who did not neatly fit into pre-established boxes.

My sister did not fit the box either. She worked most of her life while raising two kids, mostly on her own. As she divorced her third husband, she famously said, “I don’t need me no more damned men. Hell, I’ll be better off with a good cucumber.”

My mother taught me to cook—I needed to feed myself at dinner time and supper time when she worked second or third shift. She taught me to clean house: My logic was “she’s not really interested in housework, and she’s working her butt off at the factory, so if the house ain’t clean enough for me, it’s my problem, not hers.” I did not clean very often, truth be told, but I did learn how to do it. She taught me to wash my own clothes, iron, and take care of myself. She did not sit me down and say, “Now son, these are skills you need to have.” On the other hand, neither she nor my daddy said to me, “Hey, that’s wimmens’ work.”

My mother, cigarette in one hand, coffee in the other, died while having just told a dirty joke on the phone.

My sister taught me how to write “I love you” on a valentine to that one girl in my first-grade class. My sister taught me how to die well—strong to the end.

I watched my momma live her life. I watched my sister live her life. From a distance, I watched Reba, Castela, Dean, Nora Belle, Kathryn, Govenenna, and a whole host of other women in my home town live their lives.

These women were feminists. They did not call themselves that. I’m calling them that.

From my momma and my sister and those women in my home town, I learned to become a feminist, and proudly, as a 67+ year old Southern boy, so label myself.

I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh quite often. As an amateur student of propaganda, I found his radio show instructive. He developed himself into a propaganda artist, with a lot of intelligent followers. As the years went by my interests moved on to other topics and artists, and now I only listen to him when I’m driving through Kansas, bored, and tired of satellite radio.

As I listen, I continue to wonder why he calls women like my momma and sister “femi-Nazis”.  My momma was a feminist-behaving woman who did more than her share of work to defeat the Nazis.  Why would he find this worthy of condemnation and misguided attempts at humor. What is objectionable about people who believe in and fight for the rights of women in a world that has continually sold women short?

I guess I do sort of understand why he does it, strictly from a propaganda perspective—if he can get people to equate feminists (women who don’t kowtow to men) with Nazis (right-wing conservatives who tried to take over the world), he can evoke fear, especially from us bald-headed old men who are scared of women to start with. Calling women who don’t kowtow to men right-wing conservatives doesn’t quite make sense, but the word Nazi does evoke fear (except in extreme right wing conservatives of course).

But, he says he is an entertainer, and it is on that level that I don’t understand it.

I wonder how does Rush Limbaugh get pleasure from and enhance his entertainment value by calling my dead momma a femi-Nazi?

Booze and a Boy from Kentucky

This is in tribute to one of my favorite authors, Walker Percy.  Here’s an excerpt from his essay, “Bourbon”, written in 1975 and included in his book, Signposts in a Strange Land: 

Not only should connoisseurs of Bourbon not read this article, neither should persons preoccupied with the perils of alcoholism, cirrhosis, esophageal hemorrhage, cancer of the palate, and so forth—all real enough dangers. I, too, deplore these afflictions. But, as between these evils and the aesthetic of Bourbon drinking, that is, the use of Bourbon to warm the heart, to reduce the anomie of the late twentieth century, to cut the cold phlegm of Wednesday afternoons, I choose the aesthetic. (page 103)

Part One: Wondering About the Rules

Since I was a little boy, I have wondered about booze, a fairly natural thing I think, given that I grew up in Kentucky.

This is how I was introduced to social drinking. When Uncle Clay and Aunt Ethyl came to “sit a spell” and talk on a Sunday afternoon, my father would sometimes go to the kitchen. I would hear a metal cabinet open and know that he was slipping a half pint from the shelf, unscrewing the cap, and taking a big swig. We only had three rooms in this house, so it was pretty hard to hide what was going on. He did not acknowledge his action. He did not offer a drink to anyone else. Unless Aunt Ethyl (who back in the day was known to drink quite a bit, and also had an extreme stutter when drunk, which, behind her back was cause for lots of stories from my mother, but who was now an extreme, evangelical teetotaler) was outside the house away from the action; then, my daddy might offer Uncle Clay a swig, and pass the half pint bottle. Then put it back in the cabinet.

My parents were Primitive Baptists. My home town was filled with Baptists and evangelicals, none of whom had positive feelings about alcohol consumption. Shortly before I was baptized into the Methodist Church (at about age 7), members were required to sign oaths not to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. Although the rules had changed by the time I became a member, I was never present at any church function at which alcohol in any form was served to the adult members of the church. There was lots of cigarette smoking, but it was Kentucky and that’s another story.

The Kentucky county in which I grew up was “local option”, meaning that periodically the issue of alcohol sales came up for a vote of county residents. That did not mean there were no alcohol sales in the county, however. I don’t remember much moonshine being made and sold, although I’m sure it was there. “Bootleg” (booze bought in “wet” counties, brought into my county illegally, and sold for a premium price) was much more common.

“Baptists, bootleggers, and the police are all in it together to keep this county dry,” my daddy would opine.

On election days in this dry county, the local taxi would transport people to and from the polls. It was not uncommon for there to be a half pint included in the free ride.

I remember going with my daddy or with my daddy and uncle to bootleggers’ homes, usually on Saturday or Sunday mornings, to buy bootleg beer and whiskey. I would wait in the car, sometimes for a long time.

Wondering time for me. I still wonder:

·       Why is it that we in the South particularly were/are so preoccupied with drinking?

·       Why did my people view drinking as sinful and against the wishes of God, when my Bible contains positive stories about Jesus and wine?

·       Why did my people sneak a snort rather than engage in cocktail parties?

·       Why did wine become grape juice in the practice of communion in my church?

There is probably a vast body of literature in theological schools devoted to this topic that should join the literature we all know and love.

I hope.

Part Two: Wondering over Drinks

I did not take a drink until my 21^st birthday. I had no moral issues with alcohol. I just did not find it appealing. Plus I was a “good boy” who did not want to break laws. Plus I had plans—there was a big old world out there that I wanted to see and did not want anything to interfere with those plans.

On my 21^st birthday, the beginning of my senior year in college, I drank my first beer, sitting in the Country Club in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It tasted awful. The second one tasted better, especially when combined with a hamburger.

When I graduated from college, I moved to Athens, Georgia. At that time, the only place where one could buy “hard” liquor was in black night clubs after midnight. Beer and wine were sold in restaurants, “spirits” were not.

This was 1966 and I, as a young white man, was still tolerated in black establishments (not the case the next year when black folks started to develop a black consciousness), so I found myself drinking white liquid from unlabeled bottles many nights after midnight. I liked it.

As I have aged, I wonder about the notion, particularly in the South, that alcohol consumption is somehow immoral, frowned upon by God, and evil.  At the same time, moonshine makers have become legendary folk heroes. And, also at the same time, countless novels, plays, and short stories, involving hot toddies, mint julips, and other forms of alcohol, usually Bourbon based, have been placed in the highest ranks of artistic literature.

I do have an affection for Bourbon. My ability to drink Manhattans and Bourbon on the rocks has declined substantially, however, and I’m not sure I could drink the white stuff I once drank in the bars of Athens, Georgia. Reflux issues, among other afflictions brought on by age (and good sense, or is that my Methodist background talking?).

Thank you Walker Percy for your body of literature, including your treatise on Bourbon.

Anomie still exists in the 21^st Century. Hearts still need to be warmed. And there is still “cold phlegm” on Wednesday afternoons, needing to be cut. 

As I write this, Wednesday afternoon is at its mid-point.

Talking About Religion

On March 24, 2012, a Reason Rally will be held on the Mall in Washington. Its focus is on atheism, among other things.

 Started me to wonder, again, about religion.

My parents were Primitive Baptists, although they seldom went to church. They were believers, although my daddy believed with some skepticism. “Watch them preachers,” he’d say. “If they pull their watches out at the beginning of the sermon, it’s gonna be a long one.” He also said more than once, “Watch out for preachers that pass the hat before their sermon. That ain’t right. Let me hear what you have to say before you ask me for money.”

I went to church with them a few times, but my interaction with the church came mostly from funerals. I did go to a baptism once, though. The baptismal, I guess you’d call it (where people get dunked) was in the form of a large glass tank of water behind the pulpit. My daddy wasn’t crazy about that. “If you’re gonna do it, the preacher ought to have to break the ice off Tradewater River and hold you down in it ‘til you feel the spirit.” I honestly do not know whether either of my parents were baptized.

Somehow or other, when I was about six years old I got connected with the United Methodist Church. We lived on Baptist Hill (go figure), which was about a mile or so from the church. On Sunday mornings I walked down the rock-road hill and over to Cedar Street by myself to attend Sunday school and church.

This was the start my wondering about religion.

The Providence Methodist Church provided me an opportunity to develop myself spiritually, without hell fire and damnation, without a focus on the “thou shalt nots” , but with a focus on caring, love, and spiritual development. Rice Sutherland, Wendell Johnson, an array of smart pastors, and other adults were role models.

The Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF) provided me with a social life I would not have had otherwise. I was a shy kid, did not smoke or drink (again, go figure), did not have a car, and had no money. I was active in school during the week, but Sundays were devoted to the Methodist choir and MYF.

In my youth, I committed myself to “full-time Christian service” during several revivals. I even thought about becoming a minister—that’s another story for a later date.

In college, the Wesley Foundation became one important hub for spiritual and social development. It was there that I was exposed to Buber, Kierkegaard, Tillich. And civil rights. It was heady times.

My love affair with religion started to fall apart during my last year of college. Nothing dramatic happened. My wondering just caught up with me.

Since my experience was mostly Christian, that’s where most of my questions reside. Understand that I am not a theologian, not a divinity student. Just a wonderer.

I wonder, if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, how can his creations (humans) presume to speak on his behalf? Are we, the people who establish religions and sects, really that arrogant?

I wonder why Christians, who profess to believe that every single sentence of the Bible is the inspired word of God, pick and choose from among those words only those concepts and ideas that we like, or can use as tools to disparage, persecute, and in many cases, kill other human beings?

I wonder, why a lot of Christians focus only on the Old Testament from which to develop those destructive tools? Isn’t the New Testament the Bible for Christians? Didn’t Jesus condense the 10 Commandments of the Old Testament into two, each of which dealt with love?

I wonder at the amount of money collected by religious leaders, who use the money to build idols of themselves in the form of cathedrals and giant buildings and billboards with their names and faces plastered on them?

I wonder why religious sects create large bureaucratic organizations and behave as corporations focused on profits and survival of the sect?

I wonder why politicians find religion to be such a cudgel in the fulfillment of their power trips?

I wonder why religious leaders feel the need to condemn those with whom they don’t agree?

I wonder why humans feel the need to construct God in our image?

It is no wonder to me why atheism has blossomed. 

I am not an atheist. I believe in the existence of a metaphysical force that is responsible for the universes. I can’t prove it; don’t feel the need to try. Don’t think this force cares particularly (yeah, I’m being anthropomorphical—if that’s a word that can be used to talk about “the force”) whether I believe in it or not.

I don’t know about a hereafter or what the rules are for being a part of it.  I do know that treating all living things with respect and love in THIS life is crucial to my well being—again, can’t prove it, but know it.

I know that faith, as practiced, has brought peace and solace to a lot of people. And as I write, there are hundreds of “preachers” and other believers out there who are feeding the hungry and helping feed the spiritual needs and faith of people, without asking for money or allegiance.

I also know that religion, in all its sectual forms, has been responsible, and continues to be responsible, for the misery and deaths of millions of people, while breeding and blessing greed, hubris, and hate among human beings. 

I believe my daddy was right to be suspicious of preachers/politicians wearing three-thousand dollar suits and insincere smiles and uttering hate-filled words, while holding their hands out looking for ever more money to build ever bigger power bases to do ever more destruction.

My belief in God continues to be strong, even as I wonder about it. My belief in religion and its leaders has been dead and buried for a long time now.

Johnny Can't Read: Who Cares?

I read a headline in the local newspaper this week: “Are America’s College Students Learning Anything?”. These headlines always amuse me in their simplicity as “Yes-No” questions. If I answered yes, I’d assume there would be no need to read the article. If I answered no, I would give away my ignorance of the word learning.

But in various forms, people from President Obama to old men like me drinking coffee in diners, continue to ask the question.

Starts me wondering.

The newspaper article, written by Professor Jonathan Zimmerman of NYU, takes a stab at an answer:

At most institutions, including my own, we have no idea if they are. Sure, professors assign grades in their courses, and students are asked to evaluate the classes they take and the professors who teach them. But neither measure gives us any real answer to the $200,000 question: What knowledge or skills are students acquiring in exchange for the skyrocketing tuition they pay?

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/31/opinion/la-oe-zimmerman-are-college-students-learning-20120131

He goes on to talk about assessing students’ improvements, viz. a viz. standardized exams, in such areas as critical thinking and writing as a way of answering the question.

The article begs two questions.

First, in the U.S.  today, I believe we have bought, hook, line, and sinker, the notion that “if it can’t be measured, it ain’t real and we don’t like it.” I could profess about how this has happened, but will spare you, for now (yeah that’s a threat). Humor me and pretend that it’s more or less true. Or don’t humor me, and let’s debate it. Anyway…..

One result of this attitude is that accreditation agencies (sort of licensing agencies with fewer teeth) who oversee higher education institutions and career colleges, see it as their obligation to ensure that students can at least read, think critically, write, “do” math, etc. There are a lot of the people who run these agencies and many politicians who run these people who run these agencies who, along with Professor Zimmerman, don’t believe that the current model is viable.

Here’s the current model: University professors, trained professionals, devise curricula that meet the standards of the academic community (which has been around since the 14^th Century in Europe at least, and thus has history to back it up), admit students (using a variety of methods designed to predict whether or not students can succeed at a given school), and assess students’ learning in the classroom using exams, papers, etc. 

Accreditors and politicians don’t believe this is sufficient to “prove” learning, perhaps because they don’t trust professors (discussion at another time), and that there must be a better method. Because of our culture’s need to measure, that better method must include “quantified” results. 

In other words, there must be numbers because we believe language comprising numbers is better than language comprising words.

So, those same professors mentioned above are now being asked to come up with batteries of standardized tests, which can be scored statistically across mass populations, to prove “to God and everybody” that Johnny can read, write,  think critically, etc.

Trying to “prove” with mathematical language and statistical precision that someone has learned is a lot of fun for certain professors, administrators, and accreditors. Trying to prove that students have not learned is a lot of fun for certain professors and politicians.

The second begged question is,  “Is education a quid pro quo proposition?

In answer to Professor Zimmerman’s $200,000 question: “What knowledge or skills are students acquiring in exchange for the skyrocketing tuition they pay?”, I have many friends who would argue that there really isn’t any knowledge or skill to be learned as an undergraduate worth a $200,000 price tag. I agree with them.

But I think that’s a good answer to the wrong question.

Better question: “What is the value of a college education?”

Another better question: “What is the value of a $200,000 college education versus one that costs $20,000 or $40,000?”

I wonder.

The answer to the “better question” posed above, I believe lies in the eyes of the beholder and the culture from which we come.  Some would argue that the value of education is realized in a better informed citizenry capable of creating and sustaining better cultures and countries.

In other words, “Ignorance ain’t bliss” for the health, welfare, and longevity of countries and cultures.

How does one quantify that? With difficulty, which is why you don’t hear this being said much anymore outside the halls of higher education.

Too bad, I say. It’s a good answer. Even if Johnny graduates from Podunk U and can’t think critically, as measured by standardized exams, I believe the very fact that he’s rubbed shoulders and argued with people who believe radically different things than he does, outside his comfort zone maybe, serves him, and by extension the country, well.

Can I prove it empirically? Nope. Can I measure it’s truth or falsity? Nope.

On the other hand, if education is defined as a product or service one is buying in the marketplace (as is I believe the case with Professor Zimmerman), one answer to the “another better question” might be, “it depends on the values assigned by the market.” Some of those believing that higher education is a product/service thus tout the long-term statistical monetary value of a college education versus a high school education.

You’ll make more money over your lifetime if you get a college degree.

Those same people might look to the statistical long term monetary advantages accrued by alumni from a $200,000 university brand versus a $20,000 brand. some of the $200,000 brand universities tout the number of doors opened immediately into the marketplace of commerce, law, medicine, and graduate schools generally to graduating seniors as value-added aspects of their brand.

You’ll succeed better and/or make more money over your lifetime, if you graduate from our $200,000 university.

Can you measure the results of these arguments? Absolutely.

In short, if we continue to place our values so completely upon that which can be measured quantitatively, we’d be better off with headlines that say, “Are America’s College Students Preparing to Make a Lot of Money in Their Lifetimes?” The article then would offer quantitative proof, yes or no, across the broad spectrum of colleges and universities.

Or, we could use apparent beliefs of  the large numbers of folks, college educated and not, who follow with religious fervor the successes of their favorite university sports teams, forget about measuring learning, forget about career and monetary prospects of alumni, and make our headlines read, “Which are the Top Ten Universities in America?” By combining win/loss records of schools, over an array of sports, the article could answer the question with complete clarity and simplicity.  

Wonder if the tuition price we’d be willing to pay would depend on these standings of the university?

Professors as President: Wondering Skeptic

Wondering if my education and experience as a professor prepared me, Professor Dorris, to become president of the United States.

Here’s what I learned and experienced in the land of the professoriate.

First, there is the education and training aspect of professorial qualifications.

I earned a Ph.D. degree, and in the process learned how to critically think, but more importantly, how to think critically. I learned to criticize others’ ideas, harshly when to my advantage, coyly when it suited me, and on any side of an argument that caught my fancy. 

As my favorite university president used to say, with some pride, “A professor is one who thinks otherwise.”

I learned that the degree was not designed to prepare me to be a team player. For example, professors are rewarded less for publications in which there are multiple authors than those single-authored papers. There can be no "team" in I.

The most accurate advice I received prior to entering a Ph.D. degree experience was, “If you want to be happy in as a professor, choose a very small focused area of research in which you are passionate, focus on that, and stay away from committees, administration, and students.” I did not follow the advice, but it was sound advice nonetheless.

Successful professors as scholars also greet communication from others with an attitude that automatically questions the legitimacy of the message and its sender.  In other words, “I can think of 12 reasons to treat you and your message as unworthy of my attention” whether or not I know you or the content of your message.

Professors as scholars are rewarded for focusing on narrowly-focused research rather than broadly- focused research. For example, a great friend of mine earned his Ph.D. in bird lice; the degree was in biology; the degree was in entomology; but the degree was really in bird lice--that's where he became THE specialist. People with Ph.D.s in history are generally not “big picture” historians; rather, they have spent their professorial lives focused on one small aspect of one particular segment of history related to one particular part of the world. This reality results in university students studying “U.S. History to 1865” followed by “U.S. History From 1865”, etc. It is frequently the case that a professor who is deemed qualified to teach the former is not so deemed to teach the latter.

Scholarly journals are weighted as to their importance; the more important a journal is the narrower its focus, generally. In most universities, the importance of  the journals in which one publishes are synonymous with the importance of the professor as scholar.

Secondly, there is the professor in the classroom.

Traditional university classrooms are generally laid out physically like those classrooms we remember fondly from high school. Students are put in rows facing the professor. Behaviors are similar as well. Students raise their hands to speak, give the professors their best attempts to look interested, if not raptly attentive, and take notes. I used to train my Intro to Business students (300 in an auditorium) how to look me in the eyes, look down at their papers, and make me believe they were interested. Told them this was an important business skill. They believed me, because Professor Dorris was always correct.

Professors profess and students listen, write papers, and take exams which professors grade. Professors thereby have captive audiences over whom they very considerable power, viz. a viz. their grades.  The presence of captive audiences is addictive to most professors. Professors become accustomed to the complete attention (feigned or not) of a captive audience dependent them for their success or failure.

Professors are trained to be disagreeable, trained to disagree, are used to having captive audiences, and are not experienced with dealing with people who disagree with us.

Wondering why professorial credentials make any candidate viable to become president.

Talking about Racism

Wondering if I am a recovering racist. Or just a recidivist racist looking for redemption? Yeah, I know we live in a world where such questions are seldom raised, especially by an old white man from Kentucky. Old white men these days seem a bit scared, or maybe it’s just me.

In any event, this wondering is about me. I have not, do not, and will not call anyone else a racist. It is not in my power to read the hearts and minds of others. It is not in my morality to pass judgment. And I’ve never been the target for racism so can’t speak from experience.

I do wonder about myself, though, and about the power of talking about racism. Here’s why.

I grew up in a segregated  Kentucky town of about 3000 people. Black folks lived at the outskirts of town, in their own community. My interaction with the folks living in this area was almost non-existent. I knew there was a separate high school, although I never met any of my counterparts from that school until I got to college. I learned later that there was a separate hotel and small business district in this area. I was almost completely ignorant of this as I grew up.

But not quite. I did go with my father and uncle to buy bootleg whiskey from a couple of black families in this business district.

We did not discuss race in my school. I wish we had.

There were two families that lived outside that segregated area, just over Iceplant Hill from me.  Back in the day, my father had worked the mines with the two heads of these black families, Lighting and George. Although my father frequently used the “n word”, he told me that if he ever heard me use it, he’d take his mining belt to me, and if I ever used it in front of Lightening or George, they would whip me first then turn me over to him.

We did not discuss race in my family except in this one context, which was confusing at best.

I left this segregated town to attend an integrated university, where I occasionally ran into black students from my home town whom I had never met before. We did not talk about race.

I joined a fraternity and had three black brothers. We did not talk about race.

In 1964 or so, I attended a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee convention. Dr. Martin Luther King was the keynote speaker. I saw the importance civil rights fights and of ending discrimination on a global scale. But I did not avail myself of opportunities to talk personally, about me and racism. It was a missed opportunity, to say the least.

In1968, I finally began to have discussions about race and racism with other people. After finishing a master’s degree, I took a job teaching high school, and found myself to be the only white teacher in a black high school in Middle Georgia. I made friends with the football coach and the biology teacher, both charismatic black men who took me fishing after school and helped raise my consciousness on a host of subjects. One topic dealt with how I should be very careful in my relationships with my female colleagues; in this charged environment no one should even presume that I was interested romantically, or physically, in these women. There was too much history of white men taking advantage of their power in this way, and folks were extremely sensitive. I appreciated the advice, and kept it.

This was my first experience actually talking to two bright black men about racism and myself. I was a better man and teacher because of the talks. Kept my teeth as well.

Black kids never got very far in school in this part of Georgia. I had seniors who could not write their names. However, I had one very bright student in my speech class, expelled from the integrated school across town for attacking a white teacher, who would enter the classroom with a parody of the old shuck and jive routine,  “Good mawnin Mr. James, how y’all doin this mawnin, boss.” He would sit in the back of the room with a karate book open on his desk, smile at me and practice his chops.

One of his better speeches was to convince the class to burn down the town. I gave him an “A” for content—it was a well-crafted speech—and a “C” for effect—the town was still standing. This was a gamble on my part, but it did open him up a bit. He, and thankfully the class, laughed, and he swore that since I “was one of the good ones”, he’d give me thirty seconds’ notice should the burning actually come to pass.

Yes, he and I were talking about racism, and I became a better person for it.

Toward the middle of the year, I discovered the real reason I was hired to teach in this school. In these days there was a fairly widely-accepted theory that went like this. There is “standard” U. S. speech, equated with the white speech of newscasters and successful white and a few black folks; there is “substandard” speech, spoken by black folks and equated with their lack of success in the U.S. If those black folks learn to speak standard U.S. speech, they will be successful.

So, as the white guy with the master's degree I was hired to help black students speak like Walter Cronkite. Without talking about race, of course.

I shared what I found out with my seniors, as an exercise in critical thinking. Their response was put best by one of my brightest students who said,  “So Mr. Dorris, how come the white governor of this state sounds like me? Isn’t Governor Maddox considered successful? I think success is more about the color of my skin than the way I talk, don’t you?”

Yes, we were talking about race and racism, they and me, and I gained from the talking.

A number of years later, I was vice president of academic affairs in a small liberal arts college. I was hired as a “change agent”. I arrived at the college in January. The previous Spring all the black students had marched off in unison to protest what they saw as institutionalized racism. The college is the second oldest multi-racial, co-educational liberal arts college in the U.S., so this charge by these students was significant.

A young black man had converted to Islam viz. a viz. the Nation of Islam about a year before my arrival on campus. The guy spoke at a chapel event about his experiences the preceding summer working with the Nation. All the students and faculty, mostly white, were present. At some point during the presentation, he began a rant about the “blue-eyed devils” and “ice people.” The audience got very quiet. Afterward, I pulled him aside and told him I liked his presentation, but suggested that he should take more time analyzing his audience and purpose. He agreed, but with a knowing smile.

This began several personal talks about race and racism between him and me and all of the Detroit media--he brought them to campus every Friday. Yes he was that good. I was the beneficiary of our talks.

Years have passed. But as a 68 year old man I remember the “Coloreds Only” signs at restrooms and water fountains. I remember the “Coloreds Only” balconies in theatres. I remember lynchings. I remember preachers  preaching about the “curse of Cain” in reference to black folks (also remember Nation of Islam ministers using the same argument against whites). I remember being told that black people were lesser animals. I remember black men being harassed, and worse, for looking white women in the eyes.  I remember black women being thought of as fair game for white men’s amusement.

But I also remember passionate conversations with young black and white men and women about these things, and about them and me in relation to this past.

Now, in my lifetime, the U.S. has a black president, running for a second term. Yet, on a person-to-person level, I don’t talk about race or racism anymore. And I don’t hear others doing this either. Of course the vicious personal attacks on the man who is our first black president have nothing to do with his race. It’s just that he isn’t an American, he is Kenyan, he is a Socialist/Marxist, and he “is a threat to the U.S.”

Why aren’t the conversations happening? Is that because younger folks have advanced to the point that the topic is not relevant anymore?

Is it because, in my recovering state of racism, I overvalue the importance of such discussions?

Or are they happening but I don’t hear them or engage in them because my original racism has reared its ugly head in my old age?

I do miss the talk, debates, arguments, passion.

And I do wonder.

Lessons from Marriage Applied to Politics?

I’m wondering about marriage and politics, two uniquely U.S. institutions, both deeply flawed but seem destined to be around for awhile. Wondering if thoughts about one—marriage—could help understand the other. With my help, of course.

In a month I will have been married 42 years. To the same woman. So naturally I start to wonder about arguments. We both have advanced degrees in communication. So naturally we don’t argue well. We are both strong individuals who do not like to be controlled. So naturally we don’t fit well together in the yokes called marriage, where two thinking, feeling, individuals are supposed to become one, er, something or other.

I don’t think it is possible, or desirable, for two people “to become one”. That’s why at least half of us who do get married, despite their best efforts wind up involved in serial marriages. The other half, like me, settle for whatever positives of relationships there might be, engage in mass compromises, and/or don’t expect to become part of “the one” but rather opt for a “one plus one equals who knows what” marriage definition. With this half, the compromise level never reaches the point of pain and suffering either, usually.

I don’t think it is possible, or desirable, for multiple people serving in Congress (politicians) “to become one” either. But they do have to live with one another for some period of time. And there is an expectation that they will, while living together, engage in productive behavior, isn’t there? And productive behavior, as in marriage, requires some level of compromise and acknowledgment of the other’s existence, doesn’t it?

I wonder if maybe that lessons can be learned from that flawed institution of marriage?

I’m listening to the vitriol being spewed on the airways today by demagogues disguised as politicians and talk show hosts. Compromise is despised. Wonder if they are married? How many times?

I don’t believe a “happily married man” would call a woman a slut in public and ask to see her sex tapes without seriously apologizing to his spouse, his spouse’s family, the Elks Club, maybe the person called the slut, her family, etc. He would also ask for forgiveness and buy his wife, and her mother, flowers and  a new toy.  Lesson from marriage to talk show politician?

I don’t believe men and women who have been married for awhile seriously expect that compromise is evil and that it is either “my way or the highway”. Those who do find themselves on the highway a lot.  Lesson for evangelical politicians in Congress?

I played a doctor in the academic classroom for 35 years. I played a husband in the marriage classroom for 42 years. Here, using my experiences, and marriage as a herbal remedy, are my  prescriptions for politicians.

1.   Do not expect to change the other person. Ain’t gonna happen. That person will of course change over time, but it ain’t under your control, bubba.

Progressives are not going to make Tea Partiers in their own image; Tea Partiers are not going to make Progressives drink their Koolaid.

2. Do expect to change yourself. You have that power. You have that responsibility—goes with the commitment. Use it wisely. Don’t be afraid of the “flip flop” label; intelligence, rationality and commitment to the positions called spouse or Representative or Senator demand compromise.

3.   Expect to engage in a lot of compromise. Compromise ‘til it hurts, son. Do not begin the relationship by stubbornly saying you ain’t gonna compromise. It’ll make you look bad when you do. And you will.

It is the nature of the beasts, marriage and politics, in the U.S. Love it or leave it.

4.     If you get to a point where you can’t compromise anymore without losing your self, get out of the relationship.  Get divorced.

Yes, resign your position and go back home. You got your pension, you got your PAC’s shoulders to cry on, you got your kids’ college tuitions paid for. Quit with dignity and go find another relationship.

5.   Say you are sorry when you do or say something stupid, and if you don’t mean it, work on your delivery until you sound like you do believe it.

Sorry, radio talk show hosts. I don’t have a prescription for you. Not a fan of hopeless causes.

Why Can’t Universities be Run Like Businesses?

Why can't universities be run like businesses? During the 25 years I spent as a professor of management, this question always intrigued me, and is partly responsible for my having spent the last 10 years in the for-profit side of higher education. 

I found the answer. They can, but that does not mean they will be any more successful.

What does it mean to run something “like a business”? It could mean that university presidents should become robber barons; some in the for-profit and not-for-profits have tried. It could mean that university administrations should practice scientific management, engage in time and motion studies, and reward the “good lads” who meet or exceed work standards. Some have tried.

In 2001, Robert Birnbaum wrote a neat little book, Management Fads in Higher Education, that began with that question, “Why can’t a college be more like a business?” and ends with this profound statement (p. 241) : “Academic management fads are potentially disruptive in the hands of insecure or inexperienced managers who adopt them because they do not know what else to do.” 

Most current for-profit higher education institutions are indeed rife with management fads promulgated by many insecure and inexperienced administrators.

The provost in one of the for-profit universities in which I worked became enamored with a baseball book about Billy Beane. All the deans flew hundreds of miles, spending thousands of dollars in the process, for a series of management training sessions related to this book (the premise of which was fundamentally opposite to the operating structure of the university), which we were required to read, which had nothing to do with our jobs or the business in which we operated, and which was never integrated into the structure of our philosophical or existential lives. 

At this the same time this same provost had the deans and directors voting on an organizational structure. The votes were counted, but the results were ignored, and the structure changed drastically at least three times during my three years in the organization. 

Each change was explained as stemming from a need for more control of the academic administrators.

The operative word that prompted this adventure was “metrics.” The metrics that were deemed most appropriate for academics at this university comprised an alphabet soup of labels; Q rates, R rates, U rates were among the most popular of the soup. The president had an interesting logic in explaining the mission of the academics: “We admit students with an ethical responsibility; we take their money so we are ethically obligated to graduate them.” This was generally followed by, “I don’t want to hear any excuses from the academics.” The Q, R, and U metrics were used to measure how well we were doing with this ethical obligation.

There were several flaws in the soup, however. First, a mountain of research on student retention shows that there is almost a one-to-one correlation between student admissions and student retention; the logic is that if you admit the “right” students (i.e., those who fit the mission and culture of the institution), they will most likely stay. So, if you want strong retention, get everyone, including academics, involved in admissions. For me to say this in public at any of the for-profits in which I worked  invited blank stares at best (why would I know anything about admissions), and derision at worst. I saw a lot of blank stares and experienced much derision.

Admissions is key to the success of any academic organization; if you don’t attract students, you don’t succeed. Admissions offices/processes/compensation are governed by law and watched carefully, especially in for-profits, the result of several documented bad practices over the years. This has resulted in creative approaches to get around the law. One of the for-profits sponsored lavish cruises each year for “invited” admissions representatives. Of course these invitations had nothing to do with the performances of the invitees. And of course, the cruises involved “training” exercises. The fact that folks who did well with admissions got to go on cruises and hobnob with top company executives was a part of the company’s belief in training and development. 

No equivalent “training” was offered to non-admissions professionals.

The second flaw is that the most significant aspects of the alphabet soup do not relate to admissions.this university. The universities in which I worked had “open enrollment”  policies, which boiled down to the fact that if you had the tuition money you got in.  Names of potential students were bought from groups called lead aggregators, and colleges paid per name based on the quality of the leads—the cheaper the lead, the lower quality. If one of the metrics employed by the college relates to the lowering of the “cost of acquisition” of students, one does not need to have an M.B.A. to understand the “best practices” of that open enrollment institution.

The third flaw is obvious. If the quality check on admitted students is not operational, it is probable that there will be students admitted who do not have the academic wherewithal to succeed in the institution. This is the ethics flaw in the president’s message. If universities let people into the university who can not succeed, and then not provide them the tools for success, they will fail. In my experience, it was then left to faculty members and academic advisers (in the for-profits these were overworked young folks who were frequently caught in middle between professors and students) to bear the brunt of the obligation for, and work in, retaining these students, without having the proper tools to do so.

This is where the alphabet soup metrics kicked in. “Drop rates”, “Unsatisfactory Grade”, “Retention” rates were measured weekly and deans got reports. If there were too many students failing, deans got subtle messages; I was never explicitly told make sure students passed, but the implicit messages could not have been clearer, if disguised in ethics rhetoric. If there were too many students dropping out, deans got clear messages, weekly.

I was on a phone call with deans of on-ground colleges owned by this major corporation, hosted by the corporate vice president for faculty, dealing with drop rates and retention. “Everyone knows learning is a drag,” she said, “So get those students out of class frequently and feed them ice cream and pizza. We should learn from my experience at this large department store, where I went I last week to buy a pair of shoes and came out with their having sold me $1000 worth of other things. Feed them and get them enrolled in more courses.” This approach is perfectly consistent with buying cheap leads and letting everyone in the door, and reflects a remarkably condescending attitude about learning, higher education, and human beings. 

It was an attitude that pervaded the culture of  “the management” in this institution.

Academic deans, faculty members and advisers were held accountable for retention. They were not privy to lavish cruises, however, training or no training. They were not privy to praise. They were privy to metrics reports. I asked the president what the motivation was for these folks, given this reality. I was told “You get to keep your job.”

Metrics seems to be a Twenty-First Century business word, like “buckets” and “at the end of the day.” I’ll use it in a sentence: “The metrics for your college indicate a downward trend in student retention, which, at the end of the day, shows some significant problems; we need to re-examine each of your buckets, using these metrics, to determine the scope and significance of this significant problem.”

At one of the for-profits I worked for, “drop rates” were viewed as significant metrics. No one knew why, exactly, but we measured them weekly. At the end of the day, we knew no more about the effectiveness and efficiency of the college. We did know that we were delivering 30 percent margins. We did know that was not good enough. I knew it was not good enough because top management had made promises to the parent company, not based on any metric other then greed and hubris, that they could not keep. The management theory then deployed was to intimidate and demand performances, using undefined metrics, examining non-existing buckets, which would, at the end of the day, result in their being able to keep their promises, and therefore their bonuses.

Rakesh Khurana’s book, From Higher Aims to Hired Hands (2007) makes elegant points about what he sees as the denigration of the academic profession of management. His basic case is that business schools have shifted their attention to the training of students to use “financial engineering tools, like leverage and stock options, to align corporate actions with the goal of maximizing shareholder value.” (p. 364). These business schools graduated the management teams that ran the for-profits I worked for; one prided itself on the number of MBAs from big-league schools comprising their corporate leadership.

Jerome Groopman, in his book, How Doctors Think (2007), makes the point that in recent years “medical students and residents are being taught to follow preset algorithms and practice guidelines in the form of decision trees. . .  Similarly a movement is afoot to base all treatment decisions on statistically proven data. This so-called evidence-based medicine is rapidly become the canon in many hospitals.” (p. 5)

These two books document the widespread acceptance of this newest fad, not only in higher education management, but also in at least two professions.

           

The metrics fad in higher education causes problems. Groopman talks about doctors taught the algorithms approach, looking at the decision trees rather than listening to the patient. There is nothing wrong with decision trees; they just don’t tell the whole story, and one does not begin with the trees and fit patients into them, but uses the trees as tools in diagnosis. The metaphor is most apt for higher education.

The business that is higher education is at its core a very easy one to understand. In order to  “run the college like a business”, one first needs to understand the nature of the business. The business of higher education is straightforward on its face if a bit more complicated when one digs. It is the business of higher education, says me: to provide students the opportunity to grow and develop intellectually, professionally, and socially; to challenge what is currently assumed to be known; to promote the development of “new” knowledge; and to promote the intellectual and social growth and development of societies.

In order to accomplish these goals, the higher education institution needs to  maintain fiscal solvency, defined slightly differently in for-profit than not-for-profit institutions. In not-for-profits, fiscal solvency means generating the means to sustain itself, living within its budgets, and securing funds to ensure its solvency over time. The danger is in not paying attention to budgets but in assuming lofty ideals without attending to the checkbook and savings account.

For-profit institutions have these responsibilities, plus there is the additional demand to deliver a reasonable (defined by the market) profit to its shareholders. The danger is in assuming their only reason for existence is to provide ever increasing profits to shareholders, thus confusing means and ends.

For both, students provide a fundamental means for accomplishing the ends, and the mechanism for ensuring fiscal solvency. Students are the core of the business, without which the industry and businesses within it cease to exist.

Higher education is an industry. Universities should be run like businesses. This means they should have missions, develop strategies to accomplish missions, and develop and grow resources (people, financial, process) to implement the strategies. They should  monitor (maybe even use appropriate metrics) the accomplishment of strategies, and change to meet new challenges.

In this industry, however, we should not begin with the supposition that “learning is a drag.”