In April, Warren Rosenberg gave his final Chapel talk before retirement. In his remarks, Warren spoke about his experiences as a faculty member at Wabash, and ended with his recommendations for how we can continue to strengthen our support for excellent teaching at Wabash:
I want to thank Daniel Bowes and the Sphinx club for allowing me to take this final chapel talk spot of the year. I would have said thanks for inviting me, as I’ve done in my past three talks, when I was actually invited and, reluctantly agreed, reluctantly because, frankly, chapel talks are scary time drains. Scary for me and I know for others because look at this place. It’s big and feels like a church or synagogue, evoking one of the scariest days of my life, my bar mitzvah. (At least I don’t have to sing this one in Hebrew, a lucky break for you.) And a time drain because once you are slated to do it, you tend to think about it a lot, almost obsessively, because it feels like it matters. And it does for us, in this place. It’s one of the Wabash traditions that I was very glad to see return during my time here, and I thank the students for reviving it.
Yes, I invited myself to give this chapel talk because I wanted, in some public way, to say goodbye to Wabash after teaching here for the past 36 years. How to do that in a reasonable amount of time, to sum up almost four decades—when folks are beginning to get hungry, when they are thinking about other things, like the awards chapel here tonight, or finals next week, or graduation and summer—this is my challenge. And please raise your hands if you are graduating on May 15th—or hoping to? I will try to speak pretty directly to you, as in a sense I feel like I am finally graduating as well—that would be after 40 years at a liberal arts college—four at my alma mater, Brooklyn College, and 36 here at Wabash.
Consequently, I’ve decided on the appropriate genre for this talk—a commencement address, with a Last Will and Testament chaser. Given the venue, there will also be a touch of sermon—sorry about that. How some one retiring can be giving a commencement address may seem odd to you, but one of my aims today, as my title suggests, is to make a link between retiring and graduating. I also haven’t given a commencement address since the last time I graduated top of my class, or the only time, and that was in 6th grade. I can’t remember exactly what I said back in 1959 or 60, and I think my dad actually wrote most of my valedictory address, but it was down hill from there in terms of class rank.
So this is my chance. After 40 years I feel almost ready now to deliver an address that can approach Bill Placher’s from 1970, the same year I was graduating my alma mater, Brooklyn, a speech that has been hanging over the heads of generations of Wabash commencement speakers. But as you have probably heard countless times from this podium in your time at Wabash, that was Bill Placher. At 21 he somehow managed to have the wisdom of somebody, let’s say, 67. Some of us are slower learners. Luckily I had Bill as a colleague for almost 30 years, and learned a thing or two from him, about teaching, and about life.
As you can already tell, I will be mentioning names during this talk. Some, most of you will know—they may be sitting here, some only a few of you old timers will know, some maybe none of you will know—But I am mentioning names because this career, in addition to being about books, has been about people, close, meaningful engagement with people. If I don’t mention your name this morning, please don’t think I don’t care about you, or that you did not mean anything to me in my time here. I can’t tell you how often I’ve sat in this chapel waiting for the speaker to mention my name. What this proves is of course that Prof Bobby Horton is right, we are all narcissists, or on the spectrum! Which is why of all people I had to mention him second. (We are, of course, in part, what we study.) I know Bobby will accept that Bill had to get in there first. (And if he can’t, the counseling center is right down stairs.)
Let me begin by acknowledging some who are in attendance today, so that they aren’t sitting here being nervous about whether they will be mentioned or not, and because, frankly, they are the people I do love and who have meant the most to me. My sister-in-law and brother in law, Sylvine Marabotto and Bob Allister drove here from New Jersey for this event. They have been more than relatives by marriage, they have been close friends and confidants. I look forward to them soon becoming my neighbors as they are also here in Crawfordsville looking for a retirement home. Please welcome them. I also want to acknowledge my daughter Jessica, who flew in from the other coast, where she lives and works each day at one of the toughest but most important jobs one could have—teaching middle schoolers in a Jewish day school. A proud Oberlin grad (pause for Karen and Bronwen, and Matt), Jess and I are intense sports buds, especially sharing our love for the Purdue women’s basketball team and the Indiana Fever, and of course, for the Mets—although she has gotten a little too fond of the Oakland A’s being out in the Bay area. With the exception of her mother, who I will mention next, Jess is the person in the world whose opinions I seek out and respect the most. My spouse
Julia is probably the main reason why I am choosing to “graduate” now. She’s been out in the world, after serving at Wabash as Director of Academic Support Services for over thirty years, and I want to join her. We love to travel, to take walks on the Sugar creek trail, to binge watch our favorite Netflix shows, and to sit side-by-side reading. I can’t wait. Finally, I want to acknowledge some family who could not be here—my other brother in law, Alan, and my mom, Kitty, who is more responsible, of course, for my being here—literally—but also here, as an English professor, as she introduced me to literature, by reading to me, and made me a lover of stories, as she is the best natural storyteller I know. Finally, I wish my kid sister Robin could be here. She planned to be, but she is undergoing treatments for a recently diagnosed illness, and fighting some terrible side effects. To the person who typed out my dissertation, and I do mean typed, I dedicate this talk. Get well Robin!
Back to the commencement address. Classmates, what have I learned over the past 40 years of college that I can share with you as we strike out, together, into the real world in these difficult times? I want to share some hopefully useful insights that will help explain why it has taken me so long to graduate—meaning why I have not really wanted to leave a college environment—and why I think I am finally ready to leave, why I actually want to, although I must admit it has been a struggle this year for me to make this transition. I know that you students about to graduate are experiencing the same feelings now that I am, the excitement of moving on to a new phase of our lives, but also feeling fear about leaving an environment that has become, finally, comfortable, knowable, supportive, communal, intellectually stimulating, and emotionally fulfilling. Our identities as students, as learners have been who we are. Who will we be now?
I read a Bachelor opinion piece last month by senior Brent Tomb that said pretty much the same thing. Brent wrote about his impending graduation saying, “The real world is rough. A place where not everyone will be looking out for your best interests. And, as a man, that scares me. I am leaving behind people that have changed my life, a best friend that I don’t know what I will do without seeing every day, and a place that still is able to take my breath away when I am sitting on the Chapel steps at night.” Brent eloquently expressed my feelings exactly—especially when he talks about being “scared.”
So the major insight I want to share has to do with fear, and how to engage it—notice I didn’t say how to “overcome” it, or ignore it. Back in the fall, I woke up one morning pretty much overcome by fear. It was visceral, in my body. Thoughts then began to form. “What was I doing retiring? I have this secure job that I love. I can still function; I can more than function. I’m actually pretty good at teaching college.” But I had turned in my official retirement letter the week before! The dye was cast I realized the fear was all about change, and so is real learning. To learn something new and worth learning means to move out of a safe space, to become, in a deep sense, transformed. As it has been for you, college, Wabash in particular, has been my safe space—especially after I earned tenure twenty years ago.
Why would a teacher who has dedicated his career to helping students learn, urging them to change through learning, not embrace change myself? Confronting retirement has forced me to face the reality of my own fear of change. I now want to walk my way through this fear by using the tools of my trade—art–specifically books and films, and personal narrative—to help us both make this transition if not easier, more understandable—because isn’t gaining understanding what we are, ultimately, all here for?
It should be a surprise to no one who knows my 19th century American lit specialty that I need to start with Melville and Moby Dick, which I taught for the last time this semester to a class of 20 eager and engaged students. Ishmael, the novel’s narrator, called a whale ship his Yale and Harvard college, but he began to grow and change even before he came aboard the Pequod. He overcame incredible fear, as you no doubt recall, when he is forced to share a bed in an inn with Queequeg, a gigantic, tattooed south seas islander who had been peddling shrunken heads around New Bedford. After screaming for the landlord when confronted by this dark native in his bedroom, Ishmael reluctantly spends the night sharing a bed with him and by the next morning they become bosom friends, kicking back, sharing a smoke and exchanging pleasantries. That friendship lasts throughout the novel and would ultimately be responsible for saving Ishmael’s life in the tragic denouement. (Sorry, spoiler alert.)
Usually we don’t change in one night, as Ishmael did, and the label I gave myself in the title of my talk, “Brooklyn Hoosier,” is evidence of a more gradual, yet still scary change in myself that I did not fully recognize until deep into my time at Wabash.
Moving from New York City, my hometown of 30 years, in 1980 to Crawfordsville, Indiana and to a college I had never heard of was a major and frightening leap. I had the New Yorker’s awareness of the Midwest—a vision of Cary Grant running through a corn field in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, and a year at Ann Arbor, which I realized later was about as Midwestern as calling a bottle of “pop” a soda. Where were the crowds, the smell of bus exhaust, the diversity, the excitement, (and danger), the liberal democrats? The moment that I realized that I had changed came in a bowling ally, Crawfordsville Lanes, a number of years ago. I was part of the faculty/staff intramural bowling team—do we still have one?—and I had the split second decision to make as to what name I would enter on the scoring sheet. “Brooklyn Hoosier” popped into my mind and I dutifully wrote it down, not giving it much thought because let’s face it, I had several games to bowl and I didn’t want to embarrass myself or my Wabash staff teammates in front of our student competitors—especially the Lambda Chi’s–who were the dominant team at the time. I believe we did go on to win, however, due mostly to the dazzling rolls of Chicago Tiger Doug Calisch and New Orleans Vinegar Bend Stephen Morillo.
My calling myself “Brooklyn Hoosier” meant that on some deep subconscious level I was clearly no longer the person, the New Yorker, I had been when I arrived at Wabash. My fear of this once new and unfamiliar place had given way to a semi-comfortable sense of belonging. Note I was still a hybrid Hoosier, but not the person I had been. That change was, ultimately, I believe, a good thing. When about fifteen years ago I applied for a Fulbright lectureship in Belgium, I argued in my application letter that after living and teaching in the Midwest I had become a better representative of America abroad. I did not just know New York City well, but I had learned, in a deep and meaningful way, about a different part of the country, and could confidently and authentically share that fuller knowledge of what it meant to be an American. My time at Wabash, and living in Indiana, had actually made me a different and less narrow person.
How did this happen? How do we learn and change, and overcome our fears, without even being fully conscious of that change? First, it takes time. People do not just learn and change overnight, as I mentioned. Four years is a good start, but as you can see from my example, it can, and will very likely, take the rest of your lives. Second, meaningful learning takes intense, and I believe, face-to-face interactions with others who both care about you but also challenge you.
Over the years I have found Wabash an equally supportive as well as a demanding place to work, and a consistently engaging intellectual and emotional environment in which to learn and grow. I will say more about my students over the years in a moment, but first I want to talk about my colleagues. Without a doubt in my years at Wabash my major support has come from my department colleagues—past and present. (You should all be so lucky classmates in your future co-workers. Seek them out. Engage with them. Let them push you to be better.) Former department head, division head, and dean Don Herring taught me how to be a department chair—he was really one of the great ones—and also how to defend American literature, which he considered a not yet entirely worthy addition to the canon of English literature. For him Melville could not hold a candle to Dickens—and he rarely let me forget it. Bert Stern, Don Baker, Tom Campbell, Tobey Herzog, and Marc Hudson were my colleagues for many years, Tom, Tobey and Marc for almost 30 years. To use former President Pat White’s label for Wabash students, we were a “band of brothers,” and even taking into account the occasional conflicts brothers will have, we worked amazingly well together in an atmosphere of caring and mutual respect.
That, luckily, did not change, even as the band broke up over time, and the department changed in the process. Joy Castro came in the late 90’s, and was eventually the first woman to chair our department. Remember, in the majority of my time at Wabash, faculty members named “David” outnumbered all female faculty combined. A person like Joy—and I wish subsequent generations of students could have known her, but she moved on after 10 years at Wabash to a professorship at the University of Nebraska—was a brilliant, creative, and no-nonsense young woman. I urge you to listen to her last chapel talk, which I believe is still on youtube, if you want to get a sense of her unmatched mastery of language and her passionate commitment to human rights and the values inherent in the liberal arts.
Over time our department has diversified and, in my mind, improved as a result, with the arrival of Tim Lake, Agata Szcezak-Brewer, and Eric Freeze— gifted scholars, teachers, creative writers, ultimate Frisbee players—and terrific colleagues. The future of the department seems bright indeed with them and with Crystal Benedicks and Jill Lamberton continuing (our Amy Poeler and Tina Fey, but I don’t know which is which.) They both are masterful, exciting teachers and serious, committed scholars of writing and literature. I would take a class with either of them in a minute, and wish I had. And, finally, I have been so lucky in my last year to be colleagues with Nate Marshall, who has taught me so much about poetry, the south-side of Chicago, and being a “woke” man—even at 67.
Other faculty and staff who have helped to create an atmosphere that helped move me through my fear to real learning, would include some of the following—and remember, the list is not exclusive but representative. I could name so many others:
Peter and Brenda Bankart, who both counseled and taught several generations of students, taught me how to teach about gender and sexual orientation, with commitment and courage, at a time that it was far less acceptable here. Cheryl Hughes, my model for committed reflection, is a woman I see as a conscience of the college. I will never forget her moving introduction to my Lafollette lecture in 2002. Bob Royalty has my never-ending gratitude for making me his second a few years ago on an immersion trip to Israel, a challenging and life-changing experience for me and for his students. All of my colleagues have helped me become a better teacher, but I want to single out Deborah Butler, Michele Pittard and Peter Frederick, each a consummate professional, and thank them for hours and hours of pedagogical gab. Finally, Horace Turner, long time MXI director, cared more about helping Wabash students succeed than pretty much anyone ever employed here. I got this message also during my on-campus interview in 1980, when Horace came to my room at the somewhat seedy Lew Wallace Motel to inquire about how serious I was about teaching African American literature. It was fairly late in the evening, I was already in my pajamas, but that didn’t stop Horace. Very little did. These people clearly cared about their students, shared my passion for teaching, and pushed me to do my best.
I want to transition from talking about colleagues to the centrality of students in my life at Wabash—the major reason I am torn about “graduating—because they above all challenged and supported me every day. Without a doubt, it is the classroom interchange that I have lived for, and still do. Where did this desire for face-to-face discussion come from? I realized that my father, Abe, a high school drop out, who worked long days at a variety of blue collar jobs, would spend hours just talking with me in the evenings or on weekends as I was growing up, on a range of topics. He would have really interesting takes on many issues, but he would always listen to my views with seemingly rapt attention and genuine interest. These discussions helped shape me, they made me excited about learning and made me feel important. He took me seriously, and that is what I try to project to my students,
hundreds and hundreds of them across my career. I can only name a representative few in any detail, and have, in fact, selected just three, but I hope you will get the idea.
Appropriately, moving from colleagues to students is my colleague Michael Abbott, who, apparently, also has had trouble actually graduating from Wabash, as he is still here. Whether Wabash is unique in this or not, how often do professors get a chance to be one of the best men at our students’ weddings? I had that honor (sharing it with Jim Fisher) when Michael married Prof. Jenn Young (who by the way has read several drafts of this talk and helped me cut it down from its original two hour length), but our relationship started when he took my American literature course in the fall of 1984. I know he is now rolling his eyes at the 400th retelling of this, but I want it on record that he resisted me in class, and I loved it—it was so un-Midwestern, the way he questioned my choices of texts, a student from Frankfort, Indiana of all places. That push-back changed me; it made me a better teacher for having to explain what I was teaching and why. (I hope he is getting similarly pushed by his current Wabash students. If not, get on it.) Michael and I play golf, talk about Woody Allen, and this semester he chairs a committee I am on. Relationships like this–beginning in the cauldron of classroom engagement and conflict—can clearly last a life-time at a place like Wabash.
My second representative student example, Greg Castanias, majored in English in the mid-eighties, and many know him now as a very active alum and former head of Wabash’s national alumni organization. He is also a prominent attorney in Washington, D.C. I think it was in 1987, Greg asked to do an independent study with me in feminist criticism, and I agreed. We met several times a week in the Scarlet Inn, and we wrestled with the writings of Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler, bell hooks, and discussed concepts like the male gaze and essentialism. It was extremely intense and exciting experience, I believe, for both of us. I would prepare as much as I would for a full class, as I knew the kind of mind Greg had and wanted to be ready for any questions he might raise. A few years ago, while driving, I heard an NPR story on a case that was being argued before the Supreme Court. The reporter said something like, “and then Justice Scalia began to vigorously question Greg Castanias, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case.” Over the next few minutes she reported the give and take between Scalia and Castanias, but I just sat there grinning like an idiot. I had had a hand in preparing him for that moment. I of course can’t take full responsibility—but I know I had a hand in helping him learn to read more closely, in honing his argumentative skills, and in feeding his already growing appetite for justice—in the Scarlet twenty years before. We challenged each other, and clearly both grew from the experience.
My final representative student is Greg Huey. As a freshman from Southside Chicago, Greg took my men and masculinity freshman tutorial in the fall of 2008. He was, and still is, 6’5 or 6’6, a champion cheer leader, and was extremely shy in class—especially compared with his classmate Reggie Steele. With his close ties to his single-mom household in Chicago, I thought Wabash would lose him. But he stayed, worked hard, and graduated. In his senior year he was my research assistant, interviewing former tutorial students with confidence and skill. He has stayed in the area as a case-worker for Wabash valley mental heath ? , and coaches cheerleading in local schools. He has also found his inner female as award winning Drag Queen—Mahogany Charlotte. Talk about my fear, and need to change? I had never been to a drag show until Greg invited me last year, and I was pretty nervous, but I had fun, and I am so proud of the person he has become. I consider Greg a friend, and I thank him for helping me grow and change.
This is and will be the hardest thing to give up in retirement, not forming new relationships with students. It happened again this year. My last freshman tutorial group was amazing—I felt connected to each of them. And this semester, teaching my final classes, I have a great group in multicultural American literature, and twenty guys taking my Three novels and a film course, highlighting texts I’ve loved to teach and that reflect who I’ve been as a teacher and scholar. I could go on doing this forever.
But that would be the safe thing, and might prevent me from continuing to learn, so I will be moving on, and that’s ok. I’ve always secretly envied and respected those people who can try different things, different jobs and interests. They had the courage to do that. (Emerson in Self-Reliance does too.) Now I am joining them, and you, as you move on. But I have an even deeper motive. My dad, who worked all of his life—in jobs not as fulfilling as mine—retired at 65. Soon after he was diagnosed with cancer—and he died 14 months later in 1986, at the exact same age I am now. He did not have the time to enjoy his retirement, to spend time with my mom, to see his grandchild grow up, and that makes me tremendously sad, now, even 30 years later. I DO want to enjoy myself, for as long as I can. As much as I love my job—it is a job—and I don’t want to die in the middle of grading one more stack of papers. I especially don’t want to die in the middle of a faculty meeting.
So, farewell Wabash. And as a kind of parting gift, I want to make my last will and testament to you in the form of ideas. After 36 years on the faculty, I’ve noticed some things and have a few suggestions for continuing and enhancing the very powerful educational experience the college has traditionally provided. As you have heard, I believe that the basis for Wabash’s educational success—indeed, the basis for my growth these past 36 years– is our close engagement with each other—students with students, students with faculty, faculty with faculty, faculty with staff, staff with students. My suggestions are all aimed at maximizing that engagement.
Let me begin with ideas that can be actualized without funding, and move to larger ticket items. Of course, you can and will take these ideas or leave them. I just want to get them expressed. Let me start with the students.
I mentioned how much I’ve appreciated Chapel being re-introduced by the Sphinx club a number of years ago. I have felt, though, and I think the Sphinx club would agree, that coming up with speakers each week can be a challenge. And doing anything weekly can become habitual and taken for granted. I want to propose bringing back another institution that was popular in my early years here. It was called “It Seems to Me That,” and I believe it was the brain-child of long-time political science professor and class of 1962 (?) graduate Phil Mikesell. The idea was that anyone in the community could come up with a provocative topic, make a statement about it, and defend it in an open forum. We would have these during chapel period, in a room like Center 216 or Baxter 114, or I suppose now we could use Hays 319, and I remember them as exciting events that increased campus unity and helped us practice civil discourse. Signs would go up early in the week with statements like “It seems to me that Wabash should do away with the lab science requirement,” or “it’s time for a woman president,” or “chapel sing should be abolished,” or “Transgender students should be admitted to Wabash” (actually, back then, this wasn’t a topic… but you get the idea.) The speaker has ten minutes to make a case, and then the floor is open for discussion and, as often happened, debate. You could alternate traditional chapel with these events.
A second idea, directed at students, also seeks to increase the quality of our interactions with others on campus. We have had a rough year at Wabash in terms of tragedies, and while each was different and had complex causes, I think one contributing factor was the inability of people, often men, to communicate their individual fears and pain. As my men and masculinity tutorials have studied through the years, there is something called the Mask of Masculinity that we put on to protect our emotional selves from being threatened or hurt. (Men, of course, aren’t the only ones to put this mask on.) Like almost everything in human life, putting on the mask is a learned behavior, and I think we can also unlearn them. I want to thank Howard Hewitt, and Profs Olofson, Benedicks, Pittard, Taylor, and a few weeks ago, Hoerl for giving chapel talks that modeled for us how to get behind our masks to show each other who we really are. They were willing to be vulnerable, in telling their personal stories, and that, to me, is the key to learning how to strike through the mask.
Based on this, I have a suggestion for students, but of course it is applicable to everyone. You may know that the Malcolm X Institute periodically has sessions they call Brother-to Brother, which I believe was started by coach Clyde Morgan. Students, and invited guests, sit in a circle and draw questions out of a box that students had put in anonymously. While sometimes the questions can be funny or on light subjects, often they are not, and what follows is an open discussion about some difficult emotional and social issues. I’m sure similar conversations go on in fraternities and dorms, maybe in a less formal way. What I am suggesting is broadening some form of “Brother to Brother” to the entire campus. Groups of five or six students forming across living unit and academic year and interest to meet regularly for a set amount of time to engage in open discussion.
I have an earlier model for this, and I am suggesting it because I believe it changed my life in numerous positive ways. In the mid-eighties an ad-hoc group of male faculty got together each Saturday or Sunday morning for several hours for completely open conversation. The “group” as we called it, consisted of Bert Stern, Peter Frederick, John Swan (an associate librarian, and utterly brilliant human being), Jim Fisher, a theater prof who taught at Wabash for twenty years, and Doug Calisch. After breakfast at Hardi’s over which we shared college business and gossip we moved to a lounge in the college, or someone’s den, and spent the next few hours talking about issues in our lives—our marriages, our kids, our careers, our angers, and ultimately, our fears. There was nothing off limits, and the feeling of relief I know I felt after each weekly session made me more ready to face the following week’s challenges both at work and at home. Seeing the vulnerabilities of my male friends made it easier for me to express my own, without shame.
Now some of you may be thinking this sounds like the support groups that are made fun of in the film Fight Club, a vestige of the feminist and men’s movement of the 70’s. Well, you would be right. And my students know how I feel about Fight Club, perhaps the most dangerous and troubling film made in the last 20 years. Despite the paper current senior Derek Andre wrote as a freshman for my masculinity in lit and film course, in which he argued that Fight Club was in essence anti-violence—good try Derek—better luck at Harvard law—the film quite clearly says that the only way men can feel close is by punching each other in the face, hard and repeatedly. I just will not accept that, first, because I don’t enjoy pain, and, second, because I know from experience that it is a lie. There are other ways. And I think it takes more courage to open up and be honest with another man than it does to take a swing or take a punch.
These kinds of discussions can happen in the classroom and out, so however you might decide this can be done, see if you can start some anti-fight club small groups. Instead of “Project Mayhem” you might call it “Project Mantalk.” I don’t like the sound of that either, but you get the idea. You make up the name.
Shifting to faculty and starting with the no-cost suggestions. And after working for the past few years as coordinator of faculty development, I want to urge my colleagues to spend even more time walking into colleagues’ offices. (Maybe not keeping our doors only open a crack might help?) Teaching can be an isolating job. We need to interact with our peers, and not just at formal meetings. I have been lucky that colleagues need to walk by my office to get to the men’s bathroom on the second floor of Center Hall. Maybe if it weren’t for that geographical fact and biological necessity David Blix would not periodically wander in—on his way back—to chat for ten minutes. I think David would agree, we have really good talks. Of course I want to be careful with other people’s time, and they with mine, but I think we tend to be too careful. I know this is partly my personality, and maybe my heritage. We New York Jews love to Shmooze, (as apparently do some Ladoga Protestants, and even Quakers from Vermont) but I think we do all benefit from informal talks about our work and lives.
Now to the suggestions that will cost money. I know the college is experiencing difficult financial times. But financial fears should not keep us from keeping our eye on what we need to do to continue our mission of excellent teaching and learning. The college has invested a great deal of money in new facilities, and these are needed and wonderful. I love those new dorms! But it is the people using these facilities we need to be investing more in, and it is to help those people that I make these suggestions. I am directing them to alums who might hear this, to members of our board of Trustees, to Michelle Jannsen in Advancement, to President Greg Hess, to Dean Scott Feller, and to you students—who will be future alums, presumably donating to the college.
First, I believe the faculty teaching load should be reduced from 3-3 to 3-2 per year. Teaching three courses a semester—along with all of the other expectations placed on faculty at Wabash—does not lead to the best possible learning outcomes for our students. During the past four years, due to administrative responsibilities, I have been teaching a 2-2 load. I have found myself with more time and energy, even with the added responsibilities, to focus even more on my teaching, and, more importantly, on the needs of individual students. After teaching 3-3 for thirty years, I was amazed at how much more thinking I could do, how much more time I could spend planning and grading, how much improved my interactions were with students, by the reduction of one class. This is, ultimately, what students are paying for when they come here—our full attention—and reducing the course load, even by one course per year, would help us do that.
We need to Institute a pre-tenure leave policy. There is enormous pressure on new faculty at the college to become effective teachers. There is also pressure on them to be productive in their scholarly and creative work. These same faculty members often have young families. The first four to five years at the college can often feel overwhelming, forcing colleagues to sacrifice portions of their lives that just should not be sacrificed. I was extremely fortunate during my third year at the college to have a paid semester leave to do research and teach a course in Chicago, due to an external grant. I know that leave helped me earn tenure and, even more importantly, helped me find balance in my life at a very stressful time.
We should Expand the McClain-McTurnan-Arnold research grants from one to three, one for each division of the college. Now all faculty compete for one paid semester of leave funded by this generous gift to the college. However, what that leads to is an apples and oranges comparison of applicants. A chemist is competing with a creative writer who is competing with an economist. This is unfair and very challenging for the selection committee. How can one winner be legitimately chosen? Since these awards are often used by faculty to supplement sabbatical leaves, increasing their number would allow more colleagues to afford full-year sabbaticals, which will lead to a more productive and rejuvenated faculty.
We should Establish an endowment to support a Teaching and Learning Center devoted to faculty development, perhaps calling it the Peter Frederick T&L Center, after one of the national leaders in the field, who also taught at Wabash for over 30 years. Essentially, most college teachers receive little or no training in how to teach. I have very much enjoyed working with colleagues on improving our pedagogy, but my time has been paid for by “soft” money. We need to a have permanent funded position so that the most important activity, the reason for this places’ existence—excellent teaching—is supported.
I’ve been focusing on teaching faculty, but we all know that Wabash students learn from our entire staff. I see this learning going on when student Wise workers interact with our administrative assistant Violet Mayberry—they are learning and she is teaching and learning. I’ve talked about faculty having more time to think, refresh, and refocus. We need to consider ways staff can do this as well. I know work schedules are less flexible, but some form of staff sabbatical could be instituted, and other enrichment activities that could guarantee that we continue to more effectively teach the whole student.
Finally, I want to address the Board of Trustees. These dedicated alums have done an amazing job of guiding the college during my almost four decades here, and I’m not just saying this because Trustee and my former student Bill Wheeler has gotten me great Mets tickets over the years. The current chair of the board, Steve Bowen, is one of the wisest, most engaged alums I know, a true life-long learner. So I am suggesting something that I know he and the board have no doubt considered themselves, and that is to do more to diversify the board. Those who know me and my teaching and research know that I believe that diversity is a good in itself. The more varied viewpoints and life perspectives we encounter, the more we are pushed to see more broadly, resulting in an enlarged understanding of the world and better judgments and decisions. I see this operating in my classroom every day. So I would suggest including at least two women on the board (Melissa Butler has of course been mentioned, but in the future people like Cheryl Hughes, Kay Widdows, Jenn Abbott and Amanda Ingram would certainly expand the boards’ thinking), increasing the numbers of underrepresented groups—we have some brilliant and accomplished Latino alums, and saving one or two slots for distinguished non-Wabash graduates.
So those are my suggestions for now, although since I am not really going anywhere in the near future, I’ll certainly have others to share in the locker room, the Scarlet Inn, and in the 1832 Brew—whether you want to hear them or not. This was really, I hope, just a first draft of my last will and testament.
Fellow graduates, as a literature professor, I feel obligated to leave you with a text recommendation that you can use to help you in this process of continued growth and change. I know the text I am thinking of has helped me. I will pause briefly for you all to try to guess what work I will conclude with. Have you guessed? Call out your ideas?
Is it Moby Dick? (a bit obvious, but always a good bet.) A Shakespearean play? Hamlet, perhaps? An Emerson essay, or a Whitman poem? How about the wisdom of Toni Morrison—“Song of Solomon” perhaps. All good guesses. Wait, Rosenberg likes films, maybe it’s the Godfather—he can’t get enough of that, or even The Big Lebowski—he’s going to remind us that the Dude Abides, and that we should too. Well, now you’re getting warmer. It is a film, Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray.
Those of you who know the film can figure this out, but how many out there do not? Well, very briefly, Murray plays an arrogant, insufferable TV weatherman who is covering groundhog day in Pauxatawny, Pa for the 4th year in a row and he is disgusted by the prospect, as he has much larger aspirations for his career. He likes no one, and no one likes him, including his attractive producer played by Andie MacDowell. After covering the story on Feb. 2, Phil, the protagonist, returns to his bed and breakfast for the night. When he wakes up the next morning the alarm clock goes off at the same time playing Sonny and Cher’s “I’ve got you babe,” and after a while Phil realizes that is is still Feb 2. That the day is repeating. Phil at first thinks he is insane, but eventually realizes that everyone else is repeating exactly what they did on the previous day, but only he has the power to change. But when he does change, their behaviors also change. This repeated day goes on, and on for the duration of the film, but over time Phil slowly begins to change, and by the end of the film, and countless repetitions of the day, clearly lasting many years, he is a totally transformed individual and, spoiler alert, he not only becomes an accomplished pianist, learns French, and saves some lives, he gets the girl. They even decide to settle down in the small town, although they will only rent at first. As perhaps you can now see, in so many ways, this film mirrors my life teaching at Wabash in small town Crawfordsville. In my first few years here, like Phil, the alarm clock would go off, and I would be facing the same job (although as I’ve said, an enjoyable one) in the same small town, and be the same person making the same mistakes.
I see now this could apply even more strongly to retiring in Crawfordsville. But what Phil ultimately learns, after years, is that changing ourselves, despite our resistance and fears, can be a good thing, and we can do it by observing and listening to, and meaningfully engaging with others.
For teachers it provides the lesson that each day is fresh, and if we pay attention to our students, really listen to them, we can make the small changes the next day that will help them learn a bit better. And then do it again the next day. Phil ultimately gets the girl because he learns about her by listening to her; and he learns about himself, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and changes himself over time. The film, then, is the perfect parable for a liberal arts education and how it can change our lives, if you take things seriously and give it enough time. My 36 years at Wabash have certainly changed mine. It is now, finally Feb 3rd, and I, and my Rita can move on to the next day.
To end where I began, with Bill Placher’s commencement address. He concluded by saying “have fun along the way.” He said this even in the midst of the Vietnam war, when things looked bleakest. Groundhog day would not be the effective work it is if it were not also pretty hilarious. So I echo Bill, “Classmates, don’t forget to have fun along the way.” I know I did.