One of the great mythologies at public universities, especially, is that students benefit from taking courses from scholars who are involved on the cutting edge of their fields. I can't speak to the sciences, and I think there is much merit to this argument when one is talking about graduate students, perhaps even majors who are headed off to graduate school in that particular subject. But I have become convinced that the greatest service that most professors could provide for the general public, let alone their students, would be to focus on their teaching.
The problem with researching scholarly articles and books is that they take a great deal of time. So does excellent teaching. The best teachers at universities I know are always reading or re-reading in the fields they teach in and actively seek out new technologies or practices or readings. They have a relentless desire to figure out what it is that their students should be learning and how to help them to learn it. They also think about how to spend more time with students, from requiring them to come in for one-to-one attention, coming to class early or staying late to hang out, even calling them at home. This adds up to a lot of time--leaving little for researching and writing the specialized scholarship that bring raises, promotions, and status.
It also seems to me that the sort of research that universities most esteem, original research, is much less useful for teaching than more synthetic or "popular" articles or books are. My first two books were specialized monographs that consumed many years of research in scattered archives. I occasionally use that research in my teaching. But I am constantly drawing upon the research I did for three books that took much less time and no travel to research, general overviews of Oregon, nature loving in the western world, and the U.S. family, books that in fact largely flowed from (and were tailored for) my teaching.
Of course the field of history, like any discipline, needs scholars who focus on researching and writing materials that are not intended for a broader audience. But do not the students who are paying more and more and more tuition money deserve to be taught by professors who are primarily devoted to their education?
Friday, May 30, 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014
"Get Over Yourself": Bill Larremore's Legacy
Several people mentioned at Bill's funeral on Monday that he was still bringing us together. Bill was one of those people who straddled a lot of cliques in high school. He never seemed to feel that he was better than anyone else, and he seemed to get along with everyone. I think Bill's secret was that he was pretty comfortable with who he was, so he didn't worry too much about defining or defending himself.
I was acutely self-conscious in high school and felt very vulnerable. Hence I seldom took any chances when it came to reaching out to others. The exhausting work of trying to define and defend my individuality trumped everything, and I was always at least mildly offended to find that no one else shared my fixation on me.
Of course life tends to erode our sense of self importance. No matter how athletic or smart or good-looking or ambitious we might be, we inevitably encounter plenty of people who surpass us in those areas. And we discover that we are very flawed as we wound people we love and devote ourselves to quests that turn out to be pointless--or worse. Nor can we truthfully take full credit for even our modest accomplishments; they are, in truth, shared ones; none of us would do anything of note without the support of scores and scores of others. So it eventually dawns on us that we needn't spend so much time and care defining and perfecting a self that really doesn't exist.
Bill seemed to grasp this truth from a young age. He tried harder to be interested in others than to be interesting to others, was curious about people and life for their own sake rather than for how they might enhance his standing or image. We loved him for that.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
2014 or 1955: Which Would You Choose?
On Sunday I had the pleasure of being a panelist for a discussion of a wonderful play (Maple and Vine) at CoHo Theater in NW Portland. I was asked to participate as an historian of the family.
Most intellectuals and liberals write the 1950s off as a time of mindless conformity. Maple and Vine argues that the era just might have provided a sense of authenticity, structure, and meaning often lacking in modern life, that, in a sense, less could be more, that fewer choices and less fussing about happiness might make a person, well, happier!
Most intellectuals and liberals write the 1950s off as a time of mindless conformity. Maple and Vine argues that the era just might have provided a sense of authenticity, structure, and meaning often lacking in modern life, that, in a sense, less could be more, that fewer choices and less fussing about happiness might make a person, well, happier!
Of course the play, like reality, is more complicated than that, and like any good piece of art or history the production raises more questions than it answers, suggests more lines of interpretation than it closes off. I enjoyed it very much and recommend it highly. There are still a few shows.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Bill Larremore, 1956-2014, and Courage
Another dear friend who taught me a lot passed away--early Tuesday.
Bill Larremore started attending our little rural school, Lewis and Clark Consolidated, in second grade, and he stood out in a lot of ways. Bill had a pretty bad speech impediment in elementary school and had been held back a year. He also had a step-father, which was also not considered normal back in the 1960s in rural Oregon. And while all of us by adolescence were fascinated by girls, Bill's interest was unmatched. I not only had never approached "first base," I didn't even know what or where it was. Not so with Bill. But Bill was anything but smooth. He was the uncomplaining butt of interminable jokes about his inability to disguise what he was really thinking--a weakness that was like blood to sharks among boys of that time and place.
Bill and I, then, were different in many ways. He revealed himself and was often teased mercilessly for it; I kept my thoughts to myself, my head down. He struggled with school; I found it easy. He played basketball, the high-status sport at Astoria High School in the mid-1970s that enhanced his standing among the ladies. I ran cross country and track and never went to a dance or on a date. He was sad when high school ended; I was elated.
Yet I always felt close to Bill, all through school and later, too. He was the friend you knew would never try to hurt you to make himself look better, the guy you felt "safe" with at a time in life when safety felt hard to come by. After bouncing around for awhile after graduation he ended up driving a truck for UPS and developed a curiosity about a wide variety of subjects. He always treated my modest successes as an author with a lot of pride. And he was one of my few male friends who felt comfortable divulging his emotions. Years ago he talked about how re-unions with his childhood buddies always brought up a lot of "L'more" stories of dumb things he had allegedly done or said. "They're funny stories," he readily admitted. "But I wish you guys would see that there's more to me than that."
Bill brought some of us back together a few months ago when he was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer. In the following months he told me about his hopes and fears while never failing to ask after me, Wendy, and Peter. I've never known someone in so much pain to express so much gratitude for his life or for his friends. Bill had recently retired and had just begun to do some of the things he had long dreamed about, places to visit, new topics to learn about. After the diagnosis he hoped to at least get another year or two of living in. But the disease progressed quickly. Two weeks ago he was getting dozens of calls and texts a day--and felt guilty that he was too tired to answer them.
I've often heard the term "eating away like a cancer" without thinking much about the phrase's etymology. On Saturday I saw cancer hollowing Bill out before my eyes. But only up to a point. As he labored to fight off pain and morphine he told me again how much he loved me, asked about my spiritual life, shared his fear of dying, told me he'd pray for my family.
Bill Larremore started attending our little rural school, Lewis and Clark Consolidated, in second grade, and he stood out in a lot of ways. Bill had a pretty bad speech impediment in elementary school and had been held back a year. He also had a step-father, which was also not considered normal back in the 1960s in rural Oregon. And while all of us by adolescence were fascinated by girls, Bill's interest was unmatched. I not only had never approached "first base," I didn't even know what or where it was. Not so with Bill. But Bill was anything but smooth. He was the uncomplaining butt of interminable jokes about his inability to disguise what he was really thinking--a weakness that was like blood to sharks among boys of that time and place.
Bill and I, then, were different in many ways. He revealed himself and was often teased mercilessly for it; I kept my thoughts to myself, my head down. He struggled with school; I found it easy. He played basketball, the high-status sport at Astoria High School in the mid-1970s that enhanced his standing among the ladies. I ran cross country and track and never went to a dance or on a date. He was sad when high school ended; I was elated.Yet I always felt close to Bill, all through school and later, too. He was the friend you knew would never try to hurt you to make himself look better, the guy you felt "safe" with at a time in life when safety felt hard to come by. After bouncing around for awhile after graduation he ended up driving a truck for UPS and developed a curiosity about a wide variety of subjects. He always treated my modest successes as an author with a lot of pride. And he was one of my few male friends who felt comfortable divulging his emotions. Years ago he talked about how re-unions with his childhood buddies always brought up a lot of "L'more" stories of dumb things he had allegedly done or said. "They're funny stories," he readily admitted. "But I wish you guys would see that there's more to me than that."
Bill brought some of us back together a few months ago when he was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer. In the following months he told me about his hopes and fears while never failing to ask after me, Wendy, and Peter. I've never known someone in so much pain to express so much gratitude for his life or for his friends. Bill had recently retired and had just begun to do some of the things he had long dreamed about, places to visit, new topics to learn about. After the diagnosis he hoped to at least get another year or two of living in. But the disease progressed quickly. Two weeks ago he was getting dozens of calls and texts a day--and felt guilty that he was too tired to answer them.
I've often heard the term "eating away like a cancer" without thinking much about the phrase's etymology. On Saturday I saw cancer hollowing Bill out before my eyes. But only up to a point. As he labored to fight off pain and morphine he told me again how much he loved me, asked about my spiritual life, shared his fear of dying, told me he'd pray for my family.
Friday, May 9, 2014
Dr. Bee Jai Repp and What Higher Education Should Be About
Two days ago a dear friend and mentor passed away, Dr. Bee Jai Repp. How to begin to describe Bee Jai. . . . Terms like "force of nature," "one of a kind," and "didn't take 'no' for an answer" spring to mind.
Bee Jai cared extravagantly about students. She recruited older, non-traditional students into PSU, often from community colleges. She specialized in convincing students who didn't think that they were university material that they could do it, and once they started that journey she threw everything she had into helping them cross the finish line. She'd do everything to help a student to succeed except the work itself.
These past few weeks, as Bee Jai's health has declined, I've noticed more and more of "her" students in my classes--not people who actually knew her, but people she would have loved to have known and to have advocated for: cancer survivors; veterans fighting disabilities; single parents from rough backgrounds who had to fight steep odds to even get to PSU, let alone to succeed here.
There are a lot of intellectual trappings around being a professor. People offer us a lot of deference that we don't deserve. Bee Jai reminded me that the heart of what makes PSU tick is not what we publish or how many letters we have after or before our names. Faculty exist to help students to make a better life for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Thank you, Bee Jai. You left us way too soon, but your legacy will echo and multiply many generations into the future.
Bee Jai cared extravagantly about students. She recruited older, non-traditional students into PSU, often from community colleges. She specialized in convincing students who didn't think that they were university material that they could do it, and once they started that journey she threw everything she had into helping them cross the finish line. She'd do everything to help a student to succeed except the work itself.
These past few weeks, as Bee Jai's health has declined, I've noticed more and more of "her" students in my classes--not people who actually knew her, but people she would have loved to have known and to have advocated for: cancer survivors; veterans fighting disabilities; single parents from rough backgrounds who had to fight steep odds to even get to PSU, let alone to succeed here.
There are a lot of intellectual trappings around being a professor. People offer us a lot of deference that we don't deserve. Bee Jai reminded me that the heart of what makes PSU tick is not what we publish or how many letters we have after or before our names. Faculty exist to help students to make a better life for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Thank you, Bee Jai. You left us way too soon, but your legacy will echo and multiply many generations into the future.
Friday, May 2, 2014
Andrew Mwenda and the Limits of American Aid
I recently ran across a youtube talk at Yale by Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda on the dangers of western aid to Africa, among other subjects. Mwenda has a really sharp wit and punctures a lot of sacred balloons. Few are spared.
But his primary concern is that western aid so often goes "where it is most needed," which--is to say to where it is most likely to be siphoned off or otherwise wasted. The West should reward success rather than failure by providing assistance to those African nations and leaders who have a track record of doing a lot with a little, for improving the lives of their citizens by responsibly using the resources at their disposal.
Mwenda's counsel is difficult for those of us in the West to accept, I think, not only because it seems counter-intuitive (shouldn't we start with the most desperate situations?) but because it conveys a truth we don't want to hear: outsiders cannot "save" Africa. The best we can do is to assist those Africans who are already doing the heavy lifting--and to explore and speak out on the often subtle ways that our aid and foreign policies does harm to those we profess to care so much about. We are not the stars in this movie.
But his primary concern is that western aid so often goes "where it is most needed," which--is to say to where it is most likely to be siphoned off or otherwise wasted. The West should reward success rather than failure by providing assistance to those African nations and leaders who have a track record of doing a lot with a little, for improving the lives of their citizens by responsibly using the resources at their disposal.
Mwenda's counsel is difficult for those of us in the West to accept, I think, not only because it seems counter-intuitive (shouldn't we start with the most desperate situations?) but because it conveys a truth we don't want to hear: outsiders cannot "save" Africa. The best we can do is to assist those Africans who are already doing the heavy lifting--and to explore and speak out on the often subtle ways that our aid and foreign policies does harm to those we profess to care so much about. We are not the stars in this movie.
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