3 May 2007
This is the Way the Semester Ends (Part II)…
The headline in the Fayetteville Observer on May 1 read “3 Fort Bragg Soldiers Killed.” The story indicated that these deaths raised to 41 the total number of personnel from Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base to die this year.
The first thing I did on seeing the headline was to scan the pictures and names to see if I knew any of the men who were killed. Since beginning teaching at the extended campus locations at Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base, I have seen at least two former students deployed for service after completing a class. One was in Iraq within seventy-two hours of handing in his final exam to me.
Knowing someone—having any sort of personal connection—who is serving overseas changes one’s first reaction to these sorts of stories. It can also change, or at least temper, one’s reaction to the end of the semester. For most of us it is a time of excitement borne of new opportunities. I may not be totally jazzed by the graduation ceremony itself, but I am by the student who tells me he or she got a job offer, was accepted into a graduate program of her choice, or achieved a life goal.
With personal connections comes not only a sharing of another’s joys but also a proximity to another’s burdens. For most of us the end of the semester brings renewed opportunities for advancement. For some, it can mark the beginning of renewed service and—at times—sacrifice.
Greater love hath no man…
25 April 2007
This is the Way the Semester Ends…
It’s the end of another academic year, so if you are still reading this blog, I feel I can trust you with a little secret.
Promise not to tell? Okay, here it is…
I dread graduations.
Growing up, every image of the end of the year I had--from television to Hallmark stores—was one of unabashed celebration. I guess when we are young(er), the end of school means freedom. Today? Well, it is hard to get psyched about your summer plans if there are three research papers and a slew of final exams between you and those dog days. It is also one of the busiest times for faculty. That research paper you’ve been working on for weeks? I’m grading it. Times fifty.
Graduations are long and—let’s face it—boring. I keep telling myself they are not for me—they are for the students to have their accomplishments recognized and celebrated. When I think back to my own days as a student, though, I was so tired that I just wanted to get away and clear my head. At that time, everyone told me the ceremony was for all my family and friends to have a chance to celebrate my accomplishments. That makes a little more sense, I guess, but did they really need me to get dressed up in black velvet and stand in a processional for two hours to do it?
I used to think I just had too little patience for the ceremonial aspects of life in general. That may still be true. As I advanced in school, the rites of passage became more meaningful; they just weren’t the official ones. I remember quite well the moment my program chair informed me I had passed my dissertation defense. Even more vivid is the recollection of the professor I idolized inviting me for the first time to address him by his first name, or the faculty member for who I was serving as a teaching assistant introducing me to the class as “Dr. Morefield” for the very first time. What I can’t remember is five minutes of any graduation ceremony I’ve ever been to. They all blur into one, long procession—like reading the phone book with intermittent applause.
I didn’t go to my doctoral graduation ceremony, actually. I was in the midst of an intense and time-stealing attempt to become the #1 ranked euchre player on the Internet. (I made it, eventually, but that’s another story.) Northern Illinois University sent me my diploma in the mail, and it hangs over my desk as I type. I can’t say that I have any vivid recollections (or professional pictures) of the day the postman brought it, but I have plenty of recollections of the days that went into earning it.
And that’s enough for me.
16 April 2007
What’s in my CD Player
I was going over Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity last week, and I was struck once again by the protagonist’s assertion that in a postmodern generation what you like is more important that what you are like. The idea is that in a world devoid of connections and filled with alienation, the human soul will seek connection, even if it is only through product association. I don’t think I quite believe that, but I am one of those person that makes a beeline to the bookshelves when visiting a new people....just to get a sense of what they (are) like.
I don’t have an MP3 player yet, but here’s what’s on my visor—which is what gets played in the car’s CD player on the way to work:
The Way We Walk (Live)—Genesis The Rhythm of the Saints—Paul Simon The Collection—Amy Grant Red Dirt Girl—Emmylou Harris Live in Australia—Elton John with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Stone Cold Classics—Queen American IV: The Man Comes Around—Johnny Cash Greatest Hits—Bruce Springsteen Sand in the Vaseline—The Talking Hands My Better Self—Dar Williams Learning to Crawl—The Pretenders
So that’s what I’m like…what’s in your CD Player?
26 March 2007
Midterm Grades
In Brian De Palma's 1987 fan favorite, "The Untouchables," Jim Malone (Sean Connery) responds acerbically to a Canadian Mountie who claims that maintaining the element of surprise is "half the battle. A bemused Malone replies: "A lot of things are 'half the battle.' Losing is 'half the battle.'"
Midterm grades went out to students last week, and I couldn't help thinking of this exchange. Over years of teaching, I've searched for some correlation between midterm grades and final performance, but finding it has been as difficult as pegging the winner on American Idol after only the Hollywood round.
Americans like feedback, or, rather, we like "knowing where we stand." That's all well and good, but it is human nature to have a lull in intensity if one has a big lead and to buckle down if one is facing a wall. Should instructors low-ball midterm reports to motivate students, then? I've heard that logic applied to midterm reports, but it can backfire. A student who is doing reasonably well and putting forth an effort might just as easily become disheartened as motivated by a cool assessment of progress. Conversely, a midterm report that focuses on the positives to fan into flame what efforts are there can just as easily lead to a sense of complacency and self-satisfaction.
Midterm grades are a bit like jury verdicts--they are only good at answering very narrow questions and can be disastrous if used to "send a message." Messages are relatively complex things, but grades...aren't. A midterm report of "B" can mean myriad things: a student is consistently above average, alternately brilliant and lackadaisical, or better at some things that have been tested more heavily than others.
When I asked my class how many of them cared about and liked having midterm grades, a healthy percentage said that they did. Midterm reports aren't likely to go away, then. Just remember what the stock analysts say: "past record is not a guarantee of future performance."
21 February 2007
In Defense of Quitting
I was watching “The Apprentice” the other day (I know, I know, I’m such a philistine), and one of the contestants really, really, irritated Donald Trump by quitting before he could bring her back into the “boardroom” and give her his signature, “you’re fired!”
After noting the irony of hearing the twice-divorced real-estate magnate declare that the refusal to quit is the hallmark of most successful people (flocked on either side by his children Donald, Jr. and Ivanka who lectured the contestant that one must work to get what one wants and not expect getting it to be easy), I found myself wondering why the participant’s resignation seemed to irritate Trump so much. He even considered firing an additional member of the resigning member’s team as some sort of punitive lesson about how quitting always leads to worse consequences than going down fighting.
Why do we hate quitters, anyway? Isn’t quitting sometimes a sensible thing to do? The contestant protested that the rules of “The Apprentice” had been changed from previous seasons—members of the losing team were forced to camp in tents, presumably to make them more “hungry” to perform and enjoy the benefits of big business success (in this case, electricity and running water). She might also have pointed out that succeeding at the “game” required losing team members to turn on each other in the boardroom, to pass blame, to sling mud, and generally to do whatever one had to do to lay the fault for failure at someone else’s feet. If, in the middle of such a demeaning process, one began to have second thoughts about whether one even really wanted the reward being offered (in this case the opportunity to be bullied by Trump for a year as a paid employee instead of as a television contestant), wouldn’t it make sense to stop pursuing it? Sure it would, if we put it that way—but the minute we call it “quitting” there seems to be some moral (or at least character) flaw attached to the person following such logic.
When I was in middle school and junior high school, I was interested in drama. I was a decent actor (got a few good parts in school and community plays), but I couldn’t sing a lick—still can’t. My parents offered to sign me up for dance lessons, which seemed like a good idea. After several weeks, though, I found myself disenchanted. The emphasis was on tap dancing, which I didn’t like. Over half of my time at the lessons was spent doing gymnastics and tumbling instead of actually working on new routines. Tentatively, fearing a scolding, I told my parents I wanted to quit. They said, “okay.”
Contrary to conventional wisdom, I did not grow up into a perpetual quitter who was unable to commit to relationships or follow through on any difficult job. In fact, as I grew into my high school and college years, I noted that I was often more willing to try new things, whereas some of my friends would rarely take on challenges or jobs outside their comfort zone. This attitude allowed me to pursue a range of different interests before committing the bulk of my effort (much less all of it) to any one pursuit. Those who feared being labeled a “quitter” would often fear getting stuck in a new job, relationship, or hobby, and thus assiduously avoid ever trying something new.
Any good poker player will occasionally fold a hand (i.e. quit) if he knows he is beaten. By doing so, he conserves resources and increases his chance of eventual success. A coach may give up trying to win a particular game in order to give bench players experience. Patches are made to help people quit smoking, and Christians often rely on community help to quit (or try to quit) bad habits.
One of the most puzzling examples of how cultural attitudes towards quitting have affected education is how many students will apologize to me when they drop my class. Even if there is a waiting list of students wanting to get into a class, even if a student was registered for the class as a mistake because the computer read ENGL instead of ECON, even if a student is dropping out of school because a doctor has told him he has twenty-four hours to live… the student will still avert his eyes in shame when handing me the “drop/add” form.
Because, you know…nobody respects a quitter.
Just ask Donald Trump.
12 February 2007
Charity
“The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
William Shakespeare—The Merchant of Venice
A few weeks ago, there was a knock on my door at 10:30 p.m. I only heard it because I had gotten up to put some books by the door so I would not forget them in the morning.
Within thirty seconds, I regretted opening my front door, as I was regaled with a long, meandering, almost incoherent request for charity. The man said (as near as I could follow) that he and his wife had just gotten home to find their home (ambiguously “down the street”) had been broken into. The wires had been cut and they had no electricity and wanted money to buy some gas cooking utensils (or food), and the bank opened tomorrow and God said “ask and it shall be given to you.”
It was the classic no-win situation. Were it an hour earlier I might have followed them to a store and bought food, an hour later and I might not have opened the door at all. So many parts of the story didn’t scan—there was no food (left) in the house that didn’t need to be cooked? “Everyone” in the neighborhood knew them and could vouch that they lived around here, but none of them (apparently) were up—or God had led them to my house regardless of who they knew? On the other hand, wasn’t it better to err on the side of compassion than suspicion?
He said they were cold because the electric wires had been cut, so I finally gave him an industrial flashlight and the down comforter from the guest bedroom to keep warm until the morning.
Yesterday, my wife was walking around the neighborhood with a friend and happened to find—yep—our comforter, dumped in the middle of the road. The neurons fired in my brain, and I remembered being on a tourist bus outside the pyramids of Teotihuacan almost twenty years ago. Urchins were selling tiny boxes of chiclet (gum) in two piece cardboard packets for the peso equivalent of a quarter. One of the tourists had bought one only to get on the bus a nd find the box empty; the two pieces of gum had been removed and the box glued back shut. He threw the box in disgust onto the floor of the bus. “Okay, fine, see if you ever get another quarter from me. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice…” he muttered.
I remembered thinking (rather self-righteously, I suspect in retrospect) that if someone were hustling quarter packs of gum on the street for a living, he had probably long passed the point of strategic long-term thinking. It was all about survival for the day, and if that made survival tomorrow harder…well, perhaps the person selling the gum literally could not afford to think that way.
Besides, I said in my head. It’s only a quarter. It’s not like he couldn’t afford it.
One of the Christmas presents I got from my mother-in-law last year was some cash to buy the paint to recolor our guest bedroom. It went from cream white to a light, tropical green, and I added an indoor-outdoor garden fountain and some plants (as well as a pet door in the window) to give it a nicer feng-shui. So, I got taken, but, hey, it was a nice excuse to go to K-Mart in Fayetteville and find a new comforter in a better color (a bargain on sale at $20) that matched my room’s new décor.
Why, then, was I so irritated when my wife found and salvaged the old comforter that I had almost immediately regretted giving away in the first place?
In The Merchant of Venice, Portia argues that the quality of mercy is “not strained” and that it is “twice” blessed—blessing both the one who gives and the one who receives. Now, the quality of charity may be something else altogether, and learning to distinguish between the two and to practice the one instead of the other is a long road, indeed--with many, many speed bumps.
15 January 2007
Growing Old in Christ
For the last year or two, I've been looking for a really good book about aging informed by a Christian perspective.
It's been hard. Many books are more about elder care or informed more by a Jungian archetypal overview of life.
I just started Growing Old in Christ edited by Stanley Hauerwas, et. al. and I think it may be just what I was looking for. The opening chapter, "The Christian Practice of Growing Old: The Witness of Scripture" by Richard B. Hays and Judith C. Hays goes beyond homilies about respect for the elders to help instruct how to ground our attitudes about aging (and the aged) in Biblical examples.
Especially poignant is their section reminding us that Jesus did not live into old age:
“Jesus models for us a resolute trust in God that empowers us to act freely and bear witness to the truth, even
if such witness-bearing leads to death. [...] Thus, Christians are taught by the example of Jesus that we do not
have to live in a cautious mode of self-protection, clinging to our lives desperately at all costs, making an
idol of our physical survival” (12)
I'm appreciative of this section that it emphasizes cultivating a Christ-like attitude towards our (aging) lives rather than merely listing a prescriptive set of actions. I'm also glad to be reminded (earlier in the chapter) that old age is often a time of unexpected abundance (what a resonant phrase!) and not merely gradual surrender.
6 January 2007
Disconnecting Cable
In the category of things that happen gradually then all at once, I discontinued my cable television service this month.
It wasn’t a new year’s resolution or anything, and I don’t consider myself one of those people who turns his nose down at television or considers it the root of all evil. I like television, actually.
My favorite thing about cable was digital video recording, but it seemed over the holidays that the list of things I was recording was dwindling. New programs on network television are getting more expensive and hence the seasons get shorter with more repeats. The rise of television on DVD means that one doesn’t have to sit through almost 33% commercials and can watch whenever one wants. With so many disc golf courses in the area and a theater running the best of independent films and world cinema…let’s just say it wasn’t the huge surrender I thought it would be.
So far the only thing I’ve missed having the cable for was a Duke-Temple basketball game, but even those usually play on nights I’m teaching a night course once classes start.
And, dare I say it…one can always read a book.
20 December 2006
The Galaxy Theater
In my last blog, I mentioned that a great bonus about working at Campbell was my proximity to a number of great Disc Golf courses. Another great local asset is the Galaxy Theater in Cary.
I’m old enough to remember when it was rare for a film to be playing on more than one screen at the multiplex, but as I’ve grown older I’ve seen the diversity of offerings diminish at local theaters.
The Galaxy is a wonderful example of niche marketing. At any given time about half its films are Bollywood entries and half are foreign language films or independent films. There might not be a big enough market to sustain either, but there certainly is more than enough for the combination. In addition, you can get expresso and chai (my personal favorite) at the concession stand.
I often get envious remarks from my friends about my ability to screen films months before they might be available on DVD. Besides, nothing replaces seeing a great film on the big screen. Some films I’ve been able to catch at the Galaxy include: The Passenger (Antonioni), Army of Shadows, Ushpizin, The War Within, The Great New Wonderful, Who Killed the Electric Car (with an appearance by the director), Infamous, Sketches of Frank Gehry, and Shut Up and Sing (which was my favorite film of the year thus far).
What a treat it is to have a top rate art-house cinema within an hour of Campbell!
27.November.2006
Disc Golfing Near Campbell
North Carolina has some great disc golf courses, and Campbell is fortunate enough to be within driving distance of several of them.
Disc golf is similar to ball golf; players attempt to throw a disc (similar to a Frisbee but usually smaller and a little heavier) into a basket. I’ve been playing disc golf off and on for over twenty years, and it’s a great way to enjoy nature and stay in shape.
My favorite course in the area is Buckhorn Disc Golf Course located at Lake Sharon Harris near Holly Springs, North Carolina. Buckhorn is a mostly wooded course, but some of the middle holes skirt the lake. The fairways are well defined, but if you get off them you’re in trouble. There are shorter, amateur tees on most holes.
Kentwood Park in Raleigh is another popular local regional course. Its proximity to North Carolina State means Kentwood is usually very busy, but it is a short enough course that you can usually play a round in under an hour. There are a lot of birdie opportunities, even for a new player.
Cedar Hills Park, also in Raleigh, features a challenging course winding through—you guessed it—cedar trees.
Zebulon Community Park, east of Raleigh, features a course with more wide open holes, making it a nice course for players who want to work on their driving. It is a longer course, and it takes a little longer to get to it.
O. T. Sloan Community Park in Sanford is a short course with lots of birdie opportunities, especially on the front nine. There are a few longer holes on the back nine, and a pretty active group that plays blind-draw doubles most Mondays during the Spring and Summer.
For more information on any of these parks, check out the directory of courses at PDGA.com.
20.November.2006
Wit and Elijah
In Mike Nichols’s excellent film, Wit, Emma Thompson plays a literature professor, Vivian Bearing, battling terminal cancer. In one scene, she is visited by a former teacher who offers to read her poetry from John Donne. Vivian bursts into tears. Her visitor reads to her from a children’s book instead, comforting her with a simple message of hope and unconditional love.
Reaching the end of an academic semester is not the same as reaching the end of one’s life, of course. I do see parallels, though, in the way many of us respond to being overextended, overworked, or just plain tired. We can recoil at things that are good—Donne’s poetry—things that we like or are challenged by, simply because we feel that we cannot take on one more thing regardless of how good or productive it is.
This reading of the scene isn’t totally fair to the My Little Bunny (I think that was the title) book that Vivian’s professor reads to her. It isn’t simply a distraction from harder or better work, and it isn’t simply a boon because it isn’t difficult. The cliché in evangelical circles is that we are to comfort the afflicted and challenge the comfortable. Without challenges we would never be stretched and never grow. But if there are always more challenges and never any comforting, even the strongest among us can find challenging expressions of truth and love to be more oppressing than stimulating.
One of my favorite, most comforting passages of scripture is when Elijah crashes after an emotional high on Mount Horeb. God is so tender to him, allowing him time to wallow (just a bit), meeting his physical (food from the birds) and emotional (a new friend and companion) needs rather than merely chastising him for being unable to go longer without needing a respite.
I am thankful this holiday season that God both challenges us and comforts us.
6.November.2006
Tyranny of the Urgent
Ask ten people at random around a college campus how things are going, and chances are at least seven of them will say they are “busy.”
In the last month I’ve been to Baltimore to read a paper on Tim Robbins’s Dead Man Walking at the Mid-Atlantic Pop/American Culture conference, done about twenty-plus hours of online scoring for SAT exams, been to the dentist, and celebrated my eighteenth wedding anniversary, all while commuting between home, main campus and Fayetteville (where I teach classes at the extended campus at Pope Air Force Base).
In the spare moments to catch my breath, I reflect on two texts that have resonated deeply with me. The first is an Inter-Varsity pamphlet I read years ago (while myself a student) called The Tyranny of the Urgent. In it, Charles E. Hummel cautions us against always prioritizing the “urgent” over the “important,” noting that often the things (and people) that clamor most urgently for our attention are not necessarily those that are the most essential to our success or happiness. The other is Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s The Sacrament of the Present moment. Reading this work reminded me to focus on living in the present moment rather than always looking forward to what I’m going to do “when I have the time.”
North Carolina is beautiful this time of year, and I’m grateful to be in a place where there are seasonal beauties and changes. In the midst of our rushing activities there are pockets of calm, of beauty, of tranquility.
18.September.2006
2006 Toronto International Film Festival
When you pick teaching as a career, the cycle of the academic year can start to feel more real (less artificial) than that of the calendar year. Resolutions and plans come in August rather than January. End of they year celebrations are in May rather than December. October is known for Fall Break rather than Halloween.
This year, Christmas came in September. The most exciting thing that has happened to me thus far this year was that I got to attend my first Toronto International Film Festival. TIFF may be second only to Cannes in terms of prestige as a film festival. Many commercial films premiere in Toronto (this year’s included A Good Year, Infamous, and All the King’s Men) while smaller films in search of distributors often get their shot to grab some attention.In a time when the local multiplex is often playing the newest blockbuster on multiple screens, the festival also provides chances to see gems of world cinema such as Hans-Christian Schmid’s Requiem or Jafar Panahi’s Offside. I even managed to carve out a few hours of time to do some grading so that I would not be terribly behind when I got back to campus.
So on Sunday afternoon I was at the Paramount Theater in Toronto screening Geoffrey Wright’s highly stylized MacBeth adaptation and twenty-four hours later I was in D. Rich 221 discussing Washington Square with my History of American Fiction class. Hey, the “all-nighter” is a university tradition, right?
