Category: SSW

September 12, 2024

Thinking about my car ride in, with the news clips of YouTube running their circuit through my phone playing on my car’s Bluetooth, I am comforted, and also disturbed, by the regularity, mastery, and devotion of the companions on my playlist: I’ve felt camaraderie in the apocalypse thinking all around me. What does one do with a sentence like that?

Trump. Climate. Pandemic. War. The end of higher education: Others are feeling the same absolute desperation I am feeling in these End of Days times. Fortified with new media, a modern person can “do apocalypse” in increasingly intense and coherent and focused ways. In the past, there was a time and space lag. As a pre-internet person in my youth, I would have to go to the library to find apocalypse thinkers; I would have to go back in time to philosophers and spokespeople addressing crises of such variety and tangential relevance that the overall effect would be muted and diffused. Each apocalypse was isolated from one another. Today, however, the immediacy, speed—and mania—of the YouTube algorithm has effected a true qualitative change. 

Just 10, maybe 5, years ago, I would not have felt this camaraderie. Nowadays, the Unending Conversation is present to me in much more direct and constant ways than was ever possible before. The Algorithms of YouTube are now my conversations. The clips range from ten minutes to longer pieces, sometimes whole hours of programming. Most of the content is a single person like Ben Meiselas or Michael Popock speaking into his laptop camera offering commentary on the legal and political news of the day (or rather, that hour). There is a cycle of clips each day, including Colbert, Kimmel, and Stewart; there are the regular commentators—Joy Reid, Lawrence O’Donnell, Ari Melber. So it’s a lot of MSNBC, with podcasts by MSNBC contributors, Brian Tyler Cohen, Glenn Kirschner, Andrew Weissmann—and others like Tim Miller, George Conway, Sarah Longwell—even folks like Bill Kristol. 

The forays are not dramatic, hysterical, or crisis-tinged. They are focused and reasoned. They have emotion and pointedness; they suggest a hope that discourse can matter, that rules can be followed, that intelligent, impassioned, linguistically-responsible involvement can be both practiced and sustained over time by individuals who bring both evidence and principled analysis to bear. I am hooked by these savants. I have not experienced such a thing in my nearly seven decades on this planet. It strikes me that such a mode of consuming/experiencing discourse has not been available to me—or anyone—prior to the onset of modern digital-social media. I’m in the throes of a wave that is sweeping past—a new, Addictive Alchemy of Algorithms. The clips come and go, with mini-ads I can skip after 5 seconds, with a fragility of the screen that can click away inadvertently because of my clumsy boomer fingers, but with such a wealth of endless content, that nothing is ever lost, or lost for good, though the clips tend to disappear in a way wholly against the grain of my essence, with my longstanding commitment to archiving and saving, storing and organizing. The YouTube interface controls the delivery and pacing, and it does so in a way that serves me. But I wonder if that sense of service is an illusion. Am I being pushed and shaped into something not of my making? Am I entrapped in an Algorithm of Compulsion? 

I need to understand what got me here. I worry that I am on a trajectory that is fueling itself into deeper and deeper echoes of a chamber I may never emerge from. But I have felt so desperate. The Trump phenomenon of dishonor-cum-popularity has pulled the rug from me—and when I listen to my fellow sufferers, they seem both to offer a way out from the despair even while they plunge me more fully into the clutches of it. I have often advocated the value of a “purification by excess,” so my death scroll, perhaps, has purpose and method. But such a method always carries with it the danger of the opposite: complete pollution by the excess.

This mode of being, riding the algorithms of YouTube is a new way of consuming, living with, engaging in world events. I feel a need to get it right—to fix the world. As if it were up to me to fix things; as if I could. The Trump phenomenon has revealed how different I am (we are) from so many people around me, from so many people in this country, from many people I love. I need to make sense of it. I need to have hope that decency matters, that we share some basic agreements about who/what/why we are; that something matters. 

At the bottom of all this—my immersion in the algorithms, my search for a new set of foundations for my psyche and family and students and community—lies my need for purpose and hope. Those are the things that have been taken away. The current threats are so far beyond what they ever have been. Not really: I remember growing up fearing nuclear obliteration—the end of human existence, with the Tuesday morning 10:30 AM air raid siren reminder, the fallout shelter signs, and Cold War chill in the air. But with the sixties, seventies, and eighties, we grew somewhat around and beyond that fear. In contrast, today the climate crisis is more insidious and visible at the same time. The hopelessness of this planet on fire is deeper—since no solution seems nearly comprehensive enough, and the march on our path seems inexorable.

Against the pull of the algorithms, I rely on the simple correctives of fresh air and real life conversations with people close at hand. I derive such joy in accomplishing minor service projects that make me useful and employed. I can envision a life of getting up, keeping active, checking things off. I need the balance made possible by the diffusions and disorganization of non-technologized modes of interaction.

In closing, I must never forget that there may be healthy technologized forms of camaraderie outside the algorithm. Somewhere between the dictates of YouTube and the comforts of people close at hand, I must find, collect, and curate those people and statements that can nudge me closer to a happier balance. Now is a good time to recall (and thank) Terry Gross and Ken Burns, in replaying a portion of their conversation that I had happened to save a few years back, just after the release of Burns’s documentary, The Vietnam War:

Terry Gross: I want to quote something that the media critic, James Poniewozik, wrote in The New York Times. This was in a review, a very positive review, of your series, The Vietnam War. He wrote: “The saddest thing about this elegiac documentary may be the credit it extends its audience. The series, The Vietnam War, still holds out hope that we might learn from history, after presenting 18 hours of evidence to the contrary.” Ken Burns: I think it’s a beautiful sentence and I will hold to my optimism. I think history has made me an optimist, despite the fact that it shows you that human nature doesn’t change, that the same venality is present, the same abstraction of war is present, the same greed is present. But so is also the same generosity, and the same … love. And war is human nature on steroids. And so, it’s an eminently study-able thing. And we assume that it’s just all negative. In fact, the same electrons that war gives off, in all the instances that I’ve tried to tackle it, reveal as much about the positive sides of human nature, and maybe the reason why we … you know, none of us is getting out of this alive, Terry, and we could reasonably be assumed to be huddled in the fetal position. But we don’t. We raise families. And we plant gardens. And we write symphonies. And we try to make films, and talk about history. And maybe there’s something that comes from that … that sticks.

None of us is getting out of this apocalypse alive, Terry, but yes, that little garden over there is oh, so beautiful…. 

I appreciated Kamala Harris’s Labor Day speech:

For generations in Detroit and across our nation, the brothers and sister of labor have stood together to righteously demand fair pay, better benefits, safe working conditions. And let me say, every person in our nation has benefitted from that work. Everywhere I go, I tell people: “Look, you may not be a union worker—you better thank a union worker. For the five-day work week. You better thank a union member for sick leave. You better thank a union worker for paid leave. You better thank a union member for vacation time. Because what we know is when union wages go up, everyone’s wages go up. When union work places are safer, every workplace is safer. When unions are strong, America is strong.“

I continue to struggle with my role as a union supporter. I have not recovered from the phone call, during Covid, when the president of SXU (Laurie Joyner) and the Chair of the Board of Trustees (Trish Morris) informed me (Chair of the Faculty Union), and Jackie Battalora (Associate Chair), and Robert Bloch (our lawyer), that the University would no longer recognize our union, and would immediately discontinue its current round of collective bargaining.

On a personal level, I felt responsible. The negotiations had been long and embattled. Both sides were dug in. All the dynamics of power plays and personalities in such dealings were in evidence, and the protracted process, over two years in duration, came to a fruitless end. The conversations of our team had featured some of the best of colleagueship among the membership, but also some of the folly of striving and advocacy, with missed steps, missed opportunities, posturing, misguided kinds of assertiveness and power plays, and the like, all too common in labor negotiations.

The stalled negotiations conveyed a failure of the university I have not yet recovered from. The failure was a breakdown in communication; it was a foregone conclusion, where each side remained at the end exactly where they had been at the start. Persuasion was not an option. In my classes I teach of the Platonic dialogue, whereby the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, whereby perspectives, in coming together and against one another, all add to and correct the limitations of any single one of them; whereby a new entity, a “synthesis,” is possible and sought after. I had belief in such a thing, but in this episode, the reality on both sides was entrenchment. Nonetheless, internally, to our collective, there was goodwill and hope—honesty and charity—conflict and forgiveness; there was a sense of necessity that we had to put on a strong front (did we?), and so the style of advocacy we employed, one that was highly adversarial, was more or less believed necessary by all involved.

From the perspective of our negotiating team, our adversary had no intention to engage in a Platonic dialectic. The administrators were new hires, brought in by a potentially well-meaning board who, after years of benign neglect and worsening conditions found itself panicked that the institution might not survive, and that the main problem was “that union”—even though this accusation was something more of a trope than a reality. The president brought with her a high-priced union-busting lawyer, and every interaction reinforced an antagonistic dynamic, with variation in subtlety and aggressiveness, but never any chance for an opening that might lead to a genuine collaboration or sharing of power. 

It is perhaps a very common tale in labor negotiations. Over the course of our two-year negotiation, our faculty group met with experts in the labor movement, such being the joy of the academic life, that we were eager to learn of the principles and practices of the labor movement while we were engaged in the activities of it. On a personal level, though, I had always hoped we could “change the dynamic”—and find a way to recognize how distinctive and remarkable our 40-year faculty union had been—how pragmatic and moral and effective the union and administration had been in looking out for what worked best for the institution overall.

The Hippocratic Oath rattled in my head. I had stepped into the role of chairperson with hope of serving, of possibly maintaining or improving conditions that for years were incrementally, gradually, evolving in win-win ways. But under my watch the union had ceased to be.

For years our union had operated on a bubble. The Yeshiva Supreme Court ruling of 1980, which suggested that university faculty might be classified as “management,” and thus could not partake in union activity, was made soon after our union was certified by the NLRB (in 1979). Throughout our history, Yeshiva hung over our heads. But the beauty of SXU’s union was that both sides—from the inception—operated on the premise that our union was legitimate; we would engage in collective bargaining as if we had all the protections of the NLRA. Over the course of the union’s existence, in those moments where agreements became strained, faculty hesitated to file an unfair labor practice—i.e., to act as a typical union—for fear that the Yeshiva question at SXU might be called and the whole premise of collective bargaining might be upended. In a way, SXU had transcended the exclusively antagonistic methods of collective bargaining in a great “as if”—we did collective bargaining “as if” we were a union like the UAW, even if we never pushed the process with any of the harder hitting tools of labor law. While some judged us not to be a “real” union, the process of collective bargaining and the respect shown by both sides struck many of us as exemplifying an ideal, even a purified version of labor-management methods of problem-solving.

The Joyner administration found a powerful ally in Donald Trump who appointed union busting leaders to the NLRB. After a few unfavorable decisions to faculty unions, SXU made its move. Divided and demoralized—and in the throes of a pandemic—the union was sapped of strength, and the University made its move on May 28, 2020.

From the perspective of four-plus years later, I’m left thinking how unnecessary it was to beat down the faculty the way the university did. Our negotiations had functioned as a version of shared governance—as a vehicle to achieve some modest concessions on the parts of all parties—where, as one of our esteemed founders stated, neither side “gamed the system,” and all prioritized the welfare and sustainability of the institution, even if only from a perspective of self-interest. I realize that traditional unions had never operated this way—that concessions and benefits were all hard fought, with one or the other party, ultimately, dragged to the finished line, more or less dissatisfied or even embittered. I just wish SXU avoided the nuclear decision to subjugate its faculty, even if, ultimately, their victory was Pyrrhic and largely impractical.

It’s about attitude and perception. I’m grateful for Kamala Harris’s rousing speech, even if only for the way it promotes a mindset opposite to that of busting a union, for the way it suggests the idea, the value, of a union. Or rather, the value of an adversarial process that is not about demonization and conquest but rather dialectic and transcendence—and possible mutual benefit.

April 26, 2024

EXPLANATORY NOTE: I started this piece on April 18, 2024 with an intention of writing a letter of introduction to SXU’s new president, Dr. Keith Elder. I hoped I might, in the last weeks of the semester, finally, reach out to him, and possibly kick off a productive and collaborative relationship, one where I might be viewed as a willing partner in the betterment of the university. Readers of my blog will know of the criticism I’ve posted about SXU’s former president, Dr. Laurie Joyner, and of my disagreements with many of the administrative decisions that have been made in connection with her vision for the university. As I wrote, I found myself reflecting on my career at SXU. I also found myself embroiled in many confusing and consequential matters, including, but not limited to, the following: discussions of the revisions to the faculty handbook; intense heart-to-hearts with students in various states of end-of-semester crises; obsessive observations of world historical events involving politics, democracy, genocide, and governance; family remembrances of long-lost loved ones and our efforts to communicate essences and legacies to bereaved children; and various other “meaning of life” reflections that made my original rhetorical purpose—writing a letter—at once more confused, more problematic, and more relevant. The upshot is I’ve decided to still write Dr. Elder, but instead of sending him the letter, I’ve come to feel it’s more appropriate to use the project as a continued form of “bearing witness” that I’ve written about elsewhere in this blog—in this case, bearing witness, first of all, to all the people cited in the letter (my students, my family members, my colleagues) and second, to any onlooker in the world who might happen upon this blog. The ultimate audience, as the last line will show, is God, and so my letter, were I to judge its final form rhetorically, comes closest to the genre of prayer. Whatever it is, here it is:

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April 18, 2024

Dear Dr. Elder,

Welcome to SXU! I hope your first months at the university have not been too overwhelming. We haven’t yet met, so I hope I might take this opportunity to introduce myself.

Perhaps first of all I should direct you to the profile published yesterday in the Xavierite by one of my students, Barbara Lunsford. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet myself, but knowing Barbara, I’m confident she captured truthful, relevant information in probably more interesting ways than I could relay.

I’ve been at SXU for the past 28 years, the bulk of my career, obviously. I’ve felt blessed by the opportunity to mature as an academic in the special environment of SXU. The institution has changed over the 28 years of my time here. So, a theme of my message would be characterizing the nature of the changes, and pointing, I hope, towards the directions I would ask us to maintain or pivot away from.

I’m writing this letter in L-213, the English 120 Composition Lab. The writing, conducted with my class, is being completed in an activity called “SSW,” a weekly routine. Some backstory: When I first arrived at SXU in 1996, this room was actually the university bookstore—something hard to imagine now, given the size of the space. Though small for a bookstore, the room is comfortable for a writing lab, with desks/computers set up around the perimeter, and a big open space (with one meeting table) in the center of the room. I find it easy to walk around the room and conference with students throughout our workshop sessions. I bring this up to spotlight some of the evolution—and permanence—of L-213, the writing program, and the university.

The writing I’m doing now is being completed in the company of Gil and Cyril, two of my 8:00 AM ENGL 120-09 students who got to the room well before I arrived at 7:30. I find it helpful to get to SSW (“sustained silent writing”) before the 8:00 AM start with its official silent entry and 40-minute session. So do Gil and Cyril, who have been coaching one another all semester on their writing; their chess games; their poetic perspectives on events, objects, and feelings; their prospects in life; their challenges in being students; and the list goes on.

I bring all this up to reflect on how the development of SSW constitutes a “uniquely-SXU experience” made possible by the room, technology, modes of collaboration, and faculty development opportunities particular to SXU. The method of writing workshop I use grows out of longstanding principles of my field of composition/rhetoric that value the identification, theorization, and support of “process,” along with other key components, such as the centrality of the principle of “ownership” in writing; the privileging of the concept of “authorship,” or “looking at the world as a writer”; the inculcation of “genre awareness” as foundational to a writer’s motivation; and more—all oriented around a commitment to craft and caring about rhetoric, purposes, audiences, effects, and strategic approaches.

My interest in SSW as a central component of writing workshop began with a more or less conventional disciplinary involvement on my part in portfolios, technology-enhanced rhetorics, and pedagogical theories and practices of writing instruction. But a fundamental impetus behind the current version of writing workshop is my 28-year collaboration with my office neighbor, and longest-tenured member of SXU, Dr. Norman Boyer, who has been a sounding board and co-creator of the ENGL 120 writing workshop we currently employ. The model has grown over several years, and we have found a practical division of duties in our collaborations. Our discussions, conference presentations, emails, and co-taught courses have built a model for English 120 that we find effective and sharable, provided the prior context of the “meeting of the minds” has taken place.  Our minds have been meeting, in evolution, over the span of years, and the unique environment of SXU has been instrumental supporting the process. 

Just as I would direct you to my students, Barbara, Cyril, and Gil, to convey who I am as a teacher, I would further direct you to three of my five children (Angelo, Terence, and Genevieve, who are alums of SXU—2008, 2010, and 2012, respectively) to convey my sense of the value of an SXU education. What does a parent wish for/expect of a child’s college experience? It was something different for each of these three children, and Saint Xavier provided an essential thing for each one. Angelo served on SGA and was awarded the Lincoln Student Laureate. Terence worked in student media and entered into a longstanding career with the Windy City ThunderBolts after his college internship there; Genevieve was editor-in-chief of the Xavierite, and went on to work in videography, producing, among other pieces, a documentary on the SXU labor crisis of 2020. All three of these SXU alums have made their parents proud—showing the right mixture of critical thinking and foundations in humanistic values. Being a professor at the university your children attend—and having all the layers of relationship that both roles afford—proved uplifting and rewarding to me in ways few without such benefits could appreciate.

A letter of introduction to SXU would not be complete without some mention of the diverse leadership voices of SXU which had major impacts on me over the years, but which are now absent and silent. Most of the colleagues who mentored and inspired me have left SXU. Some of the departures were the result of the normal order of things, as careers had run their course. Some colleagues, unfortunately, died in the midst or soon after the end of their careers. But far too many of the departures of the past several years have been grotesquely premature. The phasing out of programs and careers, in the view of many stakeholders, has not been natural or correct in process. The cumulative result is that “Old” SXU is depleted, and perhaps cannot be restored. But the university may, once again, become committed to investment and growth, and if so, I would hope that we could employ a process of decision making that is more informed and just (and pragmatic) than what we have seen in the past 10 years. 

There’s more to say, and much more silence to undo. I hope in good time so much more of the SXU story may find better and fuller articulations. What started as a letter of introduction to you has morphed into something more mixed and elegiac, and I guess something intended for a larger audience, hence the posting of it in my blog. Whatever it is, and whoever it’s intended for, I’ll simply note here that I have I’ve struggled the past week writing a conclusion to this “introduction.” Amidst the welter of chaos typical in every final week of a semester, I now see (with a reminder from Cyril) that I’ve sat on this SSW for a week, kinda forgetting about it—feeling, I suppose, that, while some important terrain has been laid out, the uncertainties of our current situation predominate and leave me with no clear recommendations or even hopes to share with you (be “you” the president, my students, my family, my colleagues, my friends, or my future un-students). Like so many of my departed colleagues, I find myself lamenting loss and eyeing my own exit from SXU. I still care, mostly for my current students, I imagine, but really for all: my family, SXU’s reputation, my colleagues, the future of English education in Illinois, the future of the humanities in America. 

On that note, I’ll simply end on a brief prayer to the Holy Spirit—for good intentions, good recoveries, good nudges forward, even if only in the booming silences of our hearts.