Early in his important new book, Head and Heart: American Christianities, Garry Wills observes that Catholics, via the Inquisition, tended to condemn to death heretics, while Protestants were more likely to put to death witches. Well, here and now we don’t burn people at the stake and we have finally stopped hanging them, though we are still far from finding all of human life to be sacred. But what about the crimes themselves, heresy and trafficking with the devil?
To have heresy, there has to be an orthodoxy, usually, but not necessarily, religious. Orthodoxy means right belief, in contrast to which the heretic holds his or her own (erroneous) belief instead. To be a heretic, you have to be a member of the group that propounds the orthodoxy. You can’t just be an infidel, an unbeliever. So the Spanish Inquisition caused the secular authorities to burn Christians who held unorthodox views, while they expelled unbelieving Jews from the country unless they converted to Christianity.
Witchcraft or sorcery refers to all kinds of allegedly supernatural activities and its practices and beliefs are to be found in all ages and most cultures. However, the kind of witches that Protestants persecuted were those who were thought to be possessed by or to be otherwise in league with Satan, a matter of action not just belief: having sexual relations with the devil or doing harm to others with his aid.
But is this all just history, in the past of Torquemada of the 15th century and Salem, Massachusetts of the late 17th. Or does that useful French saying apply, le plus ça change, le plus c’est la même chose, the more things change, the more they stay the same?
We (in the West) may not be as dominated by orthodoxies today than when there was little distinction between church and state, but we are neither without them nor free of the persecution of heretics, even if not to the point of capital punishment. Within more than one religious establishment, among the Episcopalians most prominently, battles are now raging between an orthodox wing and those who dissent from the position that the openly gay may not be ordained as the most conspicuous issue. No burning at stakes today, but institutional excommunication nonetheless.
More than one Catholic bishop, more poignantly, has threatened to withhold communion from politicians who do not support laws prohibiting abortion, even though they are personally opposed to the practice. “Bishop: Denying Communion to Obstinate Pro-Abortion Catholic Politicians ‘in many cases becomes the right decision and the only choice’” is the title of an article on LifeSiteNews.com. That is most severe punishment for a believing Catholic!
But we also have our secular orthodoxies, making heretics out of those who dissent from them. Take one example. We are all members of the population that is governed by the Constitution, including its second amendment. One group of citizens insists on an interpretation that the Constitution-given right to bear arms pertains to individuals (rather than only to the states’ militias), while others do not regard gun control as unconstitutional, but a legal and constructive social practice. What sets this debate apart from the very many disagreements that characterize our political discussions is that the matter of gun control is often “elevated” to single issue status in election contests. Opposition to gun control comes to resemble those religious orthodoxies in that dissenters are declared heretics, no matter how many other beliefs they share with the orthodox.
Of course, politicians who support gun control are not strung up on gallows in the village square, however much the proponents of this orthodoxy might desire that. But the fierce and well organized defenders of this orthodoxy achieve a significant dual result. In many parts of the country, proponents of gun control cannot get elected and the fear of retribution prevents its advocates from supporting implementing legislation. As a result, the United States is world headquarters of death by shooting—and ever more by juveniles—so that an entire nation is punished by a minority of fanatical defenders of, in my belief, a misguided orthodoxy.
It is fair to ask what, on the liberal side, constitutes a similar orthodoxy. The best I can come up with is First Amendment devotees, of which I am certainly one. However, most of us ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) supporters stop short of the single-mindedness that makes adherence to that amendment a do or die issue. Perhaps there is something to the accusation that we liberals are wishy washy wusses!
You might think that we are done with witchcraft. Well, yes and no. We have mostly banished the devil from our daily lives, but we do pursue people suspected of trafficking with that turbaned man with a long dyed beard, somewhere in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of course a belief in the existence of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda is no superstition. Nor is trafficking with them a myth. And it is emphatically not harmless. And yet, there are uncanny resemblances between our treatment of accused supporters of Al-Qaeda and of those accused of being witches.
Like witches, suspected Al-Queda traffickers are identified and incarcerated on the basis of gossip, now called unverified second-hand reports. That’s not so for those suspected of being robbers or even murderers. Supposed witches were notoriously subjected to torture until they confessed. Daily, the matter of “harsh techniques of interrogation” fill the pages of our newspapers—again, not in connection with “ordinary” crimes, but with suspected crimes that are modern analogs of possession by the devil.
Finally, the trials. Gossip also counted as evidence in trials of witches, as were secret communications and, of course, extorted confessions. Evidence against the accused was often withheld from the person on trial. Frequently, the “lawyers” supposedly defending the accused were in effect on the side of the prosecution. Thus many of the trials of people charged with being witches were radically unfair—by any standard, even those prevailing long ago and in societies much less squeamish about procedures than we are. More often than not, to be tried was to be convicted. For many of these practices, similarities can be found in Guantanamo, with, to be sure, indefinite incarceration taking the place of conviction and execution.
Our country is of two minds concerning the treatment of these latter-day witches. There is Cheney-ish hysteria that aims at squelching all signs of sedition at any cost. No lesson was here learned from the fact that now, half a century later, we are apologizing for FDR’s succumbing to the hysteria that led to forcibly “relocating” West Coast Japanese--Americans. Then there are those, of which I am one, who hold that the “war on terror” is not a current emergency, but a very long haul indeed. That assessment entails that if we cannot learn to treat this brand of criminality in ways that remain within the framework of our free society’s traditions, we will change those traditions for the worse. Like them or not, we must allow heretics to have their say and we must deal with those possessed by the devil without ourselves becoming possessed by Satan.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Friday, August 3, 2007
Fitting Form to Function: More Advertisements for Myself.
My 1996 book with this title has been selling more vigorously in the last couple of years than ever before, though we are not talking bigtime sales. Still, I am pleased and you (whoever stumbles on this blog) should be apprised. Here is the basic informtion: Fitting Form to Function is the title, while the more informative subtitle is A Primer on the Organization of Academic Institutions. It is published in the Series: American Council on Education Oryx Press Series on Higher Education that now comes out from the Greenwood Publishing Group. Check out http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/OXFFF.aspx.
Here are comments about the book:
As a higher education professional, I found this book to be tremendously valuable. Weingartner's dispassionate yet lightly humorous look at the structure of a university makes this book a great resource to consult whenever day-to-day operations become confusing....This would be a fabulous addition, as a balance to the more theoretical texts available, to the reading list for a higher education administration class. —NACADA Journal
This book examines the organization and functions of the major departments and offices within a college and university and offers explicit advice on the best way to integrate the two to achieve efficient governance. —Resources in Education
Rudolph H. Weingartner offers a new, analytical view of the structure of colleges and universities - explained with the help of 27 "maxims" in his latest book....The book is organized according to function....Weingartner does not advocate the traditional departmental structure as the ideal but as the most practical organizational solution available. —Academic Leader
The author uses 27 maxims as guidelines for improved effectiveness. —Higher Education Abstracts
Fitting Form to Function reveals all the wisdom Weingartner has amassed in his long and successful double career as a philosopher-administrator. The book is unique in its combination of the common sense of experience and the rigor of philosophical analysis. Weingartner's maxims catch and summarize his approach beautifully. Above all, at a time when many doubt the possibility of creative and enjoyable administrative careers, Fitting Form to Function gives one reason to believe that the idea of thoughtful and practical educational leadership is not a contradiction in terms. This is a superbly readable and usable little book. —Stanley N. Katz, President of the American Council of Learned Societies
A college president, provost or dean - yes, even a department head - will find much here to assist in marshaling the centripetal forces that are needed to make a university a viable, productive and progressive home for learning and discovery. —Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Computor Services and Psych.
Page by page, Rudy Weingartner's analysis of the organization of academic institutions rings true. His nuts-and-bolts advice on how effective 'function' follows good 'form' will be useful to current and aspiring administrators at all levels. A unique feature of this volume are its 27 Maxims; they distill the wisdom of Weingartner's distinguished career as an academic administrator. I expect to cite them in my daily work with deans, department chairs and faculty. —Gershon Vincow Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Syracuse University
Rudy Weingartner has developed a set of 27 Maxims which provide useful guides for institutional organization, decision-making, and governance....Administrators and faculty members alike will find this book useful and informative. —Alice F. Emerson Senior Fellow, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Anyone interested in, or concenred about, the structure and administration of contemporary universities would do well to read Rudolph Weingartner's newest book, built around a series of maxims about how universities do or do not work effectively. There is much wisdom here, both for newcomers and experienced academic administrators. It is pithy and powerful. —Robert M. Berdahl President, University of Texas at Austin
Description: The way in which the various departments within colleges and universities are organized has a direct impact on their effectiveness. Factors such as reporting structures, what kinds of committees are formed, and how the administration and faculty collaborate to make decisions all play key roles in how well an institution meets its objectives.In a series of succinct chapters, the author examines the functions of each department within an academic institution, then offers explicit recommendations on the types of organizational structures and processes that are best suited to carry them out.
Here are comments about the book:
As a higher education professional, I found this book to be tremendously valuable. Weingartner's dispassionate yet lightly humorous look at the structure of a university makes this book a great resource to consult whenever day-to-day operations become confusing....This would be a fabulous addition, as a balance to the more theoretical texts available, to the reading list for a higher education administration class. —NACADA Journal
This book examines the organization and functions of the major departments and offices within a college and university and offers explicit advice on the best way to integrate the two to achieve efficient governance. —Resources in Education
Rudolph H. Weingartner offers a new, analytical view of the structure of colleges and universities - explained with the help of 27 "maxims" in his latest book....The book is organized according to function....Weingartner does not advocate the traditional departmental structure as the ideal but as the most practical organizational solution available. —Academic Leader
The author uses 27 maxims as guidelines for improved effectiveness. —Higher Education Abstracts
Fitting Form to Function reveals all the wisdom Weingartner has amassed in his long and successful double career as a philosopher-administrator. The book is unique in its combination of the common sense of experience and the rigor of philosophical analysis. Weingartner's maxims catch and summarize his approach beautifully. Above all, at a time when many doubt the possibility of creative and enjoyable administrative careers, Fitting Form to Function gives one reason to believe that the idea of thoughtful and practical educational leadership is not a contradiction in terms. This is a superbly readable and usable little book. —Stanley N. Katz, President of the American Council of Learned Societies
A college president, provost or dean - yes, even a department head - will find much here to assist in marshaling the centripetal forces that are needed to make a university a viable, productive and progressive home for learning and discovery. —Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Computor Services and Psych.
Page by page, Rudy Weingartner's analysis of the organization of academic institutions rings true. His nuts-and-bolts advice on how effective 'function' follows good 'form' will be useful to current and aspiring administrators at all levels. A unique feature of this volume are its 27 Maxims; they distill the wisdom of Weingartner's distinguished career as an academic administrator. I expect to cite them in my daily work with deans, department chairs and faculty. —Gershon Vincow Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Syracuse University
Rudy Weingartner has developed a set of 27 Maxims which provide useful guides for institutional organization, decision-making, and governance....Administrators and faculty members alike will find this book useful and informative. —Alice F. Emerson Senior Fellow, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Anyone interested in, or concenred about, the structure and administration of contemporary universities would do well to read Rudolph Weingartner's newest book, built around a series of maxims about how universities do or do not work effectively. There is much wisdom here, both for newcomers and experienced academic administrators. It is pithy and powerful. —Robert M. Berdahl President, University of Texas at Austin
Description: The way in which the various departments within colleges and universities are organized has a direct impact on their effectiveness. Factors such as reporting structures, what kinds of committees are formed, and how the administration and faculty collaborate to make decisions all play key roles in how well an institution meets its objectives.In a series of succinct chapters, the author examines the functions of each department within an academic institution, then offers explicit recommendations on the types of organizational structures and processes that are best suited to carry them out.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Stanley Fish in the August 1 New York Times
I just sent a letter off to the New York Times, though I have no idea whether they will print it. My history in this domain: sometimes they do; mostly they don’t. But let me reproduce here what I sent:
“Stanley Fish, in his August 1 column, recommends public universities as much the best educational bargain: excellent faculties and a fraction of the cost of private institutions—who may only add the dubious, cache of prestige. I have no quarrel with his praise of (many, if not all) public universities, but his advice ignores the many youngsters who are not cut out for scrambling on multi-thousands campuses. Not every kid is equipped to buck the bureaucracies of large universities, to thrive in large classes, to get attention only when he or she demands it. Liberal arts colleges are good for the shy and reticent ones and they are capable of having them grow into confident adults, able to cope with the world. Unfortunately, very few of these much smaller institutions are public.”
There is not much I want to add here. For many years I have claimed that the most important decision about where a high school gradate should go to college is whether it should be at a large university or at a small liberal arts college. Many youngsters are perfectly capable of bucking bureaucratic rules, while resenting to be “mothered” by professors and advisors. Others are intimidated by rules and regulations and wind up not getting into what are for the not-so-clever “closed” classes. On the other hand, they might not at all mind a certain amount of advising that others might think of as intrusive. The success of undergraduate education is not simply a function of instructors competent in their fields, etc. But given that we are talking about an educational passage that also takes late teenagers into adulthood, more needs to be looked at besides scholarly competence.
“Stanley Fish, in his August 1 column, recommends public universities as much the best educational bargain: excellent faculties and a fraction of the cost of private institutions—who may only add the dubious, cache of prestige. I have no quarrel with his praise of (many, if not all) public universities, but his advice ignores the many youngsters who are not cut out for scrambling on multi-thousands campuses. Not every kid is equipped to buck the bureaucracies of large universities, to thrive in large classes, to get attention only when he or she demands it. Liberal arts colleges are good for the shy and reticent ones and they are capable of having them grow into confident adults, able to cope with the world. Unfortunately, very few of these much smaller institutions are public.”
There is not much I want to add here. For many years I have claimed that the most important decision about where a high school gradate should go to college is whether it should be at a large university or at a small liberal arts college. Many youngsters are perfectly capable of bucking bureaucratic rules, while resenting to be “mothered” by professors and advisors. Others are intimidated by rules and regulations and wind up not getting into what are for the not-so-clever “closed” classes. On the other hand, they might not at all mind a certain amount of advising that others might think of as intrusive. The success of undergraduate education is not simply a function of instructors competent in their fields, etc. But given that we are talking about an educational passage that also takes late teenagers into adulthood, more needs to be looked at besides scholarly competence.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
The book has had many reviews (of which I’ve only read a sprinkling) and I don’t intend to write another one, even though there is a sense that truly good books—and this is one—can be, and in effect are, reviewed again and again. Here I merely want briefly to comment on a characteristic of The Lost that I have not seen sufficiently stressed and take up some issues raised in Ruth Franklin’s review in Slate.
The characteristic I have in mind might be called structural complexity. Above all, the book is a memoir: it’s about Daniel Mendelsohn, from childhood through the complexities of that search. But because it is a memoir-with-a-theme and not an autobiography, it is about the author’s family, particularly—or almost exclusively—how it relates to the six lost. (Since that is the family of his mother, we find out practically nothing about his father.) Then it is about his growing need to know what had happened—progressive states of mind. Further and above all, it is about Mendelsohn’s many activities to find out what did happen. This becomes the story of trips and interviews and other encounters, but most important, it has him introduce a whole roster of characters who variously become involved in that search. He is very efficient or focused about that: of his siblings only one, Matt, who accompanies him on various trips and takes photographs, makes it to the status of person. Then, of course, there are the people (whose lived before Mendelsohn was born) whose lives and deaths he seeks to resurrect (an apt word never used) and the more peripheral and shadowy ones who are neighbors or killers or both. Finally, there are Mendelsohn’s reflections about all that, culminating (in the sense of “most abstractly” in accounts of Genesis and commentaries on that book of the Old Testament, including Mendelsohn’s, meant to shed a kind of symbolic light on these 20th century events. I read all those italicized passages, though I wasn’t always sure why I did.
Ruth Franklin says that Mendelsohn uses these passages about the Bible “somewhat pretentiously,” but in spite of that and other quite negative things she says, I read her review to be enthusiastically positive—cryptically so, since that positiveness is in spite of herself. Perhaps one quotation will say it all: “. . . he manages to make this moving and insightful but also self-indulgent book something of a page-turner.” We are talking about 500 pages, big ones, that consist mostly of talk and thoughts, presented in not-always-separated layers as just described; a book the forward-motion of which could not be further removed from what usually makes a page turner, as exemplified by adventure or detective stories. (Mendelsohn carefully refrains from “building up” to the final revelation, one that came about by accident, even if it was variously prodded to happen.) I was occasionally puzzled myself as to why I kept reading on, since Mendelsohn certainly did not transfer to me, in the fashion of Agatha Christie, the utter need to know just what happened to Shmiel and his family; what kept me with the narrative was ultimately his—Mendelsohn’s—story.
Ruth Franklin has essentially two beefs. First, Mendelsohn is “self-indulgent” (see above); Franklin refers, as well, to “the self-absorption that is evident throughout this bloated [but page-turning-inducing!?] memoir.” Well, it is a memoir, which is about the writer of it. I called my monster autobiography Mostly About Me, putting the matter up front. Mendelsohn puts the six killed family members in the title. Would it have been better if he had called the book, My Search for the Fate of Six Lost of Six Million instead of putting that into the subtitle?
That takes me to Franklin’s second, more serious, objection. Mendelsohn makes some comments—I hardly paid attention to them when I read the book—about the need for his kind of specificity for dealing with the Holocaust, as distinguished from the generality or, if one prefers, universality, purveyed by art. I’m with Franklin in that art can encapsulate experiences of every kind, those pertaining to the horrible events of the Shoah included. If Mendelsohn had written a treatise denying the efficacy of art—or its morality—I would enter my objections as well. Instead, he has, on the side, defended his approach, with his mission stated in the alternate title I gave to his book at the end of the previous paragraph.
Why are these exclusive alternatives—the fleshing out of specific fates and the evocation of the fate of many? Aristotle advised to look for the general in the particular. I don’t see why that should not be a very worthwhile task and why, when you do that in the way Mendelsohn does it, it should not be art as well.
The characteristic I have in mind might be called structural complexity. Above all, the book is a memoir: it’s about Daniel Mendelsohn, from childhood through the complexities of that search. But because it is a memoir-with-a-theme and not an autobiography, it is about the author’s family, particularly—or almost exclusively—how it relates to the six lost. (Since that is the family of his mother, we find out practically nothing about his father.) Then it is about his growing need to know what had happened—progressive states of mind. Further and above all, it is about Mendelsohn’s many activities to find out what did happen. This becomes the story of trips and interviews and other encounters, but most important, it has him introduce a whole roster of characters who variously become involved in that search. He is very efficient or focused about that: of his siblings only one, Matt, who accompanies him on various trips and takes photographs, makes it to the status of person. Then, of course, there are the people (whose lived before Mendelsohn was born) whose lives and deaths he seeks to resurrect (an apt word never used) and the more peripheral and shadowy ones who are neighbors or killers or both. Finally, there are Mendelsohn’s reflections about all that, culminating (in the sense of “most abstractly” in accounts of Genesis and commentaries on that book of the Old Testament, including Mendelsohn’s, meant to shed a kind of symbolic light on these 20th century events. I read all those italicized passages, though I wasn’t always sure why I did.
Ruth Franklin says that Mendelsohn uses these passages about the Bible “somewhat pretentiously,” but in spite of that and other quite negative things she says, I read her review to be enthusiastically positive—cryptically so, since that positiveness is in spite of herself. Perhaps one quotation will say it all: “. . . he manages to make this moving and insightful but also self-indulgent book something of a page-turner.” We are talking about 500 pages, big ones, that consist mostly of talk and thoughts, presented in not-always-separated layers as just described; a book the forward-motion of which could not be further removed from what usually makes a page turner, as exemplified by adventure or detective stories. (Mendelsohn carefully refrains from “building up” to the final revelation, one that came about by accident, even if it was variously prodded to happen.) I was occasionally puzzled myself as to why I kept reading on, since Mendelsohn certainly did not transfer to me, in the fashion of Agatha Christie, the utter need to know just what happened to Shmiel and his family; what kept me with the narrative was ultimately his—Mendelsohn’s—story.
Ruth Franklin has essentially two beefs. First, Mendelsohn is “self-indulgent” (see above); Franklin refers, as well, to “the self-absorption that is evident throughout this bloated [but page-turning-inducing!?] memoir.” Well, it is a memoir, which is about the writer of it. I called my monster autobiography Mostly About Me, putting the matter up front. Mendelsohn puts the six killed family members in the title. Would it have been better if he had called the book, My Search for the Fate of Six Lost of Six Million instead of putting that into the subtitle?
That takes me to Franklin’s second, more serious, objection. Mendelsohn makes some comments—I hardly paid attention to them when I read the book—about the need for his kind of specificity for dealing with the Holocaust, as distinguished from the generality or, if one prefers, universality, purveyed by art. I’m with Franklin in that art can encapsulate experiences of every kind, those pertaining to the horrible events of the Shoah included. If Mendelsohn had written a treatise denying the efficacy of art—or its morality—I would enter my objections as well. Instead, he has, on the side, defended his approach, with his mission stated in the alternate title I gave to his book at the end of the previous paragraph.
Why are these exclusive alternatives—the fleshing out of specific fates and the evocation of the fate of many? Aristotle advised to look for the general in the particular. I don’t see why that should not be a very worthwhile task and why, when you do that in the way Mendelsohn does it, it should not be art as well.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Pittsburgh Arts Indicator
For quite some time now, I have been involved in the Pittsburgh indicator project. That is a very worthwhile effort to provide accurate information about all kinds of dimensions of the Pittsburgh area, as distinguished from the usual and usually unreliable anecdotal information that is purveyed. Not enough people know about this project, so I recommend those who are happening on this blog to check out what has been done so far on the internet: www.pittsburghtoday.org.
My involvement has been with the arts indicator subdivision of this effort. We have done a study of arts participation in our region and have put quite a bit of the information that has been gathered on the indicator site. Click on the Arts moving panel and you will be regaled by some of the things we found out. But if you return to the site a bit later, more information will be posted fairly soon. Some of it—the difference between Pittsburghers’ attendance at sports and arts events will surprise those of you—of us!—who think of Pittsburgh above all as a sports city.
But now, I want to send out a call for help. If participation in arts activities measures the vitality of the arts community, determining the degree of exposure to, and education in, the arts of youngsters—say from elementary school through high school—will give an important signal as to the future vitality of the arts community.
As far as I have been able to determine, no one has ever made a study of this early stage for any particular community. At the same time, I have had numerous people tell me that it would be very valuable to make such a study—both to get information about a particular place (in this case that of the Pittsburgh area) and as a model for studies of other communities. I was even told that it would not be very difficult to raise money for such a research effort, though such optimism is often misplaced.
But so far I have not found anyone who could take the lead in designing and carrying out his potentially valuable research. If anyone who sees this blog—assuming that somebody does—has an idea as to how I can identify a person experienced in doing research with children, please let me know.
My involvement has been with the arts indicator subdivision of this effort. We have done a study of arts participation in our region and have put quite a bit of the information that has been gathered on the indicator site. Click on the Arts moving panel and you will be regaled by some of the things we found out. But if you return to the site a bit later, more information will be posted fairly soon. Some of it—the difference between Pittsburghers’ attendance at sports and arts events will surprise those of you—of us!—who think of Pittsburgh above all as a sports city.
But now, I want to send out a call for help. If participation in arts activities measures the vitality of the arts community, determining the degree of exposure to, and education in, the arts of youngsters—say from elementary school through high school—will give an important signal as to the future vitality of the arts community.
As far as I have been able to determine, no one has ever made a study of this early stage for any particular community. At the same time, I have had numerous people tell me that it would be very valuable to make such a study—both to get information about a particular place (in this case that of the Pittsburgh area) and as a model for studies of other communities. I was even told that it would not be very difficult to raise money for such a research effort, though such optimism is often misplaced.
But so far I have not found anyone who could take the lead in designing and carrying out his potentially valuable research. If anyone who sees this blog—assuming that somebody does—has an idea as to how I can identify a person experienced in doing research with children, please let me know.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
“Jewish Revival” in Poland
“In Poland, a Jewish Revival Thrives—Minus Jews” is the headline of a July 12 New York Times article. On the one hand, “More than three million Polish Jews died in the Holocaust” in which many Poles participated with enthusiasm. “Postwar pogroms and a 1968 anti-Jewish purge forced out most of those who survived.” On the other hand “‘Jewish style’ restaurants are serving up platters of pirogis, klezmer bands are playing . . . . Every June a festival of Jewish culture [in Krakow] draws thousands of people to sing Jewish songs and dance Jewish dances. The only thing missing, really, are Jews.” (All Times quotes.)
There is much more in the article along the same lines—read it; it gets quite elaborate how Poles go about infusing Jewish culture without any participation of those whose culture it is. That article really upset me; the word that came coming to my mind’s lips was “obscene.” But because I was not at all sure that this reaction is rational, I started to look for analogies.
Came to mind the “Greek Games” Barnard put on every year way back when. They were enactments of what was thought to be sporty practice in ancient Greece—without, of course, those parishioners in evidence. But the analogy is very weak. Those Barnard girls or their ancestors had nothing to do with the demise of those original Olympian athletes. More germane seemed festivals or markets featuring American Indian customs or crafts. No doubt the sponsors of those affairs are the descendents of those who done ‘em in. But there is one crucial difference. Indian culture, or a comic strip version of it, is there purveyed by actual remnants of the civilization on display.
In Poland those remnants have in effect been eliminated, so that everything that takes place is a form of play acting; all those thousands of participants in Jewish festivals are imitators of something the reality of which they never actually experienced and which was rubbed out by their forebears, including quite recent ones. It is imitation Jewishness become entertainment. No doubt these exotic insertions into conventional Polish culture constitute a spice that relieves what might well be perceived its current dullness. Invent your own spice, is my response and leave buried what you have killed.
There is much more in the article along the same lines—read it; it gets quite elaborate how Poles go about infusing Jewish culture without any participation of those whose culture it is. That article really upset me; the word that came coming to my mind’s lips was “obscene.” But because I was not at all sure that this reaction is rational, I started to look for analogies.
Came to mind the “Greek Games” Barnard put on every year way back when. They were enactments of what was thought to be sporty practice in ancient Greece—without, of course, those parishioners in evidence. But the analogy is very weak. Those Barnard girls or their ancestors had nothing to do with the demise of those original Olympian athletes. More germane seemed festivals or markets featuring American Indian customs or crafts. No doubt the sponsors of those affairs are the descendents of those who done ‘em in. But there is one crucial difference. Indian culture, or a comic strip version of it, is there purveyed by actual remnants of the civilization on display.
In Poland those remnants have in effect been eliminated, so that everything that takes place is a form of play acting; all those thousands of participants in Jewish festivals are imitators of something the reality of which they never actually experienced and which was rubbed out by their forebears, including quite recent ones. It is imitation Jewishness become entertainment. No doubt these exotic insertions into conventional Polish culture constitute a spice that relieves what might well be perceived its current dullness. Invent your own spice, is my response and leave buried what you have killed.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Stanley Katz on the Condition of the Professoriate
I just came across an article, written some time ago, by my friend Stanley Katz, “What Has Happened to the Professoriate?” (The Chronicle of Higher Education, p. B8) and want to make a few comments. To begin with, I think that Katz is wise to point out how variegated the professoriate has become, consisting of quite a number of subclasses that barely resemble each other and certainly have little to do with each other. I also deplore, as he emphatically does, the much lessened stress on teaching and the much reduced loyalty of professors to their institutions. If once upon the time, being a professor was a calling, the role has largely become a job—either a very good one if you belong to the elite segment or an overworked and poorly paid one, if you are a member of the squadron of lecturers who do so much of the teaching.
In the face of this situation, Katz twice invokes John Dewey (writing in 1915), who was instrumental in the creation of the American Association of University Professors, “But have we not come to a time when more can be achieved by taking thought together?” and asking that that happen again today.
I agree it should, but how will it happen, if it happens at all? The agency will not be the AAUP, which has become a union of the “haves” professors, caring not much for the have-nots and less for the professoriate as a company that serves. Twice, Katz mildly disparages the role of deans: “Deans by themselves cannot create educational change.” Professors must become more self-reflective, but “Again, this is the business of professors, not deans.”
Taken literally, I agree with these quotes, but they do not say enough. Professors, especially now in their splintered condition, will not by themselves initiate the discussions that will lead to much needed reforms. Perhaps because I was a dean (at Northwestern, for thirteen years), I am impressed by how necessary it is for someone like a dean to press a button, to initiate. And that is not simply a matter of speaking out, but calls for the use of incentives, positive and negative, to get a train out of the station and moving toward an envisaged goal. (To shift more of the teaching burden back to what used to be the professoriate will cost money and will deprive those bonzes of some of their privileges.)
If, recently, Harvard administrators had not been so inept, they might have served as a model (for curricular reform, anyway) for the rest of the country. When Henry Rosovsky initiated such reform in the seventies, Harvard’s efforts—in my view not at all impressive, but they were efforts—made the front page of the New York Times and became an inspiration, of sorts, for other institutions.
In short (if it’s not too late for that phrase), Katz has valuable things to say concerning the diagnosis of our ailments and he is right that how faculties reform themselves and their curricula must be determined by those faculties. But whether they do any of the above will depend on forceful pushes by academic administrators.
In the face of this situation, Katz twice invokes John Dewey (writing in 1915), who was instrumental in the creation of the American Association of University Professors, “But have we not come to a time when more can be achieved by taking thought together?” and asking that that happen again today.
I agree it should, but how will it happen, if it happens at all? The agency will not be the AAUP, which has become a union of the “haves” professors, caring not much for the have-nots and less for the professoriate as a company that serves. Twice, Katz mildly disparages the role of deans: “Deans by themselves cannot create educational change.” Professors must become more self-reflective, but “Again, this is the business of professors, not deans.”
Taken literally, I agree with these quotes, but they do not say enough. Professors, especially now in their splintered condition, will not by themselves initiate the discussions that will lead to much needed reforms. Perhaps because I was a dean (at Northwestern, for thirteen years), I am impressed by how necessary it is for someone like a dean to press a button, to initiate. And that is not simply a matter of speaking out, but calls for the use of incentives, positive and negative, to get a train out of the station and moving toward an envisaged goal. (To shift more of the teaching burden back to what used to be the professoriate will cost money and will deprive those bonzes of some of their privileges.)
If, recently, Harvard administrators had not been so inept, they might have served as a model (for curricular reform, anyway) for the rest of the country. When Henry Rosovsky initiated such reform in the seventies, Harvard’s efforts—in my view not at all impressive, but they were efforts—made the front page of the New York Times and became an inspiration, of sorts, for other institutions.
In short (if it’s not too late for that phrase), Katz has valuable things to say concerning the diagnosis of our ailments and he is right that how faculties reform themselves and their curricula must be determined by those faculties. But whether they do any of the above will depend on forceful pushes by academic administrators.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Read Samuel G. Freedman’s column, “So Much Paperwork, So Little Time to Teach” in the New York Times of July 4 and shudder. He gives an account of several teachers in New York City schools who find themselves spending a huge fraction of their time not teaching at all, but occupied with endless administrative chores. We’re not talking hours or days, but weeks. Of one of them Freedman reports that “he was able to teach [his students] for only about 60 percent of the supposedly allotted classroom time.” The persons he interviewed are mature people who shifted careers in order to make worthwhile contributions as teachers, not people who drifted into education for want of anything else to do.
To read those mere 1000 words is to see that the kind of bureaucratization I complain about is not just a big nuisance to be gotten over like a head cold in the spring. The waste of resources is great even counting only the few teachers mentioned in the article. It is mind-boggling when multiplied by the huge numbers to be found in a system like New York’s public schools. Perhaps even worse than this squandering of the tax payer’s money is its effect on those who, with conviction, have come to do one sort of job and are then forced to do another—which they have not come to do nor, mostly, see the point of doing. Those who stay in the job are likely to become cynical; other good people will just leave.
Just as every largish institution as a Human Resources person, so they should have a Vice President for Debureaucratization——with some power, who might actually begin her work with HR. Much money would be saved; morale would be raised.
To read those mere 1000 words is to see that the kind of bureaucratization I complain about is not just a big nuisance to be gotten over like a head cold in the spring. The waste of resources is great even counting only the few teachers mentioned in the article. It is mind-boggling when multiplied by the huge numbers to be found in a system like New York’s public schools. Perhaps even worse than this squandering of the tax payer’s money is its effect on those who, with conviction, have come to do one sort of job and are then forced to do another—which they have not come to do nor, mostly, see the point of doing. Those who stay in the job are likely to become cynical; other good people will just leave.
Just as every largish institution as a Human Resources person, so they should have a Vice President for Debureaucratization——with some power, who might actually begin her work with HR. Much money would be saved; morale would be raised.
Friday, June 29, 2007
A Sixty-Year Ride through the World of Education
Except for a monstrously long autobiography, the books I have written in the past all address different parts of the academic world. But this time I have just brought out a book that is intended for a much wider audience. It’s title is given above and it is published by Hamilton Books of the Rowman & Littlefield publishing group. The publisher’s website gives quite a bit of information. You can either click on this long-winded affair:
http://www.hamilton-books.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0761837310
or simply Google Hamilton Books and type Weingartner where it says Book Search. Besides a picture of its quite attractive cover, you can peruse the table of contents (with some minor and apparently ineradicable goofs) and pre-publication reviews by three distinguished readers. I am now joining the company of bloggers specifically to help peddle this book to that broader audience. While I look forward to spouting off on all kinds of topics––besides my interest in education, I have opinions on many aspects of politics, as well as on music and art, among other topics––my first task is to tell you about A Sixty-Year Ride.
While writing, I was conscious of wanting to do three things. First and centrally, I sought to acquaint the reader with numerous facets of the world of education. Before I retired in 1994, I had spent 61 years in school, beginning in Heidelberg, Germany in 1933, the same year Hitler came to power. First it was public elementary school but then an improvised Jewish School, before, in 1939, my family and I emigrated to New York. There elementary school continued in a new language, followed by junior high and Brooklyn Tech(nical High School). After a brief stint on an LST in the Pacific, I again served my time as a student, at Columbia, beginning as an undergraduate and ending with a doctorate in philosophy. I went on to teach philosophy at San Francisco State and Vassar, where I also chaired my departments. Turning “professional” administrator in 1974, I served 13 years as dean of arts and sciences at Northwestern and then a brief stint as provost of the University of Pittsburgh. Before retiring, I wound up up chairing Pitt’s philosophy department as well.
In telling this tale, I shine a light into most corners of the world of education and treat a great variety of issues pertaining to it. I do it in 33 short sections (none longer than 1,500 words)––suitable for people with short attention spans or with little continuous time to read. And I intersperse these autobiographical sections with 14 other short discussions that directly tackle significant educational themes at all levels: reflections on elementary and high school, on required courses for undergraduates, on learning how to teach, on the practice of Publish or Perish, on the nature of academic administration, by way of examples. Anyone who reads this short book of 167 pages will have learned a lot about the complex world from which I have now retired.
My second goal was to convey––but not abstractly nor by preaching-–my attitude toward this myriad of educational issues. My cousin, a scientist, who read the book, called to tell me that I am a dinosaur: “and I mean that in the good sense.” I agreed with both parts of that. Since I left academic administration (that’s now 18 years ago), academic administrators have largely become professional without quotation marks, administrations have become much larger and, not surprisingly, academic institutions have become considerably more bureaucratic. (As much as I enjoyed my years as a Northwestern dean, I would not now want to return to that job.) The dedication of The Sixty-Year Ride reads as follows: “This book is dedicated to all those academic administrators who work every day to foster the primary goals of the academy: teaching its students and contributing to the world’s knowledge.” That will give you a flavor of my attitude.
Finally, I confess that vanity also played a role in my bringing out this book. I’m 80 years old and wanted to show off some of what I have accomplished in life. Since I am, in any case, addicted to writing, herewith A Sixty-Year Ride through the World of Education.
http://www.hamilton-books.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0761837310
or simply Google Hamilton Books and type Weingartner where it says Book Search. Besides a picture of its quite attractive cover, you can peruse the table of contents (with some minor and apparently ineradicable goofs) and pre-publication reviews by three distinguished readers. I am now joining the company of bloggers specifically to help peddle this book to that broader audience. While I look forward to spouting off on all kinds of topics––besides my interest in education, I have opinions on many aspects of politics, as well as on music and art, among other topics––my first task is to tell you about A Sixty-Year Ride.
While writing, I was conscious of wanting to do three things. First and centrally, I sought to acquaint the reader with numerous facets of the world of education. Before I retired in 1994, I had spent 61 years in school, beginning in Heidelberg, Germany in 1933, the same year Hitler came to power. First it was public elementary school but then an improvised Jewish School, before, in 1939, my family and I emigrated to New York. There elementary school continued in a new language, followed by junior high and Brooklyn Tech(nical High School). After a brief stint on an LST in the Pacific, I again served my time as a student, at Columbia, beginning as an undergraduate and ending with a doctorate in philosophy. I went on to teach philosophy at San Francisco State and Vassar, where I also chaired my departments. Turning “professional” administrator in 1974, I served 13 years as dean of arts and sciences at Northwestern and then a brief stint as provost of the University of Pittsburgh. Before retiring, I wound up up chairing Pitt’s philosophy department as well.
In telling this tale, I shine a light into most corners of the world of education and treat a great variety of issues pertaining to it. I do it in 33 short sections (none longer than 1,500 words)––suitable for people with short attention spans or with little continuous time to read. And I intersperse these autobiographical sections with 14 other short discussions that directly tackle significant educational themes at all levels: reflections on elementary and high school, on required courses for undergraduates, on learning how to teach, on the practice of Publish or Perish, on the nature of academic administration, by way of examples. Anyone who reads this short book of 167 pages will have learned a lot about the complex world from which I have now retired.
My second goal was to convey––but not abstractly nor by preaching-–my attitude toward this myriad of educational issues. My cousin, a scientist, who read the book, called to tell me that I am a dinosaur: “and I mean that in the good sense.” I agreed with both parts of that. Since I left academic administration (that’s now 18 years ago), academic administrators have largely become professional without quotation marks, administrations have become much larger and, not surprisingly, academic institutions have become considerably more bureaucratic. (As much as I enjoyed my years as a Northwestern dean, I would not now want to return to that job.) The dedication of The Sixty-Year Ride reads as follows: “This book is dedicated to all those academic administrators who work every day to foster the primary goals of the academy: teaching its students and contributing to the world’s knowledge.” That will give you a flavor of my attitude.
Finally, I confess that vanity also played a role in my bringing out this book. I’m 80 years old and wanted to show off some of what I have accomplished in life. Since I am, in any case, addicted to writing, herewith A Sixty-Year Ride through the World of Education.
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