Let's Get Going!

I woke up at 5 this morning thinking about more faculty layoffs at Bemidji State. It really doesn't affect me at all anymore, of course. But I guess the point came up yesterday evening as I was explaining to my hiking buddies (walked about 5 miles on a trail between Minnehaha Falls and Fort Snelling with a "Meetup" group) why I was living in Saint Paul now. In any case, the thought that came to me was that what will be left after another couple of years at Bemidji State will be vocational programs and Diversity training. I'm not against students becoming more comfortable with diversity; I actually wrote and directed an Equity Certificate program at BSU. But during that experience I learned how complicated the issues are and how prone people are to making symbolic gestures while not really addressing systemic problems.

Maybe I'll say more about that another time. Today, I woke up imagining Bemidji losing a couple dozen more faculty. So they could devote more attention and budget to things the administration believed are more important to students. Like job-training internships with major businesses. Or sports. It seemed to me during the seven years I was at BSU, that despite symbolic gestures and protestations of support for teaching our students "The Humanities", these were always higher priorities if you measured the dollars spent.

That means, I imagined this morning, that in the long run BSU will return to being a combination of "Normal School" training school teachers and a technical-vocational college. The institution began just over a century ago, training teachers for northern Minnesota. The demographic bubble of the Baby Boom and the opportunities afforded by GI Bills and middle-class financial stability swelled the numbers of students for a couple of generations. That effect has largely subsided, so it's really no surprise the scope of the institution's activities would contract. Further, the ability of learners to access the resources of better teachers via online content seems to mean the less-good are less needed. Some faculty have hoped (often desperately) that being in-person in a classroom was the sine-qua-non of learning. But while a dynamic instructor can definitely ignite a classroom of interested and motivated students, not every class that meets in person achieves this goal. In some cases, the students are only there because they have to be, because they have a "Core Requirement" they need to check off for graduation. In other cases, the instructor just isn't that inspired or inspiring.

This is all part of a "Crisis in Higher Ed" that people have been talking about as long as I've been in the business, and probably much longer. There are many dimensions of this crisis and Bemidji's contraction from a university to a college are just one branch of that tree. Others were the frustration and confusion I experienced as a PhD student at UMass Amherst when I realized that only a very few of the PhDs the History Department minted every year ever found jobs in the field. Elite academics such as Eric Weinstein have a lot to say about the corruption of elite institutions such as Harvard, away from the groundbreaking pure scientific research he thinks they should be doing. Personally, I'm not sure that has ever been the main goal of places like Harvard or Yale, which historically have always been more about both training the next generation of America's oligarchs and introducing them to each other. But he does make an important point about the capture of research agendas by either industry or government agencies using grant funding to set priorities. I think this probably happens and creates problems of equal or greater magnitude at R1 public institutions.

Nor can most young people afford to put themselves on a life-path where they can afford to delay into their mid-to-late twenties the beginnings of their productive, independent lives. A place like Bemidji State, where more than half the students were the first generation of collegians in their families, is at the forefront of this challenge in selling a college education to students as something they need in order to lead meaningful, fulfilling lives. Over the years, I saw a lot of impatience from both students and their families regarding the curriculum the university tried to impose on undergrads. This resistance certainly covered the "Liberal Arts" core requirements, but extended also to more recent fads such as a required sustainability course or a new graduation requirement that forces all students to take at least one Indigenous Studies course. I have taught Environmental History within the "People of the Environment" interdisciplinary sustainability course, so I wasn't an enemy of that program. But I was aware that students often rolled their eyes during advisory meetings when they were reminded they were nearing graduation and hadn't checked that box yet.

But back to my thoughts when I was waking up. They were basically, that if Bemidji State and similar institutions are slowly (or rapidly) going out of business, then how are people going to gain the Liberal Educations they're still going to need, to function in the world? To be clear, although it should be obvious, I mean education in critical thinking and some type of foundational understanding of the culture we live in, not training to be a "liberal". Although I do suspect that an ability to think independently and to understand (and perhaps even empathize with) the experiences and perspectives of others improves the chances of liberal outcomes in the sense of increased liberty for individuals and society.

I think this is important, but I'm no longer welcome at Bemidji State. Even Saint Paul College, where I'll be working soon, can only afford to hire me for the year. Clearly, I need to offer the content and ideas I think will put students on this track, in other ways. I'm always reminded of the Good Will Hunting scene in which Matt Damon embarrasses the Harvard grad student in the bar.

But the line about the $150,000 education that could have been had for $1.50 in library late fees is a unfortunately a bit misleading. It's true the books are out there, but how many people go to the library, find them, read them, understand them, and do something with the knowledge and insights? It's time-consuming and often takes a degree of focus and mental energy that people who work all day don't have. Especially if they also have family responsibilities and other demands on their attention.

This is why the idea of going away for four years when we're young was such a brilliant, beautiful solution. What a privilege to join a community of people dedicated to learning, led by people who were also excited about the ideas and pursuing their own research and writing on the topics. In the same sort of way Ricky Gervais says he feels lucky to have lived in the generation he did, I'm really glad I had that opportunity to spend a few years at UMass as an undergrad in the 80s. My BS degree prepared me in no way whatsoever for the job I ended up taking or the first two careers I had in securities and technology. But I wouldn't trade them.

It was a beautiful dream, and it continues for some very privileged students at some colleges and universities. But I think it's fair to say the expectation that this privileged class of students is going to continue widening is over. At least until the evisceration of the middle class and accumulation of wealth at the very top reverses. In the meantime, though, we are also extremely privileged to have the internet. Although the social media giants have tried to channel all attention to their curated and controlled feeds, the web still exists. We can still reach any number of people, nearly anywhere in the world.

So I think that’s the solution. And I would say to others who have knowledge or insights they want to contribute to help improve the world: Let’s get going.