Remembering What We Used to Say About Our Students
During the first few years of my career at Wabash, back in the early nineties, our department did a lot of hiring, which means we had lots of dinners with job candidates, and thus we had to tell them what Wabash is all about. We ended up saying the same things over and over and thus got into a routine, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I could predict who was going to say what almost like we were acting in a play. We all had to pretend we were being spontaneous even though we were rehearsing the standard version of the college’s identity and mission.
I remember six points that were part of our routine. First, one of us—often it would be Raymond Williams, if memory serves me—would talk about how refreshing it is that the faculty at Wabash are not cynical about their students. At the time I did not fully understand why this was such an important point, but now I have a better grasp of why Raymond put this point front and center. Many faculty at many colleges are in the habit of sneering at their students and complaining about their ignorance, their prejudices, and their laziness. Wabash faculty really do, or perhaps did, stand out for being refreshingly upbeat about their students. Raymond often made the point that it is easy for professors to begin doubting their students, and that the trust and respect between faculty and students at Wabash is a precarious and precious relationship that must be actively nourished and sustained. Once a faculty allows itself to become suspicious and condescending toward its students, it is almost impossible to rebuild that mutual trust and respect.
Second, one of us, maybe it was David Greene or Hall Peebles, would suggest that one of the reasons Wabash has avoided so many of the ideological disputes that plague so many colleges and universities is that the faculty keep the focus on teaching. The faculty share a love of teaching and honor good teaching and talk about teaching. That is what sets us apart from so many of our peer institutions, and that is what provides our sense of unity and community. At this point in the conversation I would often throw in the comment that we do not have mountains, beaches, big city shopping, or even girls, so the only thing we can really offer our students is our total dedication inside and outside the classroom. Several of us would then point out how much we cherish the tradition of fraternity faculty dinners.
Third, one of us—often it was Bill Placher, I think—would talk about how you can’t stereotype Wabash students. One of the advantages of being an all-male college, we would tell the job candidate, is that our students are very egalitarian and unpredictable. You don’t know which students are from wealthy families and which from poor ones, and the fraternities compete against each other for good grades rather than good looking girls. The best athletes are often the best writers, the guys who look like they would never read poetry are English majors, guys who never acted in a play in high school become theater majors, and pre-meds are known to minor or even major in religion.
Fourth, one of us, perhaps Cheryl or Glen, would point out that our students are often first generation college students, frequently from small towns, and frequently on generous tuition aid. They are thus not your typical private liberal arts college students. They are not the sons of the urban cultural elite. Nevertheless, we would all chime in, we like it that way! The measure of a great college is how far you take students, not how sophisticated they are when they get here. And, we would add, we like the values they bring with them to the College—their work ethic, their competitive spirit, and their eagerness to learn.
Fifth, one of us, I think it was often me, would talk about how important it is that students take ownership over the college. Being all-male makes us unique, and the traditions and rituals that come along with that create a tremendous bond among the students that becomes even stronger for many of our alumni. The students are forced by their friends to defend their decision to come here, and thus they have to think long and hard about what Wabash is and whether Wabash is worth it. Most of them end up being very proud of Wabash. They claim this college as their own, which makes them more engaged with their education and their environment.
Sixth, and finally, one of us inevitably would bring up the Gentleman’s Rule as the capstone to all that had already been said. A college that treats young men as men, with minimal regulations, is a remarkable phenomenon in an age of college administrations run amok. Colleges that have huge handbooks of student rules and complex systems of enforcing those rules simply don’t trust their students. We trust our students, we would say, which is why we have only one basic rule. We believe that virtue is best taught when students are given the freedom to determine for themselves what kind of lives they want to lead. As an all-male institution, the college has a competitive atmosphere, with students working hard, playing hard, and even, in many cases, drinking hard, but we don’t tell students what to do outside the classroom just as we don’t tell them what to think inside the classroom.
Such were our conversations with job candidates, and in light recent trends and events at Wabash, they seem pretty innocent and quaint. I don’t know what kinds of conversations departments have with job candidates nowadays, but the Faculty Quality of Life survey suggests that there is little agreement about the character of this college and even less enthusiasm for its unique mission. My sense is that a genial cynicism has settled over faculty discussions of students like a thick fog that clouds our memory of what used to be. I would like to focus six areas of particular concern.
First, student freedom. We live in an era of big government, invasive technology, excessive litigation, and political correctness. Most universities these days have Byzantine rules and procedures for the governance of student conduct. Many universities have speech codes that determine what you can and cannot say about sensitive issues. Wabash is different, but it can sustain that difference only if the administration and the faculty trust the students. As every parent knows, it’s not easy to trust young people these days. Parents who do not want their children to make mistakes often end up being overly protective, but being overly protective only encourages children to be passive and irresponsible. What this means for Wabash is that the College cannot teach students to be responsible by taking away opportunities for them to act responsibly.
Second, the all-male mission. This is utterly essential, in my mind, to the character and success of what we do, but what do we do with faculty who reject this mission? Of course, those who are already on the faculty and reject this aspect of our mission are more than welcome to their opinions and criticisms, but it is time, I think, to be more open and up front about our all-male mission to new hires. We need to ask them to think carefully about what it means to teach at an all male college, and we need to make sure they realize that this is a settled issue. It can be and should be debated, but it will not change. If a potential faculty member, for example, thinks that an all-male college is equivalent to an all-white racist college, then that job candidate should be excluded from employment consideration. How could someone give their best to an institution that they think is morally evil? Every institution has a tipping point, which is the point when criticisms lead to chaos. Every institution needs order. If too many people opt out of an institution’s ideals, then those ideals will fall apart. Is that what the faculty wants?
Third, women faculty. We need to affirm the women who teach at Wabash, and to do that, we need to think very carefully about faculty claims that an all male environment inevitably leads to a hostile environment for women faculty and staff. The only way to investigate this claim is for female faculty and staff to be given an opportunity to document their many charges of sexual harassment in an absolutely private and confidential form. I think that there is not a single faculty member who would not be appalled by any kind of sexual harassment at Wabash, but how can we know the level of the kind of problem we have if we do not know what women faculty mean by sexual harassment?
Fourth, the role of religion. We simply have to talk about the role of religion at Wabash. It is obvious that many faculty are uncomfortable with having so many religious students at Wabash, and some faculty have made it clear in the Quality of Life Survey that they are indignant that there are a couple of outspoken people of faith on the faculty. In my experience, Wabash is one of the most secular institutions that I know. Many of our peer institutions have administrative positions or chaplaincies to meet the religious needs of their students. Religion is all the rage in many academic disciplines, although it is treated as irrelevant in many Wabash classrooms. Survey after survey shows that college-bound students are increasingly conservative and religious, and that a significant number of them want to learn more about religion in whatever field they end up studying. What are we going to do about that? Our religious students are woefully neglected and underserved, especially given the many new programs, offices, buildings, and initiatives the College has undertaken in recent years.
Fifth, the problem of politicization. There is obviously a lot of conflict between the many faculty who self-identify as liberals or leftists and the small handful who self-identify as conservative, libertarian, or even moderate. The College would benefit from examining this conflict honestly and directly. The College should be committed to a diversity of ideas and to a free market for political perspectives. A survey of just how many faculty are registered Republicans would be an interesting place to start. We need data. When faculty complain about conservatives, how many are they talking about? Just how liberal is our faculty? Why are conservative views so threatening?
Sixth, student recruitment. We need to think about what makes our student body work, and we need to be very careful about trying to become a more “national” institution or even a more “diverse” college. We are and always will be a small all-male college in a small town in Indiana. What kinds of students will find this experience invigorating? What kinds of students do we serve best? We need to stop asking what kinds of students we would like to teach and instead ask what kinds of students would get the most out of studying here.
Perhaps if we have these conversations with each other, we can end up having good conversations with job candidates. Nonetheless, I admit that I can’t think of any better job candidate conversation than the ones we used to have in the religion and philosophy department. I just wish one could still hear these things being said by faculty today.
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