Related posts:

1. December 2007 Back Page
2. Around Wabash – December 2007
3. March 2009 – Front Page Cover

Upon entering Little Mexico one hour before opening, the feeling of pride that every employee shared was evident. From those who were cleaning the floor to those preparing food, it was clear that everyone knew their place. After sitting down with the owner of Little Mexico, Señor Ignacio Bravo, it was apparent where this sense of pride and purpose originated. “It’s true, I run a tight ship,” said Sr. Bravo as he finished making preparations from behind the bar, “I feel like it helps remind everyone how far we have come.” And they have come a long way. For Sr. Bravo, his journey started at the age of sixteen when his family moved from the Mexican state of Jalisco to southern California. When his family decided to immigrate to the United States, Sr. Bravo admits that, at sixteen, he had “big dreams.” His pursuit of those dreams started out slowly, however, and his journey was not devoid of difficulty.

He left southern California at the age of twenty-three when the factory he was working for asked him to transfer to Chicago. He remained here until 1991 when, once again, his employer had him transfer to a new factory. As fate would have it, this new assignment led him to Crawfordsville. Sr. Bravo said the move was easier for him because “Crawfordsville was like my hometown outside Guadalajara.” It seemed as though he had finally found a place where he could settle down. However, in 1993 Sr. Bravo lost his job when the factory closed. After his employment with the company had led him across the country, he suddenly found himself without direction. It was the relationships with his co-workers that initially sparked the next idea for Sr. Bravo. While still employed, Sr. Bravo’s lunches were filled with his native cuisine that he had prepared. One day, according to Sr. Bravo, “my co-worker was over for lunch talking about work, and he said I should just sell my lunches.” With this advice, Sr. Bravo opened Little Mexico in 1993, and he now has upwards of fifteen employees working for him. “I never thought it would be like this,” he says, “I had gotten used to always working for someone and now I’m the boss.”

What makes this story amazing is that not only did Sr. Bravo overcome the obstacles of moving to follow his work, but he became an American citizen legally. To complete the American naturalization process is quite an accomplishment in itself. For many, the more than ten year process of naturalization proves to be too much. For Sr. Bravo, “It wasn’t a matter what is faster; it was a matter of the right thing to do. I wanted to show my kids that we should be grateful for this opportunity.” He believes that the hard process of working and moving while trying to earn citizenship has given him a “respect for everything that I accomplish.” When asked if he was happy with the outcome of his journey he laughed and said, “Is it not obvious? I have good business and my family is happy. My American Dream came true.” So what about someone else who wants to live the American Dream? Well, Sr. Bravo recommends the food industry, “Restaurants are top business. Do it right, and you can become very successful.”

Little Mexico employees

However, there is another, less than legal way to try and obtain this dream. According to the Bureau of Transportation, statistics show that, on average, there are over 1,000,000 illegal border crossings from Mexico each year, and data from the Bureau also show that there are approximately 22,000,000 illegal aliens who live in the United States today. Not only do they live here illegally, but they send almost $20 billion in remittances to Mexico. This is an obvious problem, and the arguments for and against a concentrated effort to end such practices have littered political debates. But how does a legal immigrant feel about this topic? Sr. Bravo admits that, “it [illegal immigration] is a problem and it’s upsetting. Taking advantage of a welcoming system is wrong.” But when asked what he would do to change it, Sr. Bravo smiles, “I make money owning a restaurant. I can’t say what would solve the problem, but I think that better security at the border would help. The dream is there for everyone, but you have to do it right.”

Sr. Bravo couldn’t be more correct; the American Dream is for everyone who will respect it enough to gain citizenship legally. He chose legal immigration and now is just as much an American citizen as those reading this article. We, as Americans, tend to get caught up in the practice of making blanket statements and this discussion on immigration is no different. Some suggest that we should “kick all of the immigrants out” or “shut down the border altogether.” However, we should not forget our own history as Americans. Our ancestors were immigrants themselves with the same dreams and aspirations of a better life. Sometimes, we don’t understand the full process that legal immigrants take to earn their citizenship. It is through this process that they become patriotic citizens searching for their own American Dream. In a way, the old saying is proven wrong; the grass just might be greener on the other side of the fence, no pun intended. The 173,753 people from Mexico who were granted legal residency in 2006 share in the same pride and respect of their American citizenship that we see in Sr. Ignacio Bravo. While there are many different paths to reach it, Sr. Bravo would agree that the American Dream is not only found in the destination but also in the journey.

Related posts:

1. On the Arizona Immigration Law
2. Conservatives Should Stand for English, Not Against Immigration
3. How Not to Talk about Illegal Immigration

Wabash College Newman Center

On Wednesday nights at the Newman Center on Grant Avenue, a revival is occurring. In a sense, this revival does involve miracles and speaking in tongues. However, this has nothing to do with Pentecostalism. Instead, a revival of the traditional Latin Mass of the Roman Catholic Church is occurring. Something which many people thought was dead has revived, and the speaking of a dead language of Rome has caught a zealous fire amongst Catholic youth here at Wabash and across the nation.

Starting in mid-October and ending towards the end of the semester, Dr. David Kubiak of the Classic Department has been teaching a seminar on the traditional Latin Mass (also known as the “extraordinary rite”) on alternating Wednesday evenings. Based on mutual passions, Dr. Kubiak and his willing students embark on a journey to study the ancient rite of the Roman Catholic Church. At the beginning of the seminar, interested young men were given copies of a reprinted 1912 book written by former Anglican turned Catholic priest Fr. Adrian Fortescue entitled The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy. Before a seminar session, students are suggested to read passages from the book, which details Fr. Fortescue’s views of the development of the Mass from the days of the Apostles until his own day.

The study focuses on the traditional Latin Mass (or Tridentine Mass) as commonly celebrated before the Second Vatican Council, which occurred 1965 and 1969. The Latin Mass itself has an ancient history going back to the early days of the Church. Dispelling a popular belief, Dr. Kubiak pointed out in a seminar session that Christian worship was never performed in the vernacular language of the worshippers until the Protestant Reformation in the early 16th century. The Mass developed over time and greatly followed the concept of “lex orandi, lex credendi” (“the rule of prayer is the rule of faith”). The doctrines of the Church were reflected in its Mass, and as doctrine developed, the Mass developed. In the 1960s, the winds of change swept through the Church with the Second Vatican Council. People demanded for a Mass that was said in the vernacular, and the so the Church answered the call. In a revamping of the Mass (called the “Novus Ordo”), the Church changed some of the content of the Mass and allowed for it to be said in the vernacular.

Though it was not meant to happen, the Novus Ordo in many ways replaced the Tridentine Mass. The Latin Mass was essentially discarded by a new wave of priests and bishops. In the “spirit of Vatican II,” the old Mass was disregarded (against the wishes of many bishops and cardinals). Naturally, while some Catholics celebrated, others were disgruntled. Traditionalists (such as Dr. Kubiak) who had grown up with the pre-Vatican II Mass and appreciated it were left with a product of the 1960s. This frustration vented itself in several ways. Some left the Roman Catholic Church for Eastern Catholic rites (which, while submitting to the Pope, were not truly affected by Vatican II). Others left to form schismatic groups which preserved the pre-Vatican II Mass while sacrificing union with Rome. The vast majority of traditionalists, however, remained within the Roman Catholic Church. They recognized the Novus Ordo, while ascetically lacking, to be valid and would more or less submit to the Holy Mother Church. Many did not expect to see the pre-Vatican II Mass performed widely again.

However, that changed with the rise in the Church of the Bavarian theologian Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. As a theologian who had written positively concerning the Tridentine Mass and, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had permitted its celebration more freely and than it had been in the immediate aftermath of the introduction of the Novus Ordo. In 1988, the document Ecclesia Dei was published by the Vatican saying that Bishops must respect aspirations of the faithful for the old Mass. Ratzinger was a staunch defender of the Latin Mass. Naturally, as he entered the Papacy, this continued. On July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued a document titled Summorum Pontificum which said that any properly trained priest can celebrate the traditional Latin Mass without the permission of the local diocesan Bishop. This provided great freedom for traditionalists, who longed for this day, and has spurred a renewal of interest in the traditional Latin Mass (labeled by Summorum Pontificum as the “extraordinary rite”).

This renewal is certainly occurring at Wabash and through the nation. This interest has been present for many years on campus. Dr. Kubiak, a longtime devotee to the extraordinary rite, has inspired students to study the ancient Roman liturgy. The current seminar occurring at the Newman Center is a repeat of a course that Dr. Kubiak taught in 1997. The class was offered by the Classics Department, but was unable to count as a religion course despite the inherently religious nature of the course. The reason for this, according to Dr. Kubiak, was that the Religion Department feared that Dr. Kubiak would use the course as a means of proselytizing for the Roman Catholic Church. For the record, the majority of the students who registered for the course were Protestants, and none of them converted as a direct result of this course. Every year, Dr. Kubiak will take Wabash students to Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Indianapolis (an apostolate dealing completely in the traditional Latin Mass), and every year students (Catholics and otherwise) are taken aback by the majesty and reverence present in the traditional Latin Mass. Dr. Kubiak says that Protestant have attended a celebration of the traditional Latin Mass and have eventually entered into the Catholic Church. While the Latin Mass is obviously not the sole factor in the conversions, it certainly plays a major part in the experience.

In supposedly increasingly secularized world, why are some youth turning towards the old, seemingly discarded traditions of the Catholic Church? Dr. Kubiak and other traditionalists speculate that it is because some youth feel cheated of their heritage. They have more likely than not grown up without a reverent Mass and are turned off by the seemingly trivial, “seeker friendly,” guitar Masses. They feel that God should be treated with more reverence and awe. The awe-inspiring mood inherent in the traditional Latin Mass therefore serves as a magnet for these young Catholics. Sick of what Dr. Kubiak calls the “poverty and debasement of liturgy” present in many Catholic churches, they gravitate towards the more traditional Latin Mass or a more serious, reverent celebration of the Novus Ordo. While traditionalists will forcefully confess that the post-Vatican II Mass is absolutely legitimate and valid, it may not be the absolutely best route. Dr. Kubiak compares it to “getting to heaven in a Honda instead of a Cadillac.” Perhaps the sentiments of some traditionalist Catholic youth is found in this quotation from personal correspondence with Matthew Schumacher, a junior at Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart – a theologically liberal Catholic high school in Madison, Wisconsin. In personal correspondence, he wrote: “Ever since I attended a Latin Mass, I have fallen in love with the reverence, beauty, and mystery of the Eucharist … Most people thought that just the elderly would attend the Tridentine Mass, but actually most of the families that attend are large and young … The Mass of the ages inspires me much more than the ‘guitar Mass’ … I am tired of the lack of reverence and love of the Body and Blood of Our Lord in the Tabernacle.”

Most Wabash students who have either been participating in the seminar or discovered the Latin Mass sing its praises. David Haggard ’10, the president of the Wabash College Catholic Newman Center, said, “The revival of the Latin Mass is a beautiful gift the Holy Spirit has bestowed upon Christ’s Church. It has been rewarding learning the organic history of the Mass … the Mass is not of this world it’s not made to entertain but to glorify the Almighty Creator … The study of the Latin Mass has deepened and enriched my faith in Christ.” Royce Gregerson ’09, who is presently studying abroad in Argentina but had previously discovered the traditional Latin Mass through Dr. Kubiak, said, “It is a recovery of the very essence of the Church – what we always have been and what we always will be. It is about continuity with our past, but also with our future. I truly believe that our rediscovery of our liturgical heritage is the keystone to finally bringing about the new springtime of the Church envisioned by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council.”

The majority of Wabash men are Protestants. Why should non-Catholics (such as the current writer – a Lutheran) care about the traditional Latin Mass? Dr. Kubiak and others argue that European culture in its formative years was greatly connected with the ancient Roman liturgy. Some of the magnificent music of Europe was written for the traditional Mass. Also, the Popes, kings, theologians, philosophers, artists, and peasants together celebrated this Mass. Therefore, to understand the Western culture that Wabash College and our nation are built upon, knowledge of the traditional Latin Mass would be useful. For Protestants, to study the traditional Latin Mass is to study the Mass that Martin Luther said and on which John Calvin was reared. To study the traditional Mass is to study the ultimate heritage of Protestantism. Perhaps, also, this return to the roots could inspire greater interest in the early confessional and theological writings of the Reformers which have been seemingly abandoned by the wayside by modern Evangelicalism and liberal Protestantism.

In Ecclesiastes, the Teacher wrote that “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven” (Ecc. 3:1). This divinely inspired statement is certainly true about the traditional Latin Mass. Seemingly discarded in a typical Sixties fashion as an ancient relic, it is experiencing a revival – especially amongst youth. Its season is now.

Related posts:

1. A Catholic, A Croatian, A Physicist: An Interview with Dr. Bojan Tunguz

Before she was a professor, Salisbury worked for the National Park Service guiding tours of Civil War battlefields. She gave interpretations of, among other things, Stonewall Jackson and the Battle of Chancellorsville. She likes to tell the story of one particular tour where she was confronted with the task of detailing the battle to a particularly southern-looking gentleman, who arrived in a van with the Confederate flag in “every available space.” When the bearded old man got out of the van with his three children, Salisbury’s companions laughed at the fact that an African-American woman was about to lecture to an obvious southern “redneck” about the Civil War. Salisbury was nervous throughout the whole talk, as the old man stared intently at her the entire time. When the time came for the question and answer session, the old southerner was the first to raise his hand. Salisbury reluctantly called on him, certain that he was indignant about a black woman claiming any kind of authority on the Confederacy.

“Ma’am,” he said, “I just wanted to say that was the best darn interpretation of Stonewall Jackson I ever heard, and it would be a pleasure for me to shake your hand.” After shaking her hand, he recommended that she become a teacher, introduced her to his children, then stepped back and said, “And just as a final gesture, I would love to salute you.” He clicked together his heels, and gave her a hearty Confederate salute.

That old man would not be the last to be pleasantly surprised by Salisbury’s rendition of history. When I first registered for History 240 last semester, I didn’t know who the professor would be. Dr. Pitts was no longer teaching the class, and the course description did not provide the name of the professor who would replace her. When I found out at the end of the semester that the class would be taught by Professor Salisbury, my initial reaction was to roll my eyes. I had attended a lecture she had given earlier that year. It was about Hip Hop “culture.” Since my knowledge of music doesn’t extend too far beyond Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and a handful of old hymns, I was very lost. But I was able to take away what I saw as a few of the main themes: 1.) Hip Hop is cool, 2.) You, therefore, are not cool because you do not understand Hip Hop, and 3.) Capitalism destroys good music. From this I concluded that she was a brilliant but somewhat misguided liberal (a nice fit, I thought, for the history department) who would lecture me in class about the evils of America’s founding ideals; she would likely offer constant and unnecessary critiques of Wabash College, and of Wabash men. My assumptions were wrong.

My point in writing this piece is not to prove that Professor Salisbury is a conservative. She is obviously not. Neither is my point to chastise her for being a liberal. She is not that either. Against the backdrop of a faculty survey that often portrays Wabash students in a negative light, I merely intend to tell a positive story of a new professor whose initial impressions of the College have not been so downbeat, and whose view of history may surprise those who, like me, may be a bit too quick to jump to conclusions about people.

Salisbury is from Los Angeles, California. She attended Beverly Hills High School, not because of her financial standing but because of her academic and athletic ability. She hoped to one day get into the sports business. After majoring in political science at Holy Cross College in Massachusetts, she received her masters in Sports Administration at Central Michigan University. She is not intimidated by Wabash’s all-male atmosphere. “I teach sports,” she told me in a recent interview, “Sports are my expertise. So I’ve had all-male classrooms before.”

She claims that Wabash’s all-male status wasn’t even a factor in her decision to take a job here. “I hadn’t even considered it,” she says. She learned a lesson from her experience with the old southerner at Civil War battlefield: that the “extra” factors about herself, the fact that she is a black woman, don’t matter so much as long as she shows passion for the subject. “My greatest fear, when I was doing those talks, was the public,” she says. “But the public saw my passion and my excitement for the subject. So all the extras that I thought mattered didn’t, and we connected though that. Because that’s what they’re ultimately there for someone [who] cares about the park and cares about the story.” She is able to apply that lesson as a female teacher at a college for men. “When I came here, this place being all-male, I was like, If you’re a good teacher and you respect the guys, you’ll go here. And so far that’s been the case for me.” She doesn’t have a problem with the all-male environment. “It wasn’t in the ‘problem’ column,” she says. “It was in the ‘unique’ column.”

It was, in fact, Wabash’s unique environment which led her to take a visiting professor position. When she entered the job market last year, she was offered four positions at different colleges. Three of them were tenure-track. The other was Wabash. “I wanted to be around top notch students,” she says. Her main desire was “to be around a positive environment where people were really passionate about learning. And out of my choices, I felt that was Wabash.” So she decided to “roll the dice,” as she puts it, “and see what happened.” Thus far, she has not been disappointed with her decision.

She has also enjoyed Wabash traditions, describing them as “great,” “awesome,” and “pretty cool.” “The traditions here at Wabash—you have to take responsibility for each other,” she says. “I think you guys take care of each other, and I admire that.” She does claim that traditions take some time to learn. “Some things are traditional in a sense, like what you see on other campuses, and some things are unique to Wabash, and it takes time to learn those things,” she explains. You have to ask questions in order to figure things out. “To me, being a woman doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re an outsider. It just means that maybe you might have to ask a few more questions to find out what you want to know … I don’t feel I’ve been left out of the traditions here.”

In the classroom, Salisbury takes a balanced approach to history. When it comes to teaching about the founding fathers, often demonized by modern historians for their flaws, she describes them as “complex” as opposed to “bad.” On the trend of attacking such historical figures, she says, “I think we have to go beyond that or people can’t learn.” You have to see historical figures for what they are: complex people in circumstances that are very foreign to us. “You take people out of their time and place, then say ‘They were evil, they were bad,’” she says, but “you have to put people in their time and place and see them as a human being.” This trend goes in two directions, she believes. While some Americans demonize historical figures like the founding fathers, others idolize them, and make them out to be flawless. Historians have to be willing to examine every aspect of a person, exposing all the virtues and all the vices. “The key to being a historian is you have to not be afraid to pull the sheet back.”

She does not see it as her job in the classroom to push her particular view of history on students. “You have to put the information out there and let the students decide,” she says. She claims that her fairness to the founding fathers comes, in a way, from the Golden Rule. She treats them fairly, because she would like others to do the same for her. “For me, as a professor, I’m in the complexity when I’m standing up there, baby-faced looking, black and a woman, and I teach history, and I get up there and wax some poetic about the Civil War. Sometimes I don’t know what my students are thinking,” she says. “I want you to give me the same opportunity. Maybe that’s why I treat characters that way.”

As for her motivations for teaching, she says, “I teach because it’s fun. The minute it stops being fun, I’m out.” So far, we can then assume, her time at Wabash has been enjoyable. She describes her experience with Wabash students as “extremely positive.” “At the end of the day, whether I’m here next year or not, this was the best choice for me, because I’ve become better already,” she explains, “I made an excellent choice. I know I did. I made an excellent choice in coming here.”

She is not a conservative, but she appreciates Wabash’s students, and its unique environment. It is not too early to salute her for that.ca

Related posts:

1. Meet Dr. Wilcox: An Interview with the New Religion Professor
2. Professor Gates Needs Sensitivity Training
3. Why Did the Orthodox Win? A Wabash Professor Researches the Origins of Christianity

Marx at Wabash?

On October 25, Karl Marx made an appearance on campus at Salter Hall. Sponsored by multiple Wabash departments and coordinated by history professor Dr. Stephen Morillo, the production of liberal historian Howard Zinn’s one-man play Marx in Soho proved to be a high-quality and exhilarating performance by actor Robert Weick. The play tried to both rehabilitate and humanize Marx. While displaying the hardships of Marx’s life, the Zinn play tried to demonstrate that the Marxist critique of capitalism is more relevant than ever. In the play, Marx says: “If I were to walk through the streets of American cities today, I’d be surrounded by garbage, breathing foul air. I’ll walk past a bunch of men and women sleeping on the streets. Do you call this progress because you have motor cars, cell phones, flying machines, and a thousand potions to make me smell better?” Perhaps Mr. Marx should visit Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago, and other cities and view the social carnage of leftist social policies. Marx is right – Marxism is very much alive. The housing projects are proof.

We Love Mail

We would like to apologize to those of you who submitted letters to the editor for this issue. Due to a packed issue, we ran out of room and did not have anywhere to print your comments. We promise to include them next time. The Phoenix always encourages readers to direct comments, praise or scorn to editor (at) wabashunion.org.

Ward Connerly

On November 15th, the Wabash Conservative Union hosted Mr. Ward Connerly, founder and chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute and recognized leader in the fight to end race preference in America. The lecture went quite well and was well received. (At least by those who came with an open mind and were willing to listen.) It is the Phoenix’s hope that this important conversation about race preference and affirmative action continues on campus. It is too important a topic to be ignored.

RIP: Wabash Commentary

Related posts:

1. December 2007 Back Page
2. December 2007 – Front Page
3. Around Wabash – November 2007

Princeton Review

For a large majority of Wabash students, their financial aid statement has an item total labeled Employment Self-Help, or ESH. This is an alternative to borrowing that allows students to work on campus to help pay the cost of their own attendance. The total is supposed to reflect the amount a student is eligible to earn throughout the year and the amount they will need to come up with in order to cover the costs of attendance. A recent survey of 58 ESH eligible students found that earning all of their ESH is unrealistic, since the system has become over saturated with student workers.

Nearly 26% of respondents actively searching for more hours on campus have been unsuccessful. A quick visit to WabashWorks explained why; as of November 4th, there isn’t a single job posted. Of course, this far into the semester, I didn’t expect to find many openings, but this does prove that the students without hours are not to blame. Otherwise, the void of posted jobs may be insignificant since the results of the survey suggest that students were less likely to find a job using WabashWorks than their peers who simply applied where they knew someone in the office or walked in to inquire about a position. I don’t intend to debate the merits of cronyism. Though many of the respondents complained, I think our tight knit community serves us well and don’t find anything wrong with a student being hired because he knows the employer and has already demonstrated his qualifications. However, if there are jobs available on campus, students need to know about them so they can apply. Employers should be listing their openings on WabashWorks since it is the only source advertised to students for finding jobs. They should be equally diligent in letting students know when positions have been filled. This means, both removing the listing from WabashWorks, and having the courtesy to send a message to students whose resumes were declined.

The lack of available hours has serious consequences. Many students reported that it takes them three to four weeks to earn what they are eligible to make in one. Nearly 58% of the respondents not earning their max available ESH are using credit cards and alternative loans to make up the difference, while 34% rely on additional support from their family. Lower paying, off campus jobs are not uncommon either, which means many students would need to work more hours off campus to earn the same amount as they would in fewer hours on campus. The problem with finding ESH jobs would not be as grave if Wabash were set in Indianapolis or West Lafayette, but a few weeks of job hunting and even an interview with a local staffing firm turned up little employment that would accommodate the schedules of full time college students in Crawfordsville.

The Financial Aid Office is in the process of reviewing the system. Financial Aid Director Clint Gasaway said, “If we’re not perceiving a problem that is there, we certainly want to know about it. Our goal is to have students work as much as they can and as much as they want to, thereby borrowing as little as they need.” In reality, there is no sure way to gauge the system until a problem arises. The office has to rely on historical data and a guess of how much students are willing to work (many students who are eligible choose not to work) and then try to expand the system when there is a demand for more ESH. Gasaway said another option is to move to a more centralized approach that includes adding a full time staff member to the office, or even a student, whose responsibilities would be to monitor the ESH system, employer postings, and also ensure students who want jobs are finding them.

My suggestion is to give an annual pay increase for ESH students. Hold your judgment freshmen and sophomores. Upperclassmen are eligible for more hours, and since they do not need to reapply at the start of every year, they take a bigger piece of the ESH hour pie that we all share. If upperclassmen are paid more per hour, they would need to work less hours a week to earn their ESH, which would in turn, open up more hours around campus for underclassmen. Currently, freshmen have to compete for hours at the start of the year with upperclassmen who have seniority in every office. This would also guarantee that juniors and seniors are not working 16 and 20 hours a week (the max hours they are eligible for, respectively), and instead assure a steady and manageable workload for every student, from freshman year to graduation. The only other option is to expand the ESH hours available in some campus offices, conversely diminishing the marginal utility of every ESH hour since students will be doing “make work” in useless positions.

A campus job can teach students’ time management and provide valuable work experience. “It improves the college to have student workers,” said Gasaway, and if a student is having trouble finding hours, they need to see the Financial Aid Office to find out if their ESH can be converted in to a subsidized loan. It is a sad reality that we can’t all have jobs like the guy sleeping at the desk in the Allen Center, but we should be grateful that we go to a college where they can give financial aid so freely and where we can expect a problem like this one to be addressed promptly.

No related posts.

A Young Karenga

Towards the end of October, the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies (MXIBS), in cooperation with the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts and the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, hosted the first ever Consultation on the Interdisciplinary Teaching of the Black Experience. According to Dr. Tim Lake, director of the MXIBS, the idea for the project came out of meetings that Dean of the College Gary Phillips started last spring with all of the “Center heads”. Phillips began meeting with Dr. Nadine Pence of the Wabash Center, Dr. Charlie Blaich of the Center for Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, Dr. Lake of the MXIBS, and Assistant Dean of the College Julie Olsen. The purpose of these discussions, said Lake, was to determine ways in which “the work in other centers can influence each other.”

From those conversations, the idea of a collaborative conference which would bring together the fields of black studies and religious studies to discuss Africa’s role in the teaching of the American black experience was born. The model chosen was the consultation model utilized by the Wabash Center which emphasizes small group settings and an emphasis on teaching. The consultation was structured so as to have a range of scholars from senior members of their respective fields all the way down to younger scholars who were “just on the cusp of their discipline.”

Among those who were selected for having made seminal contributions to their field of study was Ron Karenga. He was invited to the consultation because of his creation of Kwanzaa in 1966, the Kawaida philosophy he developed, and his subsequent contributions in the field of black studies. Of all the scholars, however, Karenga was clearly given special status as there were only two public lectures during the week and he was featured at both of them. But unlike the other participants flown in for the weekend, Karenga came with more than just a career of scholarship. He also came with a shadowy past and a rap sheet.

Ron Karenga, also known as Maulana Karenga (“Maulana” is Swahili for master teacher), was born as Ron N. Everett on July 14, 1941 as the fourteenth child of a Baptist minister and poultry farmer.

He eventually moved to California in 1978 to attend the Los Angeles City College. He then earned his bachelors and masters in both political science and African Studies from the University of California at Los Angeles.

In 1966, Karenga started Kwanzaa. “I created Kwanzaa in the context of the Black Freedom Movement,” he explained 1998 issue of Ebony magazine. “[We] began observing it in Southern California in the mid-1960s,” he continued, “We wanted to speak our own cultural truth to the world. We argued that culture is a fundamental way of being human in the world.” Kwanzaa recognizes seven principles which are represented by seven Swahili words. According to Kwanzaa’s official web site, the seven principles are: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (Creativity), and Imani (faith).

From a simple celebration in Karenga’s living room, Kwanzaa’s popularity has grown. As Karenga boasted in Ebony, “I’ve gotten letters from people in India, Turkey, and in Africa. People find common ground because it’s authentic.” Critics, however, take issue with this claim of authenticity, pointing out that the holiday is manufactured and is not native to Africa. In fact, the word Kwanzaa, which means “first fruits” in Swahili is actually spelled with only one “a”. In a 1978 article in the Washington Post, journalist Hollie West wrote more on the formation of Kwanzaa:

“I created Kwanzaa,” laughed Ron Karenga like a teenager who’s just divulged a deeply held, precious secret. “People think it’s African. But it’s not. I wanted to give black people a holiday of their own. So I came up with Kwanzaa. I said it was African because you know black people in this country wouldn’t celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that’s when a lot of bloods (blacks) would be partying!”

It is not the creation of Kwanzaa, however, that is Karenga’s most controversial part of his history. In 1971, Karenga was convicted of kidnapping and torturing two women from his US Organization. He was sentenced to one to ten years in prison.

After obtaining the original Los Angeles Times articles from this time period, the case appears no less bizarre. During the trial, Deborah Jones described the “brutal physical abuse inflicted on her and another 20-year old woman (Gail Davis) by Ron Karenga and three of his followers because they were suspected of poisoning Karenga.” Jones testified in graphic detail how she and Davis “were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes.” She further testified that “a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis’ mouth and placed against Miss Davis’ face and that one of her own large toes was tightened in a vice.” According to the article, “Karenga, head [and founder] of the US organization, and others also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths.” That last bit was added by Karenga “who was upset because she [Jones] would not cry.” The reason behind the abuse was apparently because Karenga feared that the two women had placed “crystals” in his food that would kill him. According to damning testimony by his wife, Brenda Lorraine Karenga, “she heard him tell the victims that he wanted them to reveal where they were hiding the ‘poison’.” She further testified that she “heard screams and yells coming from the garage where the defendants were holding Deborah Jones and Gail Davis and noises which sounded like someone was being whipped.” The Times reported that during the trial that “scars from the cuts on [Jones’] back were shown to members of the jury” and that Jones testified that “Karenga finally let them go, but only after threatening to shoot them in the hands.”

In a very bizarre testimony, Karenga attempted to defend himself by claiming that he last saw the women leave his Inglewood, CA home “to find other lodging” and that they “appeared healthy looking” when they left. Furthermore, he testified that “he did not know why his wife testified against him” and that his wife and children had not fled to Virginia to get away from him, but rather he had sent his wife and children away for “rest and recuperation”. “If he had known there was any violence within US, such as the alleged beating of the two women, he would have stopped it,” wrote the Times reporter, “adding [the US Organization] was against violence.”

Dean Phillips and Dr. Anthony Hopkins listen intently to Karenga before a panel

Despite this claim of pacifism, it was just six years prior that members of Karenga’s organization had gunned down two members of the Black Panthers party in an apparent disagreement over who should head the Black Studies Department at UCLA. But as Karenga would explain later, “You’ve got to stop calling them murders, because both groups were shooting at each other. They were shoot outs. The liberal media always wants to make out that the Panthers were totally innocent victims.”

After his conviction, the judge ordered that he undergo a 60 day psychiatric evaluation. In July 1971, psychiatrist W. D. Achuff described Karenga as “a danger to society who is in need of prolonged custodial treatment in prison” according to the Los Angeles Times. Achuff went on to say that, “Karenga was friendly and cooperative, but irrational and bizarre in his behavior.” At times he appeared “confused and not in touch with reality.” After this evaluation, Karenga was sentenced to prison and released in 1975, barely four years later.

It is after this release from prison that Karenga’s past began to undergo an amazing whitewash. Although his release merited a brief mention in the Los Angeles Times, the thousands of articles about Karenga and Kwanzaa that would follow in the next thirty years often bore no mention of his criminal past. With the burgeoning of the internet, there has been some information on his sordid past that has crept up. One can find numerous web sites and blogs that claim to quote Karenga or court transcripts from the torture trial. The problem is that all the information seems to be fragmentary and is not cited, which fails to instill confidence in its accuracy. After doing research of my own, I can understand why the information is so fragmentary. Although many web sites seem to just parrot information found on other blogs, those few pundits and journalists who are actually interested in researching this topic hit a number of roadblocks. First of all, Karenga himself is unwilling to discuss the case. In a 2005 article in the New Jersey Star Ledger, Karenga stated, “I’ll only talk about philosophy.”

Judge Alarcón, who presided over the case and is now serving on the Ninth Circuit, was reluctant to comment on the case, saying “I believe it would be inappropriate for me to discuss Mr. Karenga’s case. That trial occurred 36 years ago. I am sure Mr. Karenga is a different person today.”

This sentiment was echoed by Charlie Blaich, director of the Center for Inquiry in the Liberal Arts. According to Blaich, Karenga’s past does seem to contain “serious crimes” but he has nonetheless “paid his price and become a successful scholar.” As such, “it doesn’t concern me. His past shouldn’t be hidden, but he did his time.”

It seems to me that Judge Alarcón’s comments are rational – he hasn’t had any contact with the man in almost four decades and would prefer not to comment on his past. However, Karenga’s story is not one of a man who has admitted past wrongdoing and is attempting to move on. Even at Wabash he referred to himself as a “political prisoner”.

In fact, when he was at Wabash, I asked him about this very issue. After an exhaustive speech where he talked about, among other things, man’s “deep ethical obligation to bring good into the world” and claiming that “damage to one is damage to another,” he opened up for a few questions. I first stated that I had agreed with several of his points about ethics and then asked whether he would then be willing to denounce torture in general and the torture, specifically, of Deborah Jones and Gail Davis that led to his 1971 felony conviction. After several minutes of posturing where he started spouting off about President Bush, he did manage to say that he condemns torture and that those charges against him “are absolutely not true and they know it.” I wasn’t allowed time to ask him who “they” were. (After having read the psychiatric report introduced during his trial, this comment makes a bit more sense.)

Perry Swanson, a journalist for the Colorado Springs Gazette, is one of the few journalist who has mentioned Karenga’s conviction in a news story. Karenga was coming to give a Kwanzaa lecture at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in fall of 2006. After the Swanson started asking questions about Karenga’s past, UCCS asked that Karenga denounce torture or provide examples of previous statements where he had done so. According to Tom Hutton, spokesman for the university, “UCCS felt it was important that he provide such a statement as an indication of respect for human rights.” Continuing, he remarked, “To my knowledge, Mr. Karenga did not provide such statements.” The event was eventually moved off campus at the request of Karenga to a local community center.

While writing the story, Swanson interviewed a number of people involved with the event, none of whom seemed to have much knowledge of his incarceration. One such person, Anthony Young, helped organize the event and his comments typified the sort of response Swanson received. “It doesn’t disturb me so much about what happened in those early years of the civil rights movement [sic] about our leaders having been jailed for various things,” Young said. “The real test is exactly what types of contributions are made to society.” According to Swanson, it was only after considerable effort that he was able to get Mr. Young to comment on the issue. “He did not want to confront the idea of this man doing such a terrible thing,” explained Swanson.

Another one of the MXIBS panelists, Dr. Yvonne Chireau, Associate Professor of Religion at Swarthmore College, was even more direct in her defense. In an email to the Phoenix, she boldly stated, “Ron Karenga is one of the founders of the black studies movement so it is appropriate that he take part in [the MXIBS Consultation]. As for his conviction, it is fairly common knowledge that African American leaders in the 1960s and 1970s were targeted by the authorities and the repressive state apparatus for any number of reasons. It is no secret, although the historical sources on the issue are not consistent on what they reveal.”

The historical sources on the issue are not consistent on what they reveal? The court records are pretty clear on what they reveal in regards to Karenga – he was convicted by a jury of his peers and his own wife even testified against him! According to The Los Angeles Times, the jury was composed of “six blacks, five Anglos, and one Mexican-American.” So much for a repressive state apparatus.

Chireau’s comments were echoed by Dr. Lake. When asked about Karenga’s past, Lake responded, “Everything was so charged … black power nationalist projects emerged after integration movements … the new political agenda was highly charged.” He continued to describe how he viewed the times, stating, “I would be suspicious of the history because it was so heated. Agents of our government have not always acted with the highest level of integrity.”

For former FBI agents, mentalities like this are aggravating. Cal Black ’66, Wabash alumnus and Director of Development for the College, had a long career in the Bureau. At one point in his career, he was in charge of desegregating schools in Mississippii. Later on he would be assigned to San Francisco and be charged with monitoring the Black Panther party. The BPP were of interest because they had “threatened to overthrow the government” and were “trying to intimidate the public” according to Black.

When asked about the confusion about the FBI’s role in the time period, Black countered by saying, “To me that’s a cop-out. To blame the FBI … they do such a rigorous background check. The Bureau does not hire thugs. I’ve been there; I’ve seen it. I never saw any organization abused by the FBI. It was our job to listen to a complaint and open an investigation.” He went on further to explain the amount of coordination undercover agents had with the US Attorney’s Office to ensure that nothing was illegal and that the agents weren’t involved in entrapment. If they were, he explained, the information would be useless anyway as it would be inadmissible in court.

“To dismiss this all as a conspiracy,” said Black with a shake of his head “is a cop-out. It is unfortunate that people want to forget about reality.”

And this sort of commentary is not limited to “outsiders” but even comes from those within the movement. In 1978, a few years after being released from prison, The Washington Post profiled Karenga in a story entitled, “The Father of Kwanzaa”. In this piece, the author spoke to infamous writer and poet Amiri Baraka. Baraka was heavily influenced by Karenga and was encouraged to change his name because of him. As the profile states: “But Baraka, a former black nationalist who’s become a Marxist, is not so charitable in his current assessment of the man whose ideas he once proselytized. Said Baraka: ‘There was a vacuum created after Malcolm X died . . . Karenga was very well organized. He moved into the vacuum. He did a positive thing as far as Kwanzaa was concerned. But in a way it was another form of bourgeois nationalism. And he taught male chauvinism’.”

In a 1995 article in The Washington Post, staff writer Mary Ann French wrote, “So some folks shake their heads in wonder, as they wander past supermarket displays of Kwanzaa greeting cards featuring mahogany-colored families and candles packaged for seven days’ worth of ritual. Those are the folks who remember how the holiday began. With Karenga.

“I think that’s one of those huge ironies,” says Francille Wilson, a professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Maryland. It’s somewhat bizarre for people like Wilson to see Kwanzaa ending up as one of the most institutionalized and lasting by products of the period.

“It’s become bigger than Karenga, who I have some very mixed feelings about, especially because of him allegedly torturing women and all that and his whole role in the movement, which even then was controversial. It bothers me as a historian that people don’t know who he is,” says Wilson. “I think we (African Americans) are averse to having serious internal critiques. I think no one has taken a good hard look at us, and they are worth examining … I think people need to look and see who Karenga is.”

In all, I think it should be clear that no matter what else one may think about Karenga’s past, he should not be viewed as a role model. Although he sought to claim the mantle of true leaders and intellectuals like W.E.B. DuBois and Martin Luther King, Jr., Karenga’s tactics and personal philosophy betray him. Although the Black Panthers started calling the US Organization Karenga created in 1965 “the United Slaves Organization”, the original meaning behind the name was meant to be divisive. (“Us” as opposed to “Them”). This man, who during lectures adopts the style and vocabulary of an African-American minister, all the while a devoted Marxist who has made several disparaging comments about Christianity, is an untrustworthy character who seems unworthy of the status given to him by some.

By all accounts, the consultation experience itself was a success. The Bachelor reported that Dr. Dwight Hopkins, Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Chicago, remarked afterwards that, “To my knowledge this is the first time in the history of the United States that African-American Religious Studies scholars and African-American Studies scholars have come together formally. People will be reading about this for the next 10 to 15 years.” Without a doubt, this event has raised the profile of both Wabash and the MXIBS and provided students involved with the consultations a greater glimpse into some of the most prominent members of the African-American studies and religious studies programs. The problem is the squelching of information about this man’s dark past and this transitive assignment of blame to everyone but Karenga. Both Karenga and others need to own up to reality.

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Beigi: I was born in Iran. I finished high school in Iran, and came to the U.S. in 1975 when I was 18. At the time Iran was a peaceful country on a path to progress and modernity. Then we had a radical revolution. I finished my engineering degree in New Jersey. I worked as an engineer, and started to write and was published in London. I went to graduate school at Cornell, received my Master’s in public policy and began work on my Ph.D. there. Because I was very active in Iranian affairs, I worked for the son of the late Shah as the communications director until May 2001. 9/11 happened which changed everything. I was with him for six years. I [now] work part time as an engineer and dedicate the rest of my time to issues relating to Iran particularly and the Middle. East. The issues of terrorism are something that is a moral obligation to do something about, especially for somebody like me who is from Iran.

WCU: Is the Middle East capable of democracy?

Beigi: Democracy is a Western invention. Just like technology in the West, it has been exported to the East and they have put it into good use. The Western intellectual product can also be put to good use. On the other hand, the concept of individual freedom, or the modernity as a whole or the concept of John Locke – American principles, as I like to call them – the freedom, the free market, the freedom to pursue happiness, the freedom to choose your own life, and be responsible for the consequences of your own actions. These ideals are natural. These are not an artificial invention for a time period. So these ideals can spread to the rest of the world easier than technology, a computer, or a car. Just like technology, a computer, or a car can make life easier, [it] has contributed to the well being of the people of the world, whether in the United States, or India, or Pakistan. The concept of individual responsibility can also benefit the people of the world. However, importing a car is much easier and simpler than the idea of democracy. The car can take a long time, but eventually people learn how to drive it. Democracy and a lot of American policy makers, intellectuals make that mistake. They only look at the superficial aspects of democracy. They look at the rule of the majority and elections and think that that constitutes a democracy. Democracy requires a responsible citizen. Importation of the car is very simple, but what is more difficult is to get to the idea that what kind of conditions led to the invention of a car. Why is it that the Chinese were the first to discover gun powder, but they only used it for celebrations – creating noise and light? But why did Western minds use it to create dynamite and blow up mountains and make roads? Why was it a Western mind that was the first to conquer Everest, when Mt. Everest is in the middle of India and Nepal? It is not the car itself that I want to get at; it’s the concept and the idea that intellectuals, they have inquiry that is behind the creation of the car that led to the invention of the car. It’s the same with democracy. It is not just like importing an assembly plant and making cars; you need to have that confidence, that way of thinking that led to the invention of the car so they can come up with their own inventions. Democracy is the same. Its major points are the responsible citizen, educated citizens who can cooperate, who have the tolerance and they are able to recognize and respect each other. Until these issues have not been institutionalized in any country, they cannot democratize. So the difficulty that we have of promoting democracy in the Middle East region is not that it is something innately or naturally incapable of democratizing, it’s that there are some important factors, and we should concentrate on promoting those factors before democracy can flourish.

WCU: Some would say that Saddam Hussein was the barrier to democracy in Iraq, and since we removed him, democracy has not really been taking shape there. How would you respond to that?

Beigi: Saddam Hussein was not the only barrier to democracy. A lot of people in the Middle East said as soon as we had elections in Iraq, that we could declare democracy had been established. Democracy needs to be institutionalized. It is not like a press conference where you do it once and it’s over. Iraq was not ready for a full-fledged democracy, not as much as Iran is today. Iran should have been the first target. As long as the Iranian regime is in power, we will not meet any benchmarks in Iraq. The Iranian regime does not want to have a democratic Iraq because that’s not good for them. In order to promote democracy in Iraq, you need to think about the Iranian regime in Iran.

WCU: Do the Iranian people desire democracy?

Beigi: Yes they do. The evidence of that are the demonstrations by the labor, by the students, by the books they write, by the movies that they make. This shows that they understand the idea and they desire to be free.

WCU: Do you see a difference between the moderates and the hard-liners as the media puts them in Iran?

Beigi: As far as democratization or reform is concerned, no, absolutely not. They are all different players on the same team and they switch positions. One day they have to play a moderate and they play a moderate. One day they have to play a hard-liner, and they do so.

WCU: In one of your reports to Congress, you talked about political Islam. What exactly is political Islam, and how do we confront it?

Beigi: That’s the million-dollar question. Political Islam is when some social thinkers think that in order to confront the West and in order to deny the West, they politicize their religion, only to achieve their own economic goals. And since religion is a touchy subject, they were able to reach the hearts and minds of some people who were willing to be violent in promoting those ideas. That’s how the Islamic regime came to power in Iran. The best way to confront political Islam – we first need to talk about the necessity of confronting it. It’s a real thing; it is threatening Western civilization; it is threatening humanity. They openly talk about how they want to wipe Israel off the map. They openly talk about destroying America. And they openly challenge the West. So these elements are threatening the world. How do you confront them? By showing to the people of the Middle East or the Islamic countries, that the ideas that these political leaders are promoting do not have a solid base in their religion and also show the political motivation to delegitimize them.

WCU: What are your views on the Bush Doctrine of promoting democracy in the Middle East? How effective has it been thus far? Can it be effective in the future?

Beigi: I think it’s certainly imperative. I admire President Bush for his courage, for his moral courage to promote democracy. But I want to define that. By promoting democracy, unlike some of the leftist intellectuals have tried to spin it, this is not imposing American way of life on people who resist it. This is actually giving opportunity to the people of the Middle East to be able to choose for themselves to be free. So this is not an imposition. Those who deny their freedom are imposing their ideas on the people of the Middle East. The idea has not been so successful so far because of many difficulties. It has not been successful because the Islamic regime in Iran has been fighting it tooth and nail to defeat the project and they have won the battle so far. They are going to lose the war because the idea of freedom is a natural and universal idea.

WCU: Do you think that the conflict between Iran and the United States can be resolved without violence?

Beigi: If you mean the people of Iran, many independent reporters who have gone to Iran, they have actually reported that the Iranian people are a natural ally of the United States. They admire America, particularly and precisely because of American ideals. And in fact there is a long history. America has always been on the side of the Iranian people in their quest for freedom, going back to the [Iranian] Constitutional Revolution of 1906, where the Russian and British empires were helping the regime to stay in power and Americans were helping Iranians to promote democracy and freedom. So there is a long history. The Iranian people love Americans for their standing for freedom, for their ideals, and for what they have achieved. Iran is the only regime in the region that the regime is opposing to the United States, but the people love America. That does not happen to any other country. Now if you talk about the Iranian regime and the United States, no there is absolutely no way. There are two completely different ideas. One of them has to give in. Either it is the idea of progress, modernity, freedom, or the idea of imposing an artificial version of Islam on the entire world. Both of these cannot coexist. The negotiations that some of the Democratic candidates have said is completely useless to this regime because they do not want to negotiate. There is nothing that they can gain from negotiations. They want to eliminate the West; they want to eliminate Western ideals; they want to destroy America. There is nothing to negotiate. They don’t want to negotiate either.

WCU: Some say that the Shah’s reign and America’s support of the Shah was an ugly chapter in Iranian history because they claim the Shah was a tyrant. How would you respond to those claims?

Beigi: First of all, during the Shah, we did have some leftist terrorists who were in prison. Some of the present rulers of Iran, the terrorist rulers, were in prison. A lot of human rights organizations and Jimmy Carter made a big noise about violations of human rights in Iran. Why are they silent today that the regime is killing students by the hundreds? Why does nobody talk about the torture in Iranian prisons today? Executions, assassinations. Number two, most of those claims come from the misconception of the distorted fact of the 1953 coup that you may have heard about. This is 1953, at the height of the Cold War. Right after the Yalta agreement, the world was divided into the Western bloc and the Eastern bloc by the Soviet Union. Iran had a prime minister that was appointed by the Shah. The Iranian Constitution said that the Shah would appoint the prime minister and the parliament would approve him. [Mohammad] Mossadegh was the prime minister. He started to defy the British and Western powers and he wanted to be similar to the non-ally movement that there is today. He refused all the good offers from the West for Iranian oil. The Iranian oil was boycotted. The British would not buy. And the Iranian economy was in a really difficult position. Mossadegh refused all reasonable offers. He dissolved the parliament. Shah wanted to dismiss Mossadegh, but Mossadegh refused and he wanted to dismiss Shah. Shah left the country. There was a popular uprising and the CIA was on the side of the uprising people against the prime minister and wrongfully took all the credit for it. Now what you see on the left press on a daily basis is that the CIA overthrew a democratically elected prime minister who was promoting democracy in Iran. They forget that this was 1953. They forget it was the height of the Cold War. They forget that you had no choice; you could not be non-ally that you had to be either West or East. And they forget that Mossadegh had no future. Iran had to either become a Western Soviet bloc or be on the side of the United States. And we cannot forget the Yalta agreement. The Yalta agreement was not made as a joke. So most of the idea originates from that. In fact there was a book written by a New York Times reporter, that if you read the entire book, there’s not a single citation in it. [The book which is] half fiction [and written] by Stephen Kinzer, promotes the idea that [since] Mossadegh was overthrown the Middle East has lost the chance to democratize. This is not realistic. You do not understand what democracy means if you talk like that. The Shah was trying to promote modernity. In order to do that you need to have first a bureaucratic infrastructure. Then you need to have economic infrastructure. Then, only then, you can work on social infrastructure. Only after they build roads, a national economy and integrate them, only then, after education is the requirement for democratization, for participation of the people becomes necessary. So Shah was working on that, and with a country like Iran with some of the religious leaders opposing modernity, opposing progress on the basis that it was going to corrupt our virtues, Shah had to be autocratic. So he was autocratic in many ways. But there was no other way, and that’s when the radicals took over. Those who complain about the Shah – they should raise their volume much more over what is going on in Iran today. They are silent.

WCU: Thank you for your time.

Beigi: Thank you!

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John Henry '10 and Richard Mourdock

WCU: Where did you go to college, what was your major, and how did both play into your early careers and career decisions?

Mourdock: I went to college at Defiance College up in Northwestern Ohio, which is a division three school. I was not one who was really excited about going to college, to be really honest with you. I didn’t feel like I was smart enough to go to college and my parents kept telling me that ‘you are going to go for at least two years and after that it’s up to you.’ So I went that first year not knowing what to expect but found out that I could handle this and for the first time in my life really enjoyed studying. I started out as a Biology major and ended up with a undergraduate degree in the combined fields of Biology, Geology, and Chemistry and because I didn’t know what I wanted to do until basically my senior year, I decided to go on to graduate school and received my M.S. in Geology from Ball State.

That was in 1975 and I did that with the idea that I was going to end up teaching in a university somewhere and go on to receive my PHD but right at that time was the first big energy crisis and they were throwing money at geologists, which seemed unbelievable at the time, so I thought that I would go out west and get some of that money. After that I used geology in the energy business for almost thirty years, mostly with coal but also some oil and gas work. It is a great science and I still love the science, it has opened a lot of doors for me.

WCU: What part of your life would you say influenced you the most as a conservative and as a politician?

Mourdock: Ronald Reagan from 1980-88. I had always had an interest in political science, I’m a huge history buff, and I try and read at least ten pages of American History every night and have done that for almost thirty years. That interest kept bringing me back and in the 1980’s I was fascinated as many were because Ronald Reagan turned the nation around. We were in such a miserable state coming out of the Vietnam era, the Watergate era, and those horrific four years of Jimmy Carter, that we just had to do something different and there was Ronald Reagan with the answer.

Yet, what really provoked me was in 1984. We had a disputed election in the 8th congressional district. A young man by the name of Richard McIntyre ran against the incumbent Frank McCloskey. On election night McIntyre won by like 500 votes, there was a recount and he won by 150 votes and the Republican Secretary of State of Indiana certified him the winner, sent him to Washington D.C. to be sworn in. At that time Tip O’Neil and Jim Wright ran the U.S. House of Representatives and as they were getting ready to swear in all the new freshmen, they pointed their fingers at Mr. Wright and said ‘You’re out, we don’t like the way they count votes in Indiana, and we’re going to recount them.’ So over the next six and a half months a five member committee, three democrats and two republicans, came into the eighth district of Indian. After hand counting votes in fifteen counties, on the last day, at the last hour, after counting 232,286 votes, for the first time Frank McCloskey came ahead by four votes and was sworn in within an hour.

I was so outraged by that I thought to myself, ‘I can do as well as this guy.’ So I started watching him and two years later I decided I was going to run for the U.S. Congress. I gave the first speech of my life announcing I was running for congress and ever since that first splash into politics, I have loved the process, I have loved the competitiveness of it, but I also like the idea of winning people to an argument. I really enjoy having those debates and I will debate anybody, any place, any time on the things that I believe in and it’s a shame that so much of what happens in this building [Indiana State House] and so much of what happens in Washington anymore isn’t about the idea but who brings the idea forward.

WCU: What are your aspirations for your political career, now, having run for Congress and many other political offices in Indiana?

Mourdock: I’ve learned enough about this, that in my case I can’t have aspirations and what I mean by that is I have found that the only way that you can really prepare for the opportunities in politics is to do the best job you can do everyday in what you are doing now. I sense you have to do the best job you can do and then see what doors open and what doors close.

WCU: How would you define the office of the Treasurer of the State of Indiana?

Mourdock: Simultaneously very narrow, which is to say, in the constitution the only description of this office, is that the State Treasurer shall serve as the states chief financial officer. The only constitutional duty I have is to make sure we earn the highest possible grade of interest on the funds of the State of Indiana. In a broader sense, and this is what I love about the job, this is the classic bully pulpit. Though not mentioned in my constitutional duties, I serve as chairman of the wireless 911 board, which puts me in contact with all of the emergency operations around the entire state, I have just started and in fact we haven’t even announced it yet, so we are about to start the Treasurer’s Agricultural Loan Plan, we have an agricultural crisis in Indiana due to the drought and lack of hay production, so we are putting together a loan program and dealing with agricultural problems.

I believe that I have the greatest job in all of Indiana government because I have huge responsibilities, which I like, I have tremendous latitude, I get to be creative, and I don’t think any newspaper reporter knows we exist. It can’t get any better than that.

WCU: What elements of the conservative movement are most vital and how would you define the movement today?

Mourdock: The element that is most vital is the one I think we are most failing on and it is communication. In many ways I think President Bush is an example of why the twenty-second amendment is a bad idea. The twenty-second amendment limits the president’s terms to two. I sometimes think that the day after President Bush was reelected he realized he didn’t have to deal with the media any more, he doesn’t have to make the argument and I don’t think that is a good thing. If he was even thinking about running for a third term, then he would be promoting his ideas more. I think he has the right ideas almost without exception, almost, and I don’t think he is selling those ideas.

What we have to do as a conservative movement is continually educate in the media and not be afraid of getting beat up by the media. I get so fed up with Republicans who won’t make the argument … We have so few conservative leaders anymore who are willing to stand up and say small government is better than big government. To quote Ronald Reagan, ‘The way to stop the growth of government is to stop the flow of money to government.” Those are pretty fundamental principles and instead of fighting for those we are arguing over who can spend the most the fastest.

WCU: If you could say one thing to young conservatives today, especially with liberal faculty ruling most of the nation’s institutions, what would that be?

Mourdock: Do your homework and stand and deliver. Never, ever allow yourself to be silenced or embarrassed by the position you believe in. I don’t care if it is a pro-life position, which is a classic conservative position … but on the issues of what is the government’s role and what is not the government’s role, I think we just have to be more prepared to make the argument. I mentioned before speaking often of American History and when I give a speech along those lines, so often I have people who are a few years younger than myself come up to me and say ‘You know my kids aren’t learning any history in schools anymore.’ Someone observed once that a nation that no longer observes its history is no longer a nation. There’s not that common thread. I believe that is absolutely true. So, do your homework, understand your history, and finally don’t back down. Expect to be beaten up by the press, because that’s what they do. Its very easy because they move by the mob mentality, virtually everyone in the media is a liberal and they take shots at people because they know the people in their peer group are going to give them praise.

WCU: How would you say Governor Mitch Daniels is doing in his mission as our State’s leader and is he making progress in our State?

Mourdock: Mitch is a transformational leader. He is one of the few people I have ever encountered in politics who knows his history, who has done his background, and he is willing to stand and deliver, even if there are one hundred people shouting against him. Major Moves is a perfect illustration of this; when he and his staff first came up with the idea to lease the toll road, he immediately ran into the nine deadly words of government, those nine deadly words being, ‘But we have never done it that way before.’ Believe me that kills every good idea in government and in business – it can just be stifling. Mitch had the fortitude to say that it was the right thing to do and as a result Indiana is the only state of the fifty states to have its entire ten year highway plan fully funded and paid for in cash.

Every time I go to a National Association of State Treasurers meeting, my colleagues come up to me and ask me how did we do it, how did that ever come to happen? It’s because they would like to do something similar but they don’t have leaders who have the same kind of political will. Every issue that Mitch presents is well thought out and he is always willing to argue in support of them. Yet, at the same time, he is politically shrewd enough to know that he needs to play the system upstairs, which is to say the legislature. He is a give and take guy to a point but when all is said and done in the end he gets more of the bargain than he gives up because he is such an effective leader.

WCU: On a related note, with Major Moves, a lot of the detractors of the program are critical of it on the basis of financing and the need. Are these claims really accurate and how do you feel about the program as a whole?

Mourdock: The project as a whole is a brilliant stroke. I can give you a couple of factoids here. Indiana earned more money in interest in the first 116 days after the deal was signed, than it paid off in toll road debt during the prior 52 years, earned more in 116 days than we paid off in 52 years!

I am frequently asked why we sold the road to foreigners. First of all, we didn’t sell it, we leased it and that is a very important term because if they breach the terms of the contract we take it back, they are gone, and we get to keep their 3.85 billion dollars. My question to them is if I were a Spaniard or an Australian and I had 3.85 billion dollars to invest, why wouldn’t I invest that in Spain or Australia? The answer to that is the classic three points of investing: safety, liquidity, and yield. They could put the money here safely, they had good return on their money, and if they had then turned the deal around somehow, which they had the potential of doing in this country, there countries wouldn’t have them. The second question is, if you have 3.85 billion to invest and you put it here and you do well on the investment, making a bunch of money, what are you going to do with that money? If you wouldn’t invest the original sums of your money in your own country, why would you take the next set of money and invest it in your country? We hear every single day, concerns about the balance of trade that we have, the United States is not bringing nearly enough capital in. Our state is leading the fifty states in quote “foreign capital” being reinvested in the United States and I when I say “foreign capital” it’s really our money. Its wealth that was created here that was shipped overseas to buy some product and now we are finding ways to bring that money back, with things like the new Toyota plant up in Lafayette that wasn’t there a few years ago, with the new Honda plant in Greensburg, and with the new investments in the automotive industry down in Columbus. We have all of these new investments coming into this country and specifically into Indiana. Every four years you see that map of blue states and red states but right now we have green states that are green with envy for what Indiana has and is accomplishing. In the end we are doing great and it all comes back to the governor’s leadership.

Related posts:

1. Media Spotlight: WCU’s 2007 interview with State Treasurer Richard Mourdock
2. Thoughts on the Warsaw, Indiana Republican Senate Debate
3. Notes on Indiana Literature

The Center is the product of many conversations I have had with students and faculty over the years, and as I’ve talked to people about it, I have had tremendous interest and support. In the next year, we will be putting together a board, planning our mission, and filing the necessary papers to begin fund raising. Expect me to come calling! This is going to be a fantastic opportunity for any Christian students or alumni to have an impact on the future of our beloved College.

I sent a proposal for the Center to President Pat White, Dean Gary Phillips, and Dean Joe Emmick on February 8, 2007. Although I did not receive any reply to my proposal, let me make it very clear that I absolutely support the administration and totally understand their silence. To be brutally honest, it would be very hard, if not impossible, for the administration to establish anything like a Christian Studies Center through official College channels. The faculty has become increasingly secular over the years, and many faculty, as amply demonstrated in the recent quality of life survey, are suspicious if not downright hostile to expressions of faith at Wabash. That is why this new Center will have no official relationship to the College. It will be completely independent of the College, yet its mission will be completely dedicated to the College.

The Christian Studies Center will serve the College, including students, staff, faculty, and alumni, by creating and supporting programs to promote Christian excellence at Wabash. We want to support Wabash Christians in both their intellectual and spiritual pursuits. Indeed, we believe that Christians anywhere and everywhere cannot separate the intellectual from the spiritual. To grow spiritually, you need to be challenged intellectually, but intellectual challenges work best when they are theologically informed and spiritually nourishing. The Wabash Christian Studies Center will unite hearts and minds in the pursuit of Christian excellence.

If you want to be on an email list that will provide updates for the Center, please email me with that request at webbs (at) wabash.edu. If you would like to take an active role in helping with the Center, let me know that in your email. Here is what we need:

Student leaders. This Center will be for the students, primarily, so we need their participation and their contributions. We will organize a student board that will contribute ideas for the Center. This board will also begin some modest fund raising activities among current students, as a way of demonstrating student support and excitement about this project.

Alumni fund raisers. Our goal is ambitious, just as our vision is broad and inclusive. We are in this for the long run. We envision buying a house near campus as a place for some student leaders to live and for some of our programs and meetings to take place. We envision having a staff, perhaps part-time at first, with experience in the ministry as well as professional training in theology. This will take several years, but I am absolutely confident that these goals will be reached. Let’s start working now!

Faculty leaders. We will need to explore similar programs at other schools, and thus an exploratory committee will be one of the first items of business. A project like this needs faculty leadership, so faculty who would like to be members of the team to get this project launched, just let me know.

Crawfordsville Christians. We envision working with Crawfordsville churches to achieve our goals. People with connections to local churches are encouraged to become a part of this project. We want this Center to be a place that makes connections between local churches and Wabash students.

Endowment support. The hardest part of this project will be the initial fund raising efforts. To get that ball rolling, some start up costs will need to be met. Support from established endowments will be very important in meeting some of these relatively modest costs. People with connections and experience in this will be greatly valued!

Are you interested? If so, read on. Historical background. Many people think that Wabash has always been a secular school. This is not true. Wabash College even had a Chaplain for several decades in the first half of the twentieth century, and before that, the Presidents of the College regularly taught courses in moral theology. The story of how we lost that Chaplaincy is interesting, but instead of telling it here, let me just point you to an article I’ve written. It can be found at StephenHWebb.com. On that site, click on the essays tab, then click on “A Ghostly Department.” This essay is a revision of ch. 6, “The Mystery of the Disappearing Chaplain,” from my book, Taking Religion to School (Brazos Press, 2000). That chapter includes a broader history of the Wabash religion department.

For those who want a very brief version of the story about how we lost our Chaplaincy, let me say that after World War II, the College decided to join the duties of the Chaplain with the newly created religion department. Thus, religion professors were explicitly assigned the duties of the Chaplain. For example, the first group of religion professors at Wabash, Fred West, Hans Frei, Thomas Altizer, and Eric Dean, all held the title, one right after the other, of Director of Religious Activities. This was in addition to their faculty rank. During the long course of Eric Dean’s service to the college, he took the duties of directing religious activities very seriously. He was, in effect, the Wabash College Chaplain, and those duties were an official part of his position. Eventually, the title of Director of Religious Activities was dropped from Eric’s official title. I have found no documents as to when this occurred. The title was dropped, but not the implicit expectation that the religion department should direct and support religious activities at Wabash. When I first joined the department, in 1987-88, for example, the idea that the department as a whole functioned as the unofficial chaplaincy for the college was taken for granted.

Now, for a variety of reasons, it is hard, if not impossible, to expect any department or any professor to take on extra duties not related to teaching and publication in their field. I have over the years written several articles for The Bachelor and The Wabash Commentary spelling out the need for a Chaplain at Wabash. I have now become convinced that this idea is both bad and impossible. It is a bad idea because college chaplains must answer to the faculty and the administration, and thus there is tremendous pressure for them to be all things to all people. It is an impossible idea because the faculty at Wabash would never accept a Chaplain. There would be endless debates and outcries over the favoring of Christianity. Even in our own department, when this idea was discussed briefly several years ago, someone insisted that a Wabash Chaplain would have to be committed to addressing environmental and gender issues, as if a Chaplain would not have enough to do addressing theological issue. I don’t think anyone wants to debate the desirability of having a chaplain on campus.

What a Christian Center Can Do. Fortunately, there is an alternative to a chaplain! There is a movement on America’s college campuses that is dynamic, vibrant, and coming soon to Wabash. On many college campuses, Christian alumni, students, and faculty have cooperated to establish what are sometimes called Christian Study Centers. The purpose of these centers is to enhance the education students receive in the classroom. These Centers are set up with the cooperation of the college administrators, but they are also independent from the college. There are different models to choose from, and obviously we would want to do this in a way that meets the needs and respects the traditions of Wabash. I have already examined similar programs at Charlottesville, VA, Gainesville, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Christian Centers are also already established or being established at many Ivy League universities, including Brown, Cornell, and Princeton. At Princeton University, the Witherspoon Institute has been established to promote the study of the natural law and traditional moral values. Each of these centers has its own special characteristics and mission. What they have in common is the belief that many students are hungry for educational opportunities that unite traditional values, orthodox doctrine, and spiritual nourishment, and that the best way to integrate the spiritual and the intellectual is to do so in a way that avoids typical college politics.

Most of these Centers combine the intellectual and the spiritual with a strong emphasis on lectures and scholarly sessions. They employ theologians with Ph.D.s as well as people trained in ministry. All are charitable 501 c(3) organizations. By being independent of but serving the college community, staff, faculty and students, these centers do not become mired in unproductive debates about the separation of church and state or the evils of having Christianity represented on campus.

What the Center Will Do. This center will serve Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant students equally. Indeed, I think it would be great to have someone on staff who has a Ph.D. in Catholic studies. The Catholic students at Wabash are the most neglected and underserved of any student group. Sociologists now argue that evangelical and conservative Protestants are hungry to know about Catholic traditions, and the political alliance between devout Catholics and conservative Protestants is turning into a theological revolution. We do very little on this campus to reach out to Catholics or conservative, traditional, orthodox Protestants.

I once took a group of 14 students for an alternative Spring Break trip. We worked on a church affiliated camp that builds houses for the poor in Appalachia. It was transformational for all of us. I asked the then dean Mauri Ditzler to continue funding this program, but he declined. I could have done it on my own, but it is hard to do such things when you are so busy and you receive no institutional help. An alternative spring break trip is just the kind of thing the Center would organize.

We have a growing number of students going on to seminary studies and getting internships at churches. Many students also want to connect their spiritual vocations with overseas charitable work and service to the poor. Butler University has a Volunteer Center that helps connect students to charitable programs. Many of those programs, of course, are faith based, so any emphasis on volunteering always comes around to the role of religion on campus. Wabash College could never provide students with this kind of support, because that would offend secular and liberal faculty, but the Wabash Christian Studies Center will be a meeting place for students who want to think about the vocation of helping others.

I help out sometimes with the Wabash Christian Men organization. WCM is strong and vital, with 40 or 50 students attending their Wednesday evening meetings. They get very little help or encouragement from the College. Indeed, there is a religious revival going on around the country, not just Wabash, with young people seeking a firmer foundation for their faith and parents looking for colleges that support and sustain the religious and moral convictions of their children.

The admissions people send me lots of high schools students each year who are interested, along with their parents, in these kinds of questions. I cannot tell you how often parents ask me about the religious life at Wabash. What can I tell them? I try to put the best spin possible on what it is like at Wabash for a devout Christian, because I want these students to come here. Nonetheless, sometimes I wonder if I am not misleading them. Sometimes I suspect that, when the College uses me or faculty like David Kubiak as spokesmen, it is not being absolutely honest and open with perspective students about what commitments the college does or does not have to religious students. They like potential students to meet us, but they do not tell potential students that there are actually very, very few devout Christians on the faculty who are willing to help students of faith integrate their intellectual and spiritual lives.

Role of Alumni. Wabash is gearing up for another capital campaign and mission statement, but there is little or no talk about meeting the needs of Christian students. There is a renewed interest in religion in almost every scholarly field you can name, but the Wabash faculty, as a whole, remains very secular. Surveys show that a significant and increasing numbers of college students want more Christian history, ethics, and theology in their studies, but they are not getting that at Wabash. We act like we are a state school worried about the first amendment, rather than a school founded in the Christian tradition.

I do not think this Center will compete with the other fund-raising projects for the College. Some alumni who have not supported Wabash in years will now be brought back into active engagement with the College. Some alumni who give to the College will give a little extra to include this Center in their plans. In any case, this is a Center that will be a direct benefit for the College. I’m not asking anyone to do anything that I wouldn’t do. The time, money, and energy I am giving to this Center is my gift to the College. This will be my life’s project, and I am staking my career on it. There is much work to be done. There is a great future ahead of us. The Spirit is moving. Please keep this Center in your prayers, and ask God what you can do to make Wabash a place where devout Christians can flourish—a place where the highest standards of intellectual and spiritual excellence can be promoted and achieved. Email me. Please join me. And let’s get to work.

Related posts:

1. Anticipating the Christian Studies Center: Students React to Webb Proposal
2. Wabash Conservative Union to Host E. Christian Kopff
3. A Gender Studies Requirement?