Inclusion: Obstacles and Opportunities

This is the first of a series of summer blog posts on obstacles to and opportunities for  inclusion. Subsequent posts will focus on gender, political and religious beliefs, and economic inequality.

As we prepare for our discussions on campus planning this fall, I am eager to gather student, faculty, trustee and alumni views on what we can do to make Wesleyan’s residential learning experience as powerful as possible. Today we re-launched the online version of my Modern and Postmodern class, and I have been impressed with what students have reported from their work in this and our other Coursera classes. While we experiment modestly with online courses, I want to double down on our commitment to residential learning. Campus planning discussions will be a key part of that.

I am particularly concerned with issues of inclusion, and summer events have provided plenty of food for thought. Issues of diversity and inclusion were highlighted last year in two campus-wide diversity forums and in countless conversations among staff, faculty, students and alumni. Wesleyan has proudly adopted the label “Diversity University” for a long time. Two years ago I wrote the following in an essay entitled “Why We Value Diversity.”

At Wesleyan University our mission statement reminds us that we aim to prepare students “to explore the world with a variety of tools.” Diversity is an aspect of the world we expect our students to explore, turning it into an asset they can use. We expect graduates to have completed a course of study in the liberal arts that will enable them to see differences among people as a powerful tool for solving problems and seeking opportunities. We expect graduates to embrace diversity as a source of lifelong learning, personal fulfillment, and creative possibility. Selective universities want to shape a student body that maximizes each undergraduate’s ability to go beyond his or her comfort zone to draw on resources from the most familiar and the most unexpected places.

How can we live up to our aspirations to make “excellence inclusive?”

This question has been much on my mind in thinking about the verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Florida. Zimmerman followed Martin because he found the young man suspicious – Trayvon was black and he was wearing a hoodie. Martin was guilty of “walking while being black,” and many of our African and African-American students have told us that they feel likely to be profiled in similar circumstances. Profiling has no place on our campus, and we will not stand for it.

Officially prohibiting profiling is one thing; promoting inclusion is another, more complex challenge. How do we promote inclusion here? In classrooms and dorm rooms, from athletics to the arts?  We do it in part through administratively organized programs, such as the new work in orientation we’ve added in this year. But my hope is that we will rise to this challenge through myriad, informal discussions across campus to become more mindful of any barriers to inclusion that still exist at Wesleyan.

Let me quote President Obama on what might come of these efforts: there’s the possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can?  Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character?  That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.”

Trying our best to be “a little more honest” and to “wring as much bias” out of ourselves as possible will be important tasks as we discuss how to ensure that  Wesleyan provides the very best residential education for all our students. We can’t pretend that we are immune to the violence and prejudice that infects much of the world around us. But we can stand with those who promote fairness and inclusion, making the most of out of diversity in the service of education.

Our campus is not a “bubble” that keeps the world outside at bay. Our campus should be a place of inquiry at which “boldness, rigor and practical idealism” are put in the service of “the good of the individual and the good of the world,” to paraphrase Wesleyan President Willbur Fisk (1831). By building a more inclusive and dynamic campus community, we are encouraging everyone at Wes to use the lessons learned here, with “independence of mind and generosity of spirit,” to make a positive difference beyond the borders of the university.

 

Scholarship and Teaching Ramping Up this Summer

Last week Kari and I spent 6 hours a day in seminars on the impact of digital media on art history, visual studies and the humanities. The program was jointly sponsored by the research arm of the Clark Museum and by the French National Institute for the History of Art. Before my appointment at Wesleyan, I’d spent the previous decade or so in the world of art making and the study of visual culture. These seminars re-connected me with some of the scholars I’d gotten to know at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

Digital media are obviously having an enormous impact on art making today, and on the study of the history of art. Many of the participants in our discussions have seen their fields change dramatically in the last ten years because of technology. Our reading for the week consisted of a wide range of topics: theoretical critiques of new regimes of social control made possible by tracking and surveillance software; art historical discussions of the role of art in the age of digital distribution; projections concerning the importance of the digital humanities; films that showed the attraction of many artists to forms of reproducibility that have not really been left behind in the rush of the digital.

Clark-INHA Seminar at Fondation Hartung-Bergman
Clark-INHA Seminar at Fondation Hartung-Bergman

It was good to catch up with colleagues on the role of digital tools for the making and study of art, especially as we at Wesleyan hope to expand our facilities for digital design and media. It was also important to be reminded of “what remains” whenever society embraces new forms of technology to deal with questions that have deep cultural roots.

While we were digging into visual culture and its history, a group of Wesleyan faculty were representing our journal History and Theory at the first conference of the  International Network for Theory of History. The editor of the journal is Ethan Kleinberg (COL, History, Center for Humanities), and he was one of a small group of scholars from around the world asked to give a keynote address to the hundreds of philosophers, critics, historians and theorists gathered at Ghent. He, too, was concerned with digital culture in his talk entitled “The Analog Ceiling.” There were lively debates on topics in almost every field of historical reflection, but Ethan tells me there was a strong consensus about one thing: Wesleyan’s History and Theory is the preeminent journal in the field.

Another journal that has had its home at Wesleyan for years is Diaspora, edited by Khachig Tölölyan (COL and English). Diaspora is “dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the history, culture, social structure, politics, and economics of both the traditional diasporas – Armenian, Greek, and Jewish – and the new transnational dispersions.” I knew Khach when I was an undergraduate — he already had a reputation as an inspiring teacher and pathbreaking scholar. He has been one of the founders of diaspora studies, travels extensively to talk about his research and has built a journal that is the leader in its field. And he remains a beloved teacher. You can see one of his recent lectures here

Hundreds of Wesleyan faculty and students are scattered across the globe teaching, writing, and pursuing their scholarship during the summer. And many of them are right here in Middletown, in the libraries and labs. Much of this work will find its way back into classrooms very quickly. I’ve just finished a book manuscript, been doing lots of reading and writing, and am to relaunch the Wesleyan-Coursera class The Modern and the Postmodern in the next week. Then I’ll be spending some time reconfiguring my fall class on philosophy and the movies while I finish some writing assignments.

From research to teaching and back again — a very virtuous circle.

 

Doreen Freeman, A True Wesleyan Friend

freemanobitKari and I were out of the country at a seminar when we heard that Doreen Freeman had passed away. I’d gotten to know Doreen and her husband Buck (who died in 2010) just after I’d been named president of Wesleyan but before we’d moved to Middletown from California. We had a long lunch at which Doreen made us feel like we would be truly at home at Wesleyan, and Buck reminded us of how important it would be to maintain the tradition of excellence the Freeman Foundation had established in recruiting extraordinarily talented students to Wesleyan. What a team! Wes had become Doreen’s alma mater as well as Buck’s (and Graeme’s, their son), and we will never find truer friends.

Doreen was a person of enormous curiosity and care. She would participate in the interviews for Freeman Asian Scholars each year, and she brought grace, perspicacity and deep empathy to the process. She also had a delightful sense of humor, and along with Buck and Graeme, communicated a joyful, personal philanthropy that is very rare. I know that Freeman Scholars on campus and around the world felt that she cared about each and every person in the program. She delighted in hearing about their experiences as students, and about the ways their Wesleyan education informed their lives long after graduation.

Our hearts go out to Graeme, his sister Linda and their families. Doreen’s memory will be a blessing for them and so many others around the world.

You can read more about Doreen Freeman here.

 

 

All Honor to Anthony Braxton!!

A few weeks ago I read that Anthony Braxton, John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, was recognized for lifetime achievement in jazz by the National Endowment for the Arts. This is “the nation’s highest honor in jazz,” and it comes on the heels of the Doris Duke Foundation’s recognition of Prof. Braxton’s uncategorizable gifts and achievements. He is no stranger to honors, having already received a MacArthur “genius” fellowship. He has been a devoted teacher of Wesleyan students in small and large ensembles, and he has mentored countless young musicians in his many years of teaching. Professor Braxton has announced his intention to retire in January, and so it is fitting that national organizations, faculty colleagues, staff, students and alumni join in celebrating the music he makes, teaches and inspires.

Here is one of my favorites, an old clip of Anthony playing John Coltrane’s “Impressions” at the Woodstock Jazz Festival (1981) :

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o0AYFRFX7g[/youtube]

And this quotation from Anthony is from the NEA’s Jazz Master’s interview:

For me, the recognition of my place in creative American music is quite a surprise–welcome surprise, that comes at the right time in my life. To be named an NEA Jazz Master recipient opens the door of reconciliation to the whole of my musical and cultural family, and completes my “inner nature and balance” in the most positive way. This is so because no matter the nomenclature, I have never separated myself from the great men and women whose creative work changed and elevated my life–and reason for wanting to live. The NEA Jazz Master family has profoundly shaped the dynamics of American and world culture–it doesn’t get any better than this family. The story of creative music is the story of America and the story of composite human vibrational dynamics. The discipline of creative music is one of the greatest gifts that the cosmic forces have given us.

Anthony Braxton has been a great gift to Wesleyan students for a long time. The vibrational dynamics he has inspired will joyfully resonate for a long, long time.

 

Remembering Franklin Reeve

Kari received the sad news recently that Franklin Reeve, emeritus professor in the College of Letters, had passed away. He had taught at Wesleyan for more than 40 years, and his students and colleagues recognized his generosity, his wit, and his wide-ranging intellect. I didn’t study with Frank, but many of my friends did, and I experienced him as a formidable presence on campus. No, that’s not quite right. He had stature, but he also had a ready smile and an easy openness to which so many of my peers responded. A few years ago, Frank came back to campus with a jazz combo for an evening of music and poetry. He still had that openness, along with his lifelong joy in the careful use of language and in the vitality of improvisation.

Paul Schwaber, Frank’s colleague for many years in the COL has written a tribute to his friend. It’s my pleasure to post it below.

Briganteen Media Photo
Franklin Reeve (Briganteen Media)

 

I remember Frank Reeve as a tall, extremely handsome man.  He smiled ruefully and spoke very rapidly, as if barely able to control his rush of thought or  questions.  He joined COL after some time away from Wesleyan, where he’d initially taught Russian.  Widely learned, he was polylingual, witty, keen with pun and irony.  He wrote poetry, drama, fiction.  He translated.  He seemed never to stop writing.    He was competitive and judgmental, but only with the best.  To a young colleague he was also kind.  For example, I asked him early on to read a review I’d not yet submitted on a new book by Robert Lowell.  Frank made several helpful suggestions  about phrasing but also telegraphed dubiety about my choice of poets.  In COL’s jointly taught colloquia, he was energizing, a playful presence, exciting to teach with, inspiring by example to the students.  I’ve known him to be sharply critical but never nasty, and he had no trouble communicating his love of language and linguistic art.  Most of all he was both literary and worldly.  There were few things he seemed not to know.  COL applied for and won an NEH grant for courses on Science as a Humanistic Discipline, for which Frank taught a course called “How Things Work.”

He also noted when things didn’t work.  My friend Bill Firshein and I volunteered to join Ted Hoey sail his new boat on the Connecticut River.  Ted was a rookie, and Bill and I had never sailed.  We learned that “Hard-a-lee” meant bend down quickly, as the main sail would swing by.  Yet soon we three were in the water, the boat on its side, while we tried to roll it upright, laughing hard, as Bill, the biologist, shouted “Don’t swallow the water! It’s polluted!”  Suddenly we were aware of a boat circling round us protectively.  And there was Frank, with a boatload of wide-eyed children, he taller even than usual, with an amused—or was it pitying?—look on his face.   He was an expert sailor, a committed teacher of literature and writing, with a lively and enlivening mind.  He taught a seminar on Melville and Dostoevsky, two giants rarely studied in depth together.  Yet it was much in demand, each time he offered it.  For several years too he taught a first-year Great Books course, lecture size and ever-popular, in which apparently he was able to get the students to talk, and to talk with one another.  It became a major source of gifted students to the COL major as well. 

In his later years, he suffered crippling arthritis, which bent this exceptional man over but did not crush his spirit.  We mourn his death and praise him, a genuine and unique man of letters.

 

 

Student Loans: Congress Must Act!

Over the last five years at Wesleyan we have reduced the use of loans in our financial aid packages because we realize that debt can play havoc with one’s choices after graduation. We are committed to keeping loans as low as possible, and we no longer ask our neediest students to borrow anything at all.

As many of you know, Congress began its 4th of July recess without taking action in regard to the interest rates paid on student loans. The result is that student loan rates will double — from 3.4% to 6.8%. While it’s hard to be surprised anymore by a deadlocked Congress, in this case the inaction is particularly galling.  Young men and women who need to borrow to meet their college expenses face dramatic increases in their payments, and some will choose not to pursue their education as a result. This increase in rates is especially unfortunate because the premium in wages for those who get a college degree (as compared to those with only a high school diploma) has never been greater. Moreover, there are reasonable alternatives before the Congress right now, and any one of them is preferable to inaction. Some propose market-based frameworks for the long term, others propose caps on interest rates for those most in need of assistance. Here is a chart from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators:

interest_rate_proposal_chart-vfinal

Is it too much to expect Congress to reach a compromise to help student and their families? Reasonable solutions are out there. Demand that Congress act now!