(10 minute read)
In the early ’80s I landed my first on-air job at a small radio station in upstate New York.
As was expected in broadcasting those days when launching a career one needed to move from job to job. I did so and eventually became Operations Manager for a station in the mid-Atlantic region of the states. Later I transitioned into print journalism and eventually established a small publishing company.
Well, there it is. Half a lifetime in three sentences. One small paragraph. I should feel old. But I don’t.
My resume reads more impressive than it felt living through it. That is saying a lot. Only about 20% of my career was planned. The other times it felt like a runaway train and Leroy Jenkins was the conductor.
In my early 40s I accepted a position teaching media courses at a private college. For the rest of my career I taught full-time. First in that college and then at two state universities respectively. Like my earlier days I had to move around a lot for that to happen.
I’m writing this because I think my years of experience brings a unique insight into academia. I was never an insider, a professional student. It meant that I didn’t have the institutional blinders that comes with the territory.
Instead I had years of corporate experience to bring into the classroom. Many professors don’t always have that luxury. Completing undergraduate degrees they continue on to graduate work. After being in the classroom for 20+ years they go right into teaching.
Today those first teaching jobs aren’t so easy to come by and there are a number of Ph.D.’s graduates unable to find work.
One who is dedicated to teaching spends a lot of time in the classroom. When your ambition is to teach then that is what is expected. Nothing wrong with that. If you are going to teach a subject matter then one has to master the material.
It is the reason why graduate degrees have their distinction.
Real-world experience isn’t necessary to be accomplished teachers. Someone teaching accounting doesn’t necessarily need to have worked in an accounting firm. But it helps. Passing on the intricacies and, yes sometimes, tedious nature of business and corporate life is invaluable in the classroom.
It was for me.
Why am I bringing this up? What I try to do within this space is to explore the legitimacy of my experiences in business and academia.
- Legitimacy, in that what I say and do in my career has some impact on myself and others. Otherwise what’s the point?
- Legitimacy, in what I think about life and its challenges. Again, we’ve got one shot at it, might as well make the best of it.
- Legitimacy, as insisting on being authentic and being called out on any bullshit in said matters.
- Legitimacy, as in passing along this information …for what it’s worth. See what I did there?
There were times in my young life where I thought I was doing all of that. Some of what I said and did and thought was important, well today I cringe when I think about it.
I’d like to think that I have grown just a bit.
My Degrees Are Not My Spirituality
To date I have spent four years of my retirement writing here. There are 107,463 words found in this space, 83 posts in total on a variety of subjects. Each post has around 1,387 words and it takes an average of just 7.5 minutes to read each one.
If you scroll through this space you’ll note that my experiences are grounded in business, communications, and academia. However, my earned degrees are in theology and religious education.
I wrote about this in ’23.
I’d like to think that all of that provides me with a unique perspective. I have shared those perspectives regularly, in and out of the classroom, and like to do that here as well.
What does the world look like to someone educated in theology with a career in media and academics?
Don’t presume to know the answer because I studied all of these topics grounded in sociology and anthropology. For example, I’ve spent more time studying how and why theological concepts were historically developed rather than defending the supernatural. When you approach religion or philosophy in that manner you quickly realize that there is nothing new under the sun.
I disappoint a lot of people when they find out I’m not interested in defending the existence of a deity. I am more fascinated by the why and how humans have the need to create and rely on religious experiences. You can imagine how far that carries in conversation.
The obvious question for the modern world is why is that, religion, superstition, etc. our default mode of explaining the “unexplainable?” Especially when it is so explainable.
It is easy to understand how our ancient ancestors used it as their worldview. Despite what you may think they were not dumb. They just didn’t have all the knowledge that we now have at our fingertips.
Literally!
Unfortunately, as a species, we haven’t shed their superstitions. Those ancient beliefs makes them all the more dangerous in a modern world. Given the capacity for destruction at our disposal it seems ludicrous that The End happens over differences in perceived gods.1
Or even worse is precipitated by religious fervency.
“Imagine not only believing the world is coming to an end, but wanting it to happen. Eagerly. Then, take it a step further and imagine people with such a mentality engineering American politics and foreign policy to bring about the very thing they seek — the apocalypse.”
“What they are really pushing for is the destruction of our civilization. It’s quite outrageous and mind blowing, really,” [Norwegian filmmaker Tonje Hessen] Schei tells Deadline as we sit at a café in Copenhagen. “And I don’t think a lot of Americans realize that the sort of hidden end time Armageddon lobby… that they have real political power. They make up the backbone of the Republican party.”
Above linked article, Matthew Carey, Deadline, March 20, 2023
(How the hell do I turn this article around from THAT?)
How has the study of religion helped me in teaching courses in mass media and communications. Despite the debates I’ve had with others, it has.
Here you’ll find the expression of someone who has lived within the curricular life of mainstream academia. I write as an educator (as best I can) with more than 45 years in media communications and academia.
My education in theology has enlightened my personal life. The decisions I have made in academia, too (only not as you suppose). Those decisions include my performance in the classroom and how to relate to students and colleagues. There are no promises here of a better way to teach (see previous article). Only to make known what I had available to me and encourage you to find and do the same.
Today I am attempting to share a perspective on the crises in higher education. One can argue the institution of education is in crises here in the states up and down the spectrum.
The Meaning of Life (thank you Mr. Python)
It wasn’t always this way. It might surprise some to learn that I consider myself non-religious. My degrees in theology and religious education helped me to come to that conclusion.
I no longer have a sense of spirituality because I now know where and how those experiences originate.
To be clear, according to the Christian faith, I am blaspheming to the fullest extent. If you conclude differently then I say “god bless” and go on your merry way. I’m not here to debate.
So, to write that my education has been invaluable in every way would be an understatement. Though I hadn’t expected the outcome I got exactly what I was looking for. An answer to a question that bothered me since childhood.
Despite the unexpected, in my studies I found a core of vivaciousness deeper than any other faith earlier declared. And I found a way to integrate it into the classroom.
A personal ownership in my own formation (or destiny) was the start. The result? It helped me to realize my identity as a human being and educator. That coupled with the Integrity of knowing helped me to honestly relate to students/colleagues in mind, body, and character.
In the next posts I will ask and try to answer three questions:
- Is a personal ownership in forming “identity and integrity” relevant to academia?
- Is a personal ownership in forming “character and inner life” relevant to academia?
- Is a personal ownership in forming “crises in the university” relevant to academia?
The obvious assumption is that it is more than beneficial to take personal ownership in all three. The intentions I put forward will be somewhat ambitious. My hope is to empower faculty and administrators: 1. to be active, hopeful participants in events and 2. abandon any form of behavior that embraces being paralyzed, pessimistic, or victims.
And there are a lot of you out there. You know who you are. It’s OK. You can come out from hiding.
Administrators? Well, having served in both faculty and administrative positions I can only say administrators are in a world of hurt. The administrative world in higher education is in crises mode on a daily basis. Some of it real some of it fabricated. But things like finances, enrollment, funding, students and faculty concerns, etc. are daily fires administrators are tasked to put out.
And all of that was true before the recent Trump-Vance-Musk cabal took aim.
Because of that daily hyper-crises mode, administrators and faculty have a tough time coming together. Faculty members, for the most part, want to concentrate on teaching, writing, and research. As a whole, they aren’t willing companions to help administrators put out those fires. They are tasked to teach and prefer to leave the duties of administration to the administrators. Unless, of course, decisions are made by administrators that affects faculty. Then all bets are off.
To add insult to injury the hiring spree higher education went on didn’t help. Despite the dwindling population of students we have what is referred to as administrative bloat. Colleges and universities are spending less time and money hiring full-time faculty yet continue to increase and fill administrative positions. Some universities have increased administrative positions over the past four decades by 400+%.
As a result, faculty members are seeing their influences wane on campus. Their “bosses” recruit administrative candidates often from non-academic backgrounds. The decisions they bring with them often reflect a corporate world-view where students are identified as customers.
And we are all familiar with the business adage that “the customer is always right.”
Try selling that one to a faculty member when a student wants to appeal a grade.
That empowerment I mentioned above is needed now more than ever.
- Most historians have concluded that the number of wars started over religious differences amounts to less than 10%. Still, the capacity for annihilation with a push of a button with less than 10% seems too risky.
