Not long ago I was a senior professor at one of the premier graduate programs in literary writing in the U.S.. I genuinely liked my work with students and colleagues in Iowa City, where, on any given night, one can hear poetry, fiction, and literary nonfiction being read by superb writers. I imagined without undue exertion that I would spend the remainder of my career at the University of Iowa. I certainly had no idea that Syracuse University would become my new professional home.
In August I was appointed director of SU’s “Renée Crown University Honors Program” and additionally, was offered a distinguished “university professorship”. While these two things are rewarding–or, more precisely, hold the promise of reward–they are not the reasons I chose to come to Syracuse. That decision was based entirely on the institutional vision that SU calls “scholarship in action”–a matter that is more like scholarship “squared” since it calls upon this university to (re)vision many long held and collective assuptions about higher education. One of those assumptions is that a university education unfolds according to the static demands of research and so whether a student’s field of study is Physics or Anthropology, the only experience she or he will have beyond the ivory tower will be mediated by the history of received scholarship. This means that the local community and the circumstances of its citizens are only admissable as a subject of research if they prove or disprove a theoretical position. Forget the idea that the locals might have ideas of their own or that they might be co-presenters in a grant. Scholarship in action calls for a bold reimagining of the tenet that ideas precede people.
This leads to challenging a second long held assumption about higher ed–that it possesses utility only by means of meritocracy. Let’s be clear: every student wants an “A” and every university wants to employ the best faculty–those who once upon a time got the most “A’s”. We all know that those who work the hardest gain the laurels at colleges and universities and this is an unassailable truism. As the director of SU’s honors program I wouldn’t have it any other way. Or would I? Can I imagine an alternatives to measuring academic success? How do the old time faculty actually measure “peer to peer mentoring” among today’s students? What is the changing nature of team work? Traditional higher ed rarely has cogent answers for these questions but the time to find those answers is now.
In his famous book Pedagogy of the Oppressed Paulo Freire wrote: “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”
Traditional higher ed likes participation but in very narrow terms. Syracuse is changing that and I came to the snowiest city in America because of it.
SK
Planet of the Blind 