Another Candle

Some years ago I began a series of posts on charitable organizations I supported and whose signal I wanted to boost. I suppose I preferred cursing the darkness, since I only managed to light two candles (so to speak) before discontinuing the series. I think it is past time to renew that effort. Our social fabric will always need mending, and of late that fabric has seemed more frayed than usual - but perhaps also more reparable.

I’ve long been annoyed by institutions’ emptying issuance of tribal land acknowledgments, an act which seems to me like a social prayer without works. (Cf “thoughts and prayers” to victims of gun violence.) I think if one is going to admit to living on another person’s property, one should at least make an effort to pay rent. Some institutions do so; most, I think, don’t bother. 

As an individual I find that my resources are too straitened to make more than nominal compensation to Indigenous Americans; as a student of Native American history, I find it important at least to make the attempt. 

Like Scott Berg, I have made the American Indian College Fund my de facto landlord. The AICF is a thirty-five-year-old, Native-run charity that grants scholarships to about 4,000 Indigenous American students pursuing associates, bachelors, or postgraduate degrees. It also provides financial aid and training to personnel and programs at the United States’ thirty five Tribal Colleges and Universities. (All of these, by the way, are grievously underfunded. The United States government is the biggest deadbeat tenant.) The latter help develop programs in education, computer science, and language revitalization. About 70 percent of the Fund’s revenue goes to scholarship recipients, making it a reasonably efficient eleemosynary agency. Even so, the AICF can only provide aid to ten percent of applicants, so the need for its services and for donors is considerable.

No Amount of Praise Is Ever Enough

 

Longtime fans of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight will recall his episode (12 Aug. 2019) on Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, the incumbent autocrat of Turkmenistan. President Berdimuhamedov’s egotism and eccentricities - including his single-minded love of horses -  and his cavalier attitude (cough) toward civil liberties seem fairly typical of post-Soviet dictators. What Oliver failed to capture in his segment was the modesty and transparency of Mr. Berdimuhamidov’s regime when compared to that of his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, alias Turkmenbashi. At some point in his career, someone must have handed Comrade Niyazov a biography of Caligula and challenged him to outdo the mad emperor in sheer dictatorial excess. Turkmenbashi did so. During his fifteen-year reign (1991-2006), the Autocrat of All the Turkmen made these contributions to the annals of megalomania:

 

1 Added “the Great” to his official name, and claimed descent from Alexander (an early member of the Great family) and Muhammed.

2 Emblazoned his portrait on all the nation’s currency and in the top corner of every state television broadcast.

3 Renamed the months of the year after members of his family.

4 Outlawed all institutions and practices that he considered detrimental to the spiritual health of the Turkmen people, or just offensive to him personally, e.g. circuses, ballet, Internet cafes, long hair on men, and makeup on TV actors.

5 Wrote* a national bestseller, Ruhnama, The Book of Wisdom, an encomium to the Turkmen and their Father, Turkmenbashi. The Ruhnama became the subject of a giant monument in Turkmenistan’s capital, the principal text used in high school and college classes - replacing such inferior subjects as the humanities - and an obligatory text in mosques. Driving tests, too.

6 Financed his expensive remaking of the capital city, Ashgabat, by firing 110,000 teachers and health workers.

 

Turkmenbashi wishes you Bon Voyage!

Most of these policies were ended by Turkmenbashi’s dentist and successor, the aforementioned Gurbanguli Berdimuhamedov. The new president continued Niyazov’s suppression of dissent and imprisonment of political rivals; modern Turkmenistan has won no accolades from Amnesty International, and it rivals North Korea in its attitude toward press freedom. Still, in an age when many of us can only look forward to the next dictator, it is comforting to know that some dictators are less chaotic and vicious than others.

 

* They always write a book, these dictators. Mussolini even wrote a romance novel, The Cardinal's Mistress (1910). I understand its obscurity is not entirely undeserved.

 

 

Source:  Erika Fatland, Sovietistan (Pegasus, 2021), 48-56.

Mix Tape

Cat Stevens, 1976. Wikimedia Commons

At the end of our first year in college, several of my dorm mates put together that most typical of late-'80s youth artifacts, a mix tape. Each student in our dorm entry contributed one favorite song. I suspect most of us left out guilty or geeky pleasures in favor of something more reflective of our preferred identity. I kept and periodically listen to my copy, and offer here the playlist, for anyone interested in what privileged college freshmen liked to listen to thirty years ago:

1) The Unforgettable Fire - U2
2) Father and Son - Cat Stevens
3) Higher Ground - The Feelies
4) The Bitch Is Back - Elton John
5) In the Winter - Dusty Springfield
6) La Femme Accident - OMD
7) Unexpected Song - Bernadette Peters
8) Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word - Elton John
9) Blue Sky - Allman Brothers Band
10) In the Name of Love - U2
11) On the Road to Find Out - Cat Stevens
12) Black Dog - Led Zeppelin
13) Laura - Billy Joel
14) Runaway - Del Shannon
15) I Get a Kick Outta You - Nancy Sinatra
16) The Powers That Be - Roger Walters
17) Imagine - John Lennon
18) Three Little Birds - Bob Marley*
19) Knights in White Satin - Moody Blues
20) Love the One You're With - Stephen Stills
21) Angels Don't Cry - The Psychedelic Furs
22) I Fought the Law - The Clash
23) Uptown Girl - Billy Joel
24) Songbird - Fleetwood Mac
25) Eyes of the Girl - Wang Chung**
26) Redemption Songs - Bob Marley
27) Rocky Raccoon - The Beatles
28) Suicide Machine - The Germs
29) Bamboleo - Gipsy Kings***
30) Sweet Home Alabama - Lynard Skynard
31) Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton

Some agreeable stuff here, but on the whole I find our collective taste rather sedate and old-fashioned. The playlist includes a fair number of show tunes and 1970s popular music, plus a little U2 and a handful of '80s obscuranta, but very little popular music from the decade during which we all attended high school. A historical analogue would be a playlist created by college freshmen in 1969 that included Rogers and Hammerstein tunes, some Fabian and Buddy Holly numbers, a few early '60s folk songs, and nothing by the Beatles or the Who or the Rolling Stones. I have long considered my generation a conservative one, and artifacts like these do not challenge that view.


* As required by law.
** If you liked Wang Chung, you were an insufferable geek. This song was my choice.
*** Probably the best thing on the tape.

Can Historians Contribute to Society?

A few weeks ago Patrick Johnson, vice-chancellor of Queens University in Belfast, expressed what I suspect is a view of history commonly held by Euro-American elites: “Society doesn't need a 21-year-old who is a sixth-century historian. It needs a 21-year-old who really understands how to analyze things, [and] understands...contributing to society.” He then announced the creation of an Office of Analyzing Things and Contributing to Society, and the appointment of a deputy vice-chancellor, two deans, and seven assistant deans to manage it. I'm kidding. (Sort of.)

In response to Johnson's remarks, Professor Jonathan Healey wrote an engaging defense of the formal study of history, which I commend to my readers' attention, Briefly, Healey noted that social leaders like to use historical examples to justify themselves, so society needs good history students to serve as fact-checkers; the general public loves a good story, and historians can provide content to the museums and script-writers who furnish the public with its history; the weirdness of the past obliges students to develop their analytical skills in order to study it; and that very weirdness reminds us that societies do change over time, and that our modern values and hierarchies are contingent and mutable.

Healey's clear, elegant essay makes a nice complement to Timothy Burke's 2008 HNN piece on the purposes of historical analysis. Using Burke's article, I would add that history also helps 21-year-olds more fully understand long-term processes, like human-induced environmental change, that have ongoing consequences in the twenty-first century. It lets us appreciate the importance of individuals in society, particularly obscure characters (like George Robert Twelves Hughes or Domenico Menocchio Scandella) whose lives and thoughts tell us more about the lived experience of an era than those of a Napoleon. Finally, history teaches humility, as students learn that they are not the only generation and that persons in the deep past have solved complicated problems without help from their descendants.

I suspect academic administrators, politicians, and other elites don't want ordinary college students to develop these skills. They want round pegs for round holes, not challengers of the status quo. But, as Healey points out – and as everyone over the age of 35 could attest – the status quo is fragile and as subject to change as any other human construct. We need people who appreciate this fact, who have studied change over time and who have the intellectual flexibility to respond to it. Their willingness to say this explains why history professors are almost never invited to speak at university commencements. It's probably just as well. 

(Above image, "Clio, the Muse of History," by Giovanni Baglione [1620], is in the public domain.)

The Professorial Coup

If yesterday’s election in Greece has not left me enthused*, it has certainly intrigued me. While the Anglo-American press has characterized Syriza, the dominant party (149 of 300 seats) in the new Greek Parliament, as “radical leftists,” their platform seems more center-left than socialist. The Wall Street Journal, in a surprisingly sympathetic article** (paywalled, alas), observes that many of Syriza’s legislative candidates are college professors, which makes their so-called “Keynesian-Marxist” governing philosophy easier to understand. Professors tend toward what one might call actual conservatism: the desire to conserve and use old institutions and techniques that have worked well enough in the past. Whatever its flaws, Keynesian deficit spending works well enough at stimulating a depressed economy, provided someone is willing to loan the government enough money. (Of course, the “Troika” of European Commission, European Central Bank, and IMF are reluctant to do so.) I suspect, too, that college professors are more concerned by the high level of youth unemployment in Greece (40 percent, IIRC) than other professionals. No-one wants to consign their graduates to years, possibly decades, of unemployment. As for Syriza’s Marxism, I suspect we’ll see very little of it. It probably runs no deeper than the radicalism of Anglo-American students who dabbled in Marxism in the 1960s and became yuppies twenty years later, or of professors who called themselves “Marxologists” in the ‘80s and then spent their energy fighting over endowed chairs and parking privileges. I doubt we will see any Greek gulags. Unless they have decent faculty parking.

* Syriza’s coalition partners, the Independent Democrats, do not thrill me. They are center-right nationalists who don’t care for Germany, understandably enough in light of German bankers’ support for austerity, and oppose immigration, a somewhat more ominous position. They're still a better option than Golden Dawn.

** Charles Forelle, "Syriza's Rise Fueled by Professors-Turned Politicians," WSJ, 23 Jan. 2015.

Containing College Costs (Continued)

(Continued from September 17th):

Students:  There are constant complaints that college is horrendously expensive, and yet many of you spend money like water while in college. To outside observers, you often look like you are not serious about your studies and then disappointed when you graduate after four (or six) years (if you graduate), having learned and benefited and profited less than you thought you were going to.

            First, if you don’t feel ready to go to college, don’t go! No matter how much your parents or friends or high school counselor are pushing you, listen to your own inner voice. But, if you don’t go to college, get a real job and live on your own on your wages. Find out what the economic choices really are.

            Second, study what you love and are good at, but be practical about it. The best strategy is a double major (or more) if you have multiple or esoteric interests.

            Third, live frugally. Don’t borrow money, however deferred and low interest the payments are, to live a lifestyle above your family’s means. Take the bus. Have an old phone. Go out only once a week. Have a roommate. You can still have fun, and your 20s will be much more pleasant with lower student loan payments.

            Fourth, be involved on campus.  Your major may give you a credential.  Your work and extra-curricular experiences on campus (or off) and your connections to faculty will help you get a job or into graduate school.

            Fifth, persevere when courses are hard.  Dropping a course seems easy at the time, but adds to your time in college and the amount you ultimately pay.

            Finally, you will get out of college what you put into it.  Do not expect to be forced to do all the things necessary for your education and career preparation.  You will certainly be offered many wonderful opportunities.  It is not your university’s fault if you fail to take advantage of them.

Parents: College for one child is probably the third-most expensive thing you have to fund in your lifetime, the first two being your retirement and house purchase.  If you have multiple kids, then college expenses could rival those others.

            First, and it’s probably too late for you if you are reading this, save, save, save, save.  You have to save for retirement. You have to save for a home, and you get to pay that off over 30 years.

            Second, don’t let your kid go to a college you can’t afford. It is not necessary to go to an expensive school to get a good education.

            Third, help your kid see what is important about a college. Not important: fancy dorms, state of the art workout facilities, gourmet food options, national championship athletic teams. All that is nice, but you should see multiple dollar signs hanging over each of those fancy extras. Important: low faculty-student ratio, good academic support services, effective career services center, vibrant extracurricular, internship, and study abroad programs. If you allow your kid to prioritize choosing all the extras even if it’s too expensive for you, please do not complain later that your kid has a lot of debt and no job. You set the tone by giving the message of choosing fun over substance in college.

Faculty: You just want to teach and do your own research, and not have to worry about things outside your job description like whether students actually finish college. It is the case that most faculty are working harder. And faculty see that their pay is rising more slowly than the cost of everything else on campus. Still, you are the backbone of the institution. Students need you.

            So, first, do notice what is going on with your students. It is not coddling to notice when students are struggling or absent, and to provide support, a gentle nudge or a kick in the pants.

            Second, realize that many students have much more serious issues to contend with than may have been the case during your college years. Practice compassionate rigor.          

            Third, it is easier to say “yes” to students. Yes, you can drop that class. Yes, you can change your major. Yes, you can take that difficult requirement during summer school or online at another university. But try saying “no,” or better yet, “why” to the students asking to do those potentially problematic, expensive, education-extending things.

            Fourth, don’t put unnecessary obstacles in the path of students working sincerely to finish a class, a major or a degree. Maintaining standards is crucial, but so is facilitating student success.

Administrators:  Your numbers and cost have been growing faster than anything else in the university except possibly health insurance. Any serious attempt to address the cost of college will take a long, hard look at each administrative position.

            First, then, you serve the institution and students best if every act of administration makes it easier for students to learn and faculty to teach. In practical terms, this means having an attitude of facilitation rather than setting mandates and issuing directives.

            Second, the act of teaching and process of learning does not always unfold with business-like efficiency. Administration should. See how much you can do with the fewest possible resources. The trend has been administrative bloat and cuts to faculty lines. This suggests that high level administrators believe the university’s mission is administration, not teaching.

            Third, vow that no assistant or associate dean, let alone other administrator without an academic title, will make more than the average full professor salary in your institution, calculated on the basis only of regular (not endowed chair) salaries. Send a message that your institution values education more highly than management.

- Anne Foster

  Anne.Foster@indstate.edu

Containing College Costs (without MOOCing Things Up)

The rapidly rising cost of American college education – tuition jumped 500% over the past 28 years, according to MSN Money – became a matter of national concern last year, when President Obama announced several mild proposals addressing the problem.  Other stakeholders in the debate, mainly state legislators, college administrators, and well-intentioned but clueless gadflies like Tom Friedman have advocated more radical reforms, like increasing faculty teaching loads or relying on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).  I have not given the matter much thought here, except to note in passing that Americans have collectively decided A) to make college education almost universally necessary for employment, and B) to force students to pay for it themselves, with loans now collectively valued at 1 trillion dollars

Rather than curse the darkness and the many predators who lurk in it, some thoughtful faculty members have offered intelligent and nuanced suggestions about how to get college costs under control.  One, I am proud to say, is my colleague Anne Foster, who kindly took time off from her busy schedule as a professor and co-editor of Diplomatic History to share her thoughts on the subject. Her suggestions will appear here in two parts, one today and the other this Friday. Comments are welcome, either here or by direct communication with Prof. Foster (Anne.Foster@indstate.edu).

**

On college affordability, view from the trenches

Anne Foster

            President Barack Obama has weighed in on the college affordability conversation, touting a program to incentivize colleges and universities to keep their costs down. He wants to make college more affordable, student loans less onerous, and higher education more accessible. All worthy goals, none likely to be achieved by President Obama’s plans. From my vantage point as a faculty member with six years of teaching experience in a small, private liberal arts college and ten in a public university, I offer the view from the trenches, and some advice to those whose choices make a difference in the cost of college.

Federal government:  I start with the feds only because President Obama has suggested the federal government will use its power to enforce a particular vision of how to make college affordable. His vision is based on the notion that knowledge will lead to more rational choices. Students and parents already have access to a lot of information about which colleges are more affordable and graduate their students, at the College Navigator website run by the U.S. Department of Education. Some other federal government efforts would be more helpful.

            First, make it easier for students attending college part time to access federal financial aid.  Too many students with modest economic resources or demanding personal situations attempt to attend college full time while working full time or caring for family members. Why do they take on this heavy burden? Because only full time students are eligible for most forms of financial aid. And because financial aid is not tied to number of credit hours attempted, but to number of semesters attended. This one-size-fits-all approach ill serves the students who most need and deserve assistance with attending college.

            Second, make sure Pell Grant amounts keep up with inflation. Self-explanatory. The grant for those students whose families have the fewest financial resources need to hold their value.

            Third, make student loans able to be discharged in the bankruptcy process, and lower the interest rate. Student loans should be harder to get and cheaper to have.

State governments:  State universities have seen their net cost rise more quickly than private in most cases, in large measure because most state governments have cut appropriations. Many state colleges and universities have also been asked to teach more students with these fewer resources, and to meet an increasing number of mandates from the state government.

            First, decide whether you want to keep cutting taxes or have inexpensive higher education.  You can’t do both.

            Second, don’t micromanage state colleges and universities. Legislate educational goals; let universities figure out how to implement them. The faculty, administration and students know how to manage their own institutions far better than you do.

            Third, do cultivate better relationships with faculty and students at the state universities. Most state legislators speak only to lobbyists and high level administration officials. Important though they are, they are the least important people in the educational process. If you want to know what is happening, work to get to know those who are teaching and those who are learning.

            Fourth, education is difficult, for learners and teachers. The path is not always smooth and swift, and people will make mistakes along the way and then learn from them. Focusing solely on the goal of graduation may miss the broader goal of education.

            Fifth, education is expensive and state budgets are limited. If state appropriations to colleges and universities must be cut, don’t be surprised if those schools go after other revenue sources (tuition hikes and out of state students). Don’t be surprised when the schools think that if the state provides less money it should have less control as well.

(To be continued.)