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Professor. Sociologist. Provost. Magician. All are titles held by Barry Glassner, who in October will add another to his collection: President of Lewis & Clark College. Glassner, most recently the executive vice provost at the University of Southern California, says he's looking forward to working with Lewis & Clark's "socially engaged" and "uncommonly involved" faculty and student body. Glassner could be described in a very similar way.
Not content with ivory tower scholarship, he has engaged with the wider world at every turn. Whether leading an initiative at USC to foster collaboration between the school's arts and humanities departments on and off campus, or writing and speaking about the sociology behind cultural trends, Glassner is uncommonly engaged in his own right. Rumor has it that Glassner was also a world-class magician in his youth. (Perhaps he can make Portland's rainclouds disappear?)
We'll speak with Glassner about his vision for Lewis & Clark College, his Gospel of Food take on Portland's gastronomy, and his ideas on bridging academia and civic life.
Are you a Lewis and Clark student, staff member or alum? Do you or did you attend another college or university in Portland? What questions do you have for Barry Glassner?
Tagged as: college · education · lewis and clark college
Photo credit: Courtesy of Barry Glassner
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Do you think college students have different set of fears even from students 5 years earlier when the economy was booming? Are students MORE serious with their studies, choice of majors, ambition and plans? Should more students concentrate on a career track rather than English Lit? Are their expectations lower or should they be? Are they still a idealistic lot on average or more realistic?
In this economy, how do you justify Private College Debt that is magnitudes greater than an equivalent Public University Debt? College Tuitions went up in boom times, should they go down in bust times?
How do you steel a graduate for the real world: Hundreds of rejected Resumes, Dozens of unsuccessful interviews, 5 applicants for every job, Learning how to apply for unemployment assistance, How to budget, How to save, How to cook a homemade meal for under $3? Many college graduates are ignorant in personal finance, mortgages and credit cards. How does one deal with depression and mental illness and when should help be sought.
Do you think colleges should begin to track longitudinal data on their graduates, like income, occupation, housing status to help justify the value of a college education? Should a higher income be an expected benefit to college graduates? Owning home? Owning a business? Affording college tuition for their offspring? Unfortunately many students from last year have moved back home for what may be years if not decades, are jobless or underemployed, and some even are homeless and hungry. And many are frustrated with their shiny new degrees and idleness. Colleges owe it to their graduates to address the effectiveness of their educational program and to seek to improve it. And to help assure new incoming students that there are benefits to a Lewis and Clark Degree
I believe Fear can Focus our Energy. And it can be put to a more productive endeavor. We have to make young people prepared and adaptable to the real world. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best. Is it okay if the American Dream downsizes? Can we be smarter and poorer but more content with our lot?
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During my time at Lewis & Clark, there was a definite lack of diversity on campus among the students and faculty. And it's not just regarding race, but regional, ideological, and socioeconomic diversity. It seemed that everyone already shared many of the same experience, backgrounds, and belief, which produced an unseemly amount of groupthink on campus.
Second, for a college that should be fostering more social mobility among underprivileged student, Lewis & Clark has the fewest Pell grant recipients among private colleges in Oregon (Linfield 33%, Willamette 18%, Reed 15%, Lewis & Clark 13%).
That being said, I enjoyed my time at Lewis & Clark, but always felt that the college could be doing more to address these issues. What can Mr. Glassner do to rectify these discrepancies between a stated goal of the college and reality? -
I am a current law student at Lewis & Clark. Over the course of the past several years, the school has seemingly taken steps that are contradictory to its purported commitment to sustainability and environmental awareness, particularly through cutbacks to the transportation options offered to students. The school has drastically cut back the shuttle service it used to offer (and TriMet has not stepped up to the plate to fill the void in service - FYI, TriMet service is not frequent enough to be a useful alternative), forcing students to commute to school every day in single occupancy vehicles. As you know, the location of the school makes it difficult to access by other means. The parking fees we pay were originally put in place to fund the transportation service, yet now we still pay the fees but do not have the same transportation. The school is redirecting the parking money to other uses. The school administration has been entirely unresponsive to the objections frequently expressed by students and neighbors to the transportation cutbacks. The law school student body has been working tirelessly to try to get our transportation re-implemented, but the school does not seem to think this is a priority. As our new president, what will you do to improve student access to and from campus? Will you re-implement our full shuttle service so that students have an environmentally friendly method of getting to and from the school?
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The free shuttle service of Lewis and Clark meanders through downtown PDX and stops by Pioneer Square. A lot of students seem more concerned with mall shopping and access to the materialism of downtown department stores; not true necessities like groceries and pharmacies.
As the road distance is 5 miles to Pioneer Square, perhaps true enviormental students would try biking or hiking. Many Portlanders travel much farther to get downtown. And they deal with hills and rain and do not feel entitled to a Free Shuttle. We all need more exercise and as far as commutes, 5 miles is miniscule.
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Welcome, Incoming President Glassner! As a staff member at Lewis & Clark, I too have questions about the transportation and diversity issues raised by the other commenters and am very interested to hear your thoughts on that.
Here is my question...Many staff members feel a disconnect from the rest of the instution -- we have few events or occasions for uniting with the students and faculty, or even staff members who work in other buildings, or at other campuses, unless we are directly collaborating on a project. How do we bring our campus closer together? How can staff participate more fully in the vibrant intellectual atmosphere that is around us? In my opinion, this needs to go beyond "attend a class" or go to large all-staff meetings with no meaningful interactions.
Most importantly, how can we make this a meaningful part of our jobs -- so often we are judged on our job descriptions, which don't usually include things like "make friends" or "get to know other departments." I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic, as I think the lack of a sense of community is bringing down morale to a large degree, and contributes strongly to turnover.
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With 60% Women and 40% Men of the Student Body, Lewis and Clark Demographics are reflecting the rising success of women and the lagging of men. Pretty soon the football team will have trouble filling all those uniforms and some players will have to play both offense, defense and special teams.
Is sex diversity important in a learning institution? At what point does a CoEd learning institution become effectively a single sex college? If men were only 10% would you urge an Affirmative Action Admission for men? 20%? 30%? 35%?
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Since college admissions is merit based, clearly this national trend needs to be addressed at the primary and secondary levels. Admitting excellent students is far more important IMO than the structure of future football teams.
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PDXOPB
I am sorry, but in 2010 AFFIRMATIVE ACTION is a REAL PROGRAM. And it bypasses Merit. In College Admissions, we bend the standards every day to admit the rare minority.
The question is WHO benefits? In these strange times, maybe Men should be in that category. Most women who want to date similar peers(ie classmates) in college would also agree.
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Right, but Affirmative Action, as I understand it, is a program meant to help historically oppressed people. As far as I know, men/males have not ever fallen into this category. The reasons behind this very recent trend are not clear... yet. I think what is causing this needs to be figured out before we start giving males the upperhand (yet again).
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As a current law student at Lewis & Clark, I echo the sentiments expressed in the comment by lawstudent1. Environmentally-friendly group transportation has been a priority of a core group of our law students for the past couple of years, but I have been shocked by the way our attempts to address the issue have been largely ignored and even treated with animostiy. Also, many of us are particularly looking for transportation alternatives for inner Southeast Portland. As our new president, will you make practical, environmentally-friendly transportation alternatives a priority?
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Do you have ideas for the direction of recruiting and retention for L&C?
- staff member
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Is there some specific question/direction you're most interesed in?
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I'm most interested in how he will handle competing priorities for recruitment of students - i.e. diversity, gender balance, the role of athletics in admissions, etc.
I know that doesn't narrow my question much... sorry!
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Does Mr. Glassner have any specific thoughts about the role of athletics at Lewis & Clark College and within the structure of NCAA Dvision III rules?
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Okay, really... how can we attack him about diversity and financial aid when he hasn't even gotten to campus yet?!?!
He needs some time to fully adjust to the campus culture and figure out where things stand before he decides where things should go...
Geez Emily Harris, give the guy a break.
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It's not an attack. It's accountability.
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Oh no, there isn’t enough diversity at Lewis and Clark. Wow, that must mean something terrible....! Exactly how much diversity is the correct number? What percentage is going to work? Should this percentage mirror the surrounding community or is this to be compared to any school anywhere? Now we have to balance ideology also? Should we balance idiots with intellectuals too? Should we balance the obese with the morbidly skinny? Then the complaints about the greenness of the school? Well how green could the school get if we are alleged to balance ideology? I suppose if we balance ideology the school would get less green! So which is it? Which way is this going to work? People really should focus on substantive ideas about what makes a place effective and not on some cliched metrics.
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This reminds me of the tired arguments against homosexual marriage. THe one that goes, "if you let homosexuals get married, then what's to stop a man from marrying a horse."
It's simple: We have a pervasive system of institutional inequality in this country, despite the popular myth that racism is over because we have a wealthy, half-black president. There are many intelligent students of color (and low-income whites) who are eager to pursue higher education, but are prevented by shady loan policies and a lack of alternative financial avenues. Not to mention the psychological barriers that come from growing up in a culture dominated by affluent white people.
Bottom Line: If we're going to equalize the playing field, it takes outreach and action on the part of the ruling class. Otherwise, the system perpetuates the status quo.
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rmur81,
There is a reasonable argument to say if you allow homosexual marriage then why not polygamy, and I have to say: why not polygamy? The problem is, that with all these arguments about marriage and diversity is that most people start with an assumption that there is something inherently valuable or correct in the basic concepts, when there isn’t at all. There is not something inherently good about diversity. You can’t possibly need diversity, because in order to need it, it by proxy implicates everyone, and says that any group that isn’t diverse is bad. Well then, all tribes are bad, and black churches are bad, and white churches are bad, and gay clubs are bad, and any country in the world that isn’t diverse is bad. You don’t need a diverse group to be fair and equitable, if you did then that would mean race and ethnicity matter, because if they don’t matter why in the world would you need to balance them in order to be fair and proper? Either they are meaningless and unimportant or they mean something. Who gets to draw the line on all these ideas about diversity? Is a black/white marriage better then a white/white marriage or a black/black marriage? Diversity isn’t always an issue. It doesn’t always indicate something substantive about a group. It could have the potential to mean something if there are other factors there that purposely discourage diversity. But the level of diversity itself is indicative of nothing more then, well, the level of diversity. You need more then that diversity metric to say something about any group.
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Scott, I think the key is not diversity BUT TOLERANCE. Diversity is the outward manifestation of Tolerance. Not killing each other is the start. Having exchange of views, debates, coffee discussions and exchange of pleasantries is a beginning to friendship.
We are all members of a tribe...begining with our immediate nuclear families. Then our extended families. Then our neighborhoods. And our work family. And our bowling leagues. Then being an Oregonian. And of the Northwest. And an American. And an earthling.
We learn how bad things can be by observing Dysfunctional Cultures where the Hatfields go to war against the McCoys, or the tribal wars in Iraq and Afganistan--kill the men and children, then carry off and rape the women. Being a murderous cannabalistic kleptocratic culture is not progress.
Acceptance and Tolerance enables a Sunni to sit next to a Shiite and not go ballistic. OR an Agnostic and a Born Again Christian. Or a Hippie and a Survivalist. OR a Fox Viewer and OPB listener.
Diversity is the evidence and future insurance of Tolerance.
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Jacob,
Diversity is the mediocre answer to getting along, in other words, it is the solution for dingbats or for people who are thick enough to need the help. The rationale goes something like this, if we put all kinds of races, ethnicities, cultures, orientations, together, then wow, people may become inoculated or used to each other. Because they aren’t smart enough to develop tolerance on their own, through their thinking they have to be hoodwinked into it. And, this has been America’s and much of the world’s great answer to getting along. And, now they go so far as to court people who actually hate each other, and sometimes even feel the other-side deserves death, but they don’t actually address the thoughts themselves, just the superficiality of whether they can shop at the same mall together. So we never really address the underlying problems, the underlying ideologies, we just pretend. People have become so invested in this superficial solution, that they have actually begun to believe that if the metrics work, if the right numbers pop up, then everything is fixed. Then everytime the numbers aren’t what we deemed adequate we immediately see a problem and can’t see past the numbers.
No, diversity is not the outward manifestation, or insurance, of anything specific, and certainly not tolerance in general, for example there are many religions that are diverse racially, yet they hate homosexuals and believe everyone on earth but their own members will die at the hands of god in the near future. So really they are only tolerant of themselves. I am not against diversity, I just think we put too much faith in it. I am for certain kinds of tolerance, but I also think we must be willing to draw the line on tolerating the intolerant, and keep it in perspective, because much of tolerance in this country is not acceptance or understanding (as you mention) but really just apathy. That is essentially what a diversity only approach does, it desensitizes people so they just don’t care as much, which has some use, but I think it takes a lot more then this to shape a productive community.
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P.S. Tolerance regarding race is not enough! For ideologies, or even cultures, tolerance is an adequate solution. But with race, there is really nothing to tolerate, race is not some choice or philosophy, that we need to accept and make room for, it must be more then tolerated. rmur81 touched on this, but applied it to culture, but I think tolerance of culture is enough---but tolerance of race or ethnicity is not enough. Culture is not an inherent parameter, it is created socially, and really can be good and bad---where as race is unalterable and can never enter into criticism. For example, I don’t have to accept or tolerate a certain culture's approach to women.
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Scott, lack of diversity has a REAL COST. I know women have a different point of view than men. And blacks have a different POV from whites. And a Republican sees reality very different from a Democrat.
When we are surrounded by the same opinion which confirms our rectitude we are very vulnerable to GROUP THINK. If we cannot anticipate a possibility, it is unlikely that we can plan and prepare for it.
The Kennedy administration(aka. Camelot) were pedominantly Ivy League Professors from Harvard. Very similar background and education. They had summer homes together on Martha's Vineyard. None spoke Russian or an Asian Language. They brought us to the brink of Nuclear Armageddon and laid the foundations for the Vietnam War. If they had one Russian or even a Chinese educated Cabinet member, would we have had these problems?
Stephen Jobs has lead Apple impeccably. His Yes men agreed that the new iPhone 4 would go swimmingly like the other product releases...it does not function too well as a phone and even dropped calls on Job's demo.
Obama's advisers said that off shore drilling is safe and clean and has never spilled in 30 years....and then the New Horizons event occurred. We will be living with that legacy for 30 plus years.
New Orleans said a Hurricane would never go near the Mississipi Delta b/c historically it never did...then Hurricane Katrina.
Geo Bush's advisor's told him the Shock and Awe Campaign would cause the Iraqi's and Afgan Insurgents to lay down their arms....I think time has proven it is bunk.
We need a diversity of opinion. We need disagreements and debate. We need collective wisdom that is greater than one individual.
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1 - Jacob,
How could women and black people have a different point of view? What does that mean exactly? On one hand we are to treat people the same, and as if they were the same, and then on the other hand we are being told they must not be the same because we have to mix them together in order to balance their views, so people are apparently not at all the same or there would be nothing to balance. And if they are not all the same, then really the end result is that it would be fine to discriminate against people, because we have just made the claim that they inherently (simply because they are male or female, black or white) have different points of view. And if you don’t like their views then why not discriminate against them? Really the ideas most people believe about diversity are at heart contradictory, because they have followed the line that diversity is a good thing too far. For diversity to be a good thing in its own right, people would have to be inherently different and unequal. It would be one thing to say that we need diversity only because people aesthetically are different, but it is a whole different argument to say they have different points of view. Look at it this way, if there was an isolated island with a population of the same ethnicity, would they all be bigots, just because they weren’t diverse? Would there automatically be something wrong with this group? Lack of diversity is only a bad thing if it is purposeful and if that lack of diversity is based on something non-ideological like ethnicity or sexual orientation.
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2- Jacob,
There is nothing inherently bad about a city full of Republicans or a city full of Democrats, but there is something bad about a city full of white or black people that purposely keeps people out. There is a huge difference between racial diversity and political or ideological diversity. 'Race' is a physical characteristic that cannot be changed, politics is a choice, that can be debated.
This rather new fad of proclaiming it is terrible, across the board, to be around people with the same ideologies is a ruse. It is only a bad thing to be around people like yourself if your ideas suck. I can’t imagine it is useful to encounter inferior ideas, just for the sake of some alleged intellectual diversity. It is one thing to be cautious of certainty and to keep your options open, but it is another to suggest you must immerse yourself in the nonsense of others just be balanced. It is like the half-assed suggestion that you must try a drug in order to criticise it.
Diversity of opinion? What opinions? Every opinion? Only the good ones? I understand the sentiment of this line of discussion, and I understand that it was cooked up with good intentions in response to the constant partisan divide in America, but its use doesn’t go very far. Maybe it is a prescription for people who can’t be helped by other reasonable means, but for many people it is a useless waste of time.
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Scott, Have you been to a skateboard park? There are young men and teens who spend hours there. They do a little loop and have a jump at the end of a corner...Sometimes they hit the landing. Most times not. They have a zombie expression of monotony.
Girls are actually more acrobatic, with better fine motor movements, like in dance or ballet. Why don't they skateboard? These skate boarders are almost exclusively male...maybe 99%.
If you have a young daughter or pre teen neighborhood girl, ask her why she does not skateboard. 80% of boys skateboard. The answer is difficult to fathom for a man.
ANS: They don't want scabby knees. A woman's legs are part of her appearance. They show off their knees, legs and calves with skirts, capri pants and short shorts. Scabs mean something different for men than women. I would not have know this point of view except for my girlfriend.
How a woman enters a room in a social setting is different than how a man approaches. Women are more aware of their appearance and scrutiny of their dress and shoes, their age, their allure, and their effect on men. Men have more of a sense scanning, working a room, goal orientation and predation. Actors know this; and you have to play to your gender.
Gender is a basis for opinion differences.
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#2
In the World of Biology, Diversity is Paramount. For us as living organisms, diversity is no less critical.
Let us say you have a monoculture of super fast growing corn in a field. They take up nutrients quick, shade out and outgrow the weeds, and can germinate in cold wet winters. They also grow taller than most and have a bumper crop yields. They do well for years.
And then we have a hot summer which withers the tender sprouts because they do not have a deep taproot or uv protective leaf wax. And with global warming, we continue to have increasing droughts and low moisture. And these plants wither and produce poor malformed corn ears not fit for market.
This great idea when raised to a monoculture, becomes unsustainable because it cannot deal with a stressor outside of its range. But there is a desert variety from New Mexico. But the NM corn is shorter, slower growing, smaller ears and has patchy orange-red kernel color-- but it is drought resistant. You cross breed it and you get a hybrid that can thrive.
Successful Cultures hybridize, change and innovate. Diversity is the seed of change. Some ideas are not bad; perhaps the time for them has not arrived. Timing is all. Windmills are a good idea today--but weren't in 1980. Smart cell phones are great....but imagine them in 1990 before the cell tower networks and infrastructure were built. Streetcars were a great idea 100 years ago. Then came the age of the automobile and superhighway. Now with higher fuel costs they are a great idea again.
Hubris can destroy an empire from within. An open mind is essential for the future.
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Jacob. Skateboarding.
There are many males that don’t want scabs and don’t skateboard, and there are many females that don’t care about scabs and do skateboard. What you are proposing is using the generalizations that males and females think differently about some things, to say they must think differently about everything. And because of this we always need to balance sex, to get an equitable result. Even if any of this were true, what merit would we have in applying it across the board, to every topic? Do you need an equal balance of black, white, male and female to talk about physics? Yes, surely there are some statistical similarities of opinion that because of culture or sex, people might share on specific issues, and when addressing those issues it might be useful to incorporate a racial/sexual balance, but to suggest this is always done, across the board, is a complete travesty, that ends up insulting and undermining everyone.
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Scott, I urge go to a skateboard park--try Burnside-- and observe the demographics. It is as cut and dried as boxing and ballet. It is gender differences that write the script. 90-95% male. And it is Real.
If basic fundemental things like grooming, dressing, walking, eating, skateboarding and recreation are genuinely different, why shouldn't it effect our point of view?
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Jacob,
You are taking one idea about diversity and applying it to every situation. Diversity is not a panacea for all the world’s problems. This biological comparison is a terrible one, and it is inapplicable to the discussion of the social diversity of humans. I can equally propose that invasive species are not a good thing, so diversity must be a bad thing. Diversity isn’t good or bad in itself, it depends on the circumstances, on the topic. A diversity of mugshots to locate my rapist isn’t going to make it easier, first of all he has to be there. It is like “ask the audience” it may or may not work, it depends on the question and its relation to the audience, and whether it is esoteric, or requires an expert.
Is the recent economic success of China due to diversity? Successful cultures (whatever they may be) may or may not use diversity to succeed, many things may make them succeed. It is quite possible that many cultures are open-minded and not racially diverse, it is also quite possible they are very successful, both socially and economically. Yes, it is wrong to intentionally stop racial diversity.
"If basic fundemental things like grooming, dressing, walking, eating, skateboarding and recreation are genuinely different, why shouldn't it effect our point of view?” Our point of view on what? Everything? Redheads might have a different view on tanning and freckles so should they also be balanced? Maybe if discussing something relating to freckles but not with every subject. I don’t know whose side you end up being on if you keep furthering this reasoning, or where it leads. I believe people can actually think beyond their sex and race, and make fair and objective decisions, maybe not everyone, but many people. And many people do not need the superficiality of diversity, to combat the superficiality of bigotry, in order to treat people fairly and have an open mind.
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As a current student of the teacher's college, I do not see the diversity the new president is talking about. While we do recieve financial aid, only about five out of the seventy or so are non-white. What will Lewis and Clark do to ACTIVELY recruit students of color, so that children have a chance to see more people that look like them in positions of authority at school?
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Really the beginning of the show was fear mongering. That somehow statistics on diversity, both economic and racial, must be a certifiable statement on the inferiority of Lewis and Clark, and that we should be fearful it is a racist and yuppie school. So much of the problems of fear are related to discussions exactly like this one. Where people take some particular idea and run with it, and think that idea applies to every situation, or those simplistic statistics could only mean this, and could only result from this cause---without any substantive evidence or analysis. And to go even further, whether the alleged complaint is always an inherent problem to begin with.
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Jeezo, did Emily take snarky pills while whe was away last week? Is there some history between her and Glassner that is fueling her sarcasm? She normally has a good, strong, assertive interview style. This morning she sounds disdainful.
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Truly. Several times now, Emily has rudely and unproductively cut Prof. Glassner off, usually just before he had a chance to make his main point. Not the level of thoughtful radio journalism we expect from OPB/NPR.
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Well he did start out just making vague and ambiguous statements and she tried to get him to get him to be specific. Though I agree that she was pretty combative about it, almost like an ambush interview.
I expected a more welcoming interview, I guess.
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hi - just wanted to say I hear you all and I do appreciate the feedback. Some days go better than others! Do feel free to keep input coming.
cheers, Emily
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How about when Emily says, I didn't read your book, but I Googled it and found a review by someone who has read it, and he said that you were wrong when you said, what do you say about THAT?... Is that ambush journalism?
Or they ask Glassner about food culture, and cut to what restaurants do you like in Portland? He says welll I dont want to get into any trouble here, but I will name a few... and he does. Dave's follow up... "Why did my question make you anxious?"
Talk show hosts usually like people, and they want to know more about them. They are usually interested in drawing out their guests special ideas. Mr. Glassner breezed through this interview, and his intelligence radiated through... in spite of the amaturish presenters, whose interviews always seem to tell us more about who they are, than their guests.
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Fear.
We can trace the use of fear by governments right back to King Solomon and his instruction "spare the rod and spoil the child" which calls for implementing fear physically. Kings have always had to keep their subjects intimidated and beaten down into submissive and fearful obedience. And that is not about religion, it is about Kings.
King Solomons genius was in training parents to do that beating and intimidation of their childen into fearfulness while very young, so that he didn't have to do that to them as grownup adults. And that method of negative parenting is still very much the predominate method some three thousand years after his reign.
And people raised in fear develop mental and behavioral strategies in order to cope with that fear which end up being socially dysfunctional when they are adults. A very wide and unpredictible range including rebelliousness, depressions, drug and alcohol abuses, weird religiousness, etc.
Scientifically studying religions for the roots of psychological and sociological problems seems to be like the proverbial political "third rail", nobody will touch it. But religions are the elephant in the room, and are the basic training and education for peoples dysfunctional mental and behavioral stategies and really ought to be studied for that reason.
Parenting with positive psychology works.
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I think it is ironic for a sociologist to witness their graduating class becoming members of the poverty class.
To go from an elite college dorm with gourmet foods and LEED Certified modern dormitories to food stamps, welfare, unemployment benefits, medicaid and being harassed by debt servicing predators......
...that is the basis of an interesting book.
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Have you seen the dorms? Our residence halls are actually not official LEED certified buildings... And that gourmet food they're eating includes hamburgers and gardenburgers, a sandwich bar, soup, salad bar, and breakfast buffet on weekends... sounds like many a university dining hall menu to me.
Do you have a personal distaste for the College or what?
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I guess you are right and it is not an elite college--I am sorry that seems the accomodations are a bit subpar. I withdrawal that statement.
But the irony is too juicy a metaphor to bypass especially for a sociologist.
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How is reaching out to ‘tribes’ a way to foster diversity? This is really encouraging the tolerance of the intolerant. Aren’t tribes inherently anti-diversity? Isn’t that the whole point of them? Wouldn’t the disbandment of tribes be the way to encourage diversity?
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Wow Scott. You got a lot to learn that I don't have time to teach you, but let me leave you with this response:
Getting rid of culture is not "tolerance." Furthermore, tolerance of culture is inadequate. Appreciation of culture is more what you should aim for.
Do you feel threatened by diversity? If you are, let me assure you, giving marginalized people a leg up is not going to force you to lose any opportunities you can't spare.
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No I am not worried about diversity. I don’t feel anything about it at all. I could care less about it. It is boring, as it should be. People that are concerned about diversity from either side are the problem. People that think we need it, or people that are against it---I am neither, I have no interest in it either way. I am not going to promote it and I am not going to discourage it---because to do so would be in error. And tribes, yes, are generally in error, they are inclusive groups, whose membership is based on ethnicity or race, and by their continuing, and insistent, existence they are promoting intolerance and separation, and separation based on ethnicity and culture.
Tribes are inherently race based groups, and I suppose that is racism. What other way is there to look at it? Why organize yourself around race and ethnicity? Why separate yourself into groups? Isn’t this exactly what many propose we fight against? Isn’t this exactly what white supremacists attempt to do? So to fight against it, we decide to make nice with the tribes, that is not tolerance, it is just being silly. When are we going to ask more of them? When are we going to demand that the ‘tribes’ should get with the times, when are we going to demand that they stop discouraging diversity. Or is it okay to organize yourself into an exclusive group based solely or predominately on race? Can we have it both ways? Is it okay because it is tribal tradition or cultural? Well it certainly shouldn’t be. If people want to preserve their culture, that may be fine, but they don’t get to preserve the racist elements and hide them under the umbrella of cultural tolerance.
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First, let me point out that my wife and I and my wife's sister all graduated from Lewis & Clark College in the 70's, my daughter and her husband both graduated from L&C in 2007 (and his mother and aunt also graduated from L&C in the 70's), so I have a lot of perspective on the college...and, from listening to Dr. Glassner, I believe he will make an excellent president for Lewis & Clark. For someone who has not even served as president yet, he seems to already have perceptive insights as to many of the elements of Lewis & Clark that make L&C a unique and incredible experience. I wish him nothing but the best!
As a frequent TOL listener, I must agree with earlier commenters that Emily, unlike her usual positive, welcoming interviewing style, seemed oddly intent on grilling this guest in a surprisingly negative and confrontational manner. Nonetheless, I thought Dr. Glassner handled the interview with forthrightness and grace, and I thank Think Out Loud for this opportunity to "get to know" Lewis & Clark's newest leader.
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Craig, thanks for this thoughtful reply. Many of us who appreciate Lewis and Clark are pleased and optimistic about Dr. Glassner's impending presidency, and welcome this chance to hear him viva voce. He brings intelligence, vision, and human warmth to the job, along with a superb track record adminstratively at USC, and success as a public intellectual. Much to look forward to!
Again, while Pres. Glassner handled the interview well, it was far from Ms. Harris' best work, and not a stellar example of "radio that listens." Nor of interviewing, pace Charlie Rose or Terry Gross, that allows complex thoughts to develop, rather than foreclosing them.
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The debt burden to middle class families and their kids is a big issue that Barry Glassner avoided answering. Here's an example: Whitman College, a small liberal arts school in Walla Walla, WA, charged $9,000 a year in 1981 when one of my sons entered. Now my grandson is a student there (entered in 2008) and the tuition is $48,000 a year, no financial aid. His parents are a grade school librarian and a family therapist--not wealthy. Like comments about L&C, students complain about the lack of diversity, so I doubt that's where the money is going. What accounts for the ballooning tuition? I wonder if it's really worth that much debt to go to a private college.
Estelle
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I lived back in the North East for a while and I noticed that nearly everyone claimed that they had gone to Harvard. Well, it turned out that most just attended one or two classes there after graduating elsewhere, so they could add Harvard to their resume.
I'd suggest going to a community college for two inexpensive years to get an idea of what the kid actually wants to dedicate their education to and even if they want a college degree, and then a state University for the first degree and then a big name grad school if they think they will need the status of that schools grad degree in their field.
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The new pres. is living in the clouds, but may get along well with the rest of the utopian scholars up there. L & C can't keep their administrators for long. Mr. Glasner will find this out when he has to canvas for cash instead of writing books or whatever he thought he would be doing. The truth is that students at LC have more money than he led listeners to believe. You don't go to a school that costs 50 grand a year if you don't. My college tuition at a state university was 5,000 per year (discount for parent in state higher ed.) even without the discount it is at least more affordable than 50 grand PER YEAR. Those kids up there at LC are also living in the clouds.
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Development of a working educational model in apartheid America is made more timely by the perfect storm of the continuing financial crisis of 2008 - 2010, and the demonstration by those of us who did go the way of undergraduate and post graduate work to prominently display how well that worked, nor does not take in depth reporting or investigative effort as to how ineffective higher education has been in addressing the inequalities of income, poverty, and homeownership, as income for white families increased by 50 thousand dollars over the the past few decades, income for black families increased by 17 hundred dollars during the same time period, and in some cases among blacks in lower income brackets, income was unique in that it actually decreased over the same time period while no other demographic can make that same claim to fame; more education means less monetary income. So much for Affirmative Action. So much for higher education. I can think of no more damning indictment of the value of higher education than to demonstrate as education goes up, income and financial stability go down. So if you are Black and want to be really poor and really homeless? Just get a Phd, it's a guarantee.
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Due to the fact that a college education never benefited me financially and I spent decades applying for the positions that required Bachelors' and Masters' degrees under the false impression that the degrees would make a difference, I wasted time, energy and money for nothing. No jobs that I ever had later (after the degrees) were as good as the first job (with no degrees) with Ma Bell as a Telephone Operator. If I had understood that with the good benefits of the job I could have completed my degree and the phone company paid for all of it (which I did in by going part time and pulling a 4 point), and simply kept my job and retired instead of pursuing a graduate degree (pulling a 3.83 in graduate school) and jobs with degree requirements, things would have been fine. College and education for fun for free is great, but the expectation that, particularly for a person of color, education will make a difference in employment or income is the mythical equivalent of ye olde' urban legend, and not supported by either the facts, or personal experience.
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Every individual has fears and this is as natural as having desires and wants. This is a universal biological instinct in the animal world. And in days when we won the Cold War, America became the sole Superpower, and had a Booming Economy, the envy of the world, we could afford the luxury of irrational fears like a remote terrorist attack, serial killers, vaccination scares and SARS Epidemics.
Now since 9/11 our fears have grown more practical, almost mundane and banal: Money. Unemployment, Underwater Mortgages, Unfunded Retirement, and the Great Recession. IT has focused us more than anything else in a generation.