b l o g o s

necessary but by no means sufficient

In the days leading up to the removal of the Paterno statue, my stance was generally agnostic. Or at least I thought it was. I agreed with folks like Russell Frank who calls the debates about symbolism "off the point."

But then PSU President Erickson's announcement--and the statue--came down today, and I realized my stance was not agnostic at all. Or better, this was one of those issues with roughly two solutions, action or inaction. And inaction in this case would have been a kind of action.

Sarah Koenig's amazing reporting at Penn State for This American Life has revealed time and again how administrators here are beholden to big money and (therefore) to football. This was one of the main takeaway points from the episode "#1 Party School," which connected dots between alcohol, football, money, and administrative decisions. The program, by the way, is worth a re-listen in light of recent events. It's almost eerie.

The removal of the statue was a necessary but still insufficient response to the Freeh Investigation's findings on the university's culpability in Jerry Sandusky's crimes. At the core of the university leaders' inaction on Sandusky lies the culture of football at Penn State. The people most upset by the statue's removal are--guess who?--supporters of football and of Joe Paterno. To leave the statue where it is would have been to maintain the status quo. To remove it (even if it is placed elsewhere ultimately and with proper historical narration and context) is a first step toward taking back the university. 

Removing the statue is, at base, really no different from the removal of Gary Schultz's name from the child care center on campus back in November (Schultz is one of the administrators whose name appears frequently in the Freeh report). But it's pretty different for two reasons: 1) there was no outcry in protest (before the grand jury report, comparatively few knew who he was), and 2) no one waited around for a BOT meeting; most of his name got hacked down on the night Joe Paterno was fired. (I should note, as suggested by my letter to the Collegian the day before this happened, I was not at all agnostic about what should be done about Schultz's name on the daycare.) Before the maintenance workers came to sand down the sign and clean up, I snapped this picture.

 In the middle of the chisel marks is a barely legible--because mangled--"U," a harbinger of things to come.

 

 

Oneness was stressed.

In recent weeks, a passage from Don DeLillo's End Zone has been rattling around in my head, but only in that amorphous, faint way that a novel you taught a decade ago (and haven't read since) can rattle. Those of you who know it know that the novel features an angst-ridden football player who bounces from school to school before settling into the one where the plot develops. He makes a stop at Penn State. The central image of this delightful passage is a plane flying "over the practice field every afternoon at the same time."

And then this morning I noticed a headline at the local paper's website--"Plane returns to circle campus"--and realized it was time to re-read the damn passage, so I ventured downstairs to our "stacks" and dug up my heavily marked copy. The passage, classic DeLillo, is downright breathtaking. I offer it here as something of a parable:

At Penn State, the next stop, I studied hard and played well. But each day that autumn was exactly like the day before and the one to follow. I had not yet learned to appreciate the slowly gliding drift of identical things; chunks of time spun past me like meteorites in a universe predicated on repetition. For weeks the cool clear weather was unvarying; the girls wore white knee-high stockings; a small red plane passed over the practice field every afternoon at the same time. There was something hugely Asian about those days in Pennsylvania. I tripped on the same step on the same staircase on three successive days. After this I stopped going to practice. The freshman coach wanted to know what was up. I told him I knew all the plays; there was no reason to practice them over and over; the endless repetition might be spiritually disastrous; we were becoming a nation devoted to human xerography. He and I had a long earnest discussion. Much was made of my talent and my potential value to the varsity squad. Oneness was stressed--the oneness necessary for a winning team. It was a good concept, oneness, but I suggested that, to me at least, it could not be truly attractive unless it meant oneness with God or the universe or some equally redoubtable super-phenomenon. What he meant by oneness was in fact elevennes or twenty-twoness. He told me that my attitude was all wrong. People don't go to football games to see pass patterns run by theologians. He told me, in effect, that I would have to suck in my gut and go harder. (1) A team sport. (2) The need to sacrifice. (3) Preparation for the future. (4) Microcosm of life.

"You're saying that what I will learn on the gridiron about sacrifice and oneness will be of inestimable value later on in life. In other words if I give up now I'll almost surely give up in the more important contests of the future."

"That's it, exactly, Gary." "I'm giving up," I said.

where there's a dissertation there's a whippet 2012, pt 2

whose views on mobile technology are agnostic.

p. 268

I have some recommendations to add to the Freeh Report. This could go on and on, as the initial draft of this post did, but I'll go with my top six seven. (JM offered #7 over lunch the day after I posted this.) These are in no particular order, but they would be added to the section dealing with University Governance and Administration.

1. replace all the stupid bathroom signs showing people how to pee on toilets with announcements about whistleblower protections provided by law in the state of PA, at Penn State, and in the U.S.

2. Stop the scramble to limit "guests in athletic facilities" and start a thoughtful campaign against rape culture.

3. Consider the idea that transparency could mean involving more people--faculty,  staff, and students--in decisions rather than merely informing them of decisions. (And please stop telling us how strong and great this place is. As writing teacher would say, show us.)

4. Consider filling vacant admin posts with outside hires, rather than promoting from within. The most thoughtful administrators I have spoken with recently on this scandal have been people who have been here fewer than 5 or 10 years. You want people who will respond to phrases like "The Penn State Way" with genuine confusion.

5. Stop using the phrase "The Penn State Way."

6. Hire a woman in a top position (preferably president), and stat. Preferably a hard-hitting feminist with a track record of taking principled stances. Maybe someone like Nancy Cantor. Whoever it is, if you don't like her, then so much the better.

7. This one is JM's, and I think it's brilliant: make a counterintuitive appointment to the athletic director post, an appointment that sends the message that the football program is not only in receivership but that it is subordinate to the university. Some names we generated included: Noam Chomsky, Kwahme Appiah, Murray Sperber. You get the picture. If you object that football is a business and these guys aren't prepared to deal with that part of things, appoint one of the Wall Street whistleblowers as assistant A.D.

 

 

 

 

 

 

where there's a dissertation there's a whippet, 2012 pt 1

For ch, my last remaining advisee at illinois, where the tradition began.  Go here for the archive.

Of this bodily position, the elocutionists would have been proud. Well, some of them anyway.