I went out early this morning. The sun had not yet come up. It was
humid and
toasty. You could hear the approaching South Georgia dogs of August howling in
the
distance. Anyway, about half way through my walk, I found a phrase popping
into my head.
"Not your job, not your job, not your job," it repeated over and over in
cadence with my
steps.
As I was about to make my last turn, I saw a man crossing the street.
He was
carrying a ladder. Even in the dawn you could tell he was not a happy camper.
I greeted him with a "Good morning."
"What's so good about it," he replied. I stopped. He went on. "It's
Sunday.
It's still dark. I should be in bed next to the wife instead of doing this
stupid thing
with the traffic light. It was my luck to be on call."
"Good luck, I say. Nothing stupid about it. If you didn't fix the
lights,
someone would have a better chance of getting hurt or killed. It's important
stuff you're
doing, especially since it's Sunday. And I thank you for it."
"He smiled. Puffed up a bit. Held the ladder a bit tighter. "Guess
you're
right. And a good morning to you. Thanks back to you."
And off we both went. That happenstance conversation sharpened what
had stirred
me that phrase in my head. It came during a conversation I had had last week
during one
of my very rare summer appearance on campus. I bumped into a colleague. We
stopped and
talked about what we had done this summer and the upcoming semester. In the
course of our
conversation, I told him I was itching to get back into the classroom and that
I even had
volunteered to help students move into the dorms in a couple of weeks as a sort
of jump
start. He looked at me as if I was nuts.
"That's not our job," he said with more than a bit of disdain. "We're
professors!
Don't you think that below you? I wouldn't do it. I've got better things to
do with my
time. Why don't you let whoever takes care of those things do it? That's what
they get
paid for. They always want us to do a lot of things around here that we don't
get paid
for."
That little bit of our conversation, especially the "that's not your
job,"
suddenly took me back to an experience I had a few months ago. It was at the
beginning of
last May, just before I was off to China. I was doing an
end-of-spring-semester cleaning
of the classroom closets. I had to get rid of poster size books the students
made for the
"Dr Seuss Project," paintings from the "Salvador Dali Project," and a similar
number of
odd shaped sculptures of the "Rodin Project" made by the sixty communities in
four
classes. I was stuffing all this stuff into fairly large plastic garbage bags
and hauling
them out into the hallway for pickup. As I was lugging one fairly heavy bag
out from the
classroom, positioning myself to heave it on top of a pile of six or seven
bags, a young
professor whom I knew only by face passed by. He asked what I was doing. I
told him that
I was making it as easy as I can for the cleaning people to carry way this mass
of project
mess.
"Why are you bothering?" He asked with a smirk on his face as if I was
a patsy.
"They're only cleaning people. That's not your job. It's theirs. That's what
they get
paid for. Why don't you let them do it?"
I looked at him. That haughty diminishing word "only" got to me. "I'll
tell you
what," I simply replied, with a calm voice and smile on my face, "why don't we
tell those
'only cleaning people' not to clean our offices and the bathrooms or not empty
our trash
baskets for a semester and see just how 'only' they really are?"
I think when he turned and walked off without saying another word he
was in
something of a huff.
You know he and my colleague just had revealed what the real tragedy in
academia
is. We so focus on those proverbial "critical thinking" skills that we often
neglect the
people skills. We don't pay as much attention as we should to those "human
moments."
That is, a sense of otherness, an awareness of and sensitivity toward other
people, and a
respect for is weak or totally lacking. The real tragedy in academia is the
balkanization
on our campuses. It's the absence of respect. It's the virtual non-existence
of
community. It's the fracture and fissure among people. We just don't display
much of
that "social intelligence" Daniel Goleman has recently written about. It's as
if so many
of us are interpersonally challenged. We are so often so self-absorbed. So
many of us
seem just not to get it right with others in other segments on our campuses.
We so often
come across as cold, distant, abrasive, arrogant, self-inflating, disdainful,
self-centered, self-conscious, self-denigrating, and even dismissive. We
categorize and
stereotype and disconnect and isolate people as if they were distinct and
separate species
into the stereotyped lumps of administrators, professors, staff, and students.
We even
do that among schools and colleges, as well as among departments within schools
and
colleges.
All these people know so little about all these other people; they know
so little
of the critical role each plays to keep the campus viable; they don't realize
that without
each the campus would be little more than a bunch of ghostly, empty buildings;
they know
so little of the inter-play between and inter-dependence they have on each
other; they see
little commonality among each other; and so, they all become at best cellophane
people to
each other. We have no rapport with them; we have no rapport with them because
we have no
empathy, we don't sense their feeling; we have no empathy because we don't know
them.
But, I tell you, we are all part of each other's resources. The
grounds keepers
are important; the carpenters are important; the garbage collectors are
important; the
electricians are important; the information technology people are important;
the plumbers
are important; the security police are important; the secretaries are
important; the
clerks are important; the cleaning crews are important; the maintenance crews
are
important; the advisers are important; the faculty are important; the cooks are
important;
the administrators are important, the students are important. Even if some
universities
are grading importance of some degrees by charging students extra tuition, the
Arts are
important; English is important; Business Administration is important; sciences
are
important; humanities are important. And, on it goes. As Goleman would say,
just think,
the more strongly connected we are with someone emotionally, the more we know
them, the
more we appreciate them, the more we care about them, the more we respect them,
the
greater the mutual force. That's the power of campus community. It's not
rocket science.
It's common sense. United we stand stronger, divided we stoop weaker. After
all, we all
with do among people we know and trust what we won't among strangers. The most
powerful
relationships occur with those people whom we know, with whom we spend a lot of
time
together, and, most important, with people we care about the most.
You know what I've noticed? It's how we each bubble inside in reaction
to a smile
and stew at an angry face; we feel uplifted when someone makes eye contact with
us and
feel ignored and down when someone gazes past us. When students drive by in
their cars,
honk the horns, lean out, wave at me, and give me a "Hi, Dr. Schmier," it makes
me feel
good. That's all it takes. It doesn't take much take notice other people, to
look at
them, to offer a simple "hi" or "hello," to stop for a casual and quick chat,
to smile. I
also know it makes me feel happy when I act in ways that are beneficial to
others, when I
make them feel happier, when I acknowledge them. When we are in community with
others,
when we have a sense of sociability, everyone feels happier and more energized;
they're
more inclined to whistle while they work; and, more inclined to do their work
well. It's
a ballet which we dance with other as partners. Community, when we have a
warmth and
positive regard for ourselves and others, when we have an inclination to be
understanding
and compassionate, when we respect, when we have those human moments, acts like
invigorating vitamins. We get a nurturing buzz. And, it becomes an antidote
to the
poison of separation, isolation, and disrespect.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History www.newforums.com/L_Schmier.htm
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\____/\ \/\
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//\/\/ /\ \_ /
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mountains \ /\
_/ \ don't practice on mole
hills" -/
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