A beautiful and moving high school graduation experience

This weekend I traveled to Salt Lake City to visit my son and his family.  The trip’s purpose was to celebrate my grandson’s graduation from Intermountain Christian School.  In more forty years of teaching at four Universities,  I have attended countless graduation ceremonies.  This was one of the best - and not only because the celebration included a close family member.

What made it so special?

Most important was the palpable sense of community.  The graduating class was only 20 students, all of whom were known to local audience members.  When I introduced myself to those sitting around me as a graduate’s grandfather, this was an entrée to animated conversation. Each graduate walked in slowly and was introduced to the audience individually.  The applause that greeted each was prolonged and enthusiastic.

The ceremony was short.  Many graduations are characterized by what I call negative synergy - the whole is somehow less than the sum of the parts.  Academic institutions can have many stakeholders.  Since graduation is one of the most important annual institution-wide events, each feels entitled to a piece of the action.  When one adds the long parade of several hundred - perhaps a thousand or more - graduates walking across the stage to receive their degrees and shake the President’s hand, the ceremony can seem interminable.  Intermountain Christian School’s graduation was over in an hour, with everyone feeling fully celebrated and acknowledged.

The addresses by the class salutatorian and valedictorian were outstanding.  Most graduation speeches are unmemorable, except, perhaps for the graduates.  Among the many I have heard, few stand out.  One was Representative Barbara Jordan’s passionate address on the role of university students in the civil rights movement, not long before her death.  NPR correspondent Daniel Schorr used the concept of ‘virtual reality’ as a powerful metaphor to emphasize the importance of journalistic integrity in sustaining democratic societies.  My own former student, John Prendergast, inspired AU graduates, this May, with the story of his oddessy from student to internationally recognized human rights advocate.

Surprisingly, both ICS student addresses rose nearly to that level.  The salutatorian’s presentation featured a video that showed pictures of each class member and highlighted positive qualities that made them distinctive.  The valedictorian presented a beautifully crafted speech that emphasized a timeless, fundamental message: the importance of being deeply grounded in ones own values and attending to one’s close relationships before embarking on crusades to change others and the world.  Her powerful content and delivery, I thought, struck just the right tone for graduates, faculty, relatives and friends.  Somehow she avoided the banality, platitudes and pretentiousness that graduation addresses on this theme so often convey.

This beautiful and moving graduation experience led me to reflect, once again, on the importance of human scale in educational processes.  ICS is a private school but not a wealthy one.  What it has to offer is a dedicated staff, backed up by a dedicated cadre of parents and grandparents.  It is grounded in a strong faith tradition, but but no means all of the students are evangelical Christians.  

Obviously major research universities, including my own, must serve classes much larger than twenty.  But the ICS experience poses a challenge for those of us, like myself, who are concerned about the need to engage with our students as unique individual human beings.  How can we recreate the affirming, empowering qualities that were so much in evidence at the ICS graduation in much larger settings?

No ‘20 minutes per patient’ rule - another reason I like being a professor

After more than twenty years with my health maintenance organization, Kaiser Permanente I was finally able to find a ‘personal physician’ who did not either leave the organization or get transferred after one or two visits. She recognizes me as an individual and has some contextual knowledge of my medical history. She is congenial, professional and seems to enjoy her work. This is a breakthrough. I was coming to believe that the concept of “your doctor” existed only in slick TV commercials of drug companies, Kaiser Permanente marketing brochures, rural hamlets large enough to sustain one or two physicians, and negative ads funded by private insurers opposing government intervention on behalf American’s 40 plus million citizens without health insurance.

At my last visit, I asked her if there was a time specified by Kaiser management for each patient visit. ‘Twenty minutes,’ she said. ‘It used to be only fifteen, but we were able to lobby with management to increase it to twenty. This works very well for patients who are in relatively good health such as yourself. For older patients with multiple health problems and/or who have difficulty communicating, it can be difficult. Then we sometimes get behind schedule.”

This set me to thinking about one of the perquisites that sets the profession of university professor apart from most others - discretion. As economic pressures mount and calls for ‘assessment’ from voices outside academic institutions grow louder, the number of institutions who are able to offer professors significant discretion is shrinking. But at American University, at least for faculty teaching within its nationally ranked programs, considerable discretion is still the norm.

It is not that faculty members don’t put in long hours. I advise young faculty whom I counsel in my role as Director, Center for Teaching Excellence that they should plan on a 70 hour work week, or more, if they expect to successfully compete for tenure. In other words, the demands on their time will be at least as great as for aspiring top-tier young professionals in law, medicine, accounting, and financial services.

But there can be a difference between how professors and those other professionals spend their time. In other postings, I have written about the discretion we have to choose the research questions we investigate. Here I want to reflect on the discretion we have to spend relatively unconstrained ‘face time’ with our students. This is particularly true with MA and Doctoral students, but it extends to undergraduates as well - and even to students who have completed their degrees. If a student stops by my apartment for help with an academic or personal problem, or simply to discuss an issue of mutual interest, I can take the time to be with them. If a former student stops by to seek a letter of recommendation or to discuss professional options, I can make myself available to help. I can show a student’s parents from Asia, visiting America for the first time, the beauty of rural northwestern Virginia where my wife and I have our home. I can take time to help a gifted undergraduate who is struggling to negotiate AU’s sometimes complex and unforgiving bureaucracy. None of these instances are hypothetical, they - and many more - transpired within the last two weeks. On no occasion did I have to enter the time spent on a spreadsheet or prepare an invoice detailing ‘billable hours.’

Whether or not the discretion my generation of professors have been privileged to enjoy will survive the growing commodification of higher education I cannot say. In large degree it will depend on whether or not those of us who have been granted this privilege are seen to be using it wisely, with integrity, professionalism and effectiveness. It will depend whether the current generation of students - future parents, political leaders, boards of trustees and university managers remember instances when a professor took time to connect with them, listen to their concerns and offer compassionate professional guidance that made a difference in their lives.

We specialize in things thought impossible

There are three reasons for the long hiatus in postings. The weeks in May at AU are supposed to be a time for teaching one’s breath and taking stock. This year, it has been quite the opposite. We scheduled CTE’s end of year retreat for Friday. Monday CTE’s Annual Report was due. Tuesday and yesterday, there were a frenzy of preparations for a month long trip to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and, of course, Sri Lanka. Anyhow, the retreat was a success, the report got completed and, though I delayed packing until the last minute - as usual - I got to the airport with time to spare; plenty of time, as it has transpired because because my flight from Reagan to Kennedy airport has been delayed.... hopefully not canceled. ...it wasn’t, however I’m glad I didn’t have a close connection: The 4:25 arrival time became 6: and included nearly and hour wait on the Tarmak at JFK airport. this is customary, the pilot explained. Anyhow, I wanted, in this posting to share the executive summary of CTE’s annual report. It will give you an organization which is, we believe, you need in American higher education and perhaps in the world. Here’s why:

From these materials [in our more voluminous report]six themes emerge that highlight a significant year of accomplishments for CTE and contributions to the American University.

First is the growth in core services to CTE’s principal clients, AU’s students and faculty. We call this the ‘good stewardship’ mission and it trumps all other goals and priorities. In academic year 2007-2008 CTE’s total contacts with faculty members, providing services in various venues, grew by 40%, from 6,695 to 9,357. This included a remarkable 51% growth in the services provided by CTE’s Faculty Corner, an institution that we believe is unique in American Higher Education. There was a 17% increase in total student contact hours, from 63,061 to 73,519, with high levels of satisfaction reported in our end-of-semester surveys. This included a 75% increase in the utilization of CTE’s multimedia facilities, the New Media Center and the newly created NMC 2.0.

Second is community building. The creation of vibrant user communities is viewed as central to CTE’s mission. Among the communities that interacted regularly and grew strong were the Ann Ferren Teaching Conference Planning Group, the Faculty Quantitative Teaching Technologies Network, the Greenberg Seminar Faculty, the Model Classroom Faculty, the Distance Education Faculty and, in an earlier stage of evolution, the Multimedia Faculty User’s Group.

Third is sustaining CTE’s distinctive culture of service, empowerment and professionalism. Perhaps this was most visibly captured in a series of short videos produced for a CTE staff competition and posted on YouTube. The theme was “CTE: There’s a Better Way.” Other initiatives supported the professional development of CTE Fellows and helped create a supportive, nurturing environment for CTE’s diverse cadre of international students.

Fourth is catalyzing and sustaining new initiatives. In 2007-2008, CTE unveiled AU’s new Model Classroom, featuring cutting edge instructional technologies supported by a new concept of collaborative staff support from the New Media Center. It provided leadership for AU’s iTunes University presence, to be unveiled in August. It opened NMC 2.0, a high-end multimedia center that piloted a space optimizing collaborative use model. NMC 2.0 recorded 477 contact hours and 77% capacity utilization in April of its first year.

Fifth is modeling collegiality and collaboration. For the second time in four years, CTE worked with OIT and Blackboard Inc. to orchestrate a near flawless system upgrade of the Blackboard learning system. It collaborated with the Office of the Provost to further strengthen distance education. It worked in partnership with SIS and the Kogod school on the design of lab and AV systems for new buildings. It is collaborating with Librarian Bill Mayer and his staff to stage our next Ann Ferren Teaching Conference in the University Library.
Sixth is serving AU’s broader mission and the AU Community. In addition to contributions noted above, CTE provided AV support to more than 300 special events each month, ranging from club meetings to commencement, the President’s inauguration and speeches by outside dignitaries. It upgraded AU technologies in 55 classrooms and collaborated with the Finance Division to create a capital budgeting model that will facilitate a sustainable process for future upgrades. It contributed “Teaching and Learning Day” to the Presidential Inauguration Week, displaying models of good teaching in parts of the campus where they had never been viewed previously. It has become the provider of videoconferencing and video production services to the AU community. It produced DVDs of major events for wide distribution in less than 24 hours. … and much more.

It seems appropriate to conclude this year’s Annual Report, once again documenting significant accomplishments, as we concluded last year’s report: “We have fun, enjoy each other’s company and working together. We are trusted and sustain that trust by producing consistent, high quality results on a daily basis. We make things work. CTE’s Annual Report is not only about what we accomplish, but how we accomplish it. We take inspiration from The Song of the Panama Canal Builders: “Got any rivers you think are uncrossable, got any mountains they say, ‘Can’t tunnel through,’ We specialize in things thought impossible, doing the things they say, ‘You can’t do.’ ”

AU's President's Cirtcle Dinner

Last evening I attended American University’s “President’s Circle Dinner.” This annual event acknowledges individuals who have contributed more than $1,000 to American University in the preceding year and encourages them to give more. It is a rite of celebration and intensification, held at Washington DC’s Ritz Carlton Hotel.

This was third dinner at which AU’s newly designated President, Neil Kerwin officiated and the first at which he could claim the Presidential mantle, without qualification. In contrast to his predecessor, Benjamin Ladner, Kerwin’s style is low key. His humor is self deprecating. His affiliation with AU began when he matriculated as a first year student and, apart from graduate school, He has spent his entire professional life working at AU.

His talk celebrated AU’s achievements and spoke of “moving to the next level,” though he did not describe what that might look like. The audience didn’t care. This was a cadre of AU’s most loyal supporters and contributers. Many are graduates. They have stood with the University in bad times as well was good.

One speaker, recipient of the “President’s Award” for major contributions to the institution, reminded the audience that “the most important alumni are the next ones.” This Friday, Saturday and Sunday is both parents weekend and alumni weekend, an interesting juxtaposition. As the event-filled weekend unfolds, the speaker’s words should remind those of us who serve AU of our mission and what is fundamentally important about a university.