When I announced to friends and colleagues that I was
leaving my job, few seemed shocked and even fewer seemed sad. In fact, many
declared it a moment for congratulations, a moment of profound bravery for me
and of envy for some. I take these reactions as an indication that many a
rhetorical scholar is dissatisfied with their job, and many an academic wonders
at the world outside the ivory tower. I am less convinced that my letting go of
what many regard as brass ring of intellectual life is brave. The Avett
Brothers have a line in “The Perfect Space” that boasts: “I want to have pride
like my mother has, but not like the kind in the bible that turns you
bad.” I’m not sure of its valence, but
my departure is certainly a function of pride.
I assert that one of the fundamental traps academics let
themselves fall into is the idea that we have value (or have access to
negotiate value) only when there is another academic job offer on the table.
That’s foolish in any number of ways. First, it suggests that we can only
understand our value as a measure of competition between two academic
institutions. Considering that institutions hire in tiered slots (with fewerand fewer advanced and even tenure-track slots offered every year), academics
have the potential to become undervalued because of a stagnant marketplace (to
say nothing of the marketplace being willing to risk hiring in new directions).
Second, value as a measure of academic competition undercuts our particular
articulation of the universal value of humanities education. Many of us don’t
merely teach in the service of the university (though we certainly do that). We
are committed to the fundamental portability and contingency of rhetorical and
communication education. And yet, we understand our value based on an
increasingly fleeting and servile notion of employability. As a result, we tend
to be complicit in devaluing ourselves.
But that’s a boastful statement. That’s the kind of pride
that might turn you bad. I believe rhetorical education is a value in and of itself, and that my contributions as a scholar and teacher of rhetoric are
valuable. The University of North Dakota does not share this view.
Increasingly, the curriculum privileges an empty and industrial notion of
“strategic” communication. Rhetoric courses were written out, and my value to
the university was clearly measured not in terms of my expertise but in my
labor. The provost went so far as to encourage me to think of my research and
my teaching as separate practices. Students increasingly want a utilitarian
education. I think my classes are rewarding for students, but none of my
students stood on their desks and recited Whitman when I announced my
departure. None of my colleagues advocated for rhetorical scholarship and
coursework. Everyone shrugged their shoulders and went about their business.
And I don’t point that inactivity out to indicate apathy or passivity but to
note that such is the articulation of value in higher education. But that’s
only one way to discern value.
When discussing my departure with friends in the university,
the notion of discernment came up quite a bit. Colleagues would consider the
intractable members of the professorate that exist in any university and wonder
how it is the administration couldn’t discern the difference between
collaborative scholars and the other kind of scholar. I’m not sure I’m one kind
of scholar or another. One terribly honest colleague explained: I was a pain in
the ass of the administration, but a pain that seemed reasonable considering
what I did on campus. Of course, there’s a certain amount of pride in
recounting that conversation.
Less proud is this question: why should the administration
be able to discern my value? Set aside the fact that I’ve seen three deans and
three provosts in six years at UND. Even without the resets in institutional
memory, administrators are increasingly focused on top-level issues:
assessment, funding, legislation, and on and on. Why would they be able to
discern between the pain in the ass that collaborates and does rhetoric and any
other pain in the ass on campus? If there are fewer and fewer tenure and tenure
track jobs, it seems that there is also an increasing gap between university
administration and curriculum delivery. So it is silly to think that
administrators would have the time, wherewithal or expertise (especially in a
field as broad and rough as Communication) to discern rhetoric from strategic
communication, pain-in-the ass version one from pain-in-the-ass version two, and
on and on.
And so rhetorical scholars, humanity scholars, and even
scholars in general have a discernment problem. It is a problem of the
administration not being able to discern the value of scholarship. It is a
problem of scholars’ failure to discern the gap between administrators and
educators. And finally, it is a problem of discerning our own value in a
broader economy of ideas and possibilities. When I decided to leave UND, I sent
an email to the one person I thought would have solid advice. I reached out to
a former professor who is now on the Board of Trustees at the university that
denied him tenure. He wondered: why is it more and more humanities professors
are leaving universities in pursuit of professional careers? Why don’t they try
to develop those professional interests in the classroom?
I appreciate the questions. If we believe we have something
to offer industry, why don’t we teach it in the classroom? But that’s a
discernment problem. What we have to offer is a function of an education that
focused less on industry training and more on a broad range of intellectual
questions. We believe a commitment to the humanities demonstrates its value
outside of training metrics. And if we’re going to be asked to do the
industrial work of training and utility, we might as well be valued
appropriately. Academic work is the best work in the world if you feel properly
valued. You think and work in tandem. The hours are great (in that you decide
how much you want to think…which is usually quite a bit). But if you aren’t
valued for your expertise but only for your labor, the hours are terrible
(because you keep thinking, but not passionately). The pay isn’t great. And the
contempt is unbelievable.
If you’re going to feel contempt, feel under-appreciated, and
feel overworked, you might as well end up with more to show for it than an
academic career offers. No one will care that you have a Ph.D.? The provost
doesn’t care that my Ph.D. is in rhetoric and my students are equally
suspicious. I’m just some guy delivering content in a classroom. I can be some
guy and get paid more and live in a place where my family has access to a
broader set of cultural experiences. It’s time we discern the value of the
humanities otherwise, and one way of discerning that value is to recognize that
we have value outside of the academy. A value that pays off in different ways
and that doesn’t require us to abandon our commitment to humanities education
(or, if we’re going to abandon it, we can abandon it on our terms).
One gigantic caveat. The above is marked by a whole lot of
pride. I’ve tried to draw attention to that pride. My leaving UND is a
condition of pride: I feel I’m worth more than UND has shown, and I feel the
kind of work UND has offered me is beneath my expertise (this last one sounds
positively awful and elitist). A more charitable version of that caveat: value and
discernment needs to find a more durable home than the life of the mind. The
greatest challenge to the humanities is our relatively weak ability to
demonstrate our durability because we produce so little that is materially
durable. We can argue about the long history of the academic model (much older
than capitalism). We can talk about the history of ideas. But—and this is
supremely interesting—when Wrage writes about rhetoric as a history of ideas,
he concludes his essay by explaining how that concept plays out in the
classroom. Rhetorical studies seldom connects research to the classroom. As
such, it is understandable why a provost would recommend something as
ridiculous as separating your teaching and your research. In the words of
Radiohead: “you do it to yourself, you do, and that’s why it really hurts.” We
have abandoned a durable notion of humanities and rhetorical scholarship. And
so perhaps the best way to remind ourselves of rhetoric’s durability, if we
will not do it in our scholarship, is to go out into the world and embrace
Aristotle’s notion of practice. It’s time, for me at least, to go out and do rhetoric, to
seek value in other ways.
I’m looking forward to it.
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