Tom Kennedy's Blog

Ahhh, yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip Mum mum mum mum mum mum…

 

               A story today in Inside Higher Education reports on North Carolina governor Patrick McCrory’s recent criticism of the liberal arts and his state’s flagship universities. McCrory thinks public education money needs to be directed to programs that graduate students who get jobs. He suggests that neither he nor the citizens of North Carolina need to support those programs and disciplines in N.C.’s public universities that turn out students who can’t don’t find work pretty quickly following graduation. Go to college to get a job.

Now I don’t think it irresponsible of the chief executive of the Tar Heel State to be concerned about public spending and to want to explore avenues for the efficient delivery of a high quality education. Who could argue with that?  Education is expensive, and I don’t doubt that there is a good deal of fluff in a many areas in the N.C. publics (and maybe in the N.C. privates too, for that matter). And the governor may have in mind some complicated efficiency formula that considers not only whether graduates are getting jobs, but how much it costs the state to educate the students in those programs from which students get jobs. So it could turn out that he is considering cutting even programs from which people get jobs if it takes too much of the citizens’ money to prepare students for those jobs. Maybe you can pretty easily find work as an astrophysicist following graduation, but if it costs the state an investment of a couple of million dollars to produce each astrophysicist, the state might be justified in letting someone else educate them. And, it may be that although the overall number of philosophy majors who are employed one year after graduation is small, given how little money it takes to educate philosophers, philosophy programs may actually stack up pretty well against basketball and football programs once all the costs are considered.

Or, for all I know, the governor, himself a graduate of a small N.C. liberal arts college, has a complex liberal arts-ish theory that the educational roles and responsibilities of the colleges in the private sector differ from public colleges and universities. He may think, for example, that public universities and private colleges have different aims and that the state of North Carolina (like all states) needs private colleges to do important educating that the states are not willing and able to provide (or provide efficiently) in their public institutions. The governor could believe that the state of North Carolina really needs folks who have thought long and hard about the value of beauty, say, but that the privates can do a much better job than the publics when it comes to educating about such values as beauty, goodness, religion, and so on. There are stranger theories than this out there.

Or it may be that the governor is far more Republican than even he is aware—Republican in the Platonic sense. Perhaps he believes public education, education for the state’s masses, is rightly aimed at preparing the working class to work well, and that the elite group of philosopher-rulers, and only this group, requires a liberal arts education. As long as there are liberal arts colleges around it saves the state a great deal of money to have them educate the philosopher-rulers. With an appropriate division of labor, the state concentrates on the education of the working class, perhaps.

So I’m not sure exactly what the governor believes, and what really lies behind his criticism of the liberal arts, but if I were a citizen of North Carolina I would be concerned. The governor seems to think that the sole virtue of the state’s citizens is their employability. This and his apparent suggestion that being employed is the necessary and sufficient condition for human flourishing is troubling. The state does have an interest in employed citizens, to be sure, especially having subsidized their education; their tax money is essential if the state is to execute many of its duties. But just as a good person knows that there are some jobs one ought not to do, no matter how good the pay, so a good state knows better than to permit companies to scrape off the tops of its mountains just because employment is a good thing. Working and earning money are, at least typically, pretty good things. But they are not the only good things and not the best of good things. All of us aspire to more than a good job. We want to love and to be loved. We want to understand things. We want to play. We want to rest.

Some of us want to figure out whether we should quit our jobs in order to take care of our elderly parents. Some of us want to know whether there is any point in fighting again with our teenage kid about whether she is spending too much time playing videogames when she could be practicing trumpet. Some of us would like to take lesser jobs so we can volunteer more, at church, at the local soup kitchen, with our political parties. What should we do? These are hard questions, questions that involve clashes of values and clashes of different types of values. How we answer them and whether we answer them well depends, to a great extent, on who we are, on who we’ve become.

And whoever we are, we are not just workers. Discovering who we are, discovering who we want to be, is no easy thing, especially when technologies of connectedness make it very easy to be multiple characters, to be many people rather than an integrated self. A liberal arts education may not be necessary for developing that identity and character. Nor may it be sufficient. But, at its best, a liberal arts education can remind a generation greatly in need of this reminding, that our employment is not the only thing we ought to care about, that you can get a job and lose your soul.

I’m a big fan of the blog Lingua Franca on the Chronicle of Higher Education website. The column’s bloggers don’t act as language police, but they do point out some craziness and confusion in language use as in Geoffrey Pullam’s blog today on the passive voice—“Passive Writing at the ‘Daily Planet’” 

Nor do I have much desire to act as a language or concept policeman—greater clarity and understanding would suffice for me, but lately the alleged distinction between “ethics” and ”morality” has led to some frustration, or annoyance, or irritation—ok, I’m not sure exactly what emotional state it has led to, though it must be noticeable enough to motivate writing this, though not bothersome enough for me to do much else (other than to whine to my longsuffering wife). (But, hey, I longsuffer, too, sometimes, don’t I?) 

For me, the “ethics”/”morality” distinction is a distinction without a difference. I prefer “morality”, and “moral” (perhaps this has something to do with the Latin origins of the term), but I use the two terms interchangeably unless I am discussing the philosophical or theological study of morality, in which case I may talk about “ethics”, “moral philosophy,” or “moral theology.” And I assume I’m pretty normal in this respect. But in a recent meeting we were talking about leadership and, especially, “moral and ethical leadership.” (I think people do tend to use the two terms in that order; is there anything more to that than that it just sounds a little better? I’m not sure.) I asked whether the use of the two terms together was just for emphasis, that we were endorsing really good leadership (“It’s both moral and ethical”) as opposed to merely pretty good leadership. “No,” my boss answered. 

And she would appear to be correct—of course!—if we are talking about how people tend to use the two terms or how they think they use the two terms. Go ahead and google “the difference between ethics and morality” and you’ll find in website after website “experts” telling you that there really is a difference between the two terms and that you should use the terms correctly. These experts disagree on what the difference is, exactly, though they are firm that there is a difference that ought to be observed.

Roughly, many seem to use the two terms in this way: Morality refers to personal, private beliefs about right and wrong, good and bad, your own personal, private code of behavior. Ethics refers to some sort of publicly agreed upon standards of behavior. How and when and where this public agreement took place is an intriguing question, as is how one is supposed to know what these standards are. But I suspect that what is really being tracked by this distinction is the influence of professions and professional codes of ethics the last fifty years. Librarians have one, court reporters have one, journalists, k-12 educators, and, even lawyers. Academics—college and university teachers and researchers—don’t (though they may be members of some professional organization that does). 

Despite this abundance of professional codes, a not uncommon view is that the function of codes of ethics in America today, the real work that talk of ethics does in contemporary professional life, is primarily aimed at covering one’s butt, making sure one hasn’t done anything one’s institution—medical, legal, educational—could be sued for. “Is it ethical?” is reduced to, “Can we be sued for that?” and some folks rightly object to enervating ethics in this way, though it may not be clear what the alternative is.

Especially if you don’t like “morality”. I have at least one colleague who seems to feel about morality much as she feels about religion. It’s maybe ok if you keep it private, but it is offensive to bring it up in public. By contrast, it’s ok to talk about ethics in public, because, it would appear—well, there seem to be two possibilities, each problematic. The first possibility is that morality, but not ethics, is tainted by association with religion. Perhaps, the assumption is, that this is just true by definition. But that, of course, is question-begging. Delineate the two domains and then we can look and see whether either is any less “tainted” than the other by association with religion.

And when the lines are drawn, I suspect the line will be drawn between the public arena and the private arena. Morality is private. Ethics is public. But can we really decide which issues are moral and which issues are ethical, employing this public-private criterion? Moral-ethical issues rarely divide themselves up so neatly.

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education is titled, “Retain Affirmative Action—Because It’s the Morally Right Thing to Do.” Did the author just make a mistake? Did he really mean “ethically right” since affirmative action is clearly a public issue? And should we correct an individual when she talks about her personal work ethic rather than her personal work morality? What if a student thinks that her dining hall should serve more local food, more food produced and shipped no more than 100 miles? Is this a moral opinion or an ethical opinion? How could we tell? Would we have to do some sort of empirical study and if more than 50% share the view, then it is ethical but if fewer students share the view it is moral?

And of course many issues in the domain of moral-ethical goodness or rightness are, arguably, both moral and ethical. Few think that it is ok to say or think racist things as long as you don’t do it publicly. A racist is a racist and isn’t that a problem, whether or not her racism manifests itself publicly? If I really believe that it is wrong for me to torture others doesn’t that entail, all things being equal, that it is wrong for others, including my nation, to torture others?

So, a distinction without a difference. Ethics, morality, one term originating in Greek, the other in Latin, but both referring to the same domain—whatever that domain is. (And that may be the harder and more interesting question.)

It’s only words, or the concepts to which the words refer. But words are all we have once we step outside ourselves.  It’s worth trying to sort out the difference—when there is one—between terms, worthwhile knowing how you use language and trying to use language consistently. Realizing that things can matter, that there is something valuable about paying attention to how we think and speak even if it makes no practical difference, is one of the things that makes a liberal arts education so important, I think.

 

tdk

I want to thank you….

 

One casualty of the expansiveness of rights talk is the virtue of gratitude. If, when I provide you, say, with a well-crafted syllabus, a promptly returned exam, or a fetching PowerPoint presentation—if there be such a thing—I am simply doing my duty, simply providing you with what you are owed, then gratitude to me is not morally required. Oh, you might be grateful to God (or the universe, if you prefer) to live in a place where people do their duties. And you might be grateful to your parents for helping you attend a place that cares about its faculty and staff fulfilling their obligations to students, for many universities appear less concerned about this than they should be. But gratitude is not owed to me, not owed to someone who is merely doing his or her duty. And the more you are owed by others, the smaller the likelihood that your failure to be grateful is morally problematic; the larger your array of rights, the smaller the range of optional benefits I might provide you.

 

Colleges and college students both struggle with what is owed to students, with students (and their families) tending to be more generous in their identification of what is owed and colleges more parsimonious, and not merely because it is in the self interest of each to incline in their respective directions. College costs a lot, an awful lot, and students and parents not surprisingly think that cost entitles students if not to a very high grade then at least to the conditions under which it is difficult not to achieve a pretty good grade. Few assume, by contrast, an entitlement to blogposts or to blogposts in which no infinitives are split. But why? Why think the high cost of college entitles one to certain grades or conditions of grading rather than a certain type of web-presence, a certain public face to the world? To what things, exactly, does paying a lot of money for college entitle one? And who decides this?

 

Every spring, one of the questions I commonly wrestle with is “What do we owe a student who wants a Berry degree but wants to take summer school courses somewhere else?” Usually a primary motivation is economic—a student will be at home, summer jobs are hard to find, and summer school courses are pretty cheap at Sunny Skies Community College or the University of Big Bluff State in Northeastern South Georgia. Do Berry students have a right to take a certain portion of their college credits during the summer off campus, with instructors and institutional policies with which we may be completely unfamiliar? Do Berry students have a right to satisfy some college requirements with online courses? Or, does the college have the moral right to require students who want a Berry degree to take courses only at Berry or at least to warn students that a Berry College degree with courses taken elsewhere is less valuable than a Berry College degree with only Berry courses? Do I have an obligation to tell a student that she will get what she pays for if she takes a philosophy course at Noneedtoread U?

 

Several years ago on campus we had a brief, unsatisfying conversation about whether students and others have a right to smoke on campus (and to smoke anywhere they darn well please) or whether Berry merely extends to them this privilege for which they ought to be grateful. Of course you can be extended privileges or benefits for which you ought not be grateful, and perhaps Berry College’s policies and practices with respect to smoking fall into this category. Should you be grateful if I invite you to dinner without telling you that I’m trying to get rid of a ridiculously bad dish I made a couple of days ago that I’m trying desperately to get rid of? Am I providing a student with a benefit for which he should be grateful if I give him an A or a C- he does not really deserve? What if I let students use laptops in my classes—is that really a benefit for which they should be grateful?

 

Ahh, summertime. By the way, don’t bother to say thanks for this post; I think I owed it to you.

 

tdk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was a friend of mine 

  

His former students, one after another, repeated those words—“He was a friend of mine”—at the memorial service a few Saturdays ago for Gordon Carper, historian and faculty leader at Berry from 1975 until his retirement in the early years of this century. They thanked his wife, Joyce, and his two sons Noel and Todd, for sharing Gordon with them and they thanked Gordon for sharing his life with them and for sharing Joyce, and his two sons (and later his grandchildren) with them. The crowd for the memorial was large and appreciative, appreciative of the four former students who spoke of their professor and the many more who came to pay their respects, appreciative not only of a professor and his family who could change lives, but appreciative as well of students whose lives could be changed by a professor. Appreciative of good teachers and good students, for you can’t have one without the other. We were honoring Gordon Carper, to be sure. But we were also honoring teachers, teachers whose lives made a big difference for at least some of their students, and their students. 

  

I do not know whether this is true of all faculty under 40 years of age, but my guess is that for almost everyone of us over 40 we became college teachers—and I suspect it was the teaching that came first and the scholarship we happily discovered later—because of some Gordon Carper in our lives. What we do now we do because at some point we came to realize what a Gordon Carper had done for us. Exactly what a Gordon Carper (or, in my case, a Bill Kuykendall) did to change us varies. For some of us, it was simply that someone we respected and admired exhibited a passion and intellectual seriousness that we could tell was not just acting or entertaining. We were drawn to the light in their eyes. For others of us, it may have been a really smart person taking our thoughts or our expressions of our thoughts seriously, taking us seriously.  

  

Professor William (Bill) Henry Frazier Kuykendall took me seriously enough to give me a D in a class in Old Testament Archaeology (as I recall, my only class in which my older brother was also enrolled, and that goes some way towards explaining my D, I would argue!) Kuykendall knew I was capable of doing A work and he knew that I knew I was capable of doing A work. He also knew that I would not be completely demoralized by a D. So he gave me the D I deserved—well, that he thought I deserved; surely I did at least C work—and we both got on with our lives. I took additional courses with him. I got some A’s. We talked a lot. He was a friend of mine. 

  

I worry that we are fast losing or, perhaps, have already lost even the possibility of faculty like Gordon Carper and Bill Kuykendall, and of faculty changing the lives of students. We place a lot of demands upon our faculty. We expect them to be not only excellent teachers, but also productive scholars and active in service on multiple committees. We want them to be good citizens, too, and good family members if they have families. Any friendship is hard work and time consuming. And a friendship between a faculty member and a student, as Aristotle recognized, is almost impossible. 

  

For Aristotle, friendship requires an equality that rarely characterizes the student-faculty relationship. The Gordon Carpers and the Bill Kuykendalls of the teaching profession realize this, of course, and thus act to elevate the student. Sometimes it is simply a matter of encouraging or enabling a student to transcend the mundane. Often it is helping a student move from the assumption that a college education is mostly about vocational preparation and credentialing to a conviction that an engagement with this event or text or idea or work is worthy of our attention—worthy of our love. Our Gordon Carpers and Bill Kuykendalls knew that in most instances we, their students, would not soon understand an event or artifact as well as they, but we could become their equals in love and respect for that which we studied. They made us better lovers, which is probably not why our parents sent us to the colleges we went to. And not why the parents of our students send their children to Berry. 

  

Usually I am pretty skeptical about the claims some colleagues frequently make about Berry’s unique education of head, heart and hands. We may agree, more or less, on what an education of the head looks like, but what some mean by “education of the heart” strikes me as either silly or dangerous or mostly just empty talk. Until I remember what Bill Kuykendall taught me. Until I hear testimonies like those I heard about Gordon Carper. An Education of the Heart by Educators of the Heart. 

  

We—society, the economy, parents, the academy, private liberal arts colleges with aspirations, etc.—haven’t made it easy for a faculty member to be an Educator of the Heart, not as easy as it once was, I think. But, though perhaps fewer in number, educators of the heart still exist, as do ready students. I am privileged to know a few.  

  

  

Thomas D. Kennedy 

 

 

All This Useless Beauty 

Roosevelt Cabin on our main campus is a log cabin, to be sure, but a log cabin with a very noticeable difference—its windows. The original windows are large for the cabin, and on the upper level alongside two smaller square windows is a half-trapezoid (or sawed-off right triangle) window. http://berry.edu/vtour/detail_main.asp?lid=43#/vtour/images/roosevelt_cabin/5.jpg 

Why the unusual windows (whatever their proper names)?  The story is that Martha Berry wanted the students who saw the cabin to realize that log cabins could be log cabins and yet be made better, that is, more beautiful. That even the most humble dwelling can be adorned and is worthy of adornment. More than function matters. Beauty matters, too. And so you can add windows to let in more light, windows you don’t really need, windows whose shape and style catches the eye. Windows you could live without but without which your life would be smaller and poorer. Useless beauty, because we are made for beauty. 

One of the joys of being at Berry is the wealth of cultural events on offer. (I am not here referring to the plethora of movie showings.) Our music faculty, in addition to their own recitals and the performances of the ensembles they direct, arrange an superb concert series of visiting performers. The same is true of our theatre and art programs. Or, take poetry. As a member of the Georgia Poetry Circuit, we have visiting poets on campus for a reading two or three times a semester. The audiences for these readings are almost entirely students, listening to an older man or woman reading poetry and talking about their craft or the context of their poems. Sometimes I don’t know what to make of the poetry. It is pleasant and enjoyable, but is it good? Often, I wish I were surer. And sometimes I find the poet more than a little self-indulgent in his performance (not unlike me in my classroom, I suspect). Nevertheless, what a splendid thing to say to students, “It is worth your time to make some space in your life to engage this beauty, and to hear an expert in a craft perform and talk about his or her craft.” It may be a poet or a cellist or a potter—someone committed to creating and offering to others something of beauty and excellence, though of little real utility. It is worth the student’s while to stop and attend to this excellence, to this beauty, even though there is nothing he or she can do with it. “Enjoy this window,” we say, “your life will be better for it.”  All this beauty, this useless beauty. 

Of the arguments for the benefits of a liberal arts education many, if not most, appeal to the usefulness of a liberal arts education, a usefulness perhaps not at first apparent. For example, it is reasonable to think that society needs nimble thinkers, individuals who can deftly connect the unconnected and negotiate difficult and disparate straits. A liberal arts education is an education that encourages and develops in students those intellectual dispositions and skills, that prepares them for meeting and thinking through what is new and different to them. I find those arguments, well, useful. But an equally good argument of an education in the liberal arts is that not everything of value is useful, that there are things that matter, that are important, and not because of the use to which they can be put. An education in the liberal arts is, at least in part, an education in such things. “Here is something you should know, though there is not much you can do with this piece of knowledge.” “Here is something you should pay attention to because of its beauty.” “Here is how nature works.” “Here is what these people did.” “Here is what Messiaen or Turner or Kinnell created.” All this beauty, this useless beauty. 

With several warm sunny days in a row now, spring is teasing us. A cup of joe outside in the Kilpatrick Commons, the fountain bubbling over stones—not a bad use of one’s time on a day like this. Not bad at all.  

tdk  

 

Tipping Points Quiz 

(a) Pulling into a parking space I notice on the ground, two empty spaces away from me, the detritus from a recent visit to Wendy’s, deposited beside where a car had been parked. The owner of the car, no doubt with insufficient space in the car for garbage, left the two cups on the ground. Why not, they do it with cigarette butts? There was no garbage bin visible, though there was one just inside the door to the building he or she had entered, 30 feet and 30 seconds away. How close would the bin have to be before the driver would make the effort to place the cups in the bin? In sight of the parking space? 20 feet away? 10 feet away? What is the tipping point? 

As I pulled in to park, I noticed a student worker going about her tasks, perhaps 25 feet from the garbage. She passed by the garbage as she drove in, though perhaps she did not notice it. She may have been so focused upon her work, or upon the cell-phone call she was engaged with as she worked, that she did not notice the trash. Or she may have noticed, but it was not her job, not part of the work for which she was being paid. Or perhaps she would have cleaned up that small piece of campus if the garbage had been only 15 feet away, or maybe 10 feet away, rather than 25. How do we teach others to notice and, having noticed, to act, even when it is not part of one’s role as a student or a student worker. Is there a tipping point for students (and faculty and staff) for taking action and ownership of the Berry commons? 10 feet? 15? 

(b) Parking is always a problem on college campuses, even at Berry. Here, though, the parking is as frequently an issue of bicycle as automobile parking—a rather pleasant problem. This semester a problem is our grand south entrance to Evans Hall. (See http://www.berry.edu/vtour/detail_main.asp?lid=26#/vtour/images/evans_hall/1.jpg) Students, perhaps running almost late for class, ride up and, dutifully, lock their bikes to one of the handrails on the steps. (This morning five of the six rails were occupied.) Or they park on the sidewalk to the left and right of the steps, often effectively blocking the sidewalk for walking. A bike rack with open spaces stands less than thirty yards away. How close, how convenient, would the bike rack have to be before riders would use the bike rack rather than require others to dodge their vehicles as they enter and leave the building? 20-25 yards? 20-25 feet? 

(c) Don’t get me started on smokers and cigarette butts and mindfulness of others. 

(d) Tonight I will attend a concert (of course, with cultural events credit!). Before the concert a student will greet the audience and respectfully ask all in the audience to turn off their cell-phones and close their books and computers and give the performers the respect they deserve. Most students (perhaps unlike faculty and administrators?) will silence their phones, but they will not turn them off. Most students—what, 80%?—sitting directly next to me or in front of me or behind me will either text during the concert or will check their phones for texts. The concert will last fifty-five minutes to an hour, at most. What is the tipping point below which the audience would turn off their phones, or at least not text or check their phones for messages? A forty-minute concert? Thirty minutes? Fifteen? 

Quiz questions: 

1. Is this one problem or three? (Or two?) By virtue of what can we consider this one or more “problems”? What norm is violated or neglected? What is the source of this norm? How important is this norm? 

2. Is this just more evidence for the tragedy of the commons, no matter how disturbing I may find this conclusion? 

3. Do I need to get a life? 

  

tdk 

 

Oh, mercy, mercy me 

The opening words of C.S. Lewis’ sermon, “Learning in War Time” remain striking still these seventy-one years later: 

A University is a society for the pursuit of learning. As students, you will be expected to make yourselves, or to start making yourselves, into what the Middle Ages called clerks: into philosophers, scientists, scholars, critics, or historians. And at first sight this seems to be an odd thing to do during a great war. What is the use of beginning a task which we have so little chance of finishing? Or, even if we ourselves should happen not to be interrupted by death or military service, why should we—indeed how can we—continue to take an interest in these placid occupations when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance? Is it not like fiddling while Rome burns? 

Lewis, of course, was speaking to Oxford University students as German tanks rumbled loudly into Poland. Why bother with learning under such conditions? What is the point of even an Oxford education when civilization is under threat? 

To be human, Lewis in effect answers, is to care about beauty and goodness, to make and enjoy culture.  Culture cannot be escaped. There will be a culture of death and destruction or, possibly, a culture of life and beauty and goodness in the midst of evil-doing and death-dealing. There will be some culture; that is inevitable. Lewis, thus, calls on his students to continue the good work of culture preservation, transmission, and creation even as the future of Europe is imperiled. No matter what happens, there must be monuments to beauty, truth, and goodness. 

I thought of Lewis’ address upon discovering the website spearheaded by another Brit, Sir Richard Branson, this summer: http://www.carbonwarroom.com 

On the homepage we read: 

Our global industrial and energy systems are built on carbon-based technologies and unsustainable resource demands that threaten to destroy our society and our planet. Massive loss of wealth, expanding poverty and suffering, disastrous climate change, water scarcity, and deforestation are the end results of this broken system.  

This business-as-usual system represents the greatest threat to the security and prosperity of humanity – a threat that transcends race, ethnicity, national borders, and ideology. 

This is our Great War. 

Systems do not change themselves – the same stale, business-as-usual thinking that has driven us to our current state of emergency will continue to endanger our safety, our livelihoods, and our planet. We need new thinking, new leadership, and innovation to create a post-carbon economy. Our goal is not to undo industry, but to remake it into a force for sustainable wealth generation.  

If there is hype here, there is not only hype. We have made a major mess of things, and we are ignoring the mess we’ve made, hoping it will just go away. But it won’t. We need new ideas. We need to change: we, as individuals; we, as institutions. 

How bad are things? How bad do things have to be to get our attention? Here’s the opening of Subhankar Banerjee’s “Could This Be a Crime?” on his new website http://www.climatestorytellers.org 

Imagine you live in New York City, and one fine morning you awake to the realization that 90 percent of all the buildings that were more than five stories tall have been destroyed. You will hardly have the words to talk about this devastation, but I’m sure you will walk around the rubble to make sense of it all.

Something similar has happened in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I currently live. Between 2001 and 2005, aerial surveys were conducted over 6.4 million acres of the state. Some 816,000 affected acres were mapped and it was found that during this short period Ips confusus, a tiny bark beetle, had killed 54.5 million of New Mexico’s state tree, the piñon. In many areas of northern New Mexico, including Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Española, and Taos, 90 percent of mature piñons are now dead.                 

Berry College’s President Stephen Briggs is one of 674 American college and university presidents who have signed the President’s Climate Commitment. http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org Among other things, signers promise that within two years of signing their institutions will develop an action plan for becoming “climate neutral,” a plan which will include: “Actions to make climate neutrality and sustainability a part of the curriculum and other educational experience for all students.” 

Exactly what that means for the Evans School and for Berry College has yet to be determined, though it is a conversation now overdue. We are appropriately concerned about politicizing the curriculum. Still, the threat to our planet and its peoples is our great war. No more than Lewis’ Oxford students need we choose to abandon the exploration, preservation, transmission, and creation of culture. But neither can we ignore the study of the appropriate care for our creation and of what it means for us to live responsibly and well where we are. That study belongs to no single discipline. And that study can’t wait. 

tdk