Very interesting issue of your newsletter, thank you.
Funny you should mention Qubein. I work in High Point (in one of the few institutions that DOESN'T have a purple HPU umbrella or flag conspicuously displayed).
His influence is quite substantial and his name is everywhere, as in they just renamed a STREET for him. As HPU takes over more and more square footage in High Point, more gold-tipped fences go up around that square footage. The shopping center across the street from HPU has the side facing the university covered in astroturf, so parents and students don't have to look at, gasp, SHOPPING CENTER CONCRETE WALLS.
Forgive the snark, but HPU is a joke among locals. It's basically a finishing school for rich kids from Up North, (or any rich kids for that matter). Qubein is a fundraising MACHINE and HPU looks like a 5 star resort.
I hope the students are actually learning something other than how to be 'positive'.
I'm going to chime in here as a coach; so, someone who's business it is to prompt professors to search for and explore possibility. At its core, my work is optimistic. And I agree with Ehrenreich and you in your shared diagnosis of universities adopting failed corporate strategy models (I have both experience with and thoughts on strategic planning, for example, and am leading a session for dept heads in a Humanities faculty at a large comprehensive in March). But I would diagnose the illness and possible cure differently. To keep with your religious comparison, I'd take a more Buddhist stance -- where academics (leaders, professors) and their students need to come to the keen awareness that suffering exists, imperfection exists; we will continually fail to hit perfection in any form; humans are flawed. So, it is our duty and obligation to bolster our compassion and connect with one another as human beings. What toxic positivity has none of is empathy. Toxic positivity doesn't SEE people, is not present with them. Leadership that foregrounded emotional intelligence and agility, and above all compassion, would chart a different path.
I enjoyed, if that is the right word, reading this post. I'll just pick up on a few things;
1. Positive thinking. Back in the 80s I attended a few workshops about how to attract money and friends. I wasn't too interested in the latter, except if they happened to be girls. Anyway, the trainer would always be upbeat and talk about reciting 'affirmations' last thing at night. Being a cynic, I rapidly came to the conclusion that the best way of attracting money was to run courses on how to attract money. I thought it was all a load of rubbish, too superficial, although after one of these workshops several people started a conversation with me on the London Underground, something that is unheard of because talking to strangers is simply not British. So perhaps there was a sort of residual effect. I think positive thinking is better than negative thinking in particular circumstances. For example, during the pandemic it was pretty awful, but I consoled myself with the thought that at least we have a relatively robust health system, so things could be worse.
2. Being asked to do ridiculous and pointless things is an occupational hazard when working for management that are either (a) concerned about what things look like or (b) consumed by 'visions' or (c) both. I am planning to write an article about some of the stupid things I've been asked to do, but in the meantime people might find this mildly amusing: https://terryfreedman.substack.com/p/6-ways-to-respond-to-requests-for
My default response is to say I'll do it and then not, although I don't recommend this approach as it could lay one open to a disciplinary procedure. It's because in my experience these people never follow up because they think they have God-like powers, so that just saying something will be done means it WILL be done. Or else they go on to their next big vision/initiative and forget what the last one was.
3. As for your daughter's reading, good for her. In England we have a government that thinks the only value of a university degree is whether or not it leads to a decent income within a couple of years, and a depressing number of universities where the aim of the so-called education is to tell the students what they think they already know, and disallow any dissenting views as that leads to people feeling unsafe, and could also put off future customers -- sorry, I meant students. Much of this was predictable decades ago, as I wrote here: https://terryfreedman.substack.com/p/the-likely-effects-of-the-commercialisation last June.
Years ago I composed a phrase I thought was original with me: "Paranoia is a survival instinct!" Seemed funny at first, then went through a cynical period but is ending up as one of many guideposts. Thanks for the reminder.
This is interesting, in light of the common discourse that if one fails at academia it is one's own fault rather than the fault of the system for not providing adequate support. This is compounded when one willingly (or unwillingly, but chooses to go) leaves academia.
This is very well said. A transactional, consumerist approach to education comes at a great price, and some of the biggest losers in this exchange are those who believe in it.
Yup. This. My memoir is all about this--gaslighting and malignant narcissism in academia among other areas. Ehrenreich’s one of my resources--her chapter on her experience surviving cancer is chilling.
Skepticism is good for the soul. At times in my life I was too cynical; I've always been skeptical. Regarding higher ed, when my alma mater, a small, state liberal arts college, goes awry, I point it out. Sometimes on a message board but often the old fashioned way: With a letter mailed at a post office. Maybe once every five years I'll get a, "I don't like the way you operate" comment from an admin, I hear it through the grapevine from my employee friends on campus. Usually I just get ghosted, no response to my letters.
I recently wrote a letter suggesting naming a building after a family that has done a lot for the school, and not just financially. I suggested a name change from something as simple as English Building. I mailed the stamped letters to the president and two other administrators. Of course I haven't heard from them, it would take too much to put in a little extra work for their six-figure jobs to actually connect with an alum.
Meanwhile, I'll poke the bear. Some think I don't like my alma mater. I actually really like the place; I want them to get better. The people staying quiet on the sidelines? I question their caring.
1. Had Bob Knight avoided his demise at IU, his book The Power of Negative Thinking would have been a good antidote.
2. The power of positive thinking is more ingrained in Christianity than one might expect--check out John Wesley’s works and the intersection of music and Methodism.
3. I may have missed it but it seems to me that tuition inflation has no remedy; thus, if the sky is the limit, then image is everything, and outward projections are rarely nuanced. See also rise of college sports, ACC, etc.
I thank you for this. I read this when it first glided into my inbox and it's been niggling at me ever since. It provides another few pieces of the puzzle of what is going wrong in higher ed. The part about negative thinking landed hard, because I've experienced the gaslighting. I keep wanting to find the box cover of this puzzle because I keep finding pieces in odd places and they fit together but it feels like they should form a more coherent picture by now (which could be due to my own deficiencies). It's a picture that I suspect revolves around the fact that educational institutions have qualitative rather than quantitative goals and to teach how to think rather than what to think. Or maybe those are simply two more pieces of the puzzle of the picture that I cannot see clearly as a whole.
I'd like to cross-post it to my humble newsletter, if you don't mind (I hope you won't).
This is a lot, and I mean this as a compliment. My head is swimming. My colleagues need to read this article! Where I work, we are beset by all of these things -- toxic positivity (“faculty need to raise morale; misery is catching; come to our events we worked so hard to plan!; Deans, tell your faculty they have to attend Convocation” etc); gaslighting; fly-by administrators; a failed “strategic plan” implemented by a tourist president who beat the average tenure of such folks; a theocracy embedded in Christianity (but we are an unaffiliated college); and...the junior high-ification of our students, staff, and faculty. It feels like pain to work here, like a primally deep pain.
What you wrote about the lack of curiosity, intellectual interest, humility (“vision”), and wholesale lack of awareness of what good professors actually do with ourselves inside and outside the classroom...these things are part of the pain. There is a corporate overlay to the college and its administrators’ fantasies about ‘the point of college.’ If it’s not ‘give the customers what they want’ it is ‘give me what I want so I can hopscotch to my next job.’
The only thing missing from this superlative article is the nefarious corporate context, wherein board members’ buddies provide outsourced contractor services to colleges who have fired employees. And admins hire their friends to come be ‘thought leaders,’ which is like saying ‘we’ve hired a chef who specializes in cotton candy.’
Regarding the positive thinking of higher ed, the constant begging for donations saying it will uplift our wonderful only-place-in-the-world campus, here's the reality: My alma mater has had 5 presidents in 10 years, guessing more provosts in the same time, five athletic directors in a decade, numerous deans every couple years. These people don't care about the school, yet they want me to wear my passion for ol' alma mater on my sleeve? As the new Vice President for student engagement or something like that bored me with her speech at an outdoor winter presentation this year, I was wondering just what in the heck she does why do they constantly hire 6-figure administrators while their enrollment is down 7% from last year? They still don't get the disconnect on finances as noted in a recent Chronicle of Higher Ed article quoting my alma mater's latest president.
Very interesting issue of your newsletter, thank you.
Funny you should mention Qubein. I work in High Point (in one of the few institutions that DOESN'T have a purple HPU umbrella or flag conspicuously displayed).
His influence is quite substantial and his name is everywhere, as in they just renamed a STREET for him. As HPU takes over more and more square footage in High Point, more gold-tipped fences go up around that square footage. The shopping center across the street from HPU has the side facing the university covered in astroturf, so parents and students don't have to look at, gasp, SHOPPING CENTER CONCRETE WALLS.
Forgive the snark, but HPU is a joke among locals. It's basically a finishing school for rich kids from Up North, (or any rich kids for that matter). Qubein is a fundraising MACHINE and HPU looks like a 5 star resort.
I hope the students are actually learning something other than how to be 'positive'.
Further reading here: https://www.theassemblync.com/education/higher-education/nido-qubein-high-point-university/
I'm going to chime in here as a coach; so, someone who's business it is to prompt professors to search for and explore possibility. At its core, my work is optimistic. And I agree with Ehrenreich and you in your shared diagnosis of universities adopting failed corporate strategy models (I have both experience with and thoughts on strategic planning, for example, and am leading a session for dept heads in a Humanities faculty at a large comprehensive in March). But I would diagnose the illness and possible cure differently. To keep with your religious comparison, I'd take a more Buddhist stance -- where academics (leaders, professors) and their students need to come to the keen awareness that suffering exists, imperfection exists; we will continually fail to hit perfection in any form; humans are flawed. So, it is our duty and obligation to bolster our compassion and connect with one another as human beings. What toxic positivity has none of is empathy. Toxic positivity doesn't SEE people, is not present with them. Leadership that foregrounded emotional intelligence and agility, and above all compassion, would chart a different path.
I enjoyed, if that is the right word, reading this post. I'll just pick up on a few things;
1. Positive thinking. Back in the 80s I attended a few workshops about how to attract money and friends. I wasn't too interested in the latter, except if they happened to be girls. Anyway, the trainer would always be upbeat and talk about reciting 'affirmations' last thing at night. Being a cynic, I rapidly came to the conclusion that the best way of attracting money was to run courses on how to attract money. I thought it was all a load of rubbish, too superficial, although after one of these workshops several people started a conversation with me on the London Underground, something that is unheard of because talking to strangers is simply not British. So perhaps there was a sort of residual effect. I think positive thinking is better than negative thinking in particular circumstances. For example, during the pandemic it was pretty awful, but I consoled myself with the thought that at least we have a relatively robust health system, so things could be worse.
2. Being asked to do ridiculous and pointless things is an occupational hazard when working for management that are either (a) concerned about what things look like or (b) consumed by 'visions' or (c) both. I am planning to write an article about some of the stupid things I've been asked to do, but in the meantime people might find this mildly amusing: https://terryfreedman.substack.com/p/6-ways-to-respond-to-requests-for
My default response is to say I'll do it and then not, although I don't recommend this approach as it could lay one open to a disciplinary procedure. It's because in my experience these people never follow up because they think they have God-like powers, so that just saying something will be done means it WILL be done. Or else they go on to their next big vision/initiative and forget what the last one was.
3. As for your daughter's reading, good for her. In England we have a government that thinks the only value of a university degree is whether or not it leads to a decent income within a couple of years, and a depressing number of universities where the aim of the so-called education is to tell the students what they think they already know, and disallow any dissenting views as that leads to people feeling unsafe, and could also put off future customers -- sorry, I meant students. Much of this was predictable decades ago, as I wrote here: https://terryfreedman.substack.com/p/the-likely-effects-of-the-commercialisation last June.
Years ago I composed a phrase I thought was original with me: "Paranoia is a survival instinct!" Seemed funny at first, then went through a cynical period but is ending up as one of many guideposts. Thanks for the reminder.
This is interesting, in light of the common discourse that if one fails at academia it is one's own fault rather than the fault of the system for not providing adequate support. This is compounded when one willingly (or unwillingly, but chooses to go) leaves academia.
This is very well said. A transactional, consumerist approach to education comes at a great price, and some of the biggest losers in this exchange are those who believe in it.
Yup. This. My memoir is all about this--gaslighting and malignant narcissism in academia among other areas. Ehrenreich’s one of my resources--her chapter on her experience surviving cancer is chilling.
Skepticism is good for the soul. At times in my life I was too cynical; I've always been skeptical. Regarding higher ed, when my alma mater, a small, state liberal arts college, goes awry, I point it out. Sometimes on a message board but often the old fashioned way: With a letter mailed at a post office. Maybe once every five years I'll get a, "I don't like the way you operate" comment from an admin, I hear it through the grapevine from my employee friends on campus. Usually I just get ghosted, no response to my letters.
I recently wrote a letter suggesting naming a building after a family that has done a lot for the school, and not just financially. I suggested a name change from something as simple as English Building. I mailed the stamped letters to the president and two other administrators. Of course I haven't heard from them, it would take too much to put in a little extra work for their six-figure jobs to actually connect with an alum.
Meanwhile, I'll poke the bear. Some think I don't like my alma mater. I actually really like the place; I want them to get better. The people staying quiet on the sidelines? I question their caring.
1. Had Bob Knight avoided his demise at IU, his book The Power of Negative Thinking would have been a good antidote.
2. The power of positive thinking is more ingrained in Christianity than one might expect--check out John Wesley’s works and the intersection of music and Methodism.
3. I may have missed it but it seems to me that tuition inflation has no remedy; thus, if the sky is the limit, then image is everything, and outward projections are rarely nuanced. See also rise of college sports, ACC, etc.
I thank you for this. I read this when it first glided into my inbox and it's been niggling at me ever since. It provides another few pieces of the puzzle of what is going wrong in higher ed. The part about negative thinking landed hard, because I've experienced the gaslighting. I keep wanting to find the box cover of this puzzle because I keep finding pieces in odd places and they fit together but it feels like they should form a more coherent picture by now (which could be due to my own deficiencies). It's a picture that I suspect revolves around the fact that educational institutions have qualitative rather than quantitative goals and to teach how to think rather than what to think. Or maybe those are simply two more pieces of the puzzle of the picture that I cannot see clearly as a whole.
I'd like to cross-post it to my humble newsletter, if you don't mind (I hope you won't).
This is a lot, and I mean this as a compliment. My head is swimming. My colleagues need to read this article! Where I work, we are beset by all of these things -- toxic positivity (“faculty need to raise morale; misery is catching; come to our events we worked so hard to plan!; Deans, tell your faculty they have to attend Convocation” etc); gaslighting; fly-by administrators; a failed “strategic plan” implemented by a tourist president who beat the average tenure of such folks; a theocracy embedded in Christianity (but we are an unaffiliated college); and...the junior high-ification of our students, staff, and faculty. It feels like pain to work here, like a primally deep pain.
What you wrote about the lack of curiosity, intellectual interest, humility (“vision”), and wholesale lack of awareness of what good professors actually do with ourselves inside and outside the classroom...these things are part of the pain. There is a corporate overlay to the college and its administrators’ fantasies about ‘the point of college.’ If it’s not ‘give the customers what they want’ it is ‘give me what I want so I can hopscotch to my next job.’
The only thing missing from this superlative article is the nefarious corporate context, wherein board members’ buddies provide outsourced contractor services to colleges who have fired employees. And admins hire their friends to come be ‘thought leaders,’ which is like saying ‘we’ve hired a chef who specializes in cotton candy.’
I need to go look for a real job....
Popping in to say that your daughter would LOVE the musical Hadestown if she hasn't heard of it already!
Regarding the positive thinking of higher ed, the constant begging for donations saying it will uplift our wonderful only-place-in-the-world campus, here's the reality: My alma mater has had 5 presidents in 10 years, guessing more provosts in the same time, five athletic directors in a decade, numerous deans every couple years. These people don't care about the school, yet they want me to wear my passion for ol' alma mater on my sleeve? As the new Vice President for student engagement or something like that bored me with her speech at an outdoor winter presentation this year, I was wondering just what in the heck she does why do they constantly hire 6-figure administrators while their enrollment is down 7% from last year? They still don't get the disconnect on finances as noted in a recent Chronicle of Higher Ed article quoting my alma mater's latest president.
I found much to nod along to in Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" during my time served.