I have no words for my reality. [ Max Frisch (1911–1991)]

Early on during my time as the science & technology dean (slightly less than two years ago), I called a gathering of the entire division to talk over some old and new business. Now, I guess my personal meeting-leading style is a bit different than other deans who have occupied this position: I remember mentioning things like “we all work too hard,” and that “we should take better care of ourselves,” and that “I’m not willing to die for this job”…that kind of stuff.

I think most would agree that I tend to be honest and direct.

Further, when I speak to things that I am passionate about, I typically have great energy. I’m expressive, I gesture, I emote. In sum, I likely exhibit a collection of personal characteristics and interpersonal communication styles that are different from your stereotypical, geeky, sometimes-reticent, always-in-his-head science guy.

Directly after one of these early meetings, I remember F coming up to me and exclaiming, “you don’t talk like any dean we’ve ever had here before!”

Now, at the time, I wasn’t exceptionally surprised by this remark. In addition to my science education (two degrees, a bachelor's and a master's), I also have a master’s in counseling. In case you didn’t know: this is quite an unusual background. While scientists tend to focus on theories, experiments, findings and ideas, counselors mostly attend to feelings, relationships, and personal growth. These are radically different approaches to knowing the world, and I admit that I probably am a pretty rare bird both in terms of my formal education and how I interact with the universe around me.

It seems, over time though, that the Division faculty here have rather gotten used to me and my non-traditional ways of talking and behaving. However, when it comes to job searching, I’m not so sure my, well, deviance is all that much appreciated. I’ve talked this over with M, and he agrees: when it comes to a job interview, a new group may not quite know what to make of me. “Could this be our new dean ?” [I can imagine some of them ( most of them) wondering...]

This topic has been more on my mind in the last few days due to another, more recent interaction: this time with T. As I was lamenting my lack of a job offer despite my ambitious interviewing schedule of late, I once again mentioned something like “I guess I just don’t talk like a science dean.”

Her comeback was a very quick, energetic, and expressive, “Jim, you don’t talk like anyone I’ve ever known !” She went on to say that, “in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone quite like you!”

Now, I’m positive that these statements were offered in only the most complimentary way. And, I certainly received them as such. Actually, such observations are (to me) pretty flattering. But, the more I’ve thought about the implications of these remarks, the more distraught I have become. In terms of locating a new workplace, how can I possibly find somewhere to “fit” if I am perceived to be so different? Who would want to hire me if I’m not “one of them?”

Well, it’s going to be hard, isn’t it? Actually, it HAS been difficult, and maybe this is one of the primary reasons I am facing unemployment: I am too different, and I really just don’t fit .

The question now is: where do I fit?

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone, I can see all obstacles in my way…
(Johnny Nash)

Back on April 18th, when I was traveling home from the Grays Harbor College interview, while I was on I-205 just north of the Oregon border, a rock violently hit my windshield and chipped it. A couple of weeks later, when I was at my neighborhood gas station, I spent a few minutes at their little “rock-chip repair” station. I’d done this before and the results had been really dramatic. For a few minutes of time, and a call to the insurance company, the rock-chip damage magically became much less noticeable. Well, this time, instead of “healing” the chipped glass, the repair attempt led to a very large crack in my windshield. It was obvious that it was time to get the whole thing replaced. Happily I have great insurance, -$0- deductible on my comprehensive coverage, so my windshield was totally swapped-out for free a few days ago. The glass company even came to the college parking lot and replaced it while I was at work. Pretty slick.

It’s amazing, really. Every day since then has rather been like I’ve just had a car wash. I can see so much better out of this new glass, it’s unbelievable. The old windshield had been chipped and damaged over the last few years, and I guess I didn’t realize how bad it was. I drive down the road and I am able to see everything so much more clearly now.

It’s a lot like my life at the current time, where I believe I am getting a fresh perspective on several elements of my current existence.

For example, I see clearly that:

♥ My health has suffered under the duress of my current work environment. I desperately need time to heal, rest, recharge and recuperate.

♥ I need to take care of my body and soul. This has to be THE priority of my life.

♥ Unemployment wouldn’t be all that bad…well, for a little while at least. I have not really had a break for ages, and even the vacation time I had last summer was quite stress-filled. I would love some time to sit by the pool, walk in the sunshine, read novels, produce some great photographs, and write.

♥ Leaving “my people” behind will be difficult. I have made some significant attachments during the last two years, and now I’ll be going. I am really, really inept at goodbyes, but I will try and do them as gracefully as I possibly can. I know that “love” is a strong word, but there are some of these folks that I have come to love that I must now leave.

♥ As much as I’ve been resisting change, here it comes. I need to embrace it. I have started to do just that by taking a few substantive actions: I have given notice on my house; I have filed for unemployment; I have decided to live in Eugene if I need to be unemployed for a while; and, as a symbol of this new life I am about to start, I even cut my hair. (Way short. My first hairstyle change since 1977.)

♥ As much as I am called to do the work of academic administration, Oregon may not be the place to continue to do this. Or, as much skill and experience as I bring to such work, there are other endeavors that probably suit me as well. [I doubt if I could make a living as an artist at this stage of my life (and I do still have to make a living), but I need to remain unattached as to the outcome of this particular transition.]

♥ I need to soak up the emotional support that I’ve been receiving lately, which has been totally delicious. There are lots of folks in my camp right now, on my side, checking in, expressing their concern and emotional support.

♥ I need to keep breathing and asking the universe: “what’s next?”

It is pretty great to have a new windshield for my life as well!

I went for another job interview today. (Now there’s news!) The location happened to be in the greater metro area, but really, it could have been anyplace. It was a scheduled one-hour session with a screening committee, for a vice presidency position at a community college.

I showed up early to the Human Resources office, only to be informed that the interview was actually located in a totally different part of campus (driving distance away). After attempting to give me directions (although early to show up at HR, I was now going to be late for the interview), one staff member agreed to ride with me and show me where the committee was meeting.

The chair of the committee was standing in the hallway: waiting not only for me, but for a committee member who had disappeared. After a few minutes he announced we were ready. He led me into the room, and I found the “hot seat” easily. Everyone said their name and area, and the chair immediately said “[some name] has the first question” – and she proceeded to read it. No putting the candidate at ease, no explanation of the process, no nothing. Just boom: the first question.

Now, I had spent some serious time today researching this place. They have problems. The faculty in the last week voted “no confidence” in the president. A consulting firm has been doing survey and interview work on campus to prepare a status report for the Board, to be delivered on June 26th. The local newspaper has reported that a very long list of high-level administrators (the names were given, and I know some of them) have left since this president has taken over. A recent editorial identifies him as “controlling, egocentric, power hungry and suspicious.”

OK: so the first question was something about “issues and challenges of faculty.” (Note: they just jumped right into content, there was no obvious question on the list of fifteen actually designed to solicit information about me. It appeared that they had structured quite an academic exercise.) I started by saying that I had hoped to have a dialog with them today. Given the question about “issues and challenges,” I said that I knew the college had them, but I wanted to have a discussion about what was going on there on campus. I stated that I believed they might learn a little bit about what I know in this rigid question/answer format, but not who I am and what I could bring to the college during these troubled times. I was interrupted and informed that they had a process to follow. I said that given the current issues and challenges of the college, I had at least an hour’s worth of questions of them. I was informed that we had 50 minutes total.

I respectfully withdrew my candidacy and drove home.

How do I best say goodbye?

This is the question that tumbles around in my brain as I prepare to convene the faculty and staff of the Science & Technology Division one last time.

Tomorrow afternoon I will gather the group together, do the routine business, then have a little chat with them all about my imminent departure.

I started to get to know everybody on the morning of September 15, 2004, during the first Division meeting I led. During my “introductory message” (that’s what I had listed on the agenda for the meeting), I pretty much gave them the Reader’s Digest version of my biography and how it was that I came to be standing in front of the room that day. I outlined the long and winding road of my life’s path, and I hope it made some sense how a person (me) could have earned degrees in chemistry, counseling, and higher education administration. And, how (weirdly) I had also worked a few years as a professional photographer.

I was hopeful, too, that maybe, just maybe, I was able to communicate that I had enough training, skills and experience to lead this large academic unit (even though I had never done the job before).

At any rate, I wanted to get to know them, starting by having them know me. My initial goal was to build relationships and trust.

Although I have had some up and down times here, my assessment is that I have led the division well. Certainly, last year at this time, when administrator evaluation forms were completed and then tabulated by our research office, just about everybody agreed that I was doing ok. In fact, many were downright enthusiastic about my efforts. I was humbled. Honored. Touched.

So, the time has come to publicly acknowledge that I will be moving on. It will be particularly difficult for me to report, since I don't know where I’ll be moving to. I had been hoping that my departure would be under different circumstances: maybe that I’d taken a position as a vice president someplace. Ah, but such is not the case.

It’s looking increasingly likely that I’ll be unemployed for a time...a state of affairs I had really wanted to avoid!

Maybe I’ll be able to share some more of my personal story. Or maybe not. I don’t know how choked up I might get. Let’s see what happens tomorrow...

Soundtrack Suggestion

Here comes the sun
here comes the sun, and I say
It’s all right

Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it’s all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say it’s all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it’s all right
It’s all right

(“Here Comes the Sun” – George Harrison)

On April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon announced to a national television audience that he was ordering troops into Cambodia. Although the stated purpose of this so-called “incursion” was to hasten an end to the ongoing slaughter in Vietnam, many Americans, myself included, thought this a wholly-unwarranted expansion of the war effort.

I was in the last semester of my undergraduate college days at this time: politically-active and fervently anti-war. I had received a draft notice in June of 1969 and spent 22 days in the Air Force until a chronic knee condition led to a medical discharge. Although I was (because of my discharge) no longer at risk of losing my life to this insane activity, I had spent four long college years with the specter of the military draft – and the prospect of a gruesome, lonely death in a jungle a million miles away from home. For me, the war was personal.

Richard Nixon had been elected, at least in part, on the basis of his “secret plan” to end the war. Yet, here he was, less than two years later, ordering an obvious escalation.

I was pissed. I remember spending the remainder of the evening after Nixon’s speech composing a letter to the editor of my local newspaper. My writing skills were not too finely developed then and my letter was not the most eloquent piece of prose. But what I lacked in style, I hope I made up for in passion: Nixon was wrong. He was a madman. He had to go. The war must end.

Many, many people agreed with me. Unrest on the nation’s campuses, especially, took a dramatic turn. On May 4, 1970, my letter was published in the Eau Claire (WI) Leader-Telegram, the same day that four full-time college students (Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder) at Kent State University were gunned down by Ohio National Guard troops on their own campus. Another nine students (Joseph Lewis, John Cleary, Thomas Grace, Robbie Stamps, Donald Scott MacKenzie, Alan Canfora, Douglas Wrentmore, James Russell and Dean Kahler) were wounded; one was paralyzed for life, the others seriously maimed.

The students of the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire, in the days immediately following the Kent State massacre, rallied. I, for one, picketed the Science building where I had spent the majority of my time as a chemistry student. On May 6th we held a campus-wide protest, gathering on the lawn right outside the student union building. And we planted four trees in memory of the dead in Ohio. The plaque from that memorial service is still there today, as are three of the four original trees.

May 4, 1970, was thirty-six years ago. On this day, today, let us not forget the madness that can afflict us as a nation.

Let us also not forget that we always have a voice. Let’s remember that protest can lead to change. We must know that when we perceive injustice in the world, we can stand, march, shout and be heard. We can make a difference.

Thought for the day: We have the ability to put an end to the killing. All it takes is the will.

Soundtrack Suggestion

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

(“Ohio” – Neil Young)