In Medias Res # 6- Ideological Warriors

I finished a great book last night. It’s called God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America. The author, a reporter for the Washington Post, spent a couple of years shadowing a group of students at Patrick Henry College (PHC). PHC is a small Evangelical Christian Liberal Arts college. The book gives an overview of the institution’s founding, and then through alternating chapters share the student’s stories. I couldn’t help but think two things: 1) this would make a great dissertation topic, 2) higher education needs to do a better job of communicating what it does and why to people outside of higher ed. Most of the individuals we would consider student services professionals have no student services background. Granted, that in no way means they can't do the job. I know plenty of great practitoners without a traditional student affairs background. But at Patrick Henry the role of student services is parochial and it therefore becomes much more difficult to balance the needs of student development with the goal of Biblical education. I don't think the two are incompatible. Rather that in taking a liberal arts model of education Patrick Henry is undoubtedly leading itself down the road to uncomfortable compromise, and without individuals who have really engaged deeply with thinking about the mission, goals, and methods of liberal arts education they are making the task even more difficult of themselves.

The book ends with the school divided over direction: Is the goal to promote a classical liberal arts education that asks students to develop critical faculties through intellectual exploration or, is the goal to create Christian warriors who view reading Plato and Kant as opposition research? A number of faculty leave because the decision comes down that the school will be the latter. What really struck me about the students’ stories was how powerful the urge to learn and grow can be. Even in this hot house environment where everyone’s behavior is closely observed and scrutinized, students persist in developing whole authentic independent identities. Pretty cool.

Of course, most of the individuals in the book remain pretty hardcore ideologues. I was therefore surprised to hear that Patrick Henry was not putting on an Islamo-Fascism week when the internet and our office started buzzing about the event.. Now there’s a couple of things about this proposed week that bother me, not least of which is the involvement of David Horrowitz who I think would be happy to see the vast majority of the individuals at my institution fired. I’m sure he’d be happy to do away with Multicultural Affairs. What immediately bothers me about the whole thing is the rhetoric. Are not oppressive Islamic states theocracies? Has Fascism become a catch all for any sort of oppressive governmental structure that is anti-democratic?

I know this blog is supposed to be about my first year in the field, but damn if I haven’t been thinking about this programming week a lot lately. It doesn’t seem to be happening on our campus. I have heard rumblings, but generally if our students haven’t gotten their act together yet they aren’t going to. As a professional, though, I am torn in how I would respond to this if I was forced to.

On the one hand, I believe in the value of Free Speech and a public forum for students to try out ideas. I also recognize the marginalizing effect that such a program can have on a variety of student populations, and the corrosive influence that a debate which is not a dialogue (a distinction that I’ll get to in a second) can have on the campus climate.

When our students engage in dialogue about an issue, I find that generally while consensus might not emerge they are much better about creating a tenor of conversation that is respectful and considerate than individuals outside the institution. This is one of the great things about higher education that our critics may deny, but they would be wrong. At good institutions we are capable of fostering honest, open, and factual debate. In cases like the above program where the framing from the start is oppositional to collaboration and conversation (and let’s not kid ourselves, whatever you believe Islamo-Fascism as a rhetorical gesture frames your programming as oppositional) the tenor of the conversation has been decided before its begun. This is not a conversation or even a debate so much as a broadside.

Here is what I would challenge my students to do were they to come to me with the desire to replicate the proposed programs:
• Invite people with differing perspectives. Not only does this promote conversation, it also makes the program more interesting. Who wants to sit and listen to people passively agree?
• Think outside the box. One of the programs is a vigil for victims of Islamic terrorism. What about a vigil for all victims of terrorism? What about a day of reflection about the consequences of violence?

At the end of the day I have a feeling that we won’t see much in the way of Islamo-Fascism week on our campus. I would welcome it, if its going to add to the campus conversation, and spur student engagement. I just hope that if our students do attempt something like this they do it in a way that reflects the campus and not David Horrowitz’s the misguided notion of Higher Education.