It's Not All Academic

Same Song, Third Verse

2009-01-25T20:10:00.000-08:00

I've lost 90 pounds. Ok, not all at once, but I have lost 30 pounds three different times. The problem is they have been the same 30 pounds each time. The good news, I guess, is that at age almost-45 I can still drop a significant amount of weight, since I know that gets harder to do as one grows older. The bad news is that I had the weight to lose.

Each time that I have lost weight, I have adopted a healthier diet, exercised regularly, lowered my blood pressure, and improved my self-esteem. One would think I'd want to hang on to those benefits. As good as I feel about my hat trick, I am discouraged that I let the cycle repeat itself another time. And I wish I were more hopeful about not letting it happen again.

I could make a list of lifestyle corrections that have failed to stick over the years. Thankfully, with most of them I have had multiple chances to try again. I have to wonder, though, how much progress I might have made had I not spent so much time retracing my steps.

Stop, Don't Look, and Listen

2009-01-20T11:41:00.000-08:00

Wow. Can it really be since September that I last posted to this blog? Guess I haven't had much to say. In the spirit of today's D.C. festivities, let's call this a re-inauguration of It's Not All Academic.

Leading up to today, much was made about the live online coverage planned for the inauguration. I teach a class from 9:30-10:45 Central and had planned to watch coverage via the Internet in our classroom. In the lobby of our classroom building, I had arranged for a computer and projector to be set up so that students and faculty could watch the event together. Unfortunately, high server traffic resulted in slow, sometimes intermittent video. So, ironically, I found myself listening to President Obama's inaugural address while watching a frozen video image. Although I have never huddled around a radio to hear a presidential address, that was the sense I had as I and a couple dozen others stood there in the lobby.

Luckily, I can go online now and watch the address uninterrupted as many times as I like. Perhaps if that were not the case I would feel differently about my audio-only experience, but there was something positive about having to rely only on my ears. For those few minutes, it did not matter how many millions of people were crowded into the mall, whether the President was wearing a flag lapel pin, or whether Obama looked "presidential." His voice and his words held the moment. My ears were not distracted by my eyes.

I'll leave it to others -- oh, so many others -- to comment on whether President Obama's speech lived up to expectations. For my part, I simply want to say that in the age of YouTube, photo ops, and telegenic campaigns, I am grateful for having been forced to just listen for a few minutes.

"That one always makes me cry ..."

2008-09-07T20:58:00.000-07:00

File this one under, "Who'd have thought I'd ever meet that person?"

Roaming our university's Ozarks Celebration Festival this afternoon I had the great pleasure of meeting and chatting with Mitch Jayne. There are many reasons one might have heard of Mitch Jayne. He is author of several books, his most recent being a novel, Fiddler's Ghost. He is a humor columnist, writing for several Missouri newspapers and magazines. He also is an accomplished musician and a founding member of the influential bluegrass group, The Dillards. Some of you may recall that The Dillards portrayed the fictional Darling family on The Andy Griffith Show in the 1960's. He was the bass player usually sporting a pipe.

I grew up watching Andy Griffith. Well, reruns mostly; I was but a wee lad when the original episodes aired :-) Over the years I've seen every episode many times over, and now both of my kids love the show. (TV Land has done wonders to bridge the generation gap at my house.) I've always loved the episodes featuring the Darlings. Meeting Mr. Jayne and hearing his stories about being on the show and being friends with Andy Griffith connected me to childhood memories in a new and unexpected way.

The Darlings (Dillards) probably were the first bluegrass group I ever heard. Although my parents were from rural Kentucky, I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and didn't run across a lot of traditional music. Well, not traditional bluegrass, anyway; plenty of "traditional" blues and jazz. Over the past few years I've become a fan of bluegrass and traditional music from the Ozarks and Appalachian regions, though I can't claim to be very knowledgeable about it. Who would have thought that someday I'd have the chance to meet one of the people who first introduced me to this music.

What to Expect When They're Expecting

2008-09-02T19:13:00.000-07:00

People are buzzing this week about Bristol Palin, the pregnant 17-year old daughter of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. By and large I have been pleased by how people of both parties have reacted to the revelation. I agree with what I've heard most people say, that it's a family matter that has nothing to do with Sarah Palin's qualifications or electability. Two things I read today, however, have bothered me greatly.

The first was a quote appearing in today's (September 2) USA Today: "'As long as they're going to get married, I don't have a problem with it,' said Chuck Yob, a longtime Michigan party leader." The second was news that the father and fiance, Levi Johnston, will join the Palin family at this week's Republican convention.

"As long as they're going to get married, I don't have a problem with it." Would Mr. Yob be equally pleased if Miss Palin put her baby up for adoption? Or with a decison to keep the baby but defer any decison about marriage? I hope so. I hope that he and others would not say that the only acceptably redeeming choice in this situation is for two teenagers to get married. (I have read also that Bristol and Levi were planning to wed even before learning she was pregnant, but who knows?) If my teenage daughter were to come to me with news that she was pregnant, whether she was planning to marry the father would be way, way down on my list of concerns. A marriage does not make a family. "Legitimacy" does not provide a home. And a lifetime commitment does not guarantee a lifetime of commitment.

Levi's mother has been quoted as saying that there has been no pressure for the teens to marry. I hope not. But the decision to put the young couple in the public eye at the Republican convention certainly would seem to add to the pressure. If the Palin's personal family situation is not politically relevant, then why expose the teens to the national media spotlight?

A 17-year old young woman became pregnant, not generally something most of us would advise even if she thought she was ready to get married. I applaud the Palin's for being a family in which their daughter would come to her parents openly with this news and be received with warmth and love. I further applaud them for not treating their daughter as a cause for shame. But I hope I don't hear a lot more about Bristol and Palin. If only that would actually be the case.

Getting Into It

2008-08-24T17:21:00.000-07:00

It’s no surprise to anyone that college is a time when young people question and test the moral values and religious beliefs of their upbringings. This week my university’s news office put out an article on the subject, featuring comments by someone who is both a campus minister and an instructor in our Religious Studies Department. The article prompted a protracted discussion among several faculty on a campus listserve, and I found the content and tone of the discussion discouraging.

The discussion began with observations by a couple of faculty that the story was inappropriate coming from a state institution. To them, it appeared that the university was pandering to a particular constituency, reassuring Christian fundamentalist families that the university would not threaten their children’s belief system. To my reading of the article, it seems clear to me that this was not the message, but the listserve discussion broadened to include concerns about closed-minded students, the irrationality of certain (or all) religious beliefs, and why a public university should have anything to say about religion.

As a professor I have had relatively few experiences where a student’s religious or political convictions interfered with my ability to conduct a classroom or my students’ learning, though I am sure I have colleagues who have run into more difficulties. And, frankly, as a communication professor I am more likely to view such situations as learning opportunities rather than obstacles, given my subject matter. Indifference worries me more than difference. Still, what I read in the comments of several colleagues this week reflected their deep frustration with others who hold beliefs that seem incomprehensible and a condescension toward those with religious convictions.

The article under discussion this week cited national surveys showing that as many as 80% of college-bound high school students report being actively or somewhat actively involved in religious activities. Similar to other surveys showing that Americans overwhelmingly identify themselves as “Christian,” people view the implications of these numbers differently. Secularists may lament the dominant role of Christianity, while religious conservatives point to the data as evidence that we are, indeed, a Christian nation. Both reactions obscure the incredible diversity that is hidden beneath the reports of affiliation.

How difficult it seems for people with deep convictions of any type to truly converse with people who hold different convictions. I must confess that I chose not to chime in on the listserve conversation this week, mostly because I just didn’t want to “get into it.” That attitude probably is no more productive than the intolerance and prejudice that upsets me.

This post is not about Michael Phelps

2008-08-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

This morning’s sermon has had me thinking (surely that was the point!). Don’t worry, I’m not going to preach, only reflect …

The Gospel text was John 5:1-7, the story of a paralytic man healed by Jesus. Seems there was a pool where the sick and lame would gather because, according to tradition, an angel would stir the water and give it healing powers. Jesus encounters a man who has been lying by the pool for 38 years and never has been the first one in (we’re not told whether others have been healed during that time, only that he’s never been quick enough to be the first one in the pool).

Jesus asks the man what seems to be, well, no disrespect intended, a dumb question: “Do you want to be healed?” I would have been tempted to respond sarcastically, “Nah, Jesus, I just come here to make fun of all the healthy people.” If not a dumb question, maybe it was a taunt: “Come on, lazy! 38 years? You must not be trying very hard.” I tend to believe that Jesus was neither dumb nor cruel, and that perhaps his meaning was as simple as, “Are you ready?” Maybe after 38 years the man had decided his day would never come. Maybe it had been years since anyone had even claimed to be healed by dipping in the pool, and he only came there out of habit rather than hope.

Our associate pastor, Melissa, made the excellent point that the man’s life was going to change dramatically if he were healed. Was he ready to work instead of beg for a living? Was he ready to forgive all the people over 38 years who had never helped him to be first in the pool? Was he ready for his world to change?

So, I’ve been thinking about all the ways I have thought I would like for my life to change.
· Materialistic: “I wish I had a new car.”
· Egoistic: “I wish I was more important.”
· Ambitious: “I wish headhunters had me on their call lists.”
· Spiritual: “I wish I was a better person.”
But am I really ready for any of those things to happen? Do I want to spend the energy and money to maintain a new car? Am I ready to accept the responsibility of people counting on me because they think I’m important?

My point is not that change is bad, or that change and growth are demanding. I don’t really need a new car and I like my current job. But how many areas of good change are there that I say I want, but really don’t believe will happen and therefore am not really ready for?

Courage in Profiles

2008-08-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

I try not to think too much about how much personal information I have allowed various internet entities to collect and store. "Cookies" seems such an innocuous term to describe the digital fingerprints I leave for myriad merchants and miscreants to trace my movements. The flip side, of course, is all the information that I deliberately put out there, hoping someone will find it interesting. (Despair.com has a great t-shirt that reads, "More people have read this t-shirt than your blog." Humbling, but true for most of us.)

As atomized as my identity is in the world of online marketing, the universe of Facebook and My Space demands that I reassemble the often disparate parts into one whole. My Facebook "friends" include the full range of my relationships, from work colleagues to former classmates to my teenage daughter and even a few of her friends, but I only have one profile that I use to interact with all of these people. My online presence is multifaceted, but there isn't any facet that is hidden from any particular segment of my audience.

Maybe I am more attentive to this phenomenon than are others. Many teenagers, not surprisingly, are most concerned with their relationships to other teens. The extent of their attending to other friend groups may be in self-censoring content they'd prefer Mom and Dad not see.

Friends aren't just segmented by age, though. There are "work friends" and "church friends," for example; close friends and former students; siblings and children. While some of these people might never cross paths IRL, my Facebook connections invite me to interact with all of them in the same space.

This blog is one attempt to overcome the compartmentalization of the personal and professional in my life. The title, It's Not All Academic, signifies several ideas:

Being "an academic" is not all that I'm about.
Although I tend to be comfortable living in my head, my beliefs and ideas need to find their expression in action.
The ideas and ideals that inspire me most, particularly those regarding the role of communication in society, are both the subject of academic study and the basis of practical solutions.

So, thanks for reading, both of you. And if you're on Facebook, send me a friend invitation.