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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday August 27, 2001 Volume III Number 35 |
FOCUS - University
Dr. Jay Kesler, college president for over fifteen years and currently the University’s Chancellor, frequently attended obligatory forums for college and university Presidents during his tenure. These were motivational gatherings for focus on common concerns and communication and comradeship at a high level of academic leadership. Sometimes these meetings were strategic and poignant and riveting. More often, they were an utter waste of time, according to Jay.
Dr. Kesler, president of a Christian university, would sometimes meet with Presidents of fellow Christian colleges. At other times, in other places, he found himself in a conference room with the broader spectrum of American universities represented, with no particular religious connection at all. And in this context in spite of vast differences in philosophy and perspective, Jay developed lasting friendships with some interesting people.
One conversation stuck with him.
He sat beside the President of a major state university located not far away from his own. Jay’s campus grew considerably under his watch, but remained a “small college” with several thousand undergraduate students. As Jay tells the story, “this guy had far more people on his maintenance staff than I had faculty.”
“I know all about your campus, Dr. Kesler,” opened the presidential colleague in the next high back chair. He lowered his voice. This was a private conversation. “You have a long history and fine reputation in our state. In fact years ago our law school was established by some of your graduates. Even today, some of my best faculty comes from your campus.” Jay felt affirmed. “And I gotta tell you, Jay,” he paused to gather his thoughts. “I’ve always been jealous of you.”
“Really?” Jay responded. “How so?” It was a moment of rare candor.
“You see, Jay, we are both presidents of a university. But you, and I suppose you’ll understand this completely, you’ve still got the ‘uni’ over there on your campus. All I’ve got is ‘versity.’ We lost the ‘uni’ a long time ago. All I’ve got are warring factions with nothing to hold them together. There is no unifying focus. Our people aren’t even interested in the ‘uni’ side of the equation. It’s a rag-tag collection of independents who only believe only one thing: that their cause is primary. It’s a perpetual battle over budgets and floor space and power to set agendas. I’m not the president of an academic institution anymore, I’m a labor negotiator.”
Jay smiled knowingly and nodded his appreciation. He knew he just heard something profound.
The president concluded, then sat upright and punctuated his point by tightening up his lips, raising his eyebrows and nodding back to his friend Jay, “I want the ‘uni’ back, but I don’t know how to get it.”
* * * * * * * *
American history traces the theme of this paradox – the ‘uni’ versus the ‘versity.’
“E pluribus unum” is the Latin
phrase that graces our national seal, printed in bold type just above the
widespread wings of the bald eagle. The
committee that approved the symbol included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and
Thomas Jefferson. The year: 1782. They were moved by the thought that among the many, there is
one. While we are a diverse
people, we are unified by certain values and commitments and shared beliefs.
Throughout our relatively brief history, just over a couple hundred years, those beliefs have indeed united us to accomplish remarkable things.
It started with the Declaration of Independence from British domination. That freedom was hard won. We generally think of the succession of wars and battles as milestones in the development of our history as a nation. Certainly this is a legitimate measure of the growth of a nation. But “e pluribus unum” involves much more than conquest on the field of battle. The construction of great cities, the intricate systems of communication and transportation, the great educational institutions and advances in medicine and health care, the industrialization and mechanization that produce the machinery and efficiencies of modern life, the staggering produce of agriculture and the control and distribution of water and power supplies the sanitary elimination of waste all in the context of ecological balance. The achievements are mind bending. The one in the many. Cooperation. Collaboration. Joining forces and resources under a common cause. Magic happens.
We live with paradox. Contradiction. Think about it. If you are to be entirely consistent, you can’t have “e pluribus unum.” It’s one or the other. It can not be both. Either you are diverse, or you are one. If you are one, you are not diverse. If you are diverse, you are not one. The two are mutually exclusive.
It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who pointed out that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” If you press pure logic hard enough, e pluribus unum vanishes in a puff of systematic smoke.
This is not to argue for inconsistency or self-contradiction.
It is, rather, simply to point out that there are some ideas that when set together, side by side, appear to be contradictory but in the juxtaposition contain a certain magic. A certain element of mystery. Together, they elicit a sense of wonder. They evoke a feeling of awe. Inspiration. And while they defy logic, they express a profound level of truth. They are reality.
E pluribus unum.
There it is.
A diverse people. Who would otherwise be adversaries; filled with prejudices, biases, natural fears, mutual disdain. Instead, they find something in common. Something unifying. They see beyond differences and join hands and bind hearts to create something noble and good and, really, unimaginable.
Together.
* * * * * * *
What’s happened to our national unity? Can we get it back? Will it ever be recovered?
Is it enough to share economic goals? Does the collective and universal desire for a “better life” give us what we need to be drawn together to a common purpose? Or does it involve something more than peaceful co-existence? Something more than opportunity for upward mobility?
Will someone make the case? Will there be a voice to articulate the “unum” in e pluribus unum? The “uni” in university?
* * * * * * *
My friend Steve, in a public speech, described the most difficult year in his life. He’s approaching fifty now. But his worst year on record, he says, was his freshman year in college.
He was a young first year student at the university: seventeen years old. He turned eighteen during that tumultuous year. He said it was a terrible year because of an acute identity crisis. When he left home, he determined that he would excel. Six months into the school year, he suffered a debilitating emotional, physical and spiritual exhaustion. The kind of tired that hurts. The kind of fatigue that invites illness. He admitted that just talking about it again brought back some of the pain.
At the university, he found himself playing bittersweet contradictory roles for the first time in his young life. He grew up on the ranch – a cowboy. So in college, he exploited his freedom, and spent weekends riding rodeos; tight jeans and pointy boots and a shaped black felt hat with a broad brim. He made the football team; so all week long, he pumped iron, ran sprints, and suited up for freshman ball hittin’ the gridiron for more rock ‘em sock ‘em action with his pals on the squad. He had an academic scholarship; so he hit the books hard conforming to the expectations laid out by a new level of professor. He read books and wrote papers and worked to answer questions in the best manner possible, going for the grades that would insure the continuation of the scholarship that made this education possible. His roommate, a bright Jewish kid with an independent streak who liked to smoke dope, read on-the-edge philosophy books and indulge in radical non-conformist thought and listen to counter-culture rock and roll and ingest insurrectionist, underground newspapers, challenged Steve, the conformist cowboy jock, to get a life and liberate himself from the lofty and destructive expectations of capitalism and well, kick back. That was then. Now we’d say, “chill.”
Steve said that at age seventeen, about six months into this routine of contradictions, trying to please his profs, his coaches, his cowboy buddies, his roommate, and then a girlfriend who called herself a “born again Christian,” well, he just about came apart. There was no way under God’s blue sky that he could maintain his high expectations in each of these diverse worlds. It made him weary. Defeated. Tired. Motivation left him like a commuter train pulls away from the station without regard for latecomers. Or ticketless, penniless, indecisive wannabes who can’t make up their mind and decide when and where they are going.
Steve had plenty of “versity.” But no “uni.”
Plenty of pluribus. But no unum.
It just about killed him.
* * * * * * * *
In the past few weeks, I’ve had long talks with to two close friends, both of whom I hold in high esteem, who are dads. Good dads. And both of them have sons somewhere around Steve’s age at the time of his self-described identity crisis - going through that passage from teenage years to twenty-something. From post-adolescence to young adult.
And both sons have shown all the symptoms of Steve’s identity crisis. Both boys are bright. Capable. Brimming with potential. Likeable. Surrounded by advantage.
And both are lost. They just can’t seem to find their way.
So are the dads. They are lost, too. Left searching for some connection; someway to be a dad again. To somehow point the way. Inspire direction. A hope for a future that’s bright, and possible, and worth pursuing.
And the pain is real.
Most recently, both dads hold on to a hope that’s just as real as the pain. They love their boys.
* * * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
There’s no shortage of diversity in our world. No shortage of chaos. No shortage of conflict. No shortage of competing interests.
Leaders, effective leaders, specialize in “uni.” Leaders bring the diverse people together, and articulate a common cause.
Ben Franklin and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were great leaders because they articulated and communicated the common cause. The individual states, the citizens from the various nations, all came together under the banner of the stars and stripes because a leader cast the vision, and inspired unity.
You are a leader. That’s your job, too. People need this kinds of leadership. Without it, they are as lost as my friend Steve when he was seventeen years old.
You need that unifying voice in your business. Your campus needs it. Your church needs it. Your family needs it, too. And, perhaps most important of all, you need a center. You need that unifying factor in your life if you are going to have it to give away to others.
There is a place where you can find it. If you haven’t looked, I suggest you do.
Let’s bring back university. E puribus unum.
We can start today. Monday morning.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2001
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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