Living in the Land of Both/And
Like many of you I imagine, I am uneasy with lines of thought that force either/or bifurcations. The world seems much too complex and poetic for the answers to be neatly divided into mutually exclusive categories. At minimum there usually is a third option -- my children always seemed to come up with at least one alternative to the forced choice options I gave them. Even more interesting are the many times when the answers are both/and. 
Openness to both/and answers does not mean refusing to make distinctions or value judgments. (I came across one blogger who suggests adopting a perspective of both/but, which I find an interesting idea.) Just because two seemingly contradictory ideas can be true doesn't mean they must be, and certainly they don't have to be equally so. My sense is that a both/and orientation characterizes much of what we do and teach in our college. Living with necessary contradictions is something we are used to, and it is a mindset that serves us well in this period of organizational change at the university.
Tradition and Innovation
Students must understand and master the knowledge and forms of creativity that have preceded them; yet we would consider their accomplishments incomplete if they stopped at mastering tradition and brought nothing new into the world.
Intellect and Spirit
Modernity often asked people to choose between reason and emotion, empiricism and intuition, logic and spirituality; but more than ever people are unwilling to accept the choice. British theologian N.T. Wright uses the analogy of a government that paves over all of its country's natural springs so that it can control and make predictable the water supply, only to have the springs erupt and make a mess of the neatly engineered plans. Our disciplines embrace the messy complexity of human nature and expression.
Expressiveness and Receptivity
Our purpose is to help students find their voices, to plumb their own depths and find the courage and tools to join in the human chorus. But we also teach them to listen, with openness and discernment, to the many other voices that comprise that chorus.
Past and Future
The present is the piece of paper that holds the words of page 18 on one side and those of page 19 on the other. The present is the page we turn to find out what happens next, and it lasts for us only as long as we pause in the turning. Sometimes we pause long, lingering over what we have read, reflecting, analyzing, reviewing, so that our minds are clear and focused for the story's continuation. Sometimes we pause, perhaps only briefly, simply to savor what we have just experienced. But most often, life is a page-turner, and we can't wait to bring the future into the present, only to just as quickly turn the next page and send it into the past.
As a university we find the distance separating past and future equally paper thin. We are participating in significant changes. Our students are becoming more talented. Our faculty is graying. We continue the transition from regional institution to truly comprehensive university, including more ambitious expectations for scholarship and external suppo
rt. Yet there is much in our past to be celebrated and brought forward into our future. As a department head and now as dean I frequently interact with alumni, and whether they graduated in 1955 or 2005 they all describe wonderful teachers and staff who had a singular impact on their lives. Thousands of our students have been the first in their families to attend college. Even today students describe Missouri State as a large university with a small campus feel. These are elements that we must not abandon as we craft our future.
Perhaps this is where my page-turning analogy breaks down (as break down all analogies eventually do, I suppose). Perhaps rather than turning the pages of a book we should think of our passing through time more as telling a story to an audience whose members continually ask us to repeat certain enthralling passages, and whose responses and expectations shape our invention of the story as we tell it. And as our story progresses we employ recurring themes that surface over and again, making each new turn in the tale both familiar and strange at the same time. Best of all, we tell not one story, but a whole library of stories. Those who follow after us, some who have grown up with the stories and others who join them in progress, pick up the telling and retelling, the elaboration and the invention, like a grand oral history.
So it can't be past OR future; it must be past AND future, and the present is in the telling.
We are Missouri State University and Springfield Normal School; a community of teachers and a comprehensive university; a servant to our region and an emerging national university; an institution with a rich history and a university that is reinventing itself. I invite you to join me in telling the complicated story of who we are and who we are becoming.
Be a Part of the "Freshman Experience"
Some significant changes are afoot for the university's efforts with first-year students. Among these changes is a redesign of the freshman course, IDS 110/UHC 110. While a comprehensive review of the course is underway right now, intermediate plans for 2008-09 are to loosen many of the restrictions on how the course is taught and give instructors more flexibility in tailoring the course to their own expertise and interests. The approach for IDS 110 will be more like what we have seen in UHC 110, where teachers identify a topic/theme for their class and the class has more of an academic discussion atmosphere.
I will be teaching IDS 110 this fall, and I hope many of you will join me. I very much would like to involve as many COAL faculty and staff who are interested in discussions about how we might approach IDS 110 from the liberal arts perspective of our college. Soon you will be seeing information about how to apply to teach IDS 110/UHC 110. When you do I hope you will do two things: (1) give serious thought to signing up for the fall, and (2) drop me an email so that I can put you on my list of people to invite to our discussion. Even if you don't want to teach IDS 110 this fall, but you are interested in how the college could shape a really fantastic freshman course, I would love to have your input.
More News and Information
Congratulations to associate professor of violin David Hayes, whom the Missouri String Teacher Association has selected as its 2008 Collegiate Educator of the Year. Congratulations also to Center for Dispute Resolution associate director Heather Blades, who received one of six Staff Excellence in University Service Awards presented at the staff luncheon earlier this month. Please see the Updates Page for other kudos and important COAL information shared by email earlier this week.