The Odd Couple: Back to School

RST: Gordon, this will be the second year since the beginning of time that you don’t have to prepare for the academic year to start. I can imagine last fall was even harder for you after leaving the presidency in July. Was it?

EGG: Rachel, I truly miss the energy of the beginning of school. And not being able to plug into that energy after so many years has been a challenge. From my perch, the unusual rhythm of the university is one of its most endearing qualities.

RST: Well, of the school year in general. So much of our lives—first as children, then as parents, then as academics and staff members who never left college—march to the beat of the academic calendar. The start of school usually feels more like the beginning of the year than Jan. 1. Are you a bit lost as fall approaches, or are you too busy working for me to notice?

EGG: You are a taskmaster. Thank goodness that we are in different time zones and I have a few hours of peace in the mornings before you start irritating me.😘🤓 I actually feel quite at sea this year without the energy of students and assortments of their family members helping them move into the residence halls. At WVU, and to a certain extent at OSU, many of these students were first-generation college, and it was such a great moment to witness the pride of the family as their student joined the ranks. Rachel, I have always felt that universities are an amalgamation of stories but on occasion are also spiritual experiences.

RST: Dude! That sentiment is shared by many of us who chose to work at colleges and universities. We are a cult of true believers. I was talking to the former president of a major university who is back on faculty and working hard to create syllabi. Like that person, I never learned the trick of just teaching the same material, so I have always prepared by reading new books I want to talk about with my classes. Since I’ll be on sabbatical this fall, I’m afraid my brain has gotten mushy over the summer.

EGG: Mush, smush! We all need time to refresh. As much as I enjoy the rhythm of the university, what people outside of the institution do not realize is that once school is up and running, it is very intense for both students and faculty. And, if you are a productive faculty member, you are always creating new ways to teach your students and making certain that your material is fresh. No possibility to stand up in front of the class and read some old, yellowed pages that you prepared when you were a new faculty member. The challenge of AI alone makes that form of old-school teaching impossible. Indeed, the challenge of AI is going to fundamentally reform both the learning and financial structures of universities.

RST: Yes, and how? I’m wary of people making predictions. My own mantra these days is “I don’t know.”

EGG: I am not predicting because I have learned the lesson of the cellphone. When my friend Alexander Graham Bell and I were in school, he would talk nonsense about communicating long distance with live voices. Now my iPhone 16 has more computing power than the big Sperry boxes that existed when I first became a president. Lesson: Technology is going to advance, and we can fight and flee or listen, learn and lean in.

RST: Agreed. Though the rhythm of the school year seems etched in marble, these days the pace of change is electrifying. Not long ago people were saying we just need to ban AI in all forms. That train left the station almost immediately after pulling in. I find it fascinating to hear how different people are approaching the uses and abuses of the bots. And it’s really making us think hard about what and how we teach, which I love. And also, to be honest, find a bit scary. How do I learn new tricks as a faculty member?

EGG: That is what makes university life so exciting. As leaders, we have to learn to reinvent ourselves to meet the moment. And faculty face the same challenges, which means you are going to have to deal with the new student culture and accept that they learn differently. We are not producing cars or widgets, but rather influencing intellect and character.

RST: In conversations that can get politically charged, I think there’s an important component of what we do that gets missed. We’re not indoctrinating students to be “woke.” Rather, we are instilling values that go to character: being responsible to others, reckoning with difference, approaching new ways of thinking. It’s unfashionable to talk about character, but that seems essential to me. I like to say that regional comprehensive public universities are in the business of democracy: creating informed citizens.

EGG: Discussion for another day. But suffice it to say that bringing character back into the classroom discussions and weaving those discussions into the fabric of the university is essential in order to create trust among all of our various audiences.

RST: OK, moving along, tell me some of the things that you, as president, thought about at the beginning of each academic year.

EGG: My most important concern focused on getting our new students, both graduate and undergraduate, acclimated to our university. I am a strong believer in having a robust orientation program. Too many institutions bring students in, get them situated in their residence halls, have a picnic and send them into battle. We need to influence our new students to understand the values and expectations of our university.

RST: Yep. For so many of my students who are first-gen college, we need to teach them how to do college. The hidden curriculum is real. Too late in my teaching career, I learned that students don’t come to office hours because they think those are only for people who need extra help or are in trouble. We tend to take the strangeness of what we do for granted.

EGG: We need to make certain that they have a comfortable start—not a coddled start—but informative and stimulating. I also believe that you should not have the ability as a freshman—

RST: I think you mean “first-year student,” old guy.

EGG: —to join any social groups during your first semester. How can one make a decision about where they want to spend out-of-class time when they are just newly situated in the university?

RST: With all the concern about the value of higher ed and how it relates to workforce issues, I think we need to do something else. From the moment students get to campus, we need to stress that we are preparing them to become good citizens with the ability to think critically, and we want them to be able to find meaningful work. I think we should embed career readiness—and by that I don’t mean “skills,” but attitude—from the first few hours. When I researched my last book to help recent grads get jobs, employers all told me the same thing: They want applicants who are humble, hungry and smart. All the way through college, we tell students everything is about them and what they want. That’s great. But it’s not going to get them hired. At the start of each course, like many faculty members, I talk to students about how to email a professor. We need to teach them habits of mind that will help them get what they want.

EGG: As concerned as I am about student acclimation, I am equally concerned about new, first-time faculty. I believe it is critical for new members of our teaching community to understand both the vision and values of the institution. I want faculty to not feel that they have a job but rather that they are part of a cause.

RST: This is something I keep coming back to. When we talk about faculty, we tend to treat them as a group. In fact, as I’ve said many times, it’s really just the Angry Eight who are in the “whatever it is, I’m against it” camp. The vast majority are not complaining or protesting but keeping their heads down, serving their students and doing work they love. I believe most faculty feel a calling toward their disciplines and academic life. Same goes for staff, who are often left out of the conversations but whose work is just as essential to education as what goes on in the classroom.

EGG: I agree. Most people are doing their work and do not find time to engage in academic politics. We need to acknowledge that all voices are needed in order to make the university a welcoming environment and to drown out the Angry Eight, as you call them. Bullies should be ostracized.

RST: But no one thinks of themselves as a bully. (Except me, as you keep reminding us.) We’re going to be hitting the road and talking to boards this fall. I asked one of the presidents who invited us what he wants us to address. It came down to “help them understand the weirdness of higher ed.” I’m going to suggest he gets copies of Stoner for his board members. I’ve been recommending that beautiful, heartbreaking novel to folks for years. (I made you read it before we started this column.) Even six decades after publication, it’s still a good introduction for nonacademics to our wacky ways.

EGG: As you know, Rachel, I have had the privilege of being on a number of public corporate boards.

RST: Yes, I know. And you got to sit next to Dolly Parton on one of them. Still waiting for an introduction to that national treasure.

EGG: Amazing people making the commerce of this nation work and work well. But when members started quizzing me and I tried to explain to them how universities function, often their eyes glazed over, accompanied by a good dose of pity. A titan of industry actually said to me that it sounds like I am running an insane asylum. So, the answer is that we in higher education are operating on Mars and most of the rest of the country is operating on Venus. And that is the cause of a lot of the distrust and misinformation in which we are mired. I agree, by the way, that Stoner is a good primer.

RST: I came back from my trip to Italy with a bunch of Catholics thinking a lot about the word “vocation.” I am on a mission to reclaim that from both the trades and the religious and use it in higher ed. I want to instill in my students the desire to figure out what calls to them. I mean, it’s hard because you don’t know what you don’t know, but shouldn’t that be one of the goals of education—to learn what makes your own life feel meaningful?

EGG: Well said!

RST: I’m sure I could say it better if I didn’t have mush brain. I think I’m going to miss school this fall.