I’m going to ask my readers for a favor.
I’ve written before about my experience with women’s and gender studies courses in college and grad school. The short version is that they proved useless in getting jobs, but incredibly helpful in doing jobs. They forced me to look at things from other points of view and to consider how an idea or practice can look very different depending on your social location. That’s useful in administration. They also forced me to learn not to take structural critiques personally. Learning not to be personally offended when someone mentions male privilege comes in handy when someone angrily starts a sentence with “The administration …” If the point of a liberal arts education is to equip people to be citizens in a democracy—which I maintain it is—then they’re exemplary liberal arts classes.
I’m going to ask my wise and worldly readers of a certain age to make the same move here. A book about gerontocracy—the rule of the oldest—makes a structural argument, rather than a personal one. “But I’m one of the good ones!” is not a helpful response. A structural argument should be judged on structural terms, rather than dismissed summarily out of personal pique.
Auburn Board Takes Curricular Control, Dissolves Senate
