University Follies (eBook)

Jewish Roots in a Jesuit University

Paul Warren (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
322 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-4353-5 (ISBN)

Improbable appointment as a dean in a Jesuit university in San Francisco after Greenwich Village childhood, NYC teaching and years as dean in a secular Boston university sets the stage for an often humorous and sometimes painful memoir of a dean's journey that ends in 'The City.' Developed from a log kept over thirteen years as dean in San Francisco, Follies is a story of memories and life in a Jesuit university and in the Bay Area seen through the eyes of a dean who carries a residue of Catholic prejudice left by his youth and whose religious life has been limited to textbook teachings. Follies is tale of discovery, frustration and reward as the new dean seeks to realize program goals in his new Jesuit world buffeted by president, professor and student strivings and fears - and outright foolishness. Follies is a tale of day-to-day human strivings, frailties, humor and pain in a human institution in a vibrant city.

Childhood in a liberal, American Labor Party supporting, Greenwich Village family with an actress mother didn't portend an educational and professional path that would pass through Princeton University, three years of New York City public high school teaching, and a Ph.D. from New York University as prelude to forty years of professor and academic dean positions in Boston and San Francisco culminating as management in a Jesuit university. Positions as professor, Assistant Dean and Director of Graduate Studies, and Associate Dean for Research and Development in Boston led to the author's appointment as Dean of the Boston University, School of Education by President John R. Silber in 1981. Boston assignments were marked by a significant increase in federal grants for projects to support underserved urban, largely minority populations and the introduction of School academic programs to support critical, understaffed professional fields. The Dynamics of Funding, a comprehensive socio-political analysis of federal and state project funding and program development published in 1980 built on experience as co-director of a Roxbury and University based teacher development program for Roxbury paraprofessionals and years as Associate Dean for Research and Development. Boston University years were complemented by six years on the Marblehead School Committee, including chairmanship for three, and membership on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Responsive Education, among the first university programs to facilitate parent involvement in urban schools. After seven years as dean, differences with the Boston University President led the author to seek a leadership position at another institution. Serendipity contributed to the unpredictable appointment in 1989 as Dean at the Jesuit University of San Francisco, School of Education. Service as Dean in San Francisco for 13 years provided the opportunity to initiate collaboration programs with Teach for America, a federally funded Americorps Program and a Teaching for Social Justice Institute directed by nationally recognized activist educator, Herb Kohl. University initiatives were complemented by consultancy to the San Francisco School Department on Lowell (Exam School) admissions policy and membership in the Association of Jesuit Schools and Colleges (AJCU), including Chair of the AJCU Teacher Education Conference for two years. After forty years as a member of a university community in 2002, it was time to retire and return to New England. Life with presidents, priests, deans and students for thirteen years in San Francisco provided a wealth of experience that permitted the author to capture the human dimension of university life in University Follies.

Follies is a tale of sea change; A Boston dean's move from East coast to West coast ; from Greenwich Village childhood in an American Labor Party, theatrical, professional and religous skeptical family , to culmination of a career as Managment in a Jesuit university, Following a fall-out with Boston University administration, a Dean's Search Announcement in a professional chronicle provides an opportunity for a brief escape from Boston winter. Youth memories of family political anger at the Catholic Church set aside, university visits evolve to the unplanned and unlikely invitation to serve as dean once again. After many conversations with my Jewish wife, the decision is made to trade in my uncertain Boston professional future for visit to a city we both love. There was no clue that in less than a month on the job as new dean my mission to foster change would be distracted by a Marx Brothers-like performance of a trio of professors, casualties of Labor-Management battles storming into my office; a Sister extolling the sexual appeal of 'Father what-a-waste' when I sought to enforce class size limits for his class, and shower confessions of a naked University president who earlier had shared concern over Christmas tree condom ornaments in the School of Education, almost a year ago in now - my School. On sharing my unsettling first San Francisco month with the President standing buck-naked next to me in the University Health Center shower in the new University Health Center and indicating I was tempted to keep a log he garbled, "e; Tell it as you see it."e; Follies tells it as I saw it. Personal tales of Greenwich Village days, McCarthy years' impact on our family, departure from Boston University complement humorous and poignant tales of Jesuit priests provide an added dimension to events as the dean seeks to adjust to his new environment and simultaneously overcome School resistance to change. Tension between faculty union and management plays out, celebrations and grievance over promotion and tenure decisions reverberate, celebrations of faculty accomplishment and pain of disappointment affect School climate. Camaraderie of deans and personalities of presidents shape the social climate and the majesty of special events is celebrated as the memoir unfolds. On the decision to retire as the dean realizes role of Sisyphus can't be played forever, the dean is reminded by the Provost at his Management , as opposed to the earlier faculty or Labor dinner, the good he has accomplished is irremediable. He is not as certain as he and wife decide to return to New England comforted in the knowledge their time in San Francisco was well worth the trip.

One

So It Began

It was in a dark, smoke-filled Fado house hidden in narrow cobblestone streets of the Alfama district of Lisbon where I first sensed that my career as dean at Boston University would be drawing to a close. I had been at my best earlier in the day as I delivered an invited presentation from the Portuguese minister of education for educators selected to staff Portugal’s first Normal Schools for the training of teachers. I would pause every few paragraphs as I worked from a paper I had prepared in Boston to permit a translator to convey my message to attendees not universally proficient in English. The luxury of the unexpected time had provided an opportunity for me to elaborate on thoughts and insert humor into the emerging script at the risk of producing a work which in length would rival Eugene O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey. True to the history of my theatre family, I was seduced by the opportunity to play the lead actor in my own production. Compliments from the minister and applause from the audience on delivery of my closing words left me on a high that can only be felt by an actor receiving rave notices for a leading role. The high only lasted until that Fado evening in the Alfama with Jon, special assistant to the Boston University president, and his wife who had joined my wife, Janet, and me on the US AID sponsored trip.

A briny fragrance of sea and age drifted down damp narrow caverns between ancient mortar dwellings as a Portuguese American graduate student in Boston who had assisted my School of Education receive the grant from US AID led the four of us through a maze of cobblestone streets to a Fado bar of his choice. Save for an occasional streetlamp and light from a window to break the night’s dark, the district was hardly different from that of 1775 when an earthquake had leveled Lisbon leaving only the Alfama intact. Once the bar of our guide’s choice was located and we were seated, he wished us a good evening, left directions for return to our hotel, and departed to join friends.

The hum of muted Portuguese conversation and unfamiliar sweet fragrance of a hovering blanket of cigarette smoke from closely clustered tables reminded us that we were foreigners in a sea of locals. When a waiter drifted to our table, asked in English what we would like to drink, and glasses of Campari were soon set before us, any discomfort quickly dissolved. We had time for a first Campari and follow-up before the hum of conversation in the room abruptly faded when a wraith of a woman, black shawl over her shoulders, emerged from behind a black velvet curtain into the haze of smoke. Proximity to one another and guests at other tables evaporated. We sat alone in cigarette smoke, candle-light, and silence.

Mournful laments filled the space for the next hour. We were consumed by the haunting melody and singer’s plaintive words—not one of which we understood. Mesmerized, we were lost in our private thoughts and emotions. We sat silently swallowed in a wave of melancholy until broken by the waiter’s “Another Campari,” following the final lament of the set. On a nod of consent and the waiter’s departure, Jon dulled by earlier drinks, couldn’t wait to lean across the table and slur, “Paul, I learned more from the minister’s remarks in twenty minutes this morning than I learned from your day-long presentation.” The evening drew to close with silence and emotions of another order.

Less than a year later, any doubt as to the imminent end of tenure as dean ended. I had found joy and a sense of accomplishment over the years in the facilitation of projects and programs to assist underserved populations whether as a teacher in the New York City public high schools, administrator or staff on urban government and university projects in the South and New York, or professor and dean at Boston University That was until John Silber, the controversial Boston University president decided that his university would respond to the opportunity to “adopt” the Chelsea Public Schools.

Chelsea schools in the 1960s were buried in the poverty and decline of a city of approximately 35,000 residents shoe-horned into less than two and a half miles directly across the Mystic River from Boston. Chelsea schools, historically a gateway for immigrants, were a case study in failure with only half of its students, mostly from low-income families, graduating from high school. The opportunity to enter into a Boston University–Chelsea Public School partnership in which the university would be responsible for the day-to day management of the schools was too great for Silber to resist. I was soon to find out that the opportunity was also too great for him, a skeptic of education as a field of study, to trust a dean of a school of education to play a major role in the project.

After only a few meetings as member of the University team of administrators with little or no professional experience in public education selected by Silber and his special assistant, Jon, who had drawn my Portugal Fado evening to an abrupt end, it became clear that my advice wasn’t wanted. There was no receptivity to recommendations drawn from my years of experience with underperforming public schools and lower-income students. With each succeeding meeting of the committee, I felt more and more like a student whose observations fail to capture the attention of a professor than the dean of a school of education. It was time to negotiate my retirement.

At least some momentary pleasure was provided by a bittersweet moment with President Silber before my departure. At a friendly farewell meeting requested by the president to thank me for my years as dean, I was asked what I thought about his appointing a National Endowment for the Humanities officer in D.C. and former New England public school superintendent to manage the Chelsea project and serve as dean of the School of Education. I couldn’t resist responding with sparkle and a smile, “John, I know Peter. He received his doctorate from the School of Education a few years ago. We must have done a great job.” The president who had frequently criticized the School of Education and its too frequent hiring of its own graduates acknowledged my “Gotcha” with a slowly stretching grin. I’m not sure my response answered his question, but in 1988, a year after my resignation, Boston University formally “adopted” the Chelsea schools with significant foundation, state, and City of Chelsea financial support—and Peter was named as dean.

After almost twenty years of service, the past seven as dean, I looked forward to an extended escape in our summer Vermont home followed by a sabbatical leave for the upcoming academic year. There would be time for Janet and me to relax and travel free from the day-to-day distractions and tensions that went along with my responsibilities as dean. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a dean again—anywhere. All I knew for certain was that my past work with education colleagues seeking to make a difference for populations who had gotten the short end of the stick had been rewarding.

Landscape projects, fly fishing, writing, and evenings with friends in the Green Mountains of Vermont over an extended summer provided a healthy antidote to simmering anger that I carried from my final year at Boston University. But summer suddenly morphed into a vibrant symphony of fall color and it was time to return to Boston. Alone during the day in our Boston loft with Janet back at work, I had to begin to seriously consider post-sabbatical plans. Writing projects became secondary to conversations with colleagues, work on a professional portfolio, and detection of career possibilities in Boston and New England. Autumn, too soon, was swallowed by December winds. Janet and I found ourselves deep into winter with career plans for the next year not much clearer.

One February Sunday morning, relaxed in the warmth of our Fort Point Channel former Molasses factory loft, stretched out in a comfortable couch, conscious of the hiss of sleet on our windows and whistling gusts of winds outside, and leafing lazily through the pages of the Chronicle of Higher Education, the announcement “Search: Dean School of Education, University of San Francisco” caught my attention. The temptation of a San Francisco winter escape should I be invited to interview was great. I wasn’t totally surprised that the announcement’s prominent celebration of the institution as “San Francisco’s Catholic and Jesuit University” triggered memories of how early suspicion of Catholics and Catholicism had crept into my life. Maybe I should apply anyhow.

* * *

I had felt so “grown up” at “ten” in 1948 when my mother asked me to walk alone with my younger sister Jennifer on the fifteen-minute walk from our duplex in Greenwich Village to progressive Little Red Schoolhouse on Bleecker Street. The southwest corner of Washington Square Park exited to MacDougal Street, where once one block down, row houses formerly noble homes on one side, were now partitioned into apartments occupied primarily by Italian-American residents. Small shops, coffee houses, and hang-out bars across the narrow street were shut. The early morning sun that had bathed the park was lost in shadows. The street was asleep. Its pulse would pick up later in the day when folksingers, writers, jazz musicians, and local residents and tourists would bring...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	1.3.2024
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
ISBN-13	979-8-3509-4353-5 / 9798350943535

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