WCSU in the Age of Reason

I had two experiences recently that tested my finely honed perspective on life, namely that if just one of my kids were an engineer, I could relax a little.

First, I sat on the committee that interviewed candidates for the position of dean of the School of Visual and Performing Arts at WCSU. My personal favorite was Dr. Dan Goble, who got the job!

What struck me during the interviews of the final four candidates was the passion they all expressed for the arts.

I like to think of myself as a writer, but have found lately that I possess the very common view that it’s good to be able to make a living, a persuasion that has dimmed my embrace of the arts as a career.

For me, it’s a practical matter. My oldest son is a photographer. My oldest daughter plans to save the world. My youngest son is about to enter college to study philosophy or poetry, with a minor in music. (I admit that the first time we discussed it, I rolled my eyes.) My youngest daughter is fantastic at drawing and painting.

When we asked the candidates for dean about their own beliefs, they made it clear that they see the arts as vital to humanity. Without irony or self-consciousness they laid out the case that art makes the world livable. We might make money, we might all live in big Colonials, but if we had no art, we would have no souls.

I was impressed – but I’ve still got the four kids …

At about the same time, my younger son was finishing a year-long senior project at his high school. He chose poetry as his subject, and in addition to posting several poems on his blog each month, entering contests and hosting a poetry slam, he organized a poetry writing contest for the first- through fifth-grades.

He visited several classes to talk directly to students and encourage them to enter the contest. The culmination was a reception and display of all the submitted poems, which he had read and critiqued with encouraging comments.

Afterward, my son heard from a fifth-grade teacher. She wrote that one of her students, a boy, had been unfocused most of the semester and was not doing well in class. Recently, though, things started to click for him and he had improved dramatically in all his subjects.

She figured out a way to ask him what was different and he said, “I really liked it when that high school senior came in to talk about poetry. I found out I like to write.”

OK, I get it. Art did that.

And I’m happy, truly, that my kids are going to help the rest of us understand the joy and beauty of life.

The author Sherman Alexie, who writes of his life as a Spokane Indian, spoke at Western Connecticut State University recently, bringing his edgy, self-observant, funny and profane stories about being an Indian, the act of writing, and various absurdities of life.

If you only read spy novels, you haven’t heard of this guy. But he is a prolific novelist and poet, and he is hot-famous with, he says, especially ardent fans among literate women. His work includes “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” “War Dances” and the screenplay for “Smoke Signals.”

Alexie describes himself as “a big, ugly, vaguely ethnic guy,” and he says his fame, especially after a dirt-poor childhood, sometimes leaves him puzzled:

“It’s pretty sad that people want to sleep with me because I’m good with metaphors.”

In addition to a lecture in Ives Concert Hall, Alexie met with students in small groups to talk mostly about writing and about Indian life.

He explained his dissonant position on story-telling, an Indian essence that he grew up with.

On the one hand he spoke with gratitude about learning how to tell stories:

“The most ancient and valuable thing I was taught was the power of stories.”

But he practically spits when he speaks of the elders who repeat 1,000-year-old tales over and over to younger generations.

“I write contemporary stories about contemporary problems,” Alexie said. “A story is created in its time to help with its time. It’s an ancient job — the impulse is ancient but the story should be contemporary. It’s the same with any form of medicine. I wouldn’t want to live in a world without antibiotics. In much the same way, a doctor from the 1700s, by contemporary standards, would be utterly incompetent today.”

He talks about the Internet as if he hopes it will go away:

“The Internet is a bunch of white guys telling me what I should be interested in. That historically has been a problem. It worked out well for the white guys, but not for the others.”

Yet he is experimenting with poems that include hyperlinks as essential elements, the first of which will appear on his website, which is being redesigned next month.

“Your job as writers is to use technology to make it inherent in the art,” he told students. “It has to happen. E-books, digitizing literature, is not using the technology in new ways.”

He said he will continue to experiment.

“I’m sure in 10 to 20 poems, I’ll write something great accidentally,” he said, and paused. “I wonder how long it will take to write something purposefully.”

During his lecture it was immediately clear that he uses words with exact purpose. By his second sentence he said the F-word, which I noticed caused the backs of several professors to tighten. Most of our lecturers don’t swear on stage.

When I asked him about it the next day, Alexie leaned forward and spoke emphatically.

“The power people give me because I cuss! You give up your own power to me! I’m stealing something from people who deserve to have something stolen from them. By the way, the same people who hate cursing don’t believe in global warming. They think f ***’s going to destroy the world! But polar bears being unable to f *** is OK.” (Hearst Communications, which administers this blog, doesn’t allow spelled-out cussing.)

His writing, Alexie said, is about belonging, the tale of those who are excluded and the path some of them take to become part of American society.

He described how his father drove him to a wealthy and white middle school in which Alexie had enrolled after being kicked out of the reservation school. He climbed out of the run-down van and walked toward a cluster of students.

“When I walked across the street that was my Atlantic Ocean,” Alexie said, “and that school was my Ellis Island. I am an immigrant, and I am also indigenous.

“I am the essential American experiment, the thing that defines us as American.”

Alexie’s performance — full of physical humor, pauses and facial expression — doesn’t translate as well into a written recitation as it does on video. But his observances and one-liners are in turn poignant and hilarious. Here are some of them:

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Native American life is bipolar. To be colonized is to be bipolar. It’s a group mental illness. We celebrate our own sadness.

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Poor, sick, invisible. That was the essential state. Condescended to and ignored.

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You get so accustomed to your pain and sadness that you get addicted to it. You create ceremonies to remember your pain.

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It’s easier talking about being an Indian than talking about being a writer. Being a writer makes me more separate, especially being a poet. That’s why I still write poetry.

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When you travel through the world physically, you have experiences you can’t have on the Internet. The reason we evolved was because of socialization. With the Internet, we’re evolving sideways.

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Nobody has risen out of the Internet to be a great writer. It hasn’t happened. The Web is vanity publishing, and it’s celebrating the absence of editors. It takes narcissism to the extreme to imagine that every one of your utterances should be published unedited.

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I spend a lot of time trying to write, and then it arrives.

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Artists are outcasts, no matter where you come from.

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I’m a narcissist. All artists are narcissists. The better you are, the more narcissistic you are.

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If you are a literary artist, 70 percent of your readers are white women. They are the most willing to fight for other people. Every civil rights cause succeeded because of white women.

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Art is androgynous. The entire concept of creating something is man and woman. Creating art takes the male and female.

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To me, 9/11 was the end game of tribalism. That’s where tribalism leads, to people thinking my tribe has the right to kill you.

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We call ourselves Indians. As soon as you hear someone with an Indian name say Native American at a Native American gathering, you can be sure they are not Native American. They’re living by the Chicago Style Manual.

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Canadian Indians are the worst. They call themselves the “First People.” Oh, shut up! Number One, you’re just Canadian.

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I believe in interpreting coincidences exactly the way I want to. I told you, I’m Catholic.

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Indian casinos are preserving the worst part of white culture for you. There was a time for Foreigner, and now there is a time for no Foreigner. White people should thank us.

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I am a liberal feminist, so I objectify women out of the corner of my eye.

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Elizabeth Alexander, who was the poet at Barack Obama’s inauguration, came to WCSU and talked about writing, about inauguration day and, most important to me, about how African American history is America’s history.

To begin, my youngest daughter was born in Ethiopia. I don’t think that means I should be more interested in race relations in America, but as a practical matter I probably think about it more than does the average white male.

I asked Alexander, who is also chair of the African American Studies department at Yale University, for some advice on how to connect my daughter with African American culture. My wife and I have found it difficult to do, which in turn has made us consider how separately whites and blacks live their lives.

Alexander, who was charming and completely accessible to students, faculty and guests during her time on campus, said we should relax a little. The African American experience is the whole world of living.

As an example, Alexander said, speaking of one of her areas of expertise, “A black poem is whatever a black poet writes. To be black is a hugely various, richly fascinating, everything thing.”

Raising kids is like that, I thought. At the dinner table, my wife and I like to sit and talk after the eating is done, which bores our daughter so she asks to be excused. Before she leaves the table, she hugs her mom, and my wife kisses her on the top of the head as they hold each other. It’s a parenting thing, it has nothing to do with race.

Alexander said many segments of society have a responsibility to address issues of race in America.

“Education is incredibly important,” she said. “Issues of curriculum and curriculum reform are important. Kids have to go to school and we have to ask, are going to teach them about this important, complex country we live in or not?”

A point in my favor! As you know if you have paid attention to this blog — here, here and here — Western is one of the places in this community where race can be discussed in a safe and enlightening way.

Alexander said black people have a responsibility, too, and she held as an example her grandmother, who was born into the segregated South — “By definition, she was inferior in every way.” But she didn’t let that view control her actions or thoughts. “I saw how she worked against that and became a richer, fuller person.”

Alexander is fully cognizant of the racist and violent ideas that people continue to express in America. They are easily accessed on the Internet.

“An important lesson of the African American experience is that you can’t ever stay in your comfort zone,” she said. “Bit by bit, relationship by relationship adds to social change.”

And, finally, she put some of it on me.

“I think white people should more often work at the hard question of race,” Alexander said. “To me, seeing white people think and talk about race is a really, really important part of the process.”

That is the full message: We all have work to do.

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One might think that my job as a WCSU public relations guy would be simple: Spend the day talking to intelligent and witty media people, apply my considerable writing skills to press releases, and then gaze out the window as I await coverage for the university.

But there are other aspects to my employment at Western Connecticut State University.

I’m one of the people responsible for how Western presents itself to the community. We have done a lot of work to make ourselves presentable and looking like a place that students would be proud to attend. Case in point is the official entrance on White Street, a brick and wrought iron gateway to the Midtown campus. It was built to commemorate our 100th anniversary and includes the university’s name in gold. So when I spotted a banner strung across the top of the gates, soliciting students and community members for a summer trip to Spain, I voiced my objection to the president, who quickly assigned me the task of creating a policy.

Over the years, Western has developed several ways to communicate with students and others (you) about what’s happening on campus. Our habit is to plaster our buildings with posters and other signs publicizing every lecture, musical performance and theater cattle call.

The flyers are stapled to the walls above stairways and are left up for months, long after the advertised events are finished. Banners are bolted to brick facades and get the most attention when they come partly unattached and start flapping loudly in the wind. And we have custom-built A-frames that weigh roughly the same amount as the hindquarters of an elephant, which our maintenance crews periodically drag out to White Street and Osborne Street. We nail posters to each side of the A-frame and hope art lovers will notice as they drive by.

Three colleagues — one who directs campus maintenance; another who leads the design of our many publications, posters and the like; and the dean of students — agreed to meet with me one January afternoon to discuss our options.

We decided to limit the places that banners can be hung (never on the Midtown gates) and vowed that the ugly A-frames would be retired. The design guy found some weather-tight display cases in which we can place posters around campus along with eye-catching banner-holders for indoor displays. When we do put up outside banners, we agreed, they would be riveted to the walls so they can’t be undone by the wind.

During our discussion, which was relaxed yet thoughtful, someone mentioned that the theater people always put up signs on Osborne Street at the entrance to the Berkshire Theatre, where most of their productions are staged.

They like those damn A-frames, even though the ground is not level in front of the theater, and they insist on putting a banner on the outside of the building, which is obscured by trees. We unanimously agreed that we need a better solution. Lacking any ideas, we thanked each other and concluded the meeting.

Now the theater department is gearing up for its spring production. Students are rehearsing, publicity photos are being shot. Requests were submitted for posters to be mounted on the A-frames.

In a quick meeting, the designer and I agreed that it would be best if the theater department would just go away.

Then he reminded me that every theater in the world puts up signs in front of its building and whether the A-frames are a pain or not, we needed to do something.

So the A-frames have been ordered for Osborne Street and our committee will meet again to talk about another, permanent solution that we will try to put in place before the fall production.

Meanwhile, the banner advertising the trip to Spain is still hanging on the White Street gates. It will come down, soon, though, and no banner will ever go up there again. I’m fairly certain.

To follow Western Connecticut State University, go to www.wcsu.edu.

Successful public relations executives know that a well-placed story about the organization one represents is the result of hard work, knowledge of the market and sensitive handling of the subject and the media. And sometimes dumb luck.

Case-in-point here at Western Connecticut State University: Astute marketing professor Dr. John Cronin alerted me to an end-of-the-semester event in his class on Advanced and Integrated Marketing Communications. He had assigned teams of his students to work with five local nonprofits. The students were to create a marketing plan for each nonprofit that would incorporate social media to help them attract volunteers and donors, and to get the word out about their organizations. Cronin worked with the Greater Danbury Nonprofit Resource Center to find agencies that would work with our students.

Not a bad story for the local media, I thought, so we wrote a press release and made sure that it got to Eileen FitzGerald, the education reporter at The News-Times. As the day of the presentation grew near, I called Eileen to remind her. She said she was interested but I wasn’t convinced she would follow through. The day of the presentation, though, Eileen and photographer Carol Kaliff showed up, and I started to think I knew a thing or two about PR.

I wanted to hear the presentations, too, figuring I might learn something. So I sat with Eileen and pointed out Cronin and Elaine Mintz, executive director of the GDNRC, so she could interview them.

Eileen listened to the presentations and took notes about interesting aspects: Housatonic Habitat for Humanity gained 20 new members on its fundraising committee; the new Facebook page created for the Ridgefield Boys and Girls Club was recognized by the Boys and Girls Club of America; and a new Facebook page, blog and Twitter account for the Visiting Nurse Association increased donations and visitors to the organization’s website.

The story and photo by Carol Kaliff appeared in The News-Times. They were well done, I was happy, and I thought that was that.

But it was not.

The Associated Press noticed the story and distributed it to other newspapers. I found this out when The Boston Globe published the article. I was ecstatic! Most of the big media outlets ignore us unless something really bad happens. Then the Washington Examiner picked it up, along with the Chicago Tribune, the Dallas News and even the Times of India.

There are days when I wonder whether anyone in the media is thinking — for instance, the day several outlets ran an insignificant little story about how a box of candy bars was shoplifted from the football stadium concession stand. With the coverage of the marketing class, the media have redeemed themselves. They are geniuses.

I knew it the whole time.

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I love it when people state that institutions of higher education are nothing but clubby havens of weepy-eyed liberals who are doing everything to overthrow America’s democracy and turn the U.S. into a socialist dictatorship.

Sure, we have some of those.

But we also have nut-job libertarians who think everything the government does is corrupt or wrong and who, in sputum-flecked essays, argue that the road to hell is paved with extended unemployment benefits.

For instance, there is Jim Bellano, who teaches political science and wrote a newspaper op-ed piece in October that included this sarcastic statement:

Democrats like to use George W. Bush’s name as a pejorative. They’ve blamed the former president for everything from the state of the economy to the omnipresence of “The Jersey Shore’s” Snookie. Using the mantra, “Bush Tax Cuts” to describe the almost decade-long marginal rate structure is a cynical attempt to paint calls for maintaining the current rates as a negative, i.e., associate them with the unpopular, George W. Bush of 2008. It’s not working.

Dr. Kevin Gutzman, the professor of history and non-western culture, is probably the most well-known of our right-of-center political commentators. (He was quoted recently in The Washington Post.) Gutzman promotes a view that the Founding Fathers intended for the Constitution to constrain the president and legislature to do, well, nothing. Here is an article that commends Gutzman for his good work in promoting “constitutional conservatism.”

Add to the list Dr. Richard Proctor, professor of accounting, who created a blog ominously named “Cassandra’s Hypothesis,” which generally features an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it view of the U.S. and world economy.

Here is Proctor’s post from Dec. 6, a rant from a writer who predicts chaos in the municipal bond market:

Whenever folks from Washington or Wall Street try to persuade you that the Great Debt Crisis is now “over,” I suggest you shake their hands politely, usher them to the door, and tell them to never come back.
They didn’t see the crisis coming. And they have no idea when or how it might end.
The reality: We now have not one — but FOUR — sweeping debt crises striking at the same time …

Proctor says he doesn’t agree with all the theories he posts but at the same time he notes that Cassandra, a figure in Greek mythology who could predict the future, famously pointed out that “Forewarned is Forearmed.”

I would like to make clear that I have never seen any of these men eject sputum. I know them to be thoughtful and reasoned.

But I don’t want to hear any more about how we’re all daisy-picking, Prius-driving, moccasin-wearing flower children.

Follow Western Connecticut State University at www.wcsu.edu.

The thing about small-school, Division III athletics is that good teams sneak up on you. We love our athletes here at WCSU because they are generally among the best students, none of them have star attitudes (they never appear on ESPN), and for the most part they blend in with the rest of us.

So a team will go along winning half their games for a few years until suddenly a couple of kids show up who can play at a higher level. A few of us on campus start paying attention. Then the team goes deep into the playoffs and, to everyone’s delight, we’ve got a contender in our midst.

Such is the case with this year’s basketball teams.

The women’s team, coached by Kimberly Rybcyzk (pronounced the way it’s spelled), was chosen as the favorite to repeat as league champions.

If you missed this blurb in The Connecticut Post:

The Colonials earned each of the eight first-place votes for 64 total points to begin the campaign atop the annual preseason survey for the second time in program history (1999-2000).

Last year, WestConn posted a record of 23-6, won its second straight Little East Conference title and made its 12th appearance in the NCAA Division III Tournament. The Colonials’ success in 2010 has placed Western Connecticut firmly on the national landscape. The Colonials are currently ranked in three Division III national polls, including No. 19 in the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Preseason Poll and No.22 in D3Hoops.com national listings.

Senior center Melissa Teel was recently recognized as one of 25 D3Hoops.com Preseason All-Americans.

Teel, a senior and an education major, is pretty close to the perfect Division III athlete. She is polite, smart, a little shy, and a beast on the court. Blocked shots are a particular specialty of hers and if you have ever paid attention at a basketball game you know it is one of the most exciting plays in all of sports. Last year, she had 141 blocks, the most of any player in the country. She also averaged 13.9 points and 14.6 rebounds a game.

The men’s team is also ascendant. Coach Bob Campbell earned his 500th career win this season and the Colonials, 7-1 so far, were picked to finish second in the Little East behind Rhode Island College. The unfortunately named Anchormen are only 6-3 to start the season but happily they did crush Eastern Connecticut State on Dec. 4, 52-49.

The star player for the Colonials is DaQuan Brooks, who recently scored his 1,000th point in his college career. He’s a junior. Last season he was named the Little East Player of the Year, finishing second in the league in scoring, with 19.6 points per game and second in assists, averaging 4.1 a game. Last season, Brooks scored in double figures 23 games and hit 20 points 12 times. WCSU won nine of its last 12 games to post an overall record of 19-7. The team advanced to the championship game of the 2010 Little East Championship before being edged by the aforementioned Anchormen.

Consider attending a double-header at Steven Feldman Arena in the O’Neill Center on the Westside campus. We’re having one of those years when we could all be surprised.

Follow Western Connecticut State University at www.wcsu.edu.

For the past four years, university provost Dr. Linda Rinker has recognized a professor who is a great teacher. Professors often win honors for their research and earn tenure partly through their work on committees and other commitments to the university, but the Provost’s Teaching Excellence Award is based on how a professor works with students in the classroom.

David Smith, professor of music and music education who teaches drums and other percussion instruments, was the honoree this year. The consensus is that he is one of the most sweet-tempered people on campus. Everyone was ecstatic that he got the award.

I was going to interview him and tell a nice story but happily one of Smith’s colleagues, Marjorie Callaghan, associate professor of music and music education, did the job for me. Here is an excerpt from her introduction at the award ceremony.

In my freshman year of high school, when I attended the Western Regional Music Festival held here at WCSU, someone pointed and said to me, “That’s Dave Smith.” I looked over and saw a man with a kind expression helping a student. Then each year when I attended the festival, I thought, “There’s Dave Smith” as I’d watch him again helping students.

Many years later, when I was hired as a faculty member at WCSU, I thought “Wow, I’m here with Dave Smith!”

Early in my tenure, Dave asked if I’d like to play on a recital with him. We’d get together to rehearse and I’d think “Oh my gosh! I’m playing with Dave Smith!”

As I got to know Dave through those rehearsals, I realized just how special this man is. Rehearsing was a pleasure, with lots of laughter, lots of positive energy and lots of real music-making. Over the years, I have come to greatly admire and appreciate Dave’s values and objectives as a teacher. He truly cares for each and every one of his students. Dave nurtures his students with a firm but kind hand. He has high expectations, but at the same time is empathetic and aware of each student’s needs.

As professor of percussion, he motivates his students not only by his own exceptional performing (he is principal percussionist with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra), but also by taking them yearly to the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, holding master classes with internationally recognized percussionists, organizing field trips to the Zildjian cymbal factory, and encouraging students to participate in festivals and workshops. His students enthusiastically respond.

Student Deanna Baran describes Dave’s caring nature:

“Mr. Smith is very wise, and knows my potential capacity as a student better than I do. He pushes me hard to accomplish things I never thought possible with the chaotic lifestyle that I find myself in. He is always the one who believes in me and when I need it, he gives me that extra little nudge to keep me going. Mr. Smith cares just as deeply about his students as he does his music. It is a given that every time I see him, whether at my lesson or in passing, that he will stop whatever he’s doing or whomever he’s talking to just to say hello and ask how I’m doing. He’s like a father to me, and I feel as though I can open up to him because he understands me as a person as well as a student. Having a leader with such compassion is such a privilege for me as his student.”

Dave’s students are successful in their college careers and many go on to graduate school or become successful teachers themselves. Bob Ondeck, band director at Broadview Middle School in Danbury, remembers Dave’s teaching style and writes how influential Dave has been in his life:

“Now that I am a teacher myself, I look back on all of the time I spent studying with Mr. Smith and I try to emulate what he did as my teacher in the hopes of providing students with a safe, supportive environment to explore music and themselves as students. Having been a student at WestConn, I could not imagine having a college experience like the one I had anywhere else. Although I loved the campus, the classes I took and the friends I made, there is no doubt that the experiences that resonate with me permanently are the times I spent working with Mr. Smith and learning as much as I could.”

Smith’s students will be performing at 8 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 6, in Ives Concert Hall in White Hall on the university’s Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury. The performance will be free and open to the public.

If you attend, you will see not just a wonderful performance, but a great teacher.

Follow Western Connecticut State University at www.wcsu.edu.