Resources

(An audio version of this blog may be accessed here.) The rank of senior scholar is the highest and most revered. The hierarchy of the academy creates senior scholars by assigning newly minted faculty with the status of junior scholar, then over several years through a process of review, tenure and/or promotion, some colleagues reach the status of senior scholar. Promotion to senior scholar, as either Associate Professor, or Full Professor, is perceived as a badge of worthiness and nobility. The academy requires professorial participants to either ascend or be jettisoned. In some schools, earning the status of senior professor means having fought, brawled, struggled, and won. Senior scholar status is entitled to previously unavailable resources, and opportunities—goodies not afforded the junior scholars. Senior scholars are expected to have responsibilities and obligations which are not the onus of junior scholars. However, at some schools, there is not a clear demarcation between the obligations of junior or senior scholars—juniors are given duties and responsibilities similar to, or aligned with, those given to senior scholars. All this is to say, there is a great deal of variation between schools when one considers the culture, hospitality, duties, and obligations attributed to junior/senior scholar status. I am not suggesting that one model is superior to the others. I am suggesting that one needs to read the context and know which model is functioning in the school where they are employed. Who teaches senior professors how to be good senior professors? How do senior professors get mentored into their duties, power, influence, obligation? Who shows senior scholars how to transition from the institutional patterns, habits, and behaviors of junior status? How does the institution assist senior scholars in becoming their most generative selves in this season of seniority? By what process are senior scholars given permission to wield their power for the best impact upon students, community, and the institution’s future? What if most senior scholars operate as novices in the community structure? What if, without senior scholars who are mindful and present, the community cannot become healthy nor flourish to its potential? As I think of my own vocational journey, I have not been privy to conversations about identity as a senior scholar. Without benefit of critical reflection for planning, and without imaginative reflection for doing, it has not been easy to know what to do, or how to be, or what to be about, as a Full Professor.  I have never been part of a conversation which helped me parse, decide, live-into, or imagine how the authority of the rank of senior scholar could be used, might be used, or should be used. When I was promoted to the rank of Full Professor, I was glad for the pay increase. Equally true was my lack of interest in the institutional loyalty that was so often inferred by some administrators. I have learned to be a senior scholar by watching and engaging, that is, by trial and error. I have learned from the modeling of others only because I paid attention to those in this rank and wondered about their lives and professional decisions. In so doing, I have noticed three personas of senior faculty, or three modes of professionalism for the highest faculty rank: Gatekeeper, Historian, Elder. I am sure there are other modes. For now, I want to describe these three. Senior Scholar as Gatekeeper The gatekeeper recognizes the power and influence of the highest rank and intentionally wields that power in decision making opportunities which form and shape the institution and its future. In acknowledgement of the gatekeeper’s authority, colleagues assign the gatekeeper as chair of the most central and significant committees. The gatekeeper is consulted on major institutional decisions by the highest administrators including the trustees. If this persona is considerate, gracious, humble, community minded, and collaborative, the colleague is contributing to an ethos of cooperation, deep listening, and shared care. The danger of this persona is when the person operates through power-mongering, tyrannical, opportunistic, mean-spirited, and bigoted decisions. Schools can be treacherous when these people attend to maintaining the oppressive status quo which results in deepening the toxicity of the school’s ecology. Senior Scholar as Historian This persona works as being the reminder, the memory keeper, or the historian. Having served on the faculty for a long period of time, the person has a long memory from years of experience and participation. When the new people, new programs, new projects, or curriculum changes are considered, the person playing the role of historian will recount the moments when, in the past, a similar attempt was considered or made. The voice of the historian is often used to hold the institution accountable to the mission, legacy, and tradition. The historian often holds dear those colleagues who are no longer employed by the institution or no longer members of the faculty by invoking their names at meetings or telling stories about “the good old days.” This persona can be quite helpful as an institution plans for the future and is able, with memories of the past, to press forward and adapt. The person can also hold the institution hostage to the past and to earlier decisions which are not adequate for unfamiliar futures. Senior Scholar as Elder This person may or may not be elderly, per se. This person recognizes that they are no longer in the fray of accomplishing status and rank, and makes use of this phase of professional life to regularly provide insight, wisdom, and assistance to others. This person uses their power and influence to build community, mentor others, and be personally creative. They create time to regularly sit with individuals and groups for wise counsel. The communal role of the elder is reinforced by the way members of the community respect them and treat them with kindness, deference, and regard. They are admired and respected. Elder scholars will often take on the mantle of making “good trouble” so that the more vulnerable colleagues are not blamed or receive retaliation in difficult institutional battles. They can afford to risk, stick-their-necks-out, knowing their status means that they will receive little reprisal. I suspect I most admire the mode of elder because I come from a tradition that promotes, and depends upon, those at the highest ranks to reach back, reach down, reach out, and help. The Black church tradition has its gatekeepers and its historians. But we revere our elders. In my tradition, we defer to Big Mama, Mother of the Church, the Saints, the Teachers, and the Prayer Warriors. I am working on my elder persona. The toxic environment which plagues so many faculties is not lodged in the brick, mortar, and drywall of buildings. The toxicity permeates the relationships of the community. The lack of care, unfriendliness, bigotry, and acts of dehumanization reside in the ways people treat one another. Toxic environments—relational patterns of ugliness, shaming, blaming, ruthlessness, and deadly competition—might be inherited, but they are upheld and maintained by our choices of continued violent behaviors, lack of relational skills, and low emotional intelligence. Senior scholars, as gatekeepers, historians, and elders have the power and authority to shift and repair toxic environments in schools—if we would.

In a society wrought with busyness, contemplation is often deemed a foolish waste of time. Yet, for those of us who want to be reflective practitioners of teaching, contemplation is essential. In considering the needs of students who are navigating our frenetic society, perhaps they, too, need to learn to be more contemplative. Suppose the lessons we teach about social change, eradication of patriarchy and white supremacy, and the need to support the poor into economic stability, cannot be grasped or attained without contemplation? Teaching against the societal values of individualism, violence, greed, and competition needs deep reflection. Raising awareness of the oppressive economic systems, unnecessary suffering, and environmental devastation might mean learning the practices of contemplation if we are to survive. Recognizing the inhumanity of oppressive structures, and summoning the creativity to reimagine a society that is more communal, more humane, more equitable, takes long periods of thoughtful concentration. Clarity and wisdom can be beckoned through the work of contemplation. In considering the role of contemplation in teaching and learning, I asked myself if there have been moments in my life where I have had the experience of contemplation from which I might draw to better teach my students. If I am to incorporate contemplation for my own learning, what do I know about contemplation and how have I come to know it? When have I experienced contemplation that was useful?  This was the helpful recollection: My dad had a certain kind of know-how. Among other things, Dad knew the right days to fly kites. This, I have come to understand, is a kind of wisdom. Kite day was not a set date on the calendar. Kite day was the day that Dad knew the wind was just right. How he knew – I still do not know. On the appointed day, usually a spring Saturday, Dad would announce to me and my brother Brent that it was Kite Day. The announcement meant we, in great excitement, would gather the needed elements to build kites. Brent and I would grab previously read newspapers, the stakes used for tomato plants, assorted kinds of string and old undershirts. We spread the supplies out on the dining room table and my father went to work. With the precision of an origami artist, Dad carefully folded the newspaper, attached the stakes into the folds, then, using ripped up tee-shirts, fashioned and knotted a tail for each kite. The last step was to apply the string and check the makeshift reeling. Once the kites were assembled, we processed, kites in-hand, careful not to drag the tails, to the baseball field across the street from our row house in North Philly. Dad would choose the spot for the kite flying by pausing to feel for the wind. Then, I thought he was just being dramatic. Now, I know feeling for the wind is a necessary aspect of successful kite flying. After quiet moments of wind-testing, we were ready. With great care each kite was placed on the grass and its tail was carefully laid out. My brother and I wanted to run with our kites - demanding them into the sky, but no kite ever obeyed. My father said, “No kite flies from running it into the sky – you must wait for the wind.” Waiting for the wind was not easy because it meant just that - waiting.  What I learned is that once the flurry of assembling the kite is over – kite flying becomes a contemplative sport. Waiting for the wind required patience, stillness, and focus. These moments of waiting were full moments of silence, light conversation, or just observing the surroundings.  With no notice, sometimes gusts would come and abruptly snatch the kite up into the air then just as abruptly slam it down to the ground. If kites became bruised or even destroyed, Dad would fix it or fashion a new one on site. Sometimes, if my brother or I had been lulled into inattention, a gust would take our kite up and the fast-moving string would burn our tender hands. We learned about friction and how to put Band-Aids on fingers. As we became more attuned, Brent and I learned to hold the kite back from flight when the wind was too strong. We learned to judge the right wind and see our kites into lift-off. The moments of lift-off were exciting. Feeling the wind take hold of the kite in a gentle way was the anticipated moment realized. Once lift-off was achieved, the job was, as Dad instructed, to “Keep the nose up!” so the kite would gain altitude and so the line could be let out gradually and evenly. When the kite was 10 or 20 feet in the air, the goal was to get the kite to 40 or 50 feet. The best flying was when the line was completely let out, and we had time to quietly sit and gaze while it danced, soared, and pranced across the sky. The sky above our field in North Philly was quite a lovely site on kite flying days. Friends, am I suggesting we all learn to fly kites? Yes! Sometimes the literal is the best.  Beyond the literal, I am considering ways of designing learning activities for students, as well as developing practices for teachers, which require time to tarry, linger, be still and quiet. This elegant practice might spawn our best teaching, ever. It might be as simple as breathing and pausing before answering questions in classroom discussion or instructing students to think silently for a few extended moments before asking questions. Slowing the tempo of Q&A might led to deeper, more insightful inquiry.  Beyond that, crafting exercises which make use of meditation, silence, and stillness to consider complex or emotionally charged concepts could be a refreshing change to the typical patterns of classroom interaction. And of course, for teacher preparation, time spent in silence, in mindfulness practice, and in stillness for re-centering and preparation will likely make us calmer, more present as we teach. The greater change in our classrooms might be developing the sensitivity and patience to wait on the winds of our students, i.e. their curiosity, their questions, and concerns, to shape the course and discussions. A contemplative classroom could be a more attuned, a more relevant learning experience. Let us all find beneficial ways to wait for the wind.