Dear TOK List,
As those close to me know, I experienced a “fight” with my program over the course of about 18 months. There were complaints and it was a mess. I am happy to say that it has now been resolved and things have been good for a year. But
there have been other incidents of similar themes with other professors. Not coincidentally, these professors were older white men. I believe that the academy is now essentially telling students that if your professor makes you feel uncomfortable or challenges
you or intimidates you or tells you are wrong or triggers you, then you have the right to say you don’t feel safe and complain and the university then gives the student essentially the power of gods to avoid a law suit and the moral outrage of hyper-progressive
mobs.
It is in that spirit that I share a letter from my colleagues who are in the Department of Graduate Psychology. My goal simply is to raise consciousness regarding the possibility that we are cultivating a neurotic culture of victimhood
that is dangerous not just for the people that are charged, but for the students who are walking around thinking that the world is of academia is a deeply dangerous place, filled with aggressive predators and oppressive dominance structures that undermine
the weak. That is an illusion. A delusion. Overall, I would not be surprised if the modern academic setting is the most comfortable, safe, tolerant, bend-over-backwards to “protect the vulnerable” context that perhaps has EVER BEEN PRESENT ON PLANET EARTH.
Best,
Gregg
From: Cowan, Eric - cowanwe <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2021 7:18 PM
Subject: Fw: A New Era in Academe
Dear Friends,
You may not have had the good fortune to work with Jack Presbury, who retired a few years ago as a long-time professor in the counseling program. He has been a friend and mentor to me for more than 30 years. I wanted
to share with you this recent email that Lennie and I received from him which includes a song that he wrote in honor of our retirement. He will sing this song at the celebration for our retirement (that came out wrong) that will happen this coming August.
Jack's email, intended for "whoever empathizes" also includes a very frank expression of opinion regarding the, ahem, recent events of my process class, as well as the change in culture that is underway in the program and department, along with some links
to a couple of articles that, I think, really capture the dangerous trends of suppression of speech and ideas on university campuses. Please feel free to share Jack's email and attachment with whomever you wish. Warmly,
Eric
From: Presbury, Jack - presbujh
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2021 6:14 PM
To: Echterling, Lennis - echterlg; Cowan, Eric - cowanwe
Subject: Fw: A New Era in Academe
This is an email that I sent to people who had been trained as counselors in the way we know is effective.
Jack Presbury Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor
Counseling Program
Department of Graduate Psychology
James Madison University
From: Presbury, Jack - presbujh
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2021 10:39 AM
To: [log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask]; Ken Harris; peter longenecker; E Parker
Subject: A New Era in Academe
This is an open letter to Jon and Sherri Fitch, Ken Harris, Duncan Adams, and Cindy Rafala, plus whoever empathizes.
Those of us who received our counselor training at Pitt know the importance of having counselors self-reflect and understand what Freud called "counter-transference." In order to accomplish this, we were asked to
self-disclose in classes and to become as authentic as possible, so that we could know ourselves better and keep our own shit from contaminating counseling relationships. In the years that followed, my colleagues and I who taught in the JMU counselor education
program, created this same sort of culture in our training.
Lennie Echterling and Eric Cowan, two of my colleagues are retiring. Ed McKee who retired from that faculty was great at helping students become who they were. Now, the JMU faculty have been told by the University
lawyers, that students would no longer be asked to self-disclose in class and that only "knowledge and skills" would be taught. These two currently retiring guys are the last of a vanishing breed.
Below are links to two articles regarding what is happening in universities today, along with a song I have written for Lennie and Eric on their retirement.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/
You
Have to Touch the Heart to Teach the Mind* by Jack Presbury
Some
profess to teach because they know the words to say
They
claim success when students say them back
Their
dull, impoverished graduates matriculate away
Never
really knowing what they lack.
You
Have to Touch the Heart to Teach the Mind
It’s
academic rigor of a very different kind
To
have them look within and be amazed at what they find
You
have to touch the heart to teach the mind.
The
factories of academe regard them all the same
To
yield a standard product is the goal
Unless
you turn them inside out and show them who they are
It’s
just indoctrination with no soul
So,
here’s to those who still believe in helping students grow
Who
teach them how to be all they can be
So
when they leave they’ll pay it forward, helping others thrive
And
live their lives alive…authentically.
Dedicated
to Lennie Echterling and
Eric Cowan on their retirement.
Jack Presbury Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor
Counseling Program
Department of Graduate Psychology
James Madison University