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Volume
Six, Number Five (June 2005)
"What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them
how."
–W.
Wordsworth, from "The Prelude"
NOTES FROM READERS
What you think
Happy summer. I'm a few days late with the June 2005 Notes, but have a good excuse! My family and I moved during June from our private residence here in Rockford to a President's house that the college has purchased. A big step on many fronts, but we're having fun settling in to a fine new abode.
I had several good responses to the April Notes.
Former Indiana colleague, Scott Shrode, now at Colorado State University-Pueblo, writes that my April thoughts on extraordinary conversations were especially “timely in that a group of us at CSU-Pueblo were discussing the debate versus dialogue issue in the context of a rather notorious incident that occurred earlier this year on campus.” My sense is that those sorts of issues are on many of our minds pretty much daily.
Laura Rittenhouse, whose fine book Do Business with People You Can Tru$t has just been reissued in a revised edition, writes: “ On "Extraordinary Conversations" I was reminded of Robert D. Putnam's insightful conclusion in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2001) that watching TV has robbed us of much of our ability for conversation — although some of us talk back to the TV at times. Putnam also noted the decline in participation at all levels of society, from PTA members to Little League coaches and more. More recently, our society has been divided by politics into "Reds" and "Blues" resulting in even less real dialogue and discussion between and among citizens.”
She also commented on “Money Talks”: “. . . I find an increasing need with clients, students, workshop attendees, and others to repeat two tried-and-true aphorisms, that (1) 'volunteers can ask; donors decide' and (2) that 'giving is voluntary.' Much has been spoken and written to explain both but the essential truth of what we do is really that simple. How we get it done is another matter, but that provides us with both employment and satisfaction.”
Stewart Herman, graduate school colleague and faithful correspondent, was kind to comment: “Your notes really shine when you take up the ethics of philanthropy – thanks for a VERY helpful set of ideas and resources!”
He continues, “This summer there will hopefully be a serious effort on our campus to secure some energy independence via a large wind turbine. But that requires a $2 million gift, which the president has happily suggested that we interested faculty pursue ourselves. I've had no experience with large gifts (oh, what the heck, with ANY gifts), so this is very new terrain for me. So, your suggestions are MOST timely as I think about how to frame such an effort.” Good luck, Stewart – philanthropy truly is common work!
Finally, Tracy Seffers, Registrar at Shepherd University, writes: “I am a new subscriber, and though I am not engaged in the work of fundraising, I am exploring this idea of reflective practice, and am gratified at how it meshes already with my own instinctive reach to find the themes and values inherent in my work. What is it in my work that I believe in strongly enough to “profess,” i.e., to make my profession?
Truth-telling—that is perhaps the core value in my work. One of my colleagues has said, “The role of the Registrar is to record history—not to revise it.” If a professor, a student, an institution, an employer cannot see the truth of the student's experience in his transcript, how else will they know? I try to teach truth-telling to every student who comes into my office, to my staff, to my colleagues in the institution (who wish aloud that the truth could be just a little prettier than it often is!).”
Thanks to all of you who send along your thoughts and comments on these Notes. Whether I hear from you or not, it is meaningful to know that our community of reflective practice is growing and making a difference.
Occasionally, I (or my colleagues) refer to items from previous issues of Notes. If you have not been a subscriber previously, and wish to review our conversations, past issues of Notes are available online at www.jgacounsel.com . The website version of Notes also includes helpful hyperlinks to sources for purchasing or subscribing to the various publications mentioned in Notes. I thank my friends at Johnson, Grossnickle & Associates for their many years of abiding support for our reflective practice.
REFLECT ON THIS
City lives
I love cities (which my family has yet to figure out given our small town upbringing). Almost 20 years of living in Chicago and the privilege I've had to travel broadly in my life and work – to London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and so many more – have given me the opportunity to observe and experience urban life around the world. Thus, with a new mayor here in Rockford, Illinois, a city of some 150,000 residents with both the pathologies and the promises of urban life, I am intrigued by what seems to be a new energy and sense of purpose for rebuilding our city's vitality and spirit. I have used this occasion to revisit some of the historical themes that fascinate me about city life.
It will come as no surprise that my first thoughts go to the role that neighborhoods play in a strong urban life. Though we are a city, we live our lives in neighborhoods. It is in the neighborhood where I come face to face with the challenges and joys of negotiating my life with others. I think this is why I like Wendell Berry's work so much. Though his primary focus is the local economies of rural communities, the lessons he teaches also apply in many ways to the life of city neighborhoods with their human scale. My primary source for thinking about neighborhood is, of course, Jane Addams, who made the west side Chicago neighborhood near Hull-House the sphere of action for her efforts to build a stronger democracy. This was the settlement house idea and there are many of us who still believe it has relevance for the 21 st century. It is not a philosophical exercise – it is the daily living with, abiding with, meeting the needs and sharing the aspirations of neighbors that defined the work of Miss Addams and her colleagues, and that needs to define our lives in cities as well. As Addams writes in Twenty Years at Hull-House (quoting Samuel Barnett, the founder of Toynbee Hall in London), this life in neighborhood requires “the conviction . . . that the things which make men (sic) alike are finer and better than the things that keep them apart, and that these basic likenesses, if they are properly accentuated, easily transcend the essential differences of race, language, creed and tradition.”
Here in Rockford we have a strong network of neighborhoods that are at the heart of efforts to engage citizens in both meeting our needs (for safety, a fair standard of living, and a sense of community, for example) and in seeking our aspirations (for beauty, common purpose, and civic prosperity, for example). As the college seeks to be a partner in this important work, we have a mentor and role model in Jane Addams and Hull-House to guide us – and I'm pleased to report that the settlement house idea remains compelling and persuasive for our fellow citizens.
A second theme about cities is the ways in which they reflect our abiding pursuit of civilization . In the west, in particular, cities are the loci for innovation that drives and defines us as a culture. Sir Peter Hall, in his massive tome Cities in Civilization (Pantheon Books, 1998), suggests that during the past 2500 years great cities have been at the center of artistic growth, technological progress, the marriage of culture and technology, and solutions to evolving social problems. I think about how each of those four themes in present in our own city's efforts to reinvent itself, whether it be through the creation of a more vital arts community, the development of high-tech manufacturing tools, or how to mesh economic development with educational and cultural resources. As Hall concludes, cities have never been utopias and those who find them distasteful or disagreeable will retreat to suburbs or rural villages. Cities are places “for people who can stand the heat of the kitchen: places where the adrenalin pumps through the bodies of the people and through the streets on which they walk; messy places, sordid places sometimes, but places nevertheless superbly worth living in, long to be remembered and long to be celebrated.”
A final theme of my city reflections comes from the work of Jane Jacobs, the legendary urban theorist, whose The Death and Life of Great American Cities (originally published in 1961) was a clarion call to arms for all those who loved the diversity and energy cities that was being ravaged by trends in architecture and city planning. One of Jacobs' main points was that the well-being of cities is defined primarily by common, ordinary things . Things like sidewalks, parks, defined neighborhoods, and a diversity of architecture styles and buildings of different ages. These common, ordinary things, when thought about with the needs and aspirations of citizens in mind, will create healthy, sustainable and vital urban centers. It is not about spending a huge amount of money, she warned, it is about “the innate abilities (of cities) for understanding, communicating, contriving and inventing what is required to combat their difficulties.” It is about, in other words, a reflective practice of city life.
Thanksgiving: Five Theses on Service Above Self
I had the opportunity recently to offer remarks on the occasion of the annual Service above Self Awards ceremony at our local Rotary Club. I was able to bring together several leading themes from my thinking that I presented as five theses on service above self (ala Martin Luther's 95 Theses – I only had 15 minutes!). Here is an annotated outline of my thoughts.
I. Service above self begins and ends with thanksgiving
- To truly serve requires a mutual dynamic of giving thanks – to serve demands the humility of thanksgiving, knowing that it is a privilege to be of service – and to be served also demands thanksgiving, knowing that in the relationship of service we share a gift
- My favorite story about thanksgiving comes from asking someone for a significant gift (this is reprinted from an earlier issue of Notes):
One of the most profound professional moments I have experienced occurred in a small room in an airport club in Newark, New Jersey, where the president of the college for which I worked, the national campaign chairman, and I met with an alumnus of the college to ask him to make a leadership gift for our campaign.
The initial chitchat gave way to a more systematic presentation of a case for his support. And then there was the moment when the campaign chairman asked for the gift—the moment of asking, I find, is always full of expectation and anticipation and even a bit of grace. The opportunity to ask surely is a gift. I give thanks for such moments of grace.
But it was not so much the lead-up and the solicitation that made this moment stand apart for me—as much as I find the dynamics of such situations a source of great pride and privilege in my professional life.
No, it was what followed that marks this occasion for me.
The prospective donor demurred. “I don't need my name on a building,” he said, “You know that.” Which we did. The president then offered this simple response: “But we need your name on the building, not because of your financial commitment, but because of what you mean to our college. Your career symbolizes what our college aspires to be and do. We need our students to be reminded of your example every day on campus.” I give thanks for such moments of aspiration.
I then recounted for him how, in the visits we made to college alumni around the country, to a person everyone asked about him and commented on how proud they were for him and because of him. During a particularly difficult time in the man's professional career, his fellow alumni had been especially concerned about his well-being and asked to be remembered to him. I give thanks for such moments of sincere caring.
Our conversation paused, and our prospective supporter took in our words. “Thank you,” he said simply. And then he went on to say that he would need to consider our request more seriously, discuss it with his family, and so on. But there was something in his eyes that told me he already had made up his mind. I give thanks for such moments of insight.
Two months later when the call came from our prospective donor with word of his intentions to make the gift to name the campus building, his generosity was confirmed. But, for me, that generosity had already been confirmed in the thanksgiving offered in that Newark clubroom.
- Thanksgiving – what does it say about our character as a people, as a society? What does it mean that thanksgiving is the beginning and the end of service?
II. Service above self is not possible without recognizing common needs and aspirations
- In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville traveled our country and wrote his still influential Democracy in America – he wrote about our habits, our mores, our civic beliefs and the roles they played in sustaining our democracy. He commented especially about the practice of associating and volunteering as particularly strong aspects of our common life
- In recent years, many scholars and commentators – from Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone ) to Robert Bellah (Habits of the Heart) to David Brooks (Bobos and Bohemians) – have pointed to ways in which Tocqueville's image of Americans has begun to erode – we are too individualistic, drawn to lifestyle enclaves, more likely to bowl alone than with our fellow citizens
- Still others claim that rapidly changing economies and technology mean that we are no longer the same country and should not expect that we would still reflect Tocqueville's mid-19 th century view of our lives
- Today, though, we gather to celebrate an organization, a committed group of volunteers, and a common cause that offers us hope that Americans still possess and aspire to the inclination to serve each other, the impulse to generosity that Claire Gaudiani has recently written about in her fine book The Greater Good.
- As we reflect on our work as Rotarians and in the countless other philanthropic organizations in our community and society, what are the abiding themes (despite the changing context) that inspire and motivate us to give of ourselves to serve each other, to be generous, and to sustain a strong democracy?
- I believe it's grounded in our common needs and aspirations – Michael Ignatieff's notion of human efforts at the core vs. at the margins (in The Needs of Strangers), the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jane Addams on the “thronged and common road” of democracy – all point to the fact that we share both needs and aspirations, and that our service to each other must be grounded in a recognition of the common parts of our experience
- For example, recently Rockford College students volunteered in a neighborhood beautification project at the Blackhawk Boys and Girls Club – engaging the kids in activities outside their daily lives, educating them about the environment, making their neighborhood a better and more beautiful place – this was a response to needs, but also a celebration of common aspirations
III. Service above self is grounded in a perspective of abundance
- It's about shared purpose – we all have specific roles, but those roles make no sense apart from the community of fellow citizens and neighbors working together to meet needs, it's a perspective of common wealth, of abundance, of civic prosperity, of common work
- Examples abound of how a perspective of abundance leads us to look for ways to seek common purpose, not to hide our resources and talents away because of fear of losing them
- Scarcity is too easy – abundance is the lens through which those who serve help to restore faith in community, hope in our shared purpose and vision
IV. Service above self is a labor of love
- Service is work that gives us joy – and if it does not, then it is not genuine service – question is are you happy?; not, are you a martyr?
- It's about the labors of love – Aristotle called it “civic friendship” – meeting each other as strangers and negotiating our lives together – loving each other as amateurs, not waiting for the experts to save us – surely Rotary's work and that of our award winners illustrates the labors of love that sustain a community
V. Service above self is a way of life, a set of values, a democratic ethic
- It's about a vision of democracy as a social ethic – the genius of balancing individual needs and interests with the common good
- The self doesn't go away in service above self, but it enters into relationship with others in mutual need and aspiration
- This is not some utopia, but a way of negotiating our lives together in a messy world – things will not always go well, but they will go forward toward a horizon that inspires our community – our award winners today are part of that inspiration
- With all the good we celebrate today, that we give thanks for, our abiding challenge is to find ever more imaginative ways to invite and engage others into this labor (for it is work!) and this love (for it also is love!) – we must build stronger communities, make civic friendships, love our neighbors and our neighborhoods – and for that vision, that hope, that aspiration, and for each of you, I end where I also began: I give thanks.
PRACTICE THIS
Nonprofit confab
In the fall of 2004, the U.S. Senate asked Independent Sector to convene a Panel on the Nonprofit Sector to address issues of nonprofit accountability and governance. The distinguished panel released its final report in June 2005 (a PDF version is available at www. independentsector.org). There has been and will be plenty more written about the panel's 15 recommendations, ranging from enforcing state and federal law, guidelines for audits and tax-exempt status review, new rules on tax shelters and non-cash contributions, nonprofit executive compensation, structure and size of governing boards, and conflict of interest policies.
From my perspective, the key issue for the nonprofit sector continues to be the distinction between pursuing accountability and waiting for it to be imposed. The fact that Congress needed to ask the sector to come together and develop the report is a sign that we have not yet understood how critically important it is that all of us who care about the nonprofit sector find ways to educate ourselves, our staffs and boards, and our various public constituencies about what we do, why, and how we are living up to the public trust.
Here at Rockford College , our nonprofit excellence center has launched a series of Leadership Cafes, which are designed to bring together our community's nonprofit leaders to discuss a range of issues related to our personal and organizational roles in the community. I had the privilege to facilitate the first of these gatherings around the theme of ethics and organizational life. We discussed the challenge of organizational integrity – the fit between mission and daily life. We also talked about pursuing accountability and being transparent in our decision-making, governance and public work. It was a starting point for an ongoing conversation that will have implications for the work of many organizations, and will also extend to include more and more citizens, who through those organizations already are participating in the good work of building a strong community. Ultimately that discussion will have an impact on how the wider community views the work of the nonprofit sector as our conversations lead to actions that honor the public trust.
I urge you to consider how you might begin such conversations in your organization and community. Start your own leadership cafes. Download the report and use it as a starting point for discussion and then decide what you can do in your organization and community to enhance public understanding and trust of the work you do, that the nonprofit sector does. If we leave it to national panels to set the pace, I assure you that accountability inevitably will be imposed. If, however, we take responsibility in our own communities for such conversations and action, we might set our own pace in pursuit of the accountability and transparency that the public deserves.
Civic responsibility
I have several items that have crossed my desk in the past few weeks that strike me as provocative and inspiring, especially as they pertain to our work here at the college educating students for democracy.
- The first is from an essay by Jean Bethke Elshtain entitled “Civic Virtues,” published in Illinois Issues (May 2005) as the first Paul Simon Essay. Professor Elshtain, who is on the faculty of the University of Chicago Divinity School, reminds us in her essay that civic life and a civil society are normative concepts; i.e., they are grounded in a complex intermingling of moral and civic imperatives. Her argument, that these moral imperatives are grounded in religion, is provocative but also resonates with much of historical and contemporary American experience. Elshtain calls us to explore how religion, at its best, draws us out of ourselves to know a good in common that we cannot know alone. The civic virtues that guide this pursuit of the good in common include decent compromise, moral courage, participation, and civic fellowship. How we teach and nurture those virtues seems to me an integral aspect of the work of our college.
- Senator Barack Obama, in a commencement address at Knox College (Illinois) , reflects on the question he believes every citizen needs to ask of him or herself: “What's your place in history?” It is the question Obama has been asked often in his historic election to the U.S. Senate, and while daunted by it he has come to recognize that the ability to ask and attempt to answer the question of our place in history is not a matter of false pride, it is the obligation of citizenship in a democracy that values freedom and opportunity.
- In a report entitled “The Class of 9/11” from the Partnership for Public Service, an organization that works with colleges and universities to promote public service careers to students, I found this wonderful phrase: “practical patriots.” The report suggests that students who experienced the 9/11 tragedy at the beginning of their college careers are practical patriots, by and large more patriotic because of 9/11, but not more likely to pursue careers in public service or the military. This, it seems to me, is one of the challenges we have in the education for democracy movement – to help our students (and the rest of us, as well) to grasp the variety of ways in which citizenship demands more of us than the emotional claim of patriotism. It demands that we reengage in public service, in public work that serves more than our economic and personal interests.
- Finally, in an article entitled “Can There Be Societal Trustees in America Today?” (in Futures Forum 2005, a publication of Fidelity Investments and NACUBO), Harvard education professor Howard Gardner describes a study that he and his colleagues are pursuing to determine why we can no longer easily name those individuals who are well-known, respected, influential, and considered to be disinterested in the sense that they are not identified with a single party or interest group. We face a form of this dilemma when we ask our students to name their heroes or heroines – it is not an easy conversation. These individuals, who Gardner labels “societal trustees,” have long played a critical role, he argues, in resolving social differences and bridging factions. He gives many reasons for the decline in the influence of trustees, wonders whether or not they have a place in our 21 st century democracy, and persuasively concludes that we do indeed need to find ways to train and develop societal trustees for our time. He looks to higher education as a context in which these trustees might be nurtured. He points out that who we invite to speak on campus, what we ask our students to read and discuss, and how we engage public leaders in continuing education are all critical parts of a strategy to develop societal trustees. These 21 st century societal trustees may well represent different elements of society and may need to function more in groups (such as commissions) than as individuals, but their roles as essential parts of a healthy democracy may be more important than ever.
PAY ATTENTION TO THIS
Resources for your reflective practice
Laura Rittenhouse (see above) suggests a new book, Living the Questions (ed. Sam Intrator, John Wiley and Sons, 2005), a compilation of essays by people who have been influenced by the work of Parker Palmer. She writes that she is “fortunate to be one of these.” As are many of us.
Cornel West's Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (Penguin Press, 2005) is West at his provocative best!
You may remember my ties to Chris Hedges, the former New York Times reporter who was our commencement speaker in May 2003. It seems like long ago. I always find Hedges insightful and engaging (at least in print!) His recent book, Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America (Free Press, 2005) is no exception. Check out the ten pages on his Rockford College experience, with special note as to which commandment it falls under…
Chicago
My thoughts about cities prompt me to return to the great poet and chronicler of life in Chicago in the early 20 th century, Carl Sandburg. His series of more than 130 poems entitled Chicago, published in 1916, begins with this classic statement of chastened pride in a city.
1. Chicago
HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
Subscription information
Subscriptions to Notes are simple to establish. Send me an email at president@rockford.edu, ask to be added to the list, and the listserv will confirm that you have been subscribed to the list. Please feel free to forward your email versions of Notes to others—they then can subscribe by contacting me. The current and archive issues of Notes are available on-line at www.jgacounsel.com .
Topics for the next issue (August 2005)
- Common work
- American myth(s) and revelations
(c) Paul Pribbenow, 2005
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