An Experiment in Democracy: Tufts University Experimental College

Thoughts during and after the 20-Minute Interview
"That’s right; the university is a legal corporation, administratively independent from the Ministry of Education, run by corporate executives. All committees are purely consultative. The Senate is mainly staffed by subservient (and amazingly silent) professors and the Board of Governors (the BOG) is mainly populated by representatives of the university’s corporate allies. Both chambers simply vote yes to the President’s recommendations. To my knowledge, no executive recommendation has ever been overturned or even consequentially delayed in my 21 years here."
—University of Ottawa Prof. Denis Rancourt, who dared risk his career for his ideals (banned from campus, then taken away in cuffs February 2009)

[N.B.: Not one of the many Tufts University professors contacted deigned to respond to this blog entry. Thus is the state of vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy, in the Ivory Tower.]

A friend had suggested Tufts University Experimental College might be interested in a course revolving around what I did, which was practice creative activist-dissident writing. Free speech and vigorous debate, cornerstones of democracy, permitted writers in America to write without self-censorship. Those cornerstones ought to be taught, studied, revered, and discussed thoroughly in the context of college-writing classes. Yet how many writing professors, if any, actually did so? Well, I was aware of one, Professor Dan Sklar, who was teaching at another college. But why did most likely not do so? Self-censorship, careerism, and blinding conformity were perhaps the culprits. In any case, I examined the Experimental College website, which boasted being “the oldest organization of its kind in the United States” and served “as a major focus for educational innovation, expansion of the undergraduate curriculum, and faculty/student collaboration within Arts, Sciences, and Engineering.” Innovation sounded “experimental,” but “expansion” did not. It sounded “business.”

“Literature, Democracy, Dissidence, and TRUTH” was the writing course I thus devised. Its “experimental” nature gleamed from the title itself, for dissent and truth, in academe and elsewhere, were being gagged by speech codes and other PC requisites. The Foundation of Individual Rights in Education had designated Tufts and a handful of other universities, including Brandeis University, Michigan State University and Johns Hopkins University, “Red Alert institutions” because they “displayed a severe and ongoing disregard for the fundamental rights of students or faculty members.” Those institutions were "the ‘worst of the worst’ when it comes to liberty on campus.” Examine www.thefire.org/index.php/promo and also “Tufts University: Hostile Environment for Free Thought” (Hawaii Reporter), “Tufts tops list of free-speech foes” (Boston Herald), "The PC enforcers" (The Trentonian), and "Campus Alert: Don’t joke at Tufts" (New York Post).

Perhaps I should have used one of those titles for the title of my course. In any case, the only way professors and administrators would accept a course such as the one I proposed was if they were not proponents of the PC-bridled speech that got Tufts into trouble with FIRE in the first place. In the course, students would examine censorship at, amongst other places, their very own university, be asked to delineate personal taboo areas, and encouraged to break some of those areas by writing about them and even seeking to get that writing published. Every writer (and academic!) knew damn well that “success” depended on turning a blind eye and manifesting a certain degree of herd conformity. Sadly, at least for democracy, most chose the road to “success.” One such taboo area for students might very well include their professors and the Experimental College itself.

Thus, I filled out the application for “Visiting Lecturers” and sent it with my newly created syllabus… into the academic void. Well, actually I was hopeful. After all, this was an “experimental” college. Eventually, I was contacted for an interview. My friend naively thought it was a done deal. But I’d seen far too much in academe to know better. Program Assistant Nikki Bruce responded to my query: “I can tell you that we interview 90-95% of applicants. Your candidacy is certainly being considered, but at this point, I can’t really comment on what that means for your chances. It’s a competitive process, and we try to be fair to all candidates.”
Two of the three interviewers would be students. Were candidates being used as a cheap means for students to practice their interviewing skills? It would be interesting to know if in fact that were an explicit policy. Tufts offered no cash at all to help defray travel expenses, not even for parking on campus! These were indeed desperate times… at least for me.

Out of the approximately 45 so-called “experimental” courses listed for the Fall term 2008, most appeared to be not even remotely “experimental,” including “The Women of Byzantium,” “Medical Spanish,” “History of Documentary Films,” “The Writer's Craft: Practical and Theoretical Approaches,” “The Comic Book in American Culture,” “Forensic Science and the Investigation of Crime Reconstruction,” “The Constitution and American Education,” “Investing in Stocks,” “Advanced Filmmaking,” and “Advanced Electronic and Digital Media.”

Those courses, or similar ones, would likely be found in the curriculums (as electives or other) of universities not even possessing experimental colleges. A handful of the other courses seemed, especially for a university, to be a bit ludicrous in subject matter and scope, including “Soccer, Society, and Immigration” (“As society evolves and changes with immigration, so do its sports”), “The Business of Sports: A Study of the NBA,” “Road Trip: The Automobile, Tourist Traps, and Modern America,” “Bullying in Social Context” (did we need an entire course devoted to “bullying”?), and “Birth of the Tube: A History of Early Television.”

Few of the courses, if any at all, could even remotely be considered daring, risky, or simply politically incorrect. Only a handful of them seemed somewhat “experimental” in nature, including “Producing Films for Social Change,” “Separation of Church and State in American Life,” and “Faith and Social Action: How Faith Inspires Activism.”

My experience—several decades in academe as a professor—underscored that most professors were generally indifferent, if not downright hostile, to truth telling and the needs of democracy for it. What most were interested in was the inculcation of canon (and even PC) in their students. This I sensed during my interview. Democracy itself was not often contemplated and thus tended to perplex, as it seemed to do with my interviewers. Likely I’d confused the term “experimental” with openness, that is, openness to what normally would not be permitted in the curriculum of a “normal” university, in other words, truth telling! Society encouraged the corrupting of terms, “experimental” included. Read Orwell’s 1984!

In the designated conference room, I showed up a little early. One of the student interviewers eventually appeared, so I introduced myself. He was Andrew Wise, English major and rather taciturn, not at all enthusiastic, and immediately began reading over a copy of my syllabus, as if he hadn’t yet even looked at it. Before him, I’d spread upon the table several copies of The American Dissident, which I created, edited and planned on using in the course, several journals that had interviewed me (my face on the front covers), and a new book of my critical poetry. I offered them for his perusal, but he chose to continue reading the syllabus instead. The other student interviewer then appeared. Again, I introduced myself. She was Rachel Abbott, majoring in International Relations. I suggested she take a look at the books and magazines on the table. But she too expressed little interest and proceeded to read her copy of the syllabus, as if she hadn’t yet read it either.

Christiane Romero, the faculty interviewer, arrived 10 minutes late and apologized: “I’m sorry I’m late.” She had a thick German accent and looked like an aging academic. She introduced herself as a professor of German and proceeded to briefly explain the evaluation process: “This is only a preliminary interview. It has to be determined if it fits into the program for the semester. If not, then perhaps for the following semester.” Of course, I immediately wondered why that hadn’t been determined prior to the interview. “We are only a part of the process,” she emphasized. The questions then began. “Do you mind if I stand?” I asked. “Well, perhaps you should sit,” said the professor. So, I sat.

“How would you be grading students?” asked Rachel. “I mean what if you don’t agree with what they write, and what about grammar?” I responded that correct grammar was important and whether or not I agreed would depend on the rigor of the logic employed and cogent supporting illustrations underscored. “If a paper is riddled with grammar errors, it tends to divert attention away from the message,” I noted.

“Will the assignments be equally weighted or how would you grade the assignments?” asked Andrew. “You call this a writing course. How would it be different?” “Well, the assignments would be of equal weight,” I responded. “I suggest four papers, for example. The last would not necessarily be the most important one, though if a student makes the same errors on each paper it could then be weighted more heavily in the negative. Students will be asked to enumerate their taboo areas, for example, then encouraged to write about them. In other words, every writer knows what he or she shouldn’t write about if he or she wants to be successful.” I mimicked quote marks with my fingers regarding the term “successful.” “Orwell had noted ‘A modern literary intellectual lives and writes in constant dread—not, indeed, of public opin­ion in the wider sense, but of public opinion within his own group.’ I’ve included an ample reading list. Orwell’s essay ‘The Prevention of Literature’, for example, is on it. If you haven’t read it, you really should.” Andrew asked me to repeat the title, which I did, then he wrote it down.

“But isn’t successful a subjective term?” asked the professor, who apparently hadn’t understood my gesture. “Sure,” I said. “But by ‘success’ I mean with regards society’s idea of ‘success’. In other words, every professor knows, for example, what he or she shouldn’t write about, if he or she wants to get tenure, early retirement, sabbaticals, special favor or whatever else.” Certainly she understood that!

I showed them the two Tufts student newspapers, one conservative, the other liberal, both of which I’d leafed through prior to the interview. I’d circled “moaning and complaining” on one of them and held it up. “What’s wrong with those terms?” I asked, but nobody responded. “Well, valid criticism ought not to be dismissed as ‘moaning and complaining’,” I said. “That’s lazy and empty ad hominem rhetoric. You do know what that is, right?” The two students nodded. “But don’t you think some criticism is complaining?” said the professor. “If there’s truth to it, then it’s not complaining,” I replied, but she didn’t quite seem satisfied with that response.

“What other goals have you set for this course?” asked the professor. “Well, I’d like to sensitize students to issues of free speech,” I said. “Tufts University, for example, is enacting a ‘Declaration of Freedom of Expression and Inquiry’. Maybe you’re aware of this?” Both students nodded again, though half-heartedly. “Well, it stipulates that, and I quote, that it ‘requires an environment of respect, tolerance, and civil dialogue.’ So, what’s wrong with that statement?”

Nobody responded. Their enthusiasm and inquisitiveness was close to nil. Grades! That’s what seemed to move them, not democracy. “Well, it permits in essence the arbitrary truncation of freedom of expression by professors and administrators who would arbitrarily determine what constitutes ‘tolerance’ and what constitutes ‘civil’,” I said. “In other words, it puts civility above freedom of expression, whereas the opposite should be true in an institution of higher education.”

“Would you then be in favor of hate speech?” asked the professor. “If it’s truthful, yes,” I said. “In fact, it’s constitutionally protected in America. The ACLU has stated that the ‘First Amendment protects speech no matter how offensive its content. Speech codes adopted by government-financed state colleges and universities amount to government censorship, in violation of the Constitution’ [for the full statement, see www.aclu.org/studentsrights/expression/12808pub19941231.html]. There’s also what is known as the heckler’s veto. Do you know what that is?” They didn’t know. “Well, it’s a legal term in a sense and means that somebody who doesn’t like what somebody else might say or does say can truncate that person’s right to say it by simply heckling or making a stink. Far too often, universities succumb to the will of politically-correct hecklers.” Their blank looks made me think my spiel went right over their noggins.

“Oh, so you blog?” said the professor perusing my syllabus. “Yes, I just began doing that a month ago,” I said. “I like to perform what I call experiments in free speech. You’ll note that on the blog. I queried, for example, some 60 UMass English professors with regards the academic culture. Only three responded. Two basically called me an asshole, while the third said he’d be interested in reading anything that had to do with Shakespearian England. That particular experiment supported my hypothesis that professors in general were not very interested in vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy.” Blank looks veered my way again.

“What would you do if a student felt uncomfortable in a class like the one you want to teach?” asked Rachel. “Well, this is probably a course that would require a caveat,” I responded. “You do know what that means?” “Yes,” she said. “Well, it’s a course that would attempt to make students aware of the importance of having tough skin in a democracy,” I said. “Too much truth is being suppressed because someone might find it offensive. I’m entirely for truth and not so concerned about offending or not offending—students or professors.”

Then the interview was over. Only 20 minutes were permitted, though I think I’d exceeded that time limit. The professor asked if she could have a copy of The American Dissident. “It wouldn’t be used in the process,” she said. “It’s just for my own curiosity.” So I gave her a copy, and never heard from her again. Her hate-speech comment seemed to reflect she was a PC practitioner. What, I wondered, had qualified her to be an Experimental College interviewer? Had she ever even performed an experiment in her life? How to sell a course on dissidence and democracy to a tenured German professor on the verge of retirement? It would have been a lot easier to sell soap or Fuller brushes. Evidently, I would have had a fighting chance if the course had been called “Writing across the Curriculum for Women,” “Writing for the Afro-American Stock Analyst,” or simply “Writing for the Texting Generation.” Overall, I thought the interview went poorly and was convinced my course would not be accepted. And indeed, a month later, I’d discover it wasn’t… “due to the high volume of applications” and the “applicant pool was extremely competitive.”

Thus, I perused the courses offered for the Spring 2009 semester. Again, most of them would easily fit into “normal” curriculums elsewhere in foreign language, sociology, psychology, political science and other such departments. Those courses included “Introduction to Haitian Creole and Culture,” “Marxist Ideology,” “Nature Encounters Through Art,” “Sadism, Masochism, and Society,” “Introduction to Trauma: Individual, Family, Community, and Global,” “The Vietnam War in American Culture,” “The Consumer Society,” “Black Power: Student Civil Rights Movements,” “Race, Social Justice & The Moving Image,” “Al Qaeda and Modern Terrorism,” and “Latin America: Democracy, Human Rights, and Civil Society,” “Americans in Paris” (Hemingway redux?), and “Medical Spanish” (once again).

“The Jewish Origins of Punk Rock,” “Introduction to Game Development,” “The History of Geography” and “Digital Democracy in the 21st century: Internet and Mobile Phones” appeared somewhat superfluous for an institution of higher education, while “The AIDS Epidemic in Theatre and Film” and “Jazz as Global Music: Cultural Adaptations of an American Art Form” seemed sufficiently PC. Again, few of the courses, if any at all, could remotely be considered daring, risky, or simply politically incorrect. “Education for Active Citizenship” and “The Constitution and the State of American Education” seemed somewhat similar to my course proposal, but would the professors teaching them actively encourage students to test their citizenship and examine the “state” vis-à-vis Tufts University? Would “Ethical Leadership in Business” touch upon Tufts University? And how about “Guerilla Performance Art & Politics”?

How many of the accepted courses would be encouraging students to open their eyes and, in the name of free expression and vigorous debate, write career-nefarious truth-telling essays such as this one? Was I disappointed by the negative outcome? Certainly! Fortunately, however, the time spent on the proposal wasn’t wasted. Indeed, it resulted in this creative-writing essay and also enabled me to further contemplate the oddity that those who would exercise their First Amendment rights at an institution like Tufts University tended to be conservatives, while those seeking to suppress them, liberals (see www.thefire.org/index.php/case/742.html). How might professor liberals, for example, be teaching at Tufts Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service? Were they teaching that “public service” had increasingly become equated with “self service,” careerism, and the road to making millions like the Clintons and Daschel?

Finally, in the hope of instigating a little vigorous debate, this essay was sent to Nikki Bruce, Program Assistant at the Experimental College, Robyn Gittleman, Director of the Experimental College, and Christopher Barbour, Coordinator of Special Collections, Tisch Library, who had yet to respond to my requests that he examine The American Dissident for subscription consideration. Also, it was sent to the student newspapers, Tufts Daily and Primary Source. The latter was conservative and had been under extreme pressure by Tufts professors and administrators to conform to the needs of PC, as opposed to those of democracy. Furthermore, it was sent to about 45 instructors and professors teaching in the English department—lit bait thrown into the murky waters of the academic/literary established order milieu. Would any of them respond? If lucky, one or several might. That had been my experience with UMass English professors. Eventually, the director responded: "Thank you for your letter of December 17th. I read it carefully and willshare it with other members of our board." No further response was received. Vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy? Certainly not at Tufts!

Likely this very essay would prevent any future chances of my having a course accepted by the Experimental College, though did I really have a chance and would I really wish to submit to another interview conducted by somewhat indifferent and incurious interviewers?

The term “experimental” had a certain mystique and element of hope about it. The reality of the Experimental College fell short of what that mystique and hope would seem to promise. That reality was one of business as usual; that is, college as usual. Perhaps Tufts ought to rename its Experimental College in an effort to conform it to that reality… or better yet rethink the “experiment” which, in the College's own words: "after nearly forty-five years as a vital, thriving part of the university, the Experimental College is no longer an 'experiment'."

The rethinking, if done, should be effected not by those of the corporate/academic mindset, but rather by untenured, free thinkers, uninhibited by the requisites of careerism.