Well, I'm still here.  The surgery last week was successful.  The
cancerous prostate is out and so is all the cancer.  The doctor's used the
word "cured."  Damn, that's a sweet sounding word.  Bless those annual
physicals and caring, conscientious physicians.  Now, I'll be recuperating
off campus for about another three weeks under the watchful and loving eye
of my Susan who has mutated into a combined faithful friend, devoted
companion, loving mother, caring nurse, and a steely-eyed, unyielding drill
instructor.  I have been such an undemanding good patient that it hurts, and
have been uttering an endless string of obediently "yes, ma'am."

        Since my diagnosis last November, and even more so now, I have been
facing my own mortality.  I have realized that life is far more tenuous than
anyone of us might or want to think.  At some time, I had placed my hand
over my chest, had felt my heartbeat, had understood that it is the sound of
my life-clock counting down, had known it would some day stop and that I
can't do a thing about that.  With the suddenly realization that I don't
have the luxury of throwing away a single, precious second, I found myself
pondering the age-old questions of the meaning of life and what I do.  I've
mused about why I'm here and what is my greater purpose in the grand scheme
of things.  So many of us, most of us, so often look for the type of answers
that are as grandiose and complicated as that scheme.  We simply dismiss the
simple possibility that there may be simple answers.  Yet, as Newton said,
Mother Nature does like simplicity, and following his Law of Parsimony,
maybe the answers are simply found in that something that you truly like to
do, that something that truly makes you happy, that something that stirs
your passion and keeps you going, that something that gives you a sense of
purpose and meaning, that something that makes you feel great about what
you're doing and about who you are, that something that has the true answers
in your heart, that something that is incredibly rewarding, that something
that keeps you hanging on, that something which keeps you free.

        Most people don't like jolting questions, academics included, even
though we pronounce that we teach students how to ask them.  Most people
like answers, and if they don't get easy, emotionally satisfying, suddenly
bathed in bright light, burst of divine vision answers, their eyes acquire a
glaze, they drift off into some dreamland, or their lips begin to twist as
they prepare to defend to the death whatever it is they do--or don't do.
Nevertheless, my answers I pose in the form of questions.  They're "raise
your hand if you feel you can get more out of what you do" questions.
They're tough, honest questions.  They're getting to the essence of what
really matters questions.  They are risky "listen carefully to your heart"
questions.  They are "do you hear destiny calling you" questions.  They are
"this is what I should be doing with my life" questions.  They are my "when"
questions:

        When are we going to heed Martin Luther King's word:  "Our lives
begin to end on the day we become silent about things that matter."

        When are we going to stand up and shout that, mission statements and
glowing words to the contrary, we do not create a climate for students to
learn about their own meaning, purpose, and mission in life?

        When are we going to condemn the continuation of what I'll call
"false achievement" perpetuated by an approach "We compare, we compete.
That's all we ever do" that leaves students feeling isolated and alone, that
destroys any concept of community?

        When are we going to scream out that our reward and recognition
systems cause a great deal of moral and ethical disconnection and
contradiction between personal and academic lives both for students and
faculty?

        When are we going to yell about our restrictions, avowals to the
contrary, on innovative teaching and bold new directions in the classroom?

        When are we going to stop being silent that the real purpose of an
education is not merely to transmit information, but to transform people, to
help students learn how to use that information as a source and means of
self-inspiration, self-development, self-transformation, respect for
themselves and others, and to improve the world we live in.

        When are we going to loudly demand that we expunge debilitating and
often paralyzing "learned fear" and "acquired aloneness" from our academic
culture for both the students and faculty?

        When are we going to stop accepting a denigrating level of
conformity in virtually every facet of our lives rather than exercise the
individuality that is the very essence of who we each are?

        When are we going to loudly demand that we develop an educational
approach for "strategic achievement that nurtures relationships with others
and identifies a purpose cause beyond oneself, that education should be
defined primarily are the capacity to care about and to be cared about, to
love and to be loved?

        When are we going to shout that an education be about the moral
development and character growth of students, not just preparing them to get
a job.

        When are we going to proclaim that the most important question we
can teach students to ask is:  "What can I do for you?"

        When are we going to actively create a campus culture of welcome, of
support and encouragement, of respect for and love of and caring of each and
every student?

        When are we going to shout that an education is a way of life, not
an amassed amount of information, not an entry "union card" for a job?

        When are we going to realize that the lifelong lessons inherent in a
"strategic education" of respecting oneself and others, being empathetic,
caring about others, and contributing to the well-being of others are far
more important than any grade, GPA, or academic honor?

        When are we going to stop focusing so much on what we are doing that
we lose sight of where we're going?

        When are we going to realize that love--that warmth, that gladness,
that encouragement, that embrace, that empathy, that otherness, that
awareness, that sensitivity--is the one powerful, enduring, delicate force
that brings real meaning to our everyday academic lives?



        When?

Make it a good day.
--Louis--

Louis Schmier                            www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History                    www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698                    /\  /\  /\          /\
(229-333-5947)                            /^\\/  \/  \  /\/\__/\ \/\
                                         /   \/   \___\/ /  \/ /\/  /\
                                        //\/\/ /\  \__/_/_/\_\___\_/__\
                                     /\"If you want to climb mountains,\ /\
                                  _ /  \    don't practice on mole hills" -\