A Few Thoughts on Catharsis, the Solstice and the Fallout for Elite Universities - lots of links!
Goodbye 2023! It hasn't been boring!
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School break is here! Enjoy the peace and quiet. Enjoy your loved ones.
I start the post below with a few words about the season and the solstice and a video I strongly recommend viewing even if you’ve seen it before. Because why bury “the good stuff” at the end?
Then there’s a brief “take” from me about the fallout from the Congressional testimony (you know the one I mean - and it’s still coming) and then lots of links if you want to explore a bit more.
Talking Out of School/Stony Creek Strategy News
Upcoming webinar for AISNE on Priorities and Practices in Writing School Statements - January 18th
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Enjoy all the links - no TOOS on December 29th. Newsletter features for January:
January 5th will be “Urgent Issues for 2024 or What Your Board Should Be Thinking About” Also in January, part two of the People Talking interview with Brad Rathgeber, Head and CEO of One Schoolhouse as well as a post on “Defining a Crisis and a Crisis Response.”
A Few Thoughts on Catharsis, the Solstice, and the Fallout for Elite Universities
I’ve been thinking a lot about the solstice and catharsis lately and about how, like chocolate and peanut butter, they go great together. I reminisced about howling my lungs out with a colleague from Westover at a solstice celebration several years ago. Something felt so good and so bonding about the two of us standing in a huge space in NYC, surrounded by strangers who in that moment weren’t quite strangers, a powerful and plaintive cry at the disappearing light because we knew eventually the light would hear our call and come back around again.
It’s been a little over a year since my dad’s passing and what is likely Waltham, Massachusetts’s Only Jazz Funeral - definitely St Mary’s Church’s Only Jazz Funeral. Last December seems like a blur but that funeral was catharsis - releasing grief at the passing of a monument in your life and embracing a celebration of a spectacular human being and a life well lived. Attention was paid.
The band played “When The Saints Go Marching In” and we danced down the city street, blocked off just for us by the very kind mayor. And as the attendants opened the back of the hearse once we arrived at our destination, the band still playing, the day the coldest we’d had that year, as I stood behind my mother in her wheelchair, my sister reached out her hand to place it on top of the casket as it disappeared inside. Catharsis.
Shane MacGowan of the Pogues died a few weeks ago and this video of Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neil performing the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” at his funeral in a Tipperary church - that’s how to do catharsis.
Watch it, maybe several times. We all need a big emotional exhale after this year.
There is so.much.fallout from the university presidents’ Congressional testimony.
So many takes. So many strong feelings.
And no catharsis in sight. Yet.
So many, it’s spilled over into part of what I’m exploring for the Urgent Issues post on January 5th.
But in brief:
The university presidents seemed to have missed the memo on what is my rule #1 in communications - Be a Human.
There are definitely lessons about governance here comparing and contrasting how UPenn, Harvard and MIT handled this crisis. More on that this winter.
The calls to abolish “DEI” are reductionist and at best unhelpful. “DEI” is easily misunderstood and caricatured, which is why I put it in quotation marks for this context. (Although these problems, in and of themselves, point to the fact that education needs improved articulation and clarity around diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging and its role in our schools.)
However we got here, many kids are genuinely struggling to find the meaning and purpose that fuels true resilience. We can reminisce about how things used to be or fret about their fragility but it doesn’t change their experience of the world, or their campus, now.
We’re in an “uncanny valley” where we’re connected all the time in one sense, and isolated and fragmented in others and the cognitive dissonance is exhausting, confusing and alienating for everyone.
Even in real life, people are “communicating” but often totally missing each other. People are preoccupied with what they are trying to say rather than trying to create connection, or start off loaded for bear. There’s great reluctance to discuss anything that might create discomfort for someone else, or bring judgment on oneself. And leaders seem to be so worried about a potential lawsuit or so beset by generalized fear of conflict they can’t hear what another person is saying. I could go on. In short, literal “speech” - talking to each other - is a hot mess.
We need less hand-wringing and more bravery to explore and test some real solutions. Schools are in a position to move this work forward. The more we can equip kids with meaning and purpose, the more the other issues will start to resolve as they can build their bravery muscles. We need to build ours, too.
A dear friend of mine works for one of the universities that has recently been in the news. She saw one of those digital billboard trucks pulled over across the street from campus and noted that what was on it was factually inaccurate. She walked over to the truck, knocked on the window and had a conversation with the driver. (I know, quite amazing!) Although he had no control over the message programmed into the digital billboard, they were able to calmly connect and communicate, human to human.
Devoutly to be wished!
So here are many links related to the fallout, all presented without comment or endorsement.
The law firm that prepped the presidents - NYT
Crisis managers not lawyers should have prepped the presidents - Boston Globe
The New Yorker interview with Berkeley chancellor Carol Christ on campus protests then and now
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) - statement in response to the presidents' testimony. (The FIRE’s mission is defending first amendment rights.)
And In Case You Missed It - TOOS December 2023 posts
Priorities and Practices for Writing School Statements
Partnering with the School Attorney - and interview with Julie Fay, Shipman and Goodwin
Looking ahead to 2024 - New features for Talking Out of School
Starting your own work-from-home business can be lonely. You have all made me feel connected and if I can make you feel a little less alone in your leadership positions, I am more than satisfied. I look forward to more adventures and more ways I can be of service to you all as you do the hard work of supporting school communities and kids in 2024.
The light is returning…
Thank you for being here!
Happy New Year -
Julie