It begins, appropriately enough, with the Greek word “logos”, the word for word. (“In the beginning was the Word.”) The reflection of divine thought in the cosmos, the start. Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish lst century philosopher, said logos was “in-between” God and the cosmos. Stoics called it the soul of the universe.
It is a word that, for a professor of English & Creative Writing, which I’ve been for decades – (a professor who’s also a poet) - is perfect as a metaphor for what a writer might call “creative writing.”
So when one of my graduate students, who had been extremely pleased with the course in the beginning, used “logos” in a poem she presented to the class one day and I asked her what the word meant - she said logos meant “logic”. Not exactly, I said – there’s more.
To large degree, my enthusiasm (another Greek word, meaning to be full of some god or other) and my passion for words had made me a writer and a teacher of writing.
But suddenly – not exactly. My enthused approach to teaching? Not exactly. I was now guilty of harassment.
The student shot me a Look – and walked out.
Later, in her report of complaint against me, she said I had “singled her out” and made her “feel unsafe in the classroom”.
The bad news is that this scene is being enacted on campuses all over the U.S.– where teachers are “singled out” and made to feel “unsafe in their own classrooms” – for the act of teaching. For teaching books of all types, poetry, philosophy, psychology – (more words from the Greek.) Professors with tenure, adjuncts, elementary and secondary school teachers are being reported, investigated and “dismissed” for somehow making teaching “offensive” - with or without enthusiasm.
Creative writing and Departments of English historically have had co-existence issues. Though I worked tirelessly for my students, both undergrad and grad, I was regarded with suspicion by the boys’ club that ran the department from the back room and front.
I founded a PhD program in Creative Writing and Literature at USC singlehandedly, with no support from the English Department. I was given the “right” to found this program when I was offered another university position as Director of Creative Writing. The Dean who “retained” me at that time, (who was hired away to be President of Northwestern) fiercely negotiated to keep me at USC, as a valuable faculty member.
But to the English department I was always an upstart, a writer-lightweight in a world of heavy weight academics. I had no PhD, only a masters, despite my many books and awards (what used to be the “bar” for writers hired in academia). I battled the Department to keep the program alive – and now it is extremely successful. Now, however, the Department has taken it over. My detractors, one of whom observed that “Writing students won’t be the intellectual equal of our English grad students”, have all disappeared suddenly, like smog after rain.
In fact, my thinking in structuring the CW/Lit program as a PhD was to ensure that graduate students lucky enough to be admitted to a program that provided very competitive fellowships (in other words, several years of free tuition, health care, plus living expenses, and travel & research) would be scholars as well as writers – they would be required to read. They would be pleased to read widely – as writers must – as scholars of “everything”. Despite “the mean boys” and the diminishing influence of the humanities – they would in fact read inclusively the work of the distinguished scholars/academics in the Department – this would be a hybrid.
The hybrid’s application, as I put it together – was demanding. Most important were the writing samples required from all applicants – demonstrating both creative and critical ability.
But for all this, it turned out that I’d missed something key. Graduate students now sought a PhD in CW/Lit (as what is rather scarily called a “terminal degree”) – to buy into the job market.
I was so dinosaur-ish that I’d been teaching to an illusion in teaching writing – as if reading books and deep-discussing literature was the primary emphasis in acquiring a doctoral degree.
The primary emphasis was now on becoming – a tenured full professor at a major research institution. This required diminishing almost completely the writer side of the hybrid equation.
This also requires buying into an illusion – that academic jobs still exist. That there is a real viable job market for PhD’s in all fields. (Except for, say, engineering.)
Along with this – “my” school, USC – had been mired in national headline-size scandal after scandal – many of these scandals related to sexual predatory behavior or abuse. I had been a activist since the time of my hiring in the 80’s – speaking out about this campus outrage (as per the. AAUP Campus Climate surveys, placing USC among the top offenders for date rape and “non-consensual sex.”
Instead of addressing how this wrongdoing was enabled – USC embarked on a path of deflection: downward-directed guilt assignment – shifting the blame onto its faculty as perpetrators of “crimes”, in an effort to distract from its major offenders and their enablers. This official deflection required a host of vigilante agencies known by their acronyms – (CoPR, OPE, OED, etc.). These were “informer” operations leading to “prosecution” for violations of the rules of the Faculty Handbook (an HR “bible” of denial of due process). (Note: unlike a public university, USC, as a private institution is less “answerable” re due process violations, though it is still accountable to a fair standard of justice.)
In June of 2019, the Office of the Provost actually boasted about the successful sanctioning of faculty via CoPR. Here is an excerpt:
Since it started work in Spring 2018, CoPR’s sanctioning panels decided thirty-four cases of faculty misconduct—from among our total faculty of 7,400. Some of the behavior was recent while other acts took place earlier, but were reported only lately. As you would expect, the outcomes varied with the seriousness of the behavior and consideration of the circumstances. Eight cases led to termination or resignation (five of those respondents were tenured, well-established scholars); in eight cases, the outcome was a pay cut or denial of raise; in the remaining eighteen cases, the outcome was a requirement for counseling or coaching, or warnings. In connection with other sanctions, two professors were demoted.
The cases dealt with a range of behavior: violating university policies concerning unwanted advances or comments, or interactions with an intimate partner (nine cases); disparaging or unprofessional language or conduct (five); belittling and intimidating behavior towards staff, colleagues, or both (five); failure by a healthcare professional to fully report payments from industry (four); research conflicts of interest (three); failure to properly credit a student or a source in academic writing (two); unauthorized dual employment or dual faculty/student status (two); failure to follow guidance from Disability Services and Programs concerning accommodations (one); non-compliance on billing (one); not performing clinical responsibilities (one); and speech based on national origin or religion that violated the university’s anti-harassment policy (one).
Former cops, sheriffs, backroom interrogators, outside lawyer-recruits, none whose “beat” had ever been higher education – proceeded to browbeat and “prosecute” academics found guilty of “making inappropriate comments, sending excessive emails, using profanity,” etc.– then eventually turned them over to a sanctioning board (after a faux “grievance” process) to have their salaries slashed, and/or their tenure, along with their reputations.
As a university citizen – it seemed to me crucial to speak out about all of this. For "harassing" my students, for whom I'd worked hard and taught openly - I was investigated for months, grilled for five hours straight by "prosecutorial" lawyers, put through a long torturous attempt at self-defense, (after hiring a lawyer) - finally I was severely sanctioned. I was suspended from the university for a semester, my annual salary was slashed in half and I was forbidden to teach graduate students again, though I had founded the program in question. There was more but I am still fighting to clear my name in court. I was, in fact, harassed as “payback” for speaking out against the administration's attempts to cover up sexual abuse - those who were the "violators" turned to silencing me.
To be outspoken is to know intimately its opposite. To know what it’s like not to speak out, to remain silent when you might have opened your mouth, begged to differ. Or agreed with a minority opinion.
Or the other side of this: maybe you over-articulated, over-emphasized a point. You were a living instruction. We’ve all learned or un-learned that lesson.
For a teacher, (let’s say a teacher of creative writing) you share what you know about the subject by becoming the medium through which knowledge flows. Unfettered self-expression in creative writing is undeniably the foundation of the art.
If a university imperils this foundation, puts in jeopardy the free thought that once was central to the university’s existence, there remains little possibility that instruction in the creative arts can survive.
I am retired, but I also found it nearly impossible to teach at the end of my time in place.
I had wonderful students – some with obvious talent, some unsure of themselves – but all clear about expressing the self, then learning to shape that expression. In other words, hard work and time spent reading and then writing to learn the craft and the art.
For the brilliant writing student who dropped out of school in shame, when a male professor sexually assaulting her, as she claimed, in his office. before leaving -- I feel the loss of her voice. For the student who refused to engage with ideas that threatened her mind already made up, I feel the loss of that voice too. Logos cannot exist in silence – either silence imposed by predatory teachers or silence chosen as a wall built against the entertaining of an opposing view.
Censorship is criminal. It stunts the growth of a mind and imagination. Censoring a student’s mind by predatory actions - or by limiting student imaginations by imposition of narrow “styles” – reading only along closed paths or ideology – all censorship - with its ugly cousins, book banning and book burning.
Logos: the spark. It’s still there, but creative writing, all creative arts, may require freedom from the workshop mentality, from the corporate university itself – to survive.
Time to think of a poem, then. “think again”.
I especially love your conclusion here, Carol: " ... creative writing, all creative arts, may require freedom from the workshop mentality, from the corporate university itself – to survive." Amen.