Good morning.
Now that we're
well beyond the effects of jetlag from our trip to Australia and New Zealand
(it took about 10 days), I can belatedly return to these idle musings and
research commentary. But there's nothing here about the coronavirus.
Kathy and I
had a "culture weekend" February 29-March 1. Saturday we went to the
Met Opera simulcast of Agrippina by G. F. Handel with our friends Andy
& Carolyn Collins. On Sunday we went
to the Guthrie to see Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
I was originally daunted by the prospect
of Agrippina: it was four hours long (including the intermission). Four
hours of *anything* is a long time, at least for me, but I can listen to Handel
indefinitely. As it turned out, the time passed quickly and it was one of the
more enjoyable operas I've experienced. I wonder why it's not performed more
often; perhaps the length scares away both directors and singers. What was a
little strange about it is the one of the three male roles (Nerone, or Nero) is
to be sung by a soprano—and thus a woman. Two of the other male roles are to be
sung by countertenors—that is, males who sing in a range usually performed by
women. So three of the male roles were by voices of women. Kathy found on the
web the program for the first performance, in 1709, directed by Handel himself.
The three roles were played by the soprano and the countertenors. It would be
interesting to know why Handel wrote those roles as he did.
The Guthrie's performance of Twelfth
Night ranks as one of the weirder productions of a Shakespeare play that I've
ever seen. No, make that *weirdest.* Modern, but with splashing around in
water, two of the male roles played by women, music (certainly not Shakespearean)
played by a combo (certainly not in the play), and a modern setting with
unusual costumes and hair arrangements. That said, it was fun to watch. I'm not
a fan of taking plays out of their original setting and moving them to another
time and place, but this one was entertaining. What I'm not sure about is
whether it was Shakespeare, except for most of the speaking.
I didn't start this narrative intending
to be a reviewer; what prompted it was observations about attire. Jeans and a
sweatshirt are entirely appropriate for going to a movie theater to see anything,
including Met Opera simulcasts. However, forty years ago I wouldn't have dreamt
of going to the Guthrie without wearing a jacket and tie. If I do so now I am
overdressed, so I don't. I tone my garb down to slacks and a sweater, but even
then, I see, I'm overdressed. There were a lot of jeans and casual tops/shirts
on display.
So style goes, I guess. Neither
Elliott nor Spencer (Kathy's son, same age as Elliott) have ever learned to tie
a tie. It is doubtless old-fashioned, if not even curmudgeonly, to think one
should get dressed up for an event. I wonder if there's any truth to the old
adage that people think and behave differently if they're dressed up more than
normal (and not inebriated).
* * *
The website
for the Collaborative Fund (a socially-minded investing outfit that I ended up on
by accident, because of a link from another site) has a page "100 Little
Ideas: A list of ideas, in no particular order and from different fields, that
help explain how the world works." I've picked out a few of them to
highlight, ones I think are particularly explanatory or intriguing or (for me)
novel. The ideas are in italics; any comments from me are not.
-- Depressive Realism: Depressed people have a more
accurate view of the world because they're more realistic about how risky and
fragile life is. The opposite of "blissfully unaware." I suspect
this varies with the depressed people; some may not be paying much attention to
the world. Most of us are probably somewhere in between "depressive realism"
and "blissfully unaware." Is the latter related to known unknowns and
unknown unknowns? Then there are some things I choose not to be aware of
because I simply do not want to know, or at least not in any detail (e.g., how
sausage is made). In general, however, I think I don't really agree with this
one.
-- Curse of Knowledge: The inability to communicate your
ideas because you wrongly assume others have the necessary background to
understand what you're talking about. Viz, discussions of current American
politics with certain acquaintances.
-- Base-Rate Neglect: Assuming the success rate of
everyone who's done what you're about to try doesn't apply to you, caused by
overestimating the extent to which you do things differently than everyone
else. My goodness, this comes up a lot of the time. I think we all, at
various times, neglect the base rate.
-- Cumulative advantage: Social status snowballs in
either direction because people like associating with successful people, so
doors are opened for them, and avoid associating with unsuccessful people, for
whom doors are closed. Another widespread phenomenon that many are either
unaware of or deny. I have seen it in action all my life, probably because I
watch for it to happen; it's something you learn about in the introductory
sociology course in college. I don't mean *I* have cumulative advantage and I've
been watching it for myself, I mean I've observed it in many social and
professional interactions over the years. But I suppose, just because of my
background and education and career, I have some cumulative advantage—as do
most of the people I know.
-- The 90-9-1 Rule: In social media networks, 90% of
users just read content, 9% of users contribute a little content, and 1% of
users contribute almost all the content. Gives a false impression of what ideas
are popular or "average." I have no idea if these data are
accurate, but even if off a little, the point needs no elaboration.
-- Aumann's Agreement Theorem: If you understand your
opponent's beliefs you cannot agree to disagree. If you agree to disagree it's
because one side doesn't understand the other side's view. I've thought
this from time to time—but I also don't think it's accurate. If one person believes in God and another does not, why cannot they "agree to disagree"? Each understands the other's point of view
but does not concur. The same with abortion: one person may believe life begins at conception
and abortion is murder; another may believe that the point at which "life"
begins is somewhat arbitrary and women should be able to choose whether or not
to continue the pregnancy. Each understands the other's view, but
I don't see any option other than that they have to agree to disagree. Maybe I'm missing
something in this one.
-- The Middle Ground Fallacy: Falsely assuming that
splitting the difference between two polar opposite views is a healthy
compromise. If one person says vaccines cause autism and another person says
they don't, it's not right to compromise and say vaccines sometimes cause
autism. Versions of this have popped up recently in discussions about how
the media should handle controversial topics. The silliest recent iteration is
whether the earth is flat or spherical: there is no reason to take a middle
ground because one side is demonstrably correct and the other is malarkey. On
the other end, again, is abortion: if you believe abortion is murder, then
there's no acceptable compromise. If you believe there should be choice, you
can't go along with the proposition that it's murder. There's no middle ground.
-- Fluency Heuristic: Ideas that can be explained simply
are more likely to be believed than those that are complex, even if the
simple-sounding ideas are nonsense. It occurs because ideas that are easy to
grasp are hard to distinguish from ideas you're familiar with. Again, viz: current
American politics, especially certain media coverage of same.
-- Perfect Solution Fallacy: Comparing reality with an
idealized alternative. Prevalent in any field governed by uncertainty. If I
understand this correctly, it's a variation on "the best is the enemy of
the good" (usually attributed to Voltaire). My approach to the coming
elections (I'm looking for the "good," not the "best,"
because the "best" in terms of alignment with my political views
might not win an election); perhaps not the approach of some of the supporters
of Bernie Sanders (for whom the "best" is Sanders and all other outcomes
are not "good" enough).
* * *
I think I
read a romance novel. I've never read anything in that genre in my life, to my
knowledge, so I don't have a standard by which to judge. We were in the Rotorua,
NZ, airport, and I had read the two books I'd brought from home. I knew we had
many hours in flights ahead of us, so in this tiny airport (4 gates) and
terminal, I wandered into one of the only two retail establishments in the
place. It had a small selection of books; two of them, unusually for me, piqued
by interest.
One of the
two was The French Photographer, by an Australian author, Natasha Lester.
It was a love story, to be sure, but the greater part of the novel was about a
woman—a stunningly attractive model who also happened to be a talented writer
and photographer—trying to be a correspondent and photographer in France during
WWII. The military frowned on women in the theaters of battle, so it was a struggle
against all the forces of male chauvinism. The story was based on a real woman (Lee
Miller), and one of the major characters in the novel is Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998;
per Wikipedia, "an American novelist, travel writer, and journalist who is
considered one of the great war correspondents of the 20th century. She
reported on virtually every major world conflict that took place during her
60-year career. Gellhorn was also the third wife of American novelist Ernest
Hemingway, from 1940 to 1945.") Lester drew heavily on memoirs and other
documents to write the lead character into the settings—and she did a good job
of it.
So I guess
I read a romance novel, but it was also an interesting history lesson.
* * *
Folks at
the University of Colorado at Boulder have come up with findings that only add
to the worries about climate change—and not findings I've seen anywhere else.
What they predict is "two to three million more violent
crimes between now and the end of the century than there would be in a
non-warming world."
A couple of years ago
the researchers looked at an FBI database and climate data to "identify
a set of compelling regional connections between warming and crime rates,
especially in winter. Warmer winters appeared to be setting the stage for more
violent crimes like assault and robbery, likely because less nasty weather
created more opportunities for interactions between people."
Taking what
they learned from the earlier study, they combined those findings with a large
number of climate change models. They concluded there will likely be "tens
of thousands" of additional violent crimes per year in the U.S., depending
on how quickly and how much the climate warms.
One has to
wonder if the majority of the increase will take place in northern parts of the
U.S., where the weather may serve as a deterrent for part of the year (e.g.,
-10 degrees, -30 windchill). In more temperate parts of the country, presumably
the weather plays less of a role; if it's always at least above freezing, crime
is easier than if you freeze if you are outside or go someplace without appropriate
clothing. Are crime rates per month greater in the warmer parts of the U.S.
than in the colder parts? Does Minneapolis see a comparative reduction in crimes
compared to Miami or Houston during the winter?
* * *
A few years
ago I wrote about three women who'd had a significant influence on my life, all
three of them (at the time) 80 years old. In the order that I met them, (1)
Regents Professor of Psychology Ellen Berscheid, (2) Professor and Vice
Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Shirley Clark, and (3) Professor & Athletic
Director Christine Grant. I hadn't heard lately from any of the three of them (two
of them are quick to be in touch on email, one is dreadful at it but does
occasionally call), so I called two and finally received an email from the third.
I was relieved to learn that all three are doing well and as lively as ever. I
know that staying in touch with me is not their highest priority in life but
they've all been very good about keeping me posted on their lives (and I them on
mine, but I inflict that on a lot of people) and generally going back and forth
with me on whatever topics come up.
When I originally
wrote about Christine, Ellen, and Shirley, Kathy asked me if there had been men
who had played similar roles in my life. I said there were but that memorializing
them was for another day. Perhaps now is that other day. Let me begin by saying
to my friends, male and female, who are not included in my stories, that I
value you enormously for the contributions you've made to the quality of my
life. Of course all of you have had an impact, in various ways, on who I am and
where I am in life (a statement I would think all of us could make about our
family and friends). My goal here was to identify people who, as best I can
remember, had an impact that I can recognize in retrospect as significantly consequential.
(For those who didn't see the stories about the three women, I append them, if
you care to read them.)
Oddly, I
had a harder time identifying men. Let me start with my dad. (I know, everybody
rolls their eyes; we're all profoundly affected and shaped by our parents. I
have a specific reason for including him, however.) He was not an intellectual person
nor did he think deeply about much; I cannot recall ever seeing him read a
book. He had a college degree in business, a G.I. Bill student, but his
lifelong interest was sports (he was captain of the Minneapolis West High
School baseball team in 1940). To whatever degree I have any intellectual
curiosity, it did not come from him.
What he did bequeath me, whether by
genetics or modeling I cannot know—probably some of both—was a practice of
treating everyone with grace and patience and warmth no matter what he thought
of them. He was the quintessential diplomat in personal relations. When my
mother died (long before my father), I was dumbfounded at the number of people
who came to the funeral. The church, not a small one, was completely filled. If
you assume that those who come to a funeral do so out of affection and respect
for the living—which I do—then you learn how many people the surviving spouse
could count as friends.
I came to realize that there were
hordes of people who held my father in extraordinarily high esteem. I can't
count the number of people who told me so, both at the funeral and for years
after. He never—well, probably almost never—spoke a negative or hostile word
about anyone in public. I know, from evening cocktail hour chats with just him
and my mother before she died, that there were certainly people he disliked or
disapproved of; in one of his favorite phrases, he would sometimes comment that
"[so-and-so] is an answer to one of my questions in life, why there are more
horses' asses in this world than there are horses." But that was in
private moments, never in public.
To what extent I have successfully
managed to emulate my father in this way is for others to judge. I will say
that I have tried for most of my adult life to do so.
The second man is actually a pair
that will be astonished to find themselves linked (and both of them receive
these epistles): Scott Eller and Robert A. (Bob) Stein. My connection with them,
in brief. (1) I met Scott fall quarter
1966 in our sophomore year of high school. We became good friends and have
remained so ever since, including going through political science degrees at
the U of Minnesota and thereafter playing bridge, dining, lunching, and
occasionally traveling together. I have had Google hangouts with Scott and
another friend just in the past few days. (2) I met Bob in late 1976 or early
1977, when he was associate dean of the Law School, and he became a University
vice president soon thereafter—and, thereby, my boss, because that was the
office in which I worked. I worked for him for two years, and briefly several
years later, and have remained in touch ever since.
So how are they linked? The story
requires context. When I was growing up, my parents, my grandmother, and my
great-aunt (in whose house we live) all impressed upon me how smart I was and
how far in life I would go. That that kind of message can go to someone's head,
especially in the case of a youngster—and it did to mine. So when I hit
sophomore year in a new school (in Minneapolis at the time, junior high school
was grades 7-9 and senior high was grades 10-12, so we entered the new school
as sophomores), I had a pretty high opinion of myself.
One of Scott Eller's most endearing
traits is his tendency to poke holes in pompous balloons. When we were of high
school age, he was sometimes snarky about it, but also often humorous. In the
course of a developing friendship during that academic year, I was an easy
target for his dislike of people whose ego kept showing.
When Bob Stein became my boss in
1977, we of course had frequent conferences in his office about whatever
administrative matters were at hand, most often about the athletics programs. In
many cases I was reporting on some task he had asked me to perform, some kind
of administrative work to address a problem, whatever. Many times more than
once I would leave the meeting shaking my head because Bob was thinking about
answers to questions that had never occurred to me. I realized very quickly
that I was interacting with someone who was *a lot* smarter than I was. (I doubt
that Bob knew the effect that he had on me.)
Between (1) Scott poking fun at me
when I slid toward being boastful or self-centered, and (2) Bob's intellectual
powers being evident to me, I like to believe I came develop an appropriate
sense of humility about the limits of my abilities and, like Scott, a keen
dislike for the self-important and the pretentious. I cannot be certain that I
ever fully escaped the tendencies in that direction but I can say that I've
given it a good shot.
The third man who had a significant
influence on my life was the late Regents Professor of Political Science and
Dean Frank Sorauf. I have had to reflect for awhile on how it is that Frank affected
my life, even though I knew he did so, because his influence was more indirect.
I first met him as an undergraduate when I took his course on the Judicial
Process in early 1972. (No, I did not remember that date, but through the
wonders of University electronic records, I can view my transcript.)
An aside: I was interested enough
in the course that (my transcript tells me) I did additional work while in the
course to earn an extra credit. I'd forgotten all about that, but I remember what
I did: I wrote a lengthy paper analyzing Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis's
approach to deciding cases and his view of the role of the courts in American society.
Frank must have been impressed because he gave me an A on the paper and
commended me for my research and conclusions—and I had already learned that
Frank was stingy with grades. That course and paper probably goes a long way to
explaining my lifelong interest in what the Supreme Court does—so this is an
effect he had on me apart from the ones I'll enumerate in a couple of paragraphs.
(Would I have had that interest anyway? Who knows. I do remember, even now,
that I probably worked harder on that college paper than any I ever wrote.)
After interacting with me as a
student, Frank hired me as a research assistant to work on aspects of his book
on the separation of church and state. I retained that position when Frank was
recruited to become Dean of the College of Liberal Arts in 1973, at which time
he hired me as Assistant to the Dean (when I was in graduate school in
Psychology). Although I left the College job to take a position in the vice
president's office (where I later met Bob Stein), I remained a close friend of
Frank's up to the end of his life, in 2013. (If you're curious about his work, Amazon
still has his books available:
So what was
his impact on me? For one, he did not suffer fools gladly. One can have that
attitude about people but it can cross over into a sense of self-importance and
certainty about life's matters that is usually unjustified. Frank managed to
pull it off without being an egotist, and in observing him do so, I learned
something: It's possible to refrain from negativity and hostility toward
someone, and to avoid inflating one's own ego, and at the same time be
skeptical about those whose behavior and words are seen as counterproductive in
dealing with the matter at hand—or who seem to be intent on making foolish
choices or decisions. (My favorite Frank Sorauf story, in the "not suffer
fools gladly" category: two faculty members came to him while he was serving
as dean. One complained that the other had used a vulgarity and called him a
name. Frank listened to them and then advised them to meet at dawn on the flats
down by the Mississippi River and duel with carrots. He could get away with
that 45 years ago but maybe not now.)
Second, he
amplified my interest in classical music. I had listened to it off and on
during college and my mother played some on the piano as I was growing up, but
he was a serious aficionado and taught me a considerable amount. (He also
served as president of the Minnesota Opera Company; the story I was told—not by
Frank—was that he stepped in at a time the Opera was going under and he saved
it with deft management.) I didn't take up an interest in opera until Kathy
came into my life, but we did attend a few Metropolitan Opera simulcasts with
Frank in the two or three years before he died. He brought a sharp critical
mind to performances.
Finally, in
my work with him as a research assistant, I learned the importance of doing
research thoroughly and well. There's a reason he was awarded the title of
Regents Professor: his research was stellar and solid. The Amazon book list
illustrates that work. I didn't live up to his scholarly productivity—I didn't
even try because he was way out of my league and my job wasn't one that gave me
enough time to do so. Every time I do
research on anything, however, no matter how modest—even if quick Google
searches for the purposes of this missive or for a Facebook post—I can hear
Frank's voice urging thoroughness, critical examination, and thoughtfulness.
A second
aside, another of my favorite stories about Frank: He asked me at one point to
review the page proofs—back in the day when a publisher sent paper page proofs to
an author for review and editing—for his book The Wall of Separation. With
Frank's consent, I recruited my friend Rolf Sonnesyn to help me, and we would
take turns reading the text aloud to each other to find errors. Frank related
that in the course of the many interviews he conducted as part of his research,
he had occasion to spend time with Madalyn Murray O'Hair. An ardent and outspoken
atheist, in her heyday she was (in LIFE magazine's description) "the most
hated woman in America" because she initiated the case that led the
Supreme Court to outlaw prayer in public schools. Frank told me that O'Hair was
one of the most unpleasant and obnoxious people he had ever in his life met.
Finally, a
note about my friend Professor of Child Development W. Andrew (Andy) Collins. Many
of those of you who have spent time socially with me have heard this story, but
I'll repeat it for the many who have not. I had completed my Ph.D. coursework/seminars
and was trying to get my head around what my dissertation question would be.
A couple of side comments to the
many of you who have not gone through the Ph.D. process. (1) Several of my
faculty friends at the time cautioned me that getting a Ph.D. is not a sign of
superior intelligence, it is only a sign of perseverance. They were correct; it's
a grind. So, apropos of my story about Scott Eller and Bob Stein, I didn't let
earning the degree go to my head. Besides, at a major research university,
Ph.D.s are a dime a dozen. All of the faculty and many of the professional
staff I worked with had Ph.D.s (or the terminal degree in their field, like
M.D., J.D., D.V.M., etc.). (2) Anyway, in most fields, once you've done the
coursework/seminars/labs/whatever, you must formulate a research question that
you propose to answer with your dissertation. (The Ph.D. is a research degree,
not a "practicing" degree like law, medicine, teaching, business,
etc.; the point of a Ph.D. is to teach you how to do research in your chosen
field.) I had a general topic but I *could not* come up with a research
question; I was getting despondent because I'd been mulling this over for weeks.
One morning, sitting in a
University cafeteria having coffee, surrounded by a stack of journal articles
and books, desperately trying to figure out the question, my colleague (and
later lifelong great friend) Andy Collins happened to wander in. He saw me, got
coffee, and sat down to chat with me. I was bemoaning my situation to him. He
talked with me for a bit, and then offered a possible research question. Bingo!
That was it! He delivered me from the agony of confusion. I have never let him
forget how grateful I was that he got me going on the last step of the
dissertation process.
With those
lengthy and perhaps uninteresting stories, I'll sign off.
Gary
* * *
(from 2017)
A paean to older women
friends: it occurred to me late last
year that I have had the remarkable good fortune to be (almost) life-long
friends with three extraordinary women, all of whom turned 80 in 2016 and all
of whom I remain in touch with. Each of
them, at different times and in different ways, had a significant impact on my
life. (Yes, I should have included this
story in my 2016 letter, but I didn't think of it until a week after I'd mailed
the 2016 edition.) In alphabetical order.
1. Ellen Berscheid,
retired Regents Professor of (Social) Psychology, University of Minnesota. I met Ellen when I entered the Ph.D. program
in Psychology after dropping out of the University of Minnesota Law School in
1973. In my second quarter in
Psychology, in early 1974, I took the graduate-level introductory course in
Social Psychology, taught by Ellen Berscheid.
During one of the class sessions, Ellen mentioned her dismay at"grade
inflation," the apparent increase in the number of high grades given to
students even though they weren't necessarily putting in any more work or
learning any more. (One remembers the
oddest things from classes. One of the
lessons from Ellen was that folk wisdom about social psychology is often ambiguous:
"absence makes the heart grow fonder" but"out of sight, out of
mind";"birds of a feather flock together" but"opposites
attract";"he who hesitates is lost" but"look before you
leap"; and so on.)
Ellen's comment on grades led me to initiate a study of
University grades from 1955 to 1974 (with help from the University
administration and funded by the student government), which documented
conclusively that grades had indeed inflated over the period—and especially
during the period of the Vietnam War (when faculty members may have given male
students in particular sufficiently high grades to enable them to stay in
college and avoid being drafted—or so one hypothesis goes, anyway). The report made a splash in the local
newspapers and resulted in my being asked to address the Council of Academic
Officers—primarily the deans—about grade inflation. So at age 24, knowing little about the
administration of the University, I was sitting in front of the all of the
deans and the president and vice presidents explaining why I thought grade
inflation was not a good thing. The dean
of the Law School at the time wondered why this was an important issue. I never did like the guy thereafter.
(I am often startled by coincidence. Just when I finished composing these
paragraphs about Ellen, I found on my Facebook news feed an article from March,
2016, titled"A's for Everyone: How Grade Inflation Is Wrecking Higher
Education," with the subtitle"Students who may not deserve high marks
are getting them." So 40 years
later the problem hasn't gone away—so you can see how much effect my study had
on the course of events. Nor is it
confined to the U.S. Two days after I
wrote the preceding paragraph, the daily news update Inside Higher Ed had an
article: "British Universities Fret About Grade Inflation": "Roughly
one in four students are leaving British colleges and universities with top
honors, raising concerns about grade inflation and the devaluation of degrees.")
Ellen and I got to know one another because of the study and
have maintained the friendship for the succeeding 43 years. While we have enjoyed discussions on a
variety of topics over the years, we have debated and sparred in friendly
fashion about religion ever since we met.
I don't recall now how we ever got on the subject in the first place.
It was Ellen who was partly responsible for my returning to
school to obtain my Ph.D. She pointed
out to me, in a kindly but also mildly acid tone, that I would turn 40 (a few
years later) with or without the degree, so I might as well have it than
not. Her logic was indisputable.
Ellen made her mark as one of the"founding mothers"
of the study of close relationships, has been recognized nationally with
numerous awards for contributions to the field, and is one of the most
distinguished psychologists in the country.
When I was in the doldrums following my divorce, she suggested I take a
look at her recently-published magnum opus on close relationships. I did so, and learned much—and emailed her to
tell her that while much of what was in the book made sense, some of it did
not. She asked if I would go through and
provide her comments on sections where I thought the research results were
puzzling. I wasn't exactly in the mood
to do so at the time, but I acceded to her request, in part because I was
complimented she thought enough of me to ask.
One datum came through loud and clear:
older single men have much higher mortality and morbidity rates than do
attached/married males. I already knew I
had no intention of staying single, but reading that information in her book
provided whatever additional impetus I needed to get into serious dating. After going through the book paragraph by
paragraph, I was a soi-disant expert on close relationships in the State of
Minnesota (i.e., after Ellen herself).
Ellen continues to be interested (as a scholar) in topics
that I also find intriguing, such as the nature of consciousness (she's delving
into quantum mechanics because it is one of the approaches to studying
consciousness!). We continue to have
lunch once or twice per year (when she retired, she moved back to her native
Wisconsin, in Menomonie, but that's only a 45-minute drive from Minneapolis)
and talk about subjects of interest. We
also continue to exchange emails about life, travel, and academic matters, and
I continue to be enriched by her presence in my life.
2. Shirley Clark,
retired Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for the Oregon higher education
system and, before that, Professor of Higher Education at the University of
Minnesota and Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs (and, a number of
years later, Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs). I met Shirley in 1975 when she was Assistant
Vice President; her office was on the same floor as mine in the University's
main administration building (Morrill Hall).
Although our responsibilities did not intersect to any significant
extent, they did so just enough that I got to know and like her very much.
She decided to leave the administration and return to her
faculty position; she was in that role when she served on the University's
senior faculty committee advising the president and administration, and was
elected chair of the committee. That was
the same time I had taken the job of professional staff to the committee, so we
began working more closely together.
Shirley joined Ellen in badgering me about returning to graduate school
to obtain my Ph.D., and I finally did so—and Shirley agreed to be my Ph.D.
adviser. In that role she was enormously
helpful in getting me going and orienting me to the department and the"higher
study of higher education." I am
not sure I would have pursued the degree without her guidance and insistence.
Unfortunately for me, Shirley was offered the vice
chancellor's position in Oregon, so she and her husband Jack (also a colleague
I worked closely with) left Minnesota after many years here and I had to find a
new adviser (I did, and he was wonderful in the role—but I still missed having
Shirley). We stayed in touch, however,
and I continued to gain from her insights and wisdom—and still do. My regret about her move was that I had not
seen her in person in many years—but finally caught up with her last summer in
Eugene, about which more later. (When
Jack and Shirley left for Oregon, they asked us to"take care of"
their lake cabin in Wisconsin. "Taking care" of it mostly meant
mowing the lawn and ensuring there was no damage to it; what it also meant was
that for four summers, starting in 1991, we had use of a lovely lake place
every weekend. They wouldn't even let us
pay the utility costs. So the weekends
of Elliott's formative summers—he was born in 1990—were spent at the lake. It doesn't seem to have had any effect on him
whatever. He loved the sunfish and crappie
filets that Pat made—he ate them like potato chips. As an adult, he won't eat fish of any kind.)
One of the small elements of Shirley's persona that I have
always tried to imitate and to impress upon my children—with only modest success
in both cases—is her practice of speaking in complete English sentences,
punctuation (implicit) always included.
I marvel at her precision every time I listen to her—in part because it
is so rare and in larger part because I believe it reflects a disciplined and
thoughtful mind.
Shirley is indirectly and unbeknownst to her responsible for
this part of the letter. In mid-December
of 2016 she and I were in touch the old-fashioned way: we talked on the telephone for nearly an
hour. Later that evening, in the jumble
of thoughts we all have when somewhere between being awake and sleeping, the
fact of these three women all turning 80 and that they had been such part of my
life came to mind. What's amazing is
that I remembered it the next morning.
I also need to make a note for the record. I am given credit for the"6 Presidents"
event at the University in May 2015. It's
true that it was my idea, but when I floated the proposal before 3 of the 6
presidents, including the current president, they all gave it a thumbs
down. So I dropped it—but I did happen
to mention the idea to Shirley in an email.
She wrote back to tell me of a similar panel that had been constituted
at the University of Illinois when she was on the faculty there, before she and
Jack came to Minnesota. I passed along
Shirley's description to one of the former presidents, who, upon reading the
description, changed his mind about the attractiveness of a"6 Presidents"
event. The others did as well, so the
event came off. It is to be recorded,
however, that it would never have happened had not Shirley written to me.
3. Christine Grant,
retired Director of Women's Athletics, University of Iowa. When the president of the University of
Minnesota rearranged administrative responsibilities in 1976, he shifted
athletics to the vice president for whom I worked. That vice president assigned me central staff
oversight responsibilities for athletics—budgets, facilities, policies, the
usual stuff of any organization. As I
have told many friends over the years, inasmuch as I had never had any interest
in athletics and heaven knows no one had ever accused me of being an athlete, I
approached the job as a complete novice.
The mid-1970s was a period when women's college athletics
were just getting off the ground, after the passage of Title IX of the Higher
Education Amendments of 1972, which forbade discrimination on the basis of sex
for any institution receiving federal funds.
As part of my new responsibilities, I began attending the national
conventions of both the National Collegiate Athletic Association—NCAA—and the
Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). I quickly got to know many of the women from
Big Ten schools, and in particular Christine Grant at Iowa. Over the years I've known her, she's
(deservedly) been given more national honors and awards in recognition of her
service to athletics, and especially to women in sport, than I could earn in 10
lifetimes.
As an undergraduate I'd studied American constitutional law
and history and learned about the slow advance of civil rights. I realized much later that the focus had
never been on women's rights. I had not
given the topic much thought (mostly because it had never occurred to me there
was a question: what antediluvian
thought men and women shouldn't be treated the same in society?). In long conversations with Christine and some
of her colleagues from around the country, it became evident to me that women
were in a number of ways as disadvantaged as blacks and other minority groups
in the country—and not just in college athletics. Christine sensitized me to issues of sexism,
and taught me much, for which I have been grateful ever since. (One thing Christine has not been able to do
is make me much more interested in athletics per se than I was 40 years ago; I
was interested in the administration of college sport but the games? Not so much, although a little more.)
I have visited Christine in Iowa City nearly annually for
almost 40 years. (Fortunately, the drive
between Minneapolis and Iowa City has been shortened by over an hour with the
completion of new freeways and highway upgrades.) Before I met Pat, I would go down by myself;
then Pat and I would go; then Pat and I and the kids would go (turning
Christine's house into the Hotel Grant).
Kathy and I have only been down twice since I've known her (Kathy), but
we did visit last summer and are resolved to do so again.
Unrelated to athletics, Christine is a native of
Scotland. When I was on leave at the
University of Edinburgh in 2006, she put me in touch with her brother Hugh and
his friend Margaret, who lived (and still live) in a small town very close to
Edinburgh. Hugh and Margaret were
wonderful friends when we were in Scotland, and gave us several fun tours of
the area surrounding Edinburgh.
My life is infinitely richer for having had the acquaintance
of these three women for four decades.
(Yes, all three of them have received this letter every year I've
written it.) I hope this isn't taken as
a self-congratulatory"I've had a great life" kind of entry; I
intended it to be a tribute to these three friends of mine. It also seems that when I was about 25 years
old I enjoyed the company of women about 40.
