End of an Academic Career

For seven years I have been a university professor (Author’s Note: This material was written in the summer of 1977). Nine years prior to that I was a student at varying levels in one institution of higher education or another. Sixteen years in academe, which is approximately half of my life to this date. What will it be like to work a regular job like the average person? There it is, one of my many problems. I’m an intellectual elitist. No doubt. Since my first year in college I have not thought of myself as ordinary, average, one of the masses. I needed to be better so I thought of myself as better. Sort of a bastardized variation on a theme by Descartes. Now I will be like all the other working stiffs because I am one, with an 8:00 to 5:00 job. Leaving the house around 7:00 and returning around 6:00 or later, as work demands. Every day. Performing meaningless, trivial, mind-numbing tasks important to no one but the client. For a paycheck, a house in the suburbs, and a precarious hold on the vaunted brass ring.

Why? Because my employer, Eastern Michigan University, is actively trying to lay me off. And eventually will succeed. Naturally, always the shit-disturber, I’m fighting the lay-off notice every step of the way. I’ll not leave quietly, dragging my tail between my legs, defeated by those officious, self-righteous bastards. After all, I’m a tenured Associate Professor, a member of the Graduate Faculty. For all the good those silly designations do when push comes to throat-cutting. Truth be told, I’m only fighting it half-heartedly. At it best EMU is a barely mediocre institution and lousy if you want me to be honest about it — that sounds like the worst sort of rationalization, doesn’t it? Yet, truth be told, it is on target.

I won’t be missing much by way of intellectual quality when I leave. But, it has been my home for seven years. On the plus side I have several friends in the Geography-Geology Department who I talk with every day about important ideas. The prospect of leaving already fills me with ambivalence and bitter-sweet sadness.

Despite many sometimes vociferous denials, to say that I treasure the life of a university professor is no exaggeration. Teaching, doing research, digging through fascinating works in the library, interacting with inquisitive students, engaging in stimulating intellectual exchanges with fellow faculty. It’s almost the Ideal State for me. Why, then, am I leaving?

First, although being forced out is the prime cause, no matter how distasteful and painful that process may be, it has little to do with my acceptance of the necessity of leaving EMU. Being sacked has simply overcome the blockbuster inertia that would have kept me at EMU, moldering away, losing my edge, until death did us part. So, in that small way, a tiny bit like Socrates openly accepting the cup of hemlock, I welcome the lay-off and look past it to a new life.

Second, in ways half-hidden from myself and everyone else, I desperately need to break away from the academic world. It is a narcotic, lulling me to sleep, insidiously pulling me into the land of nod, a place for intellectual whores, ass kissers, status quo preservers. A morass of bourgeois madness for testers of less than middle-range hypotheses (a tip of the sociological hat to R.K.M.).

Middle of the road American universities like EMU are not places that typically encourage and nurture intellectual foment. That’s much too dangerous to be encouraged or allowed. Professors are penalized overtly and covertly for being too radical (read intractable, which is a most appropriate word in this context, meaning not capable of being moved). Their research in the whole must support the true mission of the university, which is to bring in money and keep wealthy and influential contributors and alumni happy. Those rabble-rousers, like me, who revel in pointing out societal inequities and even the dark side of the actions of the university itself are warned once or twice and then are given short shrift (a wonderful Catholic phrase). Anyone who does not understand that those statements are factual is as incredibly naïve as I was seven years ago when first introduced to the inner workings of the system.

The basic function of places like EMU, and other third- or fourth-tier universities, is to train low- to mid-level replacement parts to keep businesses running at an acceptable pace of profitability. Actual education plays no part whatsoever in the process. Even the students implicitly recognize the charade: “Teach me what I need to get a job.” That’s it. The sum and substance of their educational goals.

That assembly plant system of “higher” education is concerned only with pushing the required number of bodies through at a rate commensurate with the amount of funds received. More funds equal more bodies. Full Time Equivalents. FTEs as they are so lovingly referred to by university administrations across the country. Accountability.

Let’s be a little more specific in defining the critical equation. More funds equal more programs equal more professors equal more graduates. And it works the other way as well. Fewer students equal fewer programs equal fewer professors. And that’s the bottom line. Which becomes the proverbial nut cruncher for malcontented professors who feel compelled to rock the boat with their inappropriate research enough to stimulate the wrath of the dreaded Administration. How else would that system function? I mean, that’s EMU. The assembly line college for children of assembly line workers. They deserve nothing better. Hey! We’re talking about EMU here, not the University of Michigan. What the fuck else could it be? Did I tell you the name of the EMU newspaper is The Echo? No shit.

Those well practiced in survival techniques are seldom troubled during times of bloody axe murders. Oh, I forgot. Reduction in force. Sorry. Have to keep that straight.

Professors are not dumb. We all know how to pick safe research topics, ones that generate minimal controversy. Pure research. Objectivity. Value free science. Except we’re talking social science here, not micro-biology or the physics of crystalline structures. Which of course may be as value-laden as social science but few of those guys would ever admit to such heresy. The sad fact is that some hard-headed rebellious fools never learned that critical lesson or refused to kowtow to the Great Pooh-Bahs sitting on high in Administration Heaven. They are always the expendable ones blown away in times of financial exigency, tenured or not.

Guys like me. Unwilling to do the obvious, too full of intellectual pride or piss and vinegar to do as so many of my colleagues, which is to write and publish safe bullshit while kissing the administration’s ass. So, because I’m a shit-disturber I’m vulnerable. Vulnerable despite a decent enough record of professional publications, enough to earn tenure, and vulnerable despite my having served as the Thesis Advisor of more graduate students than anyone in the Department. Vulnerable despite excellent student evaluations, which in truth I regard as worthless in any context.

When the crunch comes the ass-lickers line up at the Dean’s door and do homage to the Great Man. On the other hand, at a full Departmental faculty meeting in 1975 I was tactless enough — in that specific case the phrase, monumentally stupid, is far more appropriate — to tell Dr. James Magee, the Vice-President of Academic Affairs, that he had, while lecturing us on failing in our responsibility to run our Department correctly, meaning to generate more FTEs or else, consistently misused the terms, attitude and value, switching one for the other. And if we were uncertain as to what he was trying to tell us about our Department, how then could we possibly act intelligently on his ideas. Yeah, that was a very smart move on my part.

Well, that observation, correct though it may have been, went over as smoothly as an altar boy ripping a sulfurous fart in front of the Archbishop. My problem was that the FTEs were fundamentally out of our control and Magee was just using us as his whipping boy. I wasn’t going to sit there and pretend, like my erstwhile colleagues, that the Emperor had a set of new clothes when in fact he was starko. Needless to say, that comment marked me as a serious malcontent and was the beginning of the end. Which I had been in the Department long before that incident but that foolhardy act certainly moved my reputation down two or three notches. Actually, most of my colleagues later claimed to have noticed the Vice-President’s error but were too polite and mature to point it out in such a public venue. Bull shit, I told them. You fuckers were either sound asleep, didn’t know the difference in the first place, or too scared shitless to say one word in protest as he rode roughshod over us. And that comment caused no end of hard feelings. The bastards had no sense of humor nor did they value the truth. Politically expedient is what they were and what I wasn’t.

In the middle of fiscal year 1975, The Administration officially notified the Geography-Geology Department that enrollment had declined sharply in the past year throughout the University and specifically in our Department. In addition, Departmental FTE production was projected to continue to erode in the coming two years. Consequently, the University was declaring a state of financial exigency. As a result, our Department would lose two full-time faculty positions, effective in the Winter Semester 1977.

For those unfamiliar with university labor policies, at least one year’s notice was required for faculty lay-offs owing to the contract between the University and our erstwhile collective bargaining agent, the pathetically ineffectual American Association of University Professors (AAUP). The Department was given a grace year either to get our shit together and shore up FTE production or identify two sacrificial lambs to be offered up for slaughter. Marvelous choice. Naturally, many of my colleagues, responding to the urges of reality, were eager to finger two victims. But some of us, my friends and I included, refused to participate in that internecine struggle and said it made more sense to generate additional FTEs by devising programs that would attract more students. I personally refused to vote to lay off specific people. Perhaps a mistake, but there it is. And so we commenced a vicious internecine struggle that lasted over a year.

In mid-December of 1976 the Administration turned up the heat by selecting the two most junior faculty for lay-off, Allan Cichanski, a geologist, and Gene Jaworski, a geographer with whom I had had several serious disagreements over the material he was teaching in two courses. Cichanski had tenure but no PhD — or Master’s degree for that matter and was no longer a PhD candidate (ABD) with the university where he had studied: Ohio State University. Allan had officially been turned down by the Departmental Tenure Committee for tenure but the Dean, a close personal friend of Alan and his wife, had supposedly signed the wrong form, thus “accidentally” approving his tenure application — and Jaworski was without tenure but had the requisite graduate degrees. But he had the dubious distinction of being hired last. For him it seemed to be LIFO (Last In, First Out) all the way. Seemed turned out to be the operative word.

The friends and supporters of Cichanski and Jaworski started to play hard ball and generated considerable internal and external pressure to have the lay-off notices rescinded. It certainly didn’t hurt that Allan was a good friend of the Dean’s and, painful as it is to be honest, the arguments made in their support had more than a little truth. Both men were good teachers who were popular with students. Many of the Departmental faculty felt that our programs would be compromised if they were dismissed. It was after the Dean rescinded the lay-off notices that the Administration attempted to force the Department to turn on itself and identify the next victims.

An absolutely brutal battle ensued, complete with Machiavellian intrigue, shifting alliances, recriminations, viscous rumors, and blatant lies worthy of the most unethical corporate infighting. The battle lines were drawn politically, between the left and the right. We leftists, blindly and stupidly rejecting realpolitik, tried to ignore the falling axe and swore to do nothing to assist the Administration’s blood letting — a better example of the time-honored “head-in-the-sand” defense would be difficult to find. The conservatives, much more practically oriented as always, immediately leapt into the breech and unhesitatingly pointed their fingers at Marshall McLennan and me. If Cichanski and Jaworski were to be saved from the axe, as the most radical in our approach to education we were easily the most vulnerable members of the Department.

The next year and a half was so awful that describing it as nightmarish is to badly understate the brutal emotions that swirled around and almost consumed us. It was one raging battle after another. Faculty meetings became insult fests that frequently deteriorated into shouting matches between ordinarily even-tempered, well-intentioned women and men. After a particularly trying meeting, Larry Ogden, one of the most senior geology professors, a man in his early sixties, burst into my office and loudly accused me of intentionally lying about a key issue. I walked around by desk until I was inches from his face and told him he was a lucky man.

“No one calls me a liar to my face and gets away with it. The only reason I don’t punch you in the mouth is you’re too old and feeble to survive. Now, get the fuck out of my office before I throw you out.” In those precise words.

For months I would come home after those marathon meetings so upset that I was unable to eat dinner or to talk calmly about the events of the day. Rationality had taken an extended holiday from the deliberations of the departmental members.

My personal nadir came on May 17, 1976, which also happened to be my thirty-third birthday, in the form of an official registered letter from James H. Brickley, President of EMU. Its express purpose was “to formally notify you that you will be laid off at the conclusion of the Winter Semester of 1977.” Quite the birthday gift. Marshall McLennan had received the same letter minutes before.

Pow, pow, you’re both dead. It would take the bodies a full year to hit the ground but the inevitable always wins. Over the next year Marshall and I fought the good fight but when your corner man is the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), staying vertical is a real challenge. We were always trying to come from behind with AAUP support that was never up to snuff. We appealed the decision all the way up the ladder of Administrators as stipulated in the contract, with the expected lack of results. Next we filed a formal grievance that was routinely denied. Our last step was to submit the matter to binding arbitration, which took us three months to prepare for and five full days to testify before the arbitrator. And then we waited for the decision.

In the preceding year, despite the distracting brouhaha, I organized a six-week long field class to south Florida with Drew Nazzaro as co-director. The bald truth is that the course was my idea from the get-go and Drew was persuaded to become part of the venture only after I had done most of the necessary ground work. We proposed investigating a variety of environmental and planning issues. The class was scheduled for May 2 through June 16. The arbitrator’s decision came on June 11th, while we were on Marco Island. I remember taking the call from San in the early afternoon. She was very excited, having just received a letter from the arbitrator, who had ruled in our favor and against EMU. I felt vindicated, triumphant. And also tremendously relieved. But no way was I going to stay at a job where I wasn’t wanted. I had no future in the Geography-Geology Department or at EMU. No matter what the arbitrator’s decision.

So, before leaving on the field trip to Florida I had sent a number of letters to consulting firms in St. Louis, enquiring about jobs in urban planning. One interview was scheduled for June 20th and another several days after that. The simple truth was I wanted to leave the university setting. I was burnt out and exhausted from more than two years of brutal blood-letting. Besides, at that late date no academic positions were open and San desperately wanted to move close to her mother. Her father had died about four months before and she wanted to go home. Why not? If I could work four or five years for a consulting firm as an urban planner and gain valuable professional experience, it would be easier for me to get back into teaching at a decent university. Or so I assumed.

I was at the end of my rope at EMU and even with an 8:00 to 5:00 job and the uncertainty of what I would be asked to do, the potential pay increase would likely beat the shit out of what I had been making. It was a new opportunity and I was determined to make the most of it.

But underneath all that exterior confidence I was worried, frightened even. The only way of life I had known as an adult was coming to an abrupt end. After all, being a university professor was the only job I ever wanted. It was my dream job. I loved teaching and being a university professor. If I had found it difficult as a quasi-rebel to survive in an academic environment how would I adapt to the real world where leftists were chewed up and spit out daily? And I was genuinely insecure about being able to do well as a professional planner. Even though my graduate background should have been right on target to do the job competently, the question was would I be able to apply those skills in response to the demands of the cruel world? A big unknown there. And most of all I worried that I would be unable to find sufficient challenges that would excite and hold my intellectual interest over a relatively long period.

But, was there a choice? No. I wouldn’t work at EMU again no matter what the conditions and it was glaringly obvious that I was neither wanted nor appreciated.

As a footnote, at the end of June I accepted a position as a Senior Urban Planner and Assistant Planning Department Manager with Booker Associates in St. Louis, a 200-person, multi-disciplinary consulting firm. As an added attraction, the pay was nearly fifty percent higher than what I would have made that year had I stayed at EMU. Wow! That caught my attention big time.

But the most startling and baffling development of that summer was that even after being ruled against in binding arbitration and after my resignation from EMU, the University laid off Marshall McLennan. I couldn’t believe it. I told him to sue the bastards for violating the AAUP contract. But, he refused, certain that he would be reinstated to full-time employment the following semester. Which, to my genuine amazement he was.

Maybe all the Geography-Geology Department wanted to do was to get rid of me. Although that interpretation smacks of paranoia, it’s a distinct possibility. What I could never understand is why Marshall bent over and tolerated it as the Administration shoved the contract straight up his ass and twisted it. I’d rather drive a truck than work for those cocksuckers.

Hey, maybe that attitude was one of my critical problems. Having been raised in the crucible of my father’s wrath, I was constitutionally unable to bow and scrape and kiss anybody’s ass for a job. I was too much the angry rebel to knuckle under easily. It was that simple. And that complicated.