DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES ?

          Often one never knows what and who lies behind the social/political upheavals that arise in one’s own life. I have been “fired” a few times in my academic career, but I am still largely unclear about exactly what happened. In my first job, at Seattle Pacific College, back in the early 1960s, I thought I was doing a first-rate job as Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion during my four years as a professor. However, it turned out that a small group of faculty members who were good friends of the President did not think so and put pressure on him to let me go. I was very surprised when he confronted me with this challenge.

             During my years there my classes were over-flowing, and I was very popular among several of the student campus leaders. Very quickly a half-dozen of the college’s very best students became philosophy majors and went on to become the leaders of the student body. During their senior year these young men received scholarships to do graduate work at prestigious universities such as Yale, Duke, and Vanderbilt. In that four-year period, I managed to publish several articles in scholarly journals and was asked to speak at several nearbye colleges. Two of my colleagues and I helped create a “Coffee House” in downtown Seattle that soon became well-known as the center of open discussions of timely issues.

            Thus, I was extremely surprised when the President told me that he was considering letting me go. However, he suggested a “compromise” solution. The college would nominate me for a prestigious Danforth Teacher Grant enabling me to return to graduate school and finish my Ph.D. degree, if I promised not to return to Seattle Pacific. Given the situation, this was an easy promise to make. This was, clearly, an option I could not refuse. I was, in fact, chosen to receive one of these grants and went on to finish up at Duke University. So, it appears, that everyone was happy. It was a time of “wine and roses”. Things went off as planned and after graduating from Duke I found a good position at a different college.

            There was a certain amount of ill-feeling among the student body and a good number of the faculty toward the Administration over this result, but it soon passed. Later on, when there was a new President, the new Dean, who had been a friend of mine prior to my “firing”, invited me back to the college to deliver a series of lectures to the entire faculty and everything went very smoothly. Over the years I have more or less been able to accept what happened, yet, it was not as it should have been and was simply not right. Along the way I have seen or heard of similar things happening to other teachers and it always touches a sore spot in my heart.

            About twenty years later, at another “Christian” school, Eastern College just outside of Philadelphia, I was hired to be professor of Christianity and Culture and during the first year everything went very well. Then, for some absolutely insane reason the President and Board of Trustees hired a fundamentalist fellow to be our Academic Dean. He pretended to be a more “progressive” fundamentalist, but it soon became clear that this was a meaningless term. He tried several times to get me fired, using “accomplishes” at other schools where I had been asked to be a visiting speaker to complain about my “liberalism”, etc. At the end of his first year this Dean “fired” me, but fortunately our President overrode him and fired the Dean.

            However, the President soon became embroiled in a sexual scandal and was temporarily replaced by the President of a nearbye theological seminary. This man had found out, which was no secret, that I was dating a student, and he decided to fire me because of this “impropriety”. But then our new Dean, a good friend of mine, stepped in and decided I should stay. This seemed to put an end to this “mad hatter’s tea party”, but the Board of Trustees over-rode her and once again and I was let go. Before he left the now deposed Dean called me into his office, and with genuine tears in his eyes he apologized, admitting that he had been “out to get me.” After we both left the college, the Trustees set things in order and the school was back to “normal”.

          This undoubtedly was the weirdest game of “musical chairs” I had ever been involved with and I am very glad it came out as it did. I did participate in yet one more step in this fiasco by writing to the Trustees’ first choice for a new President informing him, truthfully, that the faculties of both these institutions had voted unanimously against him. The faculties of both schools applauded me for doing so and eventually the schools got a really good President who led them to higher things academically speaking. I, however, was still without a job. I was eventually temporarily rescued by another small college in Rhode Island which needed a new philosophy professor. That went well until that school had to merge with yet another college, one which did not want me included in the deal.

            The reason this college gave for not wanting me included in the merger was that I had dated a student, to whom I was now married, back at Eastern College. It, too, was a very conservative school with a reputation to uphold. So, once again, I was out of a job. After a thorough search I landed a beginning position as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy, of all things, at a small Catholic college in Albany, New York. I was beginning all over, but I was ever so grateful for this fresh opportunity. I thrived at St. Rose, with friendly and active colleagues, and the opportunity to expand my teaching experience to include the arts and to become active in the local philosophical association. Soon I was once again a Full Professor.

            The only sort of “scrape” I had at St. Rose came up when my wife Mari and I introduced the idea of running a Semester Abroad program in Greece. There was a lot of discussion, two full faculty meetings worth, before it came to a vote. Many were opposed to the plan because it was “too upper class” for a college like ours to bother with. It was said that the vast majority of our students were middle   or working class and not only was it too “specialized” but “elitist” as well. We made it clear that the two of us would teach five courses between us and hire our Greek teacher from the city of Sitia on Crete, where the program would be set. We would do our classes for the same salaries as we had in Albany and the cost of board and room for the students would be considerably less than in Albany. In addition, Mari and I would pay our own way.

            Just before the issue came to a vote, an art professor stood and argued that he did not care whether Mari and I would greatly enjoy such an experience, but only cared about the possibility of his students getting to spend a full semester studying in Greece. When the vote was taken our program won by one vote! The program was a great success and was repeated for three Fall semesters. We averaged 16 students each semester and made several trips around Greece to all the major archaeological and cultural sites. Mari taught Greek Art, and I taught Ancient Philosophy, the works of Nikos Kazantzakis, the History of Greece, focusing on Crete, and the Philosophy of Education. A local high school teacher taught Beginning Greek and another one taught a Greek Culture course involving learning Greek dances and preparing weekly dinners.

            The only real “perk” that Mari and I received was the opportunity to live in Sitia during the summers before the Fall semesters began. We rented a small villa, Mari did her pottery work, and I worked at writing a couple of manuscripts. I am happy to say that we are still in touch with several of the people we met in Sitia and several of our students have made return trips there. Indeed, one of them actually married a local fellow and has raised two children there. All in all, the whole experience was, indeed, a time of “Wine and Roses.”