From Rachel Toor, Sandboxer-in-Chief
A number of friends had stressful Thanksgiving dinners last month. American Jews found themselves caught in surprising intergenerational strife. Parents shook their heads and said, "We did not do a good job teaching our kids the long history." Oy.
The overwhelming sense I get from higher ed leaders at the end of this shit-show interesting year is exhaustion and sadness. And maybe a bit of schadenfreude.
Some presidents think they would have been able to parry the Congressional ambush better than the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT did. They list things the women should have said, and explain how important it is to give humanistic, rather than legalistic, responses. They say they should have been prepared by a team that wasn't a bunch of lawyers, should have known to expect the trap.
Well, everyone will likely get their chance to perform. These sulfurous and thought-executing fires are coming for all of us.
Other presidents, including those who have served longer and regularly get to interact with hostile legislators, wonder if they might have fallen into the same argumentative traps. They remind us it's easy to say stuff when you're not the one in the hot seat under the glare of a national audience.
Most people have only read news and commentary about the testimony and seen the short clip from the hearings that came after 5 hours and 23 minutes of grilling. Given my admittedly low brow, I watched the whole thing. Am now tempted to create The Real Housewives of the House. Some of the nastiest questioning came from well-Botoxed congresswomen in a spectacle that was as theatrically produced as any reality TV show.
The answers the presidents gave in the first five hours to rude, condescending, and downright stupid questions were delivered with grace, dignity, and the patience of academics accustomed to teaching students who don't know nearly as much as they think they do.
Harvard was the focus of the majority of the hearing. Claudine Gay remained thoughtful and composed throughout. The women each said the things you thought they should have said, and they tried to give complex answers.
The presidents were constantly interrupted and asked ridiculous yes or no questions. It's hard to imagine anyone doing a good job in that situation. I guess they could have responded, "I like beer." They didn't. Instead, they were the portrait of presidential restraint.
But after answering the same question many times, they all fell for a carefully choreographed gotcha moment at the end. And that's what made the news.
The goal of The Sandbox is to help support higher ed leaders. The attack on higher ed will no doubt be fueled by the way the hearing was portrayed in the media. Maybe let's try not to add to the problem by trashing these women. At this point, we still need good people to step into leadership roles. And for many, for much of the time, the job can bring plenty of good things. Which is why I've included in this issue a reminder about people who don't go looking for the gig but have leadership thrust upon them.
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Your snow-shoveling Sandboxers will be on break until the first Saturday in January (just can't bear to write that date).
Feel free to forward this email to other leaders, engaged faculty members, invested trustees, dog lovers, and readers of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Or better yet, stuff their holiday stashes. We offer group discounts for teams of 10 or more individuals who would like to be members of Inside Higher Ed. Email if you want in.
Here's hoping 2024 will bring some comfort and a whole lot of joy.