It was no secret—Dean Rodgers was paranoid and desperately seeking allies.
He singled me out from the other Profs because I was popular—‘a real vox populi’ he called me.
So, here I was, sitting in his inner sanctum and listening to the cool, calm voice of madness.
“Support me, Barnes and I’ll see to it you secure your tenure.”
I expected him to start rolling little metal balls in his hand like Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny. Come to think of it, he did resemble Bogart.
Anyway, he had the support of the associate dean and the backing of the board of regents—but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to solidify his position as king.
Several Profs had circulated a petition, demanding his dismissal. They demonized him and sarcastically referred to him as The Beast from the Pit.
The invective was truly over the top and I’m sure he thought I was leading the mutiny—but I wasn’t.
Dean Rodgers wasn’t the type to be cowed by opposition—“it’s mere rhetorical amplitude,” he sniffed and pushed the thought to the back of his mind.
The hallowed halls of academia had become a hot zone and the insurgents were in a fire war with the Dean.
“I just want to go back to a simpler time, Barnes—What’s so bad about that?”
There wasn’t really anything wrong with that, but if I followed him, my own colleagues would shun me.
Each week some new missive from the Dean’s desk appeared on mine, adding to the growing mound of paper directives.
My problem was deciding if this paper mountain was a hill I was prepared to die on.
Jillian Edwards, the head of the English Literature Department had her own opinion—and I, of course, had the misfortune to be caught between the Beauty and the Beast.
“You know Ross, if Alexander Pope were around today, he’d vilify Rodgers and turn him into the Prince of Dunces. The man has no vision—he’s turning the university into the Empire of Dullness.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic, Jill?”
“What else am I supposed to think? He’s rejected my Contemporary Authors Course in favor of yet another course on Tudor Prose and Poetry. The man’s mired in the past. I think he was born in the wrong century.”
I saw her point, but the problem was, I saw the dean’s point too—not to mention the possibility of grasping for the brass ring of tenure.
It’d be so easy to emulate Nick in Great Gatsby and reserve my judgment—but like Nick, I’d also get caught in the crossfire and end up a casualty.
I had to choose a side.
Maybe Dean Rodgers was reactionary enough to believe the earth was flat, but as Bertolt Brecht said, when you live on a round planet, there's no choosing sides.
My planet might be small, but it was definitely round, thereby leaving me only one alternative—I had to bring the two sides together. But how?
There was a line from a Green Day song rolling through my mind—Know your enemy—burn the foreman of control.
That’s what I had to do—find out everything I could about Dean Rodgers and what made him run. Then, I could work on burning his control.
The solution’s always a matter of clearly understanding the problem, so I set out for the university Central Library to find out everything I could about the Dean.
I left a message on Jill’s cell to meet me there and join in the search.
We spent two hours culling through back issues of the Varsity newspaper to no avail—just the usual pap—sanitized interviews with the Dean that were little more than ruminations about the university’s long and cherished traditions.
Jill was vexed. “Arghh! I’m going crazy reading this drecht—no wonder I pitch this rag into the vertical file every week.”
I sat back wearily and rubbed my eyes. She had a point—we were getting nowhere.
Just then, Lorna, one of my graduate students saw me and dropped by to say hello. She was working part-time in the library and I figured I’d pick her brain for some inspiration.
“Say, Lorna—where would I find some real biographical information about the Dean— the Varsity articles lack any real detail.”
“Have you tried the stacks?”
I could have kissed her. The stacks were the subterranean holding tank of all the accumulated trivia of university life extending back into the nineteenth century.
I saw Jill’s eyes light up too.
We found hundreds of documents the university press had bound and arranged according to academic years. There were even shelves housing mementoes, awards and plaques.
As Jill was skimming through some monographs I came across a plaque with a quote on it—a motto penned by Warren Rodgers, the Dean’s Father, when he was university Provost.
“Hey, Jill—take a look at this.” I showed her the plaque and read it aloud:
A university must not be a repository of dead knowledge, but a community of forward-thinking minds dedicated to shaping the future. —Warren Rodgers
“That’s so cool—I was just reading about how devoted Dean Rodgers was to his father and following in his footsteps.”
I smiled. “I think I’ll pay the Dean a visit and remind him of his heritage.”
Nancy, the Dean’s secretary, ushered me into his office. It was late afternoon and the Dean had been sitting staring out the window at some coeds reading under the shade of a large oak tree.
He swiveled in his chair and smiled when he saw me.
“Come in, Ross—have a seat.”
He was in an expansive mood and I thanked my lucky stars I had not encountered him in his usual melancholic state.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I've been doing some research in the university library stacks and I came across a memento I thought you’d like to have.” I handed him the plaque.
He read it and I saw tears in his eyes.
“Ross, I want to thank you for bringing me this. I’ve been looking for it for years—I never thought of it being in the stacks.”
“You’re welcome, Dean. I must say, I began reading some of your father’s ideas about the role of the university in the modern world. He was as brilliant a thinker as Cardinal Newman. I’m sure you’re proud of him.”
“You know it’s funny, but I never thought of this until now—My father’s school motto was nulla vestigia retrorsum—no steps backward. I guess I haven’t emulated him in that.”
“We do tend to forget sometimes.”
He stood up, clasped my hand tightly and said in a husky voice, “Thank you, Ross—thank you for reminding me.”
The university didn’t change direction over night, but changes were made and are still ongoing.
The change of focus wasn’t lost on my colleagues. The petition was forgotten and campus life moved on.
Jill was happy—her Contemporary Authors Course was reinstated and the morale of the staff increased by leaps and bounds.
But most important of all, Dean Rodgers relaxed his iron grip and looked ten years younger with his face unlined from strain.
He told me afterwards he realized he had been trying to honor his father’s memory by trying to turn the clock backwards, but now saw tradition was not a yoke but the foundation for the future.
I got my tenure and the Dean got a reprieve and I think we all learned the balance between retaining tradition and being current.
As I sit here anticipating the future, the words of Petronius keep echoing through my mind:
We have lived and no evil fate can ever take from us, what the past has given.
