Inaugural Oath No. 58

I resolved to focus on the process and not be distracted by the politics of last Friday’s Presidential Inauguration. Like most people, I have been in school or working during last 15 Inaugurations of my lifetime, so have only seen its history in bits and pieces. Never the whole ceremony. I wanted to remember this one.

As I clicked through channels on Friday morning, I wasn’t interested combative intensity of the CNN panel and my TV kept shutting off when I tuned to FOX News– I don’t know what that was about. I found other networks commentators chawed over the November election results rather than reporting on this day. That was annoying. CBS seemed reliable and respectful (I still think of it as Uncle Walter’s place), so I stayed with Scott Pelley and Bob Schieffer through most of the day.

I tuned in just as the Presidential and Vice-Presidential couples were leaving the White House after a traditional tea to drive to the Capitol. As Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama drove off, the CBS team noted that this would be the last time the two of them would be alone together before the oath. What would they talk about? World hotspots, the strength of the dollar or that the second floor toilet in the residence needs to have its handle jiggled just right to get it to stop running?

Once at the Capitol stage, it was interesting to see the power pecking order within the federal leadership through the seating chart. Four of the five ex-presidents had good seats (George HW Bush and Barbara wanted to be there but were restricted by doctor’s orders). Members of the Supreme Court had a clear view as did majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate. A Green Bay Packer hat appeared some rows back and up -- Rep. James Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin I learned later. I didn’t see a Georgia representative, other than President and Mrs. Carter, and they were not wearing Atlanta Falcons head gear.

The Trump and Pence families took up many of the first couple of rows on the left hand side of the aisle. A young daughter of Mr. Pence and young son of Mr. Trump looked bored by it all. Lots of sighing going on there. I thought that Melania and Ivanka had a similar cut of coat, so I wondered out loud if it was the same design with just a different color. That would be practical, I thought. My wife practically fell out of her chair, laughing. I guess not.

Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri was an able master of ceremonies before a crowd that was respectable for a rainy forecast and divided country, but not near the fantastic numbers claimed later. I don't see why that matters. The Senator put the ceremonies in historical context for everyone. He said that the Inauguration should not be  “the celebration of (electoral) victory but (a celebration) of democracy instead.”

He then introduced Justice Clarence Thomas who administered the vice-presidential oath to Mr. Pence, and Chief Justice Roberts who administered the 35-word presidential oath to Mr. Trump. President Trump’s short Inaugural Address (16-minutes) followed. After a few more prayers, the ceremony was adjourned. People on the balcony filed into a congressional luncheon. Michelle and President Obama flew to Palm Springs and Dr. Jill and Vice President Biden took the Amtrak to Delaware. After the lunch the new president and his family were released for a parade down Pennsylvania Ave., Inaugural Balls, and checking on the second floor bathroom. 

And that was it.

An ending and a beginning, yet also a peaceful transition within a republic that reaches back to 57 other executive oaths that crowds of various sizes have witnessed. Some of those oaths marked major epic changes in our country, and some a policy of normalcy. After only the first few hours of this administration, it is hard to know what the next four years will bring. As armchair commentators, we can try to guess, but history always has the final say. And though history teases us, it does take its time with the reveal.

Slip Sliding on the Frozen Tundra

I do like wintertime. I do, I do, I do like wintertime.

This self-pep talk comes after a second day of chipping ice caused by sleet and rain on top of 3-4-inches of snow. Now, I'm not really complaining about the snow. It prettys up the winter landscape. I'd rather have a smooth white blanket in the yard than three months of mud and debris. And, even the big 12-18-inch storms are no more than a morning's work if you have the right tools. Experienced Wisconsinites do have the tools.

Heavy wide-blade steel shovels are used for scraping and pushing snow to the side of the driveway or walkway (only renters, new homeowners or NFL offensive linemen try to toss snow with these shovels). Square, flat-blade aluminum shovels (much lighter) are designed for that turn and toss motion. Non-scratch non-metallic plastic shovels are used for decks and other scratch-able surfaces.

My prize snow-possession, for the heaviest loads (usually after a caravan of snowplows dump two lanes of packed snow back into my driveway) is the Yooper Scooper. This is a wide two-foot scoop bolted to a three-foot u-shaped handle that moves even the heaviest snow up and out without lifting. “Without lifting” is always key in snow removal. I saw this tool demonstrated one winter ski-weekend by friends in Houghton, MI, who are snow shovel professionals compared with us amateurs. Green Bay averages 45-50 inches of snow a year compared that to the Upper Peninsula’s season average of almost 190-inches. The UP’s record from the 1978-1979 winter season is 390-inches, more than 32-feet. They really, really like winter up there.

So, even though last week’s snow was the packy, snowman-making kind of snow, the total job (not counting back decks) took only 40-minutes for the two of us  I did use the power snow blower for initial cleaning, but would rather not. Blowing the snow means you’ll have to go over your work again with the shovel to get down to pavement. The depth and moisture content of the snow determines the use of the blower, But snow, as I said, is not a problem. Ice is.

By mid-morning, air temperatures hovered around the freezing mark and turned snow to sleet and then to a driving rain. Because the ground is still quite frozen (a prior week of sub-zero nights will do that) and existing snowbanks from 30-inches of previous snowfalls are two-feet high, the rain and melting snow had no place to go other than draining back onto the sidewalk and down the driveway. When temperatures fell mid-afternoon, we had a problem. 

I retrieved an ice-chipper, a long-handled tool with a three-inch sharpened wedge of steel on the working end, from the far corner of the potting shed and began to break up the ice that was forming under a cold wind. That and sprinkling snow-melt took another 90-minutes. Our house has less concrete than my previous other houses, but there is still a fair amount to shovel.

The next morning shoveled pavement was covered by ice anyway. School was cancelled because of ice (sidewalks were impassible). A week later, over three-quarters of the sidewalks in our neighborhood are still an impassible sheen of glare ice. I have the time (and the ice melt) to clear our share of sidewalk as do other retired and able neighbors. Working families don't have that time, so many sidewalks remain impassible with a 1/2 to 1-inch covering of ice.

Fortunately, the weather that caused the problems to begin with will have mercy on all of us by the end of the week. January thaw temperatures in the 30s and 40s will punch holes in the smooth surface of the ice and undermine it to crumbles of icy snow. We have the tools to handle it after that.

It Only Takes a Jackass to Kick It Down

In less time than the first NFL Wildcard game, my wife and I took down the 2016 Christmas ornaments, mini-lights, and dragged the tree to the front curb. We de-garlanded the front door, wrapped our Santa collectables in tissue, and resorted Christmas totes for storage.

After the totes were carried up to the attic, I considered the time it took to plan, purchase and put up holiday displays as compared to the time it took to take them down:  a couple of weeks up, I’d say, compared to a couple of hours down. Taking something down doesn’t take a lot of time or thought.

Putting up and taking down got me thinking about our national celebration later in the month, the Presidential Inauguration on January 20. Republicans have pledged to mark that day by beginning to repeal eight years of Barack Obama programs and initiatives. If you are a loyal member of the Grand Old Party, that doesn't take a lot of time or thought either.

For the rest of us, let me give a worrisome preview of this repeal and replace philosophy. GOP Speaker Paul Ryan is quoted last week during the first days of the new Congressional session that defunding Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood (a $400-million budget item) will be part of the initial Congressional Bucket-List Repeal Bill. Planned Parenthood has long been in the GOP bull’s-eye because it unapologetically advocates the pro-choice side of the abortion issue.

Now Medicaid cannot, according to law, directly fund Planned Parenthood abortions. It does, however, support family planning, contraceptives, cancer screening, and treatment of STDs for hundreds of thousands of low-income women. If Planned Parenthood Medicaid payments are stopped, 400,000 women across the nation will lose access to this health care according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, 

A spokesman for Rep. Ryan said not-to-worry though: the $400-million will be distributed to other providers so “that patients would have continue to have the opportunity to receive care.” Who these providers are, where these providers are and how low income women can access these providers are details that need to be worked out, it seems.

After a divisive national election, the GOP majority needs to realize that their job description has changed. It’s no longer their job to complain, criticize and condemn. That was their role during the Obama years and they did it very well. Now Mr. Ryan and Mr. Trump have a much harder job, that of crafting specific, measured, detailed legislation that upholds our Constitutional rights, and protects and serves everyone. This Planned Parenthood decision is just one of hundreds that will have to be considered in the next year which will have consequences for millions of Americans, not just the GOP primary base. When you assume the power, you also assume the responsibilities.

One would hope that after the GOP packs away its 2016 presidential campaign banners, bunting, and bluster until 2020, they would want to pause during the Inaugural Pomp and Circumstance before doing anything rash and consider the fact that it will be much harder to replace something than it will be to take it down. I recall a quote attributed to either Sam Rayburn or Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s critical of segregationists who wanted to tear down landmark Civil Right legislation: “It just takes a jackass to kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build it back up again.”

Which role does the GOP want to assume during the next four years?

Are You a Walk-on in a Red Shirt?

Ever feel like a walk-on in life? Like you were put in place just to open the doors for the main characters around you who do important things while you just stand there and hold a clipboard. If that's your experience, then you are living the life of a Red Shirt.

Science Fiction writer John Scalzi reimagined the brief, pointless and deadly life of Red Shirt crew members in his very funny 2012 novel, Red Shirts. In the classic Star Trek universe, hierarchy and episode longevity are determined by the color of your uniform: command is gold, science and medical is blue and operations, engineering and security are red. The joke among fans is that extras appearing in a "red shirt" were cannon fodder for the sake of cheap dramatic action, often killed before the first commercial break. The main characters (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty), on the other hand, always, miraculously, survive. If you think about it, this is the same formula for most television shows: the main characters survive while the extras are, well, extra. In some shows, the extras are the Walking Dead.

In Scalzi's book, experienced Red Shirt members of the starship become aware how mortality tables are slanted against their kind and hide in storage lockers, under cafeteria tables, and HVAC access tunnels when away teams are formed by the main characters. If you stay out of sight and off Away Teams, you survive. If, on the other hand, you call attention to yourself, you are doomed, and if you actually have a backstory, "you're probably going to have an entire episode devoted to your death." I suppose that's better than being eaten by sand worms after the opening credits, but still, a life lived hiding in an access tunnel is not much of a life even in a television show.

Not surprisingly, when Scalzi's characters become existentially aware, they decide they want to have more significance to their lives than the canned leavings of a rushed script writer. The novel starts off cute and clever, a fanzine exercise, and then asks questions that we might ask of ourselves especially if we are drifting through our own lives: am I a Red Shirt or am I a main character? We are, of course, main characters in our own story, but can we sustain a larger Narrative around us? One might call that a purpose. One Red Shirt in Scalzi's novel, admits, "I was never meant to do anything special, was I? I really was an extra. A placeholder character..."

That insignificance doesn't sit well with the characters of the book who have figured out by now that they are placeholders in a fictional television show (I'm not going into how that is done -- enjoy the book), and they are not happy with that discovery. Everyone, they decide, needs to write his or her own stories based on their own choices, which they do. They learn that fictional lives can become real just as real lives can become, tragically, fiction. Everyone, even Red Shirts in a 1960s television show, deserves a purpose in life.

Who Finds Tech-Awesome Employees?

Right now, HR must be crazy busy. I know this because when school starts in the fall there is always a long, long line of new employees who get introduced by our college president and are given lime-green "Tech-Awesome" t-shirts at the annual Welcome Back Breakfast. The new folks have to come from somewhere.

Year after year, our hiring process has been in good hands: my friends in HR are nothing if not methodical. They believe, like self-help author Robert Collier, that success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. With little fanfare or recognition, HR associates help departments hire staff while at the same time they keep and manage job descriptions, stay current on employment law and practice, update and publicize new term salary and benefit packages, rule on personnel questions and have dozens of other "duties as assigned" that a non-HR person like me sleeps better not knowing about.

But hiring those newbies: that's the future of our institution, that's where HR makes its mark. The school relies on qualified, motivated, creative, honest, trustworthy and hard-working employees to put flesh and blood onto the strategic scaffolding built by leadership-conducted listening sessions. An excellent HR department is able to consistently find quality people to fill empty slots across the college caused by retirements, reassignments, resignations and new programs

Last year, for example, my department had to replace two long-time faculty members who retired. With the help of HR, the two positions were posted, electronic applications and resumes were collected and interviews scheduled. Then HR helped write the interview questions and chaired the interview panel to make sure we didn't ask something dumb (and illegal). After we selected our top candidates, HR checked references, made offers, answered questions and arranged for start dates and training. We ended up with two excellent new teammates. This process takes a lot of time.  Now, multiply this process times 50, 60 or 100 times for departments across the school. That's my working definition of a crazy busy summer.

If I were charged with building a college from scratch, I would start by hiring a top notch HR department like the one we have. Without it, all the data collection, strategic plans, creative curriculum, guidelines and hopes would collapse under its own non-implemented dead weight. You need a roster of top people to create, manage and  maintain excellence. And, I'm not just talking about hiring brilliant and inspirational faculty -- though we have a lot of them. Leadership, support and technical staff also need to be the best in order to continue to move ahead as a Leader College. Those Tech-Awesome t-shirts need to find happy new hands every August.

After 35 years, Summa Cum Book Club

This week, our book club ended its year with a discussion of the venerable Chinese classic, Tao Te Ching (2012), in an excellent translation by Derek Lin. The 2500 year-old book of lessons was an unlikely though not unusual choice for us. Through 35 years, club members have mixed classics with the contemporary.  We have curious and eclectic tastes.

The book club, dubbed the Summa Book Club by founding members who translated the word tongue-in-cheek from Latin to mean the "highest," begins with a summer potluck at which we choose the dates and books for our monthly Monday meetings. A couple or single (we have both) takes turns hosting the group once or twice (September to June) and prepares a short discussion along within light munchies, wine, beer and soda. It's been a good group to be a part of. My wife and I, late-comers joining in 1992, have nurtured lasting friendships formed through commonly read pages and chapters. You really get to know someone when you hear them passionately debate character motives in The Merchant of Venice.

The advantage of a regular book club is it pressures (in a nice way) members to read selections that we would not normally read (Ulysses by James Joyce springs to mind). We trust the literary judgement of fellow members -- most of the time (everyone agrees The Aquarian Conspiracy was an epic miss; the wisdom of Mary, Queen of Scots is still debated ten years later). We read the book in time for the meeting because we don't want to diss the selections of other members, and we all like to contribute -- not a lot of shy people in this group.

And, since Green Bay is home to a number of private and public colleges, we have access to outside speakers who are more than happy to talk with an engaged, reasonably intelligent group of readers about a favorite subject and author. Just this past January, for example, we invited a local retired educator who is a leader in the international Dietrich Bonhoeffer organization to talk about the Eric Metaxis biography, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (2010). It's good to nurture local literary talent as well as friendships.

My wife and I often contribute science fiction book recommendations to the group, one of our particular interests, and successfully recommended Philip K. Dick's, Man in the High Castle, during our first hosted discussion in January of 1993. Our other choices have ranged from On Writing by Stephen King, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote to Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putman. I can recall these books because one of our members, a diligent, retired and venerable newspaper editor, keeps an historical record of our books and dates. After twenty or thirty years, the list is useful so we don't repeat ourselves -- "My Antonia? No, we read that in 2004." The group tends toward non-fiction (Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankel) and biographies (An American Caesar by William Manchester), religious (Paradise Lost by John Milton) and literary (Flannery O'Connor short stories). Popular fiction is always popular such as The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and Cold Mountain by Charles Fraser. Other books are recommended on a whim (The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and You Only Grow Old Once by Dr. Seuss). They are all worthy.

Now that the 2014-2015 books have been shelved, it's time to select books for the next year. Already, we have a book bag and Kindle list filled with selections that we will bring to the potluck and will narrow them down to one or two recommendations after seeing the choices of other members. And, since a large percentage of group are journalism or English majors, we all think it is important that a summa booklist of a Summa Book Club has book titles representing all 26 letters of the alphabet. We are missing a few letters. So if you know of books that start with the letters "Q", "V" and "X", please pass along the titles. The potluck is in August.

GED 2015 Graduation: It Makes a Difference

I was uneasy about the GED graduation last week. Last year, more than 400 GED and HSED students completed the credential and almost 50 attended the June celebration. That graduate to stage ratio is typical for us. Ten to fifteen percent of our students usually take the time to return to cross the stage in cap and gown and with big, big smiles on their faces. Other graduates have moved on with their lives.

The graduating class last year was impressive because it included the final graduates of the pre-GED 2014 era added to those who had just completed the new GED set of tests. Since then, the number of GED students has dropped not just with us but in GED classroom across the country. States report that successful completers (those who have passed all four new GED tests) are only eight percent of the totals from earlier years. Our school has done better than most, we are at 20-25 percent of previous years, but we are still down, a lot.

As we prepped for this year's GED graduation, an initial count listed only four or five students out of more than 90 graduates had ordered caps and gowns for the ceremony. So rather than have 40-50 graduates crowd the commons, like last year, we would have only a fraction of that number. There might be more dignitaries on the stage than graduates in the seats -- not a good promotion for our program.

I thought we might downsize the ceremony to make the drop in numbers less conspicuous. Maybe we could have grads lunch with the President and Vice-President of Learning at the college instead. Maybe we could use a large lecture room for the ceremony instead of the more public commons area where it was usually held. Maybe we skip the ceremony entirely this year. Still a decision was made by leadership to carry on with the ceremony exactly as it had been done in the past. As I walked down the stairs to the assembly area, I was worried.

I shouldn't have been. I should have been thinking about starfish.

Every year, new employees are initiated to the culture of our college through the inspirational story by Loren Eisley about the starfish, the girl and the beach walker. One version goes like this:

An old man was walking on the beach one morning after a storm. In the distance, he could see someone moving like a dancer. As he came closer, he saw that it was a young woman picking up starfish and gently throwing them into the ocean.

“Young lady, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” 

“The sun is up, and the tide is going out, and if I do not throw them in they will die, “she said.

“But young lady, do you not realize that there are many miles of beach and thousands of starfish? You cannot possible make a difference.”

The young lady listened politely, then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea.

“It made a difference for that one."

I did stop worrying when I saw a group of three of my HSED students, Josh, Kay-Lynn and Indigo, who I had worked with all spring -- I was pleased to see all of them, and their families. These three stuck together in the classroom, urged each other on and continued their fellowship right up to the graduation stage. Each of them overcame personal and academic obstacles to make it to this night. The ceremony made a difference to them.

Other GED and HSED graduates were milling about as in any other year: checking in, taking their robes out of the plastic bags, and using bobby pins to keep the mortar board (hat) on straight. Rather than worry about the number of fellow graduates around them (fifteen did attend the ceremony), their biggest worry of the night was whether the tassel should be on the right side or the left as they marched in (right side at first, graduation is official when the tassel is moved to the left).

At 6 p.m., the NWTC band (led by our college president, Dr. Jeff Rafn) started "Pomp and Circumstance" and the procession moved from the side hall way to the commons area. Just as in other years, the audience was a mix of young and old, bursting with pride as they watched their special graduates parade in for the GED or HSED credential. The student speaker was inspirational. Awarding the diplomas and the handshakes brought forth cheers and shouts for the graduates. No one noticed that the crowd was smaller than last year. The smiles, tears, cheers, cell phone photos and celebratory balloons, flowers and stuffed toys were focused on the accomplishments at hand and huge step that the graduates had made to complete their high school credential. This would make a difference.

Sometimes, I get too caught up in the business of education: what our numbers are, how can we increase our success rate, did we meet grant requirements, which texts need to be matched with what curriculum. Sometimes, I lose track of what I am really hired to do. That is to make a difference to as many of our students as I can. While I and the rest of my team work hard to be insanely successful in the work we do, we realize deep-down that we can't help everyone. What we can do is make a difference to those students on our section of the beach. I need to remember to take the time to celebrate for them and for myself.