The President’s Corner

This post IS not an argument for one model of health care over another.  I of course have an opinion, but so does everyone else.  What I am writing about is the way our society can slip into the myopic “no one does it better than we do” delusion of American Exceptionalism.

Regarding health care, see Nicholas Kristoff in today’s NY Times.  Even if you object to his left-leaning brand of economics, the objective facts he presents are a counter to those who ask “Well, where would you rather be sick?  In the US or somewhere else?”  The assumption is, of course, that we have the world’s best health care.

We don’t.  By a long shot.  Consider where we rank:

• 31st in life expectancy;
• 37th in infant mortality;
• 34th in maternal mortality;
• US children are 2.5 times more likely to dies by age 5 than their peers in Sweden and Singapore;
• We take 10% fewer pills, but pay 118% more per pill

It’s worse if you are Black, Latino, or poor.

China is racing ahead of us in green technologies.  Finland has made broadband Internet access a “basic human right” while people in northern NH are using dial up modems and taking 30 minutes to load a web page.  I recently stepped off a modern Asian airline where service was warm and welcoming and the plane immaculate onto an American Airlines flight in which grim-faced attendants grudgingly handed out packets of peanuts and duct tape (duct tape!) held together scuff marked luggage doors. 

Part of what gets in the way of our remaining a great country and society is our belief that we are already as good a country and society as we can be, better than everyone else actually.  In many ways, neither of those things is true.

A wise university president once told me that the job meant being an energetic cheerleader for his institution off campus and a hard-nosed critic on campus.  I don’t know the right answer to our complicated health care crisis (actually, I think I do know, but no is asking me), but I know we will get nowhere if we don’t start witha clear-eyed understanding of the current failings.

I’ve just returned from China and Malaysia. The first stop was to spend some time assessing where we are in bringing programs into that emerging market. I met with each of our university partners, visited the campuses, reviewed budgets and program models, and spent hours talking through what we have learned and what hurdles remain before us.

The Trustees have formed a small ad hoc task force to work through my written analysis and determine the best way forward. The essential questions we will want to address include:

• Are we making sufficient progress and how do we know?
• Can we afford to keep going in light of budget pressures?
• If we believe we should keep going, do we have the right model and strategy?
• If we decide to close down the effort, should we find a way to keep a line in the water?

I have provided the task force with my written analysis and various options on how to proceed.

I wrestled with going on this trip given the budget work underway (and canceled my planned spring trip), but I have to say that the hours of conversation and the face to face meetings could not have been replicated on the phone. Somethings just have to be done in person.

The other reason for not canceling was that a long ago agreed to be the Commencement Speaker for the graduation ceremonies at our Malaysian partner, HELP University. We had 80 SNHU graduates in the 250 student graduating class, including four Gold Key Award winners and the Validectorian, Andrew Chan. It was a delight to be part of the event. Parents were incredibly proud and our students were marvelous. Vicky Teo does a great job overseeing the program and maintains high standards of quality. The program enjoys a 90% retention rate (we should be so good on the main campus). The program also generates very good surpluses.

The students and their families were so appreciative to have their university president there and they share a sense that they are very much part of our SNHU community.

Some other random observations from the trip:

1. Shanghai and Beijing may be modern and cosmopolitan, but the drop off is pretty steep when one travels to the secondary cities. In one case, I asked for a non-smoking room, only to find someone spraying copious amounts of air freshener in the room. I asked what he was doing as he finished by putting the ashtrays into a drawer and he said, “you asked for non-smoking!” Add rock hard beds and stained carpets and it made one long for a Motel 6.

2. The Chinese are building mega-campuses seemingly over night. One 8,000 student campus with a large number of huge buildings (China never does anything small) was built in one nine month period in 2008 (hear that Vachon?). However impressive at first glance, there’s less there than meets the eye. Unskilled labor, albeit masses of them, and inferior materials and too little time for concrete to set and paint to dry means that three year old buildings look 23 years old and a lack of good maintenace exacerbates the problem.

3. They joke that “If you can make it, the Chinese can fake it.” I kept seeing what I thought were BMW SUVs and then realized that a Chinese car maker had done a near perfect imitation of the more expensive BMW. The night markets are flooded with near perfect knock offs of high end cell phones from Nokia and others and they are said to work perfectly well. Films that are being released in the US on a Tuesday or often in the DVD stores that day and sometimes even before. Amazing really. The IP challenges in China remain enormous.

4. One narrative taking hold now is that there is no G8– it’s the G2, China and the United States. These are two superpowers and the tension will not be manifested in nuclear arsenals, but in financial resources. Not sure we’re winning.

5. Visited Nanchang University — 90,000 students. It’s the second biggest campus in China and is a veritable city unto itself.

6. We heard about the Dean of Continuing Education at one university who had signed a major contract with a vendor and skimmed more than a $1m from the top. The vendor disappeared with millions more. Angry parents protested on campus, police were called in, the dean is being charged and will likely see serious prison time. Someone explained that this was “small pocket” larceny. Not that the amount was small, but that money went into the pocket of an individual instead of a group or a company, thus “small pocket.” The rule of thumb, they say, is one year of prison for every $10,000. Do the math. It’s also said that if one goes into a Chinese prison for more than six years, one never comes out alive.

 7. Worked on the budget and other matters while gone and it is true that information technology makes it infinitely easier to stay in touch. That said, video Skype was hit and miss and we did better when I could join EC by audio alone. The technology does not help with the 12 hour time difference and the rhythm of work was an odd one. Thankfully (sort of) jet lag meant I was often online and working at the same time as folks back in NH. I don’t know how people do this sort of travel often — it wipes me out.

8. A lot of people kindly inquired after the health of our girls after I reported their being stricken with the H1N1 virus. They have both recovered and it turns out that for most people, including them, H1N1 is milder than regular flu. It last just three or four days and the fever subsided quickly. It remains frightening for pregnant women and for those cases where it takes a bad turn, especially in younger children.

It sure is good to be back home.

In case my three readers were wondering, I have not abandoned my blog.  The computer virus that afflicted Belknap computers last week interfered with the log-in function for WordPress.  I have an alternative way in for now.  Tammy says “Get a Mac.”

As a longtime reader of the Boston Globewho starts his every day with the Sports section and that first cup of coffee, I have always envied Bob Ryan his occasional “hitting to all fields” column where he obviously shares whatever random thoughts have occurred to him lately.

Then it occured to me: I’ve got a blog.  I can do the same thing.

So really, stop right here if you are hoping for something profound or even merely insightful.  Now….

1. Okay, so the Sox were quickly overcome by the Angels.  The tough truth is that the better team won and the Sox’s weaknesses were revealed.  They were not as good as their record.  Papi, God love his steroid enlarged heart, is on the quick and steep decline.  Lowell’s hip is shot.  Papelbon is down to a fastball and even odds are that Theo will trade him while he still has some value.  Time to rebuild.

2. HOWEVER, does any team in any sport have a better psyche song than the Dropkick Murphy’s “Tessie?”  There’s no one in close second.  So there is that.

3. I dearly love my 91-year-old mother and my in-laws (in their 70s), but phone calls to them make me feel like I’m on the bridge of a sinking boat and all the reports coming in are about another leak, a rudder loose, an anchor lost.  The chronicle of illnesses (and friends’ illnesses) and treatments is boundless.  Maybe that’s a fitting metaphor for life’s physical infirmities at a certain age: just trying to keep the tub afloat.  Turned 52 last week.  Boat may be taking on a bit of water, but still seaworthy (I think).

4. We held a brown bag lunch in the Gallery on Monday in the wake of some student complaints about the show hanging there now. It was a good discussion and my heart particularly ached for one veteran-student who saw the show’s indictment of torture and abuse of Iraqis in custody of American soldiers as a larger indictment of all soldiers and their service in Iraq.  This young guy clearly saw things that no should see and is haunted by the experience.  Anyone who glibly argues for sending troops into any conflict should see the show and meet a veteran like this young man.  The price on everyone involved is terribly steep and not much paid by those of us worrying more about the Red Sox season or Pam and Jim’s wedding on The Office.

5. But….I did love the wedding and the split narrative was brilliant.

6. Watched Woody Allen’s Matchpoint this week.  I once loved his work, but I now find myself not liking or even caring about his characters (at least in this film).  I understand the indictment of the privileged class and also of those who scratch and claw to get there, but in the film there was no moral counterpoint or compass.  The guy is so amazingly talented that the movie was a pleasure to watch — few directors have a better eye.  But I fear with Woody there’s less there than meets the eye and the intellectual veneer is, in the end, sophomoric.

7. If Pat were writing this, she’d add he doesn’t get women worth a damn.  Can’t argue.
8. Parental brag: our daughter Em is an aspiring photojournalist and has three times been in Iraq over the last 18 months (once embedded with the 101st airborne for 2 months) and has done a lot of work in Syria.  You can check out her work at www.makotophotographic.com. She spent three months documenting the lives of inmates in a Syrian asylum and that work is part of her first gallery show out in Springfield.  L’Mondehas decided to use Makoto stories every month on its web site — a real coup for these three young journalists who just started the photo agency this summer.

9. My campus heroes of the week:

A. Debbie Disston, for not being defensive about the Gallery show and finding a way to create a teaching opportunity where smart, well-meaning people could disagree. (What, no art faculty could show up?)

B. The team that led our United Way campaign.  We broke last year’s record
and blow out of the water every other college or university in the area.  Thanks to all who gave!

C. Our two cross-country runners who last week abandoned their race to help an ailing BU runner who had collapsed.  While scores of others ran
past the unconscious student athlete, out two guys stopped and got him to an aid station (automatically disqualifying themselves).  How much do you love those kids?
10. Favorite under-appreciated rock bands and/or musicians who deserve your attention:

Mission of Burma (download…I mean buy…”That’s When I Reach For My Revolver.”)
The Replacements.
Billy Bragg.
Patty Smith (Horses is still brilliant).
Ja Rule (okay, more guilty pleasure than great and not appropriate for
 family listening).
Crash Test Dummies (another love it or hate it lead vocal).
Goo Goo Dolls
Iris Dement
Jimmy Webb
Joy Division (later New Order)
Kings of Leon
The Pogues
Richard Thompson
Todd Rundgren
Steve Earle (now here’s a guy who is angry)
The Strokes
Tom Waits

Related music notes:

Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” is a PERFECTLY executed song;
Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” is a perfect wedding song (disclosure: it’s ours);
Tom Petty’s “Wild One Forever” is a great B-side no one knows;
Springsteen’s “Turn Out the Lights” is a brilliant anti-war song
and B-side non-hit;
Can we admit it?  Most folk music is dreadful;
Terms our kids don’t really get:
     Album
     Turntable
     Liner notes
Want to feel old?  Ask a student about their first album.  They won’t
know what you’re talking about.

Disclosure #2: Pat knows WAY more music than I do and more contemporary music than most college students.
11. Hannah (our youngest) had a bout of H1N1.  Emma (our oldest) has it now and I am on the road.  I know its a neurotic, but I hate being away when my kids are sick.  I’d rather trade places.  Does that ever stop?�
12. Is it a kind of ADHD to always be reading more than one book at a time
(and thus all books more slowly than one should)?  I am reading David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers, Karen Armstrong’s The Case For God, and Maile Meloy’s Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It.  The first won the Pulitizer, the second had glowing reviews and I heard the NPR interview with the author, and the third had a great review in the NY Times and the author is the niece of an old friend.  I really just listed them (I am reading them all)
so the Liberal Arts faculty wouldn’t think their president is just sitting around listening to old rock and roll, watching sports, and obsessing about his children — though he does all three of those with some regularity.

13.  What happened to science literacy in this country?  I keep reading reports about parents who won’t get their kids the H1N1 flu vaccine.  This vaccine is made with time-tested methods in the same facilities that do the regular flu vaccine year after year.  The flu is an unusual one — the vaccine is not.  People, come on.

Wow — that was the most random, disconnected blog post I’ve ever written and it was utterly satisfying.  If you’ve read the whole thing and are still with me at this point…..really, you need to find better things to do!

Inside Higher Ed has a story today about a new book by Gaye Tuchman called Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate University (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/10/06/wannabe#).  It is based on an anonymous university, though the story later identifies it as U. Conn, and is a sociologist’s look at the shifting of higher education and the internal dynamics of one institution thriving to be better.

Of course, who defines better and how they get there is the key question.  Faculty members complain about administrators who are not scholars or intellectuals, preoccupied as they are with productivity and efficiency.  Administrators complain abut faculty members who care more about their research than students or teaching.

I read all such things through an SNHU lens and as an institution we are working through our own set of such questions. Reading  the story, I squirmed a little bit as I thought about how much time I now spend on things like Datatel conversions, enrollment analysis, and praising the blessings of multiple revenue streams.

Yet the impact of better marketing, more efficient “speed to lead” strategies for reaching students, streamlined administrative processes  — all stuff of the increasingly “corporate” university — has allowed us to grow, create new programs, and build new buildings.   We have a vibrant music program, nationally known authors on campus, growing programs like Graphic Design and Creative Writing and Game Design.  All contribute to a more vibrant intellectual and cultural campus community.

I have ordered Tuchman’s book and one of the questons I have for it is whether she connects the dots in the way I just suggested: seeing a better  run business side to the university as supporting a better academic and intellectual environment.  That’s not my sense of the book from the today’s story.

I also wonder if SNHU isn’t on a contrary path to what Tuchman describes: having been a proprietary and for-profit institution that lacked much of the character of a more traditional non-profit university, we are now putting flesh on the academic and cultural bones of the university.  We spend more on professional development than ever before (I know, it is never enough).  We more diligently seek doctorally qualified faculty when we hire.  Our faculty publish more than ever.

We have a lot more work to do.  Our library does not measure up to our ambitions (though our librarians are leaders among their peers).  We have no performance space in which to support theater and dance, whether our own or by visiting groups.  Too many of our openings, performances, and visiting artist presentations are sparsely attended by our own faculty members and staff.  It’s as if we are not yet fully in the habit of mind and sensibility, even as we persuade students that those sensibilities are part of an enriched life.

Unlike Wannabe U, we are working towards a richer and fuller academic culture and the ostensibly corporate dimensions of what we do are helping us get there.

I have learned the hard way that any time we deal with the press we are taking a risk that they will get something wrong.  It’s a worthwhile risk, because whatever consternation I feel in the short run is outweighed by the long term name recognition.  Six months later people will mostly not remember what they read about an institution, but they will recognize its name. 

In today’s Chroncile of Higher Education we are the lead in a story about specialized accreditation and I winced at the headline: Struggling Colleges Question the Cost — and Worth — of Specialized Accreditation.   The headline writer’s mistake notwithstanding (in the year just ended we had record enrollments, a 6% operating surplus, and S&P upgraded our credit worthiness — if that’s “struggling,” I’ll happily struggle every year), the reporter was closer to the core of the story as he and I originally discussed it.  Though even he missed the bigger point.

It is not so much a question of how much one might invest in a specialized accreditation such as AACSB.  It is a question of whether that is the best place in which to invest and what dynamics it enables or constrains.  What was missing from the story was the discussion of whether such accreditations actually improve student learning and the teaching we do in our classrooms, whether they fuel mission drift, and how they shift the focus from students to compliance with accreditation demands. 

The one important dimension that was captured is the question of continuing and part-time education.  The Business School deans from BU and Northeastern touch upon this subject and I have spoken to both of them regarding their frustrations with AACSB.  As one said to me, “I spend 65% of my time on complying with AACSB standards instead of actually working to improve the experience of students.”  At SNHU, our non-traditional programs are our economic engine in terms of growth and staying in the black, so the philosophical discussions we might have about reputation and marketing were rendered moot when we came to understand the structural impediments to securing AACSB accreditation.  When we learned that AACSB accreditation would severely impact our ability to run our COCE programs the discussion was closed.

I also would not put much store in the Georgia Southwestern example offered in the article.  Its Business School is small in comparison to ours, it has a few non-traditional programs, and the comments about international students is contradicted by our experience.  I can not argue, however, that a perception of higher quality comes with AACSB accreditation.

So, as in most things in life, there are trade offs.  If we had AACSB accreditation we would certainly market it and stake a claim to even better quality (whether or not we believe one leads to the other).  Those who argued for pursuing AACSB accreditation had reasonable arguments grounded in the same good intentions we all share: to improve our programs, our reputation, and the value of an SNHU degree. 

Returning to where I started, I may or may not write a letter to The Chronicle clarifying our situation and our thinking on the topic, but in the meantime I would not get too exorcised about the story.  In the long run, we  sometimes get a better slant and more oomph than we deserve (I can’t believe the SNHU Advantage story got the play it did, as proud as we were of that modest program) and sometimes we get a worse slant (as in today’s story), but over time it’s our name that people will remember.

I this week walked the new sidewalk from Lot 12 (across from the tennis courts) to our new academic building (some students have dubbed it “Starship LeBlanc” because of its glass and steel, though they assure me they love the building and I shouldn’t be offended). The sidewalk curves through the old Ford property, past the nearly completed Dining Hall, and ends at that lovely sunbathed patio that anchors the street end of the new building.

It feels as if we have reclaimed North River Road as our own.  This was the vision architect Deborah Berke outlined when she and her firm developed the campus Master Plan in 2004.  As she observed, we had always turned our back on the road (literally, as no building has its main entrance in its direction) when we might instead turn it into the spine that runs through the heart of campus and unites the two halves.  Filling in the wide gap that once separated the new dorms and the main campus, it feels like we have connected the dots.

Webster Hall is the piece of the overall puzzle that still feels like a disconnected island.  Elevations and wetlands made running the sidewalk straight down a problem, so we need to now spend some time working on the right solution.  In the longer term, I’d like to see the School of Business in a larger, more appropriate building somewhere in the heart of the campus.

There are other important capital projects that loom out there somewhere in our future.  A new library, though what shape and form remains an intriguing question.  The Chronicle this week had a fascinating story on Goucher’s new take on its library, part coffee shop, gathering place, learning center, and still featuring its stacks and traditional role.  Our Facilities people are working in substandard quarters and desperately need a new building.  I would love to have a facility dedicated to the arts, which have gone from merely having a toehold to flourishing in a very short time.  We will soon have a concept design for a new admission building/welcome center. 

We first have to get through these difficult economic times and work out the university’s positioning around cost and discounting and growth, getting us back on track for the financial targets set out in Goal 4 of the Strategic Plan, before we can turn to ambitious building programs and the funds they require. 

For now, I am going to find excuses to take that walk up and down the hill and relish for a bit the exciting new buildings we have completed.

Earlier this week I was part of a panel discussion entitled A New Era in Higher Education Reform?in Washing ton, DC.  Sponsored by EducationSector, an independent think tank, and supported by the Lumina Foundation, the panel brought together:

• Jeff Selingo, editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education;
• Paul Glastris, editor of The Washington Monthly (and a former Clinton speechwriter);
• Kevin Carey, policy director for Education Sector;
• Ben Wildavsky, senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation;
• Bob Shireman, Deputy Undersecretary of Education;
• and me, the one university president in the group.

In the audience were educators, policy makers, media representatives, and foundation staff.  Jamie Merisotis, President of Lumina, did the opening and welcome.

The springboard question was “Can the United States achieve President Obama’s goal of having 60% of Americans holding post-secondary degrees by 2025 (from a current 40% level), yes or no?  And if yes, what will it take?  If no, why not?”

As you might imagine, most of the panel answered yes, but then listed a daunting array of hurdles that all added up to essentially saying that we can get there, but only with major re-engineering of higher education.  The base definition of success, as offered by Merisotis, was educating more Americans such that they have better pathways to meaningful employment and/or ongoing study and learning. 

As Shireman pointed out, we could get a long way towards achieving the goal if we simply improved our graduation rates, pointing out that we do not have a problem admitting enough students into post-secondary study.  His comments found strong support with this week’s release of Crossing the Finish Line,  the scathing study of completion rates in higher education by Bill Bowen and Mathew Chingos ((http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/09/finish).  The study focuses on public institutions where four-year graduation rates are as low as 26% and 33% depending on the sector (Phoenix U, by the way, is in that same abysmal range).

SNHU fares somewhat better,  but we are hardly a beacon of success.  Our six-year graduation rate has hovered around the low 50th percentile, though we are making good progress on our first to second year retention rate.  The problem with the fixation on completion rates is that they beg the question of who we serve.  Harvard might have a 98% completion rate, but it takes the top 1% of all high school graduates.  Those kids, driven to success, will graduate from any institution they attend and Harvard can claim very little credit.

Community colleges have the lowest completion rates, but look at who they serve.  The real test would be to measure the progress that students make from the time they enter to the time they graduate, a measurement we have not yet worked out.  Asking all schools to report completion rates is a little like asking people if they are married or not — it conveys the most basic fact, but little useful information.  Happily married?  Thirty years of misery?  No, but widowed?  Yes, but for the third time? 

Indeed, there will now be less incentive to take a chance on a student who has underperformed in high school.  Fundamentally, institutions that can afford to be more selective always chose to be so, and therein lies one of the many links between money and completion rates.  Kids who come from more modest backgrounds often go to more poorly funded public schools and thus come to us more poorly prepared (and worse, often disengaged as learners) and thus withdraw at higher rates.  Is that so complicated?

That critique aside, I must uncomfortably posit that higher education as an industry does not much care about access and affordability.  We talk a good game, but in reality our status, rewards, and recognition systems reinforce a focus on the upper levels of education (our disciplines or majors and upper level study, preferably graduate).  We build wonderful buildings that encourage a kind of architectural excess (see last week’s Globearticle on BU’s luxury dorm or our more modest $16m dining hall that won’t improve access or affordability, or education for that matter, one little bit).  We invest millions into sports programs that make alumni happy, but divert money from hiring more writing faculty.  We support a lot of scholarship and research for which the public cares very little about, unless it’s in medicine and some sciences.  Our general education programs, which should be designed to remediate the shortcomings of our largely mediocre and often poor public schools, are more often a carving up of disciplinary territory.  Sadly, we are more complicit in the underperformance of our industry than we’d like admit.

I like to think that we at SNHU are better than the dismal picture that I have just painted, but our graduation rate suggests otherwise.  We do not talk enough about retention.  No one is sole champion of the general education program (the way we have Deans and VPs and Department Chairs for every other area).  We have a cohesive strategy and staffing model for getting students in, but none for keeping them.  Everyone asks “How are the numbers for fall?”, but no one asks “How are the numbers for May?”.  We have faculty who teach only graduate courses and we tacitly acknowledge that they would be poor teachers of undergraduates, never mind entering students.  The course distribution for any student is heavily weighted towards the major and the school basic core, when we know our students would benefit most by more writing courses, more math and critical thinking courses. 

It raises a set of compelling questions for me:

• Should we have a College of General Education with its own Dean and its own faculty?
• Should work with that population be more rewarded, perhaps with a more reasonable course load (since these are more taxing courses to teach) and better salaries?
• Should we have a “retention center” like our enrollment center in Denver, a group that does proactive outreach to students on a very regular basis?
• Should the school cores and major requirements be pared back and should we expand the general education core?
• Should we hire differently?  Would we favor a high school or community college teacher with only an MA but exemplary teaching assessments and a passion for working with academically under prepared students over a PhD with a strong research background and a grudging willingness to teach two gateway courses per year? 

We would be well served to have that conversation.  I am convinced that we will see policy and compliance pressures to improve our retention rates.  We are also seeing a shrinking of our market demographically and perhaps economically.  For good business reasons we need to keep more of the students we admit.  More importantly, our ethical imperative as educators should be to make sure that students complete.  Otherwise, we leave far too many students and their families with thousands of dollars of debt for what turns out to be an expensive and failed experiment that leaves them in worse position along that pathway to meaningful work or continued study.

The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a story and picture of me on its front page today (http://chronicle.com/article/A-College-President-Breaks/48202/).   The story describes a dinner I hosted for people who I thought might disagree with me on the direction of the university or various decisions or maybe just plain didn’t like me. 

The dinner was valuable andI learned a lot and I had shared an account of it a conference with the point that while it’s easy to listen to your fans, it is more important to listen to your critics, and most dangerous to dismiss them.  The reporter was present and asked if he could do the story.

Anyway, since the story was published this is a sampling of messages (mostly e-mails) from my friends around the country:

• “Hey, if you buy me dinner I’ll be happy to tell you what a schmuck you are!”
• “I’m a little insulted I wasn’t included on the list of people who don’t like you.”
• “Where’d you find an auditorium large enough to hold that many people?”
• “I haven’t see you in a while — did you gain a little weight?”

Nice friends, eh?  So if anyone is crafting a witty response to the article, trust me, I’ve probably seen it.

Movie recommendation:

I highly recommend the 2007 autobiographical animated film Persepolis.  The story of Marjane Satrapi’s growing up in revolutionary era Tehran is amazing and based on her graphic novel of the same title.  The animation is stylized (and often impressionistic) and very retro in this age of Pixar and Disney computer whizzes, but it works.  The story is intimate and deeply personal (her story), but also offers a broad historical understanding of something which most Americans only knew from one angle, the embassy hostage crisis.  The experience of a modern, westernized, educated family falling under the brutal and backwards rule of a theocratic regime resonates as we are now directly involved in similar struggles in Pakistan and Iraq and Afghanistan.  For all those sweeping story lines, what stands out most is Marjane’s coming-of-age, her grandmother (the moral compass in the film), and the touching, painful attempts of a family to hold onto normalcy when all around them normal is slipping away.

Don’t watch:

The Watchman, last year’s film version of the mid-eighties comic series turned graphic novel.  Taking place in an alternative history version of Earth (Nixon is in office, we won in Vietnam, and we are on the edge of a nuclear war), the graphic novel is considered a seminal work in comic book and graphic novel traditions.  Time Magazine actually named it one of “The 100 Greatest Novels.”   It’s apocalyptic and dark and incredibly violent and while it is ostensibly about superheroes, it in many ways deconstructs the concept of heroes (never mind superheroes).  I found the graphic novel to be troubling and compelling and recommend it.  However, last year’s film adaptation, long awaited by fans, feels flat and labored.  The violence, harsh but 2-D on the page, feels more disturbing on film.  It was one of the rare films I simply turned off at some point.

Many, many people on campus have done cruises and almost all love them.  We have never done one,  but I had always fantasized about crossing the Atlantic by ship and ealier this year Cunard had a terrific sale for its trans-Atlantic passages.  So for Pat’s birthday I booked us and we recently did the six day trip from NYC to Southampton, England as part of our vacation.

A number of people have asked about the trip, so I’m posting below a mid-trip report I e-mailed to family and friends:
From: LeBlanc, Paul
Subject: from the QM2

So we’re into our fourth evening on the Queen Mary 2.  I have this torturously slow Internet connection, but it’s amazing we can connect at all.

If this were a resort hotel, it wouldn’t be a particularly good one.  Small rooms, smaller showers.  Feeding 3,000 people means function room quality of food (okay, a good function room).  By its nature, many fellow residents you might not elect to spend much time with (though it’s fun to be on the very young side).

But as with many things in life, it’s the idea of what we are doing and how we are doing it that creates the magic.

We are 1200 miles out at sea and tomorrow will pass over some of the deepest areas of the Atlantic, 2.5 miles deep.  Today we passed over the resting place of the Titanic.  We are beyond the reach of land.  That we have a room here at all, that we dress in tuxedos and gowns, and work out in a mini version of a Canyon Ranch spa is remarkable.

Looking out at the endless swells today, the horizon bare in every direction and as far as the eye can see, I was struck by the luxurious cocoon the ship creates and only a couple of feet away, over the rail, is a heartless and unforgiving world not intended for our presence.  If you somehow tripped and went over without notice, you would perish as certainly as if you jumped from the top of a skyscraper.  It reminded me of that great chapter in Moby Dick when Pip is inadvertently left behind and drifts alone in an empty sea – it’s the existentialist revelation of the novel before the word was invented.

Therein lies the essential difference between cruises and an Atlantic passage.  It at once reminds you of life’s “ominous core,” as one writer put it, and distances you from it at the very same time.   Or maybe, more accurately, it juxtaposes those two in a way that is hard to replicate.  It’s different than risk taking (unless a stubbed toe from an errant shuffleboard “push” should send a disc off your unguarded toe).  Motorcycles, rock climbing, and bungy-jumping put you in immediate contact with the thing that feels like it could kill you.  Here, it’s the sense of being absolutely safe and at no risk, but in a place where you shouldn’t be.

It’s similar to the feeling I had when we were in Africa and safely taking photos of a group of sleepy lions just a few feet away from the Land Rover in which we were standing.  The lions looked like kittens, but they looked back us with cold, unfeeling eyes and you knew that if you were stupid enough to step just inches away from the Land Rover you would suffer an unthinkable death.  And that was what made it so moving.

On that occasion and this one you can’t help but feel your absolute helplessness, you’re immediate and total vulnerability, in an environment not designed for humans, but for the vessel (or truck) that carries you through it.  We sat playing Trivial Pursuit by a window nearly at water level today and it made the game something altogether different than it would be in our living room.

The other thing that is magical about this experience is that it is part of a tradition, from the strolling around the promenade deck to the officers in crisp white uniforms to the noon time bells and update from the Captain to tuxedos at dinner.  Truth be told, some of the elegance seems a bit of a facade now.  In this democratic age, we see people not quite heeding the dress rules (shorts at high tea!) and a little too unruly elbowing their way into whatever event.  In this relentlessly commercial age, we see Cunard being a little too crassly mercantile with photographers everywhere (in the hopes you’ll buy lots of your own photos), a clothing sale set up in the grand central hall like a NYC street corner, and cafeteria trays in the food court suggestive of a college cafeteria.  

I chatted with an 87 year-old who has been on many passages and last on the Queen Elizabeth and when asked, he had to admit that the QM2 is less elegant than her predecessor.  No one is doing Jello shots and dancing the limbo, but you can imagine a time when life on these liners might have been somewhat more refined.  Of course, that was a time when they wouldn’t have coarse riff-raff like us on board.

All that said, we are still dressing up for dinner, having high tea, meeting the Captain (who looks out of Central Casting), and maybe best of all, sitting in mahogany deck chairs and watching the ocean slip by.  That is not a bit different than it has ever been and there’s still something about the ocean that is mesmerizing and calming, despite all my philosophizing about its existential power.  There are all sorts of interesting characters on board and the people watching is itself entertaining.  There are aging doyens who remind me of Mrs. Haversham, elegant and imperious and who seem to be waiting for servants they no longer have.  There is the maritime historian (whose son is a writer and producer for The Simpsons) who is one of the best story-tellers I have ever heard, whose narrative of the Titanic’s sinking was more dramatic than most movies I’ve seen.  There are the third-world crew members (again, Cunard saving money) – Filipinos, Indonesians, Eastern Europeans, and very few Brits – working 12 hour days with no days off we learned.  We have a favorite young Macedonian bartender named Slave (yup – pronounced Sla-Vey, so he goes by Gaba, or Gaba the Great, as we call him, because people were calling him Slave).

I had a marvelous conversation with Daphne, an aging (who isn’t on this tub?) widow from the Isle of Wright.  Because travel like this is slow and we have time and deck chairs side-by-side create a kind of intimacy, the tale of her life could unwind in a leisurely fashion and I learned about her twins with  Down Syndrome (now age 45 and in a care facility) and her husband’s death a few years ago, and her musician grandson now off to Japan to teach English, and much more.  And because we have the time in a way that is so rare at home, I could be interested and patient and not thinking about how to cut off the conversation because I had thirteen other things to do.

In that spirit, we are avoiding television (there is satellite in the rooms) and news for the most part.  I check the Internet only for reports from the our girls.  We talk, and workout, and eat, and nap, and read, and it feels like a genuine vacation.   In an age where we get somewhere as quickly as we can, this is all about the journey and not the destination and it’s not easily replicable (maybe the Orient Express?).    It’s pretty cool and feels special and we are all glad we are doing it.