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Sunday, August 6, 2023
Texas Aggies Need Not Fear Diversity or Any Future Changes
When I arrived on campus at Texas A&M, 49 years ago this summer, as a new member of the Class of ’78, I was naïve about Texas politics and wide-eyed about the magnificent campus that hosted the friendliest group of students and smiling faculty I’d encountered since graduating from Keystone School in San Antonio. Today my high school remains in the Top 10% nationally among Best College Prep Private High Schools in America.
I graduated in 1974 as one in a class of 21, which included students of Caucasian, Black, Hispanic, and Asian-American heritage. Today the school still ranks #378 of 7,010 most diverse private high schools in America. Some of us were there on scholarships, full and partial, others were full-pay students. Some had new cars, others arrived in dated cars driven by parents, and still more took the bus across town to reach campus.
Coming from that environment, the only class distinction made was if you wanted to study hard or not. Everyone went to college and most graduated eventually if not in four years’ time. Yet, I am neither a student of privilege nor am I unfamiliar with what it is to have friends across all races and cultures. By most accounts, I’m just an ordinary student of life, slightly nerdy if I’m frank, but no better than anyone else.
Texas A&M felt like “home” to me and little to nothing that happened during my undergraduate education dissuaded me from that feeling. Change had happened on campus already when they admitted women as regular students. Hard feelings were still held by some of the older professors who preferred A&M remain all male, all military, just as it was when they first started teaching there, but I can only think of one class where I received a lesser grade than my male classmate with the same scores. Life’s tough, so if you want to succeed, you take a deep breath and keep going. I did. No big deal. I didn’t whine, nor complain to any higher ups. It’s life and it will always be that way as long as people are scared of change.
Thanks to two men of Democratic political persuasion, Gen. J. Earl Rudder and State Sen. W. T. “Bill” Moore, aka “The Bull of the Brazos,” women were accepted into A&M. They had to fight for our inclusion, just as the Civil Rights Act had had to fight for students of color to have equal admission. These changes happened and gradually, so I thought, those who were not pleased found a way to understand that these changes were not made “to” them, but “for” them, because as a wise prof once said, “No one person is as smart as ‘all of us.’” As a group, Aggies were unbeatable, and that was meant to describe more than a collective group on a football field.
The Aggie school spirit fueled the ability for students of all backgrounds to come together and love this place in a way that is seemingly absurd to those who didn’t go here. Nevertheless, we do, and we have and as long as there is a Texas A&M, we will continue to engender a sense of belonging that makes each of us feel that this is “our school.” We don’t take kindly to people trying to poke fun at us, or to put us in a bad light. Through the years, though, we’ve done enough of that to ourselves that we have found the enemy and “they are us.”
One of A&M’s greatest allies and advocates is a proud graduate of the University of Texas at Austin—the late, dynamic leader, Mrs. Margaret Rudder, another proud Democrat who not only welcomed diversity; she embraced it. In her time here, she mentored many students, male and female, and she loved them as much as they loved her. She was never judgmental or harsh if a student had long hair, blue hair, a nose ring, or four earrings in one ear. She might say “Now, that’s something you don’t see every day,” but she didn’t put it down nor did she try to bash it. A mother’s heart loves all at all times, I think, is one way to see it.
If we were all alike, we’d be very dull. And were she here, I doubt she’d be very pleased about The Rudder Association using her family name, even if her eldest son has endorsed their articulated beliefs proudly proclaimed online. She and Gen. Rudder have/had five children and until all of them place their names there, don’t assume that they’d be in lockstep agreement of the fear-based diatribe on that site.
Over the years, many among the small group of the disgruntled have found reason to come together under the guise of “protecting” all that is good and right about Texas A&M, through their eyes at least. To generalize them, most of them don’t have any friends who don’t think the same way they do, or don’t look any different than they do, and they find comfort in that. They’re the Ron Desantis’s of this world, to use a current example not from Texas.
Every time a person who doesn’t like how things are changing, how society and education have been asked to welcome, if not embrace at least tolerate, an inclusive student body that features making those who identify as LGBTQ+ feel at home to make them feel welcome, as they should here, there’s a giant failure that continues to perpetuate fear.
There seems to be a knee-jerk revulsion, repulsion, and need to run to the nearest Bible to grab onto, some right side up, others upside down, and to wave it and yell that “they’re not like us! They can’t belong here because that makes them just like us and we’re not them!” Really?
Students in pursuit of knowledge? Students with talents and interests different than ours? Students who do not ask you to be like them, or to approve of them any more than they are asked to approve of you or to like you. When I’m confronted with change or difference, I try to enter a discussion with love and understanding.
When grouped together in class projects, I’ve seen it over and over again, when “diverse” people come together and blend their best work and they produce the best results, collectively, as a result of combining individual gifts and talents. It doesn’t make the students leave the group and want to adopt a lifestyle that is not in keeping like they entered with, but they do leave, possibly, with less fear of the unknown, and less fear of having their minds changed because they had a good experience. Maybe they even leave with more understanding about people they didn't know before. Could be friendships are forged as well, some that last a lifetime.
If I see the word “woke” one more time, I think I shall have to put a(nother) quarter in the cuss jar, because it is so easily spewed by people who refuse to tolerate people who support diversity, equality, and inclusivity. If you’re not already awake, then by definition, you are asleep, like Rumpelstiltskin, and have been, as the world around you has changed over the past 20, 30, and 40 years. And before you bring your Bible and religion into the mix, I politely remind you that there is a reason for separation of church and state.
In my day, religion was taught at home and in my Sunday School classes and church, and education was taught in my school. We did recite the pledge of allegiance every morning in elementary school, and we had posters up in the hallways to commemorate the various religious holidays of our students at Keystone. We tried to learn a little about each of them, especially in music classes where we would learn cultural songs of relevant heritage. It was there to observe whether or not it was embraced. We attended Quincineras and Bar Mitzvahs of our classmates. No one was cramming anything down our throats. We loved it!
We were always “awake” at Keystone, and at Texas A&M, it’s such a big place, there have always been approved student groups to gather together those who had distinct interests unto themselves. Remember Cepheid Variable for science fiction (the early Trekkies et al.), the hometown groups for those from smaller towns, groups for the cowboys and cowgirls, service fraternity and sororities (before the Panhellenic groups came to town), and sports car clubs, on and on.
I didn’t think of Texas A&M as awake or asleep, or anything other than an institution of higher education and a safe place to express ideas of both political opinions without being ridiculed or grade penalized for that. It was in my role as one student senator that in 1976 our leader was student body president Fred McClure, future attorney and A&M regent, and Singing Cadet, and future Executive Director of The Leadership Initiative at A&M. Every meeting people expressed all kinds of ideas and opinions. All were heard and at the end, the votes decided the direction.
Quite civil, quite inspirational. Not everyone is going to agree all the time, and there’s going to be times when students disagree with professors, but it doesn’t mean it’s a state offense to disagree, nor should it. One example. In my fourth degree from A&M (having earned a B.S. ChE, M.S. in Phys. Chem, and Ph.D. in Phys. Chem., I went back to earn an M.Ed. in Educational Administration (Higher Ed Program Evaluation). One of my favorite professors was one with whom I seemed to disagree on at least three educational tenets, no doubt because my early educational experiences were different than his.
Rather than sit timidly like a mouse with my opinion welling up in my throat and getting angry, after he’d offered his opinions and “take” on things in our books, he asked, “Other thoughts?” I took that as my opening and the two of us enjoyed beginning our position statements with “I am diametrically opposed to everything you just said.” The class would laugh and off we’d go into a discourse that was soon joined in by others in the class. We didn’t change our minds, either of us, but we were both heard, and I received an A in the class because in my papers I could cite sources and make cases for my statements. I had one of the best learning experiences from someone I had least in common with opinion-wise.
That’s called intellectual discourse, and to be perfectly frank, there’s little to find that is intellectual about our current Governor or Lt. Governor, in my opinion. Although your mileage may vary and you want to attack me or my viewpoint because you disagree with me, please save it. I respect your right to disagree, and you go vote for your folks and I’ll vote for whomever I wish. No harm, no anger. Now, can we get back to the point of the matter, which is the future of Texas A&M University? You do not have to be a Republican or a Democrat, a liberal or a conservative, or any label to be a good leader, whether Texas A&M or the state of Texas. You have to be a critical thinker, though.
Democrat John Sharp is today still “the sharpest guy in the room” (No pun intended) because he did the ONE thing for Texas A&M that will be his most important legacy for the 73-year-old Aggie and career politician who will be forever remembered for SAVING TENURE at Texas A&M. When the less than intellectually gifted Lt. Governor threatened tenure for new hires at state universities he was playing with fire, so much so that he honestly didn’t realize what that would do to destroy Texas higher education forever. Sharp did and he was able to “do what he does” and build consensus quickly.
Tenure is the only thing that academics have as guarantees that they can teach without interference. If they commit moral or ethical infractions, tenure does not protect them, and they can be fired. But if they teach their curriculum their way, they cannot be punished or censured, or censored. Most teachers allow for differing viewpoints, despite what you may think.
And John Sharp saved not only Texas A&M but all Texas institutions of higher education, and he’s not been given as much as a gold watch or a plaque for doing it. He saved tenure! Yet he’s just had multiple headaches, one after another, because one of his hires has been refocusing repeatedly wrong actions and bad judgment onto Texas A&M for the past many weeks now.
Here’s the good news: Kathy Banks as engineering dean introduced the concept of professors of practice into several teaching classrooms, bringing real-world experiences into the classroom to benefit students. She helped grow and increase funding for research at A&M’s Engineering extension and experiment stations and Sharp’s dream of the RELLIS campus and expanded our level of national involvement in important research.
However, the bad news: Sharp having appointed two female (named as) superdeans (Banks and former Vet School Dean, Eleanor Green) was likely not a good idea because it elevated two women above extremely capable men who directed other important colleges, namely Agriculture and Business as just two examples. That sets up unnecessary contention, but no one asked my opinion so there’s that.
When the university finally was free of M. K. Young and his bride (who had a little office inside her husband’s office), appointing Banks as president was something I called (I even won an iced tea because I saw it before some of my pals did) as a no-brainer. You have someone you can work with, plus you share a vision of Texas A&M taking over the state in prominence and the sky’s the limit, right? But the series of missteps that followed showed where it really takes someone who truly understands the hearts and minds of Aggies to truly lead this place.
You have to introduce new ideas with strength and conviction, build consensus, and then share why it will benefit all in the long run. Banks failed to do that. In fact, she grew so powerful so quickly that she didn’t appear to need much of a reason to be a benevolent leader and she didn’t seem to stay closely in touch with the Distinguished Professors group whose mission it is to be a great sounding board when you want to take programs in a new or different direction. They’re a free knowledge base of wisdom that people who are smart seek out and listen to. She entirely ignored the Faculty Senate and frankly, that was ignorant.
I have no way of knowing for sure, but I’m guessing that they didn’t hear any questions about combining the colleges of arts and sciences or hiring the giant consulting firm to study changes that should be made. It was an ill-fated plan from the get-go and so absolutely pointless and unnecessary, in my opinion. Other, far wiser, people may disagree and if they are in power, then more power to them to make it happen.
In watching the travesty of Kathleen McElroy ’81 unfold, I have been in tears, angry, and sick to be an alumnus of a school who would dare to treat one of our own, much less any woman, like this. Paying $1,000,000 is nothing to an institution that treats millions like peanuts (e.g., football salaries) but that we lost an AGGIE who wanted to come back and rejuvenate a program that Banks had already helped bury is unconscionable.
It is true that (shown in text messages between two Aggie regents and Banks) where the regents note that Banks assured them that training more conservative Aggie journalists was the mission of our school in the future. And simply to accept that this was the plan all along? I need Pepto-Bismol. I add my apologies to those who have expressed them to Professor McElroy for the botched attempted hire and all the insults she endured. All who were complicit and guilty in this fiasco should just save A&M the effort and resign and go someplace where more people think the way you do, so you don’t have to fear anyone not liking you or your idea.
Even more stunningly tragic is the Tribune's report:
"According to the internal report A&M released Thursday, Banks received calls from six to seven regents after Texas Scorecard, a conservative website, wrote an article about McElroy that painted her as a 'DEI proponent' for her prior research to improve diversity in newsrooms. Board member Sam Torn emailed a quote from the article to board Chair Bill Mahomes stating he wanted an explanation before he could approve McElroy's tenure...The internal report revealed that Banks was heavily involved in behind-the-scenes discussions to walk back the original offer to McElroy, contradicting Banks' public statements that she had no knowledge of changes to the offer."
It's breathtaking that so many spineless people are in positions of power, particularly to the point where they can destroy the solid foundation that has existed for so long. And yet, here we are, and it's not just one isolated incident.
As for Prof. Joy Alonso and that fiasco, could our state at last be free of the reign of terror that we all continue to have to endure? Is one man and his perceived status as sufficiently wise qualified to be a dictator?
Finally, as with all things Aggie, the one thing we always have is hope. That’s what the late Education Prof. John Hoyle used to tell us in our Educational Futures class: “The Aggies always have hope.” That applies to more than just the football team. We’ve had enough “stinkin’ thinkin’ as he used to call it, to last a decade. Today, we can celebrate the entry of Gen. (Ret’d.) Mark A. Welsh III as Interim President of Texas A&M.
In my opinion, there is no one better to lead our university out of this deep morass of embarrassment and back into prominence than President Welsh. His career with the U.S. Air Force is sufficient proof of his leadership skill, yet his success as Dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service is further testament to being the right person at the right time for Texas A&M, in fact just in the nick of time. He led an Air Force that featured highly qualified men and women as fighter pilots, teams of culturally and ethnically diverse service personnel who likely belong to groups in their own time that comprise a wide spectrum of beliefs.
You know, when you’re in the midst of battle in the air or fighting in a fox hole on the ground, the only thing on your mind is to do your job and protect your team, no one left behind. That’s the basic principle of education—no child left behind. As it should ever be. There is no need to fear. The Aggies are here to stay—all of us. God bless us all and continue to keep us safe from those who would choose to lead by fear.
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