Identity. If we were all mathematicians, it would be a straightforward concept. A = B: the object in question (and only the object in question) is exactly equal to its description, no matter what elements of the object you consider. For the majority of us, however, defining our identity is a struggle between paradigms. To what extent do we describe who we are versus who we want to be? Are we inclined to focus on what we like about our identity and ignore that which is less palatable? How do we reconcile concrete, tangible outcomes we can point to with other processes that are still nascent? These are the questions that we, the Subcommittee on General Education, had on our minds today, as we occupied our potato-chip-laden corner of Maggie’s cafe.
The cast of characters, going around the table: our motivated and thoughtful chair Greta Binford, professors Jim Proctor, Karen Gross, Jessica Starling, and John Holzwarth, librarian Dan Kelley, registrar Judy Finch, passionate student Hannah Swernoff, and me, in the corner, trying to reconcile the fact that I’m talking about the culture of collaboration between students and faculty while actively engaging in that process in real-time.
The thought-de-jour was this: we’ve made such a concerted effort to collect input from students and faculty up to this point, why not sit down, formally consider how we are going to use that input, and discover what common threads emerge running through it. To avoid prematurely jumping to prospective models of general education without basing those models on our process, we set ourselves to the task of describing our identity as an institution. This notion didn’t come out of the blue—thus far, conversations about what general education represents at Lewis & Clark inevitably turn to questions of who we are and who we want to be.
With this in mind, we started our identity-list in two columns: descriptive and aspirational. Descriptive for who we are (including, as John pointed out, qualities we aren’t necessarily proud of), and aspirational for who we want to be. It wasn’t long before the line between the two started to get fuzzy. After all, we’ve started to put in motion much of what we aspire to. Does that mean that it should be descriptive? Or is it aspirational, since it isn’t yet where we want it to be? We stuck with the division, grappled with vaguenesses as they came up, and turned out to have a useful tool for describing trends in L&C’s collegiate environment. By projecting where those trends could lead, we could begin to decide what trends we want to encourage and what still needs addressing.
The first items added to the list were what you might expect as values of the college commonly cited by its students, faculty, administrators, and admissions office. We’re international. We strive to consider broad perspectives. We’re politically, socially, and environmentally aware. Already, we’re beginning to see the struggle to define elements of our identity with any degree of specificity. While these are all certainly important descriptors of the Lewis & Clark environment, it’s difficult to say exactly what any of those terms mean (try it). Nevertheless, they lead us down some instructive paths of thought. Karen mentioned that many of our students (she specifically citied our art, theatre, and science students) become recognized for their individual expertise in their field. Judy recounted the sheer quantity of highly-motivated collaboration she witnesses between students and faculty (once again giving me a meta-moment). We all discussed a commonly-held desire to steep our education in the notion of place, and connect with Portland as an avenue for grounding our educational process in our surroundings.
Then, a reality check came along. John mentioned, and others echoed, that first-year students doing very well in their courses often transfer out of L&C, saying that they don’t feel academically challenged. We compared this to peer institutions like Reed, which is practically defined by its prominently-advertised level of rigor. There was no obvious value judgement to be made. We raised salient points and counterpoints—for example, L&C is viewed highly for its ability to work inclusively with students of different backgrounds, learning differences, and issues of mental health. This seemed to be a prominent part of our identity—we care about our students. At the same time, we were forced to consider how we might push talented students into opportunities to be academically challenged, especially in situations where those students aren’t quite motivated enough to create those opportunities for themselves. This raised questions of how we interact with students’ comfort zones, how we foster open-mindedness, and how we create a culture where we encourage people to disagree without being divisive.
I think one of the most telling artifacts of this meeting is an entry in the “aspirational” list: “ratchet up aspirations.” At the end of the day, it’s hard to define an institution which is itself defined by the contributions of the individuals who compose it. We’re probably not going to create a mathematical identity for Lewis & Clark, where we and only we exactly match a detailed description of our institution, no matter what elements of the college you substitute into the variables. What we can do, however, is create an environment that encourages individuals’ initiative and pushes them to pursue opportunities appropriate for them. Is this still in the vague, visionary stage? Absolutely. But by developing our vision with as much care as possible, we hope to build a model which functionally reflects the values we choose to emphasize.