Tag Archives: American academia

Can Christian Scholars (And Colleges) be Academic?

Leave a reply

For the past year I’ve been reading about higher education in America, about 10 books in all. I wrote blog reviews of 5 of them. Most of these books focus on secular private and state-controlled colleges and universities. Whenever they mention “denominational,” or “sectarian” schools, the clear implication—if not the explicit declaration—is that these colleges are not truly academic. Indeed, they cannot be academic, because they exempt certain religious dogmas from critical scrutiny and prohibit professors from teaching or writing anything that contradicts them. To be a real college or university, that is, to live up to the ideal of academia, the institution must not presuppose the truth of any belief. No theory, hypothesis, belief, description, method, etc., can be given privileged status. Professors must be left completely free to follow where their minds and hearts take them and share these thoughts with students and the public…and be given career-long security and a salary to do so.

Academic Hypocrisy

I think you can see already that this ideal of academia is unworkable. It is skepticism of the most cynical kind that envisions academia as a game to be played for its own sake. If students, parents, and the government came to believe this, would they pay professors and administrators to play this game? In fact, however, the secular description of academia is a cynical ploy designed for one purpose: to make it seem irrational for a college to presuppose Christian faith, traditional morals and common sense as guiding principles. Secular colleges and universities have no intention of living up to this ideal.

The whole point of anything we might call an academy is to rise above the undisciplined and emotion-driven conversations of the street. The academy claims to be a social good because it uses time-tested and critically proven methods of assessing facts, perceiving logical coherence and causal connections, and weighing probabilities to approximate truth. And in order to carry out this process, scholars work within traditions, schools of thought and communities to work out the implications of the dominant theories. Apart from accepting well-supported theories at least provisionally, scientific progress is impossible.* The same holds true in all areas of academic research—from fine arts to history to economics. It is precisely the methodical, rational exploration of (provisionally) accepted theories that makes academia academic!

Christian Academia

Christian scholars, colleges and universities conform to this model of academia as well as secular colleges and universities do. If you think of basic Christian doctrine in analogy to a well-supported theory, Christian scholars seek to work out the full implications of this theory in religion, theology, ethics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc. Christian colleges and universities gather Christian scholars from all disciplines to work together on this grand project and to share the results of their study with students and the public.

Objections and Replies

1. But you may object that Christian colleges presuppose only one grand theory, whereas secular colleges gather scholars that presuppose many theories, which are allowed to clash. In response we might point out that secular colleges exclude many theories from consideration. Just try exploring the implications of belief in divinely revealed moral law or the resurrection of Christ at a secular university. Or try teaching a class arguing for rejection of the theory of human-caused climate change or that there are only two genders. Larry Summers was forced to resign from the presidency of Harvard just for suggesting that the disparity between the numbers of men and women in the STEM subject areas should be researched to see if it might be biologically based. Secular colleges’ and universities’ claims of neutrality and all-inclusivity are clearly disingenuous.

2. Some would object that Christian faith is not a “well-supported” theory but a set of beliefs based on faith. But this objection misses an important truth about Christianity. Christianity claims to be true. Belief in God can be supported by many lines of argument that many people find compelling. The distinctive beliefs of Christianity are based on events that it claims really happened. Christian scholars assert that Jesus Christ really lived, taught, died on a Roman cross, and three days later rose from the dead. The tomb was empty and Jesus was seen alive by many people, including Saul of Tarsus. One may argue that these beliefs are false, but note well, you have to argue that they are false! And if something is worthy of arguing about, that makes it worthy of academic study! If Christians believe that basic Christian doctrine is true, that of itself makes engaging in scholarship to explore the implications of this truth and creating an institution to facilitate that exploration an immanently reasonable (academic!) thing to do.

*This is a major conclusion of Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Revolutions come along generations apart. In between, scholars work within traditions or paradigms. Kuhn calls the activity within these interim periods “normal science.”

“Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain” Or Demystifying Academic Freedom and Professorial Privilege

4 Replies

In my previous essay on academic freedom (July 15, 2023), I reviewed Daniel Gordon’s recent book, What is Academic Freedom? A Century of Debate–1915 to the Present (Routledge, 2022). Gordon argues convincingly that no single definition of academic freedom commands universal assent within American academia. In this essay, I will explore the implications of Gordon’s thesis and lay a foundation for constructing a view of the nature and limits of academic freedom in Christian colleges and universities.

Academic Freedom: Universal Right or Elitist Privilege?

Knowledge is Power

Every ancient society treasured its wisdom, technical skills, and bodies of knowledge. Prophets, priests, and philosophers mastered the received tradition and taught it to the next generation. Some speculated about God and the heavens and others dealt with humanity and earth. But from Solomon to Socrates, Descartes to Darwin, and Newton to Nietzsche thinkers were admired and despised, immortalized and martyred. One person’s saint is another’s heretic. Why would the same thinker be hailed as a savior and persecuted as a traitor? How could an idea be received as light from heaven by some and condemned as infernal heresy by others?

Francis Bacon may have put his finger on the reason: “Knowledge in itself is power.” Technical knowledge enables us to do things that we could not do otherwise.  Knowing how to speak and write well may enable you to persuade other people to buy your product or join your cause. Learning the sciences of mathematics, physics, chemistry, or biology opens doors to respected and well-paid professions. If people think you know how to fix the economy or win wars, they will place you in high office and put their collective power at your disposal. No wonder professions, unions, and guilds jealously guard their trade secrets and defend their privileges by requiring degrees, accreditation, licensure and sometimes by resorting to intimidation and violence!

Ideas are Dangerous

Knowledge can be used for good or evil, to build or destroy. Ideas, even if they are true, are dangerous things. To a politician that maintains power by perpetuating falsehoods, truth is dangerous and one who speaks it is an enemy. Lies, too, can destroy lives and livelihoods. So can fancies, superstitions, and other expressions of ignorance and conceit. Prophets, liars, and charlatans wield the dangerous weapon of speech.

We should not be surprised, then, that societies from ancient to modern times feel the need to regulate the knowledge industry, that is, to have a say about what counts for knowledge and who is recognized as a reliable teacher.  Sometimes that regulation was enforced with a heavy hand, as in the cases of Socrates, Jesus, and Galileo, and at others, through the subtle power of social disapproval. In any case, for most of human history, those who dared speak their minds understood that they risked losing freedom, livelihood, and life itself.

The Price of Privilege

The modern doctrines of academic freedom and professorial self-governance were designed to buck the trend of history and exempt university professors from hazards braved by their courageous predecessors. But I wonder, can “truth-to-power” speech be institutionalized without losing its prophetic edge? What price must be paid for these privileges? The modern professorate is a self-perpetuating, highly selective group, and the fee for admission is steep. No charlatans and liars, purveyors of fancies and superstitions are allowed to join. But who are the gatekeepers, the ones that decide who is in and who is out? Who determines what ideas are fanciful and superstitious and who the charlatans are?

At the risk of sounding more cynical than I already have, I have to ask a further series of questions: Was professionalizing the professorate and adopting the modern doctrine of academic freedom just a less obvious way for progressive society to regulate the knowledge industry? Might not excluding some thinkers as “charlatans and purveyors of fancies and superstitions” be the way the “profession” colludes with its powerful patrons to shield them from scrutiny? Is “professionalization” a euphemism for “cooptation”?

Even the casual reader of the AAUP’s 1915 General Declaration on academic freedom can catch the disdain in which its authors held “proprietary” colleges, a category that includes any school dedicated to advancing particular political, philosophical or religious causes. As “proprietary types,” devoted to their “propagandist duties,” denominational colleges, seminaries, and what we now call “Christian” colleges, do not rise to the high standards of universities devoted to the “public” good. By making themselves the arbiters of what counts as the common good, the authors of the General Declaration in effect institutionalized their (progressive) political, philosophical, and religious causes as if they were the rationally self-evident norms of academic excellence.

The Profession: Self-Governance or Self-Service?

Who Guards the Guardians?

The modern concept of academic freedom goes back at least to the founding of the University of Berlin (1810). Thousands of Americans studied in Germany during the nineteenth century, and they returned to America eager to raise American universities up to German standards. Establishing the professorate as a self-governing profession protected by complete academic freedom was among the first tasks they undertook. The 1915 AAUP General Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure  is the classic American statement on academic freedom. The Declaration argued that as a profession constituted by a specialized body of skills and knowledge and dedicated to the public good, the professorate has earned the right to self-governance in all academic matters, that is, the qualifications of teachers, tenure decisions, the curriculum, and the range of theories worthy of consideration within each discipline. The original AAUP statement and all later iterations insist that faculty should be free from all external regulation in matters of academic judgment. According to the Declaration, faculty should not be treated as “employees” as are the grounds keeping staff but as “appointees” in analogy to federal judges.

As an insider to the profession, I understand wanting freedom to write and teach as I please. I understand why professors want the public to think that their work is vital to the common good and that academic freedom and tenure, good pay, a light teaching load, and time to study and research are necessary to that end. I can make a good case for all of this. But the AAUP’s General Declaration paints professors with an aura of sainthood. They are portrayed as incorruptible guardians of knowledge and unselfish benefactors of society. In its rhetoric about the glories of the vocation, professors walk on water and open the eyes of the blind, but in reality they stumble along in the same muddy stream as do other human beings. The nobility of the professorial calling must not be carelessly attributed to practitioners of that vocation. In my experience professors can be just as petty, jealous, narrow, envious, hypocritical, greedy, and ambitious as politicians, business leaders, and the cleaning crew. Of course they want complete self-governance in matters of academic freedom and tenure! I want it too!

But who will guard the guardians? The General Declaration assumes that, even if a few of its members abuse their privileges, “the profession” will remain pure; it can police its members. But the history of other associations and organizations makes this assumption dubious. Should we believe that the professorate can escape the gravitational pull of mundane self-interest, ideological orthodoxies, and nepotism when the clergy, labor unions, and police departments have not been able to do so? Shall we, then, appoint an elite group of superguardians to guard the academic guardians? But who would guard them?

There is no substitute for checks and balances that can serve as counterweights to tyranny arising from outside or inside the university. The faculty can be as tyrannical as the government or the administration or the board. Universities exist as cooperative efforts on the part of many interested parties, all of them necessary to the existence and functioning of the school: founders, donors, boards of regents, alumni, students, administrators, the public, and faculty. There is no escaping the messy business of negotiating, if not harmony, at least some acceptable compromise among these parties. The guardians must guard each other in an unbroken circle of accountability in which no one and no area is exempt from the scrutiny of all.

What is “the Profession” and Who Speaks for it?

The General Declaration speaks as if there were a real entity called “the profession.” This way of speaking leaves the impression that every competent college teacher shares the same view about the aims of higher education and agrees on the methods and resources needed to accomplish these goals. This was not true in 1915, and it is not true today. Is the purpose of higher education to pass on the wisdom accumulated by generations past or to train researchers to engage in discovery of new knowledge? Should professors in their research and teaching seek disinterestedly for truth or work to change the world? Professors were divided then, and they are divided now on these questions. Implied in this second dichotomy are two very different views of academic freedom and the professor/student relationship, which we see today in the conflict between the postmodern activist and the anti-political professional views.

Professors in Christian colleges and universities often find themselves on different sides of this debate. But more importantly, thoughtful Christian professors, especially those teaching in Christian schools, understand that they do not fit comfortably in either camp. For they are committed to doing their research and teaching guided by the Christian worldview. In the final article in this series, I will take up how this institutional and professorial commitment to the truth of Christianity changes the way we think about academic freedom and professorial self-governance.

Academic Freedom in Context

2 Replies

Introduction

I wrote this document to clarify my ideas on matters being discussed in the college where I teach. Your observations on how I could improve it are welcome.

Human Freedom—Conceptual and Practical

Freedom is primarily a negative concept. It names the absence of a determining, coercive, or deceptive force that channels human action to a particular end.

The concept of freedom does not contain within itself any evaluation of the ends toward which human action is obligated or desires to move. In other words, the bare concept of freedom contains no information about what is right or good. Freedom is of value only as a means to right or good ends. And freedom is of value to a particular individual only as a means to ends that that individual desires or feels obligated to seek. Hence freedom cannot serve as an end in itself; it is not a freestanding value.

Freedom is openness for action or inaction with other ends in mind. Freedom is meaningless (that is, without purpose as a means) unless the action it permits is directed by compelling ends. But to direct an action to an end is simultaneously to negate other possible actions. Hence freedom cannot be a means to any particular end apart from limits that exclude other possible ends. Interestingly, then, freedom, that is, unlimited openness for any logically and physically possible action, is useless (as a means) apart from limits!

Does the concept of limit, then, contradict the concept of freedom? Of course, unlimited freedom cannot coexist with limits. But we must remember that freedom is not an end in itself. It is a good only insofar as it enables an agent to act toward a good or right end. And freedom is a good to a particular agent only as it provides the conditions under which that agent is enabled to work toward an end that seems good or right to them. Hence an agent’s decision to limit its action to achieve particular good and right ends does not contradict the concept of freedom-as-a-means; it contradicts only the concept of freedom-as-an-end-in-itself.

Human Freedom in Community

As we concluded above, even considered solely as individuals—at least in a world like ours in which not all actions are good or right—to be a value freedom must be limited by the directing power of worthy ends. But we also live in a world with other agents. And other individuals have differing conceptions of good and right and of what ends to seek. Hence arises the possibility of another type of limit on freedom. When conceived as the freedom of multiple particular agents acting simultaneously, freedom may even contradict and limit itself; because the space in which these agents act overlaps. A new problem then arises: how may we harmonize the freedom of many individuals. Perhaps we could dream of a utopia where the desires and consciences of everyone are in complete harmony and everyone could pursue their desires without being limited by others’ pursuit of theirs. But that is not the world we live in. In the world in which we live the freedom of an individual is limited not only by the ends we seek and limits we impose on ourselves but by the freedom of others to do the same.

To live in our world we must live in community, that is, in some mode of harmony achieved by coming to a common understanding of the good and right ends to which freedom is a means. Through long-term experience we learn how to give and take, compromise, care, share, and otherwise enjoy the benefits of living cooperatively with others as compensation for the limits on freedom of action. These arrangements and rules are institutionalized and codified in tradition and law. The optimum balance of freedom and limits is called justice.

Academic Freedom in General

Just as we can consider human freedom as an abstract concept or as it applies to life in community in general, we can also consider the concept as it applies to a particular sphere of institutionalized social activity. The concept of academic freedom can be considered as abstracted from any particular academic institution. Drawing on our analysis above, we can say without extensive argument that academic freedom is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Whereas the concept of absolute freedom is not self-contradictory in itself, unlimited academic freedom is a contradiction in terms. For the modifier “academic” limits the word freedom. That’s what modifiers do. “Academic freedom” by definition directs—and therefore limits—freedom to serve the end of the academic enterprise, whatever that may be.

What is the end of the academic enterprise? The proper end of academia can be, has been, and (from my perspective) should be a matter of continuous enquiry. Historians of education often point to two master paradigms of education: (1) one focused on traditioning, character building, and moral training. This view may be called the classical paradigm, and it dominated education in the western world until recently. (2) The other paradigm directs its energy toward discovery of new knowledge, critical thinking, and developing skill in research methods. This view is relatively new, and some see its origin in 1810 with the founding of the University of Berlin. It has been called a never-ending, never-arriving “search for truth.” The clash of these two very different paradigms explains much of the contemporary debate about the scope and limits of academic freedom. If the end of the academy is traditioning, character formation, and moral training, academic freedom will be directed to whatever promotes those ends and exclusive of whatever thwarts achieving those ends. Similarly, if the end of the academy is the production of new knowledge and bold researchers, academic freedom will be directed to whatever activities promotes those ends and exclusive of whatever thwarts achieving them. An institution that attempts to work toward both ends will inevitably be involved in constant tension over the scope and limits on academic freedom.

Academic freedom, then, must be conceived as a means to a particular conception of the nature and end of the academic enterprise. The precise articulation of a theory or a policy on academic freedom must be accompanied by an implicit or explicit understanding of the ends of the academy. Discussing academic freedom without also seriously discussing the ends of the academic enterprise will produce nothing but a clash of subjective opinions and wishes determined as much by private interests as by rational discussion. And agreement on the one demands agreement on the other.

Academic Freedom in Individual Institutions

Drawing on our reasoning above, we know that the scope and limits on any coherent theory and policy of academic freedom must be based on a clear understanding of the nature and ends of the academic enterprise. Since there is no universally accepted understanding of the end of higher learning, there are bound to be differences among theorists on the end of the academy. And those different understandings have produced differences among institutions. In turn, those differences produce different understandings of the nature and scope of academic freedom, which will be reflected in policy. A research institution will naturally have a different understanding of academic freedom from that of an institution that conceives of its end as traditioning, character building, and moral training. It makes no sense for one type of institution to criticize the other for its policies on academic freedom. They are living from incommensurable paradigms. Let Providence be the judge of which institution has chosen the better end.

Academic Freedom in Christian Educational Institutions

What can we say about academic freedom in Christian institutions of higher learning? Much of what to say can be easily drawn from the line of reasoning developed above. Christian institutions of higher learning—if the designation “Christian” is not to be a meaningless holdover from another era—conceive their ends as determined by the truth, wisdom, and moral vision of the Christian faith. It makes sense that most Christian institutions of higher learning lean heavily on the classical (traditioning-character building-moral training) view of the end of education. After all, most Christian colleges were founded to defend, explain, and pass on the truth, wisdom, and moral vision of the Christian faith. And the concept of academic freedom that fits an institution devoted to research and production of new knowledge will not fit a Christian institution devoted to the ends I described above. Nor, of course, would it fit with any program of classical education.

In the past, from about 1880 to about 1980, Christian colleges were criticized by the dominant academic culture because they supposedly stifled the disinterested search for truth and the advance of knowledge in deference to their religious commitments. They limited the questions and answers researchers could pursue. Christian colleges were at fault for not accepting the view of academic freedom demanded by the dominant understanding of the ends of the academy. The academic enterprise should be carried on, they contended, according to its own internal rules rather than having to consider external authorities. Recently, however the dominant academic culture has begun criticizing both the Christian understanding and the older value-neutral research understanding of the ends of higher education and consequently it has begun to limit academic freedom in new ways. I am speaking of course of the rise of the political correctness, leftist politics, and wokeness that now dominates many institutions of higher education. The rise of political correctness signals a return to the traditioning and character-forming model of education but with a different tradition to pass on, a different moral vision to inculcate, and a different vision of how character should be formed. These institutions now openly suppress academic freedom in view of their new orthodoxy in ways they imagined Christian colleges did in the past in service to Christian orthodoxy. Measured by a classical liberal view of the social order and its value-neutral understanding of the search for truth the new orthodoxy is illiberal, intolerant, and unscientific. And so Christian institutions of higher learning must fight on two fronts to maintain their liberty to teach and learn according to their understanding of their ends.

If a Christian institution understands its reason for existence to be producing good human beings as measured by the Christian faith, if that is its non-negotiable end, then it will not accept any view of academic freedom that allows teachers to thwart achieving that end—either by restricting academic freedom to suppress politically incorrect speech or expanding academic freedom so as to undermine the Christian purpose of the college. Each particular Christian institution will have to define the scope and set the limits for academic freedom in its own way and according to its understanding of what activities help it achieve its ends or prevent it from doing so. But one thing is certain: the scope and limits of academic freedom in a Christian college must be determined not by an abstract concept of freedom, not by a general concept of academic freedom, not by a disinterested research ideal of academic freedom, and not by the new limits on academic freedom imposed by the politically correct academic establishment but by a clear and unapologetic understanding of the ends the institution holds dear.

Where Christian Colleges Go to Die

3 Replies

Faith and Beginnings

Most Christian colleges were founded by people of great faith. The original faculty and administrators believed wholeheartedly in the Christian mission of the college as the decisive reason for its existence. Many colleges founded within the last hundred years began as a protest and an alternative to the dominant culture of academia. Students, faculty, and donors were attracted to these colleges because of their distinctive Christian identity. They unhesitatingly confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior, crucified and risen from the dead. And they expected every teacher and administrator to adhere to this faith and to live consistently with this confession. Students, too, were required to attend worship and to live by the community’s moral code. Beyond this basic evangelical confession, some colleges required adherence to denominational confessions or expanded evangelical confessions, and they expected community members to live according to a strict moral code. Why, then, do so many of these colleges fall away after such a faith-filled beginning?

Warnings

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever (1 John 2:15-17).

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matt 4:1-4).

The Logic of Survival

Christian colleges face many of the temptations individual Christians confront. Of course, just as colleges do not have hearts and tongues with which to believe and confess, they do not experience bodily lusts that can lead them astray. However, colleges have a character formed by a combination of its tradition and its current community. It is a kind of collective personality we can call a “soul.” And this soul can be tempted by certain threats and allurements to abandon its founding principles. Holding true may prove costly:

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul” (Mark 8:34-36).

The instinct for survival is basic to every human being. When the Lord bragged about Job’s faithfulness, Satan replied, “Skin for skin! A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face” (Job 2:4-5). Christian colleges, too, want to survive, and that urge can drive them to compromise their Christian mission. Colleges are expensive operations, and the roadside of history is littered with bankrupt colleges. They need tuition paying students and gifts of money and property. In its efforts to attract students and resources, it will be tempted to broaden its base of support to include people whose priorities do not align with the Christian mission. The college survives but at the cost of its soul.

Ambition and Assimilation

Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets (Luke 6:26)

If a Christian college survives, it faces a second temptation. Colleges are driven by ambition to achieve ever greater prominence. They move beyond the narrow circle of their denominations to gain a regional reputation, and then, they set their sights on national prominence. How does a college gain national prominence? Of course, a college can become well known for its winning athletic teams or its beautiful campus. But I am speaking about its academic ranking. Many factors contribute to academic standing, but one stands out as essential: the academic accomplishments of its faculty. Colleges ambitious to climb the rankings ladder must recruit highly trained, talented faculty and provide them with time and resources to conduct research that gets noticed nationally and internationally. Accomplishing this goal requires a change of priorities. (1) Academic potential becomes the number one qualification for faculty recruitment and retention. A college with national ambitions cannot hire and tenure Christian teachers if they are mediocre researchers. (2) It requires lots of money. Nationally ranked colleges and universities must build huge endowments to support reduced teaching loads and research. Seeking grants from government agencies and industry becomes part of faculty job descriptions. (3) The research faculty members produce must be impressive to the national and international community of scholars working the same fields.


Embarrassment

If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels (Mark 8:38)

These academic changes will produce a dramatic transformation in college culture. The outstanding faculty will demand the freedoms and privileges enjoyed by their colleagues at “peer” and “aspirational” universities: virtually unlimited academic freedom, near unconditional tenure, and complete control over the curriculum. Having been recruited and tenured for their research prowess, they do not devote their primary loyalty to the Christian mission of the college but to their disciplines and their peers in the academy. Hence they find themselves embarrassed by remnants of the old Christian college culture that still remain, which, when measured by the ethos of the national academic culture, appear quaint and unenlightened.

The Kingdoms of the World

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.  “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only’” (Matt 4:8-10).

The college’s new national profile will expose it to scrutiny by the dominant academic culture. Gradually, social pressure from without and from within will force it step by step to conform to the national culture. What began as a protest and an alternative to secular academia becomes celebration and assimilation to that culture. Politics replaces faith, social activism displaces evangelism, and self-expression crowds out moral conscientiousness. The college has gained the world but lost its soul. A poor bargain indeed!

Series Ends. Although there is more to say, this post concludes the four-part series on “open letters” to higher education. I will probably feel the need to revisit the topic, since I have spent all my adult life studying or teaching in colleges and universities.