ustxtxb_obs_1986_11_07_50_00022-00000_000.pdf

chunk of money known, of course, as the Permanent University Fund. NOW WE TURN to the silent proposals: those which speak loud and clear to the blind spots of the select committee. Except for the Hackerman report there is no serious attempt to develop faculty power or morale. And even the Hackerman report slights support for the Liberal Arts and Humanities. If the committee concludes proceedings without major recommendations for faculty development, then it will have betrayed the talent which sustains higher education. Change the governance structures as you wish, the only real education begins in a free and innovative classroom. Excellence and preeminence are getting a lot of lip service while Texas faculty are grounded by inadequate travel money and inhibited by cumbersome administration or outright neglect of tenure.. The most urgent problem facing the long-term viability of Texas junior colleges is the continuing use of part-time faculty, yet in the 13 recommendations concerning quality and access at community colleges, not one of them mentions or attempts to correct this sytem of exploitation. Is there any talk on the committee of formalizing faculty power into a network of genuine influence? Is there even a whisper of sabbatical leaves so that Texas scholars can develop their own ideas? In short, is there any strong signal from the select committee that at least this group understands the needs of professional scholarship and is willing to undertake courageous leadership on behalf of Texas scholars? Is there any indication that someone on the committee trusts scholars to know best how to spend their time? These questions await attention. Perhaps they will be addressed in Rep. Delco’s upcoming report on faculty concerns. Meanwhile, our inventory of empty words grows longer. Interdependence, excellence, and preeminence are so many ghostly shades as long as the spirit behind them lies in coma. Likewise, the catchword “diversity.” The MexicanAmerican Task Force on Higher Education has quite correctly judged the state’s major institutions absolute failures in the recruitment and retention of minority students. While some may boast of grand achievements at flagship schools they think so grand, there’s a dark side that’s rarely told: the spirit of lily white plans. “Now just you wait a minute, buster.” I have heard the rebuttal a thousand times. “Our doors are open for anyone who is qualified.” Right, and we just sit here waiting to welcome whoever comes in? Not quite. 22 NOVEMBER 7, 1986 Whenever these debates get started, it’s a good idea \(following the repeated subject to football. We spend so much money on this diversion; why not get a return on our investment? No other activity displays as vividly the power of communal purpose, or teamwork if you will. There on the field are the best talents our institutions can muster. Is this where we look for the model of the open door? Do we alumni just sort of sit around and wait to see who walks through the door? If not here, then where? The fact remains that the white community is not convinced that the future of Texas in general depends upon the academic development of its minorities. Imagine regents flying around the country on urgent missions, not in search of a cash-and-carry coach, but in pursuit of outstanding minority administrators. Imagine alumni huddling together over whiskey and cigars, plotting double reverses on behalf of affirmative action. Imagine waking from your daydreams into such a Texas present. The mood in this season of fiscal chill is inviting planners of Texas future to impress ever more firmly the imprint of Texas present. Diversity will surely lose out. Currently thriving institutions such as UT, A&M, Texas Tech, and the University of Houston are being considered for annointment to most favored status in perpetuity. Meanwhile, South Texas, which operates at the margins of any scale of priorities, remains segregated from its northern neighbors. To his credit, Parsley is encouraging some developments in medical education for this neglected region. But his efforts represent only a baby step where a giant leap is needed. Given the committee’s charge to look at the future of the huge state of Texas, its preoccupation with existing big schools and with the Texas triangle a prevailing mood of retrenchment rather than advancement. “We have all the buildings we need for the next fifteen years,” declares a committee member. And with that attitude, the future promises more of the same. Texas future will, by brute historical forces, defy business as usual. The white good old boys who now divide the political turf, playing both left field and right, will slowly be thinned out in favor of more color and a more catholic border culture. The only significant question remaining for planners of Texas future is how cheated the rising minority class will feel. Spanish settlers had established seven universities in America before Harvard opened its doors. Today, young Hispanics, ignorant of their own rich traditions, are choosing to ignore the educational system which has chosen to ignore them. And in a tradition true to Texas instincts, the victims \(both black crime. The Select Committee on Higher Education can help the people of Texas understand the value of interdependence, diversity, excellence, and education by writing a report which is truly visionary and courageous. Unfortunately, courage these days means closing or merging existing schools. Too bad courage doesn’t mean attacking misguided and destructive bigotries that parade themselves under the banner of Texas instincts. That kind of courage would be truly uncommon. The ghost of Texas future lives in a world where so-called Texas instincts prevail. Gone are the professors and their libraires. Tenure was abolished and professorships became political appointments subject to the shifting moods of partisan demagoguery. There was simply no time to accumulate the decades of experience and knowledge needed for mature and powerful scholarship. Sabbaticals in neighboring areas were eliminated, preventing the exchange of visiting scholars. And scholarship at home was mistrusted out of existence. With all of education geared to the meshes of this year’s job market, the poets, philosophers, and historians were neglected for their irrelevance. With specialists monitoring foreign rates of exchange there was no need for translators to capture the more frivolous intercourses of foreign lands. Production of culture was ceded to the hyperaesthetic pansies of New York and Los Angeles. All that was needed in this regard was enough cable to provide imported television signals for prime time, sports, and news. Finally, the whole thing blew away in a big dust bowl of depression and greed. What Texas instincts cared about most still remained: air conditioned towers of silicon and steel. What got lost were several millennia of human answers to human questions. Texas instinct had always assumed that The Bible and the Dialogues of Plato were recently authored in English. Drilling for oil was real work that got your hands dirty, but language, now that was something like pissing, and memory quite naturally told you all you needed to know. What Texas instincts quite naturally forgot was that high tech messiah Admiral Bobby Inman was a UT Liberal Arts graduate and that one hell of a lot of scholarly work makes history possible at all. 0