I continue to read about the nature of our campus climate, and I thought that I would wax poetic about my impressions of the nature of our discontent. After all, as I hear many people say, we all have a right to an opinion.

When my mother first heard that I had accepted my first college teaching job at Georgia State in Atlanta, she sat with me to talk about her impressions of being on a college campus. I was impressed by the tone of her observations and by her experiences. You see, she was the first black nursing student to get a nursing degree from a medical school in Albany, NY. Many of her classmates had only seen blacks (or colored people as they were known then) in maid or butler garb. She said that she wondered how she would get along being somewhere so totally different, but deep inside, she wanted to go prove herself. She also discovered that good people were still good people no matter where you were.

My mother said that she thought of a college campus as a great place with great ideas. Professors making discoveries, and challenging the students to be better than they ever thought. Students busy growing up and challenging themselves to be honest (there were honor codes back then) with each other and to themselves. She told me of some of the places that she could not go because of her color, but she spent much more time talking about the great things she could do because of the kind of people she was able to meet and the experiences that she had enjoyed as a college student. She could have spent much time crying in her milk but she never did. Never did I get the impression that everything was wrong with her life, and I was not naive enough to think that everything about her life then was perfect. In short, the circle had closed with my adventures into higher education, and I learned a life lesson that crying in your own milk ruins it for anybody who might want a sip.

Her advice was to do the best that I could for my students, even if it meant telling them that they were wrong. She said that only the best teachers and leaders would have the courage to advise without fear. So here comes … there are some of you who are just plain wrong. There, I’ve done it. Many of you are bright, witty and well-intentioned. But some of you are manipulative, dishonest, childish and irresponsible. Get with the program.

I sometimes wonder what she would say about her campus climate compared to what we have here, because our social and political environment is far better than that of the late 1950s. Don’t be swayed by the use of civil rights quotes out of context to convince you otherwise. Don’t be convinced by the kind of dishonest rhetoric that seems to be so chic today.

She died about five years ago before she was able to come out to visit me, but I know she would have felt as I do, that this is a place of great ideas and actions despite the efforts of a few. Actually, a lot like real life. Mean people suck, and we move on.

We hear some students, staff and faculty work very hard to foster a climate of derision. We see it in the Daily and the Ames Tribune just about every day. We observe intelligent scholars and students celebrating scholarship of the lowest kind. We observe some staff and faculty using students for their own political and personal fetishes. We witness the street corner tactics of intimidation by the very people who claim to suffer from the supposed unwelcoming nature of this campus. We are dumbfounded by those who take every opportunity to ensure that every visitor (especially the under-represented candidates for faculty and staff positions) leaves with our dirty laundry (real or imagined) stowed heavily in his or her suitcase. You would just faint if you knew about the potential minority faculty and staff who have been frightened away by these misguided naysayers even before they step off the plane in Des Moines.

The good news is that the majority of my colleagues (students, staff and faculty) are thriving in this environment, despite the efforts of some who seem to have too much time on their hands. There are thousands of stories about students from all over the world who have been welcomed into this community, first generation, native born students who leave their parents with tears in their eyes as they think, “There goes our baby,” students who are given every opportunity to succeed through the wide array of programs and organizations, faculty and staff who LIVE to help facilitate the running of this massive institution, and teachers and researchers who are completely devoted to student learning, scholarship and outreach. It might be sexy and provocative to feature the most recent holder of the crying towel in the latest issues of our local rags, but the celebration of the worst of times just ain’t making it anymore. Been there, done that, hated it. The real deal is the celebration of the best we can be.

Most students, staff and faculty actually don’t belong to the latest sexy coalition. As my mother would say, “Don’t have no time for that triflin’ foolishness.” And gang, that’s what most of this stuff is, triflin’. There is serious work to be done here, and it is about time we all got down to it. Meetings here, rallies there and those permanent frowns etched in such young faces. Wasting time being Miss or Mister Thang.

Single parents, maturing welfare babies, former gang members, learning disabled, hearing impaired, natives of smaller communities than one of the Tower’s dorms, victims of abuse and children of alcoholics (count me in). All of us are victims. All victims slugging it out together. We persist, we hang in there and we move on because we don’t have the luxury of time to wallow ’til the cows come home. Who is being treated the worst? Who feels the most pain? Both are irrelevant questions because we are all waist deep in it. Can we pull each other up and celebrate together? How about that for a diversity initiative?!

There are many more of us in this silent majority. We don’t have a club to join because we are in the game all day, baby! Don’t be fooled by the eternal, squeaky wheels who always seem to have so much time to be the keepers of all that they deem good and just. In every building, in every dorm and in every classroom there sits the majority of us who act out our lives with honesty, grace, integrity and an inner ferocity that will not be beaten down.

Be proud of being the best person you can be. Be proud of taking care of business. Get up from your computer terminals. Step outside of the classrooms, practice rooms and laboratories. Stagger through the smoke of the M-Shop, and go forth with confidence that you don’t have to be bullied into isolation anymore! It is OK to admit being comfortable and well-supported on campus. They won’t wear us down with their interminable rancor. We won’t let them.

Hey, babe. There are more of us than there are of you. You know who you are. Its about damned time we move on together. Can I get a witness?

Kirk Smith

Associate Professor of Music

Director of Orchestral Activities