Venit Vidit Vicit
Reginald Foster spoke at Notre Dame last Thursday. We had an overflowing crowd– people from all parts of the University, and many of his former students from good distances, made the trip in to see him. Liberals and conservatives in the same room, to hear the same speaker! It was great.
It almost didn’t happen. I was in despair –feeling cursed by Irish doom — on Wednesday night. We were picking him up at the Niles Amtrak train station, about 15 miles from ND, and it looked like everything was on time. He was to get in at 8:41 p.m., and we were going to take him to the Morris Inn for a good night’s sleep before a busy day (which included a Novus Ordo Latin Mass in one of the most beautiful dorm chapels–Alumni Hall, and a meeting with President John Jenkins, who is an accomplished Latinist himself).
The best-laid plans. . . . People waiting for other passengers suddenly started walking back to their cars, and we asked what happened. They said that a tornado had struck Michigan City, and blown a couple of freight cars off their tracks. A tornado, for God’s sake! The train was turning around to Chicago, and no one knew what was going to happen next.
No those of you who know Reggie know that he’s not a cell phone kind of guy. He’s not even an email kind of guy. So we had to guess. And pray. Around 11:30 p.m., Amtrak said that they were busing people to Niles–who knows when the train was going to get in. And the station is locked, and totally deserted and isolated, I didn’t see a phone around. And it was raining. Cursed. We were cursed — that’s all there was to it.
I had visions of Reggie getting in, getting pneumonia, or incurring some other type of grave bodily harm. And I would personally be respnsible not only for harm to this wonderful person, but for the death of Latin in the world church. Or something. If he even got on the bus, that is.
Fortunately, I found a very nice, very smart cab driver, who agreed to sit there until the bus got in, and identify and pick up Reggie, and take him to the Morris Inn. I told him to call me when they were on their way. The call came at 3:25 am. Not cursed after all. Just a test of faith. I got a B-, I think.
Fortunately, Reggie doesn’t need much sleep. He was right as rain the next morning. And totally up for everything we threw at him.
Here’s a link to the Observer article about him. I’m doing the talking because he didn’t want to do an interview himself.
P.S. I never said I was Reggie’s colleague– I am, and will never be anything other than, Reggie’s student –and gratefully so at that.
Rex ille quidem qui artem Latine loquendi iam multos annos alit. Benedicamus Domino!
You found a cab driver in Niles? At 11:30 p.m.? Willing to sit around until 3:30 p.m. to haul someone to the Morris Inn?
Either that was your Guardian Angel in disguise, or that cabbie won’t have to work for the next two weeks.
Either way, how totally Frank Capra! Great story!
Jean,
Didn’t you know? Deans and associate deans are guardian angels in training–they get their wings by providing their faculty members with generous budgets for guest speakers!
I think a couple of my deans got their wings on Wednesday night.
Cathy
Well, Cathy, there’s a whole new theological thread:
How many deans can dance on the head of a pin. And how many deans are just pinheads?
At the risk of seeming ungrateful — reminiscences of Frank Capra are always welcome, from thicker slices on — I would be interested in more about the presentation. Apparently there was some lively discussion that has provoked even more heated discussion in various weblogs.
This and other recent postings by cathy show a deep love of the educator’s craft and joy at being back at work again.
I found this in some contrast to Wilson Miscamble’s piece “The Corporate University” in the July 11 issue of America; there he bemoans the buisness model taking over the college scene.
As in all human services, and based on my own experience, the model of professionalism(as shown here in the post) needs to be upheld, not only the love of one’s craft but the desire to constantly improve.
I guess deans et al need to balance off managemen tand leadership concerns; unfortunately, my experience indicates too often the management needs win out. On this first anniversary of Katrina, that should be patently clear.
On one last note, I think biblical scholarship in the historical critical contect is fine – I’ll like to see it’s critics who claim it’s run amok, spend several years studying at the biblical schools in the Middle East. There’s lots of professionalism there.
At the risk of being accused of veering too far astray from the subject of this thread, I can’t help but follow up on Robert Nunz’s reference to Wilson Miscamble’s article in America, “The Corporate University.” (Cathleen Kaveny and Miscamble are both professors at Notre Dame, so there’s some (admittedly weak) congruity to support this detour.) Miscamble makes a very strong case for the “corporatization” that has invaded and taken over many American universities, especially secular ones.
It goes far beyond TV contracts for sports teams and cafeterias being run by corporate giants like McDonald’s and Burger King. A couple of decades ago, some universities realized they could employ their research engines as large scale profitmakers in the private sector. According to Micamble, the temptation for large amounts of money became too strong, and competition among universities escalated. Soon, corporate-speak became the lingua franca among university administators. Students became “consumers,” parents became “customers,” and education and research became “products,” as schools worked to develop an advertising “image” that would appeal to certain markets. Administrations became top heavy with business types, who developed “performance assessments,” quality controls,” pricing structures,” and “metrics.” Miscamble fears that all this emphasis on business models and attitudes might one day squeeze out the liberal arts, or at least those not directly conducive to sustaining corporatization. Would Latin survive in such an educational atmosphere? Not absence proof that it guarantees success in the stock market?.(There’s another link to the subject of this thread, Reggie Foster.)
Miscamble also makes the point that corporatization has invaded Catholic universities, but not yet to the same degree. He sees the vision of life, moral theory, and social justice lessons at the epicenter of Catholic pedagogy as counterweights to the commercialization taking place on campuses. As Christians, we know that all people are created in the image and likeness of God and that, therefore, each od us is much more than an “economic unit.” Miscamble notes that it is the unique, largely non-commercial orientation of Catholic higher education that may save education in general.
O.K., back to the Latin.