Cloud Atlas, and us....

I came out of the theatre numb, and not wanting to talk or make eye contact with anyone for fear of what come of it.  And, for the most part, the attempt to suppress all of what I felt but could not explain was successful….. until I got into the car.  Then I started to cry, and cry for maybe an hour without really know why.

The movie, Cloud Atlas, is bigger than life… or at least bigger than any individual life, because it’s about all of our lives bound together.  Looking to the present, the past, and the future in ways that blend them into a mind numbing – and mind expanding – whole, the movie reveals a world where we all are bound to each other in inexplicable ways.  Each of our actions has consequences that spread out and forward and even backward such that present and future and past are all interwoven into a “fabric” that spreads across time and space and beyond our individual births and deaths.  While each of us acts individually, none of our consequences are individual.

And thus there emerges a certain order to this world around us, and in us.  Things like culture, religion, political and economic systems begin to embody – and then define – normative beliefs and behavior.  Eventually, we find a certain kind of security in maintaining this order, even if and when this order includes things like injustice, inequity, enslavement, and the like.  In fact, this “order,” and the need to maintain it, eventually justifies these things…  and the world that we construct to protect us becomes one and the same with the world that imprisons us.

Cloud Atlas is about two things:  The great interwoven complexity, and order, and oppressiveness of the collective “we,” and the power of an individual act to change it.  Not just any act, but only those that are disruptive to that order – acts motivated by things like courage, and compassion, and love, and sacrifice.  And Cloud Atlas gives us beautiful, and comic, and tragic examples of these acts and, as we cry (and rejoice) over amazing lives offered up in the moment, we share in the hope that their ripples spread across time and space and beyond their individual births and deaths, to make for something better.

But I now know that this was not the cause for my tears.  I cried in the revelation that we  - that I - too often choose order over the opportunity and obligation that each of us has, in each and every moment, to make this world we share just a little bit freer.

Other Duties, as Assigned

Being a community college president affords me lots of opportunities to get out in front of people, to let my voice be heard and my face seen... but who would have thought that it would come to this! 

 

At this year's Runaway Pumpkin Half Marathon, a fundraiser for ABC House, I got to spend 3 1/2 hours cheering on 970 half-marathoners of all shapes and sizes and speeds.... An amazing gathering of dedicated runners and walkers, at least a few of whom were deaf (they'd say “thank you” to me in sign language as they ran by), a few were physically disabled, and all of them running or walking those 13.1 miles through the pouring rain and thinking that it was great humor that I was standing 1/2 mile from the finish line in my Grim Reaper costume and encouraging them with the words "The end near"  .....Priceless!!!

What I Learned in Boston

For the ACCT Congress, I actually stayed in one
of these cobblestone rowhouses, 3rd floor

What I Learned in Boston (....and at the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) Annual Congress)

Boston is one of my favorite cities and, if you're willing to step outside the protective cocoon of the conference site, you get to experience "Bean Town" at least a bit like the "natives" do.  The historic roots of our country are here, found in somewhat equal proportion in its historic churches and taverns, and I was fortunate to take in both.  But Boston isn't just about the past.  As my picture visually demonstrates, this town has managed to bring the past and future together in ways that respect both; in ways that make both better.

The ACCT Congress brought thousands of community college trustees together, affording them a once-a-year opportunity to see their work in the context of a powerful national agenda of improved student completion.  And, as I watched (and presented too!), I couldn't help but hope that our community colleges - and LBCC in particular - take a lesson from this great city of Boston, building a future in a way that honors our past.

Blessing....

 

No matter how many times I find myself in Washington DC and, no matter how dysfunctional Congress may seem to be at the moment, I never cease to be awestruck when I stand next to the Capitol, marveling not just at the building's architecture but more so at the architecture of the republic for which it stands.

We are an amazingly blessed nation..... a statement that I make not so much with pride as with an overwhelming sense of responsibility for spreading this blessing to the rest of the world. And it's not all that different from the "blessing" I feel here at LBCC, and the corresponding sense of responsibility I feel for using what we have and who we are to benefit our communities.

Oh, and I was in DC to participate in what is being described as a "blue ribbon" committee that has been commissioned to take the AACC Report of the 21st Century Commission, Reclaiming the American Dream, and turn it into "feet-on-the-ground" implementation on our 1300 community college campuses.  Being given the opportunity to be a part of this work is another "blessing"....

Here's a link to a recent article about this "AACC Implementation Committee."  

http://www.communitycollegetimes.com/Pages/Campus-Issues/EmbeddingCentury-Initiative-ideas-onto-campuses.aspx

Hot Air Balloons

This past Saturday, my wife Rita and I have the privilege of taking our first ride in a hot air balloon as part of the Northwest Art and Air Festival.  Rita and I had skydived together a couple of years ago and enjoyed that experience immensely, but the hot air balloon offered different - and perhaps deeper - kind of experience that neither of us will soon forget.

One of the big differences was the ability to converse while in the air - to be able to reflect on the experience with the people we were sharing the ride with us.  And so I got to know Randall - our pilot - who, once he learned that I was LBCC's presented, shared with me that he had no less than three Associates degrees from one of our sister schools, Portland Community College.  So he and I talked a lot about the opportunities that our respective educations had afforded us and he shared that, while he had for a time considered going on to complete a Bachelors degree, his three community college degrees (including one in aircraft operations and service) had provided all the opportunities he needed.... including the doorway into his business that rebuilds hot air balloons!

I thanked him for the ride, and he thanked me for the work we do as community colleges.

Fear

It's hard to explain the moments of terror that cause me to lose control of my legs, that cause me to lose my balance and collapse to the ground......

I am deathly affraid of heights. But, in spite of this fear - or perhaps because of this fear - I tend to put myself into situations where I am faced with this thing that fear almost more than anything.  A couple of years ago I went skydiving.  Last year I climbed a mountain.  This year I went backpacking in the Goat Rocks National Wilderness Area. 

So, there was a place in this most recent backpack where the trail ran along a vertical face maybe 300 ft above the ground below.... At one point the trail narrowed to no wider than a foot and there, for about two feet, the trail actually sluffed off into the void below... a void that I had to step over! I panicked and it was only by focusing my eyes on my friend in front of me, and tuning my ears to his encouraging words, that I made it through that section.

Yes, I made it, but the fear associated with those moments stole the joy from miles of the hike that I would have otherwise enjoyed and, in that experience, I realized that fear is NOT always exhilarating - sometimes it's just pure debilitating FEAR!

Not sure I'm ready to run away from my fears but, at 59 years of age, perhaps I'm learning to be more prudent in my efforts to face it.

Perhaps....


 

Education in Isolation?

At this year’s American Association of Community Colleges’ (AACC) Presidents Academy Summer Institute, I had the privilege and pleasure of listening to one of our profession’s most progressive and provocative teachers, Cole Camplese, who serves as the Senior Director for Teaching and Learning with Technology at Pennsylvania State University.  During his presentation, he shared with us a student’s response to a survey question about what going to school is like…

“Going to school is like getting on a plane.  You get in, sit down, strap in, and turn off all your stuff…. and you can't turn it back on until you land.”

If education is meant to help us be productive and fulfilled in the rest of our life, perhaps this “isolationist” approach may not be the best way to go about it…..