i love morris: Any headwinds for the new academic year?

Friday, July 30, 2021

Any headwinds for the new academic year?

What lies ahead for the new school year? Nothing would spell normalcy - normality? - more than a predictable school life.

Don't you sense a sort of "whistling past the graveyard" feeling now? The pandemic looms, as much as we'd like to blot it out or assume the worst is over. Science tells us, apparently, that the cool and dry air of fall could be bad news for what lies ahead. We are two days away from August. Thoughts get riveted on school when the calendar turns to August.

First there is the business of the Stevens County Fair. I have been less a fan of the fair since the community supper was shifted to Tuesday. Maybe I'm confused easily, but I thought the shift represented an actual expansion of the fair. So I took my late mother out there once thinking that Wednesday would be a normal fair day. It is not. We saw "private parking" signs along the road leading to the main fair parking lot just north of the ethanol plant.

Private parking for the Stevens County Fair? Right next to the fairgrounds? All this was related, I learned, to the special accommodations for Superior Industries. I did not appreciate being thrown into a state of confusion like this, so my enthusiasm has never been restored. Go ahead and call be intelligence-challenged, as many of you will be wont to do.

I had an opportunity to feel more intelligent than usual on Wednesday. I had the privilege of being invited to lunch at the band room of the HFA of our wonderful UMM campus. Having grown up around UMM, my instincts are to seem like a refined person when on campus. I mean with the academic folks and not athletics.

I actually learned years ago that if you want to get along smoothly with the UMM crowd, do not go out of your way to seem refined. Seems counter intuitive: wouldn't UMM people of the great liberal arts strain enjoy being around people who project some air of sophistication or refinement? My impulse is to always seem intelligent. Yes, my critics would say that I can only seem intelligent.

Really the UMM crowd does not impose this expectation. They in fact want to "own" the turf of being highly intelligent and articulate. That doesn't mean they'll resent you, it just means they'll want you to be yourself. So my whole point here is really a positive one. Be yourself and fill your natural niche in the community and you'll be fine with the UMM element. I just need to internalize this.

So I had the pleasure Wednesday of sharing lunch with Erin Christensen and Janet Ericksen of UMM. Erin facilitates the private giving of $ to UMM. Janet has the awesome task now of filling the chancellor's shoes as interim successor to Michelle Behr.

I suppose it would always be an awesome task. You're trying to run a smooth ship with a faculty of very accomplished and passionate people in their fields. You're coaxing people to get along to form an effective whole.

We're progressing into August now and the chancellor has the awesome task of trying to guide our august institution into an academic year which will be closer to normal than last year. To what extent can this be envisioned? Good question, eh? I'll repeat the "whistling past the graveyard" line. The covid news of late has been concerning. New variants crop up.

There's a vaccine hesitancy within a portion of our population, a portion that is more than negligible. And very unfortunately, there is a political dimension. The MAGA crowd is associated with vaccine hesitancy and with resistance to the various public health measures that government feels are advisable.

We all have a natural inclination at times to resist or protest government directives. The government doesn't do this for fun. The government's job ultimately is to hold the nation together. It's not to strive for perfection, it's to survive. Yes, government's underpinning is to survive, to not be supplanted by something else.

"Something else" appears to have been the goal of the MAGA rioters on January 6. They wanted to supplant our normal revered democracy with a limp substitution that would guarantee an outcome of Trump or his anointed successors ruling indefinitely. Ensure that the voting system makes it hard for the less desirable voters to have their say. It's being attempted all over in an overt way, and too few of us are caring enough to really push back.

The media gets accused of bias when it presumes that MAGA spokespeople should not be accorded the same respectful attention as others. Let's be fair to the voices for autocracy? The most ardent MAGA devotees feel their chosen leader is simply entitled, the broad public be damned. So extreme is this element, it is condemning the likes of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. It is incredible to see this schism.

Does the word "conservative" have any meaning any more? No, because we've seen a cult take over, right here in our United States. And while it does not have the primary reins of power right now as we speak, it is assertive enough to be really scary. A substantial portion of our Stevens County residents appear to be quite fine with it, and they use their church life to underscore their commitment.

Do Christians across the U.S. simply wish to lose the millennials? Is this a fate they wish to endorse? Many young people see through the sheer stupidity of it all. But are the forces on the other side going to be simply too strong?

Thanks to UMM for hosting the delightful lunch on Wednesday. The highlight was a performance of a clarinet quartet of students who are around for the summer. Clarinet is the instrument of UMM symphonic winds director Simon Tillier, he of the bike-riding passion!

The 64-dollar question is this: can we expect the regular in-person concert performances in the new academic year? We pray for this, if you don't mind me invoking religion in spite of the Trump crowd. I will try to maintain my positive view of Christianity, in spite of all that is happening, i.e. with Trump holding up a Bible upside down. God noticed that.