It's a dangerous declaration, I realize, but I think Garland's report is very reasonable. I think Western was stagnating even when we were there. The faculty was obstinate and arrogant, the classes were stale, and just about everything Western was steeped in that odd hubris regarding its adversarial relationship with "main campus." And really, no part of the Western curriculum justified that hubris, in my opinion. The only thing Western ever had going for it was the type of student it somehow managed to attract. The "assholes" as Zach and the Funk family referred to them. The "risk-takers" as Garland says in this report.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very bummed that it's disappearing. But I think all those profs have just been idle and pompous for too long.
It's funny: as far as I understand it, Western did no active recruitment before my year (class of '01). The following year (class of '02), was the first year active recruitment was done, and I think you could already begin to see the difference in the type of student recruited from then on out. In fact, I argued many times while we were still there that Western was being turned into an honors program (ironically enough)--after all, how do you recruit assholes? Instead of assholes they started recruiting well-rounded smart kids--kids who showed signs of "diverse" ways of thinking (meaning kids who'd been "active" in HS, kids who'd filled out their resumes with all kinds of "activities").
I think if the Western faculty actually gave a shit about the program while we were there, and weren't just comfortable singing the same songs over and over, they could have pulled the place together, found a way to recruit more assholes, given us ways of being more political, structured a curriculum/environment that actually made the place interesting.
Maybe it just sounds bitter, I don't know, but I generally don't give credit to any of the Western faculty or staff (with the possible exception of Jeanne Brown Leonard, and that may just be that I liked her personally) for the amazing time I had in college. I attribute my great experience to synchronicity--to the happy coincidence that all you terrific fuckers happened upon that place at the same time I did.
Personally, I'm very bummed that the Western we knew and loved won't be there for other assholes to stumble into, but I think it was disappearing out of neglect, dispassion and hubris--with or without Garland's death sentence. It's too bad they couldn't figure out a way to fix the place, but as it says in the report (and I don't doubt it for a second): the Western faculty made the absurd and presumptuous suggestion that Western (which we can also all acknowledge was certainly "insular") should just become an "umbrella" for other interdisciplinary programs (see the top of page 8, where Western would incorporate Women's studies, American studies, etc.).
In other words, even in its dying throes, the Western faculty had the hubris to say, "Well, the rest of the university should change for us." And they didn't even fucking mention it to those other departments.
In some ways, if anything, I think Garland was being very ginger in this report. Given an outsider's perspective, this looks like a mercy killing.
Don't everybody start throwing punches at the same time. I'd really like to hear what everyone thinks, but I'm just not really that surprised right now.
posted by Little Gordie @ 10:37 PM
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