Towards the end of my work week, I enjoyed a vibrant discussion with one of my more mature non-trads about social development. The student had raised a question about “the system” in that down-beat, def-jam poetry kind of way that is popular in the coffee house. To leverage his comments to revitalize the in-class discussion on self and otherness (an interesting- if somewhat abstract- segue from the course objective “drawing on context to create meaning [in reading]”) I emphasized - tying in one or two injects from other students then- that our personal context is heavily impacted by the decisions we have had to make in the past, the problems we have had to solve and how we’ve chosen to solve them. Towards the end of the discussion I commented on the disconnect between policy makers (specifically in Higher Ed as that was the system to which the student’s inquiry was targetted) and the reality of their policies. This same engaged student took this last as almost an epiphany of sorts, “Really?” He asked with a tone of sincere disbelief. “Really,” I replied.
Beau Lotto, in his presentation to the TED conference in 2009 which explored our experience of color makes the comment, “context is everything (Lotto, 2009).” This is an assumption which I have been, recently (and largely because of the subject matter I am currently working through with my students), debating in myself. To say, “Context is everything,” seems, to me, to open the door to excusing unethical behavior. But even ethics, some might argue, emerge from context. Or do they?
If we are to universally apply the assumption, “context is everything,” we must concede, then, that policy arises out of context – be that government policy or the policy of institutions of higher learning. Procedure, then, (via Aristotelian delineation) emerges, in-turn, from the context created by policy. (I’ve yet to hear of a successful consultant who suggested a client allow procedure to dictate policy – in fact – the art and science of change management progresses to implementation in exactly the reverse manner.)
This last week we re-framed higher education as being a mature industry whereas until now it has been a growth industry. Certainly, the ramifications of casting higher ed in such a context are manifold! Market forces often work against mature industries. The Market favors “the new.” Beyond “mature industry” there is a fifth and final stage of organizational development which we did not discuss: dead. If we are, in fact, in a mature industry, then our decisions are now being guided by the doom which hangs over our head – we will, inevitably, die. Every decision we make is, when cast into this context, directed at prolonging the life of our institutions and industry – this is higher ed on life-support.
The problem which is becoming systematic is that in our over-reliance in the social sciences on context as the defining agent of our actions we all too easily establish a universal scapegoat for unethical behavior – “context” becomes our new absolution. We can be made to understand that, by not even cautioning a single working-mom against taking an 18 hour course load her first semester in college (this really happened to one of my students, thank God she got me as her professor and not some of my more inflexible colleagues) that we bear no guilt in this unethical inaction, we were simply being the victim of our “context” – it was “the system” that made me do it!
I am not, here seeking to usurp the importance of understanding context. But through immersion, B. D. Tatum would tell us, certain aspects of context become irrelevant - that is - the salience of identity is not fixed (Tatum, 1997). I would argue that this is because, once we strip away the veneer of context (this occurred to me through the kind of death of identity that can only come from complete cultural uprooting and isolation which was ascetic in many respects) we find a deeper identity underlying the social construct we call “self.” Once we’ve accessed this level, "commonality" – and the universal a priori assumptions of humanity – become our new baseline for personally interpreting social norms and mores. (Simply put, the Golden Rule suddenly comes back into fashion.)
Regardless of policy, regardless of market forces or what some will point to as the death-knell of higher ed (I do not choose to drink this doomsayer kool-aid), there is still a critical choice which is left to us when we determine policy and make administrative decisions. “What will be the outcome in reality of each of the available options from which I must decide?” Student affairs is about understanding that administrative decisions and practices which will impact the life-long course of our students’ lives. I, for one, don’t care what your context is – if you make a decision (doing nothing is also an active decision) which sets a student up to fail then you are culpable for the ruin which will befall them. We may be a mature industry, but we cannot allow ourselves to emulate the less scrupulous minority of organizations in industry which have sought to cut corners and conduct their dealings in an underhanded manner (by the way, in case you missed my rhetoric, this is not the majority practice of businesses regardless of their size – don’t believe the propaganda of “the anti-system”). We cannot allow ourselves to become the metaphoric ENRON. If we make policy based on the “context” of regulation (which we are already seeing an increase of in our field) and on our resource stream, without the inclusion of student outcomes then we are simply hastening the judgment and recompense which we, as a ‘mature industry’ have upon us. I am not saying that this is the norm in our segment of industry nor even in our industry as a whole. I believe in respecting those in power for the lessons they have learned through experience which oft out-spans our entire lifetime as individuals. What I am saying is that we are the next generation and without a measure of scrupulous disregard for context in our day-to-day dealings (we are capable of abstraction in thought and thereby of transcending context) we could, for lack of diligence, set policy which enables (if not encourages) the kind of scandals and deception in practice which we have seen recently in the industry. We have a long and cherished history of response to student needs and in order to uphold it we must be able to synthesize the full impact of our decisions on a “system” which is infinitely more complex than it was a couple centuries ago. But perhaps, rather than transcending context this is merely expanding it?
Tatum, B. D., "Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria," Basic Books, 1997
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