Journal of Adult Development, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1999

Response: Social Beings

Matt Sanderson1,2

We are, therefore I amJohn Mbiti (1969)

The university is, among other things, the begin-ning of a lifelong introduction to oneself. This is not,however, an individual undertaking: an introductionto oneself proper is necessarily an introduction toothers and vice versa. Our being social beings makespossible our being individuals. Too often our univer-sities, caught up in the competitive every-man-or-woman-for-himself-and-herself world of employ-ment, place too great an emphasis on becoming anindividual, that is, on emancipating oneself fromothers. The theory of postformal thought teaches usthat such an understanding of individuality is mis-taken and, to this extent, immature; our reality is ourcreation, a tapestry woven intersubjectively. Rein-venting the university, to my mind, ought to be aprocess of reawakening to ourselves as social beingswhereby we reevaluate what it means to be an indi-vidual.

One of the ways in which the university mayreawaken students to their being social beings isthrough the teaching of diversity. In becoming awareof the diversity, that is, the differences, among groupsof people, we become aware of the similarities amonggroups of people, similarities not despite diversity,but within diversity. The authors of "Reinventingthe University Through the Teaching of Diversity"(Ayers et al., 1999), offer suggestions to college teach-ers for ways to subtly emphasize diversity. For exam-ple, they propose that teachers can introduce diver-sity into their classes in two ways: using languagewhich includes and emphasizes diversity, and model-ing a position of diversity.

The language teachers use, they argue, subtlyconveys either tolerance and acceptance of, or exclu-

1Psychology and Philosophy Departments, Towson University,Baltimore, Maryland 21252.

2Direct correspondence to Matt Sanderson, Psychology Depart-ment, Towson University, Baltimore, Maryland 21252.

sion of, diversity. Consider, they write, the differencebetween asking a person, "Do you date anyone?" asopposed to "Do you have a boyfriend [to a female](or 'girlfriend' [to a male])?" The latter assumes theperson is heterosexual, thereby communicating sub-tle intolerance toward same-sex relationships,whereas the former allows for a multiplicity of life-styles in which the other may engage. Bearing thisin mind, teachers may powerfully use language toadvance diversity inclusion. The authors argue thatteachers are models for their students.

Ordinarily, as the authors themselves point out,diversity and multicultural perspectives are reservedfor a few select classes in a semester and one chapterin a text. However, diversity is not an issue or topicper se to which we ought to devote some class timein every course; rather, diverse is what we are ashuman beings, as social beings. To this extent, theauthors' insistence that teachers ought to recognizeand communicate diversity as all-pervasive through-out each discipline and topic is much appreciated.

In her essay entitled, "Reinventing the Univer-sity: From Institutions to Communities of Higher Ed-ucation," Lee explores what the university could be-come if its primary mission were to "nourish theintellect," "commit to the sacredness of all life," and"foster spirituality." In so doing Lee attempts to shiftthe reader's attention away from the university aslearning "institution" toward the university as a linkin the global community. As an institution the univer-sity is often thought of as in-and-of-itself, separatefrom the "outside" or "real" world. This view of theuniversity only widens the gap individuals feel andperceive between themselves and the "world." Leesuggests that the university, in adopting as its primarymission the development of the three capacities listedabove, will move from serving the individual to serv-ing communities both local and global.

Froman, in his essay entitled "The University asa Learning Community," invites the reader to rethinkthe university as a place which values "honest self-

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reflection, open communication, dialogue, teamlearning, shared leadership, risk taking, and nurturingof the human spirit." He argues that as the universityreinvents itself, so too will the work world so that bothwill require and facilitate lifelong learning. Fromansuggests that, due to the increasingly insecure worldof employment, individuals may adapt by becoming"portfolio people," that is, individuals with portableskills who, in moving from job to job, develop a largeand diverse portfolio of skills, interests, and experi-ence. Such portfolio people become, writes Froman,"self-managers of their own assets." From this viewof the changing work world Froman anticipates afuture university that "fosters self-managed learn-ing." I disagree with Froman here. I think that rein-venting the university must be a process of challeng-ing the ways in which the world is changing ratherthan adapting to them. The notion of progress thatincludes "virtual" classes and teachers who directrather than engage in the learning process with theirstudents is antithetical to the idea of the universityas dialogical and cooperative. Furthermore, our be-coming self-managers of our own assets is contraryto our mission of reawakening to ourselves as socialbeings. Rather than work toward becoming a unitedglobal work "force," as self-managers we commodifyand isolate the individual, reducing the work worldto monads competing on the job market.

Rossiter stresses the importance of the dialogicalrelationship between teacher and student in her essayentitled, "Caring and the Graduate Student: A Phe-nomenological Study." "Caring" is a word whichcharacterizes, in some way, all positive relationshipsbetween self and others. When one cares for anothershe or he attends to the other's needs and in so doingvalidates the other as an equally ranked self. Rossiterinterviewed numerous graduate students about theirperceptions of the relationships between themselvesand their teachers, relationships in which caring waspresent. Rossiter presents their collective definitionof caring as follows: to be noticed, understood, andrespected; to trust and receive; to value the one car-ing; to have one's concerns be a priority for another;and to be shown one's best self. In emphasizing theimportance of caring relationships between teachersand students in creating a supportive and nurturinglearning atmosphere Rossiter suggests that rein-venting the university ought to involve working toshorten the distance often felt between teacher andstudent in order to achieve a sense of communityboth within the university and without.

In "Connecting Life-Course Challenges of Car-

ing with the College Curriculum" Meacham presentsfive challenges of caring which reflect an individual'slevel of maturity: to be cared for, to care for ourselves,to care for others, to care together with others, andto care for others from whom we differ. He givessuggestions for ways in which the university can facili-tate growth toward developing the capacity for car-ing, especially caring together with others and forothers from whom we differ. Perhaps the last twoare the most difficult, though all five challenges arerelated such that at the very least we are alwaysfacing several at a time. Caring together with othersis difficult because it involves coordinating one's con-cerns and efforts with those of others. This challengearises, I believe, whenever and wherever we care, forwe do not and cannot care alone. When we care wefeel involved, if only vaguely, in a unified caring effortof some kind which involves others. For example,Meacham speaks of the challenge of caring togetherwith his wife for their children; his caring togetherwith his wife for their children is also undoubtedlyfelt, on some level, as a caring together with all par-ents and for all children. In this way, caring is always,to some extent, caring together with others.

Meacham explains that caring for others fromwhom we differ is difficult because it requires, first,a careful balancing between caring for oneself andcaring for others, and second, that we care for otherswho are different from ourselves, a greater challengethan caring for others who are like us. What I findmost interesting about caring for others from whomwe differ is that, in doing so, we often discover thatthe differences between ourselves and those fromwhom we seemingly differ are no greater than thedifferences between ourselves and those to whom weare seemingly so alike. There is a community amonghuman beings which precedes and makes possibleour being different from, and/or our being the sameas, others. Meacham seems to embrace a definitionof caring whose meaning is the attendance to andperpetual remembering of this primordial commu-nity. In this way, learning to care is learning what itmeans to be human and vice versa, a learning whichnecessarily lasts a lifetime and thus one for whichthe university, as the beginning of a lifelong introduc-tion to oneself, ought to be held responsible.

I say that the university may be understood asthe beginning of a lifelong introduction to oneselfbecause I feel that it is where people, most often forthe first time in life, get "all shook up." Our teacherspull the cozy rug of assumptions and preconceptionsout from under our feet, leaving us groundless, home-

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less, and answerless, dissatisfied enough that we beginasking questions in search of a new ground, one whichis uncertain and unstable, itself always in question.A true beginning is endless, a beginning perpetuallybeginning. The university has been for me and manyothers the process of entering into this beginninglessbeginning, the endless possibility which I myself amas a social being, a human being.

In conclusion, it is always exciting to think aboutwhat can be. However, in reinventing the universitytoward constructing a global community, we mustremember that we are working toward a universitywhich reflects who we are as social beings. In thissense we are not so much working toward what can

be as we are working to reawaken to what is. Thus,these essays both provide us with suggestions forways in which to reinvent the university and serve asreminders that we are, as humans, first and foremosta global community, albeit a forgotten one.

REFERENCE

Ayers, J. F., Wheeler, E. A., Fracasso, M. P., Galupo, M. P., Rabin,J. S., & Slater, B. R. (1999). Reinventing the university throughthe teaching of diversity. Journal of Adult Development, 6,163-173.

Mbiti, John (1968). African religions and philosophy. NewYork: Heinemann.