An open letter to professor Jeff Smith
Dear Professor Smith,
Over the past few weeks, we have dissected your actions in our boardroom, wondering about the relationship between your prosecution and the role you once held in leading our inquiring young minds. The Washington University and greater St. Louis communities have come to see you as a cliché, a fraud and a profligate violator of the public trust. This contrasts deeply with the visionary they once knew you to be.
We have thought about it time and time again, and we can only conclude that they are wrong. We at Student Life understand that you diligently continue to lead our inquiring minds, and that what some view as a craven act of career preservation was really just a final example given to us out of fealty to our study of the relationship between ethics and politics. We found politics from a textbook dry and dismal, and out of enthusiasm and loyalty you elected to show us campaign corruption firsthand.
Thus, we commend you, Professor Smith. Forget the others; they simply fail to see your grand pedagogical edifice for the wonder that it is. Know that we do. There are some who say their faith in you is lost; know that ours has been reinforced, understanding now that credulous trust placed in the subject of an award-winning documentary film is trust easily abused. Where others might have merely fed us some simpering parable about the corrupting influence of power, you gave us a profound example of this influence—one that continues to teach us long after we have left your classroom. Where others might have perhaps assigned us some chapters of “All the King’s Men,” you showed us all how urgent and instructive that otherwise-kind-of-cheesy book really is. Where others would have merely cautioned against the poisonous sociopathology that pervades our political climate, you injected that poison into your very veins. For your uncompromising efforts in compromising yourself, we salute you.
Though no tribute befits such a sacrifice, we here ask that the school endow some of its still-available assets in the creation, in your honor, of the Jeff Smith Scholarship for the Sacrifice of Careers so that Students May Learn a Lesson about Ethics. We hope it can in some way consecrate your most noble deeds, and we encourage all of our professors to mimic your pedagogy. Moreover, we ask that the federal prison to which you are headed respects your messianic act for what it is and provide you two pillows at night to rest your crown.
With finest regards,
The Editorial Board
PPPS: Student Life ran a story in Spring 06 about the elimination of English Lecturer Carolyn Brown’s job. I received messages from Student Life asking me for an interview then. I ignored them, because at that time I was still trying to play the role assigned for me by my colleagues, and meekly accept downsizing and loss of benefits, for the sake of the embattled Religious Studies Program for which I had worked loyally for seven years. Apparently, the Student Life reporters had made the connection between our two cases before I did. Later, I called my friends in the Student Worker Alliance to confirm that this was indeed the Professor Brown who had spent a night as a special guest of the Living Wage Sit-In, in solidarity with her students as any good Lecturer will always be. Later, the University’s spokespersons tried to defend her termination on the grounds that she had no PhD. Not for a minute do I believe that. Even if so, please just award her one, for her eleven years of service. Just give her an honorary doctorate at convocation, instead of giving this degree to politicians, political pundits like Chris Matthews, and culture warriors like Phyllis Schlafly.
I was introduced to Jeff Smith by one of my University College students, who had been introduced to him by staff and administrators of University College (WashU’s evening school). They felt that Jeff, as a fellow Lecturer, would surely be sympathetic to the cause of Lecturer’s Policy reform.
I never thought Jeff was a visionary, and I never thought he was a hypocrite. I just thought he was a typical politician, who won the election, and having done so, had a duty to listen to the concerns of his constituents, including me. I feel sad for him, because I like him as a person.
I think we ought to take this op-ed as satire, not as mean spirited. I hope Jeff Smith and his constituents, and everyone who worked for him, will take it that way too. I am glad a commentator on another op-ed defended him against the charge of hypocrisy. I think he always meant well, and I think he is sincere. I wish him well, though I cannot do so in person because his Facebook profile is gone, and I do not have his address. I hope he is reading this.
PPS. Another correction: Student Life editorialized on behalf of Women’s Studies Lecturer Barbara Baumgartner c. 2001, if I remember correctly. At least they reported the successful student petition to retain her.
“Professor” Jeff Smith is ironic because he is Lecturer, now Former Lecturer. All the students call all their teachers “Professor” out of respect and tradition, but we are educating them to make distinctions according to pay grade, career path, and rank.
State Senator Jeff Smith may or may not have been an ally in the cause of Lecturer’s Policy reform. He may or may not have supported a real career path for college teachers. The issue is now moot.
PS. Copping is what cops do. In this case, a compliment.
Correction: Former Lecturers
Thank you, Student LIfe, for your inside jokes and ironic wit.
–Lecturer Dr. Jerome Bauer, NOT “Former Lecturer”
Copping it is.
Jeff Smith and StudLife alumni are tagged in my note, though Jeff Smith’s icon is now dim and his fan page is no more. Many StudLife alumni and reporters are my Facebook friends and former students, and read the note when I first posted it to my ArtSci website in Spring 07.
I hosted a Jeff Smith Meet’n'Greet at my house and know him as a WashU colleague. Many of my best students worked on his campaign.
Student Life has editorialized on my behalf and on behalf of other Lecturers (and Former Lectures) since 2006.
This is an inside joke.
Mr. Bauer, though similar in some context, those two lines are COMPLETELY different.
It is strange to see a professor wanting to get credit for the well-written works of a student publication…
Did you mean to say copying, btw?
- A newspaper editor.
ps: what a great editorial.
Thanks, Student Life, for copping my line! Please cite your sources properly (or is that my responsibility, as your ethics professor?)
“Free speech is a principle worth the sacrifice of one’s career. It is our civic duty to sacrifice everything we have for this principle.”
–Jerome Bauer, “i lend you my name” (Facebook Note, originally posted to my website 1/20/07)
“Though no tribute befits such a sacrifice, we here ask that the school endow some of its still-available assets in the creation, in your honor, of the Jeff Smith Scholarship for the Sacrifice of Careers so that Students May Learn a Lesson about Ethics. We hope it can in some way consecrate your most noble deeds, and we encourage all of our professors to mimic your pedagogy.”
–Student Life Editorial Board, “An open letter to professor Jeff Smith”
Haha, this was great.
Well said, Editorial Board.
I wonder what the professors are saying at Wash U. about the corruption that is in the White House today. It is very sad for me to see what this administration is getting away with naming czars and cabinet members. They avoid paying their taxes and one is an admitted communist and “Truther.” Google: Van Jones our new Green CZar! Wake up young minds and do not be polluted by liberal agenda! Professors jobs should be there to get you to think not tell you what to think!