新澳门六合彩开奖直播

Boys Will Be Boys, Do Men Go To 新澳门六合彩开奖直播?

Ten students and one freshly turned-out alumnus met last summer to talk about a question that is fundamental to a 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 education yet is rarely articulated: What does it mean to be a man?

"But those don鈥檛 count."

"Why not? Don鈥檛 they mark a transition from one social
status to another?"

"Yeah, but anyone can get a driver鈥檚 license or go to college. Plus, if you fail the test, you can retake it. If you drop out of school, you can always go back. They aren鈥檛 difficult rites, or even masculine. They don鈥檛 have penalties like the Samburu male rites of passage."

"He鈥檚 right. The Samburu knew when they became men. We don鈥檛. Our society doesn鈥檛 have any widespread male initiation rites. We just get older without necessarily becoming men."

"What about at 新澳门六合彩开奖直播? Do you become a man while you鈥檙e here?"

I admit that when I asked that question of 10 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 students comparing the rites of passage of traditional African peoples to their own culture鈥檚, I expected a flurry of machismo, perhaps supplemented with admissions bromides ("Boys will be boys, men go to 新澳门六合彩开奖直播" comes to mind).

"Of course 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 students are men, or at least they become men by the time they leave here," they should have exulted.

But I hadn鈥檛 given my students enough credit. For they replied first with a long pause of the most introspective silence I鈥檝e ever had the joy of witnessing. The stillness of the room鈥攆or what seemed like ages鈥攃ontrasted the surge of activity in their brains: Am I a man? If not, will I become a man? How? What is a man? What is a good man? What experiences have made鈥攐r will make鈥攎e a man?

Naturally, the silence eventually ended and we began to sort our way through those and similar questions, just as we had done several times this past summer. Male Rites of Passage was the theme of the third meeting of The Summer Masculinity Seminar, a course I hosted on the topic of men and masculinity, sponsored by the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts.

The seeds for the seminar had been planted in March and April during a short series of dinner discussions and follow-up interviews I completed with departing 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 seniors for a research project about the College鈥檚 qualities as BOTH an all-male and liberal arts institution. During these talks it became clear that some students desired deeper conversations about men and masculinity. These students expected such matters to be addressed more fully at a college for men.

The Summer Masculinity Seminar was my experiment to test these claims and to determine鈥攊f 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 students are indeed interested in further exploring men and masculinity鈥攚hen discussions about this topic would be more helpful and in what form.

A Men鈥檚 Studies Scholar?

We began in June, and what better way to start? No tests, no papers, no grades. The students didn鈥檛 even receive course credit. How could they? I鈥檓 not a men鈥檚 or gender studies scholar. I don鈥檛 have a Ph.D. In fact, only a few months before the seminar began, I had been taking classes with some of my new students. As a recent alumnus with no prior experience in the rising academic field of men鈥檚 studies, let alone teaching experience of any kind, I had my hands full.

I soon realized that if I was going to be able to effectively answer in a timely fashion the questions driving this inquiry, I had better get to work. I literally attempted to become a men鈥檚 studies scholar overnight.

Fortunately, that was not entirely necessary. I did become somewhat well-read in the field; competent enough anyway to develop a sufficient syllabus. The course operated much like C&T: Entirely discussion-based, each meeting focused on a certain subtopic of men and masculinity (sexuality, friendship, violence, etc.) facilitated by one or two readings to be completed beforehand. Employing the Socratic method proved advantageous for both me and the students: A lecture from me on the debate between the biological basis and social construction of gender would have been laughable, but because discussions centered on asking questions and not endorsing particular viewpoints, students were indifferent to my meager credentials. Besides, it was not the impartation of facts, accretion of new material, or choice of readings that mattered to me or to the students. What mattered were the conversations.

A Question for the Grand Conversation

"Only in close conversation can you do the best learning in the world. Action is easy. Conversation is hard."

This was President White鈥檚 challenge to the 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 Community 鈥攖o engage in the "grand conversation"鈥攊n his first Chapel Talk in August 2006. Ten months later, ten 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 students and I began a conversation about the subject which is so fundamental to a 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 education, but which is so rarely articulated: What does it mean to be a man? Better yet, what does it mean to be a good man?

Was it hard?

You bet.

These are not easy questions. The history of Western civilization is littered by the defining and redefining of the ideal man. And in Crawfordsville alone, countless generations of 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 students, faculty, and administrators have grappled with interpreting and re-interpreting what it means to be a gentleman. With only six 90-minute meetings, we had to cover a lot of ground in not a lot of time. Students struggled to adapt to the lexicon that infuses gender studies literature and is a distraction, at best.

If I were to conduct the seminar again, students would read fewer such scholarly texts and more classic wisdom on the art of manly virtue from history鈥檚 great thinkers.

So was it the best learning in the world?

That is a harder question to answer.

The seminar left the students strongly ambivalent. Each voiced gratitude for the opportunity to have these conversations, but opposing their appreciation was a strong sense of confusion; they came away with more questions than answers. Several students pointed out that although they felt that the course helped clear up where they stood personally on certain aspects of men and masculinity, they did not really learn anything definitive.

Indeed, the seminar required quite a bit of unlearning. None of these students had consciously evaluated what it means to be a man, yet all of them brought their subconscious, preconceived notions on the subject. Soon our conversations began to loosen whatever blind grips they may have had on their beliefs.

This experience is not altogether uncommon for a college student in or out of the classroom. Noteworthy instead was that the seminar鈥檚 focus on inquiry very rarely rendered a student鈥檚 beliefs overturned, just less secure. This irresolution made them very uncomfortable. And perhaps rightly so. Now they have questions where before there were rote answers. These Pandora鈥檚 box sentiments from the students are encouraging and point not only to the success of the short seminar, but also to the great potential these conversations could have to inform the actions of 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 men during their years at the College.

But do you become a man while you鈥檙e at 新澳门六合彩开奖直播?

Here鈥檚 what my students said. Campus and fraternity rituals help relieve that liminal feeling held by so many other adolescent males, while the Gentleman鈥檚 Rule challenges the student to balance freedom and responsibility, and faculty and upperclassmen serve as mentors. Guided by these circumstances, some students said that yes, they were men, while others admitted they were not.

Still, a few were not sure. The jury is still out.

A more prudent observer might suggest that these guys are not far enough removed from their 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 experiences to even answer that question. But a good liberal arts education teaches us that sometimes questions are more important than answers. As Dean of the College Gary Phillips says, "At the heart
of the liberal arts is the question鈥攖he act of learning to question, of living with the question as unfinished business, of loving the question."

Is becoming a man, like a liberal arts education, a lifelong process? If so, the results of the Summer Masculinity Seminar suggest that the question "What does it mean to be a man?"鈥攁 question intertwined with the very notion of a college for men鈥攊s worthy of more intentional inclusion in the grand conversation that is 新澳门六合彩开奖直播.*

Kyle Long is a research associate with the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at 新澳门六合彩开奖直播. Contact him at longk@wabash.ed