Guest post by John Schwenkler about Mount Saint Mary's

Guest Post by John Schwenkler

[Note: We thought that this post by John Schwenkler was important because it shows what is great about places like Mount Saint Mary's when the people involved are properly following their vocations. Much of the press coverage of recent debacles at some Christian schools has missed this. In addition to Professor Schwenkler's post, please also peruse these links:

1. Professor Schwenkler's petition protesting the firings of Mount Saint Mary's professors Edward Egan and Thane Naberhaus (please sign!).
2. Gofundme site to support the professors (please donate!).
3. Professor Schwenkler's Commonweal article describing all of the nefarious doings of Mount Saint Mary's President /Hedge-Fund-Bro Simon Newman.
4. American Philosophy Associations official response.
5. Discussion at feministphilosophers about how the initial policy of asking students about their mental health in order to weed out the troubled ones violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
6. Inside Higher Ed's note that this is going to cause accredidation problems for Mount Saint Mary's.
7. Articles on the debacle by Slate, Salon, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CBS News.
8. Influential paleo-conservative author and blogger Rod Dreher (of The American Conservative) weighing in against the Hedge-Fund-Bro. Also see The American Spectator's article by Daniel Flynn.
9. Catholic News Agency's presentation of a new scandal involving the Hedge-Fund-Bro at Mount Saint Mary's.
10. An editorial by the student newspaper of Mount Saint Mary's rebutting some of the claims made by the Mount Saint Mary's administration.]

I taught at Mount St. Mary's for three and a half years. It was my first academic job out of graduate school. And it was great. That's because the Mount is a great place. It's the best intellectual community I've ever been a part of -- not a place where lots of interdisciplinary research happens, but a place where there are constant conversations across disciplinary aisles, and where courses are taught and curricula designed in a way that encourages similar conversations among students.

Mount St. Mary's, as much as anywhere else I've studied or worked, made me the scholar that I am. It's also where I learned to teach: when I interviewed with them at the APA, they asked me what I thought was required for good teaching, and I thought for a minute and said that honestly, I hadn't seen much of that in graduate school (sorry, everyone, the truth hurts), and so I hoped I would learn about it from them. I did, I think -- at least, pretty much anything I've learned about teaching, I learned in my years there.

Mount St. Mary's is also a community in the deeper, more personal sense. I knew almost all of my faculty colleagues across the university by name. I knew a large percentage of the students. When we fought, it was bitter, because we had so much invested in what was at stake. Mount St. Mary's, and the rural area it's in, is where two of my children grew up, another was born and baptized, and another died just before birth and was buried in a cemetery down the road from the university. Josh Hochschild, then Dean of Liberal Arts before he was abruptly fired by Simon Newman, was my stillborn son's godfather. Dozens of my and my wife's students and faculty colleagues were there for his burial, were there when I carried his tiny coffin into the church, brought us meals every day for weeks after his death. We cried together, we grew together. This is the place where I worked.

I took the job at Mount St. Mary's because when I was going through that tough period of graduate school when you start thinking about dropping out and pursuing other careers, Josh Hochschild read something I had written in a magazine and e-mailed me to ask if I'd apply for a job they were advertising. I was a fourth-year graduate student. I was going to drop out. I said yes and applied because it was a Catholic school, near to my wife's and my families. Somehow I got the job. If I hadn't, I might never have finished the Ph.D., and I'd be a failed journalist or unhappy lawyer instead of a happy, fairly successful philosopher.

I love Mount St. Mary's. I wouldn't trade my years there for anything. I left to take a cushy job at Florida State, which is obviously a great idea now, and was the right idea even then, because the switch meant half the teaching and grading for much better pay, which meant less work coming home with me and much more time with my kids. But I'd not be where I am -- as a scholar, as a person, as a dad -- if not for those years teaching 4/3 and going to endless faculty meetings at the Mount.

This is why I care about what's happening there. This is why I've spent this week doing nothing but agitating to get this mess fixed.

When it *is* fixed -- and, really, it will be -- please remember that Mount St. Mary's is not Simon Newman. It's the place where I spent several of my best years as an academic. A place where students know faculty, and faculty know them, and care for them when they struggle. A place animated by faith, hope, and charity. A place that can survive this mess. And meanwhile, we can help.