A Long Obedience

"For anything to be really amazing, there has to be a long obedience in the same direction." Sometimes I turn to the great philosophers, and sometimes I just turn to Bono:). Several years ago, I was addicted to a show on the Sundance Channel called Spectacle with Elvis Costello. It was a great show where Elvis interviewed and performed with amazing musicians, and that week was Bono and The Edge from U2. The music was fun, but they also spent time in conversation, and when the topic turned to Bono's social activism, his response has stuck with me since 2010 when I heard it. He said, "For anything to be really amazing, there has to be a long obedience in the same direction." I'm not sure he even was addressing what I thought, but the phrase really hit home. He referenced the philosopher Nietzsche and the internet tells me that he was paraphrasing a much longer quote, but I love the sentiment. Nothing amazing happens unless we find our north star and stick to it relentlessly. Let me give you a few examples.



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I had an interesting exchange with a coworker this week. She was lamenting that the college didn't want to financially support her efforts to provide food in her area and asked me about ours. I told her I simply went shopping every Sunday, and over time, we had a number of people who donate to "The Bowl." (More about The Bowl) Her response was "that's not sustainable." I wish I'd been more More here) and that seemed to matter. A long obedience in a direction yields results. Initially The Bowl was just a personal reaction to hearing a student say he didn't want a classroom snack because he'd trained his body not to eat and was worth some personal expense (for me and others). Over time, it became a concrete thing people could do and people from across the college began to supply it as well. We go through 4-5 bowls of snacks a day, and it has been truly a culture changer. Someone challenged me just buying food was easy and maybe let people off the hook, but I disagree, it is another step in our long obedience.
reflective when I said "I've been sustaining it for 9 months..." Because what I really meant was questions of sustainability weren't going to stop me from this thing that seemed necessary. We had declared The Bowl as sort of act of faith (

Our work has not been without internal strife. As we try to move from philosophical ideas to concrete action, it can get uncomfortable. Meetings can put us in difficult places, and we don't always agree on exactly what to do. But there are signs of hope and progress everywhere. No one will take credit for

it, but a few weeks ago, a printout of an amazing tweet from Dr. Donna Beegle mysteriously appeared above our copy machine, in a space where we would need to see it every day. I don't know for sure, but I think it was in response to one of those difficult meetings and a feeling of frustration. As we move in the same direction, one of our guiding principles is empathy (not sympathy) and an absence of judgment. Whoever made the choice to put this in our daily view understands this, and I was inspired. A long obedience in the same direction won't always be linear or smooth, but this daily reminder keeps me (and I suspect others) on track.

Speaking of empathy, it is essential in work like this. And while the topic of proximity is probably worthy of an individual write up, I'd still like to touch on it today. If I were designing a poverty informed division/college/anything from scratch, I would make sure no one had a job that didn't include contact with students. It is far too easy to use that distance to see the people you serve as "other." Honestly, of all the work we are doing, changing that dynamic would be the first and most fundamental thing I would do if I had a magic wand. In the last year, I have made a concerted personal effort to personally connect with students. Some of my faculty make fun of me (in a good natured way) for talking about the same three students all the time, but it has been transforming. No longer is there an ability to fall back on administrative platitudes about being patient and trying to make sure we have systems in place before we make changes. Of course, we try to avoid unintended consequences, but I don't believe we have the luxury of waiting to have things perfected. If you doubt this, take a look at the recent GAO report (Kudos to the amazing Sara Goldrick-Rab for her long obedience to getting the federal government aware of reality) referenced in this article from The Atlantic: Millions of College Students Are Going Hungry. When you know the truth, and you stay connected with students and feel empathy, your tolerance for incremental change gets pretty low.

We are not in pursuit of half measures, we are in pursuit of something amazing. We are committed to a bias for action and for fighting on the dual fronts of alleviating conditions today and changing systems, so those conditions go away. Our commitment to being poverty informed means we won't allow our students to be strangers who may or may not be "ready" to access what we have to offer. Instead, they become partners who we work with relentlessly and unconditionally as they pursue their dreams. We sit beside them and realize their situation could be ours, but for an accident of birth or twist of fate. With that reality in mind, it becomes intolerable to leave all that potential sleeping in storefronts and in cars. It becomes intolerable to think the student in front of you might not have eaten today. It becomes impossible to send someone away until they are "ready." When you reach a place like that in your heart, the direction becomes clear. And the long obedience in that direction continues.