I remember dreaming big when it came to the Wishbook. Sure, I knew that in a family with modest means and four kids the chances of a really big score were slim, but surely if there was any time to swing for the fences, Christmas was it, right? There was magic in the air. And while I never did get that battery-powered sports car that you actually sat in and drove yourself, our Christmases were always generous and joyful, and mom and dad worked hard to make as many of our holiday wishes as possible come true.

One big appeal of catalogs, Black Friday circulars and, now, Amazon.com, is the ability to be very specific about what you hope to receive. If you give your parents only general instructions like, “a video game” or “a magic set,” you put yourself at the mercy of what is likely to be their lame interpretation of what you want. (I can use harsh words like “lame” because, as a parent, I know I have been a transgressor of Christmas wishes myself.)

But there was this one Christmas where mom and dad got it exactly right, even better than I had hoped for. I had asked for an electric car racing set, and there was a wide range of possibilities. To my joy, not only did my parents come through, the set they bought me exceeded my wildest expectations. It had every feature I wanted. The cars even had working headlights for thrill-filled night racing!

There were many great Christmases in my house growing up, and more wonderful gifts than I could recount. As a parent I want to give my own kids exactly what they want, too, but the biggest thrills come not when I have simply paid for something they have picked out themselves, but when I have connected by giving them something they loved based on my own knowledge of their wants and personalities.

My wish for you this holiday season is that you celebrate the joy of knowing others and of being known well enough to exchange meaningful gifts. St. Francis of Assisi is said to have advised, “Preach the gospel always; if necessary, use words. Perhaps the saint will pardon me if I paraphrase him to say, “Give gifts; if necessary, go shopping.”

Narrative is the telling of a sequence of events involving events, characters, and what the characters say and do.  It’s not surprising that we make sense of life by telling stories since our lives are, in fact, stories.  The fun part is that people may live through the same set of circumstances yet tell their stories of that experience in different ways.  I don’t refer here simply to disagreeing on the facts.  Where we begin or end a story, for example, has a great deal to do with what the story means.  And, of course, point of view, detail, and who tells the story are critical elements, as well.

If I were to tell the “story” of my life (don’t worry, I’m just speaking hypothetically here), I might open with something like, “I was born in a small town in southern Illinois.”  Or I might begin, “The first thing my parents noticed when I was born was that my right foot and ankle were twisted at an improbable, unnatural angle.”  Although possibly suggesting two different ways of telling the complex story of my life, both lines begin the action on May 23, 1964.  But is that where the story of my life began?

Should the story of my life begin with my parents and the choices they made about careers, where to live, and having a family?  Should it start with my grandparents?  Should it begin with the observation that I was born a white male in middle-America?  How should I narrate the sequence of events that have brought me here?

Two classmates of mine once got into an argument when one of them insisted that he had worked for and earned everything that he had and the other countered that perhaps his family’s wealth and his educational opportunities also had had something to do with his situation.  The first classmate was telling a story that began, “Once upon a time there was a hardworking young man who was very ambitious,” whereas the second was suggesting that this “once upon a time” was actually several chapters into the book.

At the core of a liberal education are self-knowledge, understanding of the world, and the pursuit of a meaningful life within that broader world.  Stories and storytelling are natural and powerful ways of cultivating these habits of mind.  Nearly all the humanities and social sciences have explored narrative approaches to their fields of study, from psychology and theology to political science and philosophy, not to mention all the disciplines that have stories at their center, such as literature, writing, theatre and film.  Might we make greater use of these approaches and students’ natural proclivities for storytelling?

Imagine a capstone assignment titled, “The History of Me,” in which students must research and narrate their individual life stories in some broader context.  For example:

• Genealogical or genetic history: Not simply what is my family tree or genome map, but how do I understand my life today in the context of this history?
• Social/cultural history: Whether I go back 40 generations or focus on the town where the last three generations of my family have lived, who am I in the context of the people, places and events that have come before me?
• Religious/moral history: Where have my personal beliefs come from?  Not just, for example, how are Western and Eastern philosophy systems different, but how have historical events and the evolution of ideas culminated to provide the array of choices before me today?

You can imagine similar approaches with frameworks such as evolutionary, political, or economic history.

If we wanted to get really creative we might ask students to narrate their life stories through the lenses of others’ experiences.  Imagine the story of your life told in the context of your mother’s autobiography, or as told by one of your children.  Now imagine your story told from the perspective of an undocumented Mexican migrant worker.  If that sounds strange, just remember all the essays you wrote in school about the role of slavery in the Civil War or the impact of FDR’s New Deal.  What were they but attempts to tell others’ stories through the dual filters of historical evidence and your own experiences?

Expressing our knowledge and experiences through narrative comes naturally to all of us, but a focus on storytelling also reminds us that our stories are constructions, not immutable realities.  The stories we tell are the stories we inhabit.  A dear friend and colleague, W. Barnett Pearce, who was a master at facilitating dialogue and helping people to break through impasses to understanding, used to say that we need to learn to tell better stories.  By “better” he didn’t mean more entertaining or having better plot structure; he meant that we must learn to narrate our experiences of the world in ways that open up possibilities for curiosity and understanding.

In The Gates of the Forest, Elie Wiesel wrote, “God created man because He loves stories.”  I think he may have been onto something.

Occasionally I’ll come across a story of a corporate merger or restructuring where employees are required to re-interview for their own jobs.  When two companies fold into one, unlike Noah they typically don’t need two of each creature.  The prospect of having to compete again for the job you’ve already earned seems a bit like being told you have to take your chemistry final over again after you’ve passed the class.

For those of us in higher education, where we enjoy more job security than most people, this idea of re-interviewing sounds especially foreign. Perhaps the one exception, at least for faculty, is applying for tenure.  The department hired you with much celebration and affirmation, and then six years later you have to convince everyone all over again that they should keep you around.

A few years after I was hired as an assistant professor I served on a search committee to hire a new faculty member.  In just that short time the job market had become much more competitive, and we received applications from people who had much stronger resumes than I did.  I remember thinking how grateful I was that I didn’t have to compete with those people for my own job.  When my time came to apply for tenure I only had to compete against myself and my department’s expectations.

Of course, we all are evaluated regularly, but there is a difference between keeping a job and getting a job.  What if satisfactory or even excellent performance wasn’t enough to keep my job?  What if I literally had to compete for it, again, against others who were equally or even better qualified?

I probably would start with the job description.  When is the last time you looked at your own job description?  Is there anything there you might actually be surprised to find?  Would you find the job described there appealing?

What are the qualifications for the job?  Are we as qualified now for our positions as we used to be?  Are we now overqualified for our jobs?  Are we utilizing our abilities to our full potential?  Have the qualifications for our job actually changed since we were first hired?

I am sure most of us would find that we still are qualified for and well-suited to our positions.  But that is only part of a successful application.  I expect that for the college’s 15 searches we will have many applicants who are well qualified.  What generally sets candidates apart is their vision for the position, their enthusiasm, and their ambition.  Often when we hire for a new position or replace someone in an existing position we see it as an opportunity to shake things up or take a step forward.  If you were competing for your own job, what vision would you articulate to convince the search committee of the value you would bring?

We begin a new job with such enthusiasm and creativity, and a host of forces conspire to drive that energy out of us.  I am not suggesting that everyone reapply for their jobs, but I am intrigued by the mental and emotional exercise of imagining one was doing so.  More than a test to see if we could still land our jobs, this exercise could lead us to re-envision what we bring to those jobs and what we would like those jobs to be.

Try this: Write a one-page application letter for your own job.  If the job you have no longer seems to you like a job you would apply for, think about why that is and then talk to someone about it  — a colleague, a spouse, maybe your department head.  What might be possible to make this position a better fit for your abilities and desires?  If you’re generally satisfied with where you are at, imagine applying for the same position but at a different institution.  How would you sell those people on your qualifications?  Or imagine that there are a dozen really qualified people applying for your job – How would you differentiate yourself?  Above all, remind yourself just how much you have to offer and how much you have accomplished already.  Remember, the interview is just a formality.  The job’s already in the bag.

Most of us have had the experience of walking into a room and having the impression that the conversation stopped or changed course with our arrival.  It is probably a daily occurrence for reporters, ministers, police officers, bosses, teachers and, of course, mothers.  Likely we can think of even more instances when we changed subjects, kept an opinion to ourselves, or chose to use different language because of who was in the room.  Often these kinds of self-censorship serve to avoid conflict or difficult conversations; sometimes they simply mask our own prejudices or our unwillingness to engage others honestly.  In either case, they are examples of things not being expressed because certain people are present.  What if we were to act just as deliberately as if certain people were present, even though they are not?

Some examples of this come easily to mind.  If you wouldn’t call someone a name to their face, don’t do so behind their back.  Don’t say anything privately that you would be embarrassed to have revealed publicly.  (Some have referred to this as the “front page test”: Don’t do anything you couldn’t defend if it appeared on the front page of the local paper.)   Again, though, these are mostly examples of refraining from something.  What would it mean to be proactive on the basis of imagining someone else was present?

Sometimes it is as simple as someone speaking on behalf of a person who is absent from a meeting, for example, “If Susan were here she’d ask about the financing.”  The implication here is that the speaker, at least, knows Susan well enough to be right about what she would say.  It is not always so simple.  A couple of years ago I was with a group of faculty and staff brainstorming ways to make MSU’s public affairs theme relevant to students and we realized that we didn’t really know what students thought.  Rather than attempting to speak for students or assuming that they would agree with us, this realization led us to plan additional conversations that did involve students.

A friend of mine who has worked extensively in facilitating dialogue suggests that we pause to ask ourselves, “Whose viewpoint is not being represented in our discussion?  What do we think those others might say if they were here?”  While we must be very careful about assuming that we know what others would say, and sometimes what we need to do is suspend the conversation until those others can be present to speak for themselves, these simple questions can enrich and expand our conversations immensely.

The next time you are in a meeting or a hallway chat, ask yourself what other voices might add to the conversation.  And when the answer is, “I don’t know,” try asking them.

My paternal grandfather died when I was small, and I only remember one of my great-grandparents.  I have vague memories of some great-aunts and great-uncles, but I would have trouble picking most of them out of a lineup.  (I’m told they were generally upstanding folks, so I suppose I shouldn’t expect to see them in a lineup, anyway.)  Looking at the few scattered remaining photos and letters of my relatives, I wondered at how little that is tangible remains of the lives they lived.  Their rural homesteads fell into ruin decades ago.  Few of their belongings – and most of them had few belongings – have been handed down.  They didn’t publish memoirs, create lasting works of art, or even leave recordings of their voices.  For me, at least, what little remains of them exists mostly in my mother’s stories and snatches of recollection.

For all of the things that were not among these familial artifacts, I was struck by some of the things that had survived into my hands.  Both my grandfather and my father saved receipts from the first cars they bought.  Among my maternal grandmother’s things was a notebook containing a year’s worth of minutes from a women’s church group to which she had belonged in the 1950’s.  Some things survive because someone deliberately saves them, others simply because no one thinks to throw them out.

Three of my grandparents lived well into my own adulthood and I feel like I have lots of memories of them, but how small is the sliver that I retain compared to the totality of their lives, or compared even to what my parents knew and remembered of them?  I wonder what these loved ones thought we would remember about them, or what they hoped we would remember.  How much of who my own parents were will I be able to pass on to my own children and grandchildren?

The one tangible legacy that all of our ancestors have left us, for good or ill, is us.  What remains of our forbearers is something different in each of their descendants.  Some of it is physical, such as the family nose, red hair, or long legs.  According to my mom I have her brother’s hands.   Much of it is in the values that are passed from parents to children.  We continually contribute to the meanings of our ancestors’ lives, and the importance of what they did and who they were is never completely known.  Sometimes we are not even able to recognize it.

As I look forward to a new semester, my 20^th year at Missouri State, and my 25^th year of teaching, I think more and more about what will survive of my professional life.  What story will the scattered photographs of my time here tell?  Will I have had any lasting impact on those whose lives I have touched?

With hard work and providence I believe we will have some lasting impact on who our students will become.  It may be through the knowledge we share or the questions we ask; by the examples we set or the time we spend listening to them.  Whatever else we may accomplish, surely they are our greatest legacy.

• Measure twice, cut once. (carpenter’s adage)
• Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. (proverb)
• Don’t wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day. (Albert Camus)
• Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. (Aldous Huxley)
• I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. (Galileo)
• “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
• It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. (Yogi Berra)
• The best writing is rewriting. (E. B. White)
• The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. (Bertrand Russell)
• Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (Albert Einstein)
• Faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets. (Arthur C Clark)
• The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time. (Abraham Lincoln)
• Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. (Carl Jung)
• There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
• Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. (Confucius)
• Whoever degrades another degrades me. (Walt Whitman)
• The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.  (William Shakespeare)
• Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.  (Henry David Thoreau)
• Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.  (Benjamin Franklin)
• A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.  (George Bernard Shaw)
• Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. (Carl Sagan)

In Maslakovic’s story, on a certain day a scientist’s experiment leads to the creation of a “copy” universe, identical to our universe in every respect at the moment of its creation but continuing on its own trajectory from that point forward.  (This is referred to as “Y Day” in the story, reflecting the divergence of two universes from a common point.)  Anyone born before Y Day has an “alter,” or a twin in the other universe, whereas anyone born in either universe (A or B) after Y Day is unique.  More importantly, the scientist also discovers a means of safely traveling back and forth between the two universes. (It’s later discovered that the scientist didn’t actually create the new universe, he just discovered a way to link the two universes together.)  The protagonist, Felix, who had always believed he was born six months after Y Day, discovers in his mid-30′s that his parents falsified his birth certificate and he was actually born before Y Day.  The book opens with Felix deciding to travel to the other universe to learn what he can about his “alter.”

Actually, there’s one very specific thing that Felix wants to know about his alter: Has he written a book?  You see, Felix has always dreamed of writing a great mystery novel, but he’s 35 and writes user manuals for a kitchen appliance company, and he has never written a page of his mystery.  When he learns there is an alternate version of himself in Universe B, his greatest fear is that his other self has beaten him to the punch of realizing his lifelong ambition.

I won’t give away any more of the plot (Kindle users, it’ll cost you $4.99 now instead of the 99 cents I paid for it a couple weeks ago – sorry!), but Felix’s fear has weighed on my mind.  Approaching 47, I refuse to describe myself as middle aged but I’m old enough to realize there a number of things I once hoped I would accomplish that in all likelihood will not come to pass.  It’s hard enough coming to terms with what might have been, perhaps harder still to look at others who have done what I have not; but contemplating what a different (better?) version of myself might have done?  That’s harsh.

Felix’s alter has the same genes, the same DNA, the same parents, the same economic advantages as Felix has.  What if Felix B has become a better Felix than Felix?  It is not a mere hypothetical — this other Felix is a real person whom our protagonist can meet on the street.

I give Felix a lot of credit.  He wants to know the answer and actually takes steps to confont it.  I’m not sure I would have that courage.  Felix B is a real life answer to all of those What If? questions that we ask ourselves.

As the book turns out, there are an infinite number of universes rather than just two, and new universes are created all the time by — well, I shouldn’t given away too much of the plot, even if I could explain it in a sentence or two, which I’m sure I cannot.  The point is that not only can a thousand different outcomes be imagined, they’re actually being lived out, somewhere.  In the end, however, the only outcomes that matter are the ones experienced by you; the only choices that matter are the ones you make.  Because you don’t get to live those other lives, you only get to imagine them.

If today were Y Day, I’d like to think that my alter-self would be wondering what I was doing with his life.

Companies pay big money for Super Bowl ads, so we expect them to be great.  It’s too big a cost, and too great an opportunity, to waste.  That NPR story got me thinking – what would a Super Bowl commercial for higher education look like?  Would it be as daunting a challenge as an ad for Uncle Sam?  How would we project our “brand” if given this huge audience?

There are various stock approaches to SB commercials, as even the most casual observer will note.  There’s funny – funny “cute” as in this year’s Darth Vader VW commercial, as well as funny “charming” like Coca Cola’s “Border Crossing”, and even funny “not funny because it was in really bad taste” (see any of yesterday’s three Groupon commercials).  There’s inspirational, such as Eminem’s Chrysler ad.  Sophomoric is a popular choice – see pretty much any Dorito’s ad.

Experts say that the best ads tell stories with a beginning, middle and end.  The narratives might be funny, touching, dramatic, or silly, but they draw us in and make us want to know how what will happen next.

What 30-second stories would we tell?

Universities aim to educate our students for the “real world,” and certainly this incident is a real world event.  I have been thinking about how I would hope our students and graduates would respond, imagining those responses as at least indirect measures of what they had learned here and how they had developed a perspective informed by our public affairs mission.  I would be pleased to see any or all of these reactions, just as a few examples.  I hope that our students would:

• Have empathy for the victims and their families as their first and enduring response. There is plenty to argue about here – political rhetoric, gun laws, mental illness, capital punishment – but none of these trump the tragedy and sadness of senseless and needless violence perpetrated on so many innocent people.
• Appreciate the broader historical context in which this tragedy occurred. This is not the first assassination of a political figure.  It is not the first shooting rampage by what probably was a mentally ill person.  These are not the first times when political rhetoric has taken on violent tones.   The meaning of events like this shooting can be distorted and exaggerated by interpreting it in a historical vacuum.
• Not be overanxious for explanations and not be satisfied with the explanations so quickly and glibly offered in the first 24 hour news cycle, or even in the first 24 days.  We are conditioned to expect answers, not questions or uncertainty, from the media and public figures.
• Wonder whether we should be more concerned with the treatment of mental illness than the tone of political rhetoric. Whatever the effects political war metaphors may have, surely how well society deals with our mentally ill has at least as many serious implications.
• Seek out a piece of music, a poem, a painting, or some other work of art as a source of solace, rather than turn to simplistic explanations to soothe our anger, sadness and fear.
• Be interested to know that in 2010 there were more than 50 homicides committed in the city of Tucson. That’s a typical year according to the local ABC affiliate there.  The record was 74 in 2008.

I wonder what the past week would have been like if we had seen more of these kinds of responses on CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, and The Today Show.

More than a quarter of the top 100 jobs — based on median income and projected growth — are in health care, and another 25% are in the information technology, dwarfing all other sectors.  The top seven jobs in terms of median pay all are in health care.  If we consider the reality that students rate “being well-off financially” as a very important objective (78% according to one recent UCLA survey) and that a higher percentage of students now than ever cite the prospect of getting a good job as a “very important” factor in choosing a college (from the same UCLA survey), the direction for higher education seems clear.  Certainly enrollment growths here at Missouri State, particularly in health professions, bear this out.

And yet, there is more to be learned from this survey of top jobs.  First, money and job security aren’t everything.  The highest percentages of employees who think their job “makes the world a better place” are in health fields, the top nine, in fact.  (Full disclosure: Only one health sector job is among the 10 rated as least stressful — optometrist.)  Second, the report also comments on what employers are looking for in applicants, and in even the most technical fields those qualifications extend far beyond technical expertise.  A few examples from among the top 10 “booming jobs“:

• Biomedical Engineer: “The people who have stood out are the people who are motivated to help patients … There are candidates who have looked for opportunities to volunteer in hospitals or developing parts of the world … That kind of experience builds your credibility and it builds your skills more than something you can read in a book.”
• Physician Assistant: “We’re looking for people with good interpersonal skills because they’ll be taking care of sick people.”
• Software Architect: “More than 50% of our employees are also musicians.  One of our [interview] questions is ‘What is the band you hate the most?’”
• Environmental Engineer: “‘We want people with personalities.  Someone who isn’t a total nerd.’  A second language, extracurriculars and especially a good batting average will all help.  ‘We just hired someone with great field experience and he also played minor league ball.’”
• Environmental Health & Safety Specialist: “For our company, we’re looking more at soft skills, like leadership and emotional intelligence.”
• Occupational Therapist: “Erin Wright, senior recruiter for Lakeland HealthCare, pays just as much attention to a job candidate’s social cues as she does their resume.”
• Construction Estimator: “‘Solid leadership and integrity goes a long way.’  As does out-of-the-box thinking, since there are great opportunities to make a positive impact on the environment, like building a bridge in a way that does not disturb the surrounding wetlands.”

To those who worry that the increasing emphasis on and need for professional training in universities will crowd out the traditional liberal arts, I say the evidence suggests just the opposite.  Wired magazine recently published the “7 Essential Skills You Didn’t Learn in College,” or what the authors cleverly nickname, “the neoliberal arts.”  A quick rundown of the list and “what you’ll learn”:

• Statistical Literacy: “How to parse polls, play the odds, and embrace uncertainty.”
• Post-state Diplomacy: “How to practice statecraft without states.”
• Remix Culture: “How to analyze — and create — artworks made out of other artworks.”
• Applied Cognition: “How the mind works and how you can make it work for you.”
• Writing for New Forms: “How to adapt your message to multiple formats and audiences — human and machine.”
• Waste Studies: “How to become a smarter consumer, investor, and conserver.”
• Domestic Tech: “How to apply hard science and engineering to everyday life.”

The Association of American Colleges & Universities observes that, “once you get over the uber-hip format of the whole thing,” the “essential skills” Wired points to are actually pretty similar to the essential learning outcomes identified in AAC&U’s LEAP initiative and consistent with what national employer surveys show.  According to a 2009 AAC&U survey, employers want universities to place more emphasis on:

• knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world
• intellectual and practical skills
• personal and social responsibility
• integrative and applied learning

In other words, it takes a university to raise an anesthesiologist.

Now, I still can’t figure out where all the teachers, artists, NGO workers, dancers, filmmakers, writers and social entrepreneurs figure into this Money survey.  By and large they didn’t hit the top 100 for anything, which I can only take to mean that they were too busy doing meaningful, creative, rewarding work to take time out to complete a survey.

post script: I just noticed in the CNNMoney.com archives that in the 2006 survey “college professor” ranked number two among the top jobs in America.  Hmmmm.