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Humor
brings home serious message in former UB president's
book on colleges
Leland
Miles |
 eland
Miles has great timing with his humor. As a college
president, he'd make his points with stories. "A
noted professor of political science once said to me,
'You can talk all you want, but you'll never change
my mind.'" He was obviously playing God, Miles
writes in his new book "Provoking Thought: What
Colleges Should Do for Students" (Phoenix Publishing,
$30, 167 pp.). Miles continues, "Because St. Augustine,
in the City of God, says that the only immovable object
is the deity himself. If we are talking with another
intelligent, well-informed person, we must concede the
possibility of being persuaded to change our mind. The
difference between the scholar and the fanatic is that
the former's mind is open despite his learning, while
the latter's is closed despite his ignorance."
Miles does his best to keep our minds open in this book.
Readers will find it a grand trip through higher education.
They'll see the issues and stumbling blocks that keep
college presidents worrying all night. But most of all
they won't lose sight of the reason most colleges exist,
the student.
While his subject is serious, Miles approaches it with
a light hand. He drives home his points through humor
and stories. "People remember the point in a story,
better than through straight exposition," he said.
The trick to humor, he said, "is to keep it self
deprecating." People don't take offense then, he
said, and often "people will side with you."
Plenty of UB alumni, friends and people on campus remember
Miles. He was president at UB from the early 1970s to
the latter part of the mid 1980s. He came in and pulled
the university out of deficit, but in his later years
was fighting declining enrollments. The law school was
started during his tenure, as were the centers for aging
and venture management. Earlier he served as president
of Alfred University, and had been a teacher and administrator
at UB and the University of Cincinnati.
Miles' most important points have to do with the student.
"Colleges should encourage students to fail and
recover, rather than to perform brilliantly and then
fall hard when they sometimes do," he writes and
repeats that theme often in his book.
He warns parents to ease up on the pressure they put
on their children. They have to keep things in perspective,
he advises, leading into one of his favorite stories,
a letter by Sherry Addison, a Cornell sophomore, to
her parents:
"Dear Mom and Dad, I've encountered a few problems
in the past week. First, there was a fire in the dorm,
started by my smoking in bed. The mattress caught fire
and the new fall wardrobe you bought me burned up. There's
also been a problem with the Volvo. A tree got in the
way and I totaled the car." Then she added another
paragraph:
"Mom and Dad, I think the president here has gone
crazy. He's ordered a tuition surcharge, which means
I'll need an additional $1,500, over and above the cost
of replacing the car and the clothing. Love, Sherry.
At the bottom, she wrote a P.S. "Please see reverse
side." The trembling parents, Miles writes, turned
the sheet over and read the following short note: "Nothing
I said on the other side of this letter really happened.
What really did happen was that I got a 'D' in Psychology,
and I wanted you to keep it in perspective."
--John
Daley
Miles'
book is available at the University of Bridgeport Bookstore
(203) 576-4803, and other independent and chain bookstores. |
