Dr D’Angelo’s hidden chord (three utopias?)

Abstract

In this article we attempt to envision what utopian higher education could be given the realities that currently shape students’ experiences. Postsecondary education is fraught with admissions that favor those with social, cultural, and economic capital; with course enrollment, class size, and instructor accessibility governed by bureaucratic labyrinths and austerity measures; and with major and career selection constrained by looming student debt. As higher education perpetually reproduces social stratification and increasingly mimics corporate practices, it is imperative to ask who and what higher education is for. Why do we continue to engage in it? Are there ways to salvage it from within, or does it require demolishing, clearing the rubble, and building from scratch? Can a utopian version of higher education exist at all if wider social relations endure? Using speculative fiction, this piece grapples with re-envisioning higher education as students’ daily lives, and the world at large, remain within the confines of capitalist realism.

Introduction

This is a work of fiction in the form of a letter from a scholar of education to a colleague in the field. The fictional author of this letter, David D’Angelo, is troubled by three mysterious sets of essays, apparently written by first-generation college students, that describe unfamiliar “utopian” institutional practices. Over the course of the letter, D’Angelo interrogates how these unfamiliar institutional practices respond to wider social injustices. In doing so, D’Angelo confronts the contradictions, possibilities, and limits of higher education as an institution.

Following this brief introduction, the reader will encounter D’Angelo’s letter, addressed to a Dr Zimmerman, which comprises the bulk of this writing. This letter presents an analysis of a set of fictional vignettes, composed from the perspective of first-generation college students, that describe experiences in universities with “utopian” educational practices. These vignettes follow the letter in a section titled “The hidden chord.” The text as a whole can be read in any order, as the letter and the vignettes have been written to be intelligible on their own. Finally, although there are no direct references to scholarly literature in this work (with the exception of a fictional book authored by D’Angelo himself), a list of references is provided to indicate sources for the major theoretical perspectives that shaped this writing (Becker, 2003; Benhabib, 1996; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977; Bowles and Gintis, 1976; Goffman, 1961; Graeber and Wengrow, 2018; Guiffrida, 2006; Habermas, 1995, 2010; Meyerhoff, 2019; Morrison, 1987; Mouffe, 1999; Mouzelis, 1971; Museus and Quaye, 2009; Rawls, 2009; Ruitenberg, 2009; Welton, 1993; Willis, 1977; Young, 2001).

Methodologically, the work began as an effort to employ speculative fiction in order to imagine possible futures in higher education. Each of the three actual co-authors independently produced a set of three short vignettes that explored “utopian higher education, embedded in a non-utopian world, from the perspective of a first-generation college student.” These were to include one essay that imagined the student entering the university, perhaps touching on admissions or orientation procedures; one that imagined the student meeting the challenges of university life, perhaps with the aid of specific services; and one that imagined the student “finding their place” in the university and anticipating an eventual exit, perhaps changed by their experience.

The stipulation that vignettes be written from the perspective of first-generation students offered two concrete advantages. First, it allowed us to confront the existing practices of institutions of higher education as already strange, already fraught with power relations, and open to reimagining. Second, it ensured that our thinking and writing remained grounded in the practical concerns of social reproduction––in the production of individual abilities, material conditions, and dispositions necessary for success in higher education on the one hand, and the role of higher education in the production and legitimation of societal power and privilege on the other.

After a brief period of discussion in which we gave each other minor suggestions to clarify and strengthen our respective stories as stories, we closed the vignettes to further editing. We then proceeded to a more proper academic analysis of the vignettes themselves, treating them as completed source material. The initial discussions revolved around the striking differences in our visions, and the possibility that they had each in their own ways “failed” as true utopias. From this discussion, we moved to an analysis of thematic overlaps. The major themes that structure D’Angelo’s letter to Zimmerman––institutional access, student development and agency, and the role or aim of the institution in society––emerged organically from these discussions.

Finally, the character of D’Angelo and the epistolary format came late in the process as a device for resolving our internal debates over interpretation. The personality of D’Angelo and the specific interpretations of the vignettes he presents in the letter were created at the same time––not to offer a “definitive” reading of our respective authorial intents in writing the original vignettes, but rather to highlight what we collectively identified as central themes that cut across the set of vignettes through one specific and situated reading. Thus, we wish to stress that D’Angelo is not a mouthpiece for our own views but rather a fictional character with concerns, ambitions, and blind spots that shape his interpretation. This is not to say that we disavow the arguments he makes in the letter, merely to note that a different character will have noticed different things in the vignettes and offered a different reading.

***

Dear Dr Zimmerman,

I would like to start by extending my heartfelt gratitude for the compliments, candid critique, and pointed questions you have generously delivered to me in response to my most recent book, First Generation College Students’ Perceptions of their Academic Programs: Sourcing Answers to Problems from Student Testimonials. I consider you not only to be a most esteemed colleague in our shared field, but something of a co-conspirator (if you do not mind such language) in our specific area of research within that field, providing our common concern for the complex and diverse needs of first-generation college students educated within the United States of America. It is because I hold you in such high and close regard that I felt compelled to devote serious time and effort in crafting a reply to your letter. Allow me to preface, my reply may indeed be more thorough than you expected or even desired. Nonetheless, after reading through your own detailed communication many times now, I feel that a comprehensive response is what you are rightfully owed. You will have by now noticed the packet of essays included in this mail parcel. In the event that you are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of content I have burdened you with, I’d like to assure you now that all will be explained in due time.

While I heartily intend to address the variety of research topics and specific theoretical questions you brought up in your letter, I would, if you will allow me to be somewhat circuitous, like to gradually branch out to those matters from a more cursory inquiry you made in your letter. You see, however offhandedly you meant this particular question, Dr Zimmerman, it nonetheless struck upon a central chord. In fact, it is something of a hidden chord––a piece of my research that I felt ill at ease to extrapolate upon in the published form. Not only that, this nameless bit of research––which I am now picturing for you as a clandestine musical chord––indeed became the root of everything that thereafter blossomed into the book you have now read and graciously commented on.

To be entirely forthright with you, my colleague, I am tentative to even divulge to yourself a full explanation of that hidden chord and the three special notes composing it. However, as I have said, I consider you to be a co-conspirator in our shared passion––and what is a co-conspirator if not a confidant? In truth, Dr Zimmerman, I may simply be sharing this secret with you now so that I can feel its musical vibration through my own mind once again. Whatever has prompted me, it is nonetheless my humble wish that after you have heard the chord’s notes played and had time to reflect upon their possible interpretations you will kindly respond with your thoughts. My hope is that sharing this bit of research with you will allow me to understand it better––or at the very least know if it is real.

Very well, that’s quite enough foreboding and metaphor, don’t you think? You have been a patient colleague. By now you may or may not have guessed that I am talking about the odd footnote you highlighted in my book, footnote number 89: “Data was excluded when its origin could not be traced to a specific author, time, and/or place.”

Allow me to disclose. This footnote refers to submissions from three students for which I seem to have no attached metadata––no demographic information, no record of what institution they attend, and no dates of submission. It is as if they simply appeared in the dataset out of nothing. But what is truly odd about these submissions is that they refer to institutional practices that, to my knowledge, simply do not exist anywhere in the world. Moreover, two of the submissions make explicit reference to world events that have not happened in our present timeline. One essay notes in passing a “military reallocation” instituted after a coup d’état while another describes a situation in which the state “guarantees a well-paying job” to graduates of the university. I do not recall reading about any such coup d’état or state guarantee anywhere in the world, and extensive research from graduate assistants has failed to turn up any similar events.

Dr Zimmerman, you see, while you likely expected a simple clarification from me of footnote number 89, if any at all, you have unwittingly cracked the surface of a much larger exposition. For the remainder of this letter, I would like to have your ear as I attempt to confront the ideas put forward in these mysterious submissions––the aforementioned notes making up that hidden chord––to which I cannot legitimately assign: (a) the true student authors; (b) the school or schools within the United States (or anywhere on planet Earth) where these students attend, attended, or will attend class; and (c) to which dimension, plane of existence, and/or point in time, these students and schools belong. While I hope this is not the case, upon hearing this precursory explanation of the footnote you may decide that you will not read any further. You may now be inclined to feel that Dr D’Angelo has taken a sudden leave of absence from our shared reality. If that is your feeling, Dr Zimmerman, I hope you will nonetheless thunder on out of pure curiosity and reply back to me all the same. Perhaps, if I unwittingly lost my mind, your practical thoughts on this matter will do me good. In any event, copies of these three student’s essays are what compose the supplementary packet now in your hands. The essays roughly follow the prompts I provided to all students who took part in my research:

A. A section on experiences with admissions and orientation, including first impressions and adjustments, to be written within the first month on campus.

B. A section on continuity procedures within the university, including course registration, major selection, advising, and “wrap-around” services, to be written some time after the start of the second or third year.

C. A final section on “finding one’s place” in the institution, including preparation for exiting the institution, to be written as graduation approaches.

For the remainder of my letter I will refer to three essays and their sections as they are marked: Note I.A, Note I.B, Note I.C, Note II.A, and so forth, ending with Note III.C (you have the idea). I will, meanwhile, refer to Notes I–III’s student authors as Student I, Student II, and Student III, respectively. You are most welcome to pause and read them now, or at any time. I have, moreover, divided my own analysis as it relates to the hidden chord into three primary topics: access, agency, and aim. Onward, Dr Zimmerman.

Access

As you and I are fully aware, universities in the US have a systemic problem when it comes to: (a) who gains entry to their educational programs; (b) who remains successfully enrolled in those programs; and (c) who are most engaged with all that the university has to offer. These three problems are, of course, the infamous problems of access. Your letter pointed directly to the discussion around access in my book, shedding generous praise for the way it detailed how affluent families reflexively train their offspring to gain and maintain access to university education, and all that comes after in the procurement of generational wealth. Indeed, it was my intention to fully illuminate the subtle, almost unconscious, form of training that is learned as children follow the lives their parents model.

Note I.A starts with the mention of “secret agents” who select high school students according to criteria that are a mystery to the students themselves. Student I is not even aware that this selection process is happening until the interview begins, and Student I is asked such unexpected questions as “What music do you listen to?” and “How does that song make you feel?” Running counter to the conventional admissions standards of our dimension (e.g., standardized tests, grade point average (GPA), and multiple extracurricular activities), the apparently benevolent “secret agents” in Note I.A have interests outside institutional norms. Importantly, admission standards are opaque to everyone, including to wealthy parents trying to ensure their children perform the role of successful prospective candidates. Under the “secret agent” system, students are free to be themselves, instead of turning into a homogeneous model student who belongs to a few clubs, gets excellent grades, and sells it all with a succinct essay or a crafty elevator pitch.

The removal of all of the advantages that intergenerational privilege usually grants means that prospective students cannot “game the system” by applying their inherited wealth to meet or bypass ostensibly meritocratic criteria––because there are no public criteria to aim at. Crucially, the same policies extend to course placement and role selection once admitted to the school. Again, students with inherited cultural capital find that it offers no advantage in navigating the institution. The link between the school and the ruling military, moreover, would seem to ensure that successful students of the school go on to occupy privileged positions upon graduation.

But there is more to it. University policies are not only designed to remove the influence of inherited economic and cultural capital, they also seem aimed at allowing the chosen students’ passions, interests, and aspirations to emerge. The university operates on the belief that such preferences can be teased out of a person if they are enclosed (“cloistered”) in a proper system and then routinely psychoanalyzed (“SEEN”) with surveys and wargame-like labor scenarios (see Notes I.B and I.C). As Student I progresses through the school, the school learns more about them and uses this knowledge to place them in increasingly challenging scenarios, which then prompt students to realize new aspects of their own desires and capabilities. Crucially, such access to self-discovery is enabled here by disabling the desires and capabilities of class habitus––students are barred from nurturing desires for worldly advancement through the usual channels, as these have been rendered entirely ineffective.

Dear colleague, can you imagine how much an approach like this one would disrupt socioeconomic self-sorting on American campuses? Am I wrong to presume that it would lead to the mingling of students from an array of backgrounds and identities based on more authentic self-understandings? If further developed to address the racialized and gendered ways inequality asserts itself in our society (i.e., not merely socioeconomic), Note I could serve as a recipe for disrupting social stratification, which as we both well know has historically organized itself along lines of gender, class, and race. Today in America, and surely around the world, even when less-privileged students gain access to elite institutions, they remain barred from the exclusive social milieu of the children of elites. And of course, elite social bonds, once formed in elite institutions, continue to reinforce themselves across the generations and further calcify inequity! In this way, the procedures and policies resonating out from Note I not only obviate the advantages of economic and cultural capital, but work to disrupt the formation of elite social networks.

And yet I can hear your thoughts in my head as I say all this, Dr Zimmerman. By isolating students from their families, Note I may also work against treating certain social identities equitably. First, if a student’s family relies on them for caretaking responsibilities for siblings or elders, they would not be able to participate in the immersive college experience described. Second, if a student’s identity is contingent on strong family ties, then the cloistering in Note I amounts to cultural resocialization of the student––breaking them of the familial and communal bonds that provide crucial support, and have largely made them who they are. The uncomfortable historical echoes of residential schools for Native Americans and re-education camps of all kinds are difficult to dismiss. Moreover, the absence of transparency would seem to make such a system ripe for abuse. What is to prevent the children of military families, for example, from becoming the new privileged class? We must either assume that Note I implies a larger social reordering that takes these important issues into account, or that the university’s attempt to solve the problem of access is incomplete. The model certainly has its problems.

As in Note I, the university in Note II provides free tuition, healthcare, and room/board. But in Note II, everyone who has gone through “the state’s high schools” is admitted upon completion of an “information sheet and interest form.” This means that there are minimal and fully transparent selection criteria––students need not wonder how to fashion themselves into college material. We can look at this admissions policy as yet another strategy to eliminate the inequitable access perpetuated through inherited privilege. But, importantly, Note II adds another benefit which contrasts sharply with the cloistered system of Note I. Student II describes a food and housing stipend for students “who live off campus with family members” (Note II.B). This offers a solution to the dilemmas I suggested above regarding: (a) students being unable to meet non-university responsibilities like childcare; and (b) students whose identity, and/or support network, is connected to their familial ties. So as we can see, Note II offers a different recipe, one which maintains the variety of ways students interrelate with their families and their communities, yet similarly takes aim at social hierarchy writ large.

However, while these measures are more attentive to the needs of nontraditional students and racialized minorities than the ones depicted in Note I, they do not do as much to counteract the systematic advantages of elites. In this way, the university depicted here bears some resemblance to the more open but less valorized community college system in our dimension. Indeed, Student II initially viewed the free college as a way to get general education requirements completed before moving on to another school, a strategy employed in our world with community colleges. And yet, we cannot forget the employment guarantee that comes with graduation in Note II––something for which there is no equivalent in our community colleges (or, indeed, our four-year institutions, professional schools, or graduate programs). Access in Note II, then, comes in the form of providing not only equitable access to college, but also a transparent and inclusive path to state-sponsored economic stability.

The straightforward fairness at work in Note II, however, may become complicated by its own lack of exclusivity. Without any information suggesting otherwise, we must assume that the affluent in Note II’s dimension (who generally have little need for a guaranteed state job) would continue to gravitate toward private colleges. How then, Dr Zimmerman, does a governing body continue to divert the wealthy’s tax dollars to free state schools if they choose not to attend them? Considering that public higher education seems remarkably well funded in Note II, I am left to wonder how they are getting away with that in their world, and how we might in ours.

Unlike those in Notes I and II, the university in Note III does not directly attend to the material needs of its students—a fact made evident in Student III’s passing mentions of financial aid, off-campus employment, and family care responsibilities. In this sense, the university depicted in Note III is the most conventional, and their policies most “realistic.” There does appear to be a robust system of mentoring and advising in place to ensure that incoming students from any background will be able to take full advantage of what the university has to offer––an entirely realistic possibility in our world, although, with the effectiveness of advising (as with much else), the devil is in the details.

What is more irregular is the flexible registration and credit system described in Note III.B in which students are free to add and drop classes without penalty, face no enrollment caps on any required courses, and are encouraged to enroll in independent study if class meeting times conflict with other parts of their schedule. The way I have been interpreting this is as a kind of compensation for the material benefits the university itself cannot provide. As we both well know, first-generation students, students of color, and working-class students are far more likely to face constraints from off-campus work, childcare responsibilities, and so on. Indeed, Student III is just such an example, and the flexibility of the registration system is what enables them to fulfill their requirements without falling behind.

Of course, dear colleague, we might speculate that this registration and credit system is an outcome of the other distinctive feature of the university in Note III—an administrative system in which all members of the campus community are given equal power in governance. It is not hard to imagine that students argued for and then voted for expanded flexibility precisely in order to address their own needs. In any case, this seems more likely than such a system coming from faculty or administration! But more generally, while the university in Note III does not provide direct material benefits as we saw in Notes I–II, the access to shared governance offers students the political means to address their needs in the ways they see fit. A much more “do-it-yourself” approach (as the kids say), but in that it is less susceptible to corruption from above.

Notably, access does not extend to members outside the campus community in Note III—including residents of the surrounding neighborhoods, prospective students, or anyone else whose lives may be impacted by the decisions made within the school. For example, we are not told what the admissions policies are, but I would be curious to know if any analogous changes have been pushed through by students to make the university itself more accessible to those outside the campus. The omission of details about admissions policies by Student III suggests to me that admissions are neither as distinctive as the one depicted in Note I nor as open as the one depicted in Note II. As I know you are already thinking, Dr Zimmerman, this highlights an important limit to the university’s principle of shared governance.

And yet, within the institution itself, shared governance is very much occurring in what, for our dimension, would be a most radical experiment in truly democratized power. The culmination of the college’s radical policies is exemplified by Student III’s friend “C,” who becomes a central character in Student III’s essays by Note III.C. In this final essay, the student “C” has become so liberated by an awareness of and democratic participation in Note III’s institution that they decide to subvert and destroy that very institution from within. Par excellence, “C” is the college-educated liberal mind run amok within the very site of their making. “C” is the naive idealist given the power to destroy. This student is the night terror of every capitalist who lays awake at night thinking of ways to make America’s youth less self-reflective and more afraid to be a burden on society, arranging their midnight thoughts into PowerPoint slides.

Importantly, “C” homes in on an appropriate metaphorical target for such destruction: classroom projectors. Empowered by a deep reading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and likely informed by research into their institution’s implication in American slavery, “C” targets expensive machines designed to literally illuminate the institutional agenda upon its own walls, walls wherein students are confined for the duration of their education.

The logical conclusion of Note III, as “C” demonstrates, is that the liberating institutional policies of Note III can only exist to eventually destroy the structural confinement of institutionalized learning. Such democratic policies throw too much daylight upon the shadows of the asylum walls––shadows present and past. Hence, in Note III.C we behold glimpses of a college in the fleeting stage of its metamorphosis from hierarchy to anarchy. It is a college, a social structure, that is still somewhat recognizable to us. Projectors still exist in Note III.C and therefore, we can assume, PowerPoints! And yet we watch PowerPoints and the institutional structure they symbolize teeter on the verge of extinction.

What comes after PowerPoints eludes me, dear colleague, though as I listen to these Notes played together I seem to notice something lurking at the fringes of my imagination, as if at the edge of a meadow near the woods under a darkening sky. Dr Zimmerman, hearing this chord I am attempting to peer out of my window at what lies in that distant space beyond. Although from the window of my private asylum, my institutionally made mind, I can only glimpse this student––“C”––running across the threshold of the meadow into the shadows between the trees.

Agency

I am digressing into foreboding and metaphor, dear colleague. You must have so many questions, but I must beg your patience a while longer. It now occurs to me that what I am really concerned with, in this discussion of “C” and the classroom projectors, is the problem of agency. As you and I know too well, universities like to tell themselves (and anyone who will listen) that we are educating the future leaders of society when, in fact, any honest appraisal of our practices would suggest something quite a bit less lofty. Educating future workers for the job market, perhaps. Indeed, there are days when I feel I am simply sorting students for the benefit of future employers. Or worse, even, that I am disciplining students so that they can be efficiently managed. In any case, it occurred to me that something very different is happening with the students in each of these essays.

Above, I noted that the opaque admissions policy in Note I ensures that the privileged cannot buy their way into the university. That same opacity also ensures prospective students a degree of freedom as well, as their efforts do not necessarily have to be channeled towards achieving higher grades and test scores. Indeed, under our current system, even the exploration of interests and the development of talents is deformed into “extracurricular activities” pursued primarily to burnish the college application.

Once students are enrolled, however, the university’s approach to their agency takes a different form. Students are not free to choose their own courses or even their roles within courses. This is all decided for them by the university. But, at least from the experience of Student I, we can gather that the university directs the students’ experiences in order to maximize growth and self-discovery in a way that, while uncomfortable, is ultimately not unwelcome. It is again an example of enabling one aspect of agency by disabling another––in this case, enabling the student to understand themselves better and develop to their potential by disabling their ability to choose and unintentionally limit themselves. It is unquestionably patronizing, Dr Zimmerman, but students who go through such an experience might nonetheless graduate with more confidence and self-understanding, better equipped to face future challenges––in short, with their agency not only intact but significantly expanded. That is presuming, of course, that the university has curated their experiences wisely.

Note II.A, on the other hand, presents us with a scenario where the institution offers students with choices for what they are to study in college. Moreover, in Note II.B the student is supported in an amazing display of agency within the college: the creation of a new college major! In an academic advising appointment, when Student II mentions transferring to a school with their desired major, the student is encouraged to organize their peers to create a club around their interests, which eventually gains enough support to establish a game design major. In what could have been a pro-forma execution of a transfer plan or leaving the student to figure out what to do on their own, this university—and its actors—were poised to alter the institutional conditions that did not meet the needs of this first-generation college student. And yet, while college has been made free in Note II, lifting the class-prejudiced curse of student-loan debt, we see right from orientation that partaking in a free college experience is contingent on participating in characteristically “leftist” social change.

Even Student II’s new game design major is only approved when it is somehow contorted to fit the school’s definition of “justice-oriented.” The brand of agency Student II enjoys at their college, hence, in some ways reflects the agency students experience in our own academic institutions, where they are sometimes allowed to operate outside of the prescribed college program, yet must gain support from those within the institution to do so. In Note II, as in our dimension, gaining institutional support most often means aligning with the ideological perspective of your would-be supporters. In this way, Note II demonstrates how often what, on the surface, appears to be a new kind of freedom is actually rooted in a more subtle form of coercion (however well-meaning).

Yet we would be remiss to end our analysis there, Dr Zimmerman. Just as it was in Note I, this coercion serves the more fundamental purpose of transforming the agency of the students enrolled at the university. We learn in Note II.A that student orientation is organized around learning about all sorts of social, economic, and environmental justice concerns. Students, faculty, and staff spend a week together studying a specific issue, meeting with people impacted by that issue, and, throughout their time together, help determine how the university should respond to various problems. This pedagogical design provides the opportunity for faculty, staff, students, and people in the broader community to collectively learn from one another, develop their interventionist skills, and implement them as they see fit.

Over the course of their education, Student II acquires not only the skills but also the disposition of an organizer. If the school in Note I expanded student agency by transforming how students understood themselves and their own capabilities, then the school in Note II expands student agency by changing how they see the world around them. Moreover, although we only get a personal account from Student II, it is clear that the central aspect of this expansion of agency is not found in any particular individual resource but rather the resources of the collective. When students face job prospects that are either ethical but boring or exciting but morally corrupt (Note II.C), the soon-to-be-graduates devise a plan to alter the conditions. Collectively, the students intervene in the world around them to meet their needs and interests. Agency at work, Dr Zimmerman.

Turning to Note III, we discover an example of an institution attempting a quite radical approach to democratizing college campus life. Through online and in-person discussion, everyone from administrators, to teachers, to staff, to students plays a role in the decision-making processes of the university. While the school initially feels chaotic and confusing, the student is particularly appreciative of the open system of registration and credits, as described in Note III.B, and even slowly finds their place within the school as they build relationships with classmates and advisors. I don’t have to tell you that this is the most straightforward case from the perspective of agency. The university simply empowers students with full access to the inner workings of the institution itself.

However, it does look potentially overwhelming. There are online forums to read through and participate in, complex issues one is expected to weigh in on, and confusing meetings in which meanings and motivations are not always entirely clear. One wonders how students have time for classes with all of these responsibilities (let alone the off-campus responsibilities Student III describes in Note III.B). But that may be exactly the point. One central aspect of the pedagogy in Note III is learning how to participate in direct democratic institutions, to not simply rely on elected representatives to do your work for you. We can say that the university is attempting to instill in its students a form of agency for a world that perhaps does not yet exist.

The issue with this is that the world that supports this sort of agency does not quite exist on campus either—a limitation that becomes clear to us in Note III.C when we hear that Student III’s friend, “C,” steps “over the line” and is subsequently subject to “disciplinary hearings.” These hearings, of course, circle us back to the topic of “C”’s destruction of the school’s classroom projectors. Even within a radically free institution, it would seem that limits must be placed regarding destruction of expensive pieces of property. Dr Zimmerman, for me, this act of vandalism highlights the tension between individual self-expression and the need for an imposed “line” to resist the institutional entropy that would otherwise occur. The fear of such entropy is made visual in Note III.C by classroom tools, such as projectors, that will allegedly no longer serve an ongoing function once they have been smashed. However, if I might argue from “C”’s perspective, the projectors in this instance, rather than being destroyed, are actually undergoing a transformation of function at the behest of “C.” Once “haunted” or smashed by “C,” the projectors become a metaphor for how the college’s history of slavery (as revealed at the end of Note III.C) continues to haunt the physical space of the college. Yet we can also imagine that if metaphorical actions such as “C”’s were allowed to continue indefinitely, then the campus would be reduced to rubble and campus activities would be unable to continue. This, again, is how the projectors’ demise symbolizes a path toward anarchy. Hence, to guard against such eventual obliteration of the institution itself, and emergence of an at once radical and chaotic freedom, “C”’s agency must be curbed.

Nonetheless, if we shift our attention to Student III’s mention of “C” refusing to “break character,” even in the disciplinary hearings held after the vandalism/performance, then we can understand that the disciplining of “C” is actually a continuation of that student’s intended performance. The disciplinary hearings are, as such, a further expression of “C”’s agency within the institution. Applying this lens to the entirety of Note III, all of the functions of the institution begin to take on the appearance of an elaborate metaphor for relationships between institutions (theaters for interaction) and those who populate institutions (the performers). This is perhaps most noticeable in Note III.B where a complex system is partly explained for applying credits to different lengths of study, diverse subjects, and shifting amalgamations of students and professors. The system is so hard to practically envision that, at least in the reality we inhabit, it can be looked at as nothing but a metaphorical thought experiment. It is a dance across the stage in an act we know as college registration; one which communicates a feeling about what could be, but denies us the details of a concrete plan.

Moreover, if we allow ourselves to accept the possibility of such a credit system, we have effectively shifted from the realm of considering educational reforms––practical tweaks to the institution we know––to the realm of imagining an educational revolution––one that is not only a revolution of the way we learn but in the way we express agency in society. The very fact that we are beginning to entertain an organizational principle that feels impossible means that we are beginning to make a break with the reality we currently inhabit.

If there is a doorway to a truly radical educational future, it is not in following any example given in Note III as a guideline, but in accepting the very possibility of any one of the most difficult to comprehend educational scenarios in Notes I–III. In other words, if we are to escape the trappings of institutional ideology and allow profound agency to emerge, we must begin treating every aspect of the institutions in our dimension, and every connection we make with them, as a metaphorical gesture. If we can escape the lure of believing institutions as hard realities, and overcome fear of their disciplinary might being directed upon us, we will, like “C,” cease to be acted upon by the institution and begin freely acting within and without it. Perhaps, dear colleague, through such a redefinition of what it means to be free we can begin to erase the contours of agency drawn around us by any institutional system, and sketch out “impossible” new ways of acting upon the world in concert with one another. Dr Zimmerman, I am trying to focus my eyes in those shadows of the wood; I am squinting my eyes and looking for even the faintest apparition of true free will.

Aim

I hear your resolute voice: “Dr D’Angelo, this is a textbook case of an existential crisis.” Of course, this fictitious statement from you is both a product of my imagination and, at the same time, fully correct. But in your immense patience, dear colleague, allow me a moment of self-questioning about the profession we both engage in. What else do these institutions of higher education we work in do in the world, outside of the ideals I still very much grasp onto of perpetuating good citizenry and liberating minds? These are institutions which we devote our energies to, which we demand the youth aspire to and alumni take pride in. But Dr Zimmerman, are we not very much complicit in laundering the intergenerational transfer of class privilege––abetting the uneven flow of inherited power? How much is meritocratic achievement a value that you and I fight for every day in our respective institutions, and how much is it a veneer we are all too eager to slap on so we may rest easy in our work? Is it far too cynical to feel that I am performing intellectual labor that props up the cultural hegemony of an elite class established by slave profiteers and perpetuated by sociopathic capitalists? We meet the challenges of the 21st century through discovery and innovation. But in my experience what this really means is embarking on massive capital projects on college campuses during a time of crushing austerity, and then, dear Dr Zimmerman, having the bravado to call them innovation centers! Bear with me just a few moments more, because I believe that the universities described in Notes I–III aim at something quite different. Allow me to collect myself, catch my breath, and bring my meandering thoughts to a close.

The university in Note I occupies a rather unique place within the social world in which it is embedded. The importance of this university is made evident in both the way Student I refers to it simply as “The School,” and in the implied relationship that “The School” has with the now-ruling military, from which it gets the funds it needs to provide for its students. Although Student I does not seem to be fully aware of the university’s importance to the military in Note I.A, the specific interventions deployed by the university to disable the strategies of elite social reproduction suggest that this is indeed a significant place. After all, such interventions would be unnecessary if the university were not attractive to elites in the first place. The question is, what kinds of roles are these students being prepared for, in what kind of society?

The pedagogical practices of The School are strikingly unfamiliar. Instead of traditional siloed disciplines of liberal arts, sciences, and vocational training, this school has devised “Cloisters” and corresponding “SEEN”s wherein students and faculty engage in transdisciplinary work and problem-solving. The example of a SEEN engineering project we are given is overseen by “lead philosophers,” which suggests that philosophy is not considered second to physics but rather central to the very design of the city’s engineering feats. This all seems as if it is coming from an alien world—and perhaps it is. But if we take a step back from the unfamiliar (and only partly explained) terminology, I think we will recognize this as a realization of a kind of Renaissance ideal in which the practical concerns of humankind are addressed through the application of the full breadth of human knowledge.

It is certainly curious that a newly empowered military regime would feel the need for people with this kind of education. Whatever its specific plans are for individual students, however, we can assume that it is in some way connected to the university’s efforts to disrupt the social reproduction strategies of elites. More specifically, we might speculate that The School exists as part of a larger package of reforms instituted to break the power of existing elites. Such interventions are not uncommon for new regimes in our dimension, although they more often take the form of, say, land redistribution rather than the invention of a new and strange university.

If my speculations are close to the mark, Dr Zimmerman, then perhaps this analogy with the Renaissance is not quite so far-fetched. The School may initially be training a new cadre of elites, drawn from the wider society, to displace existing elites and their old ways of thinking. And maybe that is all there is to it. We do not have much to go on here, and military coups are not typically inspirations for speculative optimism. But given what we have seen about the university’s sensitivity to inherited privilege, perhaps what we see in Note I is really the beginning of a wider cultural shift. The School provides students with a performance arena in which they inhabit roles with transdisciplinary weavings, anticipating a world where liberal arts minds work in concert with practical disciplines like engineering to produce elegant solutions to social problems instead of being relegated to compartmentalized cloisters in academia or museums.

On the other hand, the consolidation of state control over education raises the question about the intentions of the military state for its citizens and noncitizen residents within its territory. In our current dimension, the state has never thoughtfully considered the lives and livelihoods of all people; state-led education in particular has been designed for a society that prioritizes certain people, behaviors, and values at the expense of others. We are left to wonder if those issues are somehow resolved in Note I’s dimension, and, if so, for how long? If the essays in Note I are being written not long after the coup d’état, perhaps we are in the early days of an idealist regime before infighting and the dilution of integrity weakens its moral resolve.

Turning again to Note II, the university’s orientation to the world it inhabits is far more transparent. Although this university also relies on generous state support, its mission does not seem necessarily tied to the state’s agenda in the way we saw in Note I. Rather, we are told that this support is part of concessions made by the state in response to a specific crisis. In all other respects, what we learn about the wider world of Note II suggests that it is very much like our own, plagued by the same social ills and ideologies, which this university is aiming to ameliorate.

I suspect you agree that as noted above there is a “coercive” nature to the university’s social justice emphasis. Nonetheless, you must also recognize that this emphasis has likely arisen in response to the dominant ideologies of their wider society. Students do not arrive on campus as blank slates; they will have internalized aspects of dominant ideology even if (as seems likely for a school like this) most incoming students nominally fall on the political “left.” Thus the “coercion” is not necessary to convert its students to leftist causes but rather to disabuse them of their unreflexive commitments to, say, individualism or capitalist realism.

In this way, Dr Zimmerman, imposing “social justice” objectives to all aspects of the university is not so dissimilar in character to the more extreme tactics we saw The School deploy to disable and enable the students in Note I. There is even a similar pedagogical emphasis on immersive experience, although in this case the projects that students are immersed in are not ingenious simulations that anticipate a better world, but rather real-world interventions into ongoing injustice. Such interventions are carried out in collaboration with not only classmates and faculty, but also people from outside the university whose lives are most impacted by the issue being addressed.

Despite the emphasis on social justice, there is dispute over its meaning in Note II. Like our current world, many machinations of social justice abound, even though people speak as if there is a unitary vision. For instance, in Note II.C, the student describes opposing sides to the proposed Game Design Department, with one side advocating for better access for women and people of color in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields while the other opposes Big Tech’s corporate interests in higher education. Via teach-ins, rallies, and eventually compromise, the campus reaches the decision to establish the new department with the stipulation that courses be paired with philosophy classes on the ethics of gaming and the game industry.

The primary point here is that values, even when specifically articulated, operate in contexts that are contested, making the implementation feel quite different based on one’s social location and perspectives. This is not to say that everything can be claimed as social justice with the right amount of semantic positioning; rather, I would merely like to highlight for you that I do not believe in a pure concept of social justice. Overall, the university in Note II provides an environment wherein students, faculty, and staff can practice their versions of social justice, knowing that they will need to engage in struggles over what that means and how it is enacted. Although the overall social justice emphasis may feel heavy-handed, it is really the collaborative struggle in Note II that is non-negotiable.

Allow me to conclude my long letter to you, Dr Zimmerman, on Note III. For it is with the addition of this final note that I was able to hear the ringing of that hidden chord, which––as you by now well know––resonates through the entirety of my recent book and echoes through my mind even today. As was the case in Note II, Note III seems to come to us from a society that shares similar injustices as the dimension to which you and I both belong: white supremacy, sexual assault, and environmental destruction––to name just a few. However, the institutional response is much different in Note III. Even though the students practice points of intervention, they do so within the confines of their institution instead of engaging outwardly. Students, faculty, and staff participate in committees in order to reach decisions, and at least some of these decisions seem to originate from co-created knowledge gained via coursework.

This co-creation begets an institution that resists our current dimension’s time and space limits. And this is the point, again, Dr Zimmerman, where I start to see the interventions of Note III taking on an increasingly metaphorical dimension. As the writing of Student III begins to bend time and space, their real college institution bends into a metaphor for institutionality in general. Note III obtains a musical frequency within the hidden chord where the very concept of the institution begins to lose its precise contours, like forms in the daylight passing into the dark.

And so again I attempt to focus my eyes on Note III.C, which presents an instance of a concrete challenge not only to the school’s radical, deliberative democracy, but––as a metaphor––to the very notion of institutionalization. When the character “C” “haunts” the campus via property destruction, there is a question about how much “haunting” (projector smashing) the institution, and those within it, will take. Then, when “C” is subjected to customary disciplinary hearings for their action, what is significant is that Student III, in their telling of the story, shifts our attention away from vandalism as a disruption of learning activities. We are instead pointed toward how the acts of vandalism, and subsequent punishment, are an almost necessary means of acknowledging the institutional legacy of slavery. I ascertain from this that for slavery to be truly acknowledged as something tangible and decidedly foundational to the maintenance of the institution that permitted such horror, the institution must not be reformed but actually demolished.

By illuminating the university’s historical ties to white supremacy, through their discussion of an intervention that is as structurally disruptive as it is metaphorically disruptive, Student III highlights the impossibility of a complete separation from external social forces––the wider world––that the university has tried to establish. In a plot twist, the metaphorical space of the college is in fact real, but fundamental things must be broken to prove it. “C” and Student III are questioning, for us, whether an insular democratic institution can or should be allowed to work; or, if in order to be viable, the borders of radical, deliberative democracy have to constantly expand, incorporating more and more people, institutions, and history into its fold. Perhaps as people leave the institution (the characters “A” and “J” already have by the time Note III.C was written), they begin to spread the participatory and horizontal power lines they practiced at the university into other places and spaces. Perhaps the inhabitants of such an institution will go forth and multiply, infecting all they come into contact with, drawing in patients from ever more asylums toward their windows and pointing them across the meadow toward the shadowy wood––nudging innocent bystanders towards the limits of their imagination.

From Notes I–III, we can ascertain the practices these institutions have implemented to respond to the wider world. They have made decisions about the culture they wish to create as well as how they choose to mold citizens to (re)produce that culture. These three essays leave us with thought-provoking questions for our own reality, and bring us face to face with humanity’s existential relationship not only to institutions of higher education, but to institutional structures of all kinds. If we could boil down the essence of my hidden chord to its resonant core we would be left with a terrifying acknowledgement that we both need institutional structure and need to destroy all vestiges of institutional structure as such, in order for equity and justice to prevail, in order for the horrors of the past to be acknowledged. “But Dr D’Angelo,” I can hear you saying now, “that statement sounds positively insane; how can we create order and destroy order at the same time?” The answer, if I may be so bold, my dear esteemed colleague, is this: we create and destroy in different places, in different amounts, and at different times. And only if we so dare, dear colleague, we make and unmake at the same time.

As a society of people, I propose to you, Dr Zimmerman, that we must grant ourselves the freedom to, first, actually imagine new forms of institutional relationality, and, next, give ourselves the power to implement what we imagine. Institutional structure and institutional destruction should take many forms, observed and altered with that same reflexivity across time and according to ever-changing new contexts. We must again and again knock out the walls of our asylums and run for the trees to build new walls (the woods are cold, after all), always remembering where we have been and what we have done.

Yours in research,

Dr David D’Angelo

PS: I am terribly afraid that I have addressed too few of your questions, and likely raised many more. I look forward to your reply, and now that I have gotten this off my chest I hope to be able to provide a more focused reply to the many important topics you raised. Alas, I will leave it for a subsequent letter, Dr Zimmerman. I have burdened you with too much for now.

The hidden chord

Note I.A

I like to tell people that I was selected for The School by their “secret agents.” That’s because I never filled out a single application form. Halfway through my senior year in high school I began to be interviewed by these people, some of whom I recognized as the guest teachers that had come in to do special lessons in some of my classes. Those lessons had actually been some of the best parts of high school, so it was cool to see them again. They explained to me during the interviews that the lessons are part of their enrollment process. They are basically preliminary interviews that introduce students to certain aspects of The School’s program, while also giving them an opportunity to get to know students in the surrounding community. They were scouting. They wanted to interact with us in our natural habitat (if you can qualify high school as “natural”).

What at first mystified me about being chosen for those sit-down interviews was that I had NOT been getting very good grades that year. I could blame this on things that had been going on with my family, but frankly I just didn’t feel like concentrating. It was really as simple as that. I think I was finally seeing high school for what it was, a big daycare center where they half-heartedly try to cram you full of facts, figures, and stories about the world, and then they make you feel like a failure if you aren’t thrilled about it. But apparently these “secret agents'” had never even looked at my grades, and when I brought it up one of them said something like “I don’t need to know that, just like I don’t need to know John F Kennedy was a Catholic.” I thought that was a pretty cool reply, but also confusing.

What was really interesting about those sit-down interviews was the questions they did ask, things I didn’t think adults cared about. They asked me about the music I listened to in surprising detail: what I liked about it; how my interests in certain artists and genres had changed over time; and what kinds of images and colors I imagined while listening to different songs. They wanted to know what I read about on the internet, what influencers I watched, and how my interests in those things had changed over time. I’ll admit the “secret agents” had a way of making me talk. I can’t remember the last time I spoke to an adult, even my parents, about the stuff I actually cared about in such intricate detail.

Well, I must have said something right, because they invited me to The School. During the whole interview process I had tried not to get my hopes up. Not because I didn’t feel like I was good enough––since, for the life of me, I could not make out what criteria they were assessing me on––but because I assumed my family was not going to be able to afford a school as esoteric as this one seemed to be. But here I am, at THE SCHOOL, and my family hasn’t seen a single bill for any of this. I also have free healthcare, free mental health services, and this preventive health guidance (basically teaches me how to cook good food and work exercise routines into my day). I guess it’s all part of the “military reallocation” instituted after the coup. I’m sorry for what happened to all those Silicon Valley + government guys, but I am glad I get to have an education and my parents get to keep their house.

Note I.B

I’ll admit when it came time to register for classes I was a little bit confused. Not that I had any other college course registration experiences to compare it to, but having been through the public school system I was used to semesters. In high school I signed up for a semester’s classes and they all, more or less, followed the same story arc: a little slow at the beginning as we got to know subject matter + the teacher, and then things would gradually heat up over the course of the semester, like a frog in a pot, with exams and projects piling up on one another until finally it all culminated in a couple weeks of hell before we were finally released into winter or summer break.

The School has something different going on. Their registration manual and website are like an à la carte menu meant to entice your interest in a huge variety of directions. But instead of pictures of food and lists of ingredients there are testimonials (written out + in a video format) with students and professors explaining what makes them passionate about whatever the subject is that eventually became their focus. Instead of picking a few classes to eat from on this menu, however, you fill out surveys and write brief responses about things that piqued your interest. And that’s it. You wait for school to start.

What I have discovered is that the responses I gave them over my summer is influencing what SEEN roles I am being put into, and therefore what Cloisters––basically small, focused research groups––I experience. You are always fluctuating between being in a Cloister and playing a role in a SEEN. And in between: you fill out more surveys and give more responses. These surveys and responses have an effect on futures roles, and so on, but not always in ways you would expect, or even want. There is a mysterious curation at work, that I am starting to feel like intends to put you in uncomfortable roles––introducing you to ideas and situations that challenge you and make you start to look at the world differently than you had before. It can be pretty frustrating, honestly, feeling I don’t have control of where my education is taking me. But I am learning that all I can do is embrace it, and keep filling out those surveys. Do you hear me, puppet master? The show can go on. Anyway, the whole process is making me discover things about myself that I didn’t know I was capable of, and that kind of makes it all worth it.

Note I.C

This week I am playing the role of Antithesis. Our SEEN is the construction of a new bridge across the East River, a complicated (and of course) controversial project. Like most engineering SEENs there are two lead philosophers who are deeply involved in every step and at every level––from conception, to design, to public perception. By the end of this SEEN, me, the Antithesis, and another student, the Thesis, will apparently know what it is like to operate in society as a philosopher. Though it is only a simulation, basically a piece of theater with college students for actors and college professors as stage hands, I know that it won’t feel like a simulation when we are in the heat of the SEEN.

This is my third one. I am a freshman, so I was actually shocked when I was given this major role assignment. But maybe I should have known. I played pretty minor roles in my previous two SEENs, and it seemed like I was under much less pressure than many of my first-year friends. So, I think I had this coming to me. The School likes to surprise you––or so I’ve heard. I learned the ropes in my first two SEENs, or maybe it was just one all-important rope: give yourself over to the SEEN. The best way to succeed in a SEEN is to believe the SEEN is real, to experience it emotionally as much as you do intellectually. This is not as hard as it sounds, since the upperclassmen in the SEEN seem to never break character. In fact, they are pretty intense. They’ve learned the rope well.

As I am writing this, I am in what is called a “Cloister.” My Cloister is a group of 12 students who have all been assigned a philosopher role in one of the 6 SEENs this cycle that require that role. What this means is that my Thesis is in this class with me. The funny thing is, I don’t know which student they are. In my last two Cloisters we all talked about which SEEN we had been assigned, almost immediately we gabbed about it to each other and then with the professor. Discussions around specific problems we might face worked into the Cloister pretty organically. This time it’s like some unwritten rule that we don’t talk about it. Maybe it’s a competition thing. The discourse between Thesis and Antithesis in a SEEN can get pretty intense. I mean, it is basically your entire job to undermine the philosophical propositions the other person puts forward. You are the counterpoint to their every point, and vice-versa. So I guess I can understand why no one is talking about their SEEN assignment, but it is still weird knowing my Thesis is in this Cloister with me: absorbing the same information, cramming, talking excitedly about the core distinctions between French and German rhetoric, lurking …

So, even though I dare not utter aloud the word “engineering,” or even worse the word “bridge,” I am probing every text and every discussion for connections I can make to the sparse outline I was given for my SEEN. I silently light up at the mouthing of key phrases like: “the historical relationship between humankind and its built infrastructure”; “architecture’s effect on the human psyche”; “public works actualize public politics”; and the “historical legacy of oysters in the East River.” I will need to study hard to make my case, and just the same I will need to imagine hard. As I have learned in this Cloister, the best philosophical propositions are not only deeply researched––grounded in the long human history of philosophical writing––but also wildly imaginative. If I can weave connections together that my philosophical counterpoint isn’t expecting, spin a web that hopelessly tangles his philosophical logic into my own, then not only is this bridge getting made, but it is getting made my way. How unexpected would that be? They will say: A college freshman, who had merely passed two throwaway SEEN roles, conceived of such brilliant philosophical logic that not only is the new East River bridge designed and approved for construction on time, but it is whole-heartedly embraced by the entire community and adored for generations to come. What a beautiful victory.

Note II.A

Today’s orientation day for college. I’m pretty excited about it, but god, please, no awful icebreakers. There are always a few students too eager to play while everyone else just rolls their eyes and awkwardly participates. As I board the bus headed toward campus, I recall the moments leading up to this point.

I got into this college via a new state program. Any graduate from the state’s high schools is automatically admitted into either of the two state universities as long as they complete an information sheet and interest form. And, get this, tuition is FREE! Evidently, during the pandemic, there were so many students who dropped out of college and never came back that the state decided to do a hard reset on higher education. They ran this big campaign called “Imagine the future.” The state universities offer automatic admission and free tuition to all graduating high school students.

The major drawback is that neither state university has my intended major—game design. I figure I’ll take the general education requirements and then transfer to a school that has what I want to study. After all, who can turn down free college education?

In prep for orientation, I was asked to fill out a form about my views on what were labeled “hot-button” issues—things like climate change, racial justice, poverty and housing, gender justice, and immigration/citizenship. I forget the other topics at this point, but, basically, if the issue made headlines in the past year and was controversial, it was included. The form asked questions about my views on the topics. Not questions like do I believe these issues are important or real. Instead, I was supposed to rank-order my views on solutions I think the campus community should take on each topic. Like, for climate justice, the options included banning straws, doing state park cleanups, instituting more recycling stations, divesting in fossil fuels, protesting the plastics industry, lobbying for corporate carbon reductions, and I think a couple of others.

After rank-ordering solutions, I had to pick one of the topics that I wanted to spend time on. I chose gender justice. In high school, several of us got most of our classmates to rally against the sexist dress-code policy that forbade girls from wearing tank tops but couldn’t care less about boys wearing them. We had people make tank tops out of old T-shirts and put messages on them like “My body isn’t a sex object” and “Shoulders aren’t what distract me. Try teaching!” After weeks of encouraging our peers to join in, we had everyone wear their tank tops to school on the same day. We made the local news and got the policy overturned by the next school board meeting.

“College Hill,” the bus driver calls out. I flash back to reality as I stand and hop off the bus. I see a bunch of people in a line and assume that’s where I’m supposed to go to let them know I’m here. I’m handed a name tag with a number that corresponds with a group. I say a quick prayer under my breath to whichever divinity will listen to me: “Please, NO icebreakers!”

An older student leads me across the lawn to join the group associated with my number. She hands me off to another student who tells me that we’re waiting for everyone to arrive before we start in with basic introductions. He says: “Don’t worry. We’re not going to play any of those dumb get-to-know-you games.” Relieved, I take a seat on the grass.

After everyone arrives, the person who looks like the adult in the group introduces herself as the instructor. She tells us that for the week, she, a peer mentor, and an academic advisor will be the facilitators of our orientation week as we examine gender justice in the city. We will visit health clinics in the city, meet with sex workers who are forming a union, hear a bit about how and why people connect religion and morality to gender and sex, and have a demonstration on condom usage. A few of us around the circle blush and avert eye contact. The peer mentor pipes in, laughing: “Don’t worry, we use fruits and vegetables for practice!” I can’t tell which is worse, the intensity of this moment or icebreakers.

After the instructor’s introductory comments, we are asked to go around the circle and introduce ourselves—our name, where we are from, and one thing that interests us in gender justice. The peer mentor starts us off, disclosing that he has supported several friends through abortions and wants to join with folks advocating for people to make their own choices about their bodies. When it’s my turn, I share the story about protesting our high school dress-code policy. The person next to me says that she doesn’t know what to say; she admits that this is the first time she’s heard the phrase “gender justice.” Evidently, she told her sister to fill out the interest form for her. The instructor breaks in: “No worries. We’re all learning. It’s great to have you here.” The instructor then turns her attention to all 12 of us. “It’s likely that we all have varying interest levels in gender justice. That’s completely fine. I just ask that we all remain open to listening to one another and learning from one another.”

Well, we avoided icebreakers, but this felt a bit like going from 0 to 60 in 2 seconds. Oddly, as intense as the beginning was, the rest of the time seemed comfortable. The instructor, advisor, and student mentor made it feel like we were talking about a topic as familiar as our favorite films. This is good considering that we’ll be spending each day and evening together for the next five days straight. We’re told to grab sack lunch and then head to the bus. Our first stop is Lovers Lounge in what used to be known as the Red Light District.

Note II.B

One of the things I like most about my college is that not only is it free, but our housing, food, and healthcare are all provided as well. Even the people who live off-campus with family members are given a stipend for their housing and food.

The president of the college sends out these periodic reminders about how important it is for us to stay in school and fully engage in our experiential learning requirements. Because of this expectation, we’re also reminded that we aren’t supposed to have a job. Going to school and meeting all the requirements is our work.

I have a meeting with my academic advisor today. I’m a little nervous because I have to broach the topic of transferring schools. I mean, I love the classes here and what I’ve been learning, but they don’t offer the major that I’m interested in. Plus, if I want to transfer, I’m going to need to get a job so that I can save up the money to pay for the other school’s tuition. Working outside of courses and experiential sites requires special permission from the college administration and I’m worried my reasoning will not get approved.

After going through the course listing together and figuring out a schedule that will complete the rest of the general education requirements, my advisor caringly asks what else has been on my mind. I swear, it’s like she has telepathic powers. How does she know that I need to talk about something else? I mention that as much as I have liked my classes and all the experiential learning, I’m still stuck with the fact that the school doesn’t offer the major I’m interested in. While learning about all the “hot-button” issues in my various courses is important, there’s nothing about it that has taught me about how to design video games. Aren’t I in school to prepare me for my desired career?

After a bit of back and forth, my advisor gives me an idea. She asks how many other students I know who like to play video games. I chuckle: “Tons! That’s what everyone does when they aren’t in class or at their experiential learning site. It’s the only way to escape from reality.”

She suggests that I start a club for people who are interested in learning the nuts and bolts behind video games. She tells me that unlike other colleges where literally anything can be a club, there was an intentional decision made during the post-pandemic redesign that the only clubs to get approved would be ones that work toward social, economic, or environmental justice. This is one of the main reasons why there are no sororities or fraternities at the college. She explains that those types of clubs have often been ways of excluding people while simultaneously hosting charity events to make themselves look good.

“Oh, I assumed it was because of all the sexual assault that they’re known for.”

My advisor admits: “Well, yes, that too.”

“So, wait, how am I supposed to connect video games to justice-oriented issues?”

“I’ll leave that for you to figure out. In the meantime, I’ll put in a call to a colleague who has some contacts in gaming to see if he knows of anyone who would be willing to assist in advising the club.”

I respond, careful not to show too much excitement: “So, this sounds great, but even if we’re able to get a club approved, it still doesn’t solve the problem that the college doesn’t offer game design as a major.”

My advisor pauses a moment before saying: “You’re right. It doesn’t. But, if there are really all the students you say there are who play video games, then maybe there is enough interest in creating a major. Why not? It’s been done before. After all, we have other majors that are only a couple of decades old. Maybe it’s time to design a new one. The key, though, is that it needs to be justice-oriented—and not in a criminal justice way where cops beat down the supposed bad guys.”

“Hmm. Now that you mention it, I guess most of the games we play have messages that are kinda the opposite of what we focus on in our courses, like being in some elite group of soldiers that hunts down terrorists.”

“Well, if you want to put together a proposal for a game design major, that’s something you’ll need to consider. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted on what I find out from my colleague.”

Note II.C

Now that it’s time to graduate, I’m faced with a tough decision: do I go to work for a tech company that has amazing gaming gurus and really cool software or do I choose a state job that allows me to do design work but is much more boring? It’s not like how it used to be when graduates of some majors couldn’t get jobs. When the state redesigned education, it shifted the entire economy. The state guarantees a well-paying job regardless of the field, which is a relief. But now we have to make hard choices about which job aligns most closely with our values and what we want to be doing on a daily basis.

It may seem like nothing, but there’s actually quite a bit riding on the decision. I’m in the first graduating class of students who enrolled in the college after the post-pandemic redesign. The college and the media have been abuzz about whether this experiment of offering state-sponsored education, food, housing, and healthcare for students has been worth it. The way I see it, if nothing else, it has kept college students—and many of our families—from being housing- and food-insecure after the pandemic left the economy in a major downward spiral.

But, it’s kinda more complicated than that—and I’ve been entangled in the controversy from the start. When my advisor suggested that I start a gaming club, I had to connect it to justice-oriented issues to justify it. Getting young women and students of color involved in STEM fields seemed like the natural way to go. As more and more students became interested, a bunch of Big Tech companies contacted us about helping establish and fund a new Gaming Department with both a major and minor. The tech folks told us this would be a win-win as their investors were attracted to having a partnership with an academic institution.

The college faculty and administration initially were split between those who supported anything that students wanted to do (as if students somehow are gifted with special powers of knowing what’s “best”) and those who didn’t want to take money from the Big Tech companies because it would come with too many strings attached. Amidst the division, swarms of students did what we were taught to do—we organized, rallied, and demanded that the college establish this new department because it would offer us a chance to learn about computer and game design in a setting more structured than a student club.

The faculty who opposed the partnership rallied back, holding teach-ins on the history of Big Tech firms and their profit motives. One of my esteemed professors lectured about how Big Tech was using the college redesign as a way to edge into higher education. They explained that CEOs (chief executive officers) were promising legislators they could make education more “efficient” while maintaining the values of the redesign. Intentionally, tech executives latch on to the gender and racial disparities in STEM argument to gain favor while covering up the fact that their new programs displace a lot of workers, do all this facial recognition and surveillance work that negatively impacts black and brown people, and connect with awful mining practices all over the globe. The professor posed the question: how and why would Big Tech’s interests and practices be any different now?

The compromise between the two factions was that the department would be established with fairly strict parameters. Similar to all the business courses at the college, it was required that all offerings be paired with a philosophy course that weighed the ethical merits and dangers of each practice. This wasn’t a cure-all, but it at least made us think through the various ramifications of digitization. What’s interesting—and maybe a bit disturbing—is that despite all the students in the department being well-versed in the dangers of the field, we find gaming so mesmerizing and comforting that we rationalize the risks away. We see the irony and game away!

I firmly believe that we could purpose digital technology for good, including making video games to teach youth about social, economic, and environmental justice and figuring out how to construct cities so that everyone has a home. At the same time, I am leery of how tech companies easily co-opt justice-oriented rhetoric while making decisions that harm so many people. Still, I’m not sure about which job to take—the super enticing one with the tech company that will give me new skills and open doors into more innovative work, or the one with the state where I will be mapping new routes for postal delivery. I mean, the choice is between an exciting opportunity with questionable morals and a snooze-fest that is aligned with my values.

“How are we supposed to make this decision?” I ask my classmate over a piping-hot cup of tea.

“Tell me about it. I feel like the things that we were taught are supposed to go together—active engagement and commitment to strong values—are being diametrically opposed. I mean, I guess we should be grateful to be guaranteed a job, but—”

I interrupt. “No one should have to feel grateful for a job. That’s the equivalent of being thankful for economic disparity. It’s bullshit!”

“True enough.”

A few minutes pass as we sit in feelings of defeat. Then, all of a sudden, my friend asks: “What if we propose something different? Something that the state can’t deny, given their new-found emphasis on improving everyone’s lives.”

I look up from my tea. “That’s brilliant! Like what if new mail delivery routes were connected with some kind of neighborhood gaming stations where people could meet up and socialize but also place their concerns on a public screen and see if anyone wants to join them in addressing the issue?”

“Yeah! But also, because postal workers know what houses are unoccupied, we could also game together a squatters’ network, linking people who need housing with places that are unutilized.”

“Yes! Let’s sketch out some ideas and take it to our classmates.”

Note III.A

new student orientation has some normal stuff. a map of campus, a student id, a dorm meeting to get to know everyone. but i’ve also been assigned to a bunch of committees? or, i’ve been assigned a student mentor, a junior, and i’m also on all of their same committees.

the first committee meeting we attend is the budget committee for the entire university. it is baffling. there are over 100 of us in this meeting for some reason. a bunch of students including a few transfers like me, and also a bunch of people who look like professors. J, my student mentor, explains that some of them are administrators and some are staff, including cooks, groundskeepers, librarians, whatever. the person running the meeting is a dean. the rest of us barely get a chance to say anything for the first hour while she basically reads a summary of the last meeting off of her ipad? i guess that is fine by me—i have no idea what is going on—but i wonder what the point is of having us all there. apparently, some rich guy is proposing to donate $2.5m to fund the creation of a new research institute on climate change that we are declining.

the second half of the meeting is more of the same. the dean lists a few things that we need to discuss—but we don’t actually discuss them. then, she opens the floor to new items, and i notice one of the professor-looking guys in my row typing on his laptop. a second later, the dean is reading from her ipad something about a “cluster hire” in climate justice. and then a few seconds after that, something about a raise for the librarians which draws a few scattered hoots from i guess the librarians? and chuckles from some others. it sort of goes like that for a few more minutes, and then suddenly we are adjourned, without actually deciding or even discussing any of the things that got brought up.

J explains afterwards. what i thought was the summary of the last meeting was actually a summary of the online discussion and vote that happened between that meeting and today. the in-person meetings are there just to set the agenda. J says that they tried to move that part of the meeting online too, a few years ago, but they changed it back for some reason so now we all have to get together. J says the librarians propose raises for themselves every meeting, it’s sort of a running joke. actually, everyone’s salary is tied together, from the graduate assistants to the president of the school—if one person gets a raise, everyone does. J shows me where i can log in to the budget committee site. later, i’m on the boards and i see that it is the same few people writing in every thread. it is a little intimidating to be honest. i envy J’s confidence, replying to professors and etc. my writing professor is on this committee and i know it’s stupid but i worry that they are judging my writing too. technically, i’m “required” to contribute to at least one of the threads, and then vote on all of them (although “abstain” is always an option). but what does “required” even mean here? am i going to get a bad grade on committee participation or something? i find an issue that doesn’t seem to be too controversial (the cluster hire) and express support. (but i do learn one thing from reading the discussion—the reason we turned down all that money for the new climate institute was because a lot of it was supposed to go into geoengineering, which apparently is bad. i’ll have to ask J about that.)

Note III.B

i’m finally sitting down to register for classes this semester. i log onto the course registration website. even though i’ve done this before, it is still surprising to me how different it is from the school i transferred from. i mean, the website looks the same and mostly works the same as the old one, but it’s different. for starters, i don’t have to wait for my financial aid to come through to actually log in. my registration is still provisional for now – i can’t do anything about that—but i expect it will be cleared up once the financial aid office does whatever it needs to.

what’s really different is that there are no caps on class size, they let you enroll in however many classes you want, and you can drop whenever with no penalty. it’s a huge relief for me because it feels like something comes up every semester that totally reorganizes my life. like, i was enrolled in stats last semester too, but got sick. it sucks to have to go through the whole class again but it’s better than failing or paying for a class you don’t even get credit for.

anyway, this semester is going to be rough, i can already tell. i have to get through some of these major requirements to stay on track to graduate next spring. i’m not looking forward to taking stats and theory at the same time. it would have been great to get stats out of the way like i had planned, but what can you do? i managed to finish a few of my other classes last semester, at least. A, my advisor, says i’m still basically on track. A is actually pretty helpful. they really went out of their way to make sure i got my transfer credits. anyway, i have more pressing concerns at the moment.

ok, so. i can’t take afternoon classes on wednesdays or thursdays. those are my days to pick up K from daycare. and i really don’t want morning classes on thursdays and fridays because i don’t get home from work until like 2 a.m. the night before. it would be great to not have classes on thursdays at all. although G, my manager at the restaurant, is a total asshole and could just switch my shifts around again with no notice so maybe i shouldn’t even worry about it?

one thing about the registration policy here is that it means practically every class is overcrowded in the first few weeks. people just sign up for everything and then stick with the ones they like. it’s pretty different. last semester, 2 of my classes started out in big lecture halls and finished in seminar rooms with like 15 people sitting around a conference table. it was pretty weird.

there’s also these variable credit independent study courses that A keeps encouraging me to take. i don’t really get it though. you pick a topic to study with a professor, which, ok i kind of get that. but you also then pick how long you meet for and how often, for how many weeks, for how many credits? that’s just too much. my friend J has been in the same “agent-based modeling” class for like a year and a half and just keeps extending it. in the beginning it was only like one hour a week but now they are meeting for a few hours a day and they’ve pulled in two other professors and a grad student. it’s probably going to end up like 20 credits or something, no joke. our other friend C just keeps doing these really short ones. like two weeks on paint mixing and then a month on Toni Morrison’s Beloved that was just like a book club. they said they are doing some sort of public installation project next but i have no idea what it's about. i actually did that Beloved one with them and it was ok. i didn’t write the paper though so it was only worth half a credit.

A says i can even fulfill some of the major requirements this way which i might have to do. it looks like the stats class i need is friday mornings this semester. maybe i can take some of the work i did last semester to the professor and figure something out? the professor was kind of creepy though and i don’t know how i feel about signing up for one-on-one time with him. maybe A can figure out a way to make this work …

Note III.C

i can’t believe the summer is already over but if i’m being honest i’m glad to be back at school. i spent the summer at work or taking care of K and it basically sucked the whole time. they said they were finally going to fire the manager after a bunch of us complained but G is still there, being an asshole as usual and messing with our shifts. i quit right before the semester started. i saved up a little so we will see if i can get through the year without having to work. that would be great.

i even ran into J the other day. i haven’t seen J since they graduated, but they were back on campus for the intervention. it’s for our friend C. inspired by that book we read together, they have been “haunting” the campus for over a year. mostly petty property destruction, smashing things in classrooms or dorms when no one was around. they got caught knocking an hd projector off its mount on the ceiling, which i guess was over the line. those things are pretty expensive. and then of course C refused to break character during the disciplinary hearings, which did not go over well.

i got an unexpected email from my former advisor, A. they left the school after my first year for a job as a professor at a different school. i was a little sad because A had really been so supportive but i understood—they hadn’t gotten a phd to become an advisor after all. i had tried to convince A to stay at the school as a professor here but they always deflected. anyway, A promised to stay in touch, which i knew they would not. it was ok. i haven’t really needed to talk to my new advisor very much since i pretty much know what i’m doing now but A, C, and J were actually the only other people around that i can relate to, and now it’s just down to C.

V, one of the groundskeepers on that committee, stopped me the other day. they wanted to know what i thought about the candidates for the cluster hire. i had actually been thinking about it a lot so i was happy to have someone to talk to about it face to face. the discussion board is cool and all but it is mostly for, like, arguing and not for just talking things through.

oh, that stats independent study wasn’t as bad as i thought it was going to be. i’m still a little creeped out by M. i was pretty worried when i couldn’t get anyone to do it with me. but they didn’t try to pull any weird shit. i wish i knew what had gone down before. it’s only rumors, from before my time (or J’s) and everything is sealed. we aren’t even supposed to know to ask.

i finally get to ask A about it. they don’t work here anymore, so why not? it turns out, according to A, that M was accused of sexual harassment by a student here over a decade ago. the student ended up recanting, saying she made up the whole thing. i guess she was going through some stuff? anyway, when it all went down, M agreed to just drop the whole thing. they took a year off, the student transferred out, and the whole incident was wrapped up. weird, and a little bit unfair that the rumors follow M around if it was all made up, isn’t it? A just shrugs though. we don’t actually know that, they say. anyway, that’s old news and we have other business.

groundskeeper V still doesn’t understand what the problem was with taking the $2.5m. oh, so that’s what this is about. i hadn’t seen them at the job talks, so i wondered a little (but they’re recorded, and maybe V was busy doing actual groundskeeping, so who knows). geoengineering isn’t ideal, obviously, but it isn’t impossible that it becomes necessary someday. maybe soon. shouldn’t we be prepared? do we really want it to fall to the corporations if and when that time comes? all these new candidates seem to want to talk about is how different local communities are being impacted by climate change, but what about, like, the whole world? (oh ok, V has seen the job talks.)

so we’re in session, and even though the provost has asked us to try to talk some sense into C, J is here in full-on defense. the other people in the session seem shocked, but what a relief it is, actually. i’m pulling up the notes A sent me. are you aware, i say out loud, of this institution’s historical ties to slavery?

End.