How Can Faculty Recapture Academic Freedom? Pt II

In my last post, I suggested that the best way to reclaim academic freedom and curricular control was, perhaps counterintuitively, to act outside the academy, and without reference to the term “academic freedom.” I advocated a focus on speech generally, a quintessentially individual right, using individual knowledge, skills, and talent, to reach the public rather than an internal (which includes one’s specialist coterie) audience. I mentioned this as, and I know this is alien to many academics, a free service, with no expectation of reward or credit.

In many ways, this is artist thinking. While there are artists that are calculatingly commercial in what they produce, the vast majority of artists work with no expectations of return: their motivation is intrinsic; their ideas or vision is personal, often passionate; their commitment is to expression and to craft: pressing forward, solving problems that arise as obstacles to their goals as they go in order to get the result they envision. Their work is, in many ways, inseparable from the world around them; their hope is for resonance: to touch a vein; elicit an emotional response or recognition; communicate an experiential truth. All artists, in their own way, are engaged in conversation with individuals whom they do not know.

Getting Started

A free speech project needs a name, so start with that, even if it is just you (and hopefully a few others). It can be specific to your training/expertise, or general, but should be meaningful to you in some way. It doesn’t have to be used publicly, a kind of codename, but might if you are going to publish or produce something (if so, be mindful of avoiding loaded words). Likewise, you might create your own slogans or phrases you want repeated, appropriate for your materials, websites, or other means of communication.[1]

Elaborating on the “voice” ground rules previously outlined, I’ll add a few additional points and underscore others:

• Entertainment, fun, unexpected gestures of good will, education light, and interactive opportunities are some of the best ways to get people to listen.
• One reason I like very public, especially fun things like little skits and “bake sales” (see below) is that they will attract media attention; this means you may be interviewed, given the opportunity to make the case for and spread the word about speech and learning (and who knows, become more famous than you are as an academic).
• Forms of communication that are more conventionally serious are likely to be more targeted to specific groups or audiences and take more traditional forms; they should nevertheless qualify as public.
• Acting as a private person is important not only to protect your activity but to be on equal footing with your audience. You’re just doing it: you haven’t been invited, paid, asked.
• Knowing what other resources are out there can give you ideas. Do a search and you will find that there are museums, educational websites, and more. Read (or reread) classic treatises and literature dealing with speech and censorship. Create your own bibliography of quotes, case law, books, poetry to draw on in your project.
• Consider how examples of speech repression in one group can be used as material with those with different views. The First Amendment’s five freedom’s are all speech/expression-related, and can be a good starting point for casting a broad net in terms of audience and ranging far afield when choosing your forums.
• Your idea doesn’t have to be something you can do yourself, just grounded in your knowledge. If you don’t have all the skills or resources for your idea, tap into friends and family, colleagues and neighbors, with skills and equipment.
• A final reminder to do everything on personal time and with personal funds (even if you have to use crowdfunding), leaving behind all trace of your university affiliation. And refrain from treating this as a piece of academic research—any research should be a means to the end of your particular free, public speech project.

 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

When I taught innovation I had scores of exercises associated with different aspects of the innovation and venture-planning process. Some of the earliest and simplest in the process were timed idea-generation or brainstorming exercises—10 minutes—that students did in small groups.  The simplest of all I called “50 ways to leave your lover” (thank you for the idea, Paul Simon) because they had to come up with 50 ideas for a business in their chosen market in 10 minutes; there are many other idea-generation techniques, but it is a good basic one to start with. As Linus Pauling said, “The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.”

True, but most brainstorming is about as useful for achieving a purpose as a coffee clatch because it is conducted with zero structure. To be useful, brainstorming needs boundaries (a well-defined problem/objective statement or “how can we…” question is good), standards, and criteria and constraints (must-haves or can’t be’s, e.g.), like any true critical or creative thinking. Along the way, the earliest ideas are improved upon, combined, refined, rejected; by the end of a properly conducted session, there are one or two paths worth exploring; in this sense, thinking creatively is thinking synthetically, even scientifically. Ideas are, in fact, a dime a dozen, and only one or two are going to stand up to scrutiny, show promise of refinement, elaboration, and doability, fit your target and knowledge, and perhaps most of all, be something you can really get invested in. Impact takes time and persistence.

 A Worksheet and An Example

In the Library there is a basic worksheet that can be modified to do this exercise, plus an example of the first step in 50 ways. Although I did this by myself, and kept it very broad to give at least one example for a range of fields, it shows that 50 raw ideas are readily produced for further combination, inspiration, or refinement; it’s a kind of extension of the general ideas I gave in my last post.  Try the exercise using the worksheet with two-four people; it can be done virtually. Your starting statement or question should be as grounded in your particular area of expertise or target audience as possible, although it’s the criteria that matter most at this point because they point to doability and your results may help you refine your overall goal. You may need a permit for some of your ideas, which should not be unreasonably denied. Doing things on the mall in DC would be lovely, but any public venue will do: just step off campus, or into the cloud.

I will be listening.

Next up:

Whither the Scientific Enterprise?

[1] Were I doing this, I’d call it “The Hammer Project” after the Peter, Paul, and Mary song, “If I Had A Hammer.” But a little thinking about your own objectives and background will quickly produce lots of ideas. Some starting points, from as simple as The Speech Project to other more slogan-y things: Speech is Freedom or Freedom is Speech; Speech Is Thought; Speaking of Liberty; Let Freedom Speak; Think Speech; Free Speech Nation; Speech: The Conversation; Speech and Consequences; Let Speech Ring; Speech for All. Maybe an acronym? FIRST (Freedom in reason, speech, and thought, or in research, science, and teaching). Or a historical figure persecuted for speech: The Galileo Project, e.g.