The LTFTU Committee

I have recently been thinking a lot about faculty-administration relations, particularly about the various reasons why they might go bad. There seem to be a lot more of those reasons than there are reasons that they might work. I was reminded of when, just a year ago, a classic case of faculty/administration dysfunction erupted because of the actions of a particularly problematic committee: the LTFTU Committee.

I have learned many things from my good friend Marsue, who is the rector of the Episcopal church that Jeanne and I attend. She’s a great story-teller; in the midst of one of her entertaining and inspiring sermons not long ago, she brought us into the world of the Quakers. Apparently when a couple is thinking of marriage, or a person believes she or he is called to ministry, they come before a committee of fellow-Quakers charged with the task of helping the persons in question discern in which direction the divine wind is blowing. This committee is called the “Clarity of Thought Committee.” The WHAT???? I thought to myself as I sought to keep from busting out laughing in the middle of church. That’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one. In my experience, committees are many things—but never centers of clear thinking.

Committees abound on my campus, as they do just about anywhere human beings congregate for any purpose whatsoever. Many of these committees go by acronyms. There’s CART (Committee for Academic Rank and Tenure), the CCC (Core Curriculum Committee), CCAT (pronounced “see-cat”, the Core Curriculum Administrative Implementation Team), and many others. These are powerful and influential committees, designed to invade and mess up the lives of unsuspecting faculty when they least expect it. But all of these pale in comparison to the most powerful committee of all, the LTFTUC–the Let’s Totally Fuck Things Up Committee.

No one is sure of the origins of the LTFTUC; but I’m convinced its origins precede every human institution. Lots of LTFTUC origin myths are out there; my favorite is contained in Books One and Two of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Satan and the rebellious angels have fought a valiant war against God and the obedient angels, and upon losing the war have been cast into hell. Everyone is lying around on the ground more or less stunned, wondering “What the fuck just happened?” and “Where the hell am I?” as they begin to stir. As soon as everyone gets their bearings, Satan starts a conversation that is strangely reminiscent of an academic department meeting. The topic under consideration is “Now what do we do?” Moloch makes an impassioned “we may have lost the battle, but we can still win the war” speech, urging an immediate reengagement of God’s forces in combat. Belial advises otherwise, arguing that it’s clear that they are not strong enough to prevail, and anyways this new spot—“hell,” you call it?—isn’t so bad. A bit of paint, a few throw pillows, we can make this place more than okay. Finally Chair Satan speaks, offering a third possibility. “I’ve heard that God has a new project,” he says, “a project that includes creating some neat new creatures that God seems really obsessed with. I say we send someone to check it out and do whatever they can to totally fuck God’s plans for his new toy up. I even volunteer to be the one to go.” And thus the LTFTUC was created. I’ve heard it said that when Satan fell from heaven he fell into a church choir. I can see that, but according to Milton, he created the LTFTUC.

The LTFTUC is alive and kicking anywhere human beings make plans and try to make stuff work. It is alive and kicking on my campus. I’ve been a member of the LTFTUC before, although I don’t ever remember having volunteered or even being assigned to be on the committee. There I am, one of a group of usually 6-10 equally sincere and hard-working people with an assigned task. Sometimes it works, and sometimes despite our best intentions and efforts we turn into the LTFTUC, turning every purse we can find into a pig’s ear and bars of gold into hunks of lead. I was a member of committee XYZ for a couple of years, the hardest working and most regularly productive committee I’ve ever been involved with. The year after I left the committee, XYZ all of a sudden started cranking out decisions that, in light of their usual product, seemed random and mean-spirited. There was lots of discussion on campus about what was up with XYZ—the most plausible was that, at least for a semester or so, XYZ had turned into the LTFTUC.

A few years ago, my home department was conducting a national search for a new tenure track colleague. We discussed and voted on the area in which we were searching—we decided that we would search for someone specializing in the philosophy of X. My department is sharply divided ideologically on almost every important issue; in this case, there was disagreement about what exactly we were looking for. There were several options:

1. Hire the best philosopher of X we can find.

2. Hire the best philosopher of X who happens to be a Catholic.

3. Hire a Catholic who appears to know something about the philosophy of X.

4. Hire a Catholic; whether he or she knows anything about philosophy of X is irrelevant.

The search committee was formed and in short order turned into a subcommittee of the LTFTUC. The non-search committee members of the department assumed we were looking for 1, at worst 2, while the majority of the search committee members decided we were looking for 4 but would settle (maybe) for 3. All hell broke loose (remember the origins of the LTFTUC), starting with a six-hour long department meeting. Really—this has become legendary on campus, along with the ensuing virtual bloodletting and nastiness that has yet to heal. The LTFTUC did its job, and the Philosophy department passed the English department in the contest for “Most Dysfunctional Department on Campus.”

Just when one might think that the LTFTUC has disbanded, it reconvenes on a different topic, as they did at the college a bit over a week ago. A speaker was scheduled to give a talk on campus on same-sex marriage, a topic more controversial on a Catholic campus than many other places. A problem with the format arose, the problem was apparently solved, then the LTFTUC convened. I wasn’t at the meeting, but my guess is that it went something like this:

Chair: Here is our charge: Cancel this event in such a way as to totally fuck things up. Any suggestions?

Committee Member 1: Let’s be sure to alienate all of the students by not letting them know that the event is being cancelled or why.

Member 2: Let’s find ways to make several elements of the student body unsure about whether they are welcome.

Member 3: Let’s make sure that the communication of the cancellation to the faculty and staff is filled with both confusion and obfuscation.

Member 4: Let’s make sure that we specifically and seriously insult and belittle several members of our own faculty.

Member 5: Let’s make sure that the whole story goes viral to national news outlets, starting with the NY Times, the Huffington Post, the Atlantic Monthly on-line, and let’s see if we can get Laurence O’Donnell to make it a lead story on his MSNBC show.

Member 6: When we receive pushback from various constituencies, let’s make sure that we double down on the obfuscation and confusion even more, adding some half-truths and outright falsehoods.

Member 7: Let’s make sure that we do this a couple of days after an interview is published in which the Pope says that Catholics should lighten up on the obsession with abortion and homosexuality. This way, we can let everyone know that we are literally more Catholic than the Pope.

Member 8: And let’s be sure to piss off hundreds, if not thousands, of alums.

Chair: Our work is done here. You all have your marching orders—go for it!

And they did—mission accomplished on all fronts, and the LTFTUC’s work is done until reconvened at an unknown date and location in the near future. As their motto says: “SNAFU.” Situation normal, all fucked up.

Last Thursday, at the time when the cancelled lecture would have taken place, a student-organized meeting in response to the cancellation took place instead. As I watched 200+ students, along with a number of faculty and alums, express both their anger and disappointment with the college they love in ways both respectful and constructive, I thought “maybe this time the LTFTUC isn’t going to have the last word.” Sometimes phoenixes rise from ashes and order emerges from chaos, despite the best LTFTUC efforts. This committee shares something in common with vampires—it doesn’t operate well in the light. But that’s where open discussions and honest disagreement thrive.