Colleagues:

        I have followed the comments on Raven concerning academic
freedom with interest. My research speciality is the history of
teacher education in music. I have had the privilege of exploring the
archives of several universities trying to understand how and why
things have developed in universities and public schools as they
have. I am now working steadily on historical developments in
Tennessee.

        We have forgotten that most of the people who surround us and
whom we serve are only one generation or two out of the mountains.
Many are still impoverished. This is not to say that they do not
appreciate who we are or what we do,  but they do have a point of
view rooted culturally in their world, and they are aggressive
politically in promoting it.

        Past events in Tennessee in Tennessee may be instructive.

        Between 1900 and 1920, Tennessee built its university and
public school systems and codified education into law. It was an
uphill effort. Tennessee still suffered from the aftermath of war,
the serious economic downturn of the 1890's and a devastating
epidemic that killed most of its domestic animals and left most of
the state without meat or milk. The number of college and high
graduates was miniscule. Yet, great things were accomplished. For two
decades, Tennessee led the South in educational reform and
accomplishment.

        Tennessee leaders, in its colleges and Department of
Education, were exceptional. P.P. Claxton of the University of
Tennessee organized the statewide campaigns for education. He would
later move to Washington and work as an outstanding U.S. Commissioner
of Education through the administrations of three presidents.
Claxton, the state college and university presidents, the state
superintendent of schools worked as a team. They were well suited for
the task. Most were much like Claxton, who was educated in log
schools in the mountains, received a degree in two years from UT,
studied for graduate degrees at Johns Hopkins and in Leipzig,
Germany. He was a brilliant orator and promoter. Understanding the
Southern mind and culture, he spoke in every Tennessee county, and
with his teammates drew crowds of more than 100,000 in speeches that
lasted most of the day (most listeners walked or came in wagons to
the sites). In promoting an educational agenda, he drew on religious
metaphors, on the economic rationale, and on national and state
pride. Claxton had a well developed vision of what constituted an
educated person. That vision included the business/procedural, yet it
also included a fuzzier world of reflection, critical thinking, and
the world of the imagination. This man from the backwoods also
included music and the arts in his vision, as he chose study in
Leipzig because of its well-developed musical culture. Claxton,
Sidney G. Gilbreath at ETSU (then a normal school), and others had a
similar professional profile. As a group, they insisted that the
professors under them promote education through speeches and
publication.

        What lessons can be drawn from this? (1) I believe we have a
responsibility as educated people to promote higher education and to
explain to the people around us what that means through our everyday
contacts, as well as through speeches and publication.  We should not
assume that belief in education is a given and that people understand
the possibilities of it.  We should have faith that when people are
well informed ,they most often will make the right judgment.  (2) We
need to be extremely careful about who we help choose to lead us in
Tennessee universities, at all levels. Many of the people chosen have
been unsuitable and lack vision, cultural sensitivity, and
communication skills. Being able to hold forth on the stump might not
be such a bad thing, either. They need the vision thing, too. (3) We
need to chose colleagues who have a broad education.  We want our
students to be broadly educated (remember? all the things we insist
they learn!). We should apply the same standards to our searches. I
oppose hiring professors who know nothing about the arts: can't write
a poem, or never read good literature or study a foreign language or
sing. I oppose hiring people in the arts who can't write, who do not
understand statistics, or who will not participate in life of the
mind as well as in the life of artistic feeling.

Thanks,

William R. Lee
Music (yep) Department

By the way, one of UT's greatest faculty awards, is called the Claxton Award.