When Michigan is first

I guess I am just lucky. When I grew up in California I felt I was in the center of the universe, and oddly enough, I was. As it turned out the 50 years I spent there were the years when California was number one in the nation for innovation and healthy lifestyle, and I was in the middle of it all. At 24 I had the house on the hill and enough BMWs and Porsches to wonder why everyone didn't do the same. I mean, I did it so why not everyone? Nothing special about me, no trust fund, no inheritance, only hard and continuous work from the time I was in high school forward. Even in my hippie days I held down a full time job (in accounting no less) and paid my way through school. Yes, I shared a modest apartment in the Valley, but, I was in my 20s, who didn't?

As it turned out California was number one during those days - in fact the economy was so good that the state's economy was usually placed somewhere between 6th and 8th in the world, easily number one in the nation overall. I was blessed to be a part of it.

But things change.

Though I had a good career in commercial real estate, the dog eat dog life, the lack of community, care, and the overall wellness of people to each other and their place in the world (whew) wasn't what I hoped it would all be. So, a few years after having my son I began to change that life. No more house on the hill, no more fancy car, hello school. Once again I returned to a place that I had always felt was my calling in one way or another. A few years in art school later, now minus what had been a good marriage (he didn't want a woman who didn't earn money) I floundered and then finally found my way into grad school. There was no turning back now. I was the biggest pain in the ass that most of my grad school profs had seen in a while (and I understand now and respectfully thank you for putting up with me) I never stopped until I reached that point where I was a PhD (post hole digger as my Oklahoma friends called it) and at 50 was searching for a job.

I left California. I found my tenure track position and future in Michigan. It was a nexus time. Little did I know that California was about to have the ride of a lifetime up and then crash, crash, crash. I left just as the ride began and now from afar I hear the Goverator making budget cuts only Michigan can truly appreciate.

But Michigan, my new home, was now in the lead and had been almost from the time I moved here 10 years ago. Each year the cuts were more onerous. There was no fat to cut, and the cuts keep on coming. With GM going into bankruptcy it hit Ypsilanti yet again. We have been and continue to cut into the bone, amputating limbs- in education (of all things) and everywhere else now. As us academics looked around (especially those who had no ties to the Big 3) we could see the tsunami coming, and come it has.

Despite long impassioned talk with friends and colleagues we had to agree that the auto industry had to come down. They had done nothing for years but make money off the backs of their consumers. They never looked at the 50,000 feet that my partner says I have the uncanny (and irritating)ability to do. The car makers did not think of what they were doing to the nation, how the world had changed, what were setting themselves up for by depending on unions when the new plants opening in America opened in right to work states (good pay, no union, no pension). A few years ago the cost to pay pensions and health care was estimated at $2,00 per car, and then last month David Littmann, senior economist for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said that unions had "strangled this state to death." In many ways he is right- even for states outside of Michigan. Notice that GM opened and is now on "stand by" in its union plant in Tennessee, while nearby non-union Nissan nearby has expanded. GM was greedy, and the workers and consumers were hoodwinked. Education was lacking. It didn't take much to see where the world was going. My trips to Germany educated me about where the affluent and more sustainable world was going. I checked out everything I could by traveling there and learning and seeing the life that could be had by moving over to sustainability.

I studied Michigan and agree, it is a manufacturing state and will stay that way for a while (especially if the education continues to be cut as it has been over the past decade), but disagree that we need to keep our manufacturing jobs - or at least the ones that were part of the first Industrial Revolution (the one that began in the nineteenth century). It is NOT going to happen - at least not how it has been in the past.

Okay, so here I go again. We can be a manufacturing state, but we must start the New Industrial Revolution based on cradle-to-cradle technology and biomimicry. Both will require returning to school for many, but it will also give jobs to the many who now need them - once they are educated to the future, not only for Michigan, but for the world. If you want an overall book to explain the needs and directions we need to aim, go to Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce. Very impressive.

I grew up in one state that led the world and then moved to another state that also led the world. Michigan is number one in the highest unemployment rate in the nation (April 2009 at 12.9%, while California is at a measly 11.9%*). It is effectively 20% right now when you see all the people who have given up, and those who have no unemployment benefits because their small business can't take it any more. Yes, we need to do many things including lowering business taxes, and reducing the power of unions across the board in Michigan. We need to educate the workers (and management) but we also need to understand that when we adopt a triple bottom line economy that endorses energy efficiency, renewable energy, cradle-to- cradle industry, we won't need unions as we have in the past. With environmental and social equity woven into the economic bottom line we won't need them. The company, the workers, and the environment will be healthy. How bad is that?

*It must be noted that California's unemployment rate is also skewed. Its informal economy, mostly employing illegal workers pays no taxes and no unemployment. It has become so bad that many Mexicans are returning home.

Sustainable shopping

Almost every year I visit my brother in Berlin. I have, over the years, become enamored with the style of life in this city. I have written before about how bikes are the norm in transportation, but now I am expanding my repertoire by going out there myself (while my brother is working) and discovering what life is like here.

My brother is in his 40s and has lived in Berlin for 17 years without owning a car. We go on biking holidays on the weekends (along with many others) and with a few exceptions on terrible weather days, he rides the bike everywhere. Everyone else does too. Very few wear helmets, because they don’t have to. This is not Michigan where it is the duty of every driver to seemingly aim for that bicyclist on the street. Like one Ypsilanti man who yelled at me the other day, “Why don’t you get an SUV?!” because I had the nerve to get exercise and put less CO2 into the air. The nerve of some people to not drive a car in Motown. But I digress….

Today I rode my bike to go shopping for dinner. Eating in Europe, I have discovered over the years, is not the same as in the states. First of all, unless you are wealthy, you don’t have the space in your apartment (or a large refrigerator) to store all the food that Americans typically have. So shopping is an almost daily routine, but not the onerous drive to the off ramp on the outskirts to shop in a store the size of a warehouse (all to “save” a few pennies on way too many of whatever it is you want to buy. Oh and to spend $ in gas to do it).

Instead, dinner is around almost every corner. Yeah, sure a lot of it is little cafes with tables on the street (this isn’t bad either), but there is a wealth of little bakeries, vegetable stands and smaller markets where one can bike to and then carry home on the back of the bike their ingredients for the next few meals. I know there are some big box stores as in America, but it is not the ordinary choice when you don’t own or drive a car, which is what living in European cities is all about. Many people do not own cars. Everything they need is close by and there are many choices. Every block has another small set of shops offering unique goods, bakeries, and clothes. Entrepreneurs abound in this city. It is really fun. And there are jobs galore for everyone who is selling what they believe in, not what they have been assigned that day in a company they have no ownership in.

Out with the Walmarts, and in with the small owners. Yes, it may cost a little more in the shop, but is it better to pay for unemployment and depression medicine for those displaced from their business, or to frequent a local shop where they know you and are willing to please? When was the last time you had that in America?

I look at Ypsi and I see the shops closing. The art shop is no longer, some of the few restaurants we have, a market, a local clothing shop, a nursery...... Let's keep people employed in doing the things they love and have an ownership interest in, rather than keep Walmart running an unsustainable show.

The Susan Boyle of Universities

By now we all know who Susan Boyle is, and if you are like me, are not ashamed to admit that you have watched her audition for Britain's Got Talent several times. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY The underdog with a mighty gift. Someone from whom we expect nothing, and receive much more than we may be able to give. Someone who reaches and teaches us.

Eastern Michigan University is the Susan Boyle of Universities. Not only that, but we have so many potential Susan Boyles at our university. It is a match made in heaven, but we have not, perhaps, appreciated what we have.

I have always believed we all have a gift. For many of us, most of us, our gift will never be realized as Susan's has. But it does not mean it will not be recognized, only that we may not have that instant success, and we may not want that. Let's hope her notoriety does not fizzle as fast as the firecracker that she sent off.

First a caveat: I just read Mitch Albom's cynical column about Susan. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009904190439 He expresses something that lingered inside me after the initial shock of her talent--what if it was a setup? What is there is a catch? Oh, I do hope this does not turn out to be. Let's hope her talent is real and she is who she says she is. But our world can be so manipulated today that you MUST question everything you see or hear. But for the moment, let us beleive that this is all as it seems, and take the lesson.

That brings me to the title of this blog - The Susan Boyle of Universities - good ole Eastern Michigan University. Downtrodden, maligned, overworked, shabby, antiquated, unfashionable---in a word, dowdy. As dowdy as Miss Boyle appears to be on the outside. But as with Miss Boyle what you see is not what you get. It is easy to be judged as yet another Brittany or Jessica, but not so easy to truly be what that outside package promises.

Eastern has many problems, and perhaps a little shining through of that inner beauty would help us all appreciate the dedication and care that many of the professors lavish on the students who show their Susan Boyle selves to us. We don't get many pretty packages at our school, but instead those who find themselves here for a variety of reasons, often tied to a down turned economy and the unexpected shock of being the first in your family to attend college. In a town where a high school diploma has been more than enough to have the house, the SUV, and a boat, in a town that has little need for college, we have students trying to understand what has happened to the Michigan life their parents lived.

We educate many teachers at EMU. We produce a lot of teachers, more than most schools in America. Many of the students turn to EMU because teaching is something they understand after K-12. They hardly know what other possibilities lie before them, or what their own particular "Susan Boyle" gift is. We all have a gift. Our gift can be something innocuous and seemingly unheralded, but haven't we all known people who have touched our lives, not by their intellect, or their talent, but for their caring, their love, their passion? They may only touch the few in their lives, but they make a difference and if believed in and practiced honestly, it spreads across the world. At EMU, we do produce teachers (some of whom will be wonderful!) but we produce much more. Our faculty often finds the real gems inside of these students and let that shine through - like finding a scruffy treasure and refining it so all can see its worth.

Not everyone is made to be a teacher, but they end up at EMU because they still don't understand who they are. They just know that teaching is something they know, have seen, has been part of their lives. But college can be more than just 4 or 5 years of study along a path set in stone. College is the last time you may get to know who you are and believe in yourself. The last time that you can be your own Susan Boyle and show the world what you are really made of. You may be a great teacher one day, but explore while in college. Experiment. Find your way--YOUR way. Not the way set in stone by some educational matrix.

But be honest in that exploration. This does not mean to make college one long drinking spree or free ride provided by your parents, but as the chance you have to let your passion ride on that roulette of life. Your number can come up at any time. Be ready. Be Susan. When her time came, she was ready. It did not come from nowhere.

Let the Susan Boyle of Universities help you do this. Don't judge this book by its cover. There are untold opportunities if you only allow yourself to actually invest yourself into being the best YOU
can be. Our school may not be much to look at. The classrooms may be frumpy. Our technology antiquated. The faculty overworked. But inside each of us the ember of care still simmers waiting to help that student who will shine through give us that Susan Boyle moment.

So I sign off for this semester. Thank you Don, Doug, Beck, Liz, Robin, Robert for making my last year. Thank you Gerald, Sara, Thomas, Kris, Michael, David, and Tom for teaching me by teaching you, for taking the chance to be you. Thank you Diane, Lynn, Doug, Ross, David for letting me help you continue your search for you.

Bikes EMU

Frustration is my middle name. If one were to wonder why a school like EMU is the way it is today (very dysfunctional) one need look no farther than what I have been made to go thru putting this student organization together.

We, a cohort of dedicated students, and I, the faculty member who has tried to hold this together, have been working for more than a year now to make Bikes EMU work. In January a group of students presented their case to the Student government and after a very frustrating hold up (2 months previously) were able to supposedly secure the seed money for our organization. This required untold hours of the students, both in attending meetings and writing a student organization constitution and bylaws.

Then the fun began.

Our organization needs tools and bike parts for this to work. We have some 70 or 80 used bicycles now that have been donated from various local enterprises. They are all in need of some type of repair. We have an excellent student worker who has been very available to teach the rest of us about bike maintenance.

But we are unable to access any of the money.

Meanwhile, I have been fronting the organization out of my pocket, but even after days and days of roaming the halls to try and come up with an answer, I have none, and no money. Staff (who commiserate with me) have tried to access the money, tried to get a card to access the money, but we have been told that we need to requisition each item we need. Well we need about 200 items minimum) and the time and the cost (I have heard it costs the university about $60 for each requisition) make this untenable.

So now it is almost April and the student involvement is dying off because we can't get any of the money. There is supposed to be a meeting tomorrow, but what was once 15 students, is now maybe 3 or 4. And we have all these bikes that could work, but I must spend my own money (and we still haven't figured out how I will be reimbursed), which I have done, in order to have anything to work on.

This doesn't bode well for the university. Everyone says they want more student involvement, more community work, more sustainable actions, but when the students and faculty try to do it, it is a waste of our time.
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Meanwhile, more students are riding bikes, and there aren't enough bike racks already. When we bring our bikes aboard then what will happen?

Begin A New

I have been very busy. With only 2 weeks of preparing for 4 classes including one that I am still shaping on Sustainable development I just have not had time to write about the many things I want to write about. But just for a moment now, before I plow back into work I would like to comment on what happened yesterday.

It was the first time in years that I saw a lot of hope on a lot of faces. It felt good. It brought tears to my eyes. While I had my doubts about this untried man, I have to admit I am impressed and that same hope lies in me. I want to believe. I want to trust again. It has been a long time coming.

For example, my son, who recently graduated from college, does not have a job now. He is angry and unable to get past the only thing he has known his adult life - a corrupt and lying administration that stood for everything he was taught not to believe in. I am certain there are others who are also suffering from that lack of faith and trust, others who have not ever had the chance to have a role model in our leadership (a word I use uneasily still) and think that some of the goodness of people and the hope of a better future will be theirs too. I hope that the healing will begin and that just establishing an administration of accountability and trust, no matter the trials that lay before us, will bring people like my son to realize the possibilities if we take hold of the power we do have (and I am not talking about hubris, beating on the chest, power) and work it to make America a new type of leader - a sustainable and healthy country where change for the better can happen for all, not just those who live by the "it's not personal, its business" motif. It is personal. The good, hard working, honest people who are squashed by those who have only economic profit in mind are the meek who will inherit the Earth. It is time for living by the triple bottom line and make the environment and social equity a part of business and let us all bathe in the light.

In his speech Obama mentions environment as part of all the equations and without saying so, opened the door to sustainability and a new manufacturing era, with far less waste and pollution. That is of course what I read into it, but I may not be alone.

I too have hope. God bless America, but not just America alone. God must bless us all and lead us to the next level of our destiny. It will be so good to finally have the space to hope again.