By firing me (and a few other faculty too,) the university's managers are essentially arguing that it would not make a difference to the university nor to the world.
I think otherwise.
Nor will they be able to convince me and the world that I was doing a "bullshit job," to use the phrase that the late anthropologist/commentator David Graeber coined in order to describe the modern economy. Graeber, whom I have quoted a lot in this blog, defined a bullshit job as being so completely pointless that even the person who has to perform it every day cannot convince himself there’s a good reason for him to be doing so.
My work was never pointless.
Of course, I have always mocked myself, like in this tweet from six years ago:
I often mocked myself in the classroom too. The jokes were about me--after all, they are the safest ones. After one of those jokes in an Honors class many years ago, a student, Ermine, loudly said something that made quite an impact on me. With a smile that seemed to suggest that he knew what I was doing, Ermine commented that I engaged in that kind of humor because I was super-confident about myself.
Guilty as charged!
A few years ago, a faculty colleague commented that I could very well be the university professor who is most known outside the university because of my commentaries in the newspapers. Whether or not I was the most known, I certainly did receive emails from people I had never met. They were responding to my commentaries in the papers.
Like this person who wrote on March 21, 2005:
Sir
Thank you for your excellent guest opinion and for your work with students. We fear for our country's future as it is more and more difficult to discern reality from make believe. You are a bright light.
Of course, even a couple of university personnel wrote to me.
After having read that same commentary, a then dean at the university, Hilda R., emailed in March, 2005:
Nice Op Ed piece in the Statesman Journal recently, Sriram. You help make WOU look great.
"You help make WOU look great."
I am now being laid off because the president and provost have decided that I don't help make WOU look great.
A year later, in September 2006, it was another dean at the university, Stephen S., who emailed me: "Sriram, Nice editorial! Keep up the campaign."
The campaign has been put to an end.
Perhaps you are thinking that I am providing old data, and I have been the cliched deadwood since. Nope; I stopped counting the number, but I think I was getting closer to 200 newspaper commentaries. Or, maybe it is past that number?
In April 2017, the executive director of the state's higher education commission surprised me with this email:
Dr. Khe,
I just wanted to say that I really appreciated the column you submitted to Oregon Live. It is heartening to hear that the election has generated the type of student interest that you describe, and that you are at WOU helping respond to those questions, guide those discussions, and expose more Oregonians to the field of geography. Such important work. Thank you!
The president and provost have decided that I don't need to respond to students' questions and guide their discussions anymore--especially if they are in the field of geography.
There is one feedback from a reader whom I have never met that I carry around in my wallet. A talisman of sorts. It is from 2008.
I was fortunate to have had such a meaningful job for all these years.
Though I wish that the job had lasted a tad longer, it had to end sometime; after all, nothing goes on forever.
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