I sat in the back of Macbride Hall for a reason. I wanted to be invisible. I wanted to slink in early unseen and slink out in the crowd unnoticed. As a result, even the last row of this large auditorium was too close to the stage for me. So I sat in the back of the balcony located at the back of the auditorium. Hundreds of students were a buffer between me and the teacher. Just as I liked. One anonymous face lost in the haystack of 18 and 19-year-old students.
Hiding made sense, of course, because a madman ran the class. Thin, wiry, aggressive. A dangerous man. Equal parts circus master and brilliant teacher. He prowled and shouted and laughed and whispered trying to engage us. He wanted us to think — about right and wrong, what is a meaningful life, examine our unexamined beliefs, and, of course, how to think about death and dying. It was exhilarating and terrifying. I was mesmerized.
“You pay your money and make your choice,” as he liked to say. So buckle up.
“Joe, good job.”
Jay Holstein, a religion professor at the University of Iowa, handed me my graded test after I waited in the long line of students at the end of class.
Aargh . . . busted. Anonymity gone. Nailed. The madman had my number.
So I became a religion major. An unbeliever for sure, but a religion major. I took every course Holstein had to offer and then some he made up. It was heaven. He was heaven. Sure, law school, marriage, children, a career as a prosecutor, and now a writer for Cityview, all followed. But my religion studies with Jay Holstein . . . that was the beginning.
Now fifty years later . . .
“I am the only tenure-track professor in the Drake religion program. I have been at Drake for 17 years.”
Brad Crowell, weary-eyed from final exams grading, and perhaps weary from fighting to save his job, gives a small smile.
So, Brad, what’s all the hullabaloo about Drake shutting down the religion program?
Brad sighs. “For a university to stay afloat, where the number of students is getting smaller and state funding is diminishing, then the variable that often gets cut is the professors.”
Sure sure sure. I get it. Not enough students to justify your job. Not enough bang for the buck. The numbers never lie.
“No, religion didn’t have the numbers.” Brad pauses and then looks me in the eye. “But listen, are we training people to just get jobs? We also want our students’ world to get really big.”
What do you mean?
“Students are asked today, ‘What do you want to do when you finish?’ I ask students, ‘What do you want to explore while you’re here?'”
So what do you do now?
“Well, the program is gone. The minor is going to exist. I’ll be teaching classes that will qualify for the minor out of another department.”
It sounds like a death knell.
“I will run with the minor. Programs can be rebuilt. I think we can make the minor so good, Drake will stay with that. I still want important issues to be highlighted.”
So there you have it. A man teaching our kids about the big questions.
What big questions, you ask? Let me give you a few examples . . .
In my role as a prosecutor, I stood outside the two-story house in the dark of the early morning. A young man was dead. The police mulled around doing their police thing. I prepared a search warrant after seeing the body. The young man’s father was at my side. He was in deep anguish. “Why my boy?” he said to me in tears. “Why my boy?”
My new wife looked at me and said we should practice law part-time so that we would have time for family and other priorities. Really? But what about the money? And what about our reputation as lawyers because they say part-time lawyers aren’t real lawyers? And nobody will hire us both part-time, will they? What should we do?
I lay paralyzed in the hospital. Struck by a car while I biked. I had a trach and various other attachments to a body that was no longer mine. Pain was my new friend. And I was informed it was going to be a long rehab with no promises. How do I climb out of this?
Religion courses talk about the big questions. Not biology. Not computer science. And not business. Religion.
“You pay your money and make your choice,” said Jay Holstein, my religion professor those many years ago.
Amen to that.
Joe
Joe, I know these days I think it would be even more difficult for a person to choose a college major or technical school that speaks to you, and has the potential to “pay-off” financially in the future. I do admire people that acquire professional/technical skills. But that was not in the cards for me.
I often wonder what I thought I’d be doing with my English Lit. major and Philosophy minor in real life. Teaching was originally my goal, but I was shocked to learn, during my student teaching, that the most students care less about John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Shelley! 😉 Imagine that! 🙂
I think you know I worked many years in and around the justice system. It took me years to realize that this deep interest in literature helped me, as you say “answer the big questions”.
I was lucky enough to find a series of jobs that helped people find the best answers and resources. I like to think some of the jobs I held helped society at large. Joe, as a a former prosecutor you know helping individuals or helping society sometimes boil down to one or the other.
Well enough philosophizing 😉 But, I do feel sorry for those that did not experience my English Lit. teacher who would read Beowulf in a monotone, with their eyes rolled back into their head! When I think of it if I could survive that I could survive just about anything! 😉
Joe, I never took a course in religion despite many years at Iowa State, the University of Iowa and Drake. But I was fortunate in having instructors in economics and political science ask big questions and teach me that there were no pat answers to those questions. I am still searching for the answers . . . .
It sounds like Jay Holstein taught you more about being a respectable human, a mensch, and lawyer than all of those priests and law school professors ever did. And that’s pretty damn remarkable.
I never got to take a class from Holstein – my loss. I have heard so many sing his praises. And yes, Religion does ask the hard questions. How are you doing for answers? 🙂
Kaye
Absolutely love your writing & inquisitiveness. I am familiar w/ Mcbride Hall (considered going to med. school). My spiritual director (Catholic deacon) is an attorney, grad of U of I. My B.A’s are in Sociology & English. . . I have learned more from his Philosophy & Religion majors than from his juris doctorate & I am so grateful for BOTH of your ‘spiritual inclinations.’ Keep enriching all the lives you touch!