COLLOQUY

THE QUESTION

RESPONSES

BACKGROUND

Of course, once an individual has surrendered to fear, he/she does a poor job of self-nurturance or community building. Self-trust needs to be at the core of good, solid creative work of any kind. And self-trust is undercut by fear.

In the social sciences at the University of Chicago where I got my Ph.D., graduate students had (and perhaps still have) an unsanctioned fall ritual of a "Pumpkin Suicide Party" in which each participant carves a jack-o'-lantern, and then all the pumpkins are ceremonially thrown off the roof of a student residential building. It's a sort of Jonestown-in-effigy, held near Halloween (a time for power-reversing rituals in general). Presumably, this mock suicide provided catharsis for some of the pressure of elite graduate education.

It is not inevitable that fear and insecurity should operate among the talented. Phil Jackson coached the six-time champion Bulls using methods that were more nurturing than power-wielding. Students should choose advisers who are good coaches, rather than simply good scholars.

-- Cindy Clark, Rutgers Camden (Adjunct faculty) (posted 10/23, 9:44 a.m., E.D.T.)

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