Emily Dickenson has a poem that ends "and sequence raveled out of sound, like balls upon a floor."
It's one of those phrases that haunts me. It has been haunting me especially recently as several aspects of life that seemed to stand in order have scattered and rolled around as if struck by unseen forces.
Like balls upon a floor, in fact.
The easiest to talk about is that the CSO's and my undergraduate institution has just lost accreditation. Now they are appealling the decision and it sounds like the litigation will go on so long that theoretically I could help by the time it is finishing up. And it keeps the accreditation as long as it is fighting it.
My acceptance to law school will be fine, says the expert on such things whom I called to discuss the issue. (It took a village to get me into law school, and staying is totally up to me, but those insecurities are a whole 'nother post.)
So, putting aside the worry about me, I am really bummed that St. Andrews is facing these problems. The accreditation concerns are all about the finances of the school, which have always been shitty, rather than the academics, which are spotty but not unusually so.
Worried little groups of alums and faculty have gathered, bitching and talking and trying to deal.
My initial reaction to this was an uncharictaristic burst of school spirit. In a letter to my smart friend Pam, I wrote:
Making the value of the degree suck because of pulling the
accreditation so that it won't suck if the school were to close
reminded me very much of a case I read about recently where a judge
sentenced two teenagers to jail and the sex offender list because they
took pictures of themselves having sex and sent them to each other.
His justification? If such pictures of them, that were technically
kiddie porn, got out it could ruin their lives.
Destroying something so it doesn't destroy itself makes no sense to
me. I realize this is an oversimplification, but it doesn't seem like
much of one.
Having read more about the issue, I am seeing it as more complicated than that, but my loyalty is basically with the place I went to school, and my husband went to school, and my mom went to school, and my dad went to school.
And my belief that there are many worse small colleges out there.
Things feel scattered right now, and having one more place that felt a bit like home being threated is not a welcome addition to my emotional landscape.
CC
3 comments:
Sorry to hear that, just as I was to hear the news about Antioch. In a time when the college-age population is getting larger and competition for admissions is getting harder, it's surprising and disappointing to know that some institutions are struggling.
Whatever happens, St. Andrews was accredited when it granted your degree, so I would think your own academic credentials shouldn't be affected.
Seeing your alma mater struggle is understandably painful, but it's a vicarious pain.
Just want to say that if I am going to make it through law school (as it looks like I will) with all of my family issues on top of my own problems with relationships and procrastination, I think you will be fine. You seem to be pretty good at hanging onto what you really want.
I am sorry for your pain. What can one do?
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