Professor Elam

You will only be with us here at A & M San Antonio for the equivalent of four  15 hour semesters. That can take two years or so. As one of my students remarked at the end of two years, 'I never realized it would go by so fast.' We had a faculty retreat Friday and talked about our strengths and weaknesses. Ours yours and A & M San Antonio, and we talked about what we want the experience to be for you. 

I will be the first to note that college is not what it used to be. The languid enjoyable experience of attending football games, seeing movies we had never seen and then  discussing them, reading new and different points of view. I can recall ducking into the Library to read Death of a Salesman, because a friend recommended it and I had never read it, which reminds me to put it on the movie list. Lee Cobb and Dustin Hoffman both played the role on Broadway.

School has been reduced into a Can you pass the TAKS TAAS or whatever exam in high school, if so we are done with you.  Community college is too often – here is the review, take the exam, bye bye, or perhaps some sort of social encounter experience passed off as education. So here we are with two years to go and counting. 

It is no mere chance accident or penalty that I am requiring you to read books, reflect and report on them. It is not mere chance accident that I am requiring you do the same with films. The point of college is to elevate you to a higher level of mental reflection. In one class this week  I asked if students could recall  Maslow's Heirarchy. 

The idea was to compare those five levels with the five levels of moral awareness in the ethics book. Problem was not one person could or did remember what Maslow was describing. I related this to the management profs Friday and they were astounded all  saying they had gone over that in class. Similarly the mgt profs relate that none of their students know anything about a financial statement after three semesters of accountng, not to mention finance. This will not do. 

The idea of a college degree is to connect these dots so to speak and rise to a higher level of perception. Students seem to achieve some of that but from their life experiences not from class. More is going on that passing the test don;t you see. 

At any rate, I am attempting to inject into my classes some of those experiences that we lost along the way.  I do realize that you will need to be able to write and present effectively. Your first promotion on the job will depend on it, blow that chance and you might as well change jobs.   

I can't re invent life as we know it and put all of you on a gorgeous campus with time for reflection.It is 2009  not 1969.  But we can do that in class which is why it is imperative that you arrive prepared and ready for intellectual engagement. 

All this was prompted by AMC broadcasting On the Waterfront Saturday morning. The film is on the list and won numerous awards, yes in B and W in 1954-5. I was struck by just how well the film is directed. When Marlon Brando reveals his part in luring Eva Marie Saint's brother Joey to his death, the director has a loud whistle in the background we cannot hear what Brando  is saying, we only see his tortured admission and then Eva's horrified reaction, realizing that her new love interest has caused the  loss of her brother. We see the result of their actions on their faces,  and each grappling with the results. Marlon Brando was the Matt Damon of that day, but frankly Matt has yet to rise to the artistic heights of Streetcar Named Desire or Waterfront. Bourne makes money but not classic memories. 

The photo at top is one of the most famous scenes in cinema, Rod Steiger, Brando's older brother tells him to make up his mind about testifying against the waterfront mob, or else. Brando responds that he coulda been a contender, if only Steiger had stood up for him at the right time. Instead the mob rigged the prize fight so Brando would lose, and as Brando says, he's a bum as a result. 

Great stuff that, and what ethics is all about. Accounting is after all just moving numbers around in that debit credit equation thing, and the rules are always changing. But how we treat one another, on the Waterfront of life and elsewhere, never changes. Socrates had that one right. Jeff Skilling sits in jail, Richard Fuld makes $300 M and is a free man, hmmm. 

I would certainly be glad to sponsor a film series, we would gather say early saturday morn and you can bring your teenagers, well if you can get them up that early, just to view the classics and discuss what it all means, that's college and that's why we are all here. No doubt there wold be a hundred reasons why students could not attend. Maybe but this chance only comes along once, and as Schlitz remarked, one had best grab for all the gusto one can as we only go round once. 

Or as Akroyd muses in Blues Brothers, half a tank of gas, a pack of cigarettes, 75 miles to Chicago, 

let's go.