In the summer term leading up to my senior year in college, I took a sociology course as prescribed by the Design Comm syllabus. Class was held in a small lecture hall seating less than a 100 students.
For the life of me, I cannot remember my professor’s name, but I do remember lots of things about him. He was in his early 60s and had been tenured more than a decade, maybe two. He wore a jacket and tie straight out of the 1970s every day, even though we were in the heat of the summer. And, he was completely out of touch with the times and his students.
One of my fellow students who sat near me on the front row was a big smart ass. He always had an inappropriate question for every topic, most of which the professor did his best to answer authoritatively, but often times missed the mark. The boy did served up constant jabs to get laughs out of the girls sitting around him.
One day we were discussing matters of a sexual nature that I will not delve into here out of respect for gentle readers. The boy on the front row posed some questions that were clearly out of line, but the professor trudged on. He tried to answer intelligently, maturely and with some dignity. But the boy pressed on him new levels of absurdity.
Truthfully, I did not learn much in that class. But I did learn one lesson that day that has stuck with me and I will try my best to relay it here.
On that day, I watched the professor closely as he was being grilled. I looked into his face, into his eyes. I saw fear. His confidence was gone. His authority had been undermined. I watched him being torn down and witnessed him fall apart. It was truly horrible.
I think about that professor when I publicly post these ramblings I scrawl together. I hope that I am not out of touch like him and that I have something of value to offer — a word of encouragement, a worthwhile opinion or a fresh idea.
Much like my sociology professor, I take great pleasure in sharing my knowledge, but in our society today, where it is so easy to instantly offer up a backhanded remark, it makes me nervous to step out on the limb for fear of being attacked or ridiculed. The lack of civil discourse today perhaps is a post for another time.
I also think about my professor when I am presenting — actually getting up in front of a group of people and sharing my knowledge or selling a new idea. For me, I’ve found it’s harder to get up in front of people I know rather than a group of strangers. If you know the audience, there is an inherent bias one way or another towards you. Everyone has this bias in them as we spend time with and get to know people. This makes presenting hard at times because I work with people who can resemble the boy from the front row of my sociology class. I really start thinking about the look I saw in my professor’s eyes and pray I do not have the same look of dread.
It’s hard to get in front of people – online or in person – and share yourself, but this is the single most important thing we can do. Not we as creative people, but we as humans. If we make like a clam and hide away in our shells, we will never make progress on pushing humanity forward. As designers, as writers, as producers or developers, isn’t that the crux of what we are here to do?
The lesson I learned that summer day all those years ago was about courage. The day after that horrific incident where the professor had been shredded in front of his class, he showed up again, dressed in one of his vintage 1970s avocado colored jackets with an equally ugly wide tie, and conducted class.