Monday, July 24, 2017

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Lagos State University in Photos, no. 1

Excellent points, Moses.
The lost sheep parable by Jesus was all about this.
Anyone with three kids will spend more time and resources on the bad one than the two good ones!!!
We just have to do more work, unfortunately.
More work
More work
More work
Until we are tired.
TF
Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 24, 2017, at 11:57 AM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:

Oga Falola,

When I make these critical assessments, I deliberately generalize. That should be obvious to those who know my rhetorical gestures on this topic already. I omit the usual caveats and qualifiers. Of course, there are some exceptions to the picture I am painting---serious, committed scholars. teachers, and mentors in the Nigerian higher education system (some of them are my friends and collaborators). But that is precisely the problem. They are the exception. We need a critical mass of people who are committed to these ideals. That should begin with admitting that many of those who are teaching and mentoring our young people today have absolutely no business being in the academy. And there are way too many of them. If you got a PhD in history and became a professor of history without ever having to go to an archive, how the heck can you mentor a budding historian? How can you teach them how to navigate and make sense of an archive? 

You and I get an ear full whenever we interact with colleagues in Nigerian universities about how deep and hopeless the problem is. Some people from this side who wanted to go and help have been forced back; they had to relocate back to the West, giving up because the committed scholars you mentioned are too few and far between to make a difference. Zeleza and Amutabi seem to be doing well, although I have no detail of their battles and their results. You and I have had several conversations on this topic and we're on the same page. We go to these institutions and see things. You have told me numerous stories that I was not even aware of, stories that are even more scandalous than the ones I saw or experienced myself. Not only that, people within the system bring us the details of the rot and dysfunction. I informally mentor several Nigerian graduate students and you'd cry if you heard their stories. They are being let down by a corrupt and inhumane system and by clueless academics. Some of them who cross over to this side struggle immensely because they had been shortchanged by those who should have prepared them for higher academic challenges. You and I differ only in one sense: you seem to believe that praising people when they do not deserve it and giving effort grades will encourage change in the system. I believe otherwise. I believe that such false praise enables more dysfunction and encourages more impunity. I believe though that what both of us are doing are necessary. Someone needs to constantly call out the culprits of the rot beyond the hackneyed cry of funding. Professorial culprits need to be called out and shamed. At the same time, helping with collaborations, visits, donations, etc is also important, as is acknowledging the effort of those who are seeking to rise above the rot or live out the ideals of the profession. It is not an either/or situation, which is why I give you credit for your efforts. My critique is a systemic one.

By the way, Jennifer, who is a friend, has been in touch about her new AUN gig. She will do well there. AUN is being run on a different model. There is no ASUU there, and recruitment and retention are strictly on merit. Rewards are commensurate with measurable commitments to the ideals of teaching, research, and mentorship, not determined by a blanket national system of remuneration that does not reward or punish individual efforts. Zeleza's institution is also run on a similar model as AUN.

On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 10:21 AM, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
Moses:

These ideas of commitment to higher education—teaching, research and mentorship—are there, from Malami Buba in Sokoto, Onwuka Njoku in Nsukka, Sati in Jos, Adeshina at Ibadan, Imbua at Calabar, Zeleza in Nairobi, Amutabi as Vice Chancellor, etc. etc. etc. that we have no choice but to empower them. My co-editor of African Economic History, Jennifer, has just moved to become the VC of American University in Yola, Nigeria, leaving her job here in the US. We must empower her. A catalog of bad things can be compiled, but where does this leave us? How many people will pack their luggage in Austin and move to Yola? I was approached for this same position and I turned it down.

How do we empower them, as a question, is what makes me sleepless. We must empower them, even minimally by words of encouragement.

We must cumulate what we do, you and I and others.

TF

Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
104 Inner Campus Drive
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)


From: dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of moses <meochonu@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Monday, July 24, 2017 at 9:33 AM
To: dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Lagos State University in Photos, no. 1

Gloria,

In this particular case, I wish the glass of beer was half-full. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no beer in the glass. The answer to your question is yes. I answer yes because I want to link it to an argument that Ibram Kendi makes in his award winning book on the history of racist ideas, which is that the discourse of black moral perfection as a prerequisite for equality, which several black intellectuals, including Du Bois for a time, bought into, is a kind of racism, a kind of bigotry. He calls it uplift suasion. He argues and I agree that black folks who internalize this discourse of black moral perfection as a precondition for them obtaining what their humanity entitles them to, and who do not stop to ask why no such perfection is required of white folk, are guilty of benign racism. You could call it soft bigotry. 

However, what one is advocating is not perfection in Nigerian higher education. We want a modest commitment to the ideals of higher education--teaching, research, and mentorship. Crude relativism is not a productive retort to this advocacy because it is, once again, the soft bigotry of low expectations.

On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 7:31 AM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@ccsu.edu> wrote:

 The next time I meet Profs. Falola and Ochonu, I plan to hand each 
of them a glass of beer,  and find out  whether they  each  find the glass in  hand,   half-full,  or conversely, half- empty. Each glass will be identical, contain the same amount of beer, and will be 50% of total capacity.


         One more question:  Is there such a thing as the bigotry of
        hyper -high expectations?


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
8608322815  Phone



From:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Kenneth Harrow <harrow@msu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2017 5:12 AM
To: usaafricadialogue

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Lagos State University in Photos, no. 1
 
Well, this is THE question, what can we do. I admire toyin's efforts at supporting the scholarship of junior african colleagues. His conference, the subsidiary conferences and conferences he has promoted over the years, give people a place to present their work and to bolster the cv. Offers to help in publication are the most important in our profession. that's what we do: research and publish. Any help, mentoring, suggestions of where to place articles or books, etc., is probably the most valuable thing we can do to advance the careers of african academics here.
All of that work translates into supporting academics in africa as well, although the conditions are radically different. 
I also do believe supporting a publication, just to get it published, is meaningless. Supporting a publication so as to get a scholar's work out there, is meaningful. This is a real distinction. I would hope my simple ideas of mentoring and promoting scholarship—not pro forma, not just to put it on a cv or get promoted—but to join in the scholarly discussions we all try to share, that is what we should be doing. In large, like toyin, or in small, like reading a junior colleagues work and offering criticism. Not just to get it published, but to get it up to speed, to get it interesting. To believe in the value of the work, and to make it meaningful.
I believe in the value of this work. If we help those entering into the profession, if we regard it as our duty, the actions should follow.

ken

Kenneth Harrow

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

619 Red Cedar Rd

East Lansing, MI 48824

517-803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/


From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Saturday, 22 July 2017 at 16:06
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Lagos State University in Photos, no. 1

A tiny question:
What concrete things can we do? It is that concrete things that all of us must reflect upon.


Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 22, 2017, at 9:02 AM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:

Beautiful pictures from a beautiful campus. However, your over-the-top positive assessment of the university based on a brief visit, while consistent with your well known ideological project of showcasing the positive side of Africa, is tantamount to what Bill Maher calls the soft bigotry of low expectation. How many of these staff you speak of are committed to research and teaching? And how is LASU exempt from the widespread problems of poor research and teaching ethics, professorial impunity, ASUU tyranny, etc? And is LASU and UNILAG not the epicenters of "sorting." Are they free from the scourge of sexual harassment and sexual transactions in exchange for grades?

I realize that you're invested in a project of not criticizing or putting down African/Nigerian institutions and colleagues. That is understandable, given your extensive collaborations in multiple African universities. Some of us do not have such entanglements and the anxieties that come with them and are, moreover, past the point of caring about people's feelings. 

A whole generation of Nigeria's young men is being shortchanged and the country's future is being damaged and we must call culpable people out and criticize those deserving of criticism. We should not whitewash the mess or offer false or exaggerated praise in a patronizing manner. We diaspora Nigerians take offense when white people do that to us; we shouldn't do that to our continental institutions. Southern Nigerian universities do marginally better than northern ones, but they are riddled with the same problems that plague others. Nigerian universities have become incestuous national cake institutions where intellectual in-breeding, nepotism, ethno-religious insularity, and academic self-cloning reign and innovative thinking and interdisciplinary works are discouraged by academics wedded to formulaic, outmoded disciplinary templates.

We will tell the truth and refuse to be complicit in the ongoing collapse of public higher education in Nigeria. We're accountable to our conscience. This accountability is superior to any affinity we may have with colleagues and institutions back home.

On Sat, Jul 22, 2017 at 6:46 AM, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
In over 300 photos, I will bring to you the impressive campus of Lagos State University, Nigeria. The Departments are all well staffed, and the students are incredibly talented and energetic. The millions of African young men and women represent our future, and their abilities at imaginations and inventions are so extraordinary that we may not even know that we are witnessing a revolutionary moment. To those who speak ill of these young men and women, they should check their thinking processes.



Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
104 Inner Campus Drive
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)

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