WebKittyn Warbles
Thursday, July 13, 2006
MERLin and Mercy and McCluskey
It's weird seeing 'my' college with all these commercials on television. When did Mercy become "a top private college?"
I'm going to buck the bureaucracy here and let the googlers do what they will.
What amuses me the most is how they embrace the Distance Learning program, how the commercials are so proud to announce under-grad and graduate degree programs online!
Amuse, bemuse - pick a muse.
I was there when the DL program was born. It was run off of a DOS BBS (you remember the BBS, admit it) and it was primitive as can be. They had one professor running it all by himself and about 10 of the core requirement classes offered. They didn't have a lot of hope for the program.
I was working in the department the professor running the program was a member of. He was/is a full time Philosophy and Eastern Religions professor, the distance learning sort of got dumped in his lap. I was pulling 40+ hours a week along with taking 5 classes and keeping a 4.0, the idea of being able to knock off some core requirements online appealed to me. I signed up.
I took to it immediately. I saw the potential in it and I got very involved. There was a 'lounge room' on the BBS so it wasn't all academic talk. Working in the department I knew some of the students in the program. I saw people who sat in the back of the classroom and never spoke a word becoming the shining stars of the online classes.
I had gotten friendly with Frank, Frank remains to this day the most respected person I have ever had the honour of working with. Frank was a visionary and his dedication was contagious. I started helping on my own, showing new people the ropes and fielding some of the calls for Frank when they came into the department.
Eventually the fatheads in the Administration accepted that distance learning was more than a lark. They gave Frank a staff of one and a half. One other professor and one student programmer who wasn't paid but received two free classes a semester. I wasn't included in the official budget. I didn't care, I was in it for the long haul.
There was a tremendous amount of hmm-ing and haw-ing over the program. The fatheads did not understand that DL is not a way out of sitting in a classroom. It wasn't there to take over the classroom, it wasn't there to put the adjunct faculty out of their jobs. Then there was the task of convincing faculty members to get involved. A few came willingly, most had to be sold on it. People are vehemently opposed to change in Academia and this terrified their dinosaur minds.
Time and time again Frank tried to get some support and was denied. My 40+ week doubled. I remember Thanksgiving when the computer went kaplooey and Frank spent the night at the Yorktown campus fixing things. Joe was a wonderful programmer even if he was completely unable to deal with people. Al was the charisma factor, he brought some of the Business Dept. in and it helped. I was the schmoozer and Frank's right hand. I helped him write the manual. I trained the new faculty members. I gave my home phone number to all in the program so they could always get me. I gave the demonstrations to the visiting Scholar(s), I trained the Dean of the Prison Program in all aspects of distance learning (she is now the President of the college - Go, Louise!). I took every opportunity to praise the program and bring more people into it.
Through our determination and Frank's leadership, the DL program took off. The first time we had to schedule three separate orientations and then 5 different exam times we realised we had done it. Yet they still wouldn't give him the official title of "Director of DL" because it wasn't a 'real' program. He got a small stipend for all his efforts as the school got fatter off of the success of the program.
It wore us all down, big time. Frank went through some insane personal issues, Al got totally burnt out, Joe became even more filled with contempt for the world and I neglected every other part of my life except the program.
When the fatheads finally realised they had something golden what did they do? They went and brought in some outsider to be the new Director of Distance Learning in the new fully staffed Department of Distance Learning. Frank took it like the Zen Master he is, I took it like the emotional freak I am. I was only a department assistant (secretary), I didn't care if I pissed off the Provost, I didn't care if I went over everyone's head and went right to the President - Hell, I went to a Lionel show with the damn President and introduced him to his idol so the least he could do was listen to me.
Fat lot of good it did me, Frank was out and I went from shining jewel of the place to a pile of dog poo. I was fine with dog poo status, it didn't bother me.
I am happy to say that sometimes time does right the injustices done in the past. The upper portion of the fathead zone went through some changes and 2 Presidents in a fairly quick period of time. The dice were rolled in the right fashion and the woman I had worked so closely with for the prison program became the next President. Dr. Feroe is a brilliant and wise woman and one of the few I always respected. She changed my mind on educating prisoners and I helped her with the tools to do it. She was also a close friend of Frank's and had been there for all of it from the start.
A decade after a grant from IBM began Mercy College's Distance Learning program, Frank was finally crowned Dean of Online Learning. Under his direction the program flourished and so did Frank.
Currently, Frank is Provost and Executive Vice President of the American Public University System and still a pioneer and a visionary. They have a wonderful write-up of the man here.
If there is one human being who has truly been a role-model, inspiration, spiritual guru and teacher it would be Frank McCluskey. He compared me to Nietzsche once. On top of all he did, he was also the Captain of the Mahopac Falls Volunteer Fire Department and he wrote a fantastic book mixing his experience and his philosophy.
I'm going to look deeper into APUS, I would love to work with this man again. Everyone should be touched by a true visionary at least once in their life. I was lucky and managed to meet a visionary who was also a friend.
Frank, I hope you google this. I also hope that every time you see "Imagine me ... at Mercy" you take a second or two to sit back and realise the personal lasting impact you have had on thousands of students and faculty. And me.
And did a wicked "Magnet and Steel" karaoke!
<-- Steal me!
