Rain, Steam, and Speed

The world outside my airplane window is a study of blues, greens, and greys, the hues coalescing briefly into vague shapes – the islands in the Salish Sea – and then dissolving again into an opaque and horizon-less haze, as water blends into sky.  Optical clarity seems elusive.

This weekend the Victoria Convention Centre is home to the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission exploring the national tragedy of residential schools, and the sidewalks and cafés are filled with people sporting name tags that bear but a single word.  I fall into a brief conversation with “Jenny”.  The memories emerging from the formal sessions are heart-wrenching: for example, the boy who each night wrapped himself tightly in his bed sheet, in a forlorn attempt to deter the hand that would inevitably disturb his slumber.  Astoundingly, not all the stories are so dire, and a few even have happy outcomes, as youthful trauma is tempered by the natural resilience of the human spirit and the passage of time.  Optical clarity seems elusive.

At our conference “round table”, deans of arts and social sciences from across the country take a few minutes to paint a portrait of what is happening on their campuses, for the most part actions undertaken in response to a relentless series of budgetary cutbacks.  Tenure-track positions are being lost, and some programs closed.  But not all the news is dire.  Necessity is the mother of invention, and many are moving forward with initiatives intended to place their core vision of teaching and research in the liberal arts on a more secure and sustainable footing, snatching victories from apparent defeats.  Optical clarity seems elusive.