Learning in the Plural: Essays on the Humanities and Public Life

Acknowledgments

179 acknowledgments The writing in this collection spans twenty years. Over that time I have accumulated a sizable ledger of debts to hundreds of students, colleagues, and community partners, far too many to acknowledge here by name. I hope that a sincere and collective thank-you for their generosity, hard work, patience, and infectious learning spirit will suffice. I extend special thanks to those colleagues who have stood by me and contributed time, wisdom, and their shared faith in public work with me across two decades of “learning in the plural”: Frank Fear, Eric Fretz, Dwight Giles, David Stowe, Lynnette Overby, Jeff Grabill, Janet Swenson, John Duley, Jeffrey Howard, Parker Palmer, Harry Boyte, Robert Coles, Patti Stock, Pennie Foster-Fishman, Richard Bawden, James McClintock, Sally McClintock, Harry Reese, Sandra Reese, Douglas Noverr, Gary Hoppenstand , Nancy DeJoy, James Porter, John Kinch, Arthur Versluis, Ken Waltzer, Terry Link, Ann Austin, John Beck, Pat Enos, Rachelle Woodbury, Jessica Rivait, Jan Hartough, Wynne Wright, Elaine Brown, Kenneth Fields, Marjorie Ford, Ann Watters, James Karagon, Nicholas Holton, Marylee Davis, Bill Hart-Davidson, Laura Julier, and Ralph Menendez, and to all my colleagues who participated in the Service Learning Writing Project (especially Lynn Scott, John Dowell, and Fred Barton). 180 Acknowledgments I am grateful too for the leadership of Stephen Esquith, founding dean of the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities, and Patrick McConeghy, Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University (2004–2006), for his support of the Public Humanities Collaborative I founded and directed from 2005 to 2010. And to all my colleagues at the PHC (in particular, Howard Bossen, James Detjen, Len Fleck, Jim Lawton, Marsha MacDowell, and Paul Thompson), especially my dear friend Eileen Roraback, Associate Director, graduate assistants Jennifer Nichols, Ildi Olasz, and Aimee Knight, and PHC Faculty Fellows (Kirk Domer, Salah Hassan, Xiaoshi Li, Ann Mongoven, Juan Javier Pescador, Rob Roznowski, Leonora Smith, Hsiao-Ping Wang), I extend my gratitude for helping establish an active center for public humanities on campus. Operating foundations and professional nonprofit organizations are often “colleges” for faculty like me who work camouflaged, whether by design or necessity, on the edges and in the seams of their home institution. They are crucial places where we learn, grow, stretch intellectually, test out new ideas, and bond with like-minded colleagues. For me those vital learning places include, first and foremost, the Charles Kettering Foundation (Derek Barker, David Brown, John Dedrick, David Mathews, Maxine Thomas, and Deborah Witte), especially my Kettering work group on Deliberative Democracy and Higher Education (Christina Alfaro, Allison Crawford, Harris Dienstfrey, Michael D’Innocenzo, Joni Doherty, Larkin Dudley, Maria Farland, Laura Grattan, Katy Harriger, Lee Ingham, Jill McMillian, Dennis Roberts, and Doug Walters); the John Fetzer Institute; the Kellogg Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good (John Burkhardt and Tony Chambers); Michigan Campus Compact (Allison Treppa, Rene Miller Zientek, and former executive directors Lisa McGettigan Chambers, Jenni Holsman, and Amy Smitter); the Midwest Campus Compact Collaboration; Campus Compact (Elizabeth Hollander); the Invisible College (John Wallace, Edward Zlotkowski, Nan Skelton, Nancy Kari, Ira Harkavy, and Richard Cone); the Learn and Serve America Exchange Program supported by the Corporation for National Service and the National Youth Leadership Council (Linda Jacobson, Project Director); and especially Imagining America (Julie Ellison, Jan Cohen-Cruz, Scott Peters, Juliet Feibel, and Timothy Eatman). 181 Acknowledgments My learning community at Michigan State University extends far beyond my home department and college, and includes MSU’s Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement (Karen Casey and Mary Edens); the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (Vincent Delgado, Candace Keller, Carolyn Loeb, David Sheridan, Anita Skeen, Mark Sullivan, and J. Estrella Torrez); the Office of University Outreach and Engagement (Hiram Fitzgerald, Burton Bargerstock, Diane Doberneck, and Patricia Farrell ); the Bailey Scholars Program; the Morrill Scholars Program (Michael Koppisch and Tess Tavormina); the MSU Museum (Kurt Dewhurst and Julie Avery); the Writing Center (Patti Stock); and, not the least, the Center for Community and Economic Development (Rex LaMore, John Melcher, and Faron Supanich-Goldner). Finally, I thank Gabe Dotto and Michigan State University Press for giving me the rare opportunity at the endgame of a career to sort through, sift, and reflect over my teaching, writing, and learning life during these past two decades. The essays and articles in Learning in the Plural first appeared in the following publications: “Believing in Difference: The Ethics of...