Pencil Oriented College Types

A commenter recently asked me what I meant by “pencil oriented college types” in a post I wrote several weeks ago.

The full context is found in my article entitled “WhatcomWorks has Legs”, September 7, 2013.

Money and grants is a huge issue. Not just for farmers, but even more for the local integrating organizations and elected/appointed officials who manage them.

Wise use of grants is very good. But when grants and LIO institutions create dependency, innovation is stifled, prudent management of land and water is constricted, and timely farm to market adjustments are put off. 

Do socialism and market interventions really help? Can pencil oriented college type “stewards” and “baykeepers” really be trusted to keep their hands off the grant monies? When does a huge flow of grants cut off the legs of elected overseers and put unelected adventurers in the public policy driver’s seat.

Now, pencils are mostly used for making marks on paper. Pencils are used by college professors and students. Pencils are used by shop managers in factories. Pencils are used by scientists in the field. Pencils are used in dart games during midnight study orgies before the big test.

College types. Bill Clinton went to college. George Washington Carver went to college. Most community leaders go to college. My wife and I went to college. No, I did not inhale.

Not mentioned in the question, but hot on the heels of the quote are the designations “stewards” and “baykeepers”. Perhaps this is more to the point. I was intentional in using these words. ReSources has its baykeepers. Current environmental science talks about all people being stewards.

One more point before I diverge. Terry Wechsler asked me that question. She is no stranger to college or pencils. (And, I have yet to talk with her in person. I do like her candor!) But her withdrawal from a street level debate shows the mindset of “college oriented pencil types”. I do not fault her. I think she is sincere in wanting to engage in the community. But, apparently there are “college oriented pencil types” who want certain things to stay out of sight, where they can control the dialogue and outcomes. And, I would suggest, there was money involved. Perhaps dilution of campaign money and strategies. Or, perhaps, respecting the wishes of donors and grant agencies and community organizers who engage with “baykeepers” and “stewards.”

I grew up on a college campus. My dad was in support services. My grandfather was the first president of the college. As a child of staff, I received subsidized tuition. After graduation, I worked in a charity that was financed by donors. I lived in Italy for 14 months as part of that charity’s cross cultural training program. I left a part of my heart in another part of the world.

My wife graduated from college and returned to work for five years as secretary to the academic dean of the college before we were married. It was a small college, but we both understand the academic world. Before we had children, we lived and worked in Toronto, Canada in the head office of the same charity I trained with in Italy. I did payroll, accounts and handled donor receipting. My wife did casual secretarial work. I understand “office overhead percent”. That paid for office workers. Not for profit sector workers get paid, either out of general fund donations, or by some “benefit corporation” or other benefactor.

The big change came when children came. I did not want to travel in charitable work, but wanted to be available for children. That meant getting a “real job”. Not that my prior work was not real or valuable, but it did not pay for itself. I had to consider money, profits, skills that people would pay for.

I ended up apprenticing as an electrician. With two small children to support, I was paid to learn to be an electrician. We made it. Living frugally, getting help from parents, and working into the blue collar world. After several years, I looked in the mirror and saw a different person. I was no longer a “college oriented pencil type.” I had a kit of tools and was imagining what it would be like to own an electrical company.

My friends also changed. Most of our college associates stayed in the white collar tracks. In 1994, we bought a raw five acres of pasture land south of Sumas. In 1999, we acquired dairy sheep and started making our own sheep’s cheeses. We planted a small orchard. After submitting to the will of electrical bosses for fourteen years, in 2006 I started my own electrical contracting business.

We have raised our family, not in a pencil oriented, college type environment. We home schooled them on an environmentally friendly hobby farm. The older ones have been challenged to do entry level jobs before going to college. We do not regret the thousands of tuition dollars we did not spend on the first educational interests of our young adults. Their life experiences outside the pencil oriented college world are sharpening their world view and bringing together blue and white collar perspectives.

To the point. I rarely see blue collar type people trying to ram through cultural change, top down. Maybe union bosses. College professors are often intense cultural activists. Charitable activists can be just as hard nosed toward their perceived opponents as businessmen can be towards other businesses or even their own employees. Stakeholder mentalities and turf minding happens in charities and government as well as in business. It is human nature.

It is one thing to talk about a skill. It is another thing to perform it. It is altogether another thing to spend the 20,000 hours (4 to 5 years) that give journeyman level skill in accounting, medicine, trades, you name it. College years don’t count in those working life hours. When I see intense adversarial approaches to environmental stewardship, I think to myself, probably another “pencil oriented college type” person trying to fast track their 20,000 hours, or assuming that their 20,000 hours qualify them to supersede the 20,000 hours of other trades or professional leaders.

Maybe that is inaccurate. Maybe there are larger cross cultural issues in community conflicts. But then, is not the white collar—blue collar divide a cross cultural issue? Is not GMO food production and non GMO consumption a cross cultural cultural divide? Like getting Swahili speakers and Chinese speakers to solve a problem in one hour?

Pencil oriented college types. One more story. Last fall, 2012, at an afternoon conference on the Future of Food, hosted by Huxley College, Stephen Trinkhaus of Terra Organica was lecturing on the disastrous effects of growing food on the environment, even organic food. During a pause, he was asked if he had ever had a garden. After an uncomfortable pause, he candidly admitted that plants had never done well under his care. Point made. College oriented pencil types. Good intentions, but needing to be tempered by walking a mile in the other person’s moccasins, by not assuming that my 20,000 hours give me license to affect huge changes in that other person’s life. That is why County Council election candidates with the “my 20,000 hours rule” attitude are an accident waiting to happen. Think about it.

Terry, Thanks for the question.  JK