The significance of this week’s episode of Chapel Probation can’t be overstated. Dr. Craig Boyd (not Greg Boyd) wanted to come on and tell his story. While the students and faculty had to live under the oppressive, bigoted policies and systems put in place by the administration, Dr. Boyd found himself in the midst of the men and women in power. He tried his best to bring academic and theological respectability to APU, but he was thwarted at almost every turn by the provost and the enemies he made in various departments. The lesson he learned was that conservative money from donors and alumni was the main driver of all decisions made regarding programming and curriculum.
If the students and Dr. Daniel White Hodge are the cast, Dr. Boyd found himself behind the curtain with Oz, himself. If Oz were completely incompetent.
I’ll share a quick anecdote from my book to corroborate Dr. Boyd’s harsh criticism of the provost at the time. At the Faculty of Color Network’s national conference on diversity in higher ed, one of the keynote speakers was a Black professor from a Naval Academy. He gave a blunt, somewhat “old school” talk about the basics of teaching and respect. It was very militaristic. And kind of boring.
I was sitting at a table with a few of my English colleagues who had attended, including our chairperson when the Provost marched over to our table and just said, “Hire him. Now.”
We looked at each other, wondering what the hell he meant. He was joking, right? Nope. At the next department meeting, our poor chair announced to us that we had offered a job to the guy. There was a rush of questions. Is that legal? What about the other candidates we were scheduled to interview? We don’t even know anything about him! The chair just nodded. He was under direct orders to just offer a position to the guy. No interviews. Hiring protocols be damned by command of the provost.
Fortunately, the guy turned us down. He was likely confused and put off by the lack of procedure. But it was clear the provost wanted a conservative, militaristic Black man to pad his diversity stats and bring “order” to our “liberal” English department. Whenever I tell this story, no one believes me. I hope listening to Craig’s stories helps. That guy was a fucking sociopath.
But Craig, at great cost to his sanity, fought the good fight against the administration at APU. Like many of the guests of Chapel Probation, Craig is a dear friend who made the painful time at APU worth it.
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