Dr. Lincoln Packs a Nail Gun!

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Last week, I had the pleasure of a catchup conversation with Yvonna Lincoln. Yvonna and I go back a long way in our respective careers and have been collaborating on books, journals, series, and dinners for at least three decades.

For those who might confuse her with a descendant of Honest Abe, Professor Lincoln is a big deal in both research on higher education and in qualitative research methodology.  Her official title is Distinguished Professor of Higher Education and Human Resource Development and the Ruth Harrington Endowed Chair of Educational Leadership at Texas A&M University. Until recently, she was also chair of the Department of Educational Administration. It is impossible to write a brief email when that is your signature line. She has more career awards for her work than Marlon Brando and Meryl Streep combined. Her CV runs the size of a Microsoft Office manual. Most telling, she has her own Wikipedia page.

Yvonna is a scholar’s scholar. When she gets rolling about the neoliberal university or constructivist theory over a cup of tea at a conference, I look around for the nearest seatbelt. I know I’m in for a rough ride. Her words may come rolling out in complete, articulate English language sentences, but I’m soon left far behind by the complex theoretical superstructure that lies behind them. At an appropriate moment, I’ll switch the topic to her latest quilting project to allow my brain to catch its breath.

Yvonna is so smart that sometimes she scares me.

Last week’s “what have you been doing” conversation ranged from the book she just sent off to the publisher, to caring for herself and her visiting sister over a sick Christmas, to where I should go kayaking next summer if I go through with a contemplated trip to Scandinavia.  I know that she has been trying to divest her academic commitments in stages over the past couple of years and asked how that was going. Yvonna casually dropped the fact that one of her new activities was to join a group of senior professional women to work with Habitat for Humanity building homes in College Station. And, no she’s not just donating money to the organization. She’s out there with her group building the houses. She boasted that she has become proficient with a nail gun.

Dr. Lincoln packs a nail gun!

Granted, Texas is an open carry state, but the vision of Yvonna at a downtown construction site, mustard-colored hard hat affixed to her curls, suspenders over her cotton turtleneck, boots flecked with the red mud of the Brazos Valley, and nail gun in its leather holster around her waist, is even harder to conjure up than her latest construct of the university’s audit culture. I’m proud of her for expanding her horizons in unpredictable directions. I admire her giving back to the local community in such a direct, tangible way.  Just imagine her conversation about the differences between epistemology and ontology with the CFO of a large local bank, a corporate lawyer from a Texas oil company, and the former city manager of a town down the road from College Station, all intelligent women, conducted while Dr. Lincoln fires her gun into the studs of a half-erected wooden house frame.  Granted, I’m not a professional writer, but I’d need to be Tom Stoppard to paint that scene in a convincing fashion.

Yvonna and I are both slated to speak on a panel on Social Media and the Neoliberal University at a conference in Illinois in a few months. I’m fervently hoping that she shows up with nail gun and holster to the event.

Watch out neoliberal university, there’s a new sheriff in town.

Movie ad c/o IMDb (yes, it was a real movie, 1985)

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