[stevecalifornia]

His resignation letter chastises the school for not giving enough attention to his mother's death-- he only got two condolences. Does this strike anyone else as a really strange thing to bring up a tally of condolences in a resignation letter?

[pradn]

He means that his colleagues at the Divinity School don't seem to care enough about him to send him a condolence for his mother's death. It's about the apathetic work environment at the school. That would be a problem for me, too, at my company if I chose to disclose that via a public email. Hell, I have several colleagues that wish me well when I have a cold.

[whymauri]

Especially for a Divinity School, his point is that it marks a fundamental departure from the spirituality and community that made the school special at some point.

[OrvalWintermute]

What struck me about his letter was not only that specifically about the death of his mother, but he also referenced the death of his colleague's mother, Dr. Cooke-Rivers, received no public condolences.

Whether that is Spiritual Bankruptcy, or merely Indifference, I know not, but it definitely reflects a culture problem of sorts.

The best workplaces do not involve parking your humanity or caring at the door.

[threatofrain]

What does it mean to send condolences to a colleague when you don't know much about their mother? That carries the intimacy of sending someone a life event message because FB told you so.

I really don't see that as "spiritually bankrupt".

[chrismcb]

It has nothing to do with the mother. You would be sending condolences to him. If it's about his loss. Presumably his colleagues know something about him.

[ashtonkem]

I mean, I got more than two condolences from my team when I mentioned that my cat was sick, and I think my team is smaller than the Harvard Divinity School.

Spiritually bankrupt? Not sure. It’s not great though.

[op00to]

It means “I recognize your humanity, and we all feel bad at times. It’s ok to grieve. I hope you feel better soon.” That’s what I hope it means when I send condolences to coworkers.

[duxup]

He might think it is apathy, but it's not like we know their motivations.

[darkerside]

He specified public condolences. I don't think it's uncommon for people to share those types of messages privately.

[onecommentman]

In my past experience, public condolences at work were the responsibility of administrative assistants, the folks formerly known as secretaries.

Complaining about a lack of a sympathy card is basically complaining that the admin support staff dropped the ball on meeting his personal emotional needs. So how old is Cornel?

Be nice if the complaint mentioned the unmet emotional needs of his support staff (garbage collectors, groundskeepers, janitors, food service, admin assistants, etc.) instead of simply the top of the ladder folks. Did he send sympathy cards to them during their moments of need? I’m guessing not, but I don’t know.

In my worlds, anything more public than a sympathy card would have been thought inappropriately intrusive, borderline cruel and just weird. It’s a place of work and the presumption would be the worker values a wall between work and family. An emotional HIPAA policy as it were.

[handrous]

I took it as an example of how fake and political their communication has become, and/or how disconnected a "community" they are. Course announcement that's easy to comment on, 20 pointless "that's great!" replies. Something serious and personal, 0 or 2 (there are two cases mentioned, not just his) because it's a channel for obligatory, performative engagement with strangers, not sincere communication with close colleagues.

It's probably intended to land best with people who are familiar with how communication works in that school/department, and the general atmosphere there, I'd expect.

[lupire]

a tweet eulogy seems like an easy peformative act.

likely he suspects that colleagues are afraid to publicly associate with him because he is too left wing / unapologetically Black / hot topic for Harvard.

[handrous]

Maybe, and maybe the other person with a similar experience is also to be understood as similarly persona non grata, for those with more insight into the circumstances.

This is definitely one of those "could be full of shit, or might barely even be scratching the surface and is actually quite restrained" kind of letters. It's hard to tell without more info.

[klyrs]

No, the death of a parent (depending on one's relationship) can be incredibly devastating. It is certainly appropriate to bring that to work, because it will almost always impact one's performance.

Is it strange for folks to talk about a newborn child, or marriage at work? Conversely, what about infant death or divorce? Can you bring your "whole self" or just the good news?

[war1025]

> Conversely, what about infant death

Now that I have kids, I think back every now and again to when I was in high school and my math teacher's wife miscarried fairly far along into the pregnancy. Looking back, I'm sure that was absolutely devastating for him, but as a class I don't think we gave it a second thought.

I feel bad about that. Kids just have no concept of how big a loss that is. Hopefully the staff was more sympathetic about it.

[stevecalifornia]

You are right, I didn't write out my intention clearly. People should bring life experiences like that to work-- probably shouldn't keep a scorecard though.

[klyrs]

> probably shouldn't keep a scorecard though.

Maybe, maybe. I agree with a cousin comment, that this is more of a canary than anything. I posted the whole of his letter at the top level, in large part to examine how much of his letter you're fixating on. Turns out, it's a very small part -- and he spends equal time on other public notices, and you've left that point unaddressed, so I'll expand on it.

In grief, one's loneliness is deafening, even when surrounded by loved ones. When this internal loneliness is accompanied by external loneliness, the pain is amplified to a degree that I cannot express in words. To see extensive public adulation of minor accomplishments, the lack of compassion is drawn out in painful contrast. All this serves an example of "toxic positivity" -- of which he exemplifies through a clear anecdote -- which is one of several complaints he has about the organization.

[lmilcin]

I think it is one thing to "bring that to work" and another to expect condolences.

Weren't there truly any better reasons to resign? If no, then I think Harvard is really a good place to work.

[benjaminjosephw]

For an academic in a Divinity school, an uncaring but professional environment is a dead canary. It means something much worse than the lack of sympathy in that moment.

But, if that doesn't make sense to you, how about being systematically passed over for a promotion because of your political views?

It's hard not to see this as being a crappy place to work if you put yourself in his shoes.

[handrous]

I don't know if anything in the letter is true or accurate, of course, but that anecdote seemed to be illustrating a subtle point for people with better insight into his school than most of us have, and was definitely not the only reason cited (or else it really is just a weird thing to mention, which is possible, but, regardless, it's far from the only complaint)

[gilbetron]

This is about the public announcement and public reply to such an event. If you had a parent die, would you expect (demand, even) it to be announced in your company's newsletter and then have people publicly respond their condolences? Seems weird to me. Having been through the death of a parent, I (and others) let people know about it, and I received condolences and support privately, which I expected given the people were decent people, but doing all that in a public forum is weird and intrusive.

[rdiddly]

Yeah it's odd. Especially for those of us whose moms weren't such wonderful blessed martyrs (eyeroll). Doesn't really bolster any particular point either, unless maybe it's about careerism in the department, but otherwise seems petty: "My mom's death didn't get enough likes." Would've been good to expand on the theme maybe. Although that would've incurred costs to the current brevity.

[germinalphrase]

Perhaps, he expects colleagues in a divinity school would be more aware and responsive to such a large life event.

[oh_sigh]

Maybe religious people are less likely to offer condolences because they think the deceased are in "a better place"?

[FooBarBizBazz]

I don't think the people at Harvard Divinity School believe in heaven.

[duxup]

I don't know Cornel West, but I often find academia and some who inhabit it ... sort of impenetrable to understand.

My theory:

Many of them are passionate, and it makes them good at their job, but their personalities and their job and the relationships with their peers seem almost inseparable... resulting in the sort of mish mash of professional and personal life that seem inseparable. For some almost everything can be personal to some extent... and in some cases I would find it inappropriate to mix all that up in the way some (not all) of them do at times.

It doesn't make them wrong, but it makes it really hard to understand. Such things happen outside of academia too, but it seems particularly prevalent there in my experience.

At least that's how I explain it to myself when I bump into such things.

[yellow_lead]

Yes. I was wondering if I was misunderstanding what he meant by "public replies."

[Black101]

I didn't take it that way, but the news was published in the newsletter.

[throw7]

He's playing dispirited that only 2 colleagues made public replies while he'd get many replies for a "narcissistic academic achievement".

One wonders if he had gotten tenure and received much beloved public replies he would resign thereafter.

[block_dagger]

I thought the exact same

[failwhaleshark]

No. It's a signal of the lack of the Golden Rule / interpersonal, real reciprocity. I worked at a STEM department in Pac12/Ivy that was very family-like. I think that's what he felt was missing and turned him off because he's a touchy-feely (not John Key-style), warm guy who's a free-love hippie like George Clinton.

[LatteLazy]

It's pretty standard for West, I remember him complaining the Summers (president of harvard) didn't send him a get well soon card quickly enough when he got cancer.