I felt a little bit odd being asked. A local school invited me to be consulted on classroom decoration. I took a total of one class in interior design as an undergrad and that hadn’t been my highest collegiate grade. So why were they asking me, of all people? Let me put this into context for you. It was in Wisconsin. I’d been the Academic Dean at Nashotah House for a few years and had served for a few on the Parent Teacher Organization, one as president. While at Nashotah I’d been tasked with making the three classrooms more appealing—choosing paint colors and replacing drapes that had been falling off their hooks since I’d arrived a decade ago. But I believe the real reason that I was asked for a consultation was that I was a professor. Yes, a professor of Hebrew Bible, but a professor nonetheless.
Such requests, no matter how mundane, ceased immediately when I had to take a job in publishing. People don’t turn to an editor as an expert. (Not even most academic authors—trust me on that.) We like to put people in neat categories. Boxes. Professors are smart, so when we need advice we seek them out. Whether or not they know anything about the topic. I was even assigned to teach accredited courses in fields that I’d never studied. It was a heady feeling, I have to admit, being treated like my position qualified me to speak on “ships and sails and sealing wax” and everyone listened. What has always struck me as odd is how abruptly this stopped. Even among church folk.
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" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" width="990" data-medium-file="https://steveawiggins.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cropped-dscn3509.jpg?w=300" data-permalink="https://steveawiggins.com/cropped-dscn3509-jpg/" alt="" height="622" srcset="https://steveawiggins.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cropped-dscn3509.jpg 990w, https://steveawiggins.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cropped-dscn3509.jpg?w=150 150w, https://steveawiggins.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cropped-dscn3509.jpg?w=300 300w, https://steveawiggins.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cropped-dscn3509.jpg?w=768 768w" class="wp-image-8419" data-large-file="https://steveawiggins.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cropped-dscn3509.jpg?w=990" />When I was teaching I was frequently asked to address adult education classes on Sunday mornings. I had arcane knowledge that priests and ministers wanted me to share. Once I began working as an editor I had someone from a church in Princeton contact me to ask if I could recommend someone else to do such a course. They were somewhat taken aback when I suggested that I had some expertise in the area. I’ve even had other academics, in the same field in which I taught, react with total surprise that I know something about the discipline. I have a sneaking suspicion that the ease of categorizing people has been substituted for actually getting to know someone. It’s easier to call, or email, the local university—or even, in my experience, a small, obscure seminary—to find the expert you want to consult. You’d like to think that we might be able to ponder a little more deeply. But trust me, you don’t want to ask me about interior design.