Another Day in PSA

The alarm rings. Two tiny humans hoover cereal, as she enters the kitchen.

“Mom, it’s funny.”

“Yes, but don’t stare. He’s sensitive.”

“What? No. Your holidays are the same as ours.”

“Sort of. Today’s not a holiday, Sweetie. It’s a PD day. Your teachers still have to go to school.”

“But we don’t, right!?”

“Correct! Today we go to the zoo!” Collecting her coffee, she pecks each crown. “When you’re done, dishes in the sink, and suit up for safari!”

“For some fairies?”

“Yes, we’re having lunch with three,” she chuckles from down the hall, slipping into the office for practice maintenance.

But once seated, it’s no use. She cannot concentrate on work, when work is in jeopardy. When everything is in jeopardy. Fresh pajamaed coffee, the clink of spoon and bowl, morning teases in the air. As much as one can, she controls this…for the two who scurry past to depajama. She thinks.

“Deny the inheritance,” slips out, standing with a defiance that refutes even professional routines. Inconsistency, fleets through her mind as she sends herself for depajamaing. [See Part 1 here.]

“Are zoos bad? I love you.”

Chuckling, “I love you too, two, too. I’d say, yes and no. Why do you ask?”

“Humph, one of those. With different answers.”

“Yes. Different ways to see it.”

“I’ve decided. I think they’re good. So, how much longer?” 

She thinks on how “going to the zoo” was questioned in her time. How she grew up going to this zoo. School trips. A father’s treat. In her own family, an afternoon in the jungle was met with unadulterated enthusiasm. All until this trip.

She is proud of them, cantering through the stile with their own tickets and asking the right questions. Perhaps trips to the zoo can be replaced or changed...but not today.

In this familiar, exhilarating place, upon entering the exhibits, her cubs insist on their autonomy, “On our own, Mom.” It isn’t difficult to convince them of their freedom, stealing in the background, positioning for intervention with a firm look or a clinched, “Stop it.” They know they are there by her good grace, her love, but also, her grace, conditional upon compliance. They are lucky to be in the zoo and no moral uncertainty or paternal correction can spoil that feeling. She remembers that feeling.

...... .  .   .

“Morning, Doctor. Would you like to follow me, please? They’re ready for you now.”

Words that precede nothing in between, she thinks, wondering who she paraphrases.

“Thank you for agreeing to speak with us today on behalf of your society. Is that how you prefer to refer to your organization, Doctor Fortin?”

“Congressman Ortez, thank you all for having me. I prefer, Renee, if you don’t mind. I am not speaking for my Society or organization, as you say. That’s quite an array of members. I wouldn’t presume to speak for them all, even in chorus. I’m here to speak on behalf of myself. The organization you reference is the Professional Society of Academics, of which I am a practicing licentiate in good standing for the past twenty-two years. You might think of it as comparable to the Bar for attorneys or a Board for medicine. Sorry, I’m sure you know this. I’m a little, unnerved, honestly.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Do we unnerve you? do I?”

“No. I don’t know you. I know who and what you represent. And I appreciate, I personally feel, what is at stake in these hearings.”

“I represent the interests of the people who elected me to office. Their interests in higher education. A social pillar of mobility for many millions. There is indeed much at stake. More than your career. And it seems your society controls much of it these days.” Shifting his glare to her, “When once you charged universities and colleges with unfair labour practices, exclusionary, even monopolistic, practices – some of your own rhetoric, not mine. Yet your society seems to have things all locked up now, with no place for time-honored institutions of higher learning. This must strike you as at least a bit hypocritical.”

“I earn a living thanks to the Professional Society of Academics, or rather the professional model and my fellow society members. Before this means, I worked as most academics did, those who could get work in the bottleneck employ of an HEI, sorry, higher education institution. I worked for two or three of these employers at any given time, if I was lucky. Now, with the support apparatus of PSA, as an independent academic licentiate, I work…”

“Yes, Doctor, sorry, Renee, who do you work for now?”

This man is not clever. The trap is obvious. With sincere solemnity rooted in honestly, “I work for the people, providing service to one of the pillars of society.”

In a moment’s measurement, she passes, he doesn’t.

“Yeeees, we are all familiar with PSA slogans, I was…”

“Pardon me. My response is not a slogan, or a brand, jingle, or marketing ploy of any kind. I think you have mistaken me for a beneficiary of the inheritance.” As a crescent of congress adjusts its position, she is now nerved by her word choice, “That was the game in the HEI model. PSA has quite strict and strictly enforced rules on advertisement. We have open practice performance records, there is objective evaluation of at all levels, disciplinary committees… I mean, it’s illegal to practice without a license. The professional prerogative and protection that PSA offers higher education means nothing without this slogan, as you see it. As a mouthpiece for an organization like, Restore the Institutions Movement, would see it.”

It's not Mozart scandalous, but the mass reaction is, unsettled. Watching it unfold, she is sublime. Serene. Savage. Sure.

“It seems to me, Doctor Fortin, that you and your fellow members are not in a position to disparage, as you see it. Because the way I and many others of the public see it, PSA academics have been serving themselves generous portions of our public trust…; much like their predecessors in medicine and law, academics have…; much like the marketized, neoliberal, corporate institutions you denigrated during the encampments…

Midway, she wonders how this might go over on national television: “Did you hear the one about the lawyer, doctor and academic who walk into a bar? Or was it a board? We don’t know, the head injuries were fatal.” If only PSA enjoyed this sort of seamlessness in culture, in history. She thinks.

There is no where to go with this discussion, not here. She speaks for herself. She speaks of her work and herself. She describes a conception, a constitution, a covenant, a contract. Imposed by self or another but forming the soil of her service to the pillar. And, as this dipshit is aiming to abuse, it is also written into the PSA Codes of Ethics and Conduct. Some even thought it a good idea to put a version on the back of academic licenses, a type of typed conscience. So, maybe a bit slogany. She thinks.

But on this showground, the whole thing is bent to the point of breach. Still, she does not sink or sigh. Smile or smirk. She is sure and solemn.

Crossing paths in the foyer, using her first name, Ortez assures all in earshot that they both want what’s best for higher education and that he respects her, as a mother and a professional. Turning toward the exit, she manages an encore to her Figaro, “What’s best for higher education and the people that depend upon it, is hard-earned…much like respect.”

Peace out.

...... .  .   .

“Pull over here, please.” Paying the taxi, she grabs her backpack and slides out in one motion. Crossing the street, she is almost 46, closer to 47, with gestation. Divorced, with two children, a mortgage, a practice, no publications to speak of, no national grants, or awards, not even,…

“One, please.”

“We close in about 50 minutes. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I’m home.”

It’s been months, maybe six or seven, since she and the kids were last to the zoo. It used to be every other week. Sauntering to the aviary compound, where her monkeys never tread of their own free will, it is short, then long, then trill, then cacophonous and calm…harmonious…. She thought. Or is it, she experienced? She thinks.

But some of these birds are predatory. Some look to diminish or destroy the territory of others. Some steal. Some bribe. Others court and cajole. How to hold diversity together? She thought. How to let it fall apart? She thinks.

In the twenty-five years since the wholesale displacement of institutional employers by PSA and in the run-up decades to the “great conversion” itself, the focus was always on holding things together, the idea, its development, support for the model. So many meetings and demonstrations and then the encampments, the lobbying and legislation, the professional codes and courts, all to hold PSA together.

The precious model.

She is not aware of the feathered bathers, when she mutters, “Soluble.”

The birds manage with experience, rules and laws we don’t really understand, in part because we don’t really understand the difference between rules and laws, especially in biology, and forget about consciousness. She thought. Though the confines of the zoo lend it less authenticity, these creatures manage to live together. In a harmonious cacophony. She thinks.

With a short gasp, “It was a conversion.” And a long sigh, “Blinded by assumption, still.”

“Taxi! PSA Plaza, on University, please.”

... .  .   .

The third floor of the former university police department, now houses the Executive Office for PSA. Though she voted for them, she personally knows none of the executive. The snap visit is to the PSA archives housed on the floor. A proper reminder. She thinks.

It doesn’t have the weight of Oxford-time pressing a record of institutional virtue and vice – a point she was sure to make during the hearing – but it houses footage of a physicist who was key in conceiving and paving integration of the hard sciences and the PSA model. Turns out particle accelerators are expensive; philosophy books are much less so. She thought. Though the books are a business expense. She thinks.

He gave an integration speech that if she can find it… Scrolling through the video, she hits it.

“…how change can happen. A perception of physics, garnered from its popularization, I suppose, is that physics is about the building blocks of everything, the universe. It is. But it is also about its disintegration, which, from the point of view of physics, is fundamental to our reality. From one point of reference,…”

Scanning the familiar bio, Doctor Darwin DeSantis, from the Scientific Research University of Italy, had a father who was a Professor of Biology at the prestigious Bologna Institute. An account of the rift his support for PSA caused between the two springs to her mind. DeSantis was a great help in converting his more skeptical hard-science peers during the run-up. Many of them geniuses, intellectual giants to herself, they took some time to be convinced of PSA merits, and not just in the heavy-equipment fields.

Fair enough, theoretical is fine for the classroom, but not for bank creditors or one-person submersibles researching dark oxygen. Some journalist described the scientific conversion as a love of pie and pi. It became clear to them that, unlike the funding model of their university and college employers, the PSA model showed real promise of substantial, sustainable increases in available research funding – that was not obscenely tied to corporate or philanthropic interests. It was DeSantis who secured surrender of their (burdensome) undergrad classes to the model, as a major first step. People liked Darwin. She thought. Another step. She thinks.

 ... .  .   .

Thomas was on his way into academic practice for himself. Within the year, he will finish the elective internship with Renee and defense of his dissertation with the Board of Supervisors. He is set to move back home, marry his high school sweetheart, raise some kids and provide higher education to the community.

The Rockwell route isn’t common, with most academics electing to practice in the mid to major cities. But the expansion of degrees and other credentials that PSA underwrites means a steady demand for feeder credit courses, expanding remedial programs, and a rise in adult education and degree completion programs. With home-based technology as the thread, he can finally live up to the sermons of his homeroom teacher. He can provide a more than adequate smalltown living for his family and meet community obligations. She is kind of jealous. She thinks.

Old Mrs. Wagner has no idea that her former pupils, Tommy-too-smart and Freddie-freckle-face, aim to marry and set up shop in a three-story, Colonial Revival on, Franklinia Avenue. Thomas believes the locals will offer a mixed reception. As he puts it, think, Harriet, from, Little House on the Prairie. But a licensed, interned academic is quite an asset to a small town, even if he is a…

“Terrible word.”

“What? Intern? Yeah, we need something unique to PSA. Speaking of which, I’ve set up the meeting with Paris for Monday morning, 10 o’clock, at Philosopheine. Just some coffee. We have to get this off the desk. I’m getting anxious. I know you are too. How was it?”

“When I hear her name, I think, she’s here to steal my husband, and I’ll launch a war to get him back. Good thing there’s no Herbert of Troy in my life anymore.”

“Ha! Didn’t like him or his handle. Sorry.”

“Not as much as me.” With her smile fading, “I just hope it’s possible for someone to make a career out of being a Proxy, after that. Our relationship has been invalu…”

“As I guessed. You probably haven’t checked social media. I think the, that, to which we are referring, went pretty well.”

“Sure. On national television, I basically took a piss on a Harvard graduate, lawyer, member of Congress. He’s super rich you know, but something-from-nothing rich, and a major philanthropist of education. All of it. Unbearable.”

“Yeah, he was the first to manage four-year tuition-free in his state. It was…”

“I know. And, not helping.”

“Right, sorry. Renee, you, me, Paris, we will be here contributing to higher education for a long time, taking care of our families, together. Her hometown is just next door. And like I said, I can even see partnership potential…” He realizes from her posture that she is cruising at a higher altitude. “PSA is strong. Higher education is tuition and in most cases expense-free, and for far less than the Uni-model used to cost the public, not to mention the personal tragedies of debt… Look, seriously, check your socials.” Discarding the remains of a Descartes Doppio, “Sorry, I have three Pre-Service Interviews on their way and some prep left. I’ve been pushing it, with my defense on the event horizon and all. You and my supervisor have been great. But…”

“Yes, of course. Practice responsibilities. And your studies. Thank you.”

She continues to stand in her coat, staring out the sole window of the office, as Thomas leaves in silence. Is it back to walking into theaters of strangers? Trying to study with someone neither Thomas nor I have met, much less be familiar with their… Would I even have Thomas?

The collapse in institutional monopoly made it possible for many more “frontliners” – as they became popularly known – to enter the sector as professional licentiates. With the new Academic-Proxy relationship, PSA was able to facilitate much smaller class sizes across all fields of study. Completion rates and times improved. Diversity and access went through the roof, along with access to education and employment. Or rather, access to the opportunity to earn a living in and steward higher education. She thought. But for some it’s a hard pass. She thinks.

RIM and their political pitbull, Congressman Ortez, want to restore the institutional middlemen. Using the same hand that created them, PSA dispatched the public institutions and then the government denied private universities and colleges access to the public corpus and treasury. While there was no law requiring their closure or conversion, there was no longer need for contentious private buttress of the public system. As such, funding is now closed to parties that cannot demonstrate active or complete conversion to PSA, forming a separation of sorts between education and state, and, of course, that all academic employees are licentiates in good standing with the Society.

Such transformation caused quite a ripple in the stock market when the online giant, University of Pangu (盤古), plummeted into bankruptcy. Public sources of revenue for on and off-shore private ventures dried up, while academic and proxy incomes went up, and students had access to both frontliners without the threat of debt or domination. Seems like a no-brainer, so why is this resistance happening? She thinks.

For a simple philosopher, the whole thing is an experiential-based course in sociology, economics, psychology,...power, authority,…wealth, mobility, meaning… A researcher’s wet dream. The Professional Society of Academics is not a funding model or management model for use by the universities and colleges. It’s an etch-a-sketch of the inheritance. She thought. But soluble. She thinks.

She and those around her have benefited from PSA. She remains a convinced convert. When the Society asked that she speak at the hearing, it came as quite a shock. She had been nominated by some students and colleagues and selection was a lottery, but shocked still. I’m not an academic. She thought. But I am. She thinks.

Her circadian clock goes off, altering that the children will be getting home soon. Lexi will be there. Another person in her life made possible by PSA. Another job made possible. The children love her. On adjunct wages, Lexi is gone too. The academic stops thinking.