Last weekend one of the chores on my to-do list was to hook up a new DVD player, replacing one that no longer worked.  Inevitably whenever I tackle something like this I end up with an extra cable or some other part that is presumably important to correct operation of the device.  Whenever I get frustrated with technologies I do not understand, however, I realize that they put into our hands a power that was previously reserved for the very wealthy or the very powerful.  The DVD player, for example, enables us to view any recorded performance at any time of our choosing, an opportunity that just forty years ago was reserved for the privileged few.    

Consider for example the case of Howard Hughes.  When Hughes moved to Las Vegas in the mid-1960’s, his notorious behavioral quirks were well advanced.  He had trouble sleeping at night and liked to watch movies on TV at all hours.  He could do this in major urban markets like Los Angeles where TV stations broadcast on a 24-hour basis.  But Las Vegas in the mid-1960’s was not such a market.  Every night the manager of KLAS-TV in Las Vegas would receive a late night phone call at home from one of Hughes’s assistants, asking him to keep the station open for an extra hour and to put on a particular movie that Hughes wanted to see.   The manager was understandably reluctant to keep the station open for an audience of one, even if that audience member was a billionaire.  Hughes eventually got so frustrated that in 1967 he bought the TV station for $3.6 million.  Thereafter, the station broadcast through the night and played the movies Mr. Hughes wanted to see.

As I hooked up my DVD player, it occurred to me that for $50 (for the DVD player) and a $10 monthly subscription to a DVD-in-the-mail service, I possessed (once I got the thing connected properly) the same power of control that cost Howard Hughes $3.6 million in 1967.  Today almost anyone can watch movies like a billionaire!

This is just one example of the radical democratization that technological advance has brought us.  My ability to publish these words and your ability to find them is another example.  Yes, we need to be constantly alert to ethical issues surrounding the use of new technologies.  We need to emphasize the ways in which technology can extend human capabilities and enhance human dignity rather than diminish us.  Still, we have only to take a short look back in time to realize the degree of control and convenience new technologies have given us – the kind of control only billionaires could afford a scant forty years ago.

Which means that we are all millionaires now! 

A slender, dark and classically handsome man stands alone in front of the camera, cigarette smoke curling into the air beside him.  He speaks with a resonant voice and a precise diction that cannot be traced to any particular part of the country.  "You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind.  A journey into a wondrous land of imagination."

We are in no place we have ever experienced in person.  But when we hear those words, we know we are in The Twilight Zone.

This past weekend Ithaca College sponsored a conference to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the broadcast of the first Twilight Zone episode, in October 1959.  The conference focused on Rod Serling, creator of the show and author of 92 of its 156 episodes.  Serling is a native son of the Finger Lakes region, and taught at Ithaca College’s Park School of Communications for eight years after the series ended.  His archive of scripts and screenplays is housed at Ithaca College, and his widow Carol Serling is to this day active in the College as an Honorary Trustee.  We also enjoy the loan of five of Serling’s six Emmy awards, kept in a Park School display case that sends chills up my spine every time I walk past.  

Before The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling was already famous and much-honored as the author of such teleplays as Requiem for a Heavyweight.  His decision to write and produce a half hour science fiction TV show raised eyebrows among his serious author friends.  Former colleague George Clayton Johnson, who wrote eight Twilight Zone episodes, explained at the conference that Serling “wrote realistically in the mode of the theater, but was gifted enough to add one touch of unreality.  That one touch enabled the viewer to accept the entire story and to see a familiar situation in a whole new light.”

Johnson was referring to Serling’s strong moral beliefs particularly on inequality, bigotry, racism, and corporate or societal efforts to control the human spirit.  Serling had battled censorship of his TV scripts earlier in his career, but found that the parables of The Twilight Zone could be aired without interference.  His daughter Jodi, speaking at the conference, said that when she was 11 she asked her dad what The Twilight Zone was about.  “Grown up fairy tales,” Serling replied, “The mysteries of life that they don’t teach you in school.” 

The conference included the screening of a number of Twilight Zone episodes, including my favorite, "It's a Good Life," in which a young boy reduces the adults around him to cowering sycophants through his mental powers to make them vanish, or to turn them into a mindless vegetable or a jack-in-the-box.  As entertainment, the episode capitalizes on the contrast between the innocent self-absorption of the boy and the terrifying powers he wields.  As a moral lesson, the story reminds us why it is important to have parents who tell us to eat our vegetables and do other things that are good for us, and who can make it stick.  Seeing the episode again last week, I realized this lesson applies also to the responsibilities of authority in the workplace.  We owe each other a commitment to the common good.  Any authority or power we might have should never be exercised for personal reasons.  But we need to exercise our authority, rather than abdicate it, for the good of all.

Why do we celebrate The Twilight Zone fifty years later?  I am struck by the contrast with the Brady Bunch, which is coincidentally being celebrated on its fortieth anniversary.  Reminisces of the Brady Bunch are pure nostalgia, reminders of when one was young and it felt like you were growing up with that family.  It is safe to say that there will be no Brady Bunch revival in another forty years, but The Twilight Zone will still viewed and discussed for generations to come.  Its episodes have a timeless character, both because of their focus on the human condition and because they were (usually) set neither in the present day nor in some literal projection of the future.  They were instead placed in settings invented entirely for their potential to provoke thought.  The very phrase "Twilight Zone" has entered our everyday vocabulary to describe a realm "as vast as space and as timeless as infinity," as Serling reminded us each week. 

How remarkable that Rod Serling found a way to set forth ideas in moral philosophy and problems in social practice, all within the confines of the 30 minute network broadcast!  How extraordinary that he achieved this in the first decade of the television era!  And how unfortunate that no one since then has managed to duplicate his feat.

“Underappreciated, taken for granted, our bulletin boards defiled, our phones ringing at 3:00 am, yet I wouldn’t trade this job for anything else.”

That is how one Resident Assistant, RA for short, described her job to me.  Ithaca College employs about 120 students to serve as RAs, each responsible for the overall supervision of 15 to 50 fellow students (more in the College Circles apartment complex). 

Being an RA is a great leadership experience, beginning with the formal training during which one RA reported to me that she learned about “every situation imaginable, [and was plied with] resources, phone numbers, and handbooks.”  RAs describe the challenge of quickly getting to know 30 or more fellow students – not just their names and faces but also their personalities and how to create a “fun, educational, safe, and comfortable living environment in the res halls.”  Cultivating a cohesive culture in which everyone feels at home can be a challenge in team and community building that leaves RAs more confident and outgoing as a result of seeing what they are able to accomplish.  One RA, an international student, told me he has learned to identify and be an early responder to students who are depressed or beginning to seclude themselves.  Another described the satisfaction of helping a first year student, whose high-functioning autism left him socially awkward, make friends and become a valued part of the floor.

RAs can anticipate some tasks like creating a sense of community on their floor, but other challenges have to be responded to on the fly.  One RA this fall heard a fire alarm go off just as he stepped out of the shower and into his room wearing only a towel.  His duty was clear: to make sure all the residents made their way quickly outside. Did he have time to get fully dry and to dress?  Our intrepid RA put duty first, and led the way outside wearing only some very moist shorts.

Sooner or later, RAs may face a more serious crisis.  One told me that in her first semester on the job there was a sudden pounding on her door in the middle of the afternoon.  A student a few floors up in the East Tower was suffering from a seizure.  The RA raced up the stairs and found a young man lying on the floor with a nasty bruise on his forehead where he had fallen.  His girlfriend was next to him, panicked and not knowing what to do.  The RA got the young man onto his side and called Public Safety, who in turn brought in a medical first responder team. 

What runs through your mind in a moment like that?  Reflecting back, this RA told me of her realization that “these guys who ran around looking for me could easily have been the same guys I wrote up the previous weekend … [for a rules infraction].  Yet here they were coming to me for help with a situation that honestly scared me. …  When I came, things became organized and calm.  We all supported each other to make sure things turned out right.  And they did.”

When I ask RAs about the greatest rewards of their job, they describe the satisfaction of knowing they have made a difference.  The RA who responded to the seizure still exchanges a special smile with the girl she first met sitting on the floor scared there might be something seriously wrong with her boyfriend.  The RA who helped the first year autistic student is now helping him put together a showing of the work he has done in the Park School.  Another RA speaks of the satisfaction of seeing someone on campus who she helped during an especially difficult time in her life two years ago, someone who was then thinking about leaving college but who is now helping others as an RA herself.  Many RAs tell me this is the experience they will most treasure from their undergraduate years, both for the friends they have made and the life lessons they have learned.  

Ever wonder what it would be like to recognized as a leader among your peers?  To have people look to you for answers, and to find out that you are up to the challenge?  Ithaca College is looking right now for a few good women and men to serve as RAs next semester.  To find out more, and to apply to be part of this special group of student leaders, go to http://www.ithaca.edu/reslife/ra/index2.htm.

What holds people together for over half a century in ties of deep affection and mutual respect?  How do bonds between people remain strong even when they are physically scattered and no longer see each other on a regular basis? 

Last weekend I attended a reunion of Ithaca College alumni who played together on the football teams of the late 1950s and early 1960s, organized by John Fasolino '60, Guido Maiolo '59, and Mike Angelo '60.  These gentlemen and their spouses have been getting together regularly for the last forty years, beginning about ten years after their graduation.  Each time they gather, they find new and deeper meaning in their shared academic and athletic journey of fifty years ago. 

This was no mere sentimental journey to the past, though there were certainly a lot of fond remembrances.  The players spent Friday evening whooping and hollering at highlight films of their gridiron exploits.  The needling was merciless when one offensive lineman moved before the snap, but was not caught by the official and ended up leading the way on a touchdown run.  The action on the field looked like the plays a Bomber team would run today, but the facilities left something to be desired back then.  These men recalled showering while still in uniform to rinse off the mud at halftime of a game played in a downpour, and huddling together in the back of a flat bed truck to ward off the late autumn cold on the long ride from the newly-built field on South Hill to the locker rooms in town.  Dick Carmean '60, captain of the 1959 team, told how he and the Cortland football captain decided to buy the jug that still serves as the trophy in the Cortaca Jug game.  Cortland captain Tom Decker – a childhood friend of Carmean’s – conned Dick into paying the full cost of the jug.  Which means that the jug belongs to Ithaca!

But these alumni also gathered for a more serious purpose.  On Saturday morning they stood at the Schenectady grave of their coach, Dick Lyon, along with Coach Lyon's children, Tim Lyon and Kathy Staak, and their families.  Lyon came to Ithaca in 1958 to coach a team that had run through a series of head coaches in the previous decade, that had seen football players leave the program and the school, and that had produced a 2-5 record the year before.  Lyon turned all that around his first year, drawing disgruntled players back to the team and ending the season at 6-1.  Coach Lyon’s teams had winning seasons every year for the next eight years, until he left in 1967 to join the coaching staff at West Point.

Dick Lyon’s winning records, though, were not what brought players back to talk about him.  Dom Pacio '60 was a bruising running back who transferred to IC from Syracuse University, which already had a running back named Jim Brown.  Pacio, who had a huge reputation coming in, watched on the first day of practice as upperclassmen were given low cut cleats to wear – a new style of shoe that everyone wanted.  Coach Lyon gave Dom a pair of high cut cleats.  When Dom asked his coach why he got the high cut shoes, Lyon replied “You have to earn the low cut shoes.”  Dom swallowed his pride and ran onto the field determined to show Coach he deserved the low cut shoes.

Larry Karas '63 worked his way up from the demonstration team in his freshman year (the squad whose job in practice is to mimic the offense and defense of the next opponent) to being the starter at quarterback in his junior year.  A few games into the season Coach Lyon took Larry aside and said “You are always looking at the ground when I talk to you.  I won’t start a quarterback who doesn’t make eye contact and show he is really listening.”  Larry told me it was a watershed moment in his life, and he looked me in the eye as he told me this story.

These teams of the late 1950s included many veterans of the armed services, men who were often married and had young families.  They had little money.  Players with children were often invited to Coach Lyon’s house for Sunday brunch – in some cases the best meal they had all week.  Years after graduating, players would get a call from Coach asking how they were doing, suggesting a coaching job they might want to apply for, and showing concern for their continued development in their careers and as men.  Standing at his grave almost fifty years after graduating, player after player told of the thoughtfulness and the life lessons that Dick and his wife Helen had given them.  If you had to boil those stories down to four words, they would be:  “He changed my life.”

The bonds between Coach Lyon and his players were created because he cared for them, he held them to a strict code of ethics and behavior, and he challenged them to give their best in everything they did.  When the IC Board of Trustees resolved to name the press box in Butterfield Stadium after Coach Lyon, they noted not just his winning records but that he had been “a steadfast mentor, role model and friend to hundreds of students.” 

We have had just two head football coaches in the 42 years since Coach Lyon left Ithaca College, both of them very much in the mold he created.  And we have 23 other varsity coaches at IC who are also described as life changers by their players.  Our sports programs have never been, and will never be, just about sports.

I think you are sick to require your incoming students to read this dumbo's book!

Let me guess. You did drugs in the sixties, but now you do them at any temperature?

Why not make them read Mein Kampf? Same book, different author.

This is a sampling of the emails I received after asking incoming freshmen to come to campus having read Barack Obama’s coming of age story, Dreams from My Father. I should perhaps admit that I have read Mein Kampf, and a copy of the book stands on my shelf. That is not unusual among people who have made their living as a teacher of the tumultuous politics of 20^th century Europe. I am happy to report that reading the book did not turn me into a Nazi.

I doubt that reading Dreams from My Father created any new Democrats among our freshmen either, but then again that was not the point. Obama wrote this book to record experiences and thoughts as a young man growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia, as a college student in California and New York, as a community organizer in Chicago, and as a family-seeking pilgrim in Kenya. Far from being a political manifesto ( I agree with my critics that it would be inappropriate to assign a campaign book as required freshman reading), Dreams from My Father tells of Obama’s search to understand where he fits in with family, community, and people in general. Though his life circumstances are highly particular, Obama’s core questions are the questions every young adult must answer for himself or herself: “Who am I?” “Where do I belong?” and “What is the purpose or meaning of my life?”

Not that Obama’s background is as unusual as one might believe. One fifth of Americans under 21 have at least one parent who was born in another country. Sure enough, though every freshman in the small discussion group I led grew up in the United States, one had grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in Costa Rica and another had family in India. Just as Obama found his first visit to Kenya revelatory, concluding “that on this earth one place is not so different from another … one moment carries within it all that’s gone before,” so too was it eye-opening for these Ithaca College students to travel to their respective ancestral lands. One found new insight in discovering “the part of me that had been missing.”  The other felt repulsed by attitudes and social practices that she could not accept. Both were doing what all thoughtful young adults must do: figure out who they are and decide what they believe in. 

To us older people, the book is a reminder that we all came into the world as strangers in a strange land and that we had to make sense of the world around us. For at least some of our students who read the book, on the other hand, its central revelation seems to have been that the powerful, self-assured leaders they see in the world in around them were once as young and as uncertain about life’s mysteries as they are today. “How does anybody get to be anything?” asked one of the students in my discussion group. The answer she discovered in the book was that the journey of life is taken one step at a time. You progress in that journey by reflecting on the difficult questions thrown up by your experiences.  The young Mr. Obama did not start out with a fully-formed plan -- a great relief to those of our students who know they don't have any such plan themselves.

Discussion groups formed around Dreams from My Father last Tuesday, and then on Wednesday classes began. As happens every year at this time, it is a moment for students to examine the most important questions in their lives and to set their goals for the year ahead, before the intensity of daily class assignments and projects fully sets in. 

To those who fear the college campus as a place of indoctrination, I suggest simply that you spend 15 minutes with a real, live student. Experience the idealism, the established foundation of values, the questioning of everything around them, the sheer depth of insight.  And then feel very, very good about our future as a society.