Not a Wonk, or, Specialization is for Insects

This blog has drifted away from its original piratical purpose (to which I very much hope to return in time for my capstone next semester), but since it's a convenient and publicly accessible platform, I'd like to use it to share my response to American University's new "wonk" marketing campaign. For some background, I'd encourage you to check out both the university's official website devoted to the campaign and The Eagle's coverage of its launch on campus.

‎"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

- Robert A. Heinlein

While I think the goals of promoting community spirit and pride in knowledge of American University's recent "American wonk" marketing campaign are commendable -- as may well be the attempt to reappropriate the term "wonk"-- I don't think this term conveys what's great about our campus community to people not familiar with what we are attempting to accomplish linguistically. As dictionary.com and Wiktionary.org reveal, the connotative meaning of the term -- to people not associated with AU -- is overwhelmingly negative, not to mention historically charged with racial and sexual orientation overtones. While AU is seeking to independently redefine the term, realistically, I don't believe we're in a position to accomplish that at a level that extends beyond the campus community and incoming freshmen who are not familiar with the term. Linguistic reappropriation tends to be most successful when it is broadly and intersubjectively undertaken. Is AU really in a position to effect that level of societal change? Think about the contemporary connotations of "queer" and the struggle to reclaim it as a term of pride outside of a limited community. The negative connotations of "wonk" may not be as charged or even as hateful, but they're present nonetheless, and I'm skeptical of AU's ability to single-handedly whitewash them away. Based on the interviews in the promotional video, the vast majority of students who were enthusiastic about the campaign had never heard the word "wonk" before. What of those who had and found "wonk" wanting? Anecdotal evidence from AU peers, alumni, and outsiders to the campus community indicates that the negative connotations of "wonk" are alive and well.

Furthermore, as a cultural practice, the reappropriation of formerly derogatory or inflammatory terms requires an honest acknowledgement of their status as hateful, mean-spirited, or biased. AU seems to have made no such effort with this "wonk" campaign, glossing over the negative connotations and handing down a brand-new definition of the word that may exhibit certain denotative similarities with its ancestors, but which does not confront -- and therefore cannot overcome -- the sins of its father.

The real-world uses of "wonk" being tracked by the American Wonks website are certainly a mixed bag in terms of whether they are used positively ("A reader is impressed with brainiac wonks Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor and asks if they are the future of conservatism") or negatively ("Speaking of nebulous politicospeak, Taegan Goddard's new wonk-tastic Political Dictionary is now available"). But more importantly, almost all of them are used to refer to professionals with narrow interests, often unable to communicate those interests to a wider audience or relate them to other fields: "Two researchers created an experiment that will be known beyond psych wonks." (Merriam-Webster concurs with this latter sense.) Is this really how we want AU graduates to be characterized? As (social) scientists or practitioners unable to make their work relevant, accessible, or interesting to those outside their field or professional circle?

More fundamentally, even if we accept the more charitable definitions of "wonk" as gaining some cultural traction -- and it's possible that AU is part of a broader movement in that direction -- I believe that the word's association with highly specific areas of knowledge is the wrong message for our university to be sending. An undergraduate institution, at least, should aspire to and take pride in cultivating well-rounded, critical, analytical thinkers -- not cranking out narrowly specialized pre-professionals. Indeed, that's the very goal of the General Education Program. It is explicitly anti-wonkish.

Finally, I'm troubled by the explicit focus on "universities as businesses." I understand that a great deal of marketing research was undertaken to produce this particular branding attempt -- and that a certain amount of advertising is absolutely necessary to let people know about the excellent classes, professors, and ideals AU has to offer -- but I think we make a mistake when we think of AU as something to sell, rather than as a place to come to learn -- and perhaps more importantly, to learn how to learn. When we "brand" and "label" (quite literally, in the case of the free t-shirts the university was handing out liberally on the quad today -- and at what cost?) our undergraduates as specialists, we're endorsing an idea and creating certain expectations about what kind of person we want students to become. Do we really want our undergraduates to be experts? Or would we prefer that they be educated in a variety of fields which will inevitably touch upon, influence, and inform their chosen field of work?

As AU seeks to define itself and identify its niche in the world of higher education, it is important that we do not lose sight of the broader goal of helping students learn how to learn, think, and act as responsible, ethical, and informed citizens. And if we've given up that goal in order to train students to get elected as politicians, hired as corporate executives, and appointed to diplomatic posts -- to sell our university to prospective students in the crudest sense of the term -- we've given up on all the things I know and love about American University.