Craig McNamara, on the Importance of Stanford’s Jones Lecturers
Craig’s letter is part of the “Dear Stanford” substack. Please visit at https://savethejoneslecturers.substack.com/ . Stanford students and alumni are encouraged to send in their letters to “Dear Stanford.”
Dear Stanford,
I have experienced the unique perspective of attending Stanford as an undergraduate during the Vietnam War and more recently as a Distinguished Career Institute (DCI) fellow. The first time around I dropped out in protest to the war and the second time, I wrote a memoir about my relationship to the war and its architect, my father. It is my recent Stanford experience that I want to share with you.
During my first quarter as a DCI fellow, I enrolled in Ed Porter’s creative nonfiction English 91 class. During the next ten weeks Ed, a Jones Lecturer, took me and my fellow eleven undergraduate classmates on a journey that changed our lives. Ed guided each of us as we unpacked our complicated and often painful origin stories while developing our writing skills. Halfway through Ed’s class, I asked him if I could possibly find an Independent Study fellow to assist me in mapping out my future memoir. He introduced me to the late Eavan Boland, a distinguished poet and former director of the creative writing program. Within one day, Eavan connected me to Sarah Frisch, another Jones Lecturer who became my writing coach, in-house editor, and my closest ally in drafting my memoir. I can honestly say that without the assistance of these dedicated lecturers from the program, I and hundreds of other Stanford students would not have the opportunity to explore our dream of incorporating creative writing into our lives and careers.
Writers like Ed and Sarah and their cohort of lecturers have developed their courses over many years, experimenting along the way. They provide Stanford students the absolute best creative writing training, allowing us to unleash our inner stories and in so doing, adding context and color to the daily lives of so many. If in the future, the program was to depend on temporary labor as may well happen, this essential element of creative writing at Stanford would be undermined.
I am very aware of this in my own line of work. As an organic farmer, I rely on the specialized training of the women and men who have worked in our orchards, developing their craft over many years. Job longevity is critical in mastering their ability to successfully complete the very challenging work that they preform each day. If I were to rely on a temporary work force, I’d lose out on the years of learning and creativity that our workers bring with them.
The Jones Lecturers embody this spirit of hard work, training, and creativity. They have my complete support as they continue to inspire their students and make their case for job longevity.
Sincerely,
Craig McNamara
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Craig McNamara is the author of Because Our Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today. Much more at https://craigmcnamara.org/
