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Thursday, May 08, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Basement Files: Learning to love...by degrees

Second of a two-part series

In the fall of 1997, Chris Haselton came to UNLV to be the nation's first graduate student in self-esteem. Today, Haselton shares with Mercury readers his memories of those heady days at ground zero of an academic revolution.

I was living in Colorado when I first heard about Loraine Simmons and the nation's first graduate program in self-esteem. In less than 18 hours, I was on the road to UNLV. But why? Why had this notion, and a future taken solely on faith, gripped me so powerfully? I can only say it called to me instinctively. And I would be hours on the road before linear thought caught up with and explained my heart's intuitive decision.

As I drove west, and a little bit south right at the very end, I found myself asking, "Why do most people get a Ph.D.?" It is because of their deep love of a particular subject? I don't think so. I think most people get a Ph.D. so they can use their arcane knowledge to browbeat the next generation of students in some crappy survey course. "Oh, look at me, I know more about the Ghost Dance movement than you do! Come to my office after class and let me condescend to you while you stare at the snotty little New Yorker cartoons taped to my file cabinet."

Well, I wanted to break that paradigm. In my hands, knowledge would heal, not wound. My wisdom, great as it might be, would be used to enrich students, not belittle them. And I would break down all the barriers that reinforce the demeaning Professor-Godhead/Student hierarchy. In my classes, we would all be students. And that's why I came here.

I knew I was arriving at the ground floor of the self-esteem movement, but I didn't realize how low to the ground the ground floor would be. But there in that small basement office of the sociology department, Loraine and I would meet daily to chart her tenure path, plot my graduate study and create a new discipline's entire future. We were definitely flying blind, but that's what made it so exhilarating.

During the first few semesters of my master's program, there wasn't a curriculum per se. There wasn't, like, a lot of books to read. A lot of days I'd just go to Loraine's office and we'd tell each other what a great job the other was doing. It was hard work, but it was worth it. And some days we'd just close the door and knock out the New York Times crossword puzzle together just to keep the negative thoughts at bay.

Later, Loraine insisted I keep a journal of the things that happened every day that made me feel better about myself. Anything. Like when I found out that my graduate student parking permit entitled me to park in the faculty lots after 5 p.m. and I was like, BONUS! That very journal, amplified by a few narrative sentences here and there, became my doctoral dissertation, "Loving Me: An Annotated Journal of Self-Discovery."

If it sounds easy, it wasn't. As pioneers in a daring new school of theory, we invited doubts, criticisms and often outright hostility. But the us-against-the-world, siege mentality of that office just served to bring us closer together. I think the entrenched university establishment felt very threatened by Loraine and her insistence on outside-the-box thinking. And the ideas that drew the most criticism from the educational elite were almost always the most instructive.

For instance, in 1998 Loraine convened a graduate colloquium during which first-grade students from a local school critiqued our self-esteem program and its methods. Imagine the courage it takes to open yourself up to that kind of peer review. A lot of departmental chairs sneered at the idea, but Loraine pushed for it. And it worked.

These kids came in and observed us for the better part of the day. And they certainly didn't sugarcoat their findings. The kids said that, if anything, we weren't praising ourselves enough. And you know what? They were right. Talk about an eye opener. That was the genius of Loraine's vision. As a result of this one daring experiment, Loraine came away with the idea for her graduate seminar "Nap Time." And I came away with something even greater.

During the second hour of the colloquium, a little boy cornered me and demanded to know if I'd taken a bath that morning. Yes, I told him. Did your mom make you do it, he asked. No, I said, I did it myself. And he just looked at me for the longest time before saying, "You have excellent hygiene skills. You should be very proud." I was stunned, because I'd never thought of it that way. Because I DO have excellent hygiene skills. And I SHOULD be very proud of them. From the mouths of babes, huh?

From that stray comment came my master's thesis on the importance of good grooming on positive self-worth. It was 15 pages, double spaced, and I stayed up like two nights working on it. Oh, and it had footnotes, too. Loraine said it was the best thesis she'd ever read and that I truly was a "Master." That made me feel great.

In less than a week, I will begin the grueling oral defense of my dissertation. Per Loraine's instructions, I will be all alone in a room lined with mirrors. I will ask the penetrating questions. I will supply the brilliant answers. Why? Because, in Loraine's beautiful phrase, no one else should ever be allowed to judge me. Only I can do that. Will I survive the ordeal? Yes. Because I'm Chris Haselton. And I believe in myself.