“Seek Yahweh while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have compassion on him. Turn to our Elohim, for He will abundantly pardon.”

Isaiah 55: 6-7

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Reminiscing About the University of Virginia: Part 3, Grit Orchards

I don’t remember exactly when this happened, but I will never forget it. I was teaching an 8:00 strategy class on Mondays and Wednesdays. It was a Monday morning following a big home football game and the partying afterwards.

I always called roll in class for three reasons:

1. I wanted a record of attendance for each student.
2. I wanted to associate names with faces.
3. A lot of my students were foreign students. Some of their names were difficult to pronounce. I wanted to make sure I could pronounce their names correctly.

Calling roll enabled me to remember a lot of my students’ names even after all these years. Regrettably, I don’t remember this student’s name.

While I was calling roll that day, I noticed that most of the students in the class were very sluggish. I sort of knew their routines for 8:00 classes, especially 8:00 classes on Monday:

1. They rolled out of bed and headed to class.
2. They didn’t shower or eat breakfast. They would go back home and do those things after class.
3. The women students hadn’t washed their hair, and they were a little self-conscious about it. They wore baseball caps to class to hide their unwashed hair.

I knew they would have a hard time paying attention that day. I also knew they were hungry, so I decided to wake them up. I started the class by saying, “I’m starving. I would love to have some grits and eggs with country ham, toast, and a hot cup of black coffee.”

I didn’t stop there. I went on to explain how great it is to start the day with a big breakfast and steaming black coffee.

Their mouths were watering. I could tell it. Everyone was wide awake in an instant.

As I was about to get down to serious business, one of my students said, “Mr. Snyder, what are grits?”

I thought, This sounds like fun. I couldn’t resist, so I continued with my story.

I said, “Where are you from?”

“California,” he said.

“Have you ever been to Western Albemarle County and seen those orchard signs?”

He said, “Yes.”

“Those are grit orchards. Grits are tiny, so picking them is very labor intensive. You can’t pick grits with machinery. That’s why they cost so much. Farmers bring in migrant workers every year to pick their grits to keep the costs down.”

Most of the class started laughing immediately, but I went further with my story to embellish it. Each time I added a new wrinkle they laughed even harder.

At first, the kid from California thought I was telling the truth. Eventually, he caught on. When he got it, he started laughing, too. It was hilarious. After that, I switched gears, and we were into strategy.

I didn’t know it, but the guy form California was a cartoonist, and he had a regular cartoon strip in The Cavalier Daily, the UVA student newspaper. He created a series of cartoon strips about that class. He went through everything I said about grits in class that day. He and I were the characters in his cartoon. They were fantastic comic strips. I cut them out. I think I still have them, somewhere.

When I was in college, most of my classes were as dry as dirt. After I completed my Ph.D., I promised myself that my classes would be many things, but boring wasn’t one of them. I tried to make certain that my students were engaged and that they would remember what we talked about in class. I think I was successful.

Teaching UVA students was a lot of fun. They were really smart. All I had to do was get the ball rolling. Once class was underway, they knew exactly what to do, and they did it.

Switching Gears

Bob Kellogg was Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. I was associate dean in our school in charge of admissions. I liked Bob, but he and I competed with each other for the best students at UVA.

UVA students applied for admission to our school in the spring of their second year. Before we saw them, they had already passed a major hurdle by being admitted to the university, and they had demonstrated 3 semesters of performance at UVA.

I divided our school’s applicant pool into 3 groups:

1. The obvious admits: Their academic performance during their first 3 semesters at UVA was extraordinary. Denying them admission to our school was out of the question. This group represented about 30% of our applicant pool.
2. The obvious don’t admits: They were smart enough to get into UVA, but they had not performed at a high level academically during their first three semesters. Innate ability is not enough to leave a lasting mark. You must also have determination, persistence, and the ability to tackle unpleasant assignments successfully. While I was in charge of admission for our school, if UVA students were not willing to do those things, they would not be admitted. This group represented about 30% of our applicant pool.
3. The marginal group: Students in this group performed well enough academically during their first 3 semesters at UVA, but they were not standout academic performers. To distinguish themselves, students in this group needed to convince me that they had something special: Leadership ability. That’s an intangible quality, but it can be seen in the extracurricular activities of applicants. From the very first day that I took the job in administration, I told UVA students who wanted to apply to our school that I expected them to demonstrate leadership ability. This group represented about 40% of our applicant pool, and this is where I hoped to make a difference in the overall quality of our student body.

One evening in the fall of 1982, Bob and I were together making presentations about our programs to first- and second-year students. Bob went first, and he ended his remarks by saying something like this:

“There are two things that I hope never to see again. During basketball season last year when UVA played UNC in University Hall, our students booed Michael Jordan. That should not have happened, but this is worse. At graduation last spring, Commerce students marched down the Lawn waving dollar bills. That was totally inappropriate.”

When Bob finished, he gave me a smirk and casually handed me the microphone. I had to do some quick thinking. I looked at him and said, “Bob, I agree with you. Michael Jordan is a great basketball player. He will go on to become a great star in the NBA. Our students should not have booed him, but Bob, you got one thing wrong.”

Bob said, “Really. What did I get wrong?”

“Our students weren’t waving dollar bills.”

“What were they waving?”

“Hundred-dollar bills.”

The whole room erupted in laughter. When the laughter died down, I explained what I was looking for in applicants. I told them about the three groups in our applicant pool. I explained my criteria to them as clearly as I could so that everyone would understand what I was looking for. I told them that our job was not to tell applicants what their aspirations should be. Our job was to prepare our students to be successful as they pursued their aspirations whatever they were. I focused on leadership ability. I told them that that attribute more than any other would distinguish them in the admission process and in life.

UVA students tend to be very competitive. All they needed to know were the criteria I would use in the admission process. Once they understood what I expected, they could produce the results I was looking for, and a lot of them did.

Needless to say, our school won that night. I gave the students a challenge. Bob gave them the typical narrative from the arts and sciences faculty: Students are in college to think great thoughts.

I don’t have a problem with thinking great thoughts, but the people who matter most in the long-run are people who can think great thoughts and put them into action. Bob missed that point completely. I could tell that my message resonated with the students. Bob’s message didn’t. I’m sure he saw it, too.

The class our school admitted in the spring of 1983 was one of the best classes we ever had. They were the graduating class of 1985. I was out of the administration by 1985 and back to doing things that faculty do, but I was able to talk with that group for 2 full years before they became students in our school. Our school’s class of 1985 bears my mark.

Bob died shortly before I retired in 2004. I miss him, but if he were alive today, this is what I would tell him: “Thank you, Bob. I couldn’t have done it without you.” That little quip about waving dollar bills enabled me to grab the students’ attention and hold it. They heard my message, and they produced the results I wanted to see.

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“I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me — just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father — and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd. The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”

John 10: 14-18

See “His Name is Yahweh”.