For the fourth podcast conversation in the Ghosts & Shadows Conversation Series, Dr. Paul Hoard and Dr. Doug Shirley wanted to hear from Dr. J. Derek McNeil, President and Provost of The Seattle School. Dr. McNeil joined the leadership team at The Seattle School in 2010, and he has served as President since 2019. Enjoy this dialogue among faculty as Dr. McNeil shares his insights on the school’s history, identity, and growth. He also speaks to the season of planting and rebuilding as well as the value of games and play. [Podcast has been edited for length.]
Ghost & Shadows Conversation Series
In this season as The Seattle School has been looking back at the first 25 years, we, Dr. Paul Hoard and Dr. Doug Shirley, have been exploring what it means to live with the legacies and histories in our community, as well as how to engage with these proverbial ghosts and shadows, these systemic inheritances. Together in this series titled “Ghosts and Shadows,” we’ve examined the past and looked towards the future through three essays, and we also invited colleagues to join in the conversation and share their reflections in a series of podcasts including Dr. Curt Thompson, Dr. Monique Gadson, and Dr. Chelle Stearns. This conversation with Dr. J. Derek McNeil was the final one recorded in 2023.
Our Guest for this Conversation
Dr. J. Derek McNeil is President and Provost of The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. He holds a PhD in Counseling Psychology from Northwestern University and an MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary. Prior to his tenure at The Seattle School, Derek served as faculty in the PsyD program at Wheaton College Graduate School for over 15 years. He has worked as a clinician in private practice, a diversity advisor, an organizational consultant, and an administrator. His research, writing, and speaking have focused on issues of ethnic and racial socialization, the role of forgiveness in peacemaking, the identity development of African-American males, leadership in living systems, and resilience.
Transcript
Dr. Paul Hoard:
I am Dr. Paul Hoard, an Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology at the Seattle School. Dr. Shirley and I have been working on this project we call Ghosts and Shadows in this season where the school has been looking back at the first 25 years and looking ahead to the next 25 years. And as we are preparing to move from this building to a new location, we’ve been exploring what are the proverbial ghosts that haunt us, the ghosts and shadows with us in our community, as well as how to engage with those ghosts and shadows, what we think about systemic inheritances. We’ve written a few essays and we’ve also continued the conversation in a series of podcasts with a few colleagues to help us reflect together. We invited our Provost and President, Dr. J. Derek McNeil to join us in this conversation. He’s read our essays on ghosts and shadows, and we are grateful for his insights and willingness to join in this exploration of our history, purpose, and identity and the ways we connect with each other.
Dr. Doug Shirley:
Well, what a good day. Derek, thank you for being with us. When Paul and I set out on this journey, we knew that we wanted to interview you last because we wanted to seek you as an elder in our community, as someone with presidential authority and voice. We wanted to make sure that you were present in this project in some way. And so we look forward to not sure where the conversation’s going to take us. Know that you have read our blog post, which is fantastic. Thank you for investing that way. And really, now I just want to see where our conversation might take us. So we’ve been in conversations around systemic thought and Lacanian thought, analytic thought and group thought, but also trying to sort of stay grounded in our own experiences of the ineffable stuff that seems to linger in our hallways and our Zoom chats and in all the places that make us The Seattle School 25 years in and 25 years and change to go. So maybe to begin, we’ve used this phrase, ghost and shadows. It kind of became our rallying point early in the project, and we’d love to hear just even as you’ve interacted with that phrase, where does it take you?
Dr. J. Derek McNeil:
Yeah, it was interesting. It hit me multiple ways. One is of course the sort of obvious sense of haunting with ghost and shadows, the things lurking in the corners. I mean, that was a sort of immediate metaphor, but then some part of me also had a sense of Holy Ghost. I mean, I grew up with the Holy Ghost if you’ll and shadows could also be the things that were hidden and unintegrated. And so it hit me that way. And I think when I read the first piece in inheritance or inheritances, it made me think of, for whatever reason, my father, and it wasn’t the tough things that he passed on. I’m sure I have some habits that my wife will say, Hey, that looks like you’re really your father and that kind of thing. But it was really more of the, what was probably my mother called stubborn, slow and sentimental, I might call wise, loyal and compassionate.
So in some ways it was a desire for me to hear, feel both aspects of ghost and shadows, not simply the negative ones, but the things that have made us what we are in terms of continuity. So for me, always what we’re both working with, struggling with is the things that have contained us. They produce both a continuity and a stuckness at the same time. And how do you work with the continuity holding on to that which we have to hold and keep and that which we need to find a way to shed and find new wings for. So that was, I appreciate both of you. I say thank you to 1) the energy to do this. I think this is where we are. This is a moment for us, decide, hey, what goes forward in the Sankofa looking back, looking forward sort of way.
What do we look back at? What do we see? What do we integrate into what goes forward? And this feels like that moment. And so this is a good venture. I felt energized by it. I know it can have the kind of connotation of, oh gosh, we’re still doing that. And I want to say, goodness gracious, we’re still doing that, both in the sense of, and then, what are the things we want to free ourselves to do more? And so that was the piece I think it struck me in terms of the metaphor of ghost and shadows.
Dr. Doug Shirley:
Lovely. As you’re talking, I’m reminded my own ambivalence to engage the ghost or even my own shadow. And when early in conversation Paul placed these ghosts and shadows in the Lacanian real, it seemed right, but there was also this oh moment because it is time to not be ambivalent. That sense of it’s time to engage. I agree. And so we’ve been working at that for a handful of months now. But I would say I’ve come to this project with ambivalence to, I think even in that first post I spoke of some of what I carry is, I’m not fill in the blank, I’m not a certain thing, I’m not a certain thing. I don’t have the same foibles as the dreamers or whatever it was. I’m not. And so that ambivalent part of me would like to say, well, I’m not and move on. But of course that’s not true.
Dr. J. Derek McNeil:
Well it’s funny because even that mantra I’m not is a part of the school’s history, if you will. I think we found it easier to say, well, we’re not, or we’re not like them or we’re not quite rigid in that way. We’re not hierarchical in that way or we’re not exclusive in that way. We’re not. And what has shifted is probably not just simply us internally, but the environment around us. So when I think about the school’s history, we were birthed in a time when things were rigid enough, status quo enough that they needed to have some breaking up, kind of like soil that had been beaten down, if you will. And so I think the church needed us to be that sort of, Hey, what’s emerging, what’s different? And so I think a lot of our definition was we’re not that, and that’s useful, necessary.
And maybe even I’ll call an adolescent, a good adolescent energy, because I think we need our adolescents to become young adults and alter the society we’re in. I mean, we need a new wave of energy and thinking. And so we’ve had some of that energy of we’re not that, we’re not that and we’re better than that. And that’s sort of grandiose sort of way. And I think as we’ve grown, gotten older, 25 if you will, and reached some degree of young adulthood-ness if I can over-anthropomorphize us, there’s a bit of what we have to declare. We are in the world, what is our role now? What are we called? And who we called to serve now? And I think that’s the juncture we’re at. But it’s frightening to let go of the I’m not that because at least they can’t critique you and you won’t be shamed for being something you’re not.
And we have to risk, not necessarily foreclosing, but integrating with the identity cycles of Erikson’s notion of there’s a foreclosure. But I like to think of that foreclosures integrating the parts of us in a way that we find a way to serve and we find who we’re called to serve. So yeah, I think it’s inherently ambivalent much like the identity crisis or stages and forgive the stages thinking, but at least for the moment and something has to emerge from that. I think we’re at that point of something emerging from that. And so generativity, if you will, but again, parts of us still are in we that really… Yes, we are these things and how we step into that. This to me is this movement. This is a stepping through if you will, and saying, Hey, we’ve got to declare a bit more or else we’ll be adults who reach middle age or late age with a certain despair because we didn’t fulfill our calling. And I think we’re stepping into what it is we’re called to step into at a time when the external environment is in fragmentation. It’s no longer hierarchy rigidly in place. It is eroding and enough corruption that we don’t need to simply point it out. We need to bring our bandages and bind up wounds and in some ways rebuild walls that have been torn and broken down.
Dr. Paul Hoard:
Which I think as I hear you say that, Derek, I think it speaks to a lot of obviously what we’re saying here. We have such a, well-developed muscle to tear down or to push against. And I think that there’s one form of our inheritance, which is we find something to push against because we can find meaning, we can find coherence I think, in that. But I think if we play with that metaphor of ghosts and shadows, but I think our ghosts as ancestors perhaps are calling us to, is to go beyond the against and to kind of continue the work unto that they’re against was for.
Dr. J. Derek McNeil:
Yes.
Dr. Paul Hoard:
If I’m not being too circular in my language there. Yes.
Dr. J. Derek McNeil:
No, I agree. I agree. The Old Testament text that says: Hey, tear up, root out, pull up. It’s like four, three or four destructive metaphors and then plant build or build plant. And so there is at times a need to be that destructive and deconstructing. But if it’s for the sake of only deconstructing, then I think we have a bit of a sad waste. And the question for us is when is the plant built and what’s the task of planting and building that I think is a continuation of the pull up, root out, tear down necessity. And if we see these things together as opposed to opposites, then I think we enter into what we’re calling the infinite game, if you will. It’s a longer-term thing, not just simply the moment of its destruction, it’s the story that continues and how do we stay in the story that continues and that means we’ll have seasons of pulling up and pulling down, tearing up if you will. And then seasons of building and planting, I think we’re facing the season of planting and building
Dr. Doug Shirley:
And even just thinking about (how) people are tired–listening to the faculty come back from summer, our first fall meeting this morning, a mix of excitement and tiredness, hearing Kristen Houston talk about going to the recent Department of Health meeting where they’re talking about the sorts of complaints that are coming through from mental health therapists here in the state of Washington. Therapists are obviously tired because they’re doing things that are bringing complaint and sounds like they’re doing some pretty nutty things. And so I’m mindful that I can be that nutty too. And so again, I think part of this project is this sense of where to put our energy in a season where we’ve all gotten beat up to some degree by Covid, by the rattling of the cages of higher ed, by systems falling apart around us by the desire for non-system things. But I think that that sense of exhaustion is palpable. And so even as you say, moving from something that might seem more kind of aggressive or I don’t know what to something that may be more tender, this has felt like more of a tender project to me than put a hammer through concrete project to me.
Dr. J. Derek McNeil:
I hear that and I would ask the question because I think you’re very right. I mean I feel that tiredness, it hits me most when I become aware of what institutional things no longer hold me. And I feel the sense of the social contract is changing. It’s like, well, how come they’re doing that and getting away with it kind of quality and people feel a little bit more unmoored. But I probably ask the both of you, if you could think this is end of summer, if you will, if you could think back this summer, what were the moments of things you were doing that gave you the most? And more than likely it’s with people you cared about and loved.
And so as some part of me, and maybe this sounds radical, is saying, Hey, as a faculty, as a staff, can we learn to love each other, which means less frightened of each other in such a way that would reenergize us? Can we learn to in some ways love what we’re called to? Because I think it’s harder if I just think about institutions, I don’t think of institutions as divine. I think of them as human constructs, but necessary. My kids needed school because they needed some socialization that I couldn’t give them that school gave them even, however it was done, whether it be in some ways limited fashion of a patriarchal society, I still needed them socialized. How do they live in this society? And when those things fall apart and it falls to me to do, I’ll be overwhelmed.
But how do we rebuild new ones? And I think it starts with us, our care and compassion for each other to say, how do we build new institutions or new interaction patterns that allow me to serve and care for you, Doug and your family as I think about your three boys? And Paul I think about you and your family. How do we build a school that doesn’t just simply draw us from us, but actually serves them and serves unto the next generation? Well, can we think about schools and our institutions doing that? In some ways, what they should be set up to do, it’s not just simply go get an education. It really is how do we socialize and prepare people for the world that we’re going to have to engage in address? How do we socialize our students for the world they’re having to engage and have to address? And some of that’s to do with trauma, but some of that has to do with can we eat?
Where do we gather? What are the meaningful things in life and how do we make meaning with other people? How do we solve our big problems without aligning with each other? And I don’t know how you solve climate change without some degree of alignment. So I think we’re going to have to shift, not think of education or institutions just for the sake of what they have done, but think what do we need now them to do and prepare us, equip us, for the challenges we have to face. And so I think that’s the positive nature of the spin for me. I mean, it moves me out of this sort of the sparing quality, our stuckness to say, what if we said by 2040 we’ll have a global collapse if we don’t get together and work on some things together. I don’t have much time to despair. And I actually think that if we don’t find a way to link to each other and align each other in certain types of ways, we’ll be facing some degree of global collapse. That motivates in a different sort of way. And I think it’s the linkage of people, which is why I like this. I appreciate your linkage with each other and with us as a faculty, as us as a school. And then in light of that, what do we do with our ghosts and our shadows?
Dr. Paul Hoard:
Yeah, I was thinking in that part of linking kind of reminded me of I think the section from this latest piece where we talk about the image versus the real. And I think that there’s a sense in which we like to think of ourselves as linked. And in many ways I think we want to have the image of a community, but without really much of the actual structure, Lacanian, the symbolic, is not actually there. We’re not actually connected, but we’d like to pretend we are. And I think that’s a lot of what was motivating for me in wanting to approach this project was the sense that there’s so many good intentions that don’t seem to actually whose impact seems different than their intentions. And what is it from our past that keeps us in these repetitive cycles. I think everybody hear what you say and I want to say amen, but I also can, in my body feel a sense of, yeah, but it’s really easy to say tha,t we don’t know how to do that.
Dr. J. Derek McNeil:
Yeah. It’s funny because the image that comes in my mind, Paul, is I think it was you, was it Jermaine and somebody else sitting around the table in the conference room playing games? And when you say, we don’t know how to do that, I think that’s how you do it. And so in some ways for me, I’m thinking, Hey, why don’t we have– until we move–why don’t we have a game night. I think it has to be outside all. Well, it can’t be locked in by the constraints that have constrained us If you will, and so, I can still recall the pleasure of you describing this game I had not seen before. Everyone’s smiling, everyone’s excited, and I’m like, okay, I don’t have a clue, but you all clearly enjoying this. And game night is a way of learning each other in ways that we don’t typically. And I think this is a sort of weakness of the academy is that it sticks us into constraints of a language that in some ways will inform ourselves as intellectual. And it is, but it can’t only be life of the mind.
It has to be in some ways life of the play. And that’s mine too. But we don’t give it as much credit because it’s not serious if you will, and I think there’s a lot of seriousness in gameplay about the rules of the game, the infinite nature of the game, the finite nature of the game. I think we teach our students a great deal about how to frame the world and problem solve in the world with games in a way that the academy tends not to say, oh yeah, that’s the first thing we want you to do with them, as opposed to give them information. And I think we have to play with that a bit more to say, Hey, maybe it might be better training if we put you in a game theory, game situations, and have you work with cases, that’s what cases are, how do we both learn each other and how do we learn how to in some ways engage and work together around big problems? So I think we may know more than we think we know. We may not give ourselves privilege in all the ways we might because of the constraints of what the academy is.
Dr. Doug Shirley:
Is that an inheritance then, a sense of both the deauthorization, we don’t know what we think we wait. We are not authorized to admit that we know what we know, but also we get to hide in the shadow of we don’t have to know what we already know.
Dr. J. Derek McNeil:
That’s true too. I don’t know. That’s a question I’ll have to turn back to you, Doug. I think you kind of answered some of that. I think partly what strikes me is how do we give each other permission, which is play. And to play means the rules can’t say, you can’t have as much fun as I’m having, or I’m special and you’re not. I mean, the whole part of play is to say, Hey, we’re going to set a general set of rules that we play by and then we interact with each other around and we’ll see what happens. Well, if faculty is not playing with each other, setting a certain freedom to try out new strategies or to figure out the long game short game and interact with each other, how do we, we’re withholding a certain permission from each other. And so I think the tendency to say, well, who decided this game, what this game’s going to be? And I say, somebody did, but we did too. And how do we in some ways decide, hey, what should the rules be? And it shouldn’t be because we’re frightened to be out of order and let the game dictate some of what we internally agreed to is, Hey, this will hold us together if we decide on these type of ways to play. So this is a bit of play. I mean, in some ways you’re inviting me to play with that metaphor. I mean play a game with you all in terms of thinking game, but it’s really for me, a linking game. And can we find ways to link?
Dr. Doug Shirley:
You’ve used two phrases that have stood out to me already. So you’ve talked about love and then you said we learn each other, that’s not how we learn each other. I wouldn’t say that those are typical rules or guidelines of the academy. The phrase, the title of this last blog post and Enduring Beauty came from Curt, came from Dr. Thompson. As we finished our conversation, he offered it. And I think both Paul and I went that we want that, right? Because beauty is gorgeous, but often fleeting, right? Often that sense of as soon as you have it, it’s gone. And so there’s something about, as we’ve tried to follow that trail of what makes beauty enduring, we’re aware that it has to be particular. So even in this game plan that you’re talking about or the tension between the image and the real, there has to be something about moving from abstraction into the particular into how do the three of us learn each other right now in ways we haven’t learned each other before? That’s a different kind of task than the academy often sets before us.
Dr. J. Derek McNeil:
It does. But I think I’ve been fortunate to get to know you both a little bit outside the academy game. If you will, and I have a sense even in doing this, such a desire for us to experience something different with us as a faculty, a sort of freedom, a sort of play, a sort of intellectual exercise that’s fun, that we laugh at as much as we may cry about, and to impact our students in a way to free them even in our spaces. I think the message to students from outside the academy in the society is everybody’s dangerous and we should be all treated like we’re dangerous. And even the people socializing, you’re dangerous and you shouldn’t trust them because they’re going to do certain things to you. And it’s like, gosh, how do we change that game? The classroom?
How do we say, yeah, there are some rough parts of this game, but the whole thing’s not worth shit excuse. You can edit that out. And there’s actually some things we can learn in this game. The whole thing is not to be thrown out, but even recognizing, hey, what parts have, who could play? And how do we engage this? And maybe this is not ultimately the game, but can we even work together to find a better game? And that’s a creative act with the nest that we have and that might allow us to get free, but it’s hard to stay within the academy block to do that because right now you’re the teacher. You’re in a hierarchy. You’re going to use your power against me. You’re going to somehow misstep and then I’m a gotcha, which undercuts your power and we play this game of me trying to avoid the gotchas and you trying to get me. I’m like, I don’t like the game.
Can we change and just stay up front? I don’t want to play that one. Can we do another one? The world is coming to an end. What do you want to do with that? And how do we survive? And it’s all messed up, but how do we rebuild? I mean, I just wanted in some ways to say, can we declare as a school, as a faculty, can we play with each other enough to say, can we change the game and can we make it an infinite game as opposed to finite? You’ve got me. I got you. That’s a finite game. And so what’s gained? And that you yell at me for a couple sessions because I messed up. What’s gained by that? You feel more secure. I doubt it. And that may be the real game we’re hoping to move into.
Dr. Doug Shirley:
Paul, last word?
Dr. Paul Hoard:
Yeah, I just feel full of gratitude. I mean for you, Derek, but also the others that we’ve been able to talk to. And yeah, I hope the project doesn’t end, but in a sense is, in some ways, maybe helps continue a conversation as we keep going. I feel energized.
Dr. J. Derek McNeil:
I hope so too. And I’ll say this, I’ll be listening for the infinite. I’ll be listening for the lovely.
Dr. Doug Shirley:
Dr. McNeil, thanks again.
Dr. J. Derek McNeil:
Very welcome. Thank you.