Blue-Collar Journal: A College President's Sabbatical

by John Royston Coleman

252 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1974

Reviews

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

very thoughtful. Still relevant today.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really didn't expect this to be one of my favourite reads so far this year. It might not be a 4-star read if only for its lightweight, though I wouldn't feel that 3 stars would really do the book justice.

This journal, in the same vein of books I consider humanitarian, such as Wind, Sand, and Stars, opened my mind up about other walks of life a little bit more, pushed me to examine my own self and prejudices a little bit more, and taught me a little bit more empathy - something that I feel that not a lot of literature succeed in. What particularly touched me was the fact that Coleman was an educator, and every of his observation, reflection, all reflected back and shone upon a genuine, humane, and human aspiration for a good, respectful, empathetic future generation, for a people who strive for goodness, equality, respect, and integrity in whichever way they are capable of, for a people who know humility to resist complacency, to never be so sure of their rightness, to never stop learning and striving for the better.

It's good knowing that though the world is utterly flawed, there exist humans.

[Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somewhat in the vein of the mid-sixties popular memoir Black Life Me, there is an underlying oddnes to Blue Collar Journal, as provocative, informative, and disturbing as it is. Like the earlier white man temporarily passing as a black man while traveling through the old South; here a college president temporarily takes his turn as a common laborer — yet there’s a sad cultural disconnect implied herein, highlighted by the word “temporarily”. But I suppose the ends justify the means. Along with Ehrenreich’s much later (2001) Nickel and Dimed, this is a must read for all, but in particular for young, well-educated neoliberals in training.

[Gerald Berke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought it was marvelous. I very bold and risky adventure, up by his own bootstraps out there... he learned about blue collar people and work, valued it and the people, he learned tons and he shared it in an affectionate and intimate manner...
Others have preferred Nickeled and Dimed: that was a totally different book... that was a criticism of the wage scale, and looking to correct the offenses. Here is a man who wants to know the people and experience the reality of their lives... and he found talend talent and honor in their work and he shared that effectively... I was delighted.

[Jungsook Chung · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book 'Blue-Collar Journal: A College President's Sabbatical' by John R. Coleman reminds me of John Graffin's Black Like Me in 1960s. In Black Like Me, John learned within a very few hours after changing his skin color that no one was judging him by his qualities as a human individual but everyone was judging him by his pigment.

I found out that I have been attracted to the stories for the disadvanged people. Fr. Mark Link S.J. mentions of this book in his book, 'Mission.' It is different from what he siad, but I love the book.

John Coleman majored in economy. He said that they teach about the whole world at the college, so it was their business to learn more about it. He chose disguising as a blue collar worker as his heart and head alike told him to be. He worked as a ditch digger, cook helper, and trash collector for two months in different states. When he lost unfairly $10 that he had earlier earned for extra work, he became furious. Later he found out the reason for the anger; he had been truly into the blue collar job. Whatever he did, he contributed his whole heart and body, and he was welcomed and became a good worker. He experienced as John Graffin that he was ignored and invisible to people especially while collecting trashes. He and his fellow, Steve, pulled the 6 tons trash from about 430 houses a day. This is 1970s. He was almost treated as garbage.

He later confessed that an impact might not be through the big moves he made, but maybe through much smaller acts as individual contact, a movement of trust and concern.

I want to ask the same question as Mark Link S.J. When did I make an effort to see things through the eyes of another person, especially the needy?

I found out John R. Coleman worked to reform the prison after resigning the president of Haverford College. He resumed his undercover research methods, checking in as an inmate or guard in prisons across the country to investigate conditions. We need more of John Coleman who worked for the needy in our world.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting. I was expecting that he would have more jobs to write about, but I suppose three in the length of the sabbatical is fairly good. I enjoyed reading about his experiences in those jobs, but I liked listening to him grapple with the larger issues of life even more.

[Susan Iverson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book resonated with "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich. It'd be wonderful if more (another?) college president took a sabbatical to engage in working class / in the streets matters.

[Elliot Ratzman · Rating 2 out of 5]

A weak-tea liberal’s Nickel and Dimed. In the early ‘70s instigated, vaguely, by reports of blue-collar workers throwing bricks at hippie protesters, Coleman, a labor economist and president of Haverford College, took time off to “seek a deeper blending of the world outside academics and the world inside.” That is, not to experience the conditions of labor in order to report its outrages, its racism and anti-unionism, but as a personal quest for blending. The hardhat vs. hippies incident is never brought up again. Coleman becomes a pipeline digger in Atlanta, a short-order cook in Boston and a garbageman in Maryland. No radical or romantic, Coleman writes “through this work experience, it is not because I have come to live among simpler, happier, or even better folks. It is because I am not fully engaged here, and their work and a small glimpse of their lives let me see my own work and life in a new light. I’m learning more about what we have in common than about what drives us apart.”

[Adrian]

Coleman, a college president, decides at age 51 to use his sabbatical by taking on manual labour jobs and records the experience in a journal. This is in 1973 so it predates B. Ehrenreich's 'Nickle and Dimed' by some thirty years. He finds work in Atlanta digging ditches for a sewer pipe company, works in a Boston restaurant as kitchen help and plys his trade as a garbageman just outside Washington, D.C. Coleman was a labour economist who felt that his views were becoming elitist and needed to find out what working at the bottom of the payscale was like. Very down to earth. I ripped through it in just over a day. The author died about a month ago.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

While dated, Coleman's experience, told in his memoir, still holds the power to inspire. Dr. Coleman spoke at my undergraduate graduation ceremony in 1977, and he intrigued me and my classmates. For years, I shared an excerpt located inside a classroom textbook with my vocational students, who loved it. I finally read the entire book this past week, following 35 years of teaching. I plan to contact Dr.Coleman to thank him for an interesting read.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

insightful