While ethics is a politically correct term today in talk associated with higher education, the terms hospitality and spirituality are remote from our conversations. In fact, when I saw the title, I was curious to see how Bennett would make a connection between those concepts and academic life. After reading a few pages, I was hooked and not only did I find the connection timely, but supremely comforting. Comforting in the sense that Bennett's approach placed these concepts squarely in line with an academy that he defines as a "healthy collegium,"

" a community of real individuals linked through mutual relationships. It is the locus for joint transformation of possible educational goods into actual ones. Members are bound together by a love of learning and by the conviction that how they foster learning is important. They appreciate one another as diverse individuals in common commitments. Independence of mind is celebrated, but exercised in community rather than in isolation."(p.143)

While every scholar aims for this type of community, the reality that most of us experience in the academy offers much less. Pressures of research, teaching, service, and interdisciplinary activities intercede to push us increasingly into our own narrow world of the classes we teach, the research projects we undertake, or the environments where we practice our discipline. In Bennett's view, this fosters "insistent individualism," a way of life that is fiercely competitive and possessive--one where "self-promotion and self-protection become central values." Bennett takes this reality and argues for hospitality, ethics, and spirituality as new metaphors for academic life. He supports his discussion with insights, observations, and commentary from a variety of well known scholars. Bennett's past experiences as a scholar, faculty member, department leader, and chief academic officer provide a rich repertoire of experiences and perspectives that are used persuasively in the book.

In the structure of the book, Bennett provides clear navigation through his perspective and conceptualization of the interplay of hospitality, ethics, spirituality, and later in the book, conversation. He begins by outlining his view of insistent individualism and how it is detrimental to healthy and functional academic life in Chapter 1. I found his inclusion of departments and institutions as "having forms of insistent individualism" particularly useful. His description supports the notion that all of the elements in a system influence one another and often those influences are well supported by departmental and institutional factors. This type of departmental or institutional culture makes it difficult for individuals to change despite their awareness of a pervasive cultural perspective that interferes with healthy interaction. Bennett outlines self-protection and self-promotion as individual characteristics of insistent individualism and four institutional characteristics of insistent individualism: misrepresentation of institutional data to promote a more successful and competitive image, excessive dependence on part-time faculty, fragmented faculty functions, and the creation of for-profit subsidiaries.

In the second chapter, Bennett contrasts insistent individualism with the relational self, emphasizing the value of a worldview that embraces one's self in relation to others. A relational self "celebrates" others in mutual relationships where sharing and learning from one another are primary values. Community is valued as "necessary for individual freedom and creativity," with "identity rooted in social interaction and cultural context." Bennett uses Chapters 3 and 4 to develop the metaphor of hospitality as a framework for academic work. Using his notion of insistent individualism as contrast, he suggests that a frame of hospitality denies self-preoccupation and controls the use of power for self-promotion. Beginning with an outline of some of the features of hospitality, sharing and receiving, Bennett describes the interactive, iterative nature of hospitality as a genuine interest in the other and their contribution to the work of scholarship. He follows with cautions that hospitality can masquerade under the guise of civility, charity, intimacy, and language manipulation. He concludes the chapter with a discussion of some of the virtues of hospitality, including integrity, perseverance, courage, and self-reflection. I found the discussion of the virtues of self-reflection, providing testimony, exercising discernment, displaying humility, and extending forgiveness useful to reflect on our current conversations on academic integrity on my campus.

Chapter 4 extends the discussion on hospitality by providing specific ways that one can become hospitable. Beginning with the self and self-reflection, one gains self-knowledge that facilitates spiritual growth as a hospitable scholar, as well as the ability to attend to others. Bennett ends the chapter with institutional forms of hospitality that highlight neglected constituencies, i.e. campus staff, unique-need groups, etc; alignment of awards/recognition with institutional missions/traditions; and attention to the broader communities where the campus resides. Critiquing metaphors that currently frame academic life in Chapter 5, Bennett suggests that they promote a culture of anti-intellectualism. Today's common metaphors of transmission, storage, production, battle, and territory, he argues, emphasize a marketplace mentality and do little to position higher education as a "place for self-exploration, personal creativity, and the life of the mind." He proposes "conversation" as a more appropriate metaphor for the activities in the academy. Using work by Michael Oakeshott, Bennett frames conversation as a way in which we interact with one another on multiple levels with genuine respect and interest. He describes conversation as a way of interacting with one another that recognizes and explores the stories that express who we are and are foundational to who we are becoming

Chapter 6 describes the use of conversation in the academy framed within Alfred N. Whitehead's notion of "the natural rhythm of learningthat occurs in three pedagogical moments: starting with romance, moving into precision, and culminating in generalization that connects back to romance." In fostering conversation with students, the teacher uses/facilitates talk to engage learners, focus their developing conceptualizations, facilitate their interactions to generalize in ways that make sense, and bring them back to generalizations that uncover other "tantalizing" paths to embark on, beginning the learning rhythm again. In service to the academic setting and to each other, faculty's use of conversation provides a common venue for exchange, celebration, debate, exploration, and discovery.

According to Bennett, conversation in a hospitable culture minimizes risk and fosters intellectual and perceptual exchange that is aimed at mutually beneficial goals, objectives, and visions for all participants in the academy. Chapter 7 promotes the notion of community and describes the healthy collegium as a covenantal environment. Bennett distinguishes between social contract and covenant by arguing that "social contracts reflect voluntary associations where rights often receive priority over obligations, responsibilities are bounded, and social contracts can be dissolved," while covenant suggests "commitment to the intellectual well-being of others that takes precedence over contractually defined boundaries, responsibilities in the relationship, and obligations to others." These elements of covenant are aligned with the notions of hospitality, ethical behavior, and spirituality that Bennett sees as manifest through conversation and genuinely hospitable interaction.

In the final chapter (Chapter 8), Bennett turns to the application of the metaphors of hospitality and conversation to academic leadership roles of president and mid-level leaders. He indicates that leaders fall on the same continuum as faculty in terms of demonstrating insistent individualism at one end or hospitality, conversation, and covenant on the other end with many people falling somewhere in between. He argues that hospitality on the part of academic leaders recognizes the unique contribution that each member of the academic community provides. Additionally, Bennett suggests that one of the important aspects of their role as hospitable leaders is to model hospitable behaviors even when they may not see an immediate reciprocal response. Bennett concludes the book with two challenges facing the academy: "to educate others and ourselves, and to facilitate the growth of others and ourselves." I think his suggestions for new metaphors ­ hospitality, ethics, spirituality, and conversation, are a useful framework for addressing those challenges.

Bennett notes that while it would be ideal to have everyone and every institution functioning according to his conception of a "healthy collegium," this is unlikely to occur. While I support his assessment, I think the book can provide a valuable opportunity for conversation among faculty members and academic leaders about the key concepts he presents, especially hospitality, conversation, the development of a community interested in growth, and celebration of individuals in interaction with each other. I found the book to be an easy read but foresee that some of Bennett's ideas will require additional consideration through critical reading and reflection. I think most readers will find the book interesting regardless of their agreement with his argument

Donna W Bailey
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill