Composing a Life

institutional styles for maneuvering within the larger framework. Which member of the royal family would, as a patron, respect the integrity of the institution? How much of a subsidy was it possible to take from the government without losing autonomy? How could one resist pressures to corrupt admissions or hiring without creating antagonism? I had reviewed the work of other social scientists who had characterized Iran as a society built on distrust, so my initial research questions were where to find the kernel of trust that must nevertheless exist for the society to function, and how individuals forged new trust with each other.
    Both of us, like our Iranian friends, were ambivalent about the society as it was, even as it was changing in front of our eyes. Corruption was not new to Iran, but in those final years of the monarchy we could see an ancient balance of tolerable corruption becoming unstable. Change was so rapid that it compounded existing abuse, new forms encrusting the old, so that even the cynical were shocked. Gradually, we became aware of an underlying theme in Iranian culture that rejected the ancient arts of compromise and sought absolutes; this theme blossomed under Khomeini’s tutelage. In retrospect, however, Iran’s earlier patterns of ambiguity and negotiation seem healthier than the burst of blinkered and wasteful euphoria that accompanied the revolution. The Iranian revolution left me with the conviction that moral ambiguity can be a source of strength.
    To do research in Iran, I felt it was essential to be a real participant, so I found a variety of jobs in education and educational planning. In 1973 and 1974, I was working in Tehran on the plan for a new university to be built in the city of Hamadan, on the ruins of ancient Ecbatana. Those I was working with were idealists who believed that it would be possible to construct an educational system that would not alienate people from their own culture and set them on the track toward emigration or migration to the capital. The plan, partly modeled after the American land-grant colleges, was to offer regional training in agriculture and education, facilitate the development of health-delivery systems, and help traditional crafts evolve into local industries.
    One of the pleasures of my migratory life has been the diversity of institutional types I have worked in, including the University of Hamadan. I have taught in three countries, at large and small institutions, public and private, old and new. I have worked at huge Northeastern University in Boston’s center city, founded to train the children of immigrants in nursing and business and engineering; and at tiny Amherst College in a charming small town, offering an intimate version of the liberal arts to the children of privilege. Willy-nilly, many women experience such diversity as part of the discontinuity of their lives. Alice has worked at General Electric and Polaroid, with their totally different corporate cultures, as well as in academic research labs; Ellen has practiced the most privileged kind of individual therapy and has worked in huge state hospitals. Today, Johnnetta is president of Spelman College, which has only 1,600 students; she used to work at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which has an enrollment of 25,000. I make choices now out of the habit of enjoying diversity.
    At the University of Hamadan, I had been hired to develop a core curriculum in the social sciences. I saw our task as changing the way students looked at familiar patterns and contexts so that they could be both analytical and respectful. They would have to become compassionate observers, pausing to enjoy the perception of patterns that might be enriched or modified, rather than rushing ahead to impose new ones. I was planning on using film and sending students out to do the kinds of fieldwork I have always assigned to my students—interviewing grandparents, learning to look with new eyes at the commonplace.
    In Iran at that time, a new university was being established about every two years to absorb the ever increasing numbers of applicants convinced that education was the path to advancement or escape. Bright ideas for different kinds of institutions were batted around the ministries and the court and, like all development projects in Iran, were pulled between the shah’s preference for impressive modern developments, hi-tech capital-intensive industries and grandiose constructions, and the