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Saluting Joe, The Teacher - Rob Hollister
I would like to salute Joe Breiteneicher, the teacher. Joe was a world-class teacher, in the full sense of the word. We were fortunate that for several years he taught a graduate course at Tufts University on the leadership and management of nonprofit organizations. The course was a perfect fit for Joe’s talents. He regaled his students with Breiteneicher’s principles of effective and irreverent action. And he naturally made the course a collective enterprise, bringing in a wonderful group of guest speakers, practical visionaries who included Bob Hohler, Henry Hampton, Melinda Marble, Henry Izumazaki, and Tom Layton.
A major theme of the course was that excellent management is not a virtue in and of itself. But that if you are serious about promoting social justice, environmental sustainability and other issues, you have to care deeply about organizational effectiveness. Joe put special attention on navigating the chasm between grant seeks and donors. And he encouraged the class to elevate dramatically the contributions of boards of directors.
We have in the archive of the Tufts Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning a marvelous photo of Joe teaching this class. Guess what? …in this snapshot he is not standing calmly behind a podium. Rather he is in full flight – tie loosened, suspenders flapping, eyes scanning the group, mouth open, his body leaning so sharply forward that he seems about to take off. If you look carefully at the blackboard behind Joe in this photo, you can make out a few words and phrases that he scribbled to reinforce key themes: “Philanthropoid,” “Truth,” and “Generate new resources.”
At the final class session each semester Joe hosted what he called the annual Jargon-Off. He assigned students to come with their candidates for the best (that is, the most egregious) examples of current jargon with respect to the nonprofit sector and philanthropy. He always contributed his own nominations as well, and awarded prizes. The Breiteneicher Jargon-Off was a great way to drive home the lesson that clear thinking and clear communication really matter. That words – their use and abuse – are endlessly fascinating.
It was a special treat for me each year as department chair to review students’ evaluations of Joe’s class. One said, “I never laughed so hard or learned so much.” Another stated, “I want my career to be guided by the same values and skills as the amazing practitioners whom Joe brought in as guest speakers.” I hear regularly from alumni who took the class. They are out there, in large numbers, across the region and the world, applying Breiteneicher’s rules of visionary practice.
Outside of the classroom Joe was also a talented teacher of all of us. He would, of course, totally dismiss this idea. But it is true. An important dimension of his connection with so many of us – clients, friends, and allies – was a teaching role. Teacher as coach, as inspirer, as guide, and as supportive critic.
Good teachers often underestimate their lasting impact. This was dramatically the case with Joe. Though over the last year, he began to permit himself to hear and to feel how deeply he had contributed to the work of his wide circle of associates and co-conspirators. But over the recent months he was mostly intent on continuing to encourage and to organize us. Even in the farewell emails that he dictated to Max, Joe was urging us on. Saying: “Keep it up. What you’re doing is important. You can do more.” So as we go forward, with Joe’s persistent, optimistic voice ringing in our ears, I propose that we honor him by trying to provide for each other some of what he gave to all of us in such abundance -- encouragement and active support to reach for the stars, to heal the world, and to have fun doing it.
And along the way let’s keep gathering nominations for Breiteneicher’s Jargon-Off and do battle with the fuzzy thinking and shading of the truth they represent.
As Joe was fond of saying, “So there!”
Rob Hollister is Dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University.
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